Sunshine Rooster

Someone gave me this blown glass rooster.

March apparently didn't get the "go out like a lamb" memo from on high. This rooster is covering for the outdoor grey by splashing spring colors around my living room. I like his attitude.

The Penguin

Bad ugly floor.

Penguin standing guard -- no midnight refriger-raiders on fresh kitchen varnish.

Happy penguin, happy floor.

Happy Alice.

Miracle Forthcoming

I'm refinishing my wood floors. This is my dining room.

This is my office.

This is my kitchen.

This is my living room.

And, in eighteen days, I am hosting a party for about a hundred people.

With God, all things are possible.

Good Morning! The Sun is Shining!

Merrill's curtain faces east. It dresses up morning's first rays with a sprinking of cut flowers before whispering "wake up, wake up."

Poor Merrill doesn't pop out of bed in the a.m. like I do, fully awake and rarin' to go. Petals gently falling through delicate sunshine will never persuade her to open her eyes. If we ever get around to redecorating her room, we'll have to filter the sun's greeting through something a little more powerful.....stampeding horses, maybe.

Shadows

Beauty

I love days when I can just stay home and take care of business in my house.

Is it any wonder? Everywhere I look around me, I see beautiful things.

Each time I pass through my living room, the purple phlox wave at me. They are native Nebraskans, easy going, with no complaints about the scorching summer sun or rock hard frozen ground in winter.

My view from the kitchen window

is just as joyful this time of year.

And who could help warming to the coffepot and beans that bid me to pause, put my feet up, take time to enjoy and be thankful?

The invitation is always there, even if I don't accept it often enough.

Anyone who knows my family very well might have the tiniest suspicion that there's another side to this story....

but I choose to focus elsewhere.

Rachel Jumps In

Thanks to Rachel for this lovely photo, carelessly recorded on a sleepy Saturday morning in my living room.

My Favorite Duck

This is my favorite duck, rescued for two dollars from a garage sale many years ago.

When the time came to move the duck and the rest of our belongings into this house, we had spent a year with the contractor, drawing plans, moving doorways, picking out faucets and door knobs, choosing juteback or kangaback carpet. I was tired and overwhelmed by major remodeling in addition to homeschooling four girls and helping my husband strike out on his own in the farming world. We slapped white paint on nearly every wall: Git 'R Done and let's move in! That was nine years ago; Duck peeked out from the camouflage of my white walls all that time. I knew he was there, but few others did.

The duck looked over sofas and chairs handed down from relatives, snagged at sales, or dragged home from Goodwill. Finally, last fall, we blew it all up with dynamite and bought the first new furniture we've ever had. THIS celebration required a splash of paint! Duck came out of hiding, waddling through colors like Windmill, Summer Suede and Dark Ochre.

(Never mind that my daughters refer to the new walls as "light muck" and "dark muck". It's how farm girls are conditioned to think.)

Duck no longer swims on a sea of white. Sometimes, when the light is right, he takes flight across my new dark muck windowshade.