"M" Stands for May, Michigan, Moss .....

and making up for the past several days of not posting, it's great to be outdoors again with the glorious sun and the next couple of weeks should bring the leaves and flowers....

but in the meantime, mail brought them early via Judy's postcard that she named "Spring in the North". Judy lives in the Lower Peninsula, I live in the Upper of the same state. Downstate experiences spring a good 3-4 weeks earlier than we do up here. I love how she included some of the things I've blogged about , the pussywillows, the waterfall, the birch. the pines, and the sun. The flowers are a definite tease and so delicately tiny on the lovely felted pieces. I'm enjoying looking at it, Judy! Thanks so much for making it for me.

I have it resting in a plate holder on my sink sill. Those little holders are a great way to display smaller pieces around the house and you can get 3 for a buck at the dollar store. A small bowl of moss from our walk last week is near and you can just make out the beginnings of a lawn in the background. ( minus the white stuff)

This is the postcard I made Judy . It was fun doing our little swap!


The birds are making their way back . We've 4 pairs of these very tropical like birds called Evening Grosbeaks nesting in the cedars. The females are not so brilliantly colored as this guy is but definitly more mannered. The males are all little scrappers trying to get the top spot. They look like a toucan to me. I had to hang a 1/4 filled hummingbird feeder out just in case some of them arrive. You never know when, all of a sudden they're just there looking in at you all sad-like from the window. I sure don't want anyone to go hungry after a 1500+ mile trip.

I'm trying my hand at a landscape cabin block depicting our house. I've been inpired by all the landscape CQ I've been seeing on blogs and thought it would be a challenge to do throughout the summer, taking things that I see and trying to put it to thread. ( I'm hoping trees will take away from the crooked windows)


I'm working off a different angle than above. But the sky and tree layout of this photo was what I wanted to go for. Most of these trees have been cleared away from the structure now but this is the photo of the first time I saw our house after it went up. Living so close among the trees is romantic but not feasible with the dampness, darkness, and debris. I'll always remember it this way though.

I enjoyed a serendipitous refit of some items in "the space". I was able to stick the cedar chest under the table and put one of the plastic drawers inside the desk I use for the s machine. I popped the wheels off the bottom of it and it slid right in. It's nice to be starting spring with an organized area in a more condensed space, easy to get at yet stored out of the way. I'm happy to be taking up less sq. footage and getting the most cleared surface as I can.

We'd gotten rid of alot of our furniture before we moved, things that we knew wouldn't fit and or need. One of those pieces was a computer armoire that would have been ridiculus here. Living with less required downsized pieces and an added bonus was a dual purpose item. Little by little we're finding pieces that do that. I'm a secondhander with an eye peeled to possibilities and Vinnies is a big scorer.

It's bigger than a student size but not by much and was in a condition to be used immediatly. Murpys Oil Soap bath and ta-dah! (Instead of it sitting in the garage for refinishing. How many of my hairbrained purchases have ended up there?)

Not bad for $20 and another area spring cleaned to boot. D likes it, and thats good because as predicted, he's spending more time on the web hisself.

Other things going on would be these:

I'm not working (again),I've not colored my hair yet, I'm not done with April TIF,we have not had to use the furnace, the ticks are out, and it's much harder to blog than be outdoors...

So till the next time, Jane