Book mark swap!

They arrived! P. Covington at Shabby in the City sent me the book marks she made for our book mark swap and aren't they sweet? I told her our family are HUGE readers so not only are these pretty they are useful too! How fun to have something to look forward to in the mail! If you click on the picture you can see the details much better.

My garden is amazing right now and I just wanted to share some pictures with you! As it turns out, my camera wasn't broken, it was just jammed somehow, I couldn't seem to push the shutter button down, I think i still need to have it looked at because I have to push really hard to take a picture, but, yay, I can still use it! Any way, the garden right outside my bedroom/office window is glorious right now. The lavender is in full bloom and it is interspersed with my roses which are finally blooming and these gorgeous bright yellow lilies!
this is an overall view of what I see when I am sitting at my desk (except I am looking out, not toward the house obviously). I have been seeing a sweet little hummingbird feeding at the lavender, he seems to just love it. It is also full of butterflies and dragonflies and bumble bees. I love looking out at the flowers and seeing these little creatures visiting the garden. I also have a bird feeder right outside the window so I see the goldfinches, cardinals and purple finches. Beautiful!

These aren't the best pictures of the roses, the morning light seems to be a little strong or my focus is off or something, but, trust me, they are lovely.

It promises to be a very busy week for me. We have plans with friends for the Fourth of July, the parade, a day on the lake and fireworks and a bonfire. Can it get any better than that? I have also decided to paint my living room, usually it is a one day job, but I have decided to paint the woodwork too and that will complicate things and drag the job out longer. But I am looking forward to the change. I always have a little trepidation that I will not like the new color, but it is only paint right? I can always go over it with something else. Anyway, I will post progress as I make it.

EEk!I think my camera broke!

So right about now you are asking how I am posting the picture above. I used my daughters camera. It is ok, but as you can see the pictures aren't as clear as the ones from my camera. I will have to find a place to fix it because I have grown VERY attached to it since I began blogging! Anyway, I finished the bookmarks for my bookmark swap and since I cant seem to get them in focus with Lauren's camera (I tried) you may have to wait until my swap partner gets them and I provide a link. Bookmarks were not as easy a swap as I thought they would be, they need to be flat to be useful and that is kind of limiting when you are putting something together that you want to be out of the ordinary. I am mailing them out today, so hopefully they will get to my swap partner in time. It was fun though, I hope she likes them. Oh, by the way, the picture above is a little patriotic shadow box I made for the fourth of July. I used a vintage print and some odds & ends of ribbon and stars.

More garden pictures today. It seems that every day I go out to my garden I see something else blooming that I want to share with you. In this case the geranium has been blooming since I bought it, but I really wanted to show you the pot and the cat figurine in the pot. I made both in my ceramics class last year. You can't see the pot very well but it is fairly typical with a grey-green glaze on it and a little bird stamped into the front. The cat was thrown on the wheel and then the little pots were put together to make the cat. They were part of an assignment to make tow things as different as possible. So I made a very simple pot and the more complicated and figural cat. You also can't see that the cat has little multicolor polka dots. I think the cat looks a little surprised, don't you?

I also wanted to tell everyone, I have bluebirds is my bluebird box! I posted earlier that wrens had taken over the box, oddly enough after that post they disappeared. I couldn't find any sign of the nest or any of the seven eggs they had already laid. Usually you can see the bits of torn up nest under the nest box, but they were gone without a trace. But now, four gorgeous bluebird eggs have taken their place. I hope nothing will get them before they hatch.

A new Womens Movement?

I was very interested in the post from a few days ago on Cherry Menlove's, Tales From Pixie Wood. Cherry was writing about the movement in England back to homemaking. Cherry thinks that in America we are ahead of England in that we have Martha Stewart and others who are our role models and who have made homemaking respectable again. While I understand her thoughts (and agree very much with her message that we should all be proud of our lifestyles as homemakers!) I wonder if we are really that much more ahead of her country than she thinks. I have been so inspired and gratified to find so many who embrace their roles as stay at home moms and entrepreneurs in these blogs. It has truly been wonderful to know that there are still women who find enjoyment and fulfillment in their roles as stay at home moms and the art and effort they put into making their house and home a beautiful place for their families and themselves. But I don't think attitudes have changed that much or that quickly about homemakers. I think it is still a very new movement and one that has gained notice through these online journals of the women making it happen.

Just a thought. I think the stay at home mom still has a long way to go to getting the respect she deserves. Lets face it, Martha Stewart isn't a homemaker, she's an executive of a multi-billion dollar enterprise! I enjoy her ideas, but Martha I am not. What do you think?