Hello, It's Been A While!

Hey Everybody!

I hope you are all well and know everybody is busy with chores and life in general - I know I have been!!!

I've been working hard for Gail and trying to keep my house and yard in order as well. I'm sure meeting a lot of nice people and enjoying some very interesting conversations with some of them. Some are a little hard to get away from - ha-ha!!!

I'm home today (yippeee!!!!) and wanted to share some pictures with you of my yard and the monster cat scratch post I made.

I have two wing chairs, which are very good even though the fabric on them is outdated. I've tried everything but my cats have absolutely ruined them. I've used the training sprays, sticky paper, tin foil, provided scratching posts - you name it - to no avail.

Diane Knott gave me the idea of bringing in a log or branch for them to scratch on and this is what I made. They love playing with the dangling ball but so far, they aren't actually using the limb to scratch. Gee, if I was a cat, I'd sure like this :) I cut a branch from one of my Mimosa trees and bolted it to a nice piece of discarded counter top from Gail's shop.


Last weekend Alissa and I worked in the back yard and I gave her the job of painting an old wooden ladder I got at the Habitat store.
Here are a couple of my monster hosta I transplanted from my front yard a few weeks ago:
This is the view from my front porch. This was an open field when I moved here almost nine years ago - not even a sapling. The trees in the background (darker ones) are woods around the edge of what used to be a field. Most other trees were planted by little old me.



The weather is gorgeous here today but I am determined to stay inside and finish my wall hanging from Diane's book. I'm about half finished and want to make them all so need to get busy. I hope you all have a nice day/week!

ttfn....

The Garden Market - After Photos

Here are some after photos of The Garden Market. I tried to post them yesterday but Blogger wouldn't save them.




These pillars are very large and weigh about 500 lbs each. Gail's husband had to pour a concrete base for each of them after installing the 8 foot fence.


Gail will be adding more merchandise but it's looking great at this point!


The cafe area...

Do you see this beautiful French table? You should have seen it before I painted it - it was in rough shape. I can only imagine the fancy dinners it must have been used at as a buffet table.


Some of the plants for sale...

Gail's place is so full of charm and we've had nothing but positive feedback. Her grand opening is this weekend. Today is the first day I haven't worked in over a week and have enjoyed staying home!

The Garden Market is OPEN!

Finally, after so much hard work by a lot of folks, The Garden Market is officially open!! We had our first day of sales Friday and received nothing but positive comments about how nice the shop is. Please enjoy the pictures to see the transformation :) I apologize for the poor quality of some of them....I mistakenly changed the setting on my camera.

This building had been a bank and an Alltel store. The walls were orange and the celing was black. Everything had to be cleaned and painted before work could even begin.

Gail's antique garden cart. Gail asked Anthony to make this window in the wall, which repeats the arched windows in the main part of the cafe:


Gail's brother, Anthony, installing the freezer. Jo, Gail's mom, is supervising to make sure it gets done right! :)

Jo cleaning the dirty windows:

The kitchenette:

This is the area where customers can get their fountain drinks, coffee and tea. Do you see those long, glass doors up on the wall? I think they're 10 feet long each. Gail's husband made the iron scrolls. I painted all of the doors with two coats of paint and then scraped them. They were in really rough shape when Gail acquired them.




This is part of the main gift area:
Outside before....




The guys trying to assemble the plant display:


Gail helping the guys try to figure out how to put this monster together. The company failed to send instructions :) It was so hot that day!

The other side of the building:

At one time, this building was a bank. To make use of valuable space, the old drive through teller machine had to be removed.


I'll post the after photos by tomorrow. I've got to get ready for work now. Have a great day everybody!

Some Special Art Works

This is a quick post to share pictures of two special pieces of art work with you.

The first one is a true crazy quilt hand made by my paternal grandmother for my sister, Susan. Nanny did gorgeous needlework and always had a project going of some sort. I was trying to study this piece to understand how she put it together. All I can tell you is that she didn't use any of the methods a lot of folks use now! Note under the date of the picture of Susan's name hand embroidered.

This is a beautiful wall hanging my sister made for mom of a trillium - mom's favorite flower.

And I took pictures of a very, very special piece of art that Nanny also made but can't locate it. I'll have to ask Susan to send me another picture and will share
that one with you later.

On another note - no signs of the escaped baby dove. I'm sure she's been made a meal of by something. I'll post a picture of the remaining "baby" soon. Sarah and Alex want him/her out of their home so I'll be making that aviary very soon now!

Have a good day - I hope to get caught up on my visits by the weekend!!

Like A Bad Penny...

I keep coming back :)

What a great visit I had with my mom and sister! I was gone for a week, something I rarely do, but it was such a good visit. I had some goals and met them all. My sister took me to two really nice quilt shops in Maryland on my last day and I bought some gorgeous fabrics. Now for the breakdown of the trip...

Saturday morning my daughter, son-in-law and baby Ginny (now nicknamed by me as Doodlebug) picked my mom and me up and we drove to my sister's new home in New Market, MD. It's in the western part of the state only 35 minutes from Harper's Ferry, WVA. We got a tour of my sister's house and it is gorgeous....and enormous! All those stairs about killed me - ha ha! Then we strolled the streets and went into some shops to have a look around and had lunch together. What a quaint little town set in the gorgeous foothills of the Applachian Mountains! Afterwards my sister and I took mom to Lowes and Home Depot to get some things we would need to re-do her kitchen and front yard - the two big goals we wanted to accomplish while I was up there. Then we had dinner together, took mom home and drove back to my sisters - about an hour away.

Sunday morning we headed back to mom's to get busy on her kitchen makeover. Her kitchen is small but it took us two full days to paint it and get some reorganization done for her. Of course, the best laid plans always have a glitch and we made several trips to the home stores and Ikea to get more things we needed. Susan bought her new window treatments - a nice roman shade - and I replaced her old, large microwave with a small one to save some precious counter space. We installed a nice shelf above her stove and my sister installed some small lights on the under side of the shelf for some much needed lighting over the stove. There was a lot more we did but you get the idea. Here is the new window treatment with some small medallions on the window corners to cover holes from all the old hardware.
While my sister continued to work inside, I was determined to get mom's small front garden weeded and ready for her to plant some pretty annuals. I was able to get most of the work done before it started pouring rain but still got soaked. It rained most every day but it only made the soil softer to dig. It was dark by the time I got to take a few pictures, but the work paid off and her little front garden was on its way to looking more like what she wanted.
We made mom happy visiting her and giving her a "new" kitchen and front yard. It made us happy too!

I've got lots to do here today and I'll tell you all about the rest of the trip in another post. It's raining today and I won't be helping Gail till tomorrow so will get to sew and relax a little and enjoy being home.

I hope you all had a very nice Mother's Day yesterday...I sure did!

It's good to be home.

Travelling

hey everybody,

I'm in MD visiting with my mom and sister and will have lots of stuff to post about when I get home Thursday evening. Still no sign of my baby dove according to my daughter :(

My sister and I are going to Ginney (?) Byer's quilt and garden shop Wednesday - I cannot WAIT!!

ttfn

I Saw Her!

My baby dove is still alive and she flew right over my head this morning about 8:30! I was so surprised and happy to see that she's still around. I ran inside and put the dove family in a small cage and placed the big one back where it was when I let her fly out. She hung around the yard for an hour or so and even landed on top of the cage but then disappeared again. I put the smaller cage with all the doves inside the larger cage and left the door open. Alex coo's alot and I thought that would draw the baby into the cage. I haven't seen her again and hope she comes back tomorrow. I had given up on her and now I'm worried about her all over again.

Keep your fingers crossed that she comes back and into the cage tomorrow!!!

I Screwed Up

One of the baby doves flew out of the cage this morning while I was feeding them. I was stupid and tried to catch her and she just flew further and further away. She won't survive tomorrow, I'm sure. Although they eat on their own, the parents are still feeding them some. And being white makes her the easiest of targets as prey. I hoped that she'd be sitting on top of the cage when I got home from Gail's, but no. I feel horrible and have moved the others back inside till I can make their aviary.

A Restful Day

After working hard all week at Gail's, I was out of energy. I did some mowing and planting yesterday morning before it got hot. The rest of the day I was content to sit and watch Alissa play on the patio with her sprinkler. I usually don't have the patience to sit around and be her audience, but she was quite happy entertaining me all day.




She got the idea to put the glasses on Zoe's little butt - she doesn't have a tail.

And my Princess....she's so gray now

Alissa and I moved the doves outside and she made the cutest chalk drawing of Alex and Sarah on the patio...I just love it :)

I Actually Got To Sew Today!

After spending three hours painting a huge piece of furniture in Gail's new shop, Alissa and I came home. Alissa worked too, pricing new merchadise with the pricing gun. She wanted to watch "Bolt" (an adorable movie) and I got to sew! I was sooooo happy. First I made Alissa a cute little dress out of some shirred fabric I got from JoAnns a couple of weeks ago. She wanted a dress that "went to the ground" with no sleeves. Well, this little dress wasn't long enough so I added several inches of bleached muslin and sewed cute coordinating ribbon I already had over the seam. I attached ribbon so that it could be tied over each shoulder or behind her neck - either way. She hasn't taken it off since I tried it on her this afternoon. (Note dingbat Zoe "dancing" just as I snapped the picture).
Then I was determined to work on my living room valance and got that put together. Yes, there are tools in the window sill; I was very anxious to get a picture to post. I haven't made anything in weeks!


I still have a small table sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor ready to be antiqued and it will be finished. And I have to make my new plate rail, paint the coffee table and the antique milking stool. Then I just have to rearrange the nick nacks and I'll be finished. Of course, it might be Halloween by then....

Weather Forecast

See what happens here in central NC - we go from spring to summer overnight. I love spring but suffer terribly in the summer. I haven't even gotten my annuals purchased and planted yet!!!

Blogging Without Obligation

My sister stumbled upon this and I really like what she says here, so am sharing it. I will add a note that I always hate it when I see a blog start with..."I'm sorry, I've been so busy....". I think everybody is busy, and I'm ALWAYS busy with stuff too. And speaking of busy, I didn't get the litter picked up yesterday for Earth Day but am doing it today for sure!! (I'm ashamed of myself...and embarassed)

Anyway, I'm sharing here...
****



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After coming across what seemed to be the 4000th or so post on someone’s blog starting with “I’m sorry I haven’t posted in awhile.” I decided it is time to rethink what makes a good blog and the expectations that have come to be part of it. I am thinking that no one should utter those words again . . .and with that thought I give you Blogging Without Obligation.

If you feel the same way feel free to grab the logo, make a logo or whatever you would like to do! Xo, Tiffini Elektra


I release all the logos, thoughts and words mentioned here about this concept into the public domain. Take the idea and run with it. . .or walk away. It is all good.

* Because you shouldn’t have to look at your blog like it is a treadmill.

* Because its okay to just say what you have to say. If that makes for a long post, fine. Short post, fine. Frequent post, fine. Infrequent post, fine.

* Because its okay to not always be enthralled with the sound of your own typing.

* Because sometimes less is more.
Because only blogging when you feel truly inspired keeps up the integrity of your blog.

* Because they are probably not going to inscribe your stat, link and comment numbers on your tombstone.

* Because for most of us blogging is just a hobby. A way to express yourself and connect with others. You should not have to apologize for lapses in posts. Just take a step back and enjoy life, not everything you do has to be “bloggable”.

* Because if you blog without obligation you will naturally keep your blog around longer, because it won’t be a chore. Plus, just think you will be doing your part to eradicate post pollution. One post at a time. .