Lilies After All...

Well after that frost a while back, all our lilies were dead and wilted. I thought for sure we just wouldn't have them this year. However, with the warmth and spots of rain, they have made a comeback! They are looking very healthy these days- and growing very nicely. Should be some flowers coming up pretty soon. I can't say the same for our maple tree though, it's still mostly dead. Too bad, because it's a really pretty tree.

Only 220 Days Until Christmas...

Well, after all the traveling in March and April, we thought Dave might be home for a while, but it didn't turn out to be the case. He left again on Tuesday on another trip to China. He'll be getting back on the 26th. I had gone and renewed my passport so I could start traveling with him, but it didn't get here until 2 days after he left. Actually, this was much earlier than I expected it, because they told me it would take ten weeks from when I sent it off. So, I am ready for the NEXT trip...
I tried a new banana bread recipe last night. I got it from BettyCrocker.com. It uses Bisquik. It's quite tasty. It has lots of walnuts in it, which in my opinion, is the only way to eat banana bread. I had a slice hot out of the oven last night with butter melted all over it- yum!
Well...I thought I had more to write about, but I've gone completely blank. I guess I will add more later if it comes back to me...

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, we made our yearly trip to the Greek Luncheon in Asheville. Pictured L to R: Diane (my mom), Dale, Greg, Sarah, Dave, Delilah and me. We ate chicken and rice, pastichio, spanikopita, some kind of meatballs, good bread, and of course, dessert. I had a Napoleon- yum!
After we ate, we headed over to the WNC Nature Center and walked around. We saw the wolves, the bears, the deer, the hawks....and the peacock! We got to pet the goats and the sheep, and we even saw some baby chickens and little piggies. It was a lot of fun!
This old tractor was outside the barn there, and Dave hopped on for a minute, so I took his picture. We all got a good laugh. After we left the Nature Center, we went to the Marble Slab Creamery and got ice cream. It was a good day.

QUARANTINE

Last weekend, I attended the Alliance Women's Retreat for our area/region....whatever it is. It wasn't far from home, just down the road to Ridgecrest. It was a great conference. The speaker was very good, and I came away with many things to ponder.
Unfortunately, I also came away with a virus. There were over 1000 people at Ridgecrest over the weekend (not just Alliance Women, there were about 600 of us), so it was bound to happen. It hit me Tuesday full force and I spent the last 3 days with a sour stomach and not feeling too keen. Today is the first day I have felt better, but I woke to discover that I had shared the nasty little virus, and now Dave is suffering from it. I guess when you're married, you really do share *everything*. So, I have quarantined us. Dave stayed home today, and the weekend is here, so we don't have to go anywhere or see anyone. We'll just stay home and get to feeling better.
On another note, it rained today! And yesterday. And it's supposed to rain tomorrow. We needed it. Maybe this will give all the little plants that were killed by that frost we had a couple weeks ago a second chance. I'm really hoping my lilies come back. I will really miss them if they don't bloom this year.
Well, I am going to sign off. Much to catch up on after 3 days of being sick...

Yeah, Spring is Great, But.....

I do like Spring. The green, the flowers, the warmth, you name it. They're all great. HOWEVER, with the warmth and flowers come the bugs. Now, I don't mind most bugs. They fly around, they crawl around, they do what they have to do. What I do mind is finding spiders in my house. They hang out on the front door...those little jumpy ones. I opened the back door the other day and a little black spider fell onto my arm. Then yesterday, we noted the presence of a *very large* black spider in our bathroom(and I'm not exaggerating, even Dave called it "big"). Spiders are NOT my friends. I do not like spiders by any stretch of the imagination. They creep me out. So, on finding this big ol' spider in the bathroom, Dave tells me to go get it. Me, who in an extreme case will refrain from running from small spiders long enough to drop a shoe on them from as far away as I can stay while still holding the shoe over their location. I declined his idea and informed him that as man of the house, spider killing fell under his jurisdiction. OK. A little while later, I walked into the bathroom to find....the big ol' spider under a bowl. I'm not sure what the idea was behind this unless Dave was just making sure I saw what my fate could have been. Apparently, the big ol' spider had been hanging out on the hamper, which I had just carried across the whole house the day before. I shiver when I think of it. Anyway, bowl and big ol' spider were gone this morning, but don't think I wasn't shaking out my towels and checking behind anything I had to pick up in there this morning. He might have had friends...

German Cuckoo Clock

This is the German Cuckoo Clock Dave brought back from his last trip. Isn't it pretty? When it cuckoos, a little bird comes out the door at the top, and the little guy chops on his wood.
Here is a close-up of little wood-chopper guy.
This is the owl from the opposite side. The clock is very detailed.

And of course, no home is complete without a cat. So I took this tiny blown glass cat I had gotten in Massachusetts and set him in the scene. He was the perfect size!

Snow in April??

OK, maybe it wasn't quite THIS MUCH snow. (this picture is from last year) but we did get about an inch of snow on Saturday night, the 7th. And it just finally got warm again yesterday, but windy. The snow didn't hang around long, and was melted by Sunday night except in the shady spots. However, it was long enough to kill all my lilies, which had started to come up since it was so warm and nice. No lilies for me this year!! :o(

Most Recent Painting

Here is my most recent painting. I decided to try something other than landscape, because I don't seem to be much of a landscape painter. I thought this little chickadee turned out quite well for a first-time bird painting.

Somebody had a Birthday!

Delilah turned 3 on April 10. Here she is in one of her new dresses. She said she looked just like Belle (the princess from Beauty and the Beast).

Easter Egg Hunt

Sunday evening, we got together and hid some eggs for Delilah. Some of them had fun things inside, like stickers, ducky soaps and toys...even some jelly beans! She had fun finding them all and opening them up.

Visits

Here is a pic of us with Maggie, Bob and Oliver and Mom & Dale. Maggie and Bob came down for Easter. We had a spaghetti lunch and played some games (Apples to Apples and Swipe). Before that, we had a visit from our Carlson parents...unfortunately, Dave had to fly out to Germany the day after they got here, but he did get to see them a little.

Trip to MA

My last trip was to East Longmeadow Massachusettes for work. We flew from Asheville to Detroit and then to Hartford. One of the great lakes was frozen over. I went hiking on one of the weekends. It was snow covered and icy. That makes it more of a challenge. The mountains there aren't as high as ours but it was a nice view. We also were there when a snow storm came through. It snowed 10". My next trip is to Germany, maybe there will be snow there too.

My Floating Book Shelf

Here it is! I've been meaning to blog this for a while, but just haven't gotten around to it. This is my magical floating bookshelf. I made it myself. I used cat books because it was going in the dining room with all my little cat figurines. Neat-O, huh? It's UH-MAY-ZING!!

Rumbling Bald

Another trip to the cave last weekend. Last time I went was when before we were married. Larry, Brian, Greg and I went this time. I missed the trail to the entrance and it took a long time and a lot of climbing around on the outside to find it. Once inside, it opens up to a huge chamber. We camped overnight there once. Not a great idea to have a fire in this cave. Winding around and finding a new exit, we made it to the top and took the picture with the lake in the background. The bat is the only one we saw on this trip, and the were no cave bugs this time. We had fun and will probably go again. Next time I'm getting a different headlamp - the one I was using kept getting caught on rocks.

This Weekend

Saturday we drove down to Greenville to watch our niece, Kelly, compete in Bible Quizzing. She and her team did a great job! We forgot to take our camera with us, so unfortunately I don't have any pictures. :o(
After the quizzing, we went to lunch with everyone (that being Kelly, Jordan, Lisa, Mike, Brian and Christie). Then we did a little book and craft shopping. Leave it to me to be the only one that spent money! But I got 2 great cat books and some really neat soap molds, which I used that very night after we got home.
Then Sunday...we went to church, ran by the grocery store and then came home to prepare for our Superbowl gathering. Mom, Dale, Delilah and Aunt Sandy all came over to watch the game. We had too much food (including root beer floats!) and a lot of fun. We girls knitted and crocheted squares for Warm Up America during the game as part of DIY Network's "Knit-in". We got 8 done! You can see them on my knitting blog- the link is over there somewhere------>
Sometime during the evening, Super Dave flew through the living room in his red-checked cape, thus creating an instant sidekick! I am including a picture or three...

Last Weekend

Last weekend my sister, Maggie, came for a visit with her baby boy, Oliver. Mom and Dale and Sarah and Delilah came over and we had a fun time of visiting and playing games and eating tacos. The above pics are: Oliver with Aunt Sarah, Oliver with Maggie, and "Grandma" with her 2 little grand-chillins, Oliver and Delilah.

January

Well, here it is, nearly the end of January. We haven't really taken any pictures since Christmas, so I don't have one to post. We have been busy, however. It all started with a mission to clean out all the closets. Well, it turned into a huge project. We emptied the 2 closets in the guest room and computer room. A lot of stuff was thrown away, some was given away, and some was stored in rubbermaid containers to go in the garage. We now have 2 empty closets! As if that weren't wild n' crazy enough, we started moving furniture around too. Our living room is all rearranged, and now includes the computers. So, now we have one empty room just waiting for its true potential to be realized...ha ha ha. Can you tell I've been watching HGTV??
I guess that is the whole of our excitement for this month. Maggie is getting here today with little Oliver for a visit. That will end up the month nicely, then we'll have February...

Christmas at Home

Christmas Day was spent at our house with Mom, Dale, Sarah, Greg and Delilah. Firstly, we had a great time cooking. We had a hearty breakfast of Dave's apple pancakes, Sarah's delicious breakfast roll, and Mom's homemade hashbrowns- YUM! Then we opened presents! We tried to choose thoughtful and useful gifts this year, and it was great seeing the reactions as they were opened. Among other things, Dave got some new tools he didn't have...an automatic adjustable wrench, some 2 foot long screwdrivers (!) and some clamps he can use to finish up our coffee table. I got a new Bolitho book, a lovely new shadow box, and various girly/bath stuff. And Dave, who is very supportive of my creative tendencies, gave me a very nice painting set- easel and all (I'll put more about that later...). After we all oohed and aahed and played with our new things for a bit, we got out the bongos! We took turns playing until our hands were sore from the clapping...then we put in Dance, Dance Revolution. In this game, you stand on a pad and have to step forward, backward, left or right as the game directs. It gets faster and faster and we got a pretty good workout!! Which was a good thing because then we cooked and ate a big 'ol dinner, including turkey, mashed potatoes, etc. It was a great day, but tiring, and we went to bed early after everyone headed home. 

Pre-Christmas Gathering...

Pictures from the Harriman Family Annual Holiday gathering (Dec 23&24)! Two full days of fun and excitement! Dave and I both participated in the Cribbage Tournament (won by my grandfather) and the Dart Tournament (won by Uncle Gary). Seeing everyone was lots of fun, especially the little ones, Delilah, Marshall and Mackenzie. We all visited and played games and ATE and did our yearly gift exchange. It was fun seeing everyone's reaction to their gifts- and there was a good practical joke in one of them! Though tiring, they were a fun couple of days. 

Still Newlyweds!

Today is our four year Wedding Anniversary! This is a picture from our honeymoon in Bermuda four years ago. We still feel like newlyweds.
These past four years have been the best, and it seems like each year is better than the last. We are thankful to the Lord for bringing us together, and for showering us with His love, that we can in turn share with one another. Praise God for four wonderful years!