The Turquoise Crochet Purse I made

Last Tuesday night at knitting group one of the girls that works at the shop was leaving when I came in and I saw her purse. She told me she made it and what yarn she used. I had to make this purse! Now remember I have only had one crochet class (I prefer knitting more). She told me the pattern was really easy and I should try it. Her purse yarn was lime green but I was leaning more towards the turquoise. My every day purse I use is lime green and I wanted a different color. So I brought the yarn home and started to work on it the next night. I had it done in 3 nights!! Here it is:

I bought some more yarn on Saturday to make another one in periwinkle and white! I think I am hooked on making purses now.

Memorial Day Memories!

When I was growing up in Northwestern NJ it seemed like it always rained on Memorial Day! I would be so excited about the picnic my grandparents or my family would have. My 30 or more cousins would come over, we would have such a grand time playing, etc. But then the night before or that morning it would start raining!! One year my parents were having the picnic and our huge apple tree fell on the wooden picnic table and broke it right in half!! That picnic table would hold 15-18 people easily, but not after that! We had a large detached garage so my Dad would pull the family car and his truck out of the garage and then we would set up folding tables and chairs. We would put paper red, white and blue table clothes on the tables and set the table with pretty paper plates, cups and napkins all in the red, white and blue theme. Then my cousins and their parents would come and we would have such fun just listening to the grandparents and aunts and uncles talking about the olden days. The food would be plentiful and so good! If the rained stopped we would be able to go outside for a little while and play tag or red light, green light. I'm sure the grandparents, aunts and uncles were happy about that :)!! Those days seem many, many years ago and now my cousins are all scattered around the US and a few around the world. This year John and I are just staying home and taking a day off. The girls and their husbands are doing the same. I think with all the moving, workload at work, baby showers to plan, etc., etc. we all just need to chill this year! Hope everyone will be enjoying their day off (if they have it off) whether you are at a picnic or just plain staying home relaxing!!

I got these next pictures off the Martha Stewart.com website.

Nice Memorial Day themed table.

Great red, white and blue sand layered these glass candle holders. You could use mason jars too for a down home feeling!

Here is a beautiful picnic planned by a lake!

Who wouldn't want to eat these cupcakes. What a wonderful presentation of them and very patriotic!!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY EVERYONE!!

Lily and mystery white shrub.

I had brought my container with my favorite lily in it to the new house. Yesterday the first bud opened up! It is so gorgeous!!

In our side yard there is a bush/shrub on the other side of the fence and I'm not quite sure what it is. I'm thinking it might be a wild viburnum. Does anyone know for sure what it is?

It has been raining here most of the evening. Very hard downpours, thunder and lightning too! Tomorrow is suppose to be really nice. I hope so because Jenny (our youngest daughter that is expecting) and I are going shopping for baby things tomorrow! I cannot wait! I just all those little clothes, shoes, etc.!!

Alfresco Eating Areas

John and I ate our dinner tonight outside on the patio. We will definitely have to get something to take care of the flies and mosquitoes!! The breeze felt wonderful out there though. I just get tired of AC sometimes and need some outside air. This started me thinking about alfresco eating areas outside. Here are a few pictures I found on line when I goggled alfresco eating areas and I thought I would share them with you!

This is my all time favorite! If I lived near the water, this would be just perfect for John and I!!

This coastal picture is just lovely! I love those light fixtures!!

I love the linen table cloth and the swing in this picture! I would be swinging away while I eat, which may not work but I would surely like to try!

Is this just divine!!

Do you like eating alfresco?

American Idol Winner will be picked tonight!

I very rarely watch a show like American Idol, but for the past few years I have been. I almost stopped watching it because of Simon's bad behavior, but I gave it another chance this year. I wasn't disappointed at all! I think it will be really hard tonight when they (America) picks the winner because I like both Lauren and Scotty. I cannot believe that these kids are only 16 and 17 yrs. old!! I love both of their voices but alas there can be only 1 American Idol winner.

I'm rooting for Lauren myself, even though I love both of them! We will see......

What a wonderful Knitting weekend With my Knitting Friends!!

What an awesome weekend I had!! Everyone had a fantastic time. We ate, knitted, talked, slept, shared and really bonded. What a wonderful group of lovely women!! Everyone made great strides in their knitting project. Some of us were knitting baby blankets, socks and shawls. Everyone's projects were really great! We stayed at the Buffalo Tavern B&B in West Jefferson, NC. I can't say enough wonderful things about this B&B. Our host was Doc. Doc was the perfect host! Our rooms were gorgeous, the front porch and the views were spectacular and there wasn't one thing that wasn't awesome there. We all spent most of our time on the front porch. It was really deep as you will see in the following pictures. We were all able to sit in one area of the porch and knit, talk, eat and visit. We shared stories, life experiences, hopes and dreams with each other. I have to say that besides going on vacation with my husband and children this was the most fun vacation I have ever been on! Thank you for a wonderful weekend my Cottage Knitter Friends!!!!

The Cottage Knit Mobile!!

This is Buffalo Tavern B & B. The greatest B&B!!

Here are my knitting buddies relaxing on the porch. Starting at the left: Peggy, Patty, Ginny, Debbie and Julie. What a wonderful group of women!! I am so glad they are my friends!

Sara, my other knitting buddy wasn't in the last picture but I caught a pic of her relaxing on the wicker love seat. YAY Sara for getting some R & R!!

When you sit on the porch this is the view you look at-just awesome!!

This is the view across the street from the B&B.

The front yard of the B&B.

There were some large rhododendron bushes around the B&B. They were absolutely gorgeous!

I thought I would give you a closeup shot I took of one of the beautiful Rhodedodendron blossoms.

Going to Buffalo Tavern B & B with my knitting girls!!

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving with my knitting girls to go to Buffalo Tavern B & B for the weekend! I can't wait!! We will be relaxing, chatting, knitting and just plain having fun!! I probably won't be back online until Sunday night at the earliest.

Everyone have a great weekend!!

Garden plantings and the completed Dining Room

On Sunday John and I stayed home and worked around the house outside. I had bought some flowers for the front garden and some garden containers for the patio. Alot of you know I just love flowers and the big family joke is I would spend my last dime on flowers! The garden out front looked nice but needed some color. I saw this beautiful delphinium when I was at Home Depot looking at their chandeliers. The blue just caught my eye and I was sold!! Before we moved here we just had the small courtyard between the townhouse and the garage and now I've got a whole yard! John and I had been talking about the chandelier in the Dining Room on Friday night. We still don't know why the owners of the house didn't put a chandelier in the dining room-very odd. I was leaning towards the Pottery Barn chandelier I had posted here in an earlier post, but then we thought we better stick to a more traditional one since we have so many antique pieces in that room. We bought a Williamsburg type chandelier and it definitely completes that room. Here is a glimpse of what we have been up to!

Here is that delphinium that just called out to me, "Sherri buy me, don't leave me here!!" I love the blue and the color it added to the front garden.

The delphinium flower is just gorgeous! I have always grown this flower in my garden.

There are quite a few hummingbirds around here. So when I saw this Penstemmon, I just knew I would be taking it home for my little hummer friends.

This Monarda (Bee Balm) isn't blooming right now but it has tons of buds on it. When the buds open they will be a bright red also (another flower the hummers love). I can't wait to see the pop of red in the garden out front!

This is foxglove. John just love to see this plant bloom in the garden. I hope this one decides to bloom this year! I bought this one at The Garden Gate but when I went to Home Depot the foxglove there was in full bloom looking so beautiful!

I was so excited when we looked at the house and found out there was a front porch. I love to hang ferns on a front porch and I bought 2 of them! They look so nice hanging there.

This is one of two flower urns I planted on Sunday. I made them exactly alike. I put a large geranium, coleus and heliotrope in there and to add the cascading effect (once it grows bigger) I added chartreuse creeping Jenny. That stuff grows so fast it will be spilling over the lip of the urn in no time!

Mother's day weekend John bought me this beautiful double impatient hanging basket. We hung it off one of the fence posts in the backyard. I love this plant!

Closeup of the impatient. It is just gorgeous!!

I made up 2 new planters for the patio. I put a fuchsia in one of the planters, always trying to attract the little hummers! We also put 2 tomato plants in containers and I repotted my Rosemary plant. It was root bound and needed a much larger container. When we lived up North this was an annual, but not down here I have had the same plant for 4 yrs.!!

This is a little closer shot of the fuchsia plant. They are so pretty!

This is the whole front garden and porch for you to see! Eventually we would like to add 2 rocking chairs to the porch or maybe that porch swing that I would love to have again!

I almost forgot we hung up the wren house too! We decided even though it is late in the season some little Carolina Wren just might want a new home. I have always loved this little copper-roofed Wren house! Right before we hung it up I saw a little Carolina Wren checking out the birdfeeder.

Switching gears from the garden to the house. Here is the Dining Room all done!

This is a picture of the Dining Room as if you were looking at towards the front of the house. It is hard to see the chandelier but it is brushed nickel and very Williamsburg like. It goes perfectly with the antique pumpkin pine stepback cupboard, the antique table and chairs and the blue cupboard in that room.

Here's another view of the Dining Room facing the back of the house.

Hope you liked my tour of my gardens and the completed Dining Room. Things are really coming together downstairs and I really need to get my act together upstairs. I need to paint the guest room because I just found out my sister and her family are coming for a visit in July. I don't think they would appreciate macaroni and cheese yellow walls-LOL!!!

Everyone have a fabulous day!!

Happy 28th Birthday Jenny!!

Today at exacty 11:55 a.m. Jennifer Ann McDermitt was born. She is our youngest daughter and one pretty special daughter!! Jenny lives life to the fullest and loves life! She married Kevin almost 3 yrs. ago (3 yrs. this August). They are expecting their first child, baby boy Owen who is due 7/17. I can't wait to see her as a Mom, she will make a great Mom! Megan had Jenny, Kevin, John and I (also quite a few of Megan's neighbors)over to celebrate Jenny's 28th birthday last night (her birthday is today). We all had such a wonderful time!

Jenny and Kevin at their engagement party 3 yrs. ago.

Jenny on her wedding day.

Megan bringing Jenny her birthday cake to blow the candles out at her party last night.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Jenny!! We love you sweetie!!!

Roses Beautiful Roses!!

My husband, John gave me roses for Mother's Day. I posted some pictures of them and they were not completely open yet. I took alot more pictures and then altered some of the pictures. I thought I would share these beauties with you!

I bought a bouquet of roses in the same color for Jenny. Sunday is her 28th birthday, but we are celebrating it tomorrow. John and I will give her the roses and hopefully hers will last as long as mine and open up as beautifully!

Stop and Smell the Roses!!

I love sunrooms!

When we moved to Charlotte in 2004 our first house had a sunroom. I painted it a fern green and decorated it with wicker Pottery Barn chairs with ottomans. I love to sip tea in that room or read a book. There was a fireplace in there too so on not so warm days you could take the chill off by having a fire in the fireplace. Then we moved to the townhouse 2 yrs. ago and there wasn't a sunroom. I really missed a nice intimate quiet room to go to. Now we have moved back to a house and while it isn't called a sunroom (the previous owners called it a formal living room) I call it my sunroom! I have the Pottery Barn wicker chairs and ottomans in there, my conservatory, a sofa table from Maine in the front window and I've put pictures in there that remind me of the outdoors. I came across the sunroom picture above on HGTV.com. I love it. Maybe I can add some things like they have in the picture to make it cozier in my sunroom!

Everyone have a wonderful weekend!!

Boy Scouts of America 2011 Leadership Dinner

Photo taken by Todd Turner

Last night John and I were invited to the 2011 BSA Leadership Dinner. One of the owners of my company is on the steering committee. What an enjoyable evening! The company was great, the food was great and the speakers were great!! Those boy scouts really put on a nice dinner. The CEO of Duke Energy was the honoree last night. He gave a wonderful speech about leadership and past leaders in the world. He mostly talked about Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandella. He said these two figures in history that had to face alot of challenges in their lives but how they actually learned to get along with their opponents and make things work. The scouts color guard was excellent in the flag presentation also. I got to take the flower centerpiece home too, which was a very nice surprise! A good evening had by all!!

The horrors of Truvia!! Everyone should read this!

I have been having problems with my left ankle swelling (I'm talking 2.5 the size it should be). I have been to the Dr. 2 times now and had blood work on Monday. On Saturday I was thinking back to when the swelling began (I estimate about 1.5 months ago). The swelling started out slowly and then WOW it got pretty bad. Then over the weekend it would get red and blotchy and start itching like crazy. My poor little toes looked like sausages. I remembered I switched from Sweet 'N Low to Truvia. Just for hahas I looked up adverse effects of Truvia-well did I have my eyes opened!! I have thrown out the Truvia I had at home and work and I will never use that stuff ever again! Someone on the comment board likened Truvia to "liquid poison ivy"!! There are so many side effects, that I would never take it again. If you have a free moment, go to google and put in adverse side effects to Truvia and you will have your eyes opened wide for you!! Now I'm not saying that everyone will have these effects, but it does seem an awful lot of people are having some or all the effects. One of the guys I worked with said their dog got into some Truvia and almost died! The dog only licked one big lick of the Truvia and he almost died-that certainly tells you how safe this product is. Coca-Cola has started using this in their diet drinks also. Won't be drinking any of that! Now these opinions are just my own but I would think everyone would want to know how this product affects some people.

In my book

equals

Hopefully you won't ever experience the terrible side effects of this product that I have!