100th Day

My Grandma always said you plant beans on the 100th day of the year, so this morning I got up in the fog and the mud and planted beans.  When I say it that way it sounds unpleasant, but really it was nice.  I like a good bit of mud.  If you don't think of it as dirty it can be quite luxurious.  The fog was okay.  At least it wasn't hot.  And it was quiet and the fog makes the sounds and the sights soft and pretty. 

 This is obviously not a picture of my beans.  I checked this afternoon. They haven't sprouted yet.  ;-) Maybe tomorrow.

April OLW Blog Hop

Welcome to the hop!

So this month we were supposed to take Action!  I was a tad stumped for a bit.  I'd already been doing some things and I didn't want to just write what I'd already started.  So I was trying to think what I could do to have more grace, be more graceful, something!  At that point I realized I had an idea of what "grace" means, but not a real definite idea.  So my one little thing was a word study.  It wasn't a huge thing.  I just looked it up in a couple of dictionaries and my Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words.  Grace means a lot of things!  So instead of writing the whole thing out here, I chose a few of my favorites that were kind of what I had in mind for my word when I chose it. 


My very favorite, the one I think best fits the idea I had was from Vine's.  It's one of the meanings of the Greek word (pronounced charis) that is translated "grace":

That which bestows or occasions pleasure, delight, or causes favorable regard; it is applied to beauty or gracefulness of person, act or speech.

 The friendly disposition from which the kindly act proceeds, graciousness, lovingkindness, goodwill generally. 

I like those.

From the dictionary my favorites were: 

Beauty or harmony of motion, form, manner, or proportion.

Favor or service freely rendered; goodwill.

The act of showing or granting such favor. 

I think the study has helped me with my word.  It was fun to look it up, write it out and all that lovely stuff.  :-)  Here's what my pages look like.

 I hope everyone is enjoying the blog hop.  Your next stop on the hop is at  http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/

Have fun!

Here's the list in case you like to hop around. 

APRIL 1 OLW Blog Hop Participants (FINAL)
Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog/one-little-word
Monica http://scrapinspired.com/
Jill http://jillconyers.com/
Jenn www.studiojenn.blogspot.com
Kara http://iwannabemewhenigrowup.blogspot.com
Cheri http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com
Catherine http://myview-catherine.blogspot.com
Nikki www.inkyart.com.au
Cindy http://www.cynthiacrysdale.com/
Lisa http://backtoallen.com/category/one-little-word/
Donna http://holimess.blogspot.com/
Coley www.coleybelle.blogspot.com
Naomi http://poeticaperture.com
Stephanie http://playinghouseinmaryland.blogspot.com
Ruth http://suburbansahm.blogspot.com
Eydie www.whatwecreate.net
Janet http://lifeinsideascrapbookroom.blogspot.com
Orange Gearle http://orangegearle.blogspot.com
Amanda http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com
Jen www.jenritchie.com
Melissa S http://blog.mshanhun.com
Kaylea www.myscrappylife.com
Missus Wookie http://www.mrswookieswanderings.blogspot.co.uk/
Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com
Beth www.thesingularlyordinary.blogspot.com <------------you Are here
Tere http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/ <------------you Go here
Kelly http://mindingmynest.com
Heidi http://mommy.heidimdavis.com

In my Garden

It's an absolutely completely beautiful day out today!  Just wonderful.  And now that my allergy headache is clearing up, I'm enjoying it even more. 

The roses are blooming, the grass is green and soft, trees are all green and shady now. 

I spent a couple hours weeding today.  My poor herb garden was completely overgrown with weeds of one kind or another.  It isn't finished, but you can tell it's a garden again.  A winter so warm that it never killed the grass made for a lot of extra weeds in the spring! 



There are so many bugs out in the garden.  I remind myself it's a good thing.  That means the soil and grass are healthy enough that a bug would want to live there.  It wasn't that way when we moved in here oh so many years ago!  But now things grow.  I watched an inch worm inch his way across a branch of a rose bush, green squishy caterpillars crawling here and there and I wonder what they'll turn out to be.  Will they be a beautiful butterfly, flying around our yard someday?  Or a moth coming in to eat my clothes?  The hope of a butterfly keeps me from getting rid of them. 

Instead of having one big garden, I have several little gardens.  I like it that way.  They all seem so small and sweet.  I wonder what will go in them this year.  Time to start planning pretty soon.  Anybody have any tips on growing squash?  I'd love to grow squash, but they never turn out right.  But I'll probably try again this year.  Ever hopeful!

Bird's Nest Necklace

Aren't these sweet?

  A while back my mom found them on one of the blogs she reads with a link to this tutorial.  These are so cute that we had to try it.  We've had a lot of fun with them.  The site my mom first saw used silver wire for the nest, which was really pretty, but we found this brown wire and aside from the fact that brown is my favorite color, it seemed very appropriate for a birds nest.   

They were so fun to make it was almost a shame that they came together so quickly! But that was probably part of what made it so fun!

Do you know what it is?

Something we saw at Goodwill.  We tried, but we couldn't make sense of it, but they had lots of them and they were packaged 4 to a set.  Any suggestions? 

T-Shirt Makeover

So this morning I decided I needed to make something.  So I decided to re-do a t-shirt.  I went to Goodwill to get one that I didn't mind ruining, in case it didn't work out...  It often doesn't work out.  But I'm pretty happy with the results this time! 
Before: 

After: 

I made a ribbon casing on the front with two buttonholes in the middle -- we won't go into how using the buttonholer on the sewing machine worked out.  Let's just say I'm pretty happy with my handmade buttonholes.  :-)  I put some ribbon through the casing, sewed it on and it was all done.  I may have to try this again sometime!

I feel like a tiny bird with a Great Big song

I just heard this quote a few weeks ago and like it very much.  The last couple of weeks I think of it as I hear a mockingbird singing in the morning.  My favorite bird.  :)  It makes me happy every morning to hear his songs.  He has quite a repertoire.