Thanksgiving weekend shots

Corwin (ten months) met great grandpa for the first time!

Picnicing on Friday

Dancing, crawling and whatnot---life of children is something to celebrate

Snake skin!

Thankful for children this thanksgiving time!

Thankful for old friends!

Sweet cuddles

Thankful for Advent season!

Walking trail/ swamp/lake/river in one walk

There is a beautiful walking trail near us. It meanders near a river,

a swamp and a lake. It is a great place for a Fall coolish morning!
When we first moved to SC about 30 years ago we didn't see the beauty in swamp areas and black river water. Now we love it. We had a refreshing walk and talk time this morning.

Great Thanksgiving Vegetable Platter and starbucks find

I love this idea above! A friend posted it on facebook and this is something I would like to do over thanksgiving. I also discovered this dip below which is delicious and quite hot:
This is Black beans and corn. I like Newman's own because it donates profits to charity.
I found this Starbucks' coffee cup at Walmart. I like it because it is stainless steel on the inside. It was with some assorted Christmas gifts in the chocolate isle or coffee isle (I forget which!). I am enjoying it right this minute--it is nice because it keeps my coffee warm....AND of course I actually brew starbucks' Italian Roast because it is very BOLD> I am enjoying this rainy windy day here in SC. My walk this morning was free from rain , but the colors looked great against the backdrop of the grey skies.

Splendor

Brookgreen Gardens is getting ready for the nights of 1,000 lights. It is a great way to begin the Christmas season. You can walk here at night with candles and string lights all over this glorious garden.



























This is a refreshing place to walk. It is as if the trees and flowers shout to the Lord. The statues reflect the aspect of man's creative nature that is a true reflection of the greater creator.

New Lights and new Picture and photo problems

I am one frustrated Blogger--yup frustrated! It may be my internet connection (I am supposed to get a new router today) or something else but I can't upload my pictures so I can post the larger ones! Photobucket keeps giving me an error (and dropshots won't work either!). So here we go with the small pictues.

I have a new faux (spelling/??) painting in our dinning area. The big wall needed something bigger--now I need to see if I like it there that big or not!

This light fixture we removed since it hung too low and was not centered over the table . We replaced it with a light fixture that hopefully one does not notice too much (since it is not centered and I am always moving the furniture around in this room!).

I am hoping things will get fixed with the new router and I am hoping it will be delivered today! Here is one more picture from Brookgreen Garden below--(I manage to upload one picture a day! )ha! I like the contrasts in the colors below!

More on Brookgreen Gardens

We enjoyed a slow day on Sunday at the gardens, but alas my photobucket won't let me load my pictures. So here are just a few random ones.


The dogwoods were dressed in a beautiful red.


The above is a nice courtyard where we sat in the wonderful orange chairs in the warmth of the sun eating M & M's and drinking coffee. Those chairs are so comfy you really feel like sitting there all day!

Below is the lake at which we had a nice picnic lunch all to ourselves with birds singing all around---quite heavenly.


Above is the magnolia path--again to ourselves--ROMANTIC

My favorite photos still await! I may give up and post them in the smaller version if Photobucket doesn't start working!

Glorious day here in SC

A wonderful fall day here in SC--made more splendid by going to Brookgreen gardens and sitting in a courtyard.
Photobucket isn't working for me today so I hope to post later in the week! The colors and contrasts were magical! And the coffee and M & M's were fab too ;-) PS. What is it about this time of the year, I am always so hungry!

Got rid of the old light

This was a KINDOF cool old light. But it didn't match our colors so we finally removed it this week. I am much more content. It was hanging too low and was not centered above the table . It looked strange both because of the color and the location. So it is gone now!

Pumpkin Chai tea and Cornbread Pudding

So have you guys seen the above pumpkin spice chai tea from Twinnings? I got to the checkout at Walmart and discovered it was not regular chai tea (which I love). I decided to buy it any ole way. I have tried it today and I think it is growing on me. It is nice with something sweet too.. Then I discovered this recipe below for Cornbread Pudding.
It is sweet. I am going to try it with my lentil pumpkin soup tonight. Here is the link for the corn bread pudding and the lentil pumpkin soup is the post below that one : HERE

It was a sad day. My pastor's brother was killed this week in a car accident. The funeral was today. The clouds have moved in so it is a somber day. The church had a time of prayer at the same time as the funeral was taking place (about 2 hours distance). I found that the prayer time really was meaningful. Praying is like being in heaven at times!

More and more simplifying

See the hutch in the above right hand side? That hutch had been with us all of our married lives. We have had it 34 years. When we downsized out of our spindle cottage to our present condo it moved along with us. I decided last week to donate it to Salvation Army. This hutch held a ton of dishes. I managed to find places in the condo for most of them and it certainly freed up some space.

There is always the question of how much to simplify. I am living without color on the walls here in the condo and I am soooo used to all kinds of colors. It makes it easy to move things around and change things up---but then I don't get the warm or vibrant embrace of color.

Beside all of the changes the move has brought, freeing up time for more things has been nice. However, I have also been studying the difference between Roman Catholicism and Reformed Protestantism. This has been occupying a lot of my time. I got started on this because I realized the early Church Fathers were very different in many respects to my reformed faith.

So I have been uprooted in home, and then uprooted in how I see things spiritually. I am still going through this process. This is why I haven't spent much time at this particular blog. Simplifying streamlines life in many ways, but it also brings extra time for thought which in turn can be UN_simplifying lol.