Updates To Our Living Room

Hi everyone!  I want to share some recent updates we've made in our living room.  I showed some pictures of our living room back in February, with a few snowmen here and there. The snowmen are packed away for another year, and I've replaced them with some rabbits.  I have a fondness for rabbits -- you can tell I don't have a vegetable garden.  :)

The bigger changes I wanted to share are what we've done around our piano, including new window treatments.  For years, I displayed about four or five accessories on top of our piano.  A treasured plate from my sister, a baby picture of our son, a Royal Doulton vase, and a few other items adorned that spot. 

I don't have a picture of the piano as it was at that time.  There was nothing wrong with the way it was, but at some point, I just wanted a change.  I decided the room needed a touch of silver.  I had lots of good black and white family photos, and so I set about getting silver frames for them to be displayed on the piano.

In addition, I wanted to hang something different on the wall above the piano.  This is what I had there for 16 years.  This picture was taken at Christmas, so I had ceramic Christmas carolers on the piano, but you can see the swag that hung on the wall at the time.

All Creatures Great and Small

Monday night is not normally a TV night at our house.  Mr. Forest Manor and I usually watch our regular shows on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and maybe some sort of sports on the weekend.  But this Monday evening, I decided I wanted to watch an episode of "All Creatures Great and Small."  We have six seasons on DVD, and we watched all of them several years ago, and haven't watched them since.  I got out the Season One DVD, and we watched the second and third episodes again.  We thoroughly enjoyed them, and that's when I decided it was time for me to write a post about this show.

source

A Thief In The Night

Hi friends!  I hope you've all had a decent Monday -- such cold and dreary weather we're having.  Brrrr!

Those of you who regularly read my blog know that we love to feed and watch the birds at our house.  Well...this morning I opened the blind at our kitchen window where all the feeders are visible, and there was an empty chain hanging where our cute, new bark butter feeder used to be.

I'm Still Here

I've been absent from Blogland for about two weeks now -- I really hate it when that happens.  I've never mentioned on my blog that I have Sleep Apnea, lest you think I'm a very obese, middle-aged man in disguise.  :)  I know several women besides myself who have Sleep Apnea.  I've had this fun little condition for about eight years. Most of the time it's under control, but now and then something happens to mess things up.  Then I get a buildup of sleep deprivation to the point that I'm totally worn down.  That's what happened here over the past month.

I'm happy to say things are back on track in that department, but now I've come down with a head cold or a bout of spring allergies, and I'm feeling lousy again.  However, I'm sure that things will be looking up again very soon.

Thanks in advance for not giving up on me; I have so many things to share with you, but I just haven't had the energy to do so. What little time I've spent outdoors, I've enjoyed seeing cheerful flowers and flowering trees.  Today I'll settle for looking at them through the front door; it's much warmer that way.

Happy Spring to you all, and I hope to have some new posts soon!

Denise

Brookgreen Gardens, Part Two

I have some more pictures to share with you from Brookgreen Gardens today.  You can see my earlier post from February Here.  Brookgreen Gardens is located in Georgetown County, South Carolina.  As I noted previously, these public gardens are situated on a 9,100-acre property which was formerly four separate rice plantations.  Brookgreen Gardens includes a Lowcountry Zoo, a self-guided history and nature walking trail, a Butterfly House (opened in Spring 2011), and a 50-acre sculpture garden.  So far, we've only toured the Sculpture Gardens; there's just so much to see and take in.

We were there the last weekend of March, so there were lots of spring bulbs in bloom.

So Nice To Meet You (and Other Random Thoughts For the Day)

Hi everyone!  I've had a really "off" week since I published my last post a week ago.  I just wanted to say to those of you who have kindly visited my blog this week, your visits and comments have been noted and appreciated.  I normally try very hard to visit back and reply to you and read your posts, but it just hasn't happened this week.  I apologize and will visit as soon as I can.

This post doesn't focus on any one subject in particular; I just had some thoughts I wanted to share.  First of all, have you noticed my new blog header?  I want to give a shout out to Barbara at 21 Rosemary Lane for her great tutorial on how to make a blog header using PikMonkey.  Thank you Barbara!  Barbara is multi-talented, and she has a lovely blog, just in case you haven't already seen it.

Thursday's Inspiration: Architecture

Because I love houses and interesting buildings (especially old buildings) I guess you could say I love architecture.  I was excited that Mary at Little Red House chose architecture as her cue for this week's Thursday's Inspiration.  I have a lot of existing pictures to choose from; and since I haven't had a chance to go anywhere this week to take new pictures, I'm sharing a few from the archives today.

Conservatory and greenhouse in Reynolda Gardens, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
"Historic Reynolda Gardens"