Balance

Just a little view from my world...

This was the blue sky that I looked out upon this morning. It was a beautiful sight. If you've visited me before, you know that I love all things blue.

Even though we've just had a bit of rain this afternoon, I still remember how the day began. I know that above the clouds there's a blue sky still up there somewhere, so I'm cool with that. We need both the sunshine and the rain. It's all about balance, in weather and in life :)

Happy Wednesday!

Rediscovering Forgotten Things

As I mentioned in my previous post, we've been doing our spring cleaning a little late and have been doing a bit of summer cleaning around here. It's been very cleansing in a physical and spiritual way and I have to admit I've enjoyed it quite a bit. The energy is definitely changing because we are getting rid of things that we no longer need and it's freeing. We're donating whatever we can.

Another side of this little project of ours is the finding of things that we've forgotten. It's truly like opening a time capsule to my first years of living here in England, which began in March 2006. Rediscovering these various pieces of my recent past has most certainly put me in a reflective mood.

Last weekend when I went through some things that were in storage, I came across this beautifully quirky pink hand thing shown in the photo above. It's funny...I don't remember when I got every single thing, but I remember this hand vividly. I bought it in 2006 for about £5 (roughly $8). It's supposed to be used as a place to hang jewelry, but I remember just thinking it was so weird-looking and I had to have it. I love me some weird. Lol!

It got put in storage with the intention of making a special place for it, but the days and years flew by and it got lost in the shuffle. Well now that I've found it again, I'm gonna have to find a place for it. It's not my customary blue, but the deep pink works for me too. They didn't have a blue one ;-) In case this is your first time visiting, you can read about my love for the color blue here if you'd like.

I'm intrigued to see what I rediscover next! :-)

Until next time...

A Friday Photo and Less Raggedy Nails

Today's Friday photo is a very simple, day-in-my-life one. This one isn't my usual post about somewhere picturesque that I've visited around Wiltshire. Nope. Today is something that I found this week at a store here in Wiltshire and now it's in my Wiltshire house ;-)

As you can see my photo features a pack of emery boards. Nothing fancy. Lol. But these made me very happy this week for a few reasons:

#1 - There are 36 of them so I won't be buying emery boards for like a decade or something (Hee hee)

#2 - They were dirt cheap....only 99 pence in British pounds, which is about $1.49 in US dollars.
 I LOVE A BARGAIN!!!

#3 - They actually work so it's not a case of buying something inexpensive and then finding out that they're useless. (I'm way too excited. Lol.)

#4 - They come in pretty colors. I'm a creative type, so lots of color makes me happy and a bonus is that there are BLUE ONES! If you've visited me before you'll know that I LOVE blue! If you'd like to read a bit about my number one color go here and here.

#5 - This is the best part.....drum roll please.....I can have less raggedy fingernails. LOL! I need to do better and now I have no excuse ;-)

So that's just a little peek into a highlight of my week. As I've said before, I'm easily amused. Simple pleasures and all that :-)

I hope you have a great weekend! Hopefully the weather stays nice here so that I can get outside and walk. I'll probably work on my book a bit too. What will you be doing this weekend?

Whatever you do, I hope that it's fun!

P.S. If you'd like to see a few of my past Friday photos you can see some of them here and here and here and here.

Happy Weekend!

Blue Plates and Memories

Hello again :-)

In my previous post, I blogged about my love of blue. If you'd like to take a look, it can be found here. In my post I talked about how I'm seemingly drawn to things that are blue and often it's not a conscious thing.

Last night I couldn't sleep, so I occupied myself with the thoughts running through my mind. All of a sudden I thought of something that I left out of my blue post. That's the beauty of blogging though...a new day is an opportunity to write a new post ;-)

Here's my other favorite blue thing that I forgot...my pretty blue plates. When I bought them a while back, the label on the back called them Chateau Blue. They're sort of Wedgwood-esque....very sort of, but I like them. Maybe one day I'll have the real thing, but if not these will definitely do :-)
 

I love that the plates have a vintage look to them and they cost very little. I got them at an outlet store. You know I love a bargain!

These plates remind me of back home. Even though these plates don't look exactly like the dishes that I remember from my growing up years, they take me back to that time anyway. They remind me of my parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins all sitting around having Sunday dinner. They remind me of this post that I wrote a few years ago now, about going back home and finding some vintage glasses. You can read that post here.

With Easter coming up this weekend I'm very reminded of those Sunday dinners, especially the ones on Easter Sunday. Everyone got together and we were all dressed nicely for lunch/dinner after church. After we'd finished eating, we'd go outside and sit on the big front porch and enjoy the warm breeze as the conversation went back and forth. I was little, so I didn't say much. I would just sit and listen to the grown-ups talk. It was comforting and lovely. The dogwoods and spirea would be in full bloom in the yard and often I'd go out and make a tiny bouquet to bring back to my mom or my aunts. Or sometimes I'd just sit on the steps and make little flower wreaths totally lost in my own thoughts with the grown-ups talking in the background. It was comforting to have that tradition in my life as a child. Those memories are what ground a great part of my identity to this day :-)

So these plates give me two special feelings. They give me my lovely dose of blue...my favorite color and they also open up the memory place in my mind. Not bad for some simple little blue plates.

However you're spending this Easter weekend, I hope that it's wonderful :-)

*My usual Friday Photo post will be back next Friday.