Enjoy . . . → Read More: Enjoy This Day]]>
Gluten free pumpkin pancake with recipe from here.  One egg over easy.

Enjoy this day.

Enjoying the Alice in Wonderland tree.

Over the weekend, I went into . . . → Read More: Gluten Free Pizza and Fur Lined Boots.]]> Good Monday morn, dear readers! Today is a rainy day here. Gray. Cold. But the little Rose Cottage apartment is warm and cozy inside. I am counting all the things this morning that I feel happy about — lots to be thankful about here in America.

Enjoying the Alice in Wonderland tree.

Over the weekend, I went into Target to see about boots that might be on clearance. You know, friends, the department stores are already putting out swimsuits? Yeah. Swimsuits. So, looking for a winter-something, I totally, completely lucked out!

You see, there is a pair of fur-lined boots here at the apartment that I found (looking just about brand new) at G.W. Boutique a year ago, and Michaela and I have literally worn them out. The back part of the sole is coming away from the boot, which exposes the heel of the foot, and what is the point of wearing them? They are similar to the Ugg boots, only an off brand. I just wanted something to replace them with. I do not have to have official anything, especially not fur lined boots.

So I went to Target.  I had just about given up on finding any, when I knelt down to look into the back of a clearance shelf down low, and there they were — just one pair left!! — a pair of size 8, brown, fur lined boots for 10 dollars. I also got a similar pair of fur-lined slipper boots which are perfect for me around the apartment complex during the day, for only 5 dollars. That was a big score!  Something to be happy about.  But let’s talk food, shall we?

I am also happy about a gluten free pizza I made over the weekend. Folks, unless you have gone gluten-free and been without pizza for a long time (a year plus), you just don’t know how much you miss the occasional slice of chewy bread covered in veggies, pepperoni and cheese… Hmmmm. So, I have been looking for websites and have found one that I have tried a couple of things from: Gluten Free Goddess. Everything I have read on her site makes sense. The things I have tried from there have been great. Including the pizza. Mind you, my children could tell the difference in this crust compared to traditional white-flour pizza crust, but I think it was great!

First of all, here is the recipe.

Here is the dough in process.

Hmm.  I am terrible for leaving cabinet doors open when I am cooking.  See all the vitamins?  And mortar and pestle for grinding them up for smoothies?  I digress.

This dough was really easy to work with, and I followed the recipe instructions for wetting my hands and smoothing the dough out on the baking pan.

One thing that was a little tricky to me was that the crust seemed to split around the edges.  But I took a spatula and pushed the dough in around the edges, over and over, smoothing it and making sort of a rim around the edge.  It seemed to work fine.

Finally, my gluten free pizza, all ready to eat.   Yum!!!

One thing I will say is that I might have done well to use a bit more water and work the edge more.  Also, I felt like the dough was too thick in some areas, so I need to spread it more evenly — it’s drier and more dense than what I am used to for pizza crust, you know, back in the good ol’ days when I could eat gluten.  Michaela called it “crumbly” but it was not.  I think she was just not used to the texture.  For moisture’s sake, I added more tomato sauce and toppings to the second one I made.   But overall, this recipe gets a huge thumbs up from me!  I won’t tell you how many slices of pizza I had yesterday.  Oh, okay.  Five!

And while we are talking about eating, and overeating, and loving every bite of it, I may as well show you what I have been hooked on lately.  You may not even be able to tell what this is…

That, friends, is a sweet potato fry, dipped in a mixture of local honey and Newman’s Own Ranch dressing.  There is something about that mix that I LOVE.  I often eat a plate of these fries for lunch.  (Someone roll me to the treadmill.)

Finally, let’s talk crafts.  One of my new millinery pins got lots of compliments over the weekend, as I wore it on my dress all day yesterday!  It prompted the transaction of handing out two business cards.  Some day, my dream is to work only with my crafts — my dolls and accessories — and whatever else I feel like making or growing.  (If I can dream it, I can do it.)

This is not the best picture — fuzzy, flash fades everything, I know, but anyway, in addition to the flower this picture also shows you the latest G.W. find.  A beautiful sweater in excellent shape.  Another 4 dollar score as my other faithfully-goes-with-everything, winter white sweater is just about worn completely out.

Friends, can I squeeze in one more thing?  Just look how sweet Michaela’s game board looks framed?  It is so cheery and bright, I love it!  I think it needs not just a poster frame, but a REAL frame.    Okay.  Well.  That’s all.  Being quiet now. Sort of.  In just a minute more.

I want to close with a comment someone left for me that ended up in spam, and well it should have.  I get hundreds of comments that do go straight to spam.  Read this and you’ll know why:

We are a gaggle of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your site offered us with valuable info to paintings on. You have done a formidable task and our entire neighborhood will likely be grateful to you.

So, folks, somewhere there is a gaggle of volunteers and an entire neighborhood grateful to me.  Wow.

Enjoy this day!

Do you ever cry in your sleep?  I did last night.  It woke me up.  Ah, do not think I am sad, but just understand that sometimes in my dreams I can see what might have been.  It is so real, I could touch it.  But I know, even in my dreams, that it did . . . → Read More: Gifts From A Garden]]> Dear Friends,

Do you ever cry in your sleep?  I did last night.  It woke me up.  Ah, do not think I am sad, but just understand that sometimes in my dreams I can see what might have been.  It is so real, I could touch it.  But I know, even in my dreams, that it did not work out that way.  So I dry my tears and go back to sleep.  It mostly involves my children and a few other dreams that I had for homelife and hearth.

My garden.  I cannot say I have cried in dreams over my garden, but I guess my garden will always live in my heart.  I also know that God’s creation of fertile North Carolina earth is beautiful where ever it is, and I can plant a garden somewhere new someday.  Still I miss my garden and the time I spent poking around in the soil and breathing in the beautiful smell of pure dirt.

So it is that I am appreciating a wonderful gift today.  A gift from a friend’s garden.  ‘Twas a basketful of harvested herbs, representing another’s work, dreams, and time spent outside laboring away in one of the most beautiful little gardens ever.   My children and I will sit down with this mass of thyme and a mass of dried dill.  We will strip the leaves and get lost in the smell of a garden again.

When my dear friend handed me the basket, it was so much more than dried herbs.  It was a sharing of her own hard work.  It was an “I’m sorry that things did not go like you wanted them to.”  It was a hug.  It was faith and hope.  She offered me to come putter around in her potting shed any time I want to.  It was friendship.

Drying tears.  Drying herbs.

Thankfully I kept the beautiful little glass spice jars with their perfect cork tops, purchased last year for a co-op about medicine in Colonial times.

The pretty “medicine tool box.”

Medicine.    And pretty medicine containers . (I spent hours on those steps.  )

Anyway, will be sure and show you the finished product and share some fun pictures of the storing!

Now, as promised, I put a few more ALICE ornaments on THE ALICE TREE to finish up CHAPTER 4.

Nearly bedtime (or way past).  Long day spent working, shuttling kids, doing paperwork, making pins and cooking.  Tired?  Yes.  Content?  Very.

Yesterday we read Chapter 5.  Today we will read Chapter 6.  So stay tuned for the next ornaments to go on THE ALICE TREE.

John Tenniel ornament.

Enjoy this day!  It will be another busy day here, but I am trying to just pursue JOY.  Here’s to JOY.

One joy dispels a hundred cares. ~oriental proverb

Joys are our wings; sorrows our spurs.  ~Richter

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn,
and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.  ~John Steinbeck

Here’s also to change.

Is there a list of horrible bloggers?  Am I at the top of that list?  Oh my!  I say I am going to do better and then I disappear off the face of the earth, or so it would seem.

I am trying to decide which little ‘shroom face will most get me off the . . . → Read More: What A Fortnight!]]> My Dear Friends,

Is there a list of horrible bloggers?  Am I at the top of that list?  Oh my!  I say I am going to do better and then I disappear off the face of the earth, or so it would seem.

I am trying to decide which little ‘shroom face will most get me off the hook.  Is it the tired mushroom in the front?  The sleepy one who is worn completely out and has done too much?  Is that me?  Will you forgive me, if I look so tired?

Or is that me in the back, sort of hiding under the beard of Old Man Mushroom, scared that I have totally blown my blog by being absent for TWO WEEKS!?  Which is it?   

Ahh, well, I think we are all still happy members of The Standing and Staring Club.  Are we?  (Please say yes.)

As you can see, I have been busy, busy, busy making mushrooms from clay, with their funny and sweet and sleepy and most serious faces!!

Some were for gifts, some for selling, and some sit sweetly on my kitchen counter, making me smile while I am steaming my vegetables and talking to John and Michaela.

And just to show you how busy I have been, here is me going not slo-mo but fast-mo across Rose Cottage, in my hurry to keep everything done! 

Actually, I wanted to share this picture because you can see the red and white afgan in the back of the room, which I pull out for Christmas only, because it was handmade by my late maternal grandma, Jewel, who I miss so much!  It makes me think of her to see this bright red and white gracing my couch.

Yes, busy time of year it is and busy time of my life it is.  On a sad note, but a note of update (since those things are necessary), I have been gone from the old house for 9 months now.  Does it seems so?  No.  Not to me either.  And my legal separation papers are signed.  And life seems to be moving on for me, and for the carpenter, in different directions.  I won’t discuss the carpenter here.  No.  It would not be fair.  But some things must be so.  I hope my update is not offensive to anyone.  I know many of us have different beliefs and different guidelines…  Friends we all are, and you deserve an update from time to time.

I must say, one of the little material things I miss most from the old house is my rustic spice cabinet which had quite the story of love behind it.  I am sure you remember the old spice cabinet (referenced in linked post as my most favorite thing). 

Yeah, there is is.  Still bolted to the wall.  Not mine anymore.

Alas, I got in the mood to make another rustic sort of space for my spices, and a recent trip to The Scrap Exchange gave me all I needed.

Between a vintage dresser drawer, discarded heavy cardboard boxes, and a wooden box with one drawer missing, I ended up with a spicy storage unit to sit on my kitchen counter.  I love it!

The drawer itself has personality plus!  The decoupaged boxes sit inside, all bright and cheery, holding my ever growing spice collection.

I mean, I had to start from scratch with the spices because the carpenter has the spices that were (are) in the old cabinet as well.  (Well, I did take my large bottle of vanilla extract.)

Every new thing, every new-to-me old thrifted thing, every day — it all becomes a part of Rose Cottage and me and my children and seems to take us one more step from the sadness that was a huge part of my life. 

Paper, paper, paper and more paper.  Love paper!  Yes I do!

I ended up making about 150 gift tags.  It feels so good just to look at them!  I love the sweet Victorian children in their nightgowns holding lanterns or candles, the old homeplaces surrounded by farm and snow, the deer in the woods, and the Victorian couples!  I love it all!

It’s so much fun to hand someone a stack of 10 or 15 gift tags, just because.

Yesterday I gave some to my mom and my aunt.  Today I passed some on to a dear friend. 

As well, the little clay man I made not too long ago, was dressed and given a tray of flowers, and his story came together as it happened.  He is American, but has a Japanese grandfather.  (Can anyone say Grandfather’s Journey? The lovely book by Allen Say.)  Anyway, this little man just made me think of Japan.  He has a lovely Japanese garden and grows the most lovely flowers to place in his simplistic home.  His wife loves them!  The only thing, I want him to have two names: an American name and a Japanese name.  What in the world will they be? 

He’s my new favorite.  At least for now.  Seems every time I make one of these dolls, that’s what happens.

Yeah, the more this little man came together, the more it reminded me of the lovely story, Grandfather’s Journey, and the times I read it to my children.  It was one of our Five In A  Row books we used in homeschooling.

Oh.  I really have to go.  Work calls.  And so does so much else!

Let me say in closing that I am still have way too much fun with clothes!  I go into G.W. Boutique several times a week and usually find a new dress.  It’s a habit I can afford.  Actually, since Michaela and I can share clothes, we have both had so much fun with this!  She wears the new dresses too and we both think it’s just the best thing!

I hope your day is wonderful!  Until next time…

Enjoy this day!  Take joy!

What would I do without you?  I appreciate your visits so much.  The real friendships that have blossomed from what started out as just a little comment, on your blog or mine, have meant so much to me.

Now, my home address may scream APARTMENT, but we all know it is really a cottage.  Rose . . . → Read More: The Cottage and Its True Garden]]> My Dear Friends,

What would I do without you?  I appreciate your visits so much.  The real friendships that have blossomed from what started out as just a little comment, on your blog or mine, have meant so much to me.

Now, my home address may scream APARTMENT, but we all know it is really a cottage.  Rose Cottage.  And there is no reason why that should not be the case.  No reason why people should not feel they have come to a cottage. 

So yesterday, after a visit to The Scrap Exchange, I came home and assembled this wreath for our cottage door.

And while my cottage does not have a garden all around — not a real cottage garden, anyway — I like to think that I am surrounded by the blossoms of old, new, and yet to be friendships.   A true garden indeed!

This morning I had to fly out from my little cottage nest and run some errands, and while I was out I picked up the newest issue of Victoria magazine.  I love that magazine!  Be still my heart!  But this month, I especially wanted to see the name of my dear friend, Marqueta, in the Reader to Reader section.  She spoke of a major influence or two in her life, and spoke it so very beautifully!

In turn, Marqueta is influencing other lives.  She has influenced  my life.  And I know that this little blog, no matter how humble, has the power to influence others.  It is just so, that what we write and how we live speaks to others — for good or for ill. 

I was just writing to a friend this morning, and actually have been thinking about it lately, how we influence others.  There is a world of negative influence on line, but isn’t it wonderful to be a part of a positive influence on line?  I love that!  It might seem contrary to think that we’ use something as modern as the internet to rejoice about modest and old-fashioned things, but that’s what is happening.   Young wives and mothers are looking for the ways to run their home.  We want them to stumble across something worthwhile!

As I go about my day, I think of the things I have read and seen.  And oh, yes, there are cobwebs in my life, but at the end of the day, I love how we share the beautiful, positive things with each other, occasionally peppered with keeping it real. 

Enjoy this day.

PS –Just reminding you that if you are in a midlife-crisis-I-need-another-baby, a beagle is a marvelous little creature.  (Be prepared to be busy.)

Just moved.

But actually getting here was quick.  It was unplanned, unexpected.  I would need my job more than ever.  I could not miss a beat with work . . . → Read More: Home Office Solutions]]> When I first moved into the apartment, everything was fast.  Well, the feel of it all was slow and solitary, as you can see in the first picture I took.

Just moved.

But actually getting here was quick.  It was unplanned, unexpected.  I would need my job more than ever.  I could not miss a beat with work and had to work, actually, the day I moved in.  I knew I wanted the sunroom for my office, but really had no time to plan a layout for where everything would go. 

I knew I loved the large window, but I really did not like the look of a sea of cords and screens from across the apartment.  While I’ve enjoyed the window, I also did not like looking directly into the sun and having the computer desks block access to easily opening and closing these lovely windows.

It was this past Saturday evening when the sun was shining right in my eyes, I was trying to work, and I was distracted by the activity going on on the computer right next to me that I stood up and said, “something’s gotta change!”

Sorry the pictures are so dark, but that’s what you get from all that light coming from the huge, wonderful window in the background!

I began moving things around, and I love that it looks more closed off and yet draws the eye to the window rather than the computer screens!

My hope is that I can get a bookshelf custom made, or find another bookshelf just like the one already there so that I can double the length of the bookshelf, making the “wall” more uniform (rather than half bookshelf/half plant stand), but this works for now. 

My office is truly a little cubicle now, and I can still see out the windows, I can easily open and close the windows and blinds/curtains, but I am not distracted by anything in any other part of the apartment, or whatever is going on on Facebook or Club Penguin or You Tube, blah blah blah, when one of my children is on there, and I am not looking directly at the sun. 

I just wanted to share my ideas for taking a small space and creating a smaller space within it for a home office.  I seriously considered getting a refrigerator box to put my desk in, and putting a little lamp inside, cutting out a door and windows, and hiding in it while I worked.

I am serious.

I am.

But I figured that a bookshelf to define the space would be better

Keep your eyes peeled!  Stay tuned!  I am scouring the thrift stores for just the right shelf to make a more uniform “office wall!”

I just think this looks so much better!   Here’s to my new little office!

Enjoy this day!

Ingredients

1/2 cup sifted coconut flour 1 cup natural peanut butter 1-1/2 cups brown sugar 4 eggs 1/2 tsp vanilla 1/2 tsp salt

Mix together peanut butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt.  Stir in coconut flour.  Batter will not be thick.  Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie . . . → Read More: Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies]]> Tried this recipe and they were good!  I’ve had a request to share it, so here goes!

Ingredients

1/2 cup sifted coconut flour
1 cup natural peanut butter
1-1/2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Mix together peanut butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt.  Stir in coconut flour.  Batter will not be thick.  Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375 degrees for about 14 minutes.  Cool and remove from cookie sheet!

Yum!