My Birthday Trip!

Gosh, I feel like Christine! You know yesterday was her birthday too! Happy Birthday Christine!
Well, I just got back from a trip to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC! My DH had a business meeting in Pidgeon Forge and offered to take me to the Biltmore for my birthday! We had a wonderful time! I got to shop at some antique malls in Sevierville! (That will be another post!) We got to, I mean, "we arrived at" the Biltmore Tuesday afternoon and decided to tour the gardens, conservatory and the winery that afternoon and save the house for the next morning! I'm glad we broke it up like that. We enjoyed each without getting too worn out! I took lots of pictures but you can't take pictures inside the house!!!!! Trust me! It was drop dead gorgeous! I can't even imagine the amount of money that was spent on this house!!!! Everything inside is a priceless treasure! I mean everything! Down to the last little detail! But I could've spent all day just taking pictures of the outside! I love to take pictures of beautiful architecture! But alas I had to stop so we could actually tour the inside of the house!

I'll start with our tour of the conservatory 'cause that's where we started!!

Look at this beautiful hot house orchid!

I wish I had a place in my yard that looked like this!
Look at this gorgeous terrarium!

Here's a close-up!

I don't know what these are but they were beautiful!

And another terrarium! Look closely in the bottom left corner...venus fly traps!

Now let's go out to the gardens. For the most part, spring had done sprung and summer was just beginning to wake up. They had tons of roses but alas they were not blooming yet! This beautiful foxglove was surrounded by blue sky and wisteria! I have a planter just like that!

And look at this wisteria! I want to paint this! If only I was a painter! Hey, isn't that from a song? Sheila help me out here!
Some of the tulips still looked pretty good! I love the cream and magenta!
Now for the azalea gardens! You're not tired are you?! Just wait til you see!

These were the steps down into the garden!

I'd love to be able to paint this one too!

Well, ladies, I think I've captured enough of your time for this one post! I have to say I was pretty impressed with my camera! The DH gave me the camera last birthday! I just put it on auto and pointed, zoomed and clicked! I promise to post the house either tomorrow or Saturday! Thank you for sharing the first leg of my trip with me!

I Love this Place!

I've got some awards to thank people for! First of all my kin in name Laura at http://tomariescabin.blogspot.com/ honored me with the following award telling me she was a fan of my blog! Well, Laura I am a fan of your blog too! You are so sweet and have the most beautiful and cozy cabin!

And sweet Kim http://kimsdomesticbliss.blogspot.com/ gifted me with this award!

Isn't it adorable! This award is given to a fellow blogger that exhibits an "Attitude of Gratitude". And I am honored and humbled to receive it! I associate gratitude with my faith. Gratitude seems to be a lost emotion in today's fretful and fastpaced world! People are so busy looking for what's around the corner and how to get it now that they are forgetting to be grateful for what they have! Yes, I get caught up in the rat race from time to time but because of my faith in my Lord I remember to be thankful for what He has given me! He has taught us that He has already given us everything we truly need! I hope that is why Kim gave me this wonderful award because somehow that attitude of gratitude is showing itself thru my posts! Thank you again Kim and Laura!

Of course the rules for blogging awards are to pass them on to your fellow bloggers! I love the way Christine at http://christineshomeandtraveladventures.blogspot.com/ gave her fan award out! She said that if she had visited your site she was a fan so to be sure and take the award from her and pass it on! I agree! If I've visited you then I'm a fan! I have made such wonderful friends out there in blogland! So take this award from me to you and then pass it on!

The Lemonade award asks that you pass it on to fellow bloggers you think show an "Attitude of Gratitude"... that they are happy with their life under any circumstances! I think that all the blogs I have visited show this but I specifically want to pass this award on to the following:

Christine at http://christineshomeandtraveladventures.blogspot.com/

Susan at http://thoughtsfromovertherainbow.blogspot.com/

Chari at http://happytodesign.blogspot.com/

Mary at http://megardengal.blogspot.com/

Donna at http://designson47thstreet.blogspot.com/

Heather at http://butterflygenes.blogspot.com/

Cindy at http://sisterhoodofthecreativehearts.blogspot.com/

Tootsie at http://tootsietime.blogspot.com/

and right back at ya! Kim at http://kimsdomesticbliss.blogspot.com/

These ladies have made me feel so welcome and comfortable in blogland! Instant connections were made and I feel very grateful to have met them! They are sweet and wonderful ladies with a heart for the Lord and an "Attitude of Gratitude!"

This Sunday I am leaving to go to west TN and then to Ashville, NC to the Biltmore! for my birthday! It is incredible that when I told Christine about my trip she informed me she and her husband's birthday are on the same day! April 29th! I promise to start posting again when I get back! Of course I'll have my pics of the Biltmore to share! Love you all! God Bless! Lauralu :)

Blue Monday!

Hi everyone! I haven't posted a new post for awhile! Was busy, nothing to show off and my whole household was wiped out last week with the stomach flu!! So now I'm trying to get back in to the swing of things again! Don't have anything for Met Monday yet but I can post some pretty pics for Blue Monday! Sally over at http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/ hosts this fun event so I hope you'll go over and check out her blog and all the other blue posters!

Today, I would like to share with you my handpainted kitchen table. This particular antique oak pedastal table was given to my husband by his mother before we got married. It, in turn, had belonged to her aunt...so it is a family heirloom! Those of you who are familiar with my kitchen know that when I redecorated it I went sort of "wild" with wildlife! From stencils to stickers to rub-ons, if it's a flower, bird or bug it's on my kitchen walls! Well, the time had come when the top of our kitchen table needed refinishing again, but I had always had in my mind an idea to paint the top of it and so.. I did!!!! Then my husband comes home as I'm finishing up and has a conniption fit! Is that how you spell that?! Don't know if your DH's are like mine but it is sacreligious to paint over finished wood in his eyes! But being the selfish, if momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, female I sometimes can be....Yes, it's true! I'm not the perfect little homemaker you all think I am..you do don't you?! anyway..I didn't care that he didn't like it! So there! And I have loved this table ever since! And guess what? His parent's love it too! Maybe one day he'll get over it...I do seem to notice that when he cleans his guns he just puts paper down and not a vinyl cloth to keep those caustic cleaners from eating away at my paint job....could he be trying to slowly but surely sabotage my lovely creation? Hmmmmmm!

I did use a stencil for my wrens. Yes, I cheated! I never said I was a Rembrandt! I mean for gosh sakes I have stickers on my walls because I can't paint the butterflies myself! But the really creative part that I am rather proud of is that I just used the stencil for the basic body shape and then handpainted the birds myself! The same with the nest and the eggs. The tree branches and leaves are all mine! I even think the bird stencil was actually a finch but we have a family of wrens that have been here since we moved in 16 years ago so I really wanted the birds on my tabletop to be wrens. The background is a light yellow that I brushed over the top and then dry brushed the sky blue over that! The branches go all the way around the edge of the table!

In the garden world purple flowers are sometimes called blue because blue is such a hard color to find in flowers. There is blue salvia and of course the beautiful blue delphinium that i can't grow down here in the south because it's just too hot for those gorgeous blooms! So even though my clematis is purple and white we will call it blue just for today! I just had to take pictures of my clematis so full of blooms! It's trained on the wrought iron fence we have around our pool! In the summer it will start losing leaves and not blooming much at all but right now it's absolutely gorgeous! Enjoy! and I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Lauralu :)