Watercolor Mushrooms

Oh for the love of mushrooms!

Who would have thought that I could paint these.

This is a treasure for me, as I really haven't painted in browns yet,

so for these mushrooms to turn out like a mushroom is

magical.  

They are from an online class that I took, and had instruction every step

of the way,  but none the less, they really look like a mushroom.

I will have to buy some mushrooms soon and do another watercolor

painting with my own mushrooms.

Where have I been for the last month?

Ahhh, yes, a long ways away.

I will tell about that adventure in my next few posts. 

It will be fun to share.

Have a great day!

Robin

A recap of January

In my journey this year of life, I promised myself

that I would write a little more often about the things going on in our 

life.  I often wondered what it was gonna be like to be retired.

I never in my crazy life thought that one could be so busy

even without a job running everything in my life.

But as it goes, I seem to keep myself quite busy.  I have to think

that maybe life will slow down, but not yet. 

I have a commitment almost every morning serving.

So my day really starts after my morning commitment.

That is usually around 10.  

I try to watercolor a few days a week.  I've been working on a few projects,

which I will post.  I really have been trying about 2 days a week to commit to

watercoloring.  I'm not that great at it, but practice makes perfect, I need to

practice a lot.  

We spent a week going to Montana to trade our son with his truck,  He had

borrowed our truck in August, and it was time for us to get ours back.

On Dana's week off we traveled up to Eureka with his truck and a 

trailer full of the their stuff.  It was such a crazy drive.  We have a few close

calls which gave me a heart attack, well almost one anyway.

It was a miracle that we made it up there.  The day before we left we had

the truck looked at, Dana was concerned that the 4 wheel drive wasn't

working.  The friend that checked it said yes it was clicking into gear, so we

went on our way.  After 16 hours of driving, which was quite crazy in the snow,

we learned upon arrival that in fact the 4 wheel drive was not working.

We really believe we had angels watching us and helping us through snowy canyons, 

filled with the craziest drivers ever!  Down Parleys Canyon, we weren't sure if we were

gonna get to Salt Lake without incident. but we did, even after someone

tried to cut us off, in the snow, when we discovered the trailer brakes were not

working.  I knew this was gonna be our accident, but Dana with all his experience some how

pulled us through, cars on either side were watchful, but it was quite a miracle

that we did not hit anything or the car that pulled in front of us.

Why don't people watch where they are going?  

I was scared, and whew, glad we have angels that watch over us.

The next morning .... 7 inches again of new snow on the ground, and we weren't sure

we were even gonna get our of the neighborhood.

Again, as we slid around a curve, and couldn't move forward or backward, only

the tires were spinning, and all of a sudden the truck started creeping

forward and before we knew it, we were in momentum and driving down the

neighborhood without sliding.  

Getting to Montana was a miracle, and when we got to our son's house, he had to pull 

us up the hill with our truck to get us all the way to his property.

Yes, yes, it was crazy to drive in such weather, but you go when your days off

are scheduled.  We feel blessed beyond measure, and thank God that we  arrived

there safe, and back again.

Did you know Eureka is almost to Canada?  That seriously was a long, long drive.

We did get to see great country, Montana is beautiful!  Past Kalisbell, Whitefish.  All

of that country is so amazing.  I understand why our son, son #3 wants to live there, but seriously,

12 hours away on good roads!  Well, maybe more.  Crazy!  So yes!  We were

almost to Canada, that far north!  Next time we will bring our passports and do 

a little touring.

We also were able to see a son # 2 a few weeks later.  He came close to home for an interview

and we were able to meet him and spend the week-end together.  

Hopefully, things will work out and we will have him live closer in a few months.

So in between all of that traveling, I watercolored, cleaned the house, painted a bathroom,

cabinets in the laundry room, and did some scrapbooking.

I also bought Julia Childs cook book and started cooking the way

the French cook.  I must say... it is yummy!

I'm trying to get my parents pictures scrapbooked, their life together, and us as kids.

I have about 2/3rds of it done, but still a ways to go.  

It has been a project I have been working on, on and off over the 

last 2 years.  I need to get it finished for sure.  The plan is finish these pictures

this winter.

I guess something was accomplished, even if it was a lot of time in a vehicle.

This challenge, this journey.

I have been studying with my church the New Testament.

I watch one podcast and one utube channel about the few chapters

assigned for the week, and then read the chapters, and take notes.  So each

week this is part of my schedules.  It has been

an amazing way to learn.  And even though I have read the New Testament

several times, and did a study program years ago.  This time, I am learning so many

extra things through these podcasts.  And I love it.

I will keep going, my journey.

Volunteering

Watercoloring

Visiting the kids

Scrapbooking

Studying the Book of Mormon

Studying the New Testament

and

a new way of cooking

It is about the journey and how much we make of the journey we are living.

I just noticed that the sun is just now going down.  6 pm

we have more sunlight in our day.

Maybe that will help me get a few more things done in the day.

Funny to think that would give me more time.

Ahhhhh

I will keep traveling on this journey.

Til next month.

I do love the change in my life.

The way I can serve.

The things I am learning.

The talents I am cultivating.  

I'll keep going.

Robin

Valentine's Dinner in the Sun Room

Today I am sharing with you a tablescape that I posted

on my decorating blog.  Enjoy!

Valentine's Day brunch or dinner

will take place in this room in a few days.

This is our sun room, newly added to our home.

I thought it would be a great place to take our dinner or possibly

our brunch.

I love all the window in this fabulous room!

Even in the winter, snow has encased the ground, and it is below double

digits in the weather, there is not a single room in the house that draws us

in like this one.  Is it because we can see the outside, but yet are warm 

inside as we enjoy the beauty of the snow?

So with this love of enjoying the outside while we are inside, 

we will have lobster for dinner by candlelight in this room.  I love

to bring romance to our lives like this.

 The red tablecloth brings brightness to the room.  I decided to use grey with

the red.  Silver chargers, and grey dinner dishes.  A Pink bowl and cream plate from

Gracious Goods bring the valentines look to the tablescape.

Silver accents on the table bring such elegance, I have collected quite a stash of

silver.  Should I share that with you?  One of these day I will.

Silver with white dishes are my favs!

To bring height to the table, I added my cupcake  display towers.

Inside right now I have flowers, but during dinner there will be, cupcakes.

and chocolate for the valentines holiday.

The table is one of my favorites of late.

Hopefully you will find some inspiration in it too.

Happy Valentine's Day

Robin

Valentines in the Sun Room

Oh how I love Valentine's Day.

My mother always made each of the holidays quite special.

Valentine's Day was certainly on the top of the list of days she

worked so hard at making fabulous for us.

As I married and had children, I too made holidays special.

Breakfast was the first thing that was different.

Pink pancakes!  

Mom always did this for us, and so I too cooked pink pancakes

for my children.  It was always a favorite.

We have recently added on a sun room to the back of our house.

It really has become the favorite room.  Even in the winter

you can sit on the couch and look out over the yard, in the warmth

of the house and enjoy the winter, and of course in the

summer, spring, and fall it is quite our favorite room as well.

I decided to decorate the sun room for Valentine's Day this year.

The rest of the house still has winter snowflakes, polar bears 

and white everything, and I wanted to have it stay this way

for the winter.  White on white.

But the sun room can bring me smiles of joy and love.

Valentine's day.

When we added the sun room, we just added right on to the outside of our

house, so in this room, there are windows and the outside of the

main house as 2 of the walls.  The other 2 outside walls are panels

of glass that give the view of the back yard with french doors 

that open up to the back yard.  

We added furniture, some of the furniture is from my garden

like the lounge chairs.  They have red floral pillows (Ralph Lauren)

and black and white pillows, with a grey stripe throw over the top of the 

padding.  Then a pink tablecloth is thrown across the top for the

pink Valentines look.

The table is covered in a red and pink, two separate table cloths, on top of

the other, and then my fun Valentines items on top.

Our walls in this room are very distressed, and for the most part I will leave

them that way, I may fix a few spots.  

I have a darling silver tea set on the table! 

Remember, I love silver!

On the shudder I added a piece of wood Dana found for me in the forest one 

day with a heart in it.  I have saved it for many, many years, and still to this day

love it.  I will probably keep it here all year now.  It has been in the laundry

room, and just now graduated to the sun room.

Sometimes when we buy things we wonder what will we ever do with it.

That is the cute winter lady on the shelf.  She just represents 

Valentine's day for me.  She wears a coat with hat and gloves, which

for me, this is February!  This year most mornings are at 4-6 degrees Fahrenheit

and just 2 days ago 0!

I still to this day don't remember where I got these cherubs,

but I really love them.

I made this cute heart with Robin's Nest products and dew drops.

I just pack it away and bring it out every year.  So Fun!

I made this banner this year for all my grandchildren's pictures.

I'm still missing a few kids, but I love having it up,

they are my valentines.

I also made this Love banner years ago with Robin's Nest

products.  I still love it! 

And used it on the window this year.

One day I will post our couch and what it looked like when we started.

Such a good find, and such a beautiful couch!

The box in front of the table was mine in high school.  It just recently became

mine again after mom and dad passed away.  

I sure fits the decor of this room.  Casual elegance.

Well there you have it! 

The sun room at a glance with Valentines all over.

There is a table set for a quaint brunch on the other side of the room.

I will post that in a few days.

Happy decorating!

Robin

Family Scrapbook Pages

Good Morning!

It is very winter in our state today.

Yesterday the snow started about 2 pm, and as I wake up this morning

at 5 I hear my sweet friend out in our driveway with the  snowblower.

There is about 8-10 inches of snow!  We have an enormous driveway,  it is now

6:46 and the snow blower is still running with him behind it!

My gratefulness heart is so full.  Because, I know that Dana is scheduled

to drive to Texas today with a load of oil field reamers in this aftermath

of a snowstorm and needs his sleep.  He has struggled this last week to sleep

through the night.  This will be such a great blessing for him, as these days I only

shovel the walks.  In days of yore I shoveled between the house and the 

garage, but not more than that, and not even that anymore.

Well maybe when the snow isn't deep.

I have been working on the photos of my family when I was a child.

I had great intentions of doing this while my mother was alive.

With her by my side, there would have been no lapses in my memory if I had done this.

I did finish my father's pictures before he was gone.  I knew that I had

failed getting the family pictures done before mom was gone, I certainly wasn't

going to miss that opportunity with dad and the photos of his life.

Dad lived 2 years longer than mom, and after I completed all of his pictures

in a scrapbook, I took it to him, and he wrote things for each page to tell us what

they were.  I also spent some time separating the photos, dad had scanned all the 

photos into the computer and digitized them for all of us kids, then gave each of us

a copy of all the photos.

I asked for the originals, which he gave me, and I started my scrapbooking 

vigil of putting them onto pages and creating beautiful photo albums

of these photos.

Three years later, I am still working on them.  I have to say that there have been other things

that seem to get in the way, and this project always seems to get put on the back burner.

Not that there hasn't been anything done for years, it just still is not finished.

I'll eventually get there, but the thing I have learned is...

Don't wait till your parents are gone to figure out who is in these pictures!

As a whole, I do know most everyone.  But on occasion there is someone that I simply

cannot recall even meeting them or even being in the photo, even though

I am!  I text pictures to my brother to see if he remembers, and sometimes

he does, but there are still a few that neither of us remember, and our other

siblings were simply too young at the time to remember either.

Write on the back of your photos, and today with everyone taking hundreds of 

photos on our phones, there will  be lots of photos we won't have any clue who is in them!

Today I am sharing my parents wedding pictures.

How cute were they!  

Mom wore a blue dress, I asked if I could wear her wedding 

dress when I got married, and she told me that she didn't have a white one,

and that she didn't have it any more.  but none the less,

they are so cute in these pictures!

They were married in December in Massachusetts .

The postal stamp says May but that was just one that I found,

and was excited it said New York on it! 

Dad was born in New York, just something from the east coast was nice.

Beautiful wedding picture of them.

The wedding, they were married by a justice of the peace.

This is my favorite photo of them, I have this photo framed in my bedroom.

So cute to have the shadow behind them, and Dad  holding Mom. 

Cutting the small cake, they only had them and another couple with them.

Mom is from Germany, so her family wasn't there, and Dad was 

in the Air Force, so not close to his family either.

Mom's extended family didn't approve of this marriage so did not support her.

The wedding presents

The wedding kiss.

So fun.  

I decided to do all the photos in silver, gold, and black and white.

This blog isn't about what is on the pages, but just that I am documenting our

families photos and sharing them.

I am now well on my way to completing this book.

I now have 60 pages completed and scanned into my computer!

That is a feat in itself alone!

I'll share more as time goes on.

Happy Winter,

and Thanks Trent for clearing the snow!

Robin  

3 more Book of Mormon Journal Pages

Hello World!

Today I will share 3 more pages of my journaling  in the 

Book of Mormon.

There is nothing in the world that brings me more comfort and joy
than to read the Book of Mormon.

As I challenged myself to read in a different way, and make my reading
more meaningful for me, I started this project of journaling
on the edges of my pages.
I finished this book I am sharing right now about 2 years
ago.  This larger print was printed off a blog called
the redheadedhostess.

I am still trying to figure out how I am going to bind it, as I really don't
want spiral binding.  It will be a little trickier, but I am not in a big hurry as
the goal is to share pages that have been completed on my
blog before it is bound.

Every morning I pull out the Book of Mormon and read.
I have been doing this for years, but to be honest, it became a good
habit while Dana and I were on our mission.

I read before pretty regularly, as we read and listened to the scriptures with
our kids every morning when they were growing up.  The scriptures
have just become a great part of my everyday life.  I don't have to challenge
myself to read, mark a calendar to make it a habit.  It already is a habit in
my life, and I feel like something is missing if I skip a day, which by the way
is very unusual if I do.

1.  As part of my journaling process, 

I marked the scripture that I wanted

to highlight.

2.  Then I wrote it on the side with pencil.

3.  I then went back with my colored pencils, 

stamps, or stickers and added the umph to the page.

This gave me 3 times during my reading that each one of those scriptures were

embedded in my mind.  Just good reinforcement for an older mind.

Each page that is journaled spotlights something different,

and something that touched me that time I was reading

the Book of Mormon.

Also, during this process of reading the Book of Mormon 

I marked anything that

had to do with God or Jesus.  

It was a life changing experience for me.

I remembered that Elder Bruce R. McConkie had shared that

he marked different things each time he read the book.

At the time I wondered how many different books of Mormon he had

that had different things marked and spotlighted.

I decided I, too would do this each time I read.

I now have about 5 books now marked with different subjects

spotlighted as I read the book that time.

This one has:

Red for Christ

Orange for the Olive tree

Green for the atonement and redemption

Blue for angels, tender mercies, truth, faith

Brown for prayer

Since this reading I have narrowed it down even more to specific

subjects per book.

Currently I am reading with marking: 

grace

blessed

praised or praise be to God

glory to God

All of these are very Protestant ways of saying things,

and yes, they are in the Book of Mormon! 

Often!

Now, the women have been challenged by our prophet Russel M. Nelson,

in the last General Conference to read the Book of Mormon and mark Christ.

For me it has been so fun to hear other peoples testimonies on what they have

learned and how it makes them feel.

For me, it changed me!

It changed the way I thought about the Book of Mormon!

When you read "Another Testament of Christ" on the cover

of the book, you know for a surety that it really is!

There is no other book that can bring such peace and love to my

heart, even when I know all the challenges that the people were going

through.  They do speak from the dust, and I have learned so much

by their examples and dedication to Christ.

Well, this is all for today.

Enjoy these jounaling pages.

I will continue to share,  these are still some of

the early pages in this book, and they get better the farther 

we get into the book.

Ciao,

Robin  

A New Year, A New Way

I just read an article that encourages people,

anyone to blog.  I first started years ago blogging 

on a business blog.  It has posts directed towards being very creative.

For years I posted every week. 

In my posts were ideas of how to use the product line I had created

and sharing talents that I am gifted with.

Now 14 years later my daughter continues to support the blog with 

a team of creative people sharing now, her product line.

It is fun to know I was a part of that blog and that it continues to

have many readers.

Today I am on my own blogging again with my own personal blog.

This requires myself to be true to me.

Meaning, there are no deadline dates that I have to keep, 

or certain days I need to post.

But the need to share what I do at home with the world has become a 

part of my happy time.  Why not share?

Why not keep myself busy with little tasks to do.  The need to keep

my mind busy and going is important to me.

This post is just a reminder to myself that anyone can share anything.

My sharing is different from others, but as the article said,

keep on sharing what is in your mind, what is going on in your life,

and possibly what gifts you are given to share with others.

I had an assignment today in church which required a bit of

preparation and a lot of discussion with my husband so I could feel

adequate to full fill my assignment.  Currently he is driving a 

truck "hot shotting" as they call it, to bring extra income into our home

to offset expenses in our older age.  He wasn't supposed to be 

back for my presentation, but surprised me this morning as he sat

down next to me on the pew, I had left the house 2 hours before to go

to meetings and prepare the room for my presentation.

I'm not sure how many husbands are that dedicated to their wives 

to sleep in the truck and be back home to listen to a presentation of sorts.

What I do know is that I love this man.

He drove through a blizzard only to arrive at a hotel to find that the 

room he had scheduled had been given away because the person

at the desk had not recorded or set up the room for him.

He has been going to that hotel for over a year, and never had this

problem before.  Ahhh, yes, he is sleeping right now.

The presentation of the day is over for me, he is sleeping after

driving for 2 full days and cat naps on the way, safe and sound.

I know he doesn't tell me these things on the phone when we talk so that

I will not fret over his safety.  Silly hotel people.  We all forget something

during our day, and he is safe.  God blessed him.

Blogging.

I will try to blog more about things going on in life,

and more importantly about the good I see,

the changes in my life, and of course, the talents I can share 

and creations that I come up with now and then.

Come along with me as I take this journey in my life.

This will be a learning journey for sure.

Robin