a new look

I am the painter in the family. 

But after painting more than 70 rooms, plus sheds, 

garages, porches, shutters, doors, etc., 

I thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of sitting back while someone else

painted our kitchen and laundry room.

                   Photo: trying out the paint choice.

I didn't exactly sit back. It took a lot of work to empty

out a kitchen and put it back together.

I've always loved a yellow kitchen but since

everything needed painting, we decided to chose a different color.

It wasn't easy. Our kids said "neutral," and we agreed.

 I went to the "Paint Whisperer" in town who is amazing. 

This is the third time he has helped us choose the right paint.  

In some light it's gray, other light it looks green, and sometimes blue.

I call it a mystery color and I (we) love it! 

Joining with Share Your Cup

and Metamorphosis Monday 

looking up

We thought celebrating 45 years of marriage was a good reason

to slip away for a couple of days to sit by the sea,
reading and resting, and contemplating our life together.

Both while there and on the way to and fro, we 

found ourselves looking up a lot. The clouds have been amazing

and my feeble attempts to photograph them don't do justice to their majesty.

We need rain. The storm clouds hover and try.

beautiful things

It'd been awhile since our last book club and earlier this week we

gathered around my table to discuss the life of Lilias Trotter (link to her

blog on my sidebar) after reading her biography.

Fitting 12 was a stretch and a squeeze, but we managed and enjoyed a "proper" British tea.

I was so grateful for the pretty blue and white smaller plates the Gardener

found for me at GW years ago--I must have 18 of them.

Menu: Assorted teas (and coffee), scones with lemon curd and clotted cream,

cucumber sandwiches, cheese, fruit, and dark chocolate (for our health.)

Everyone helped by bringing some of the food.

I always enjoy using my mixture of teacups. 

The tiniest of bouquets was all I could scrape from our garden,

but they were a perfect example of the small flowers Lilias loved to paint.

I also illustrated her life with a water color palette and a

facsimile of her painting journals. They were small and she would

write her inspirational thoughts or daily life notes 

alongside what she sketched and painted.

We even had loan of a print of one of her paintings.

Whimsical beauty.

Have you heard of Lilias Trotter? 

She was born in the 1850s, and grew up in privilege in London's 

West End during the Golden Age of Victoria. 

She developed an amazing talent in art. Through a chain of

interesting events, she was tutored by the famed John Ruskin, 

who said she could become one of England's greatest artists.

But she was drawn to the down and out, the women prostitutes lining 

London's streets, working women, the YWCA. She helped to start 

London's first affordable public restaurant for working women. 

She eventually felt a pull to work abroad, sharing God's love 

with others. For the next 40 years she lived in Algeria.

She made a hard choice to leave her art.

Lilias loved the desert and "found beauty in the most mundane and otherwise

unlikely places," says the director of Many Beautiful Things, a movie about Lilias' life, 

released earlier this year. "She perceived spiritual insights by closely studying 

ordinary people and plants, and was endlessly inspired to create 

and draw attention to the beauty that she found."

Summer Sound Bites

Our summer here has been so, so hot and dry. 

Our produce is waning and not so pretty as this any more.

A new neighbor behind us is having most of his trees cut down.

I know the reason, but I hate to see the trees go.

The landscape has totally changed and will take some time to adjust to.

He is planting new trees.

A recent trip to the library revealed something new on

the previously mundane cement wall!

It's fun to read the titles.

In the heat of the summer our yarn group crocheted

around 130 market bags to send to Haiti.

I made up my own pattern and hope it holds the produce well enough!

It's cherry season. The new way is to buy them in open

bags which can be picked over.

This bag held half the amount of the others and were

well chosen, nice and dark.

Sticker shock: $4.50. I counted them.

Forty-five cherries, meaning 10 cents apiece.

They are delicious but may be our only cherries this summer.

We'll eat them slowly.

Our crepe myrtles seem to be the only

vegetation that loves the heat.

The hotter and drier it gets, it seems the better they bloom!

They always amaze me.