What all have you been up to today?...I've been going in and out checking on Tim's progress in the yard, planting flowers, opening up the door a hundred times for Luke, tweaking my kitchen and finishing up frames and boxes....Whew!..I feel like I've been painting forever...I plan on sending out orders this next week and starting on some new offerings...I hope you're having a great weekend!!~~hugs,Jen
I've added some box sets for sale for a very limited time on my "Simple Goodes Stitched By Jennifer" selling blog...I will be adding some larger sets later in the day....So if you're someone that has asked about them then go check them out!!...Thanks!!!
Until next
time!~~hugs,Jen
Oh my goodness!!!..I heard Larry Platt was back on American Idol last night...Famous for "Pants on the Ground"....He use to work for my dad in Atlanta...My dad was a grocery store manager for many years....Toooo funny that my daddy knows who he is!!...LOL
All stacked and ready to be made into primitive/colonial goodes.....Be watching for them in future offerings....
The sampler fabric i found on ebay from doing searches for reproduction fabric....The other I got here http://www.quilt-this.com/ from my favorite fabric on-line fabric shop....
Until next time!~~hugs,Jen
Some simple pinkeep orders I sent out last week...And I even made myself one!!
I hope everyone is having a good week so far!
Until next time!!~~hugs, Jen
Good Saturday morning my friends!!!...I hope everyone has a great weekend of activities or rest time planned!!...I deserve some rest time...
I just finished up painting 95 boxes yesterday..Yes, 95!!....I will share all of them in another post, but for this one I wanted to share my new bedding...After showing it in a previous post, I have since switched the blue coverlet to Luke's antique iron bed and put the black one in here to go with my new woven blanket that Tim got me for our 22nd anniversary...
I have been busy searching for some pillow cases for both beds and let me tell you, it WAS NOT easy....These things are hard to find...I THINK I read on one website that they are being discontinued....So I did manage to find a set of pillow cases at 2 different places....For our bed and Luke's....
So I decided to have some fun and took pics of the coverlet one way or another and reversed it for some pics....With accent pillows and without....I pulled those off the couch in the living room, so I guess I'm going to be making me some for the bed...
Ok..before I start getting all the emails wanting to know where I got them..Here goes....The patterned coverlet is discontinued....Tim bought it last year for our anniversary.....I bought Luke one in October because I saw that they were discontinuing them in 2009....But you might google and find one...
The striped blanket I just got for this anniversary, and I got it from the American Heritage website....I got it in a king size for my queen size bed, since our new mattresses (in a previous post) were too high to allow my previous coverlet to cover everything.....And alot of the coverlets aren't offered in king sizes...
The pillow cases I also found at 2 places.... American Heritage, but are limited and only in certain styles and sizes....They do offer other styles though....And the other set were gotten at Fine Country Living, but they were the last set she had available...I think that is where I read that they were being discontinued..So it was an irritating challenge to find them...
And let me tell you..I LOVE these blankets and coverlets!!!..They wash up so well...And especially with a 3 year old that likes to eat on my bed and watch cartoons...They are wonderful!!..I can't tell you how many times I wash them each week....They're so comfortable, and Luke especially loves to snuggle under them to sleep...In fact, about 10 minutes after I finished taking pics of the bed and came in here to put pics on the computer, I went to check on him, and he had crawled under the blankets and went to sleep...
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I want to sincerely THANK YOU for your heartfelt words in my previous post!!..You will never know how much each comment meant to me...It was sooooo hard and emotional to write and I pondered over and over about even sharing it because alot of people have the feelings that "oh, you should be over that by now..That was 10, or 20, or 29 years ago".... Well, my question is how do you forget?...Do you just stop loving someone when they're gone?....Why would you want to?... Would you want to be forgotten?....
I guess I compare it to the movie Titanic....Rose loved Jack, but he was gone...She went on, loved and married, had children, and lived her life, but she never forgot....
Thank you for allowing me to share him with you!!
Until next time, my friends!!~~hugs, Jen
Good afternoon on this May 18th.....I'm going to share a piece of my heart with you this afternoon....A part I don't share with too many people.....
In my hallway on my peg rail I have a simple sampler I'm asked about often....It has the initials JLT as mine as being the stitcher, and then it has the initials MCS for Michael Christopher Smith....Born 1968...Died 1981....A short life lived....I don't remember who the designer of the sampler is because it has been many years since I stitched it......
I don't know why God brings certain people into our lives, but I know it is for a purpose...And I've asked myself many times "why"??...But I'm forever changed and blessed for having known Mike....
You see, Mike was the popular boy...Good looks, excellent at sports, and all the girls liked him....But for some reason I caught his eye back in 1981....I was 14... He was 12....I was the envy of all the girls....And Mike became MY boyfriend...LOL
Then, on May 18th....We had really bad storms all day..You know the kind that it is just like night time outside all day...My mind takes me back to that day every year as I remember....A phone call after school...Baseball games were still on for that night even though the weather had been bad..."I'm going fishing for a while"...But "I'll see you tonight at your brother's ballgame"....Then he said "I love you" and he was gone....Later at the ballgame I waited and waited, but Mike never showed up....They came....Word spread fast...Mike was gone...There had been an accident and he had fallen in...They speculated that the current from the storms were too hard even though he knew how to swim...MY Mike was gone!!...And my heart broke into a million pieces....
Days of mourning, a funeral, trying to get through final exams....It had only been a week before summer vacation....My life ceased to exist as I it had ever been....I was forever changed...My friends and Mike's friends rallied around me as shield of protection to help me cope....
So I wrote.....I have a thick 3 inch notebook that is full of memories....A diary of the first time I saw him...How he looked at me...How he smiled at me through his bangs hanging in his eyes....How he'd sing to me in every phone conversation.....I wrote every expression and conversation I could remember up until a point that I didn't need to write as much anymore over a period of several years later...Friends wrote about their memories of each moment that they were there around us,what they heard, what Mike said about me in conversations with them,
and I compiled it into a book.....I still have that book that I can sit down and read and go back in time....When Taylor was 16, I let her read it...She had been begging for several years to....I wanted her to know her mother's heart as a girl....And she laughed and cried throughout it...
So these pictures, my locket, and this book is all that is left from that time in my life.....And I remember him every year on this day....I promised I always would...And even though my adult heart belongs to Tim and our family there are tears in my heart that can never be repaired...Tears that take me back to that time....
And to this day whenever I go home to Middle Tennessee....Home to Smyrna...I ALWAYS go to visit him....I take red roses and I remember him....And Tim goes with me....He always has! Even when we were dating and I'd go home to visit...I always went to the cemetary....He has always been respectful of my feelings and I'm forever greatful for that.....
My heart knows that my God takes away, but he always gives back.....Twenty five years later, my due date for my son was the day before Mike's birthday....No one can convince me that that was a coincidence....And even though Luke was induced and born on the 13th instead....I know it was sign from God telling me...."Here's my gift back to you"....
And becoming a mother helped me to know the depth of the pain his mom felt and I'm sure feels to this day......I think of her often..I wish I had kept in touch, but as I got older and went on with my life I didn't call as much as I did for several years after....I saw her my last day before taking a trip to Georgia my senior year..She was getting remarried..And then I learned several years later that she had moved to Florida....I will always regret I didn't find out her new married name and keep in touch...She was always so sweet to me and would check in on me after Mike's death....
So on this day I want to share my sampler that so many have asked about and my pictures....His school year picture....The picture of him I have in a locket on my charm necklace....His baseball picture taken just weeks before....And his All-Star basketball pictures taken from the newspaper....
So as I gently tuck my book of memories and pictures back into my grandmother's old trunk I want to end by saying......
"Thank you LORD for bringing him into my life.... Keep him close to your side til I see him again someday....Kiss his cheek and tell him for me that he's not forgotten... "I still remember!!!"
Until next time~~hugs, Jen
Wow!...Two posts in like thirty minutes!...But I wanted to share what I've been up to this past week since my Mother's Day post.....Boxes....Boxes....And more boxes!!!!....Along with baskets, picture frames, and working on orders!!..Whew!...I'm tired!...Stacks of black, drabby brown, blue, a couple blue and drabby brown mixed, some patriotic ones, and some still waiting to be stained and painted...So between Memorial Day weekend and the Fourth of July I'm planning on offering some patriotic items if all goes as planned after I get my current orders finished up....I still have a few to go yet!...So I will be working on those this week along with finishing up boxes hopefully!!....So share with me what plans you have for this week!
Until next time!!~~hugs, Jen
YOU'RE THE BOMB!!!...Did I just say that??...LOL....Judy is my candle lady friend!!...Actually she started out as my x-stitch friend not long after I started my blog and she emailed me one day...Some people you just click with...And even though we've never spoken to each other other than through emails and she lives in Maryland while I live in Georgia...I consider her "my friend"....And she has other talents other than x-stitching...I can buy the ugliest candles when I see them on discounted prices and she makes them beautiful and primitive for me!!!...I wish you could smell my home right now!...I wasn't expecting the package today as I told her several weeks ago when I mailed them to take her time...I was in no rush!...And she snuck and didn't tell me she had finished or mailed them...So what a wonderful surprise to open the wonderfully scented package and then unwrap each bundle of wrapped candles....
Sooooo...The ugly candles are pretty now!!!...I hung them on pegs in my hallway and I haven't taken the price tags off yet, but I had to take a few pics to share with you!!...Doesn't she do a wonderful job???...Just picture them pink and white and other random colors to this!!...THANK YOU MY SWEET FRIEND!!!!
Until next time!!!~~hugs, Jen
Almost 20 years ago God allowed me to be a first time mother...In 2002, my life crumbled around me as I knew it with a 6 months to a year to live prognosis after finding cancer....God gave me a peace He can only give while allowing me to go into remission and then allowing me (4 years later) to become a mother again 16 years after the first time...So every Mother's Day and every birthday is just a "gift for Jenny" personally from God....There is no greater joy than being a mother and having them 16 years apart makes life pretty interesting most of the time!!LOL...With one wanting to spread her wings and the other doesn't want me out of his sight......And even getting a good picture in the backyard is a challenge....But we did manage to get a few and then head to the park for a picnic.....
But before the park, Taylor took a picture of my new haircut....ALOT shorter than expected, but good for the summer and my hair grows fast!!!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful blessed Mother's Day!!!!~~big hugs, Jen
This is the cabinet like the other one I showed in my previous post....It is in my Hallway bathroom....It is painted and stained the same way....The ceramic cat in the cabinet belonged to my Granny Jakes...I have had it since 1980 when she passed away and I was 13 years old...It matches my pottery collection perfectly...I don't know if she made it or not...On the bottom is "Ensey" which was her maiden name...I wish i knew the history of it....And the little iron pitcher was hers also..The small mustard colored pottery was purchased a couple years ago at the local college...They have sales at the end of each semester selling pottery that the students have made...
Until next time!!~~hugs,Jen
Good Thursday morning my friends!!!....I thought I'd share with you a new sampler I started...At this point it is 20 1/2 " by 16 1/2 ".....I have changed my mind about 10 times already so who knows what the theme will be...It will be an ongoing project inbetween orders and offerings on my Simple Goodes blog....The only thing that has been consistent in my mind is the colors...I haven't wavered from that...So who knows!!!
And then I have another furniture piece in my home to share with you today...This cabinet is on the left going into my kitchen....Once again I just painted, sanded, and stained it...Simple!!...I have 3 of these, so I will be showing the other two in other posts....This one houses some of my pottery collection...And this one was also purchased from Michael's years back...I haven't seen any since...If my memory serves me right I paid $8 a piece for them...I think they also were on clearance....I almost passed them by because I wasn't crazy about the chicken wire...How crazy is that????
Off to get some things done before I go back to pick up Luke from school...I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday...Enjoy this day God has given you!!!!~~hugs,Jen
