10 Things I miss About Summer...

1. Hanging clothes on the clothesline..

2. My pot of moss that i grow just to touch as i walk by...

3. The way the air smells in the mornings.

4. Walking through puddles after it rains..

5. I miss my garden.

And how when I watered my plants, I could watch the hummingbirds sip nectar from the flowers.

6. I miss my garden tomatoes and family breakfasts..

I often cook breakfast for my Mom, sister, nieces and nephews, and my kids in the Summer. I make scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, milk gravy, and we have fried okra and fresh garden tomatoes and orange juice.

7. Fireflies...

they are one of my favorite things about Summer.

8. Snow cones... Cherry

9. The way that every Summer makes me remember every other Summer that i have lived...

10. Leaves on trees...and the sound of crickets

~ Nita~

songs, bird girl...

and fireflies

{ tin heart found on ground}

I made a cup of tea earlier and when I poured the water over the bag the hot water forced part of the bag down and part of it up forming a heart out of the tea bag. It was so neat.

It seems everywhere I go I see hearts. In the clouds and once I saw a tin heart shaped from a bubble gum foil laying on the ground while walking the dogs.
I see hearts, but I often wonder if I feel hearts as good as I see them. Do you feel the hearts around you? Sometimes people around us are suffering in silence. They are suffering from a sadness that can't seem to shake. Maybe a broken heart. Loneliness, grief, despair, lack of friends.

Those are all ailments of hearts.

We need to love those around us. We can make a difference. Even if it is a phone call, sending someone a card. Making someone dinner.
Love ....is ....the....answer.
~Nita~

I have 71 More Goals....

I have read through some people's goals today and have been thinking about my other 71 goals I want to accomplish. Here are a few....

1. I want yellow stained glass in my kitchen windows so when the sun pours through them i can absorb the warmth and color of it...
like warm butterscotch

2. i want to lay on a white sand beach and drink a pina coloda while i stare at a blue green ocean.

3. i want to hand feed a bird

4. i am going to get up everyday for 1 month and take a picture of the sunrise and the sunset

5. i want to have a healing garden for terminally ill people to come and think and meditate

6. i want a shack in the woods where i can go camp and star gaze . Where the moon and stars are so clear they make my heart skip a beat...
And I can cook out over an open fire. Where I can hear the sound of silence and nature.

7. i want to go to an art retreat

This is it for tonight... More tomorrow.

Tonight's song, I need you by Tim Mcgraw and Faith Hill

Goals....

I always make goals for the new year. This year I have put more thought into them. I have really considered what is important in life, and in my life..
This past year has changed me forever. I have had more trials than I have ever went through in my whole life.
I have had things happen to me that if I did not have God I would have given up.

These are my goals for 2008

1. To be a woman after God's own heart.

2. To read the Bible everyday and to pray for people.

3. To go to church faithfully, and to tithe faithfully.

4. To be a better Mother, Wife, and Friend.
To look for ways that I can help my family to be the best they can be.

5. To publish a book of inspirational writings,
and to publish my children's books I have written.
And to publish a collection of my short stories.

6. To go to Italy, France, Germany, and England

7. To open a craft shack where artists can come and teach their craft, and to sell their work. I would keep a percentage, but not a huge percentage. They would be able to make a good profit off their work.
I want to teach cooking classes and gardening classes.
I also want half of my shop to be an antique shop. I want to travel all over the world, and bring back beautiful but reasonable antiques to sell in it. Lovely linens, furniture, soaps.

8. To lose weight and be a size 10 by this time next year

9. To exercise every single day

10. To eat healthy food and cut out the junk food.

11. To pay back every debt I have

12. To owe no man nothing except for the debt of love

13. I want to raise money for our local homeless shelter. That way people who are down on their luck will have blankets and clothes and food.

14. To start a program to help families who have lost their jobs due to lay offs to get trained for new work. To help them get money for education. To also help them be able to find adequate lodging, and money to help them make it at least for 6 months. And then if they need more help give an extension of another 6 months.
Find grants to do this. And people to help me accomplish this.

15. To help our local library raise money for renovation. And to help them raise money for new books, magazines and for programs for the handicapped.

16. To see an invention of mine used. I came up with an invention after I lost sight in my left eye to help people who go blind after they become adults. But I have not been able to find someone to help me.

17. To forgive those who have hurt me, and to forgive myself for the mistakes I made raising my children.

18. To give more than I take

19. To recycle

20. To completely clean my house out of all clutter.

21. To live with less

22. To save money

23. To laugh every single day, and to sing loudly in the shower, and maybe in public places occasionally. LoL

24. To give more of myself...

25. Learn to make soap

26. Learn to make ceramics

27. Learn to make willow furniture

28. To have a secret garden

29. To have a solar powered house

30. My last goal is to have wisdom. To search for her as a precious Jewell. To seek wisdom for every area of my life.

These are my goals. Tell one of yours if you want. I would love to hear one. ~Nita~

I went four wheel riding with my sister a few Summers ago on her property. We went deep into the woods. Her property is vast. She owns 900 acres of prime wood lands.
As we went deeper into the woods it got darker and darker. The sun was filtered by the countless oak, fir , pine, sassafras, and the many more varieties of trees that are on her property.

We had went about 5 miles in when we came upon this old cabin. It took my breath away. It was an old pioneer cabin, we presumed it was because of the age. It may have even been older than a pioneer cabin.
It had a hand made sandstone cistern. On the side of it.

I got off the four wheeler and took a look inside. It wasn't a very deep cistern but it was sufficient.

We walked up to the cabin very carefully. We didn't know what we would find. It was in pretty bad shape and we couldn't go any further than the old stone front steps. But we looked in one at a time. It had an old stone fire place on one wall. On one wall hung a table, like the one you use to see in those old cabins. You can let it down and use it and then put it back up with a hook on the wall.

I thought to myself how much more simple things were back then.
Most people didn't live in huge houses they lived in small homes. They used their space for maximum potential.

I thought we have become such an over indulgent nation. We have an overabundance of everything we could ever possibly want. Yet most of us still are not happy.

Overindulgence has become the Norm, not the exception.
Myself included.

One goal I have this year is to have a simpler life. One free of clutter. And to use what I have to the best of my ability.

Then I will have more time to do what I really want to do. Explore more.
Go to places and learn about new things. I want to live life to the fullest and not worry about what I have to clean out when I get back home because of having too much.

What do you want to change this year?

~Nita~

Anniversary...

{click on photos for a better view}

Today is John and my anniversary. We have been married 19 years.

But we have been together 22 years.

Our wedding day was awesome. It was about 65 degrees outside and was unseasonably warm.

We were so poor we didn't have a pot to pee in and things have not changed much. ha

His sister Julie made our cake. And we had a pot luck reception. We were so happy that day.

He was the most handsome man I had ever met in my life. And I loved him so much it hurt to breath at times.

I use to write poems about him, and hide them in the bottom of my dresser drawer.

Sometimes at night I would lay awake and study his features.

I would trace my fingers over his nose and lips and eyebrows ever so gently. I remember thinking, If I ever go blind I want to remember the way you look right now... always.

I remember the good times with fondness, and with melancholy.

I have always loved John. But there were times that I did not always feel loved.

There were heart crushing times...

But when I made my vows I meant them.

There are times that I will always cherish.

The times when he and I would go fishing , and we would talk for hours. About every thing.

He would bring his camping gear and make a fire and brew us hot tea over the open fire. That was so wonderful.

And the time we went for a walk in the rain when the kids spent the night at my Mom's house. And he pressed me to him, and kissed me right in the middle of the street, rain pouring on us. This guy pulled up and honked, and John hollered at him, "Can't you see I am kissing the most beautiful girl in the world? " We laughed and ran out of the street and went home...

It has not always been a picnic, but it has never been boring being married to John.

He is heart of my heart.

~Nita~

Tonight's song, Our House by Crosby, Stills and Nash

We use to sing this to each other every time it came on the radio , and still do. <3

Fairy Paintings...

(click on image for better view)

I bought the most divine book today, titled 120 Great Fairy Paintings. It has some of the most beautiful fairy pictures I have ever seen in it.

These are Royalty free so I would like anyone who wants a copy of these to please take one.
I will put some more on soon.

In the bottom picture, I love the way the fairies are bringing the fledgling water in an acorn cap, and two of them are bringing it berries. Is this not the stuff of magic?

~Nita~