Things I Love: Spring

It's been a while since I've done a Things I Love, so I thought I'd do another one! This is the spring edition.

Beautiful sunny days! Casey recently put screens on our windows so we can open them up without the cats escaping. Every morning, Tigger follows me to the living room and waits for me to open the window so he can hop on the windowsill. It's so nice to hear the birds and squirrels outside. I'm thinking I should get a wind chime to put outside!

Spring hand towels. It's truly the simple things sometimes, isn't it? I always keep a towel hanging by the sink and I picked up some cute spring ones right after Valentine's Day. They make me smile when I dry my hands.

Handkerchiefs. Okay, this is a weird one but hear me out. I have allergies and find myself blowing my nose a lot in springtime. I recently started carrying cute vintage handkerchiefs in my purse. My Gramma gave me some that belonged to her, her mother, and her grandmother. So special! I've also picked some up at antique shops. They are softer than tissues and too cute to boot! Why doesn't everyone carry handkerchiefs anymore? I don't know why, but my bestie Julianne and I are bringing them back. (Above picture is some things I thrifted last month.)

Picnics in the park. This goes along with beautiful sunny days. A few times a week we walk to downtown and pick up food at a local restaurant, then take it to the park and have a picnic. We have so many great local restaurants within walking distance of our house, and we love to support them! We're happy than many of them are remaining open right now thanks to pick up and to-go options.

Meeting neighbors. Because everyone is mostly staying home right now, so many people are enjoying the weather on walks, bike rides, gardening. We've had the pleasure of meeting some of our neighbors (while remaining distant) and it's been so nice!

Light in the Darkness

“Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” ‭‭Psalm‬ ‭139:12‬ ‭

Darkness can be scary. Unable to see where you’re going, worrying that you’ll bump into something or run into a wall. I’m not just talking about physical darkness, but also the situations we go through. Worrying about what is happening in the world around us, wondering what lies in our future.

Have you ever wished that God would hand you a pair of “night vision” goggles? Wouldn’t it be nice to assess what’s ahead and walk forward confidently, all-knowing? But, inevitably, if we could see what’s to come, we would make bad decisions. We would try to pick the shorter or easier route, the one with the least amount of obstacles, the route that God did not choose for us.

We can’t see in the dark, but God has night vision. Darkness does not exist for Him. (“Even the darkness is not dark to you.”) He sees everything; He knows all. He knows your future. He knows every single thing to come, both the good and the bad. He has already accounted for things you don’t even know about yet; those things will not surprise him.

Do you feel like you’re stumbling through the dark? Reach out to God. When you’re afraid to take a step because you can’t see the way, He will take your hand and be your guide. Though the darkness may blind you, “darkness is as light with him.” You can be confident in your Guide and walk in HIS light!

I started learning to embroider last year and this is a piece I recently made inspired by scriptures I'm memorizing.

A Zoo in the Sewing Room

As promised, here are photos of our pets hanging out in the sewing room over the last few weeks. The orange cat is Tigger, the gray cat is Sushi, and the dog is Oxford.

They all love to find a pile of fabric to sleep on. Oxford has his bed in there, but sometimes Sushi steals it. Tigger usually prefers to sleep on the sewing table, but can also be found in the corner on top of some papers I need to go through.

The cats often find fabric to play with (half the time it is attached to my current work in progress) and somewhere in there they have hidden a ball that makes bird noises. We hear it squeak on occasion.

The cats bring so much fun into the room! And Oxford mostly just enjoys napping. :) It's kind of a perfect life.

When Life Gives You Lemons

I know the correct ending to this phrase is... "make lemonade." But the thing is, I don't like lemonade. Or lemon flavored anything, other than sprite, which, to me, tastes like neither lemon nor lime. But I digress.

I think I prefer this quote: "When life hands you lemons, make something sweet." Oh why yes, I DID make this skirt! Isn't it the cutest? I love how summer-y it is, and of course I love the pink. This skirt makes me smile, which is why I've worn it like three times this week. I've needed a reason to smile this week. The world has lots of lemons in it right now, huh?

So let's take a moment to focus on the sweet instead of the lemons.

1. First off, this skirt, obviously. Which I wore today. And two days ago. And five days ago. (I'm a #ProudOutfitRepeater.)
2. We've had beautiful sunny days lately! Oh, I love the sun pouring through the windows.
3. I've been in the office/craft room/sewing room/library working for the last two weeks so I decided to let the cats come in. (They are usually banned from this room because it's where I hide the plants they try to eat.) Having the cats in there has been so fun! Tigger loves to sleep on the sewing table and jump into my lap on occasion. It's the cutest thing. I'm going to have a whole post soon devoted solely to photos of the animals in the sewing room.

4. Casey has recently gotten into cooking and baking and I am so for this. He made crawfish pasta and brownies topped with edible cookie dough this week!

I truly have a ton of things to be thankful for! So grateful to have lots of "sweet" in my life.

Flower Child

A few weeks ago Casey decided to go golfing and invited me along. Sometimes he enjoys being by himself when he golfs but a lot of times he invites me to go along. Usually I enjoy the sun while I ride in the golf cart and read a book. (And reapply sunscreen frequently because redhead.) But the other day we were the only ones out there which meant Casey wasn't being rushed to play and we could take our time.

The golf course was beautiful and there were lots of little flowers everywhere. I suppose most of them are actually considered weeds, but they're pretty, yeah? A girl I follow on Instagram who always makes flower crowns had shared a YouTube tutorial with me over a year ago and I decided it was finally time to give it a try. Any time I saw a patch of flowers, Casey would stop the golf cart and I would pick flowers to add to my flower crown. I spent a few hours, slowly picking flowers and weaving them intricately together. It was just as dreamy of an afternoon as it sounds.

Now that I know how to make them, I can actually make one pretty quickly! I made this one after we ate dinner in the park last week. There is truly something special about sitting on a picnic blanket weaving flowers together to make a crown.

Life is even better when you wear flowers in your hair!