Bloom Where You Are Planted

I hope every one had a good Independence Day weekend.
I hope your flowers are blooming,

and you are finding shade when you need it.

A Little Summer Decorating

Good morning Ladies. Did you all have a good weekend? I have been putting out a bit of the red, white and blue around here and thought I would share it with you.

We usually go up north for the 4th of July but this year we will be staying home. I miss summers up north.

Hugs,
Sue

Wine Pairing at Buck's Run

Last night daughter-in-law Carrie and friends held a wine and food pairing event at Buck's Run.
It was a lovely night on the porch.

The ladies from Fabiano Bros. featured 4 different wines and explained how they accompanied each course. I wish I would have taken notes so I could share the names of the wine they presented, but alas the food and wine were so good that they could only be enjoyed in the moment. If more information becomes available I will provide it.

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This is the first course. Brie cheese, carmelized apples and pecans wrapped in a puff pastry went perfectly with the light white sipping wine.

Thank you Carrie, Melissa, Fabiano Brothers and Buck's Run for a beautiful early summer evening of friends, food and fun.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far. I finally got my camera up and running again so hope to blog more again soon. I have missed you all.

Hugs,

Sue

~ Ruffels and Reading ~

What a beautiful morning it is here. I hope the sun is shining on you too this morning where ever you are. The flowers are so abundant here this spring that they beg to be harvested.
All the stalks on these iris are so loaded with blooms that they were falling over on to the sidewalk around the pool. John takes great pride in his pristine concrete so this morning I cut them back before their beautiful indigo stained his pride and joy.

Now his sidewalk is free of wandering flora and my sofa table is graced with armfuls of ruffled indigo iris.

One of these days I hope to get time to settle in and read the books that I picked up on the Island.

John Is Home ~ Thank You For All Your Prayers

Thanks everyone for all of your prayers. John is home now safe and sound. He had very minor damage to his heart so he should not have any further problems. We so appreciate all of your thoughtfulness.

Tonight we went and got plants for all the planters. Tomorrow I'm heading up north for a baby shower and John and Matt will do the planting. Thanks to Matt for the heavy lifting. John will be doing the supervising.

Have a good weekend and thank you again for all your kindness.

Hugs,

Sue

Prayers Please

We were supposed to be in Denver right now but at 4:30 am John woke me up and told me he was having chest pains and that he needed to go to the hospital. When we got there he was immediately diagnosed as having a heart attack. They took him right to the cardiac catherization lab and began a procedure to stop the attack. They were successful at opening the 100% clogged artery and put in a stint to keep it open. Thank God we did not get on that airplane. No telling what the outcome would have been if we did.

He will be in the hospital for another 3 days at least. They need to go back in and open another clogged artery but wanted to wait until he was over the initial attack to attempt it. So, probably on Monday they will to the other procedure.

He is resting comfortably now and when I left the hospital he had eaten dinner, wanted a snack, and was sitting up in a chair watching the Tiger's on TV.

Please join me in praying for his speedy recovery.

Hugs,

Sue

~ Roses and Bambo ~

Hi Ladies. How is everyone? It is a beautiful day her in southeast Michigan. I've been inside most of today unfortunately unpacking from up north, doing laundry and repacking to head to Denver for the Memorial Day weekend that we celebrate here in the US.

Above are the close ups of the piece in our foyer that Paintdiva1 requested to see in the comment section of the post below. Hope these help. It is hard to get a straight on picture because the hall way is so narrow. I can pull it out into the center of the room if you need a better view. Let me know.

Have a great weekend where ever you are my friends.

Hugs,

Sue

~ I found it ~

A few weeks ago I found this needlepoint pillow on the Internet and asked my needlepoint friend Sarah if she thought it would work to get 6 of them and convert them into chair covers for my kitchen chairs. She thought it would work and gave me a few suggestions on what fabrics would look good with the pillow tops to expand them to fit the chairs. I loved her suggestions. Then it dawned on me that I could not remember where I had seen the pillows.............So, the project was put on the back burner.

Well, today while surfing the web to find pants to fit me, which has become a huge pain, I stumbled upon the pillows. Of course, now I can't remember the fabric suggestions that Sarah gave me for coordinating, but at least I found the pillows. Any body have any suggestions?

Hope you are all having a great week.

Hugs,
Sue

Gathered Treasures

Shabby water stained print.
Tiny pots for mini violets.

A light weight silver pitcher.


Some greens for the picture.



A light weight arrangement for Jarvis to hold to greet guests.

Up close.

Fern fonds to form the base

of this arrangement for

the coffee table

in the great room.

Little moss pads

to put on silver plates and cover with cloches.

Now we need one more silver plate to finish it off.

It Has Been A Busy Spring

We ate way to much at Cindi's.
Just got back from Mackinac Island

with Dana and Angie

to celebrate Mother's Day.

We celebrated Taylor's First Communion.

Went to ride on Thomas The Train

with the boy's at the Henry Ford Museum

and spent time with my tree hugger friends. Isn't that tree in Mom & Dad's back yard huge???

I have been picking up fun things for the house along the way and will share some of them soon. Hope you are having a wonderful spring too.

Hugs,

Sue

~ Checking In ~

Hope everyone is well. We just got back from a quick anniversary trip to Florida and are headed up north tomorrow for family fun with the kids. Busy around here so not much time to visit or post.

Have a great weekend! Hopefully I will get back to joining in the blog parties and posting again next week.

Hugs,
Sue

~Candi & Cindi Uncoorked's Giveaway~

One of my BFF's and her darlin' daughter publish a monthly magazine in the Central Michigan area that has turned out to be quite a hit.
One of the monthly features of the magazine that is fabulously popular is their feature 'Candi & Cindi UnCoorked'. They prepare and style an amazing meal and sample several varieties of wine with it to come up with the perfect pairing of food and wine.

Candi & Cindi have started a blog that you can visit here to sign up to win the beautiful iridescent wine glasses in the picture above. They have several items left over from their photo shoots that they will be giving away in the future too. By signing up to follow the girl's as they get their blog site up an running you will have access to the giveaways and links to all the great recipes and wine pairing results that they feature in their magazine Mt. Pleasant Monthly.

Another feature that has everyone in the area searching for a copy of Mt. Pleasant Monthly is the home section. In this section they go inside one of the lovely homes in the area each month for an up close and personal look and the homes and the people that have created them.
Hopefully in the future they will feature these lovely homes on their blog site too. The picture above is a mural that Jill Alverado, a local artist, painted in Cindi's powder room.

Mt. Pleasant is a beautiful little college town, the home of Central Michigan University. It still has a thriving downtown community center where residents park their cars in front of the shops and spend part of their mornings and afternoons visiting with shop owners and other residents that they run into along the way as they shop for their needs, stop for coffee at one of the shops, or meet friends for lunch.
The streets lined with the huge old maple trees that hang over the boulevards are reminiscent of the lovely towns of Provence in southern France where the plane trees abound. The homes are lovingly cared for by their owners. A walk from home to downtown can take a long time as you visit with neighbors that you meet on your way.

Mt Pleasant Monthly captures all the charm and character that Mt. Pleasant has to offer. Candi & Cindi capture the kind of entertaining hospitality that takes place there in Candi & Cindi Uncoorked. On any given evening we get on the phone an invite a group of friends over and more often than note we end up at Cindi's where she miraculously pulls things from her cupboard and whips up a meal fit for kings. That is just one of the reasons that we call her the Queen.

Take a minute and skip over to Candi & Cindi's new blog, sign up to follow and leave them a comment to enter to win the beautiful wine glasses and welcome them to blogging. I'm sure once they get it all figured out they will delight you with their amazing talent and generosity.