Fabulous Blog Ribbon!

Last week I received this from Southern Belle Mama and I was thrilled to say the least. Thank you Misty! I'm passing it on to some of the blogs that I love. You can participate or not, it's completely up to you. Love you girls in my blog world!

Here's the rules:
1. Post the rules on your blog
2. Name 5 of your most fabulous moments either in real life or in the blogosphere.
3. Name 5 things you love
4. Name 5 things you hate
5. Pass the ribbon on to 5 other bloggers

Five Fabulous Moments:
1. The day I was Baptized.
2. The day my son Jared was born.
3. Losing over half my body weight.
4 .The first time I actually planted, harvested and canned          something from my garden.
5. Creating my first blog.

Five Things I Love:
1. Red meat
2. Decorating my home
3. Flip-flops
4. Being creative
5. Having a clean home

Five Things I Hate:
1. Soggy vegetables
2. Dusting furniture
3. Mopping floors
4. Family squabbles
5. Drama

Thank you Southern Belle Mama  for sharing this award!

Now I'm passing the torch on to these fine bloggers:
1. Sherri @ Sherri's Reading Jubilee
2.Danielle@ Sweet Southern Girl
3.Rae Rae @ Rae Rae RN 13
4.Kerry @ HouseTalkN
5. Nell @ The Rambling Couch Potato

• • • 
      

 

I Smell Cobbler...

Well folks, the peaches have been in for a couple of months now and I haven't eaten the first one. That's sad. You would think that because I live only yards from a produce stand that I would eat at least one a day. I don't know quite how to tell you this, but I didn't inherit the fruit lover gene from my mother. In fact I believe I got most of my genes from my grandmother. As I recall, the only way she ate fruit was on top of pound cake or in a cobbler. I'm pretty sure I got her genes because that's about the only way I eat fruit. Good excuse to make something fattening...

So that's what I'll be doing at some point in the early part of next week, making a cobbler and blogging about it. Big plans right? 

Tonight JD and I will be attending daughter number three's graduation from college. She's so excited and I'm excited for her. To be that age again with your whole life in front of you and having the world as your pearl...

Instead I'm this age and dreaming of a week filled with cobbler. 

That's even sadder than the fact that I haven't eaten a peach this summer. 

Pathetic!

The Morning After The Storm, With Video

We had what my grandmother would refer to as a "doozie" of a storm last Friday afternoon. Come to think of it, the storm wasn't that bad, just tons of rain in a short time and some wind. Those two elements combined resulted in a tree limb falling in my front yard. I heard it, which is never a good thing and it sounded like a car wreck except that it shook the ground. Since the cottage is pretty much surrounded by tall oak trees, I wasn't sure which window to look out first. So I started in the kitchen and saw nothing, then on to the sun porch, still nothing which led me to the front door. Ah hah! A limb that's about twice my size, laying right at the storm door. If it had fallen one inch closer, there would've been some pretty bad damage to the roof and front door. Thanks be to God for keeping all in tact...
I decided to go out the next morning with my camera and create a little video of the fallen limb and the cottage yard. Please forgive the shakiness and other errors and complete lack of experience, I am only a beginner after all and it shows...
P.S. To Chris VanCleave
If you read this, please don't judge me by the condition of the rose bushes, or lack thereof...we both need help!

Food For Thought on Wordless Wednesday...

Fried Green Tomatoes. Yum! Click here for the recipe!

JD And Dawgs And YouTube!

Danielle and Rae Rae , this one's for you!

JD's two oldest daughters have quite an affinity for what they lovingly refer to as "burned weenies". And I must admit, somewhere along the way I began to love them too. And JD must have developed some sort of appreciation for them because I've seen him eat plenty of them. The method goes something like this:

Cook the hot dogs until they're black, the photo above probably isn't done enough for his girls, but our stomachs are older, if you get my drift. When the franks are almost done enough, they take a mixture of mustard based and sweet barbeque sauce and brush them a few times. Then eat them...

When JD explained this method of slicing and cooking hot dogs that he had seen on a cooking show, I immediately thought of his girls and how they might enjoy this too. More of the surface would be cooked and the bbq sauce could get down into the meat. It worked well, not only with the sauce but the condiments too, everything melded together instead of just sitting on top. 

Delicious!

I made a video of JD preparing and cooking the "dawgs". Just click here to watch! Hope y'all enjoy  it, I enjoyed putting it together and now dreaming of vlogging...

Field Trip!

I don't know about you, but as a student in elementary school, I lived for field trips. Never mind where we went, that didn't even matter to me. We were going somewhere besides the classroom and that was good enough! I haven't given field trips much thought in years until  yesterday when I took a little field trip to JD's aunt D and uncle R's home. I call it a field trip because it was educational.

 I'm interested in a little bit of many things and sometimes it even amazes me as to what will spark an interest. This time it was a huge cement cylinder. Nah, it don't take much, you're right...

JD and I hauled this gi-normous thing on a trailer one evening over to his uncles home and the three of us managed to get it off of the trailer and onto the ground. His uncle explained what his plans were and I (not being able to grasp the description) asked if I might have a look-see when he was finished with his project. He assured me that he would be glad for me to visit when it was complete. I couldn't wait! Two weeks passed and the other morning at Sunday church services he told me that he was ready for me to come on over and he would show me his newly completed project. A sprinkler that pumps water from his creek to his garden. 

So yesterday in the pouring rain, rubber boots on and umbrella ready, we took a walk through the side yard and down to the creek. There stood the cylinder with the pump in the middle, lines and pipes running to the basement and the huge garden. With a flip of the switch his garden is watered and it's economical and green and earth friendly. And genius.

I know that many folks use this exact method to water, but until I saw it for myself and had it explained in detail to me, it just didn't mean that much. 

And now, I have sprinkler envy! 

Huge thanks to JD's uncle R and aunt D for the lovely visit and 

a field trip!

PS... I would have taken pics, but the rain was just too much. I also passed the most beautiful fields of sunflowers on the way out their place and vowed to get photos of those on the way back, but again, the rain interfered. Looks like maybe I'll have to take another little journey over there soon! Until then we'll have to settle for the pic of my one, lonesome sunflower...

And The Give Away Winner Is...

A big congrats to Southern Belle Mama! She's the winner of the latest give away from Clover Cottage! The prize is a hand towel or t-shirt with the flip flop motif in her choice of colors. Thanks to everyone who entered, I'll be having another give away soon! I'm working on some new aprons, so maybe that will be the prize next time.

TGIF!

I'm sitting here wondering what kind of weekend plans everyone has. Mine will be low key (if I'm lucky!) I'm having lunch with a friend today at Delightful Dishes in Inman. Yay! It's my favorite! I love their chicken salad better than well, better than a lot of things. I may even get a double scoop! And they serve it with amazing cheese wafers. Might need to double up on those too. I'm starving, can you tell? 

Looks like I may have to mow clover tomorrow, I'm not sure yet. Ahh, maybe not. Might as well push that off until Monday. Tomorrow evening will be dinner at JD's mother's and her husband, Mr. M's home with JD's girls, his brother and sister in law and their son who is in the military. Dinner is always wonderful at JD's mom's and it will be good to see his family again. Wonder what we're gonna eat? It doesn't matter, it's always beyond delicious!

Sounds like I'm going to be eating really well, doesn't it? Like I've said before, food takes up a bunch of my brain space. Wonder what's for dinner tonight...

Love Me Some Summer, But...

My boots...

I'm honestly looking forward to boot season! Every time I go to dress, I stare at the cowboy boots in the floor of my closet and sigh. How nice it would be to don my cowboy boots with a cute skirt! But it's just too hot. And my boots are suede, not leather. Won't work. Leather yes, but no way on suede. I know this, because I saw it on television and that makes it so, right? Which leads me to this: I want new boots. A job would be nice, but boots would be better! Maybe from the boot fairy...

These are the boots I'm after:

The boots I want..(two would be good)

Gorgeous! So listen up boot fairy, if you're out there and paying attention, this is what I'm after.

And this winter, as I go to dress and put on these boots, I'll look at my flip flops and sigh. Thinking of how my toes and feet are longing to be free in a pair of flip flops.

It ain't easy being me...

Thanks!

A big thanks to Danielle for kicking up the 'wow' factor on my blog page! It looks fabulous and all I want to do is just sit and admire it! If it weren't for Danielle, I wouldn't know how to 'decorate' a blog at all, so thank you girl friend!

I Just Don't Get It...

Why is my beloved sun porch closed off Mommy? I long for the softness of the cushion on the wicker love seat, I crave a nap in the rays of the sun that beam in. I miss the occasional ant that finds it's way in so that I can torture it. I need me some sun porch! Oh Georgianna, you silly cat, it's at least one hundred degrees out there! It's been shut off for two weeks now due to the fact that there aren't any vents out there for the a/c and all of the cool air in here was escaping out of the open doors. Bless her, I know she misses it, she thinks of it as her room. I know what she's thinking, really I do...

 It's only going to be in the mid eighties tomorrow and I'm so excited I can't stand it. It might even feel chilly after enduring the heat of the past couple of weeks. I wish. 

That's enough about the heat...

Have you noticed that the design demons have been at it again? It's quite by accident this time. By mistake I deleted the thingie that held the whatsit that made the blog have the design it had, which left another whatsit to take over. I love technical jargon, don't you! So now, this is my blog's new design. I'm not messing with it anymore. I mean it. Until fall...

Gloves...

You'll never guess what I saw someone wearing at church this morning. Okay you're right, it was gloves. Did the photo give it away? 

I was beyond surprised when I saw them. I haven't seen anyone wear gloves to church since I was a small child. What amazed me even more was the fact that the person wearing the gloves was a girl about the age of ten. The sight immediately swept me back to my own youth when my little grandmother, known to all as 'Nanny' would don her white gloves on Sunday morning. When I say she was little, I mean tiny, which was wonderful for me. I could wear her clothes, shoes and the beloved gloves for dress up and they actually fit! It wasn't that I was a huge child, she was just a very small adult. I too wanted to be a small adult, just like Nanny and Mrs. Jackson who also attended church with us. Mrs. Jackson even had gloves to match every suit she wore. I thought that was the coolest of cools. In my mind she must have been rich, for Nanny only had a couple of pairs of white gloves, along with some older white gloves that she didn't wear any longer. Those were the ones I got to play dress up with, not the new ones. They were strictly for Sunday morning, and even touching those would grant you a trip to the hickory bush to break off your own hickory for her to 'switch' you with. Never could get the reasoning behind that...go break the hickory switch that I'm going to use on you. My own son would have laughed me out of the house had I requested that from him.

Back to the gloves... the sight of them this morning made me a little remorseful that we don't 'dress' for church like we did when I was a child. I miss it!

But then again, on days like this when it's 100 degrees in the shade, I'm very grateful that I didn't have to wear hose. Gloves are one story, hose are an animal of a completely different color!

A Great Cause And A Giveaway!

Secrets of a Sweet Southern Girl: Free the Girls & a Bra Drive Giveaway!:

Please follow the link above to read about the drive and the giveaway! This is a great cause that I think most of us are able to help with. And, there's a giveaway! Please sign up and join Danielle today!

Give Away!

                               Don't forget about the give away next Friday! For details, please click here.

I Got My Blog Did!

I've seen so many blogs that I just adore. I even adore my own. For the first three days. I'm fickle with design of any kind, because my 'design' mood changes daily. I'm drawn to pastels, pinks and greens, the palest of blues and always white. White is my favorite color to live with, but white on a blog page is boring...yawn. As soon as I get my pastel groove going, I run upon a blog that just wows me with sunflowers and bright, bold oranges and I'm in love...Again. For the third time this month. Fickle, fickle.

Yesterday I hopped over to 'The Cutest Blog On The Block' and browsed around for a new look. I found so many backgrounds that really appealed to me, so I took one for each blog and I was so excited! 

But as fate would have it, yesterday was a  pink and green day and it looks like today is a sunflower day... 

Girl Plower...

Get it? A tractor that's pink...girl power = girl plower...never mind.

I need some girl power, or plower right now. I found out yesterday evening that we won't be able to sell at the street market on Saturday as planned. No crafty things allowed. Bummer. 

So on to the next thing. I called about another local market and if they deem us "farm-like" enough by viewing our website, they'll let us in. No, that isn't why I have on the tractor tee, I had made that beforehand. We're waiting on the word, but I doubt seriously that we'll be invited to sell there either. Then what?

I don't know, I'm running out of options here. I'm seriously considering setting up a business here at the cottage. It would take work. A lot of work. I have a building behind the cottage, but it's rustic to say the least. I don't even know if after much cleaning up and painting that it could be approved. My dream has always been to own a home and garden shop. Home decor, fresh herbs and flowers, serve coffee to customers. Wonderful music flowing through the shop in the background. If you could see the building shed that I'm thinking of using, you would laugh out loud at my dreams of a shop. Heck, I'm pretty tickled myself. 

Well, hope you're all having a great Friday, I'm going to plow...

Give Away Reminder!

Don't forget about the give away next Friday, July 13. Click here for details! I want all of you to have a chance to win!

A New Day...

First of all let me say that I totally forgot that yesterday was "Wordless Wednesday". Totally. I blogged and blogged. Oh well, it is a new day, thanks be to God!

Hope you had a lovely Independence Day. Nothing special here really. I worked all day, had a little bbq and went to church. Yep, that was it.

I'm running at full throttle, working on things for Clover Cottage Creations to sell at the street market on Saturday. We won't have tons of stuff, but enough to get the idea across and hopefully make a little money too.

I love the tractor towel I'm working on that you see above. It's much cuter than the photo, the lighting in the cottage is terrible this time of day. No really, it is :)

Around the cottage...

It's still hot. The chickens have done well through the heat. Only another month or so and I can begin to look for eggs. I'm stoked about fresh eggs. Yes, I said stoked. I won't use it again. For awhile.

Georgianna has been rather lethargic lately. I'm hoping it's just the heat, she's eating and drinking just fine. This heat is enough to make anyone or anything lethargic. She's an anyone in case you were wondering. Well to me anyway.

JD is JD. You have to know him to understand. He's toughing out the heat rather well. He's not a complainer like me. Rough, tough country man. To. The. Core.

I'm hoping to get back in the kitchen soon and cook something worth posting on Cottage Cuisine. Something that isn't on there already or isn't so basic. Maybe some Chicken Parmesan? Mmm, that sounds good! Must be lunch time, I'm hungry.

I'm always hungry...

The Prize...

This is a pic of the flip-flop motif, just in case you were wondering. It's pretty cute and remember you get to choose the colors!

Happy Fourth Of July! New Give Away!

I hope all of you have the day off and have wonderful plans for the Fourth. For me it will be business as usual, work on items to sell on Saturday, church this evening and maybe a little 'que thrown in for good measure... 

Or...

I could shake it up a little, not go to church and cook it up in the kitchen all day for a grand celebration. Stay tuned and I'll let you know what I did tomorrow...

As I stated on Monday, I gave the winner of the last give away until this morning at 8:00 a.m. to notify me, but they didn't. SO!

I'm going to redo the give away!

On Friday the thirteenth, (I know, how fun is that?)  We'll draw another winner. Here's what you have to do to be entered:

1) Like us on Facebook

2) Follow this blog

3) Or if you've done both, leave me a comment telling me so.

And if you do all three you'll be entered three times! 

Oh yeah, telling you what the prize is would be good, huh? I'm changing it up just a little here, it's a t-shirt or hand towel with the flip-flop motif in your choice of colors from Clover Cottage Creations. Okay, let the games begin! 

Enter now!

The Loss Of A Legend...

I can't begin to tell you how sad I feel about the passing of Andy Griffith. He was awesome indeed!  And the character he portrayed was all I ever wanted in a man. I wanted to marry Andy Taylor and  to live in Mayberry. Finally at the age of fifty, I live in a Mayberry-like place. Never mind about the husband...
I have always been enthralled with the whole Andy-Barney-Aunt Bee-Opie-Mayberry scenario. It reeks of home to me and I know without a doubt that there are millions who feel exactly the same.
When I was in my thirties I finally got to visit Mt. Airy, NC, the home of Andy Griffith. It reeked of the fictional town of Mayberry. Even though the temps that day soared close to one hundred degrees, I lingered on the streets, ate in the little drug store cafe and drank it all in. Slowly. I wanted to take everything I could away with me and I did. I'm so thankful that I got to experience it for myself. I'm also thankful that this is the kind of television watching I did as a child and thankful that it was still there for my son. He knows every show just as well as I do. I do wish he had taken more away than the guitar playing though...
I just want to finish by saying thank you Andy. Thank you for the good times, the vision of small town life where the politics were clean, the living was good, simple and fun. Thank you for sharing your life with us!
Thanks to NNL for sharing this video on Facebook.

A New Dew...

As I explained last week, southern women do NOT produce sweat. It's dew. For the last four days, I can honestly say that I have resembled the cartoon above. It's been so hot that I've had to wake the chickens up to feed and water them and clean the coop. Yes, it's been just that bad here in the upstate of South Carolina. Anything you want to do outside MUST be done before the sun comes up. If you want to use the clothes dryer, better do that on your way in from the outside chores. Then it's pull the curtains, shades, close up the sun room and keep yourself inside. The really awful part is that just down the road, there are folks who have no electricity, which means no a/c. I'm so sorry for them and praying for them fervently. I'm also praying that mine doesn't go out, selfish as that may seem...
I'm not a hot natured person and I don't think I've ever had a hot flash, except for the continuous one that started last Thursday evening. It takes a lot for me to break a dew. Normally. But not in this heat. I'm also praying for those that are hot natured and the sisters out there who experience hot flashes. Lord have mercy!!!
There was a bright spot in this weekend though, JD's four daughters came for lunch and spent a little time with us yesterday afternoon and were gracious even though it was about eighty five degrees in the den. Hey, that was a vast improvement over the cottage kitchen during lunch, it was about ninety five! Thanks girls, y'all could brighten up any dire situation! Oh, and I got a real treat, something I've rarely known since adulthood. Danielle did my hair in a french braid with a cute bun on top! It got my hair off of my neck and who doesn't like having their hair done? I have a son. Son's don't do hair. Well, not mine anyway. It truly was delightful!
Well, I have to go do the rest of the chores that require movement...or else it's mountain dew all the way...stay cool!

Friday's Give Away Winner!

I announced the winner of the giveaway on Friday, but so far I haven't heard from said winner, Soooo! If I don't hear from them by Wednesday at 8:00 a.m., I'll redraw for a new winner. Really I think it's only fair. Someone should win after all!