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Musings: to meditate, think, contemplate, deliberate, ponder, reflect, ruminate, reverie, daydream, introspection, dream, preoccupation, brood, cogitate.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

This & That - June 2016

With two new grandsons we found ourselves babysitting twice as much this month.  In between we managed to have several outings.  This one was in Shepherdstown, WV, about 35 minutes from us.  It's a small college town with a quaint downtown.  Whenever I'm there I love to pop into this French boutique. . . .

We met friends there for dinner at Mi Degollado II restaurant along with three other couples who were friends of theirs.  We were all there to attend a benefit concert sponsored by the Refugee Resettlement Committee at their church. . . .
This is a cause dear to my heart because one of our sons used to work for the International Refugee Committee in Baltimore while his wife worked in a Baltimore high school that had many refugee children.  Hearing the first-hand stories about the trauma of being uprooted and resettled in a strange culture after spending years in a war-torn country puts a human face on the newspaper accounts and all the debate one reads about.

The next morning was a Sunday so I was able to enjoy a quiet reflective time outside at my little bistro table.  I turned on the fountain in my garden, gathered my reading material and journal, and took my coffee and scones out to the deck.  Weekends are the only time I don't hear the drone of the Interstate traffic commute into Washington, DC. even though it is over a mile away. . . .

While in Shepherdstown I found this mini-bird bath with a sculpted hummingbird perched on it at O'Hurley's General Store.  (You can hear a little history about the store and their Thursday night jam sessions HERE.)  I can see the birdbath from my desk.  This is the view out the back door.   I kept a vigil looking for a bird to visit it. . . .

I have a fun story to tell about these Myrtle topiaries I found at Chartreuse & Co.'s once-a-month sale. . . .
This particular weekend they were having a yard sale in addition to the barn-full of vintage and imaginative repurposed items.  The first item I came across that I liked was a child-size park bench with a wild animal motif that would be perfect for Olivia.  It was only $45, but I decided to wait and see what else there was to be found.  I passed a collection of table-top myrtle topiaries that were only about 10 inches tall (pot and all).  At $20 that seemed a bit steep, so I passed that by.  Then I went inside and saw a child-size hutch--perfect for the playhouse we've been thinking about building.  It was $45, too.  A really good price compared to what I've seen elsewhere.  As I stood there trying to decide, reality set in.  How often would Olivia play in a playhouse.  She lives an hour away and we go to her house all the time.  The same with the park bench--it wouldn't get used that much.  Then I looked across the way and saw the above topiaries.  It turned out they were $45 each!  In my estimation the $90 had already been spent--it was just a matter of changing what I brought home with me.  As I went up front with the ticket to pay I noticed the lady in front of me had one of the $20 topiaries.  I thought it was a good thing she wasn't seeing what I'd bought (they were the only two for sale) or else she'd probably be upset with what she was paying for her topiary.  If I needed convincing I was getting a good deal, it was sealed when I had two people admire my topiaries as I carried them out to the car.

Father's Day Ken went off to spend the day with our youngest son at an event being held for Vietnam Vets.  It gave him a chance to tell our son what we went through the year Ken was away.  Our other two sons who are fathers now spent the day with their children, but by happenstance Ken and our youngest were able to meet up with Alejandro and his parents for lunch at a restaurant near where they were in Baltimore.

I was spending the day at my desk drawing my picture for this month's Beatrix Potter painting when I heard what sounded like baby birds chirping outside my window.  Sure enough, the Wren's eggs had hatched.  I did a post about it HERE.  I'm sad to have to report, though, they have not survived.  I don't know if it was the too hot-sun or the Black Snake that visits my garden. . . .

I posted my Beatrix Potter painting HERE.  It did not turn out the way I wanted it to, but I did love the geraniums and the pot of flowers next to it.  I decided to edit out the surrounding scene using the touch-up feature and this is what I came up with.  It actually has more of the "feel" I was going for. . . .

Then last weekend we had gorgeous weather for the Surreybrooke Garden Tour, which I wrote about HERE. . . .

The next day we met friends at the once-a-month opening of the Bowman House in Boonsboro.  I will be doing a post about it next month.   The weather was so nice we took the Roadster and drove the back roads with the top down and ended the afternoon at the ice cream parlor in Middletown. . . .

My patience was rewarded!  I finally had a visitor at my bird bath. . . .

If you enjoyed the posts on my other web journals that I linked to, I hope you will sign up on that web journal's sidebar to receive the e-mail notifications.  You can see a list of all my web journals in the sidebar over on the right, as well as when I last posted there.

.•*¨`*•. ☆ .•*¨`*•
Take Joy!

10 comments:

  1. What a lovely month you had, Cathy!

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  2. Now I am able to "comment", so don't know what the problem was. Loved your thrift finds!

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    1. Thrift shopping will be on our agenda when you come! 😀

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  3. So many interesting things this month. Love your topiaries. It was probably a wise choice. That last photo of your birdbath in action is amazing! Our grands watched that video three times!

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    1. I'm glad they enjoyed the video of the baby birds. I hope you didn't have to tell them the babies did not survive. 😞

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  4. I think I'm signed up to get notifications for all your blogs, Cathy. But I DO like your word for them much better. WEB JOURNALS - because that's exactly what they are. Journals - records of what you're doing and thinking. I've never liked the word "blog" - I started hearing it a lot about 10 or so years ago and finally had to ask one of the college kids in our office what it actually meant. "It's supposed to be a combination of WEB and LOG..." is what I was told. ??? Didn't make sense to me - so I never warmed up to it. "Logging" your day doesn't sound nearly as nice as "journalling" about it. Anyway I love your toparies and the birdbath. I'm really surprised you had to wait so long to see "customers" for the birdbath. Maybe there was a nice little mudpond in your woods somewhere for a while that the birds could use. I didn't realize Olivia [and now August] was an hour away from you either - I thought they were maybe 20-30 min away at the most. I'm not sure of course, but I tend to think that if I was a grandmother, I'd be wanting those kiddos right next door to me. Until they go off to college!! LOL. That's a bummer - having to make an hour's trip to see them [although that's me - I just loathe car trips of 30 min or more]. PS - I love how you tend to do your shopping at small independent stores [rather than big box behemoths like WalMart and K-Mart]. That's how you found all these wonderful unique little shops you write about - family businesses most of them - probably. I'm the same myself, where I can be at least. Haven't sent foot in a WalMart for over 15 years and no plans to do so either. And if I have to pay 50 cents extra for something, then so be it. I really wish there were more "Mom and Pop" grocery stores around as well, instead of all these giant chains. I miss the one we went to all the time when I was a kid. Stuffed to the rafters with things - and it smelled so good in there too. Following my Mom around with her basket [no metal grocery carts] with the scent of apples and oranges - and damp wood - and coffee beans in the air. Yum. And have a wonderful Fourth! 🇺🇸

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    1. I think web log (as in a record kept on the Web) became weBlog and then shortened. I don't think anyone at the time thought people like me, and hundreds of thousands (?) would be keeping a record on the web! I have a larger bird bath in the front yard. Yes, it's a 100 miles round trip each time we go to babysit. We've put a lot of miles on our car these last 2 years.

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  5. You really got a nice deal on the myrtle topiaries, Cathy. The sweet little birdbath looks lovely on its stand. We have four birdbaths that I had to empty today as I could see mosquito larvae. We've been away and I try to change the water every couple of days otherwise. I'll be checking out your links soon. ♥

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    1. Originally I planned to get a larger bird bath for the front yard and put that one on my deck because the water in the smaller one evaporated so quickly. I figured I'd keep it filled better if it was on the deck where I would notice it every day. But when I saw this one I, which was a lot less expensive than buying a larger one, I realized it was probably better to have bird baths I had to fill every other day because of the mosquito problem and the threat of the Zika virus.

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