Second Thursday Tutorial: On hiatus

There will be no tutorial this Thursday.  I am attending a funeral, so the tutorial for this month will have to wait.  However, I will share a few photos of my home with you.

Before the cats tear the house up too badly, here are a few shots of my kitchen and part of the living/dining area.

For those who like to count rocking horses, you will not be able to keep up and count them all.   They are everywhere, hidden, in plain sight, and on every surface available.

This is a sight you won't see again.

This is a 12 month color swap I hosted which has turned into a cat magnet.

I have to keep it hidden or the boys drag bits and pieces of tags and fibers away.

Now for my kitchen.  Note the copper above the cabinets.  I have no room for them otherwise.  I use a step ladder to reach something I might need from there when I entertain.  My friend Joseph and I created that ceiling using a homemade anaglyptus stamp and copper acrylic paint.

As you can see, my kitchen is white with cobalt blue and copper accents.

Look who I caught trying to get into the office to hide.

When he realized he wasn't going to get in, he tried to make his escape

to no avail.

I realize this is a woefully bad photo, but it shows more of my copper that sits above my cabinets.

I see I should have hidden my scrap bucket that holds my coffee grounds and veggie scraps that go into my compost pile.  I empty it every day if it isn't raining, and you can see it has just been emptied and cleaned.

The paper bag holds dill seeds I collected last year.  The bag overshadows everything when I look at the photo.

In case you don't realize it, I use these copper pots.  I used to own a large home with a big kitchen where I could hang the cheese grate from the ceiling.  Now it takes up a lot of room on one wall.

There is lots of copper here and not much cobalt blue.

We are now back to the dining/living area.

 

You can tell this was right before Easter when I took these photos.

The tulips were just beginning to bloom.

The front flower bed was still quite bare

and the tulips, unlike last year, were few and far between.

The hostas were just beginning to emerge,

but the beautiful lilies of the valley

that I hadn't seen in three years, suddenly emerged.

These tulips, always the first to bloom, didn't do anything this year.

Hidden from view among the tulips was the first of my iris, though.  Everything else was pretty sad.  I think it's because we had a very limited winter this year.

Fast forward to Tuesday, and I mowed before the rains set in.

What really impressed me was my rose bush, which I had not cut back this year, 

already had two roses on it.

I especially like the buds as they are forming.

But as I was mowing, I also noticed my peonies were in full bloom.  Very early, I thought.

My flower bed has certainly filled out in the past three weeks.

It's obvious I need to edge around my bricks and in front of the house.  I also swept after I took these photos.

Then yesterday this was the scene from my front porch.  You would never know I swept, but at least you can tell I've mowed.

Today the funeral will happen rain or shine.    People going to the cemetery will have to put up with more rain and dreary weather.

Thanks for joining me today.  I hope you enjoyed a brief peek at part of my home.  Thanks, too, for your continued support.