Roses from the Garden

Look what hubs brought in from our rose garden a few days ago. I put them in the little metal pitcher I got at Ikea a few weeks ago.

Today they started dropping their petals, but their smell is still wonderful.


Random Thought:

I got out of Costco today for under a hundred dollars! I went in for blueberries and olives. I came out with $98.39 worth of stuff in my cart. Hubs was with me; need I say more?! Hmmmmm?
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For C******

I wish to tell you a story today. Bear with me; my feelings are very tender. Life is somewhat like a flower with its petal falling off—first the beautiful bloom and then the petals drop off until there is no more life in it.

I've had an eBay group for about 4 years now and we've all become extremely close bearing each others trials and tribulation, successes and yes, failures. One of the women in the group has a grandson, C, who has been very special to us for about a year now. He has suffered with a brain tumor since last summer. I can't even begin to tell you how many operations he has had. He lives in Montana and had to shuttle back and forth between his home and Salt Lake City for so many surgeries we can't even begin to count. We've prayed for this little boy who just turned 6 recently for a year almost constantly. He's been through so many chemotherapy treatments we've lost count on that also. He is loved much by all of us in the group.

Here is the latest from his mom to all of us. Wishing to preserve their privacy and feelings I'm only going to post the last post from his mom:

I'm not sure how to start this, and if i sit here trying to figure out the way to word things, it could take all day.......bear with me. Last Tuesday afternoon, C****** had an MRI of the brain and spine. It was a scheduled one that he missed last week, due to being in ICU at St. James. We had rescheduled for July 1st but i asked them to do it while we were in patient so it would save us a trip back to SLC. A day of waiting for results, and night of having my mind play tricks on me as i tried to sleep, a morning spent with his oncologist and a social worker in a small conference room, telling me the MRI didn't look good. She said it was tumor recurrence, basically that the medullablastoma that they took out almost a year ago is back. And its not just a confined tumor on the back of his brain stem, its surrounding his brain, and has made its way inside, and into his spine. Of course the obvious question is asked by me, "Are you sure?" Kind of a dumb question to a team of specialists who do this year after year and see it all the time, but you have to know. "Yes" is the answer. Then you move onto, "Is there any treatment?" Yes there is treatment, but its a high dose of chemo that could possible end his life. In my spirit, from the moment she told me, i knew what decision, as parents we would make. I knew we couldn't put C****** through another round of hell. His body has taken enough, and it would be selfish for us to think any differently. If he could talk and tell me what he wanted, he would say, "Mom, i hate this, i want to be out of this bed, and free of this, all of it." He has literally spent 2 1/2 months on his back, in a hospital bed. Whether it be in Montana or SLC, he has become a fixture in a hospital room. Not exactly the life of a 6year old boy.
So i cry of course, they tell me the statistics, then they leave me to think. I call B**** at work, i am very matter-of-factly about it, i just tell him how it is. We cry together and even though we had never really sat down and talked about what we'd do if it ever happens, he had the same thoughts as me. It is wrong to torture him again, to subject his tiny body to chemicals that will eventually take him anyways.
My sister showed up that afternoon, she drove from Montana to stay with me, to keep me company. She knew when she walked in there was something wrong. She was a saving grace on Tues. Wed. and Thurs. I was able to cry with her, and laugh with her. She helped take my mind off the situation, if only for moments at a time. B**** and I knew we wanted to get C****** home as soon as we could. So began the fight with our insurance company to approve a quick ride home for him because of the situation. Thanks go out to all the social workers at St. James and Primary's for all the phone calls and pushing this to happen for our family. At the last minute it was the director of oncology that said, "Send them on a life flight, we will cover it, he needs to be home." God bless that woman!
So we left Primary's Thursday at about 5:30, C****** and I on a flight, and my sister headed home in her car. The flight was short. Montana was cold. They put him on the 5th floor here, in a nice quiet room, C****** is here to rest and stay comfortable. B**** met us here with the rest of the kids. We had to be honest with them and tell it like it is. We all cried together and hugged. I was thankful we had decided to wait until i was here to tell them. G**** of course, is too young to fully comprehend everything. He just ran around the room passing out tissue to everyone. He said, "Mom, i feel some tears coming, but they just won't come out of my face."
Our family has watched C****** struggle with a lot of different things over the past year. This is not new to all of us, not sudden. Even though in a million years, i wouldn't have guessed that MRI would have looked the way it did. I saw it twice, and still second guessed their findings. You are in such shock, and denial, it just doesn't register with you. All the prayers ALL of us prayed over C****** over this past year, were not in vain. They were valuable, they were heard by the Lord, and will continue to be heard. I encourage everyone out there to please continue to lift C****** and our family up, especially at this time. It is a "win, win" situation with him. He is here now and we can believe for a miracle, or he may go on to be in the arms of our Lord, either way is a blessing for C******.
You all know, by this time, i am a positive person, i like to live my life that way, but there is reality too. Through this i won't fall away from the Lord, i will continue to draw close. I will continue to thank him and praise him, because that's what we are told to do, through good times and bad.
I have my moments, but i am trying to be as strong as i have ever been through this whole thing. C****** is comfortable, he isn't having any pain. He is peaceful, and sleeping as i type. I hate this whole thing, but i still love the Lord. As the year has passed, our priorities have changed, our expectations have changed, and again they are changing. I will continue to update, and please continue to pray.

And then this tonight from his grammy:
THIS MORNING WAS HARD AGAIN, SEE ITS NOT A TUMOR PER SAY ON HIS BRAIN--THE CANCER HAS WRAPPED IT SELF ALL AROUND THE BRAIN, SO THERE COULD BE NO SURGERY TO REMOVE ANY ONE THING. HE HARDLY HAD ANY OF THE GOOD CELLS NEEDED TO FIGHT AFTER ALL HE HAS BEEN THROUGH..

WE JUST GOT HOME, I SPENT THE NIGHT LAST NIGHT--HE IS IN A LARGE ROOM TO ACCOMMODATE ALL THE FAMILY..THEY HAVE BEEN SO GOOD TO G*** AND ALL OF US...
TODAY HE WAS VERY RIGID, VERY SHAKY AND HIS HEART RATE WAS OVER THE TOP--TOO MUCH OF THAT FOR ME..
LAST NIGHT HE WAS AWAKE AND I SAT AND HELD HIS HAND AND TALKED ABOUT ALL THE THINGS WE SHARED IN THE SHORT 6 YEARS OF HIS PRECIOUS LIFE....HE USE TO SAY, "GRAMMY, I CANT WAIT TO GET TO HEAVEN SO I WONT HAVE DIABETES ANY MORE".........AND AMEN HE WON'T...
SO, THEY HAVE PUT HIM ON MORPHINE NOW, AND HE IS RELAXED (ALONG WITH MANY OTHER DRUGS) HIS HEART RATE HAS SLOWED DOWN, AND SHE SAID HE PROBABLY WON'T OPEN HIS EYES NOW, WILL SLIP INTO A COMA AND BASICALLY JUST GO ON....AND ONTO OUR SWEET SAVIOR WHERE HE WILL BE WHOLE AND HEALTHY AND HAPPY AND WITH MANY FAMILY MEMBERS WHO WAIT FOR HIM...I AM JEALOUS THEY GET TO KISS HIS SWEET CHEEKS AND NOT ME--BUT WILLING TO SHARE TIL WE COME TOO.

PRAYER IS ALWAYS WELCOME CONNIE, AND YOU HAVE TO PERMISSION TO BLOG, YOURS IS A WONDERFUL PLACE TO BE SPOKEN OF...
OH I LOVE YOU TO, AND TRUST ME WHEN I SAY--YOU GIRLS AND YOUR PRAYERS AND YOUR LOVE HAVE HELPED SO MUCH FOR ME THROUGH ALL OF THIS.

So C****** won't be getting better. I ask all of you who are reading this to contact everyone you know who believes in prayer and to pray for this sweet child. He won't be with us much longer but his family certainly needs prayer. This is the hardest post I've ever had to write. We all loved C very much. We will miss his sweet antics.

This is him just a couple of weeks ago.

So just like the beautiful petals that fall from the flower, this sweet child may have passed on before this is posted. It has been a terribly hard day for all of us in group because we've been there from the beginning of this with him. We all loved him and his family very much and have witnessed their trial and prayed almost every single day for him. We will miss you, C, and you will be in our hearts for a very long time.

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Where Bloggers Create 6/19/2010...at Least This Blogger

Karen at My Desert Cottage is having her 2nd Annual Blog Party. Go visit with her please because you won't want to miss all the eye candy of where bloggers create.

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Come with me, won't you, to view my magical place—to me it's magical—where I create my blog. No, it's not like those places you see in the magazines, and those are ones I've lusted over time and time again, knowing that I'll never have a huge office or studio in which to create. But I can have sparkle, glitter, bling, beauty, roses, serenity and romance. ;-) Yep, I sure can. And that's just fine for this ol' lady.

I've noticed that many people have a tendency to save up 95% of their money and effort to spend on 5% of their lives—festive occcasions such as birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, and the special, more public places in the home, such as the living or dining room. Instead the way to live a beautiful life is to make the daily 95% of your life wonderful. I absolutely do NOT decorate just the public places of this little home. Where you create can be magical or special to you! For me it's all about having the things I love staring me in the face every single second, minute, hour and day. I HAVE to and LIKE to be visually stimulated. I am so grateful for having been given over a month of notice to get this blog post up. It has taken me every single day of thinking about what I want to do to get my space to the point I'm happy with it. Then there's the actual sprucing up of the room along with a few changes.

So now, I actually made a "Page" with the new feature Blogger gives us. If you want to go there to view not just this office but the actual studio I use when I'm creating you can do that by simply clicking the URL here and going there—Connie's Romantic Office and Studio. More is featured there than on this page.
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If you have read my blog for any amount of time, you know I pretty much redo something a couple of times a year since we moved into this house 5 years ago. Don't ask why; I don't know. In the beginning I just couldn't seem to get some of the rooms the way I wanted them. I think this is a trend among all creative people. But as the famous architect said, "Form follows function" and that is certainly my motto and creed also.

My office is where I spend most of my time. I do my blogs from here, take care of our household business, skype with my kids and shop from the internet. For me it has to be feminine and lovely with pink and roses and a scattering of beautiful things. That is essential to me.

I'm blessed to have a window seat in my office. I made a cushion for it and covered it in pink and white toile. But let's look at it as it was last year first and then venture forth to what it is now. I've made the pictures a bit larger than last year so you'll notice a difference in them. Indulge me for a brief time.

I found this old school desk on Craigslist and snapped it up so fast hubby thought I was nuts.

I then painted it white and put some beautiful rose fabric on the drawers. The hanging paper lanterns are covered in roses. These I snagged from my daughter. I. Love. Them. I've never seen any like them anywhere. They are now in a different place as you'll see later in the pictures below. I made the cord covers because I couldn't find any I liked or long enough. The desk also is now in my studio down the hall. It was getting too crowded in this room.

My cottage style white desk was perpendicular to the window so I could look out. Early last year I thought it would give me more room if I put it up against the wall.

Eventually I changed it back because I hated looking at the wall and not the window to the front yard. I bought 3 chair covers for my chair. I gave one to my daughter and one to a fellow blogger who sounded like she needed something to cheer her up. She's a stay-at-home mom and it was a bad day. She was shocked when it arrived in the mail. I didn't tell her it was coming. It perked that chick right up. ;-)

I love computers! I have always had Macs and truly, I couldn't function without my iMac or my MacBook laptop for when we travel to visit our kids and grandkids and now our new great-grandkid.

So now let's look at what it looks like now.

This is what you see when you enter the room—my window seat that is on the front of our home. It is filled with pillows I've made and a seat cushion I have actually just pinned on with straight pins in case I decide to change it at some future date. I've been known to change my mind a few times. ;-) Pretty boxes on the floor hold family photos and various other things for which I have no other place to store them. I hung that glittery garland with push pins and then hung some little painted teapots a friend gave me one year for a present. I cherish them! I love her roses.
The hanging paper lanterns covered with delicate roses were something my daughter had laying around and I snagged them really quickly. I love them and haven't ever seen any like it anywhere else. My radio sits on a chair most of the time. I don't usually listen to it while I'm in here but I like it in case I want to catch some news.

That fern is strategically placed to hide all my wires. There is nothing I can do with them; they must be there and I worked around them in the decorating of this office.

The wall behind me holds many things. I have a bulletin board I tack messages on. It holds my microphone for the telephone because I generally like to talk hands-free. The tape measure is there for when I have to measure something quickly before I list it for sale, although, I don't do much of that.

I don't care that I'm an old lady; I love froufrou and have put a pom-pom behind me and wrapped ribbon around it. Another brighter pink is on the opposite wall. It's all about eye candy for me! The little shutters I bought a few years ago and they have been in 3 rooms now, but I have a feeling they'll stay in this room. I decaled them and added some paper roses. I have several yards of this vintage bedspread fringe and thought I'd put it here and hang things that have been give to me or that I've made.

My phone has to be on my filing cabinet along with a darling little faux fern and tissues. All the essentials for women in the office. :-)

This area is where I do a lot of photoshoots for the blog or selling.

This is a corner of the room where I moved this etagère a couple of months ago from the living room into here. I was just tired of seeing it in there and put another one of the 4 bookcases I have in there with a lot less books. I gave dozens away to a thrift store. My boxes of tapes, ephemera, stationery, letters and CDs are stored on this.

This is the chair I use most of the day. I love the little chair cover I found on the web for a song, let me tell you—a fraction, and I mean fraction, of the cost of most other office chair covers you find on ebay or websites. This woman is absolutely fantastic in her combination of fabrics. I bought 3 of them, gave one to my daughter and sent one to a blogger who is a stay-at-home mom and having a difficult time. She was shocked when it arrived in the mail and I think it perked her right up!


Closeup of one of my pompoms.
Closeup of my shutters with the curling ribbon gracing its front.
This is sooooo true, chicks! Oooh, and you can see I attached the fringe with little rose pins I made. Darling!

Just a sweet lolli I made. It's for sale on my etsy but not sold so I stuck it in here. It really is precious.

My iMac. I did not clean my desk for this photoshoot because, quite simply, this is the way it always looks. Sometimes worse, but rarely better. This is a working office. The space ship looking thing on the left is my JBL Creature speakers. They can blast you out of the house! They're fantastic. All my essentials are on this desk or behind me on our filing cabinet. The little metal thing just to the left of my iMac is my external hard drive. I'm never going to lose anything if I can help it at all.

Love Bunny and I set up this little television with a webcam on the front porch so I can see whoever walks up to the front door. If I don't know them, I don't answer the door. I have no time for solicitors. This protects me from unwanted persons. And as you can see I still have a couple of shelves to hang somewhere in this house.

My view from my desk. Hand cream, cup for pens and a list of Apple commands when I need them, which is rare since I have them memorized by now. Extra pair of computer glasses, notes and my camera cord is always attached waiting for the next photos to be downloaded. My camera would normally be sitting on the left of my iMac but I was using it here!

I've found that this room needs greenery near the top especially so I've just stuck some faux greenery—since we all know I have NO green thumb—into pots and baskets. I've also placed things that have been given to me by my eBay group, friends and fellow bloggers. I am very appreciative of whatever is given me!

My printer/scanner, modem and wireless router, essentials for the modern day technology office.

I have 2 of these trellises behind 2 doors in this house just waiting for me to decide what next to do with them. Ooops, forgot to take the ladder and extra chair out before I took the photos. Sorry!

This little shelf hold things give to me, things I've made and in general eye candy to make me happy.
This shelf hold some books and just a jar I made over and stuck in a couple more lollis that I made.

This bottom shelf holds a few pillows I made that I can give as gifts or switch out with other pillows in the house.

The fern helps disguise and hide the cables needed for the computer and speakers. The little boxes hold family photos and various other things I don't have any place else to put them. The chair, when not holding the radio, is a place for any visitor to sit, like Love Bunny. ;-) The little Old Country Roses teacup is one of about 10 my daughter gave me as she doesn't use them anymore. I made it froufrou-y with some beautiful roses and let it sit there for more eye candy. I also made the folding chair cover to disguise ugly old chairs.

Another view of the front of the desk.

Top of the etagère where stuff is stored and a few of the coffee filter roses I've made. And yes, that box does indeed contain my coloring crayons. I color the books I buy that are in black and white.

Second shelf on the etagère with a box painted by a friend on my group and some roses with curling ribbon wrapped around the posts.

This shelf holds my baby book I had as an infant, a box given to me in a swap and a petal cake I made.

The wall facing me with plates I just couldn't resist, a little ceramic with a chip in it that I got for a great price and a hand painted sign by a friend in my group.

And these little sachets I've made over the years adorn a special door pull I found 5 years ago.

I bought this dress from a friend—the hanger she made as a gift to me—and have displayed it in my office as another piece of eye candy for which I can enjoy.

I found this little paper lace hanging lamp after I did these photos so here it is now. As I said, it's taken me weeks to get this done and the photos have been shot in stages.

Then I put up a smaller one over my closet.

So this is my office where I spend most of my time. To see more just go back up to the top and click where I told you to click. You were listening, weren't you?! Hmmmm? ;-) Enjoy...

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