It's the Simple Pleasures in Life

It's a beautiful day here in the Ozarks!  This area is surrounded by mountains, lakes, rivers and lovely scenery!

Living in the Ozarks is such a delight...taking pictures of sunsets on an evening drive is a regular occurrence.

Another lovely sky!  Does anybody besides me see the face in the clouds?  To me, it looks like a big laughing face!

Yes, it's pretty sunny & hot outside but with all the shade surrounding our cottage, we don't get much of it inside.  Inside, hubby & me & the kitty girls are enjoying a nice laid back day.

The thing about moving to a new place is discovery.  Discovering where you'll put everything inside and discovering the surprises outside that await you.  We moved here in July when it was pretty hot, however, for three weeks after we moved in, we had cloudy skies and rain everyday; very unusual weather for our area.  So, instead of dry brown grass that usually accompanies August, we are STILL cutting the yard.  And here, the yard is about an acre!  That's a lot of grass!

That's my hubby out on the little road behind the house. See little lake? Should I call it a pond?  LOL

Have I mentioned we have lots of shade at our cottage? It's surrounded by lots of trees & shrubs: oaks, pines, privet hedge and other foliage I don't know the name of.  There is even a little cold water spring on our property that feeds the little lake behind our house, or so I've been told. (I'll take photos of it when it's a LOT cooler and the danger of critters biting me is gone! Chicken? Yes!)

Lovely pines....

Looking up into this large tree is a little overwhelming, huh?

Left side of the cottage looking toward the side road, more trees!

I don't know what type of tree this is. Anybody know?


Each morning as I open the blinds all the way to the top to check out the day, I smile from ear to ear because of the beauty I see.  God has placed us here for a reason and we are blessed beyond measure. The stress that I was feeling where we did live just melts away & I am so feel so much gratitude to see myself surrounding by nature in all its glory.

The view outside my living room window.  Crepe Myrtle shrub...lovely!

Another day, I stepped outside & what did my wondering eyes appear?

Surprise lilies!!  These were in a small garden spot next to the cottage.

This lily thinks outside the box....hehehe


Well so long for today.  Good nite from all us here at the cottage.  May God bless you with sweet dreams!

Who lives in my little cottage with me?

In my little white cottage, there is a fireplace built of brick in the corner of the charming living room. It's very unique!  I don't use it now of course, but come winter, it will be enjoyed by all!

When I say "all" who do I mean?  Well, it's my sweet hubby, me and our 3 cats.  We have famous lady kitties at our house.  Pictures are worth a thousand words so I'll show how beautiful they are.

This lovely Snowshoe is Dolly Madison.  Dolly is one of the most beautiful cats I've ever seen and lots of folks tell us the same thing. We've had her the longest (9 years now!), making her think she is the "alpha" cat...LOL  Dolly tends to eat a bit too much (don't we all sometimes?) so consequently, we have to cut down on all the cat food we distribute since she makes it her ambition to clean up after the other 2 have left the premises.

This is Gracie Allen, named after the famous lady comedian.  She is a dilute calico so where regular calicoes have black, orange and white, Gracie has gray, orange and white.  Gracie will be 8 in September and we got her while we lived in MO.  She is a spunky cat full of "cattitude" & loves to play.  Unlike Dolly, Gracie remains slim & trim since she loves to run and it pays off in being healthy.  Not as much room here in the cottage to run so she runs small sprints!

This silly little beauty is Annie Oakley, named after the famous cowgirl.  She is as sweet as she is pretty.  She's showing you one of her tricks she learned all by herself.  Annie learned that we "ohh and ahh" and say sweet "little nothings" to her when she does this, so she must have thought it's a good thing to continue.  (I must admit, we do spoil her a little bit....)

This is Gracie and Dolly demonstrating that "two heads are better than one!"  They are very close; in more ways than one; pun intended!

When I ask my furr-babies,"Who will sit with me by the fire this winter?"  Annie says, "I will, I will!"


I'm still unpacking, arranging and re-arranging stuff in our little cottage, so eventually I'll post some more photos of the rooms.  But for today, I wanted to talk about one of my other loves which is our cats, so I hope you enjoyed your visit with the cats.  My daughter calls me the "crazy cat lady" but how can that be since I only have 3???


For those who just can't get enough of our lovely furr-babies, please check out my website dedicated just to the cats.  http://3kittytales.weebly.com/index.html




Until another day, God bless you!


Marcia

The Empty Cottage...How to Decorate?

Hello, Blogger friends & family!

Ok, I'm gonna be very vulnerable with y'all but not today; I have to work my way into this, right? For now, I'll just post photos of how our cottage looked when it was empty & shadowy.  It was daytime but there were no utilities on at the time.  Here we go, please tell me in the comments what you think of it & how you would decorate it, ok?

A photo of my LR.  Love the homey yellow color don't you?

Next is sweet corner fireplace also in the LR. This is one of the best features of the cottage.

Next to the LR is a BR painted a light sage green with white chair rails. Wonder if it was used as a dining room at one time?

It is a long narrow room but at least it has a closet!  The doorway leads directly into the kitchen.

Moving on from the green BR is the kitchen. Note the nice island with the little tiny gas stove.

Directly connected to the kitchen is the back room, den, office or whatever. See the back door?

Moving back in from the kitchen is the blue bedroom, our MBR with the only AC in the house. See why we choose it as our room?

Here's a picture of the double windows trimmed out like a picture frame. Charm & Character!! We are blessed to have these in almost all the rooms.



This is a very light & airy house and I love it's retro style (era 1940-1950); what about you? Dream big with me...how would you decorate it?

Until we meet again,


Marcia

It's the country life for me!

Ahhh, moved from a stressful place to a lovely tree shaded acre lot with a pond view. Better yet, it has a little white cottage just right for my honey, me and our 3 sweet kitty girls. The cottage is full of charming qualities like a high ceilings, real hardwood floors, tall kitchen cabinets, sweet corner fireplace and no hallways; just room to room to room. Well maybe it does sag here and there with repair needed, but don't we all??

But here's my current dilemma, how do I get all that stuff from the other place that was a 3 bedroom 2 bath into this tiny 2 bedroom 1 bath cottage!  Yes, I've given stuff away, have sold stuff, put stuff in storage and still my cottage runneth over!!  Any suggestions? 

I usually love to decorate and HGTV is my all time fav channel but with sooo much stuff in here, I just don't know where to begin. Of course, I have big dreams. I can sometimes picture it my mind, but then when I get started, it just seems to become a practice of moving something from one place to another.  You know what I mean?  I want to hang my prints and other wall hangings but my cottage is painted a different color for each room.  Not that I'm complaining, I kinda like it!  However, I have to rethink which room they will work best in instead of giving in to that "it was in the LR before" or "isn't this too girly?"  Now don't think that I have lots of rooms cause we don't!  Even if you count the bathroom we only have 6 rooms; so it is essentially a 5 room house.  But that is perfectly ok with me!

Ahhh, stress-free living finally is within my reach.  It is just a simple country farmhouse cottage but it represents peace, quiet and contentment for me.  Thank you Lord for your wondrous gift!