What a beautiful day!

Charlotte hit record temps since 1978 today! When I looked at the thermometer it was 92! The sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful blue. John and I decided it was too hot to walk the Greenway today and my back was bothering me. We decided to take a walk around where we live instead. I decided to take my trusty camera and snap some pics as I was walking. Here is what I saw today:

This little purple pansy is growing in the center park area of our townhome neighborhood.


Another little pansy looking all happy!




Pansies always make me smile they look so happy.


This is the time of year Carolina Jasmine starts to bloom and it is blooming in profusion this year! Here are some pictures from around the neighborhood.












I don't know the real name of this shrub but everyone seems to call it Pink Dancing Ladies. I love that name and they really do look like pink dancing ladies when the wind blows these shrubs!


My neighbors wisteria is creeping over the fence and it smells heavenly. It looks gorgeous also!

I forgot to mention John and I went to Lowe's and I bought these plants today:

Basil, Dianthus, 1 tomato plant, snapdragons, lobelia, petunias and cucumbers. I think this is a great start!


I just love the color of these petunias I bought! So bright and they will make a nice show in the courtyard.

That's it for my stroll today! I hope it was warm and sunny where you live too!

A Drive through Piper Glen

John and I went to the library last night, which is only about 10 mins. from our house. We decided to go through a neighborhood that is on the way. The neighborhood is called Piper Glen. This is a golf course community and most of the house are huge there, I would call them mansion size. They have very beautiful cherry trees blooming in that neighborhood all over the place. I have taken some pictures of the houses (mansions) and the plants. Here they are:


This is the entrance to Piper Glen.


One of the streets lined with cherry trees.


Aren't these flowers beautiful in front of this brick mansion?


Closeup of the flowers at the brick mansion.


There was this beautiful pond in Piper Glen with the gorgeous fountain.


Closeup of the fountain in the pond.


How would you like to live here?


Or maybe you could live here?


This house wouldn't fit in the view finder of my camera it is so huge and rambling. This one is being remodeled but through the window on the left you can see the spiral staircase.


Back to our house! These are the cherry trees across from where we live. They are just beautiful. The petals are falling now and it looks like snow or a wedding!

I prefer to live in a cottage-like house, Charleston-style house or something in the craftsman style, but springtime is a great time to drive through these neighborhoods with the huge homes (mansions) to see there lovely flowers and blooming trees. Hope you enjoyed the ride!

Adriana Trigiani is a wonderful author!

Tonight our book club had the pleasure of having a conference call chat with Adriana Trigiani. We all had read her book Brava, Valentine, which we all loved! Adriana called in and she sounds just lovely, just like a thought she would! She told us about her love of the women in her life and some who are no longer with us. She has had alot of very strong women in her life, which made very good role models for her. One of the things we all laughed about was her confession that all the men in her book will always be good looking! When she is writing she talks out loud so she can write how the character would be talking. Adriana is so full of life and talked with us like she has known us forever. As a matter of fact, she was our book clubs first guest author. She said her third book in this trilogy should be out in about a year. The name of the book is Caio. She is also working on a non-fictional book about her grandmother. What a very talented author and I can't wait for her new book to come out! If you haven't read anything of hers, then you are really missing out and she give her a whirl!

Thrifting, material, lunch, my garden and button rings!

Yesterday morning I drove up to Jenny's for our girls day! We did alot of things yesterday and I have to say I slept really well last night-LOL! We went thrifting at about 4 places. Jenny got a few things but I didn't see anything. I was mainly look for beads and vintage buttons. Then we went to this restaurant called Akropolis. I had moussaka, which was really good. Jenny had a chicken parm sub sandwich. She said it was really good too. We also went to this vintage, shabby chic kind of shop and it was wonderful. They had homemade soap pretty near the entrance and the aromas were wonderful! I especially fell in love with the Verbena soap-I love anything lemon! We walked around and oohed and ahhed as we went along. We also stopped at this material store called Cotton Ginnys. I bought some material that is a beach theme-sand dollars, fish, crab, nautilus shell. It is reversible too! I'm going to use it on one my purse/totes I'm making. The man working at the store told us the material is woven right here in NC about 30 miles away. It made me feel good helping NC artists/companies. We also went to Hancock Fabrics and I bought some more material with palm fronds on it-very rich colors and beautiful! I better get sewing!! I had such a wonderful day with Jenny-she is so easy to be with! We decided we'll have to have a sewing day and chill out together more often! I headed on home and then took Teddy out. While I was out I check the plants in our courtyard and saw how much they had grown during the week. There are some pictures below of some of my plants-you will see how much they have grown! I then settled down and was determined to make one button ring-well guess what I made 2! They turned out so cute! I need to get some ring flats that are adjustable so everyone will be able to wear them! I will be posting the 2 I made on etsy today. I had so much fun doing this! Here are some sneak preview pics!





Here are the garden pics too:


This is one of the 5 huge buds on the tree peony.


The rose bush on the black wrought iron trellis has about tripled in size in 2 weeks! I can't wait for those beautiful roses to start blooming!


There is nothing holding this daylily plant back either! The daylilies I brought with me from our old house have all wintered over so well.


I have 2 really large clumps of coral bells planted in urns and they are doing so well. I'm glad everything I brought from the old house survived the winter and will still be a part of my garden. These coral bells are special to me because they were divided from my Grandmother's plants about 30 yrs. ago!


Last but not least the creeping jenny I had growing in two of the urns on our small front porch decided to have a major growth spurt last week too. I love the wonderful chartreuse color!

I hope you enjoy the little tour of my garden and the sneak preview of my button rings!

Thanks Jenny for a wonderful day-hugs to you sweetie!!

This weekend will be a sparklie creation weekend!

I hope everyone is getting ready for a great weekend! I will be thrifting with Jenny for part of tomorrow. She usually does really well finding Vintage items at thrift shops. I am looking for more vintage buttons. I have decided to make some vintage button rings for my etsy site. I bid on some vintage buttons on e-bay and won them. They are really beautiful and would make wonderful rings. I have to play around with some of the designs. I hope I find some really great buttons. Jenny usually looks for vintage clothing. Should be a fun time.

Then I will be creating for the rest of the afternoon. I want to make some more copper earrings and maybe a bracelet or two. I had so many designs to make and try out but then I got sick. I am now all better and I plan on getting alot more things on my etsy site.

I have material that I bought last weekend to make a purse/tote and I plan on making that some time this weekend too and putting it on the etsy site for sale. It is definitely a creative weekend for me!

I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy!

How is it in your neck of the woods today?

The weather was just gorgeous here yesterday. Them temp was 77 degrees with gorgeous, lovely sunshine. Today is another story! It is gray, blah and rain is on it's way. I was hoping we would have one more day of beautiful weather before the rain came. Maybe that means this weekend will be absolutely gorgeous! One thing though the rain will make even more flowers bloom and the grass turn even green! That certainly is a plus!

So how is it in your neck of the woods today?

The Charlotte Checkers

Last night John, Megan, Ken and I went to a Charlotte Checkers game and the Checkers won! John played hockey in high school and college and while I have never been a huge fan of hockey last night was very exciting! They played the Florida Everblades, who by the way were very rough and scrappy! Our goalie got knocked out cold because the other team player whacked him in the head with his stick-making his helmut and a few of his pads fly off. Very uncalled for behavior! This is a rough sport but that was not a fair play and the guy was called out for the rest of the game. I really enjoyed the Checkers mascot named Chubby. He is a polar bear and he is hysterical! The kids in the crowd just love him and the adults love him too! Here is a picture of Chubby on his ATV throwing T-shirts out to the crowd.



I hope everyone has a great day-gotta get ready for work!


P.S. Thank you for all the prayers and thoughts for John getting the full time position at Best Buy-they decided to give the position to a young guy. Oh well better luck on another job. John is annoyed and tired of younger guys getting the jobs he applies for but I told him there is the perfect job out there for him and that's why these "lesser" jobs don't work out full time!