Love Note from a 17 Year Old Girl - 1991

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment. -Jane Austen

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you Jeff. I do. I do. I do. I love you so much. I love you more. I love you. You are so precious. I need you always. I love you forever. Think about you all the time. Can you read this? Could hug you to death. I love you. I love you. I love you. You I do love. Your gorgeous smile greets me every morning. I love you. I love you. I love you. My favorite person. Love the way you smell. Love the way you look. Love the way you wear your hair. Love the little things you do. Love who you are. Don't change. I love you. I love you. I love every square inch of you. You are the one. I don't want anybody else. I don't want to hold anybody else's hand. Only yours, yours, yours, yours. I'm so happy with you. I love to hear you breathing. I love to hear you laugh. I love to see you smile. I love to see you smile {at me}. I'm addicted to your love. Do you have any idea how much I love you? God's universe is not big enough to hold my love for you. I want to see you every day. I want to be with you every day of my life. I want you. I want to see you every day of my life. I want to run through fields with you. {You may laugh now.} I love your flowers. The flowers are you symbolically. {Except they die and you are indestructible.} I treasure my flowers. I treasure you. My flowers are beautiful. You are beautiful. Our flowers are unique. We are unique. I love you so much. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love your voice. I love you. I love you. I only think of you on two occasions - day and night.{not original} Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. Couldn't stand to be without you. How do I love thee. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love your eyes. I love your nose. I love your cold ears. I love your chin. I love your mouth. Yes I do. I know you do but I love to tell you anyway. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. I love your name. Kimberly Bouldin. I love that name, too. I am so fortunate to be loved by you. I need you forever. Us forever. I hope you can read this. If you can't I'll write it in the sky but it's not big enough. I love you. I love you. I'm crazy over you. Not crazy {mentally} because I know that's what you're probably thinking. I think of you all the time. In fact, in case you don't know yet, I'm thinking of you now. Thinking about how you always make me laugh. Thinking about your hair getting in your face when you play basketball. Thinking about my hamster. {I really don't know why.} I love you. I couldn't share you with anybody else. Forgive me for saying this, but I don't want to share you. I can't help it. That's what you do to me. If I weren't in geometry right now, I'd turn cartwheels. Can I tell you something again? I love you so much. I hope reading this doesn't hurt your precious little eyes. "The kiss that's in your stare haunts me day and night." I read that in a poem. I haven't kissed you yet but I stare at you often. My kiss is in my stare. Remember that. When I look at you, I can't help but think how much I love you. I'll never get tired of telling you that. Never. Never. Never. Never. I can't wait until 1994. 3 years. To me, 2 1/2. I love you. I love you. I'm so happy. Jeff, I love you. I hope you'll always be able to put up with me. I'm going to read this out loud to you at our wedding. {Just kidding.} If you are ever missing me, just pull this little note out and read it. I love you and everybody that loves you and everybody that loves everybody that loves you. Well, most of them anyway. I'm glad I'm almost out of school. I can't wait until next year. I can't wait until the next time I see your glowing face again. I love you forever and ever.

__________________________________________

Jeff did carry this in his wallet for about 18 years. The letter became pretty fragile, though. I have a whole box of letters between us... but I'll spare you! At seventeen, I had no clue about real life and all the things that go along with love and marriage and everything it entails...It was all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows back then! We were married two years later. :)

{Happy 18th Wedding Anniversay, dear! I love you, I love you, I love you...}

The Perfect Kind of Day

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old...
— E.E. Cummings

It's wet and dark out today...the perfect kind of day to light some candles, turn on the music, and work on few polymer clay flowers. But if you're a certain little determined bird named Ginger, it's the perfect kind of day to try to get into things you're not suppose to...and then snuggle next to a warm, fuzzy sweater.


Of course, even if you're not a certain little determined bird named Ginger, this is also the perfect kind of day for just about anything!

Little by Little

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. - Marie Curie

Did everyone have a beautiful weekend? I know I did! It was filled with a wedding and a fun pizza night here with friends. And as I'm sure you know, there's nothing quite like company coming to motivate you to spend part of your weekend thoroughly cleaning your house!

Last week's Muffin Bakin' Day went really well thanks to the help of my littlest baker ZoZo, who was home on Snow Day #4.


We were able to make five different kinds: blueberry, apple cinnamon, peanut butter banana, peanut butter banana with chocolate chips, and plain old chocolate chip. {The chocolate chip varieties will be reserved for afternoon snacks though I'm sure my children would happily eat them for breakfast if I let them!}


I will share some muffin recipes a little later on, but for now, do you see in the photo below the mirror that was once above our living room fireplace? Oh, things are in strange places all over the house at any given moment for various reasons- often because, well, I'm a bit scatterbrained and not terribly organized...


...but in this case, we've been working on our living room mantel. It was quite wimpy before so we removed and replaced the mantel. Instead of tearing out the old mantel 'legs' {the vertical parts of the fireplace surround}, we just bulked them up by adding more trim work.




My favorite part is the rope moulding which I think ties in nicely with the rope moulding we added to our kitchen cabinets.


We still have tons of caulking and painting to do, but when it's all finished, I'll be sure to share with you! Can you believe it? Little by little, we're getting there!

A Conversation with Goodwill

Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste. -G.K. Chesterton

Goodwill. Oh how I've missed you. I've been snowbound, you see, but I returned to you as soon as possible to blissfully partake of your thrifty goodness.

You rewarded me well with this beautiful little jewelry box. I've needed one for so long...


Finally a safe place to store my rings and earrings instead of scattering them all willy nilly throughout the house...


Oh, and this silver tray! Now I have a nice place to arrange my long beaded necklaces. It will take me a while to untangle them first, but how good it feels to know that they have a home now!


Best of all, beloved Goodwill, I absolutely *adore* this really old book collection that just about gave me a happy heart attack when I first spied them out of the corner of my eye... Books dating back to the 30's and 40's? Beautiful gold and red covers that fit so perfectly with my cottage style? Thoreau? Emerson? Longfellow? And so on and so on? You've got to be kidding me, Goodwill! You are too kind to me.


{Has Goodwill been kind to you lately?}

Muffin Bakin' Day

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said."
— A.A. Milne

Oh my goodness...I just can't get warm this morning! My instinct is to crawl up under a blanket {my favorite heavy chenille blanket that I affectionately call 'Grandma Blanket'. There is a 'Grandpa Blanket', too} and sit by the fire to read for a good part of the day. But we are on Snow Day #4. That means another schedule free day to do some things I've been wanting to get around to for awhile...

Things like baking... For the the longest time I've wanted to make several batches of muffins to freeze and have ready for the children in the morning. We already have to get up too early {we have to be out the door by 7 am} so you won't find me baking at the crack of dawn - but it's nice to pull out some muffins the night before to thaw or just defrost in the microwave in the morning.

So I'm going to bake today until I run out of ingredients. My goal is to make four different kinds of muffins. We'll see how far I get before deciding that Grandma Blanket and I need to spend some time by the fire!


Have a lovely day, everyone!

Winter Landing Places

I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage. - Jane Austen

When you're always shuffling things around because of a cottage transformation in progress, sometimes, by chance, things seem to land "prettily" on any convenient available surface...





...and some things are quite purposely put in their own special spot for a little extra cottage charm {or for a winter break cupcake party}...




But when you have children that are home on Snow Day #3, there are other things that also land on any convenient available surface...but not quite so prettily.


You too?

"She always knew..."

On my mantel now...my ZoZo added the glittered letters for a little whimsical sparkle

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken. — Anaïs Nin

Hello, dear readers. Wow... I'm really not sure what one says after a three month blogging break. I think I'd like to first thank *all* of you that have left comments and sent emails concerning my prolonged absence. I've read every one of them and have been deeply touched. I have been in many ways without words...which I suppose, explains both my lack of blog entries and my lack of response to your kind notes. I hope that you have overlooked this and not mistaken it for apathy. Thank you so much for your caring concern.

I guess maybe I don't have a definitive explanation as to why I've taken such a long break other than the fact that {and maybe you are this way, too} I live by inspiration and my inspiration hasn't in the last few months led me back to blogging

I would bring back with me more of my own authentic self, honesty, personality, and interests ...

about the house. I don't know... I guess that doesn't make me a professional or serious blogger. We have been working on the house when we can and I've continued to take photos because I knew I'd be back, but I think maybe I just needed to get away from the idea that my blog should be mostly about our cottage transformation. Somewhere along the line, I had forgotten that just because I have a blog about taking a broken down little house and turning it into a cottage, it didn't mean I shouldn't be exploring my other non-related interests more fully. I realized, as Anaïs Nin said, that I had been hibernating in the dark. I needed to break away to do creative and interesting things outside the remodel - to learn how to wake up and fly the way I always knew I could...

I haven't sketched in nearly 20 years...
And I decided that when I returned, I would bring back with me more of my own authentic self, honesty, personality, and interests - things that I hope interest and inspire you as well {along with our cottage transformation progress!}. I appreciate all of you and thank you very much for being such loyal readers. It will always amaze me that you are here. I'm honored that you choose to spend a portion of your time with me...I am truly grateful and blessed.

On an even more personal note, I discovered in October that I have gluten sensitivities. This explains so much! So for the last three months I have restricted my gluten intake severely... I avoid it except for maybe once a week {because if I try a new recipe for the family, I'm gonna have to sample it!} I've also cut nearly all sugar out my diet except for a once a week treat. Both sugar and gluten are major causes of pain flair ups with those who have chronic pain issues, which in my case has been fibromyalgia for the last 13 years. I'm happy to report that since October, I've only had one or two days that I've dealt with just some mild fibro pain. Folks - this is HUGE, especially for the winter months when I'm normally in pain 75% of the time. I no longer need daily naps and I have energy like I haven't had in over a decade. I still have occasional bouts of fatigue when rain moves in, but I'm pretty much symptom free otherwise. My overall outlook has improved as well. Did you know that gluten can cause negative psychological symptoms in those that are sensitive to it? I didn't know this, but when I realized that my outlook had greatly improved after a couple of months of being off gluten, I did some research and discovered this...It has just been amazing, the changes both physically and otherwise. I've also lost 20 pounds {and feel like going to the gym and out dancing!} plus I got a haircut...


I hope all of you have a wonderful and WARM day today. Here in Tennessee we are covered with a nice blanket of snow. It's beautiful - just like you.

{I'm off to work some more on my miniature/dollhouse patisserie hardwood flooring. Getting ready to stain!}