Primarily Pink

Easter week has come and gone and what a week it was for us, busy, busy, busy. Unlike most years, we attended most all of the services. Oh wait, maybe all of them.  In a first for us, we participated in what was called a "cross walk" where those participating carried the cross for some distance from the Catholic church where we gathered, to the Methodist church. Along the way there were breaks for scripture readings. To be honest with you, when we began we felt a little self conscious but quickly that silliness faded as we joined with others of similar faith. Mr. Peck, as we are approaching the church.

Behind the Catholic church I spotted a Camelia, one of only a few on the plant. Big deal, right? Perhaps they are prevalent here but this was my first sighting of a flower I am accustomed to be admiring in the winter. Of course it was pink, everything is coming up pink these days!

I mean check out the incredible number of blossoms on this tree!

And this one.

One day we drove to see some furniture friends are selling. Super cool house, super cool folks and some of the furniture will work, or so we think, not to mention it is reasonable. Wow, we are discovering that furniture is darn expensive!

Oh look....it's pink!

Perhaps you are thinking to yourself, "what is the big deal?" to which I would reply that after months of bare sticks, it is downright startling. Plus there are variations on that theme with different shades of pink. Now this makes no sense to me, but folks are telling me it is a red bud tree. I see pink!

The view from the porch is glorious. I cannot get enough of this look.

Note the green small tree in front with blossoms just beginning to open. Wonder what it will look like in a week? Because we have been busy, I had not imported all of the photos I'd taken, so it surprised me how much this scene has changed since taking this photograph.

Those white trees, whatever they are, are now mostly green. That's the thing, I've got to get these photos when I can because everything changes in the blink of an eye. These are the leaves from the tree in front that were once red and now are burgundy.

We are so grateful to be surrounded by beauty at every turn here at the cottage. Again, this tree is nearly green now, but what gorgeous color the blossoms were.

The Goldfinch are turning gold or more neon yellow in my book. That has been amazing to witness as it happened.

One day we stopped by city hall for Bruce to talk to the city manager and thank the city for granting the money for the fence and gates on the pickleball court. That's easy to do in a small, small town. 

Leaving we saw that it was the ribbon cutting for the shop that has my prints for sale so we stopped to chat. While there we ran into a young woman we met on the courts whose job it is to promote Cherokee county; her official title escapes me. She asked if I might share some photos of the county with her for her to use however she saw fit. You know me, way too prolific in both words and photographs some might say. Scanning through nearly a years worth of photos I am actually pretty proud of myself for only choosing this many.

So that took me far too long when I could have been blogging. Additionally choosing photos to enter in the Senior Games contest, which has come up far sooner than I was paying attention to, took another big chunk of time. Honestly I should have just skipped it this year as my mind is swirling with house details. Adding to that, I entered myself into the literary category, more specifically writing about a life experience, which also took a big chunk of time. Seriously folks what was I thinking? I did sit down and write about writing a blog for 17 years which will appeal to probably no one. Again, what was I thinking? John has a printer below us and after typing seven double-spaced pages, the printing went haywire so I was doing something wrong. Again another time waster. Back to the prints, I sent the files to Roger,  or really I should say RTArt because it is all employees these days, but old habits die hard. Anyway, they should arrive today, or so FedEx claims and then I need to find some frames and deliver them on Thursday morning. Apparently the judging is done that afternoon and a reception follows on Friday. I would say wish me luck, but honestly the photographs I chose will probably be the wrong ones. One of the criteria was to be creative, so with that in mind I chose, for example, the old tool photo I took at the flea market. I wonder if I shared that? Anyway I will breathe a sigh of relief when it is over. 

 Shopping, oh my goodness, we have been shopping. For furniture of course, but goodness me, we are going to need a lot to begin a new household. I told Bruce it feels like we are newlyweds again although we won't be having any showers to help fill our new nest. That's not really true though because both Bill and David declined birthday gifts, which btw, they turned 45 (!!!) on Monday, choosing instead to add it to the fund to outfit their Dad's new shop.  One of things I wrote in my submitted piece was about how great it is to be a blogger with memories at your fingertips. Well I didn't actually say it like that but it was of that ilk. Anyway, Bruce once had a shop he'd been outfitting since the time he agreed to "me wanting a baby if he could buy a table saw days".  Yes indeed, that happened and the result is Matthew. Anyway, when we went to Canada, I wrote about our garage sale here. That was painful for us but the reward was great but now it is once again, "all about the future". That will become clear if you go back and read the old post.

Speaking of shopping our new friend Latasha had a pop-up shop set up in the back room of the wine shop and of course we could not let her down.

That is kind of how we feel, you have to support the small businesses when you can. I bought a dress for Easter, but as it turned out, it was far too cold to wear it because we attended sunrise service. Wonderful hearing the birds singing along with the humans. The view was nice as well.

The flower cross was lovely with many folks choosing to add daffodils from their gardens. 

There is an insert in last week's Cherokee Scout, more like a little magazine, about the history of all of the little communities around Murphy which has been so informative. As a newcomer, I am learning just how rural this area of the country was for a long time. As an example one of the communities did not have electric power until the late 1960's. For a woman raised in a small city, now a big city, I am gaining a new respect for how the towns have come to be. Some locals, of course, are not keen on some of the progress, but the same could be said for lots of places, including our hometown! Neither Bruce nor I am overly pleased at the place Orlando has become.

I'm hoping to use these stained glass windows for color inspiration in the living room on Campbell Street.

We looked at this couch and stool along with a chair to match over in Blue Ridge, but ultimately we went a little bigger buying a green sofa yesterday.

The bluebirds are busy too! This has been so fun to watch. Hopefully the little ones will arrive before we leave our beautiful cottage.

One day I decided to walk to the house from the river walk, clocking the walk back to the courts which turned out to be 10 minutes. As I was approaching the house on Campbell Street, look what I found.

Another day, driving by we were thrilled to see the front yard tree, completely bare only 10 days prior, with leaves to delight the senses. Now we are super excited to be having a Japanese Maple tree out front.

Isn't it glorious? The view from inside I took that first day.

This blog post has rambled a bit and gone way off of my title theme, but that is okay. Another thing that has happened this past week is I've had a cold, not been sleeping as well as I would like, and have a cold sore to boot. Nevertheless, I am carrying on, as we do, and hoping it will pass before too much longer. Tying up that loose end, let's look at these few primarily pink photos to close things out. Isn't it gorgeous?

Honestly I have taken so many photos ...

Butterflies galore.

Can you stand one more? (credit goes to John and Laura for providing me with more photographic opportunities than is good for my overloaded photo library)

What is most surprising to me is how gorgeous it has been, and how the trees are so colorful, somewhat like a reverse Autumn. Eventually, that is in the next few weeks, we will have to return to Orlando for some of our things, like clothes for example ,which is going to please me to no end. But for now I am still reveling in things being primarily pink.

your friend,

Gail