Simple Joys

All you have to do is open your eyes around here and you can't help but think happy thoughts.

There is so much beauty everywhere you look.

Whether it is evening or morning the sky is amazing.

There is no way to capture in a photo the feeling that rolls in with the fog each morning. It's almost like the morning is going to be so great that God doesn't want to reveal it all at once so he covers it in a blanket and slowly pulls the cover back a little at a time.

Even though summer has pasted there are still some reminders hanging around.

A new season's produce is planted, and will soon be producing. You should have seen the kids running up and down the rows yesterday evening. They love the garden. I think they all have a little farming blood, and hopefully green thumbs.

Don't you just love new beginnings?

Sweet Stargazers

Stargazer lilies are my favorite flower. I love their brilliant color, their freckled faces and their pungent aroma.

I bought a potted one last year, and soon after it bloomed it really looked like it wasn't going to survive. I'm sorry to say not many potted plants make it under my care. I love them and I really try, but I don't have that green thumb everyone says you need to be a good gardener. I'm sure my absent mindedness doesn't help much in that department either.

Anyway, at the end of the summer last year, when everything started to look brown and pitiful, my husband gathered up the pots, knowing all too well that failure though I may be in the gardening area, my hope would be reborn come spring and I would try again. No need to buy new pots when these would be vacant by that time.

Now fast forward to a few weeks ago. I was scrounging around for some pots to transfer basil into, and I came across my lily. It was very healthy looking especially for a forgotten plant being neglected in the shade of the back porch. Not wanting to mess with a good thing I left her right where she was, and decided to check back on her and see how she faired on her own. I'm sorry to say again I forgot about her until I saw my day-lilies starting to bloom. I ran around and saw two blooms on her. They had toppled over in the dirt because they made the plant top-heavy. I picked them and wiped them off a bit and brought them into the house, and put them in a vase. I held them to my nose and breathed deeply and.....nothing. i was sorely disappointed!

I went about my business throughout the day when all at once I was accosted by a heavenly aroma. I turned and looked and much to my surprise the lilies had opened up fully and their smell permeated the entire area of the kitchen and dining room. They were beautiful. I carried the vase and my camera outside and snapped a few pictures of them. They have been beautiful for about a week, and the perfume as lasted just as long.