Au Revoir!

Good morning Gentle Readers.  Tomorrow I am heading to the Big Apple.  I can hardly contain myself.  Hubby wants to know how I will tear myself away from my laptop all week as I am leaving it at home.  I think I will be so busy that I won't miss it, but I will miss checking in with all of mes amies.  I must stop slinging french words around!  I'm sure it will be out of my system once I hear all those New Yorkers.  Please don't forget me, I will be back on Sunday.

I love you all!

Good bye, so long, farewell!

En Francais, Sìl Vous Plait

Canada is a bilingual country.  This means that all business is done in both French and English.  Kids are taught French in school.
Now most of you shelter people know what a Bergere is.

A bergere is a chair.  It is not called a bergere chair because bergere means chair in French.  See, now you all learned something today.  The reason I bring this up is because I saw two of these chairs at HomeSense this past week.  I kept mentioning these chairs to my husband because we need another chair in our living room.  We gave our two wing chairs to daughter #2 when she got married last September. After a few days of badgering asking him if we could buy one of these, he agreed.  Yay!

Here is our Bergere in all its glory:

Et voila!  I love the neutral linen fabric. You can colour me happy though!

Au revoir!  Have a great weekend.

Mellow Yellow and More

I just wanted to let you know that I made stew in this tonight:

She works just as well as she looks!
Moving on....
In one week from today I am going to visit this lady:

I am so excited I can hardly contain myself.  Now in order to visit the Big Apple, I need one of these:

I know you are all dying to see my passport photo but really it looks like I'm dying in it.  I haven't had a new passport since I was seventeen.  Oh, all right, you can see my picture:












Wait for it......







Here she comes........

Guess what, because I haven't aged at all since this photo was taken, I didn't have to get a new one!
Now, gentle readers,  I need to know all of the things I should do whilst in New York.  You must know that the hubs is not coming with me,  just daughter #1 and her two sisters in law.  I can have a blast with the youngin's. No boys allowed.

Carry on.

Mellow Yellow

Friday nights at the Loyalist Cottage are usually pretty tame.  A couple of years ago I decreed that Friday night was henceforth to be Date Night.  This usually involves going out to the local eatery where everybody knows your name. name that tv show.  We then return home forthwith and watch the History Channel.  Fast living at the Loyalist Cottage!
Now on this past Friday night after filling up with supper that I didn't cook,  SCORE!  the hubster decides we should go to the Big City.  Namely the local Winners/HomeSense store.  This store is the den of iniquity to both of us because we can spend a good two hours there drooling over things we do not need or cannot use and have often bought said items. Case in point:

I always check out the dishes first thing because I love dishes.  Do not laugh, I inherited this affliction from my mother.  She was the queen of dishes.  Well, dear Mum left me a small inheritance and after paying off the mortgage I determined to waste what was left over.  I love these pots:

I have lusted after these pots.  I have entered every Pioneer Woman giveaway for these pots.  I have never won one of these pots.  Imagine my delight when I spied this at Winners:

Do you see the price on this baby?  I scooped up that pot quicker than a hen hauling cordwood.  I danced that pot to the checkout  faster than  molasses running uphill in January.   Doesn't it look pretty in it's new home?

That pot makes my skirt fly up.  I love it more 'n my luggage.  Take that Pioneer Woman!

I may even enjoy cooking when I use that pot!  But for now I just look at it with love.  Bless you, Homesense.

Garden State

Warning:  This post may be depressing to some viewers.

When I started writing my blog, I was amazed at the good friends I  made.  One of these friends is Sweet Bee.  She has a whole hive of bee goodness going on over at her blog not the least of which is her flower garden.  A few days ago she did a post about her plants that are blooming now.   I could not believe what I saw.  I asked if I could post some of her photos and she graciously gave permission to do so.  Here is a comparison of her garden with mine as of today:

Sweet Bee's pink rose.  Behold my pink rose:

Sweet Bee has a William Baffin rose:

My William Baffin rose:

Sweet Bee's Iris:

My Iris:

Sweet Bee's Lilacs:

And of course, my lilacs:

Now I have to tell you that Sweet Bee lives in California and I do not.  The East Coast of Atlantic Canada in no way has a comparable climate to California.  But sometimes I live in LaLa land and tend to think spring is the same all over the place.  Sad to say this is not the case.  I told Sweet Bee how upset her garden post made me and she said that the great weather won't last for long.  Soon it will be unbearably hot and everything will dry up.  I think she was just trying to make me feel better.
To show you that all is not lost I give you these:

Daffodils in bud.

My Bouncing Bets in bloom.

The Forsythia is coming along well.
I hope this post wasn't as depressing for you as it is for me.  By the way, if anyone has a one way ticket to California they need to get rid of,  please let me know!

Art Appreciation

Do you like these houses and barns?

Now I'll show you the paintings they are from:

This is a little 5x7 watercolour.  I found it laying around in a drawer full of clutter.

I love this one.  It makes me think of a cottage in the English countryside.  It is done in oils.

This one I love for the fallish colours,  Is fallish a word?  This painting was also done in oils.
Now are you curious as to who painted these?  No, not me.  My multi talented mother did them.  There were ten brothers and sisters in her family and pretty much all of them could draw and paint beautifully.  I did not inherit this skill at all but I think my daughter #1 got the gene. My mum did many paintings.  My brother has some and so do my girls.  I'm so blessed to have them and I think of Mum every time I look at them.

The Hands of Time

Ever since I can remember, I have loved old things.  Especially old things that came from long ago ancestors.  My grandmother had lots of old things handed down to her keeping and she knew the story of every one.  Since I was the only one of her several grandchildren who showed an interest in these items, I was the lucky recipient of many of them.  News of my interest spread to her brother's family and when my great uncle died I inherited this clock:

I was only a young twentysomething when I inherited the clock and I especially remembered my one of my uncles being royally annoyed that the clock had skipped right by his generation and given to me!

It sat neglected in my family's home for years until I got married.  Now, my husband loves antiques possibly more than I do and that clock was coming with us to our small apartment.

It was covered in a type of black varnish.  Every year folks brushed this stuff on their furniture for some reason.  My husband scraped it all off with a piece of glass.

The patina on the clock is beautiful.

The clock face was a grimy mess but my hubby cleaned it up so wonderfully.

Some of the trim work is missing from the clock but we have it.  When my hubby turned the clock around as he was working on  it, he found a piece of newsprint from a Scottish newspaper dated 1754!  Can you imagine hauling this clock with you all the way from Scotland?   I remember my grandmother telling me that when she was a little girl her grandfather stored some whiskey in it!  The clock still has all it's workings but unfortunately doesn't run.  I have a friend from Scotland and when I told her my maiden name she told me of the village my family came from.  Unbelievable!  This clock moved from Scotland to New York and ended up in this little corner of the world.  If antiques could only talk what a story they could tell.

The Up Side

Last week I was sick with a miserable cold.

Now due to my newly developed optmism, I endeavoured to see the positive side of things.

1.  You get to stay in your jammies all day.  Totally enjoyed this one.

2.  Your spouse cooks dinner every night.  Did I mention I hate cooking?  Score!

3.  Said spouse brings you flowers.

4.  You get to sleep in.

5.  You get out of cooking Easter dinner!  Refer to #2 above.

Dear daughter #2 volunteered to make dinner and then she came down sick.  So the rest of us went to a restaurant instead.  Everyone scored!  Well, except poor #2.
Now everyone is back to rights and my cold is but a fond memory.

I didn't say I had the optimism down perfectly yet!

Attention Renovators!

This weekend I decided to create a new magazine for us renovating types.  Misery loves company.  Here's a prototype of the cover.  Suggestions welcomed.

Happy Easter!

p.s.  Hop on over to my daughter's blog.  She's Almost Famous!

A Quilting Story

I'm still a bit under the weather so I thought I'd show you some pictures of quilts the hubby is making.  I know he's just too good to be true.

This is a baby quilt he did for our daughter #1's friend who just had a little boy last week. Hubby performed the ceremony when the couple married about five years ago.  This is their first baby.

The baby's name is August.  How sweet is that?  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the quilt when it was all quilted. Bad me.  That's my dollhouse hanging out behind it.

I got some Cath Kidston fabric on Ebay ( I just love her) and the dear man whipped up a little throw for me.  I'm just waiting to get it quilted.

I know, I know, he's a keeper!

Cheers!