Pretty Dresses

✔️Such pretty dresses.  Pretty then in 1932.  Pretty today.  As I work at recreating my self (an ongoing feat), I wish I had a handful of these dresses that would fit like a glove.  FEMININE without showing too much skin.  Cleavage not showing.

AND the prices!  Lower than now days THRIFT finds.  

  Inflation roars through the years.

✔️Admiring the lovely attire.  Okay, this will be placed on my 
TO DO LIST.  Sew a 1932 dress which will hang in the closet until needed.  Tadaah.  Ever so simple.  You wanna bet?  Not for me.  It will be difficult to say the least.  I shall try to be successful.

Today is Tuesday... 
✔️...and the trash was hauled away.  A full can out by the alley.  
✔️I cleaned a purple glassed kerosene lamp and placed it on the fireplace mantel alongside another lamp. My effort to step back in time.  
✔️Hubby made a trip to the MORTGAGE company and paid down our loan to where our retirement living expenses will be better suited for each month's living expenses.  😀Makes me smile a huge debt of gratitude.  Our plan to completely pay off the mortgage is taking more time.  
✔️We had a McDonald's SouthWest Salad with Paul Newman Salad Dressing for lunch with a jumbo iced tea.  (I suppose the Salad has GMO corn and melty for the cheese?  Not healthy?  Humpf.)  Can celebrate the greens. 😉  I think.  Hope so.
    

Read all about it here:
https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/premium-southwest-salad-with-grilled-chicken.html

✔️I will continue cleaning on MANIFESTING my SPARKLING CLEAN Bathroom as the week putts along.  A little each day is all I have energy for.  SO it will be clean by the end of the week.  I am about to put on my housekeeper keeping house clothing.  

My own HOUSE!  Awesome.  My own territory to take care of.  MINE.  No one elses, but mine and HUBby's.

SCRIPTURE READ:
Proverbs 3:7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.

Blessings,
d 

Mortgaged To The Hilt And Then What

YESTERDAY was a milestone for us as a couple.  We paid off our retirement cottage.  Still can't believe this happened.  TIS SOAKING IN....we paid off our cottage.  Praise God.  We paid off this mortgage.  

No house payment...RETIREMENT COTTAGE is small, but we have such plans to doll her up.  She's ours lock, stock and barrel!  It is a sweet thought that puts a smile on my face.  WARMS MY HEART WITH CONTENTMENT.

With moving so many times, we had mortgages and rent payments over 42 years of marriage.  We always had a roof over our heads.  Some roofs were bigger than others.  Some cost more to have over our heads.

This cottage roof is small, but still a roof.  Over the years I have no idea what the tally is that we paid on house payments or rent.  If I figured it up I think I would be sick.  When you have a mortgage you still are renting from the financial institution in a way.

Back in the day when I was young and we were just starting out I thought the day would never come that we would have a house of our own.  My thoughts were in the way that thinking having a mortgage we owed the house.  We didn't own.  We were mortgaged.  Even businesses refer to you own your home when mortgaged.  It's not truthful.  You own a mortgage.  You're a servant to the lender.  A HOME is different.  HOME is what I embrace everywhere I have lived.

A HOME is what you have all the time even if you have a mortgage, rent, or live with others without paying anything.  A HOME is where you hang your hat.  HOME is where you live and live life.  We have owned our HOME the entire time we were married and entered into a HOLY UNION back in 1974.  

We had a mortgage most of the time and paid payments with interest to the financial institution.  They made plenty as we struggled to make payments.  We made the payments and yesterday was one for the BOOKS.  We paid off our mortgage.

This is a dream of mine that has come to fruition.  I hope we can stay in this state for a very long time.  Shall see how it goes.  

We celebrated by talking about this over a steak dinner during the LUNCH HOUR as Husband went back to work and I SHOPPED.  It was Senior Discount Day at GOODWILL with 50% off on PINK tagged items.  I found a couple of items with pink tags and took advantage of being over the hill in age because I am a SENIOR.  grins.

One suede blouse which I liked was selected to go HOME with me.  Priced just right.  Also picked up two cute purses for little of nothing.  One of these purses I'm going to check the internet because I am not familiar with this brand.  She looks like she once was an expensive bag that found her way as a cast off.  The adventure begins.  It's a entertaining game.  She's a very cute white handbag with red moire interior and gold chains.

I found a SANTA TEA POT that smiled at me and thought....okay this one is really nice and it's not even Christmas.  I am a SANTA FAN.  He's my hero.  Have you  ever thought about running a CHRISTMAS SHOPPE all year round?  I've been to a couple and think I could do this.  Not sure I'm suppose to, but I have sure thought about it.

My son worked at a shop for a time that was a CHRISTMAS WONDERLAND to the shopper all year round.  It was a place to disappear to for hours dreaming up how to decorate.  He was one lucky kid when he got called to set up a huge Christmas tree in a HOME.  He has the magical touch making branches flare out just so-so.  He did a beautiful job and the couple blessed him with a sizable tip.  He was a college student at the time so this cash gift was welcomed.

He flared out my CHRISTMAS TREE one year and I was amazed at how well our artificial tree stood.  She was a beauty.

My afternoon was pleasant as I went to several shops to price what certain frames cost.  My oversized graduation portraits of my children were smoked and stained so badly in our house fire that when they are returned the frames may be cleaned, but the portraits damaged beyond reason.  My dear Mom gave me her smaller pictures of the kids.  I went looking for fancier frames to use as I'll hang these portraits with pride once again, but they will be in our smaller HOME.  I'll be just as pleased to have these back up on the wall in our bedroom.

Frames for portraits and a frame for my Dad's Kansas flag also frames to display the quilt my Grandma made me that is completely falling apart.  I'll cut the quilt down and display it in the utility room.  I have a place picked out and I will LOVE seeing the quilt framed to display.

I'll wait to purchase these frames until I have coupons or the items are 50% off.  Same with skirt hangers I need to put 5 broom skirts on one hanger.  I have to find ways to make what space we do have go further.  Every little bit helps.  grins.

It was a misty raining day as it rained most of the day.  In the evening it continued to rain.  Through out the night it rained.  We have received moisture to water the flowers and everything else.  Skies remain grey and cloudy.  This is our SPRING.

I'm getting ideas about where flowers should go after they bloom and can be moved.  Our yard is noticeably smaller.  This will take some thinking and muscle to landscape with purpose.  Out front we have some tulips that have not bloomed yet and some irises.  If we plant some shrubs in front of the house then the flowers will have to be moved again making the flower beds larger which makes them located further into the front yard.  There will have to be weed pulling and maintenance along the way.

Flowers along the sides of the house is one way to stretch the collection we have.  Then there is thought about putting up a backyard fence which means flowers could be planted along the sides of this fence.  Not all at once, but the flowers will be planted and we will have a nice, small backyard to enjoy.

TODAY is my darling Daughter's Birthday.  She turns 37.  WHAT A BUSY YEAR SHE HAS HAD.  She got engaged, married and became a step mom all in one swoop.  

Remembering well when she was born on a sunny, Saturday morning and I became the momma of three children.  I was one busy momma with these blessings.  Wished I had played more on the floor with them than I did.  We played, but I still wish I had done more of this as the time passes so quickly and they grow up right before my eyes.  Bedtime prayers and conversations.

WISDOM tells me to there are times to just be in slow-mo as the time vanishes before your eyes.  Learning can be entertaining and fun.  HUGS and more hugs.  Not so much on the go, but right at HOME fun and nothing to do but be.  Slowed way down to a crawl and enjoy the sound of laughter and little voices asking why.  Sitting on the sofa reading children's books and drawing circles to color in.  Playing music and doing a few chores to make HOME life a HOME.  Meals at the table and desserts outside.  Long family walks and family talks.  I miss it all even the dirty laundry.  It is truly a special time in LIFE to embrace and call on God to show the way.  

TODAY I will simply sit and think about my children.  I'll be praying birthday blessings on my daughter.  TODAY is a good day to sit and think about good memories and happy times.  Sit and think.  Sip some coffee and probably cry happy tears and I have been blessed to marry, make a home for my husband and children, birth children and have a part in raising them.  I have been blessed to be a woman that has been a wife and mom.  Homemaker and keeper of the HOME.  BLESSED.

NOT A CARE IN THE WORLD.  God is able to deal with all the details.  I cannot, but HE can.

As we continue to go through this fire recovery, it is a emotional work-out.  I am having to think about living in a different way.  My children are grown with families of their own.  I have this opportunity to change the interior of a house that we are calling RETIREMENT COTTAGE.  We are taking steps to prepare for my Husband to retire from employment.

Taking steps to lighten the load of belongings and streamline a simpler way to live and clean and take care of our old bodies that continue to age.  Vitamins and prayer.

Living below ones means isn't a nightmare.  It's a way to live while saving more money if possible and focus on a simpler lifestyle.

Time for a second cup of coffee,
d