Worship and Praise Sunday

About a month ago I found a delightful blog authored by a very special young woman named Brittany. She's a newlywed and madly in love with her very handsome young husband. I have been very impressed with the content of this young woman's blog. At just 22 but it seems to me that she is far more Spiritually mature than her years. Brittany works in the public school system with children who have behavioral disorders. Each Sunday Brittany hosts Worship and Praise Sunday - an opportunity to post a song of your choosing on your own blog, including a few words about it's meaning to you personally. I visit Brittany's blog each Sunday to see her post but I haven't posted myself until today.

I love music - of all kinds. I've gotta say, I'm a girl of the '70's and I still love the Beatles, the Stones, Aerosmith, Beach Boys, Bob Seger, and Rod Stewart. They're just plain fun to listen to! But there is nothing like an inspirational song that tells the story of God's amazing love. They encourage, uplift, comfort, and cheer you on when life is rough. One of my all time most loved songs is Redeemer, sung by the incredible Nicole C. Mullen. To me, Redeemer expresses the epitome of faith - in God and in His wondrous power and love for us. I have listened to this song over and over on many occasions when life became difficult to understand. Nicole C. Mullen managed to find exactly the right sentiments to remind the listener that there is always hope and love and beauty IN HIM! I recently found a beautiful video on You Tube which perfectly compliments this gorgeous song and it's meaningful message - but not so fast! I don't know where the problem lies, but I've had to change video's three times tonight because they just weren't working correctly. This video isn't the greatest quality but it was the best of the You Tube choices I had left! I hope you will enjoy the song anyway!

For my first Worship and Praise Sunday post I give you...

"Redeemer"

written and performed by Nicole C. Mullen

(Dedicated to my dear, long time friend CeeKay, Thinkin' of Home, who is facing a new challenge with courage and faith. It seems her ovarian cancer is temporarily out of remission and it looks like she will be having some more surgery and chemo. Many will jointly pray C back into remission!)

video: You Tube

Who taught the sun where to stand in the morning

Who told the ocean you can only come this far?

Who showed the moon where to hide 'til evening

Whose words alone can catch a falling star?

Well I know my Redeemer lives,

I know my Redeemer lives

All of creation testify

This life within me cries

I know my Redeemer lives.

The very same God that spins things in orbit

He runs to the weary, the worn and the weak

And the same gentle hands that hold me when I'm broken

They conquered death to bring me victory.

Now I know my Redeemer lives,

I know my Redeemer lives

Let all creation testify

Let this life within me cry

I know my Redeemer, He lives.

To take away my shame

And He lives forever I'll proclaim

That the payment for my sin

Was the precious life He gave

But now He's alive

And there's an empty grave.

And I know my Redeemer,

He lives, I know my Redeemer lives

Let all creation testify

This life within me cries

I know my Redeemer lives.

Please be sure to visit Brittany at Sweet Nothings. Enjoy exploring her blog and then move on to the other Worship and Praise posts you will find links to.

What's In A Name?

My daughter Julie, The Princess Diaries, tagged me with this cute, silly little quiz she found on Facebook. I could have some very interesting alias's! If you want to play, take it and run with it!

1.REAL NAME: Kathy

2.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother and fathers middle names): Jo Lee

3.NASCAR NAME:(first name of your mother's dad, father's dad): Kenny John

4.STAR WARS NAME:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name): Bleka

5.DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal): Pink Kitten

6.SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, town where you were born): Lee Maryville

7.SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning): The White Sweet Tea

8.FLY NAME:(first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name): Kack

9.STREET NAME:(fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie): Chocolate Mocha Sugar

10 ROCK STAR NAME (pet's name and street where you live): Noah Leatherwood

11. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on): - Huh?! - Pepper Second

12.YOUR GANGSTA NAME:(first 3 letters of real name plus-izzle): Kat-Izzle

13.YOUR GOTH NAME:(black, and the name of one of your pets): Black Mombo

Wordless Wednesday - Fat Tuesday

More Wordless Wednesday posts await you at Dixie's, French Lique!

Three Or More Tuesday

Three lunching sea birds!

See lots of delightful Three or More post links at Tam's blog, The Gypsy's Corner!

Be sure to click on the pink cake at the top of my sidebar for details on my giveaway!

2008 Project #1 - Meta Monday

Take a minute to click on the birthday cake graphic at the top of my right side bar for details of my one year blog anniversary giveaway! I would love to include your name in the drawing on March 8!

In May 2008 our son moved out of our house into his own home. The first picture below is the nearly empty "Detroit Piston blue" room with black trim the day he left. Hideous! He came back for a visit a few days later and the room shown in the rest of the pictures was what he found. I wish I had had a camera to capture his face when he saw his "manly" room, now a pretty silvery lavender guest room! Though the room is still not decorated completely, the real work is finished.

First I primed the walls, then I painted them with lavender. The next evening I painted the white wisteria border. Hubby and I were finally ready to order new furniture! We found this white set with carved roses on the headboard, footboard, and mirror. I love it! While we waited for the furniture delivery, my husband and I spent hours one evening scrubbing the floor by hand and touching up any paint needed. Finally the furniture arrived and I loved it even more than I had in the store. Next, the search began for bedding. I decided on an all white down comforter, dust ruffle, and four large white pillows. I found a couple of gorgeous Vera Wang sheet sets in exactly the same shade of silvery lavender. Love 'em!

All that was needed to complete the room was window covering, some things to hang on the walls, lamps, ceiling fixture, and closet doors. I remembered two matching lamps that my mother-in-law had given me which matched perfectly in color and style. Perfect! I couldn't find anything I really loved for the window so I made a valence using the same silvery lavender satin. Then I bought long soft cotton Shabby Chic "dotted Swiss" curtains. I'm still not quite satisfied with the results. I'm thinking of making a second curtain in a coordinating muted print to go over the white...what do you all think? The closet doors were easy...Hubby installed a new double sliding mirrored pair. I am still working on finding things to hang on the walls. I bought two 11x14 inch frames with a 4x6 inch opening in black, because that's how they came, then painted them white. They have a pretty raised vintage looking trim. I found two vintage postcards in lavender to place in the frames. Love it. I hung a wide frame over the bed that has 6 openings - that are still empty! I want to press purple flowers to place in those openings. There's only one wall remaining to hang something. I know what I want to do - a vintage collection of my grandmother's items, all in whites and purples. I have been gathering items to frame but I'm not quite there yet. I'll post it when I'm finished. The one last remaining search is a chandelier for the ceiling. I painted the ugly faux wood fan blades white and painted a lavender design on, but it's a chandelier I long for! I would also like to cover a stool or a very small chair for the room so guests have a place to sit other than on the tall bed!

So that's one of my big projects of 2008. Who was the first guest to stay in my new guest room? CeeKay of Thinkin' of Home when she came to visit in October!

Do head straight to Susan's where you will find links to many wonderful Meta Monday posts! I can't believe how creative you blogging ladies are!

Making Party Invitations

Kelli, There Is No Place Like Home, is hosting a craft week and giveaway. Stop in to visit her and see her wonderful cards and links to more crafts on other blogs!

My son is getting married in June. His fiance is one of the sweetest, most precious young women I have ever known. To say I am thrilled my boy chose so wisely is an understatement. I had some occasional nightmares about who might one day call me mother-in-law...but let's don't go there, because he chose sweet Jenni! I've decided that the kids were simply born in the wrong decade. They dress like and love the same things we did in the '70's when I was a teenager. But I love that about them! Their wedding theme is orange Gerber daisies - I had daisies at my wedding in 1970! Their colors are Spring green and orange - bright orange! I am involved in hosting a shower for Jenni this Spring. Jenni is such an unselfish girl and I want everything to be perfect for her. I couldn't find anything that looked just like her - pink frilly invites just wouldn't do for our girl, so I decided to make the invitations for the shower, something I've done for other parties I've hosted. It's time consuming, quite a bit of work if the party is large (I made 96), and not usually less expensive than buying ready made invitations. But if you have created a picture in your head of something you just have to have - that stores just don't make (my husbands frequent description of the way I work), then making invitations is the answer. As a tutorial, in case you are interested in making your own invitations for a party you might be hosting this Spring or Summer, I've posted pictures below that I took during the process of making Jenni's shower invitations.

The first step in preparing for this project is to know how many you need and decide on a theme for the invitations. I spoke with Jenni about her preferences and we decided to follow her wedding theme of orange, green, and daisies. Decide if you want a folded invitation or a multi layered card like the design I used.

Gather all the materials you will need: plenty of paper in all colors you want to use, scissors, paper cutter, punches, ribbon, invitation size envelopes, and address labels. It's also a good idea to have a tray to place finished invitations as you go along to keep them clean and crisp.

I cut the number I needed of each color paper to the correct size.

I planned to use the orange paper as the base of the invitation. The green with tiny white polka dots was the second layer so I cut each of those pieces slightly smaller than the orange and then punched a daisy from the bottom edge of each green piece.

I used Print Shop to type out the text of the invitation and printed on a good quality white linen paper - no watermark. The white pieces for the top layer are cut smaller than the green. I just cannot work in clutter so I cleaned all scraps and trimmings from the table before assembling the invitations.

As you can see, I placed the green piece on top, making sure the borders were straight and even. Sometimes I had to trim a little to make them perfect.

After securing each piece with adhesive I was ready to start applying the orange ribbon. Self healing cutting mats are wonderful because you can quickly and easily eyeball center. I used a 1/8" punch to make two round holes centered at the top of each invitation. Then I fed the ribbon through the holes and tied a bow on the front of each invitation, trimming the streamers evenly.

The finished product - 96 custom invitations!

Print and apply your address labels...

Stuff the envelopes with any bridal registry cards...

Stamp and stack up your labor of love, ready to drop in the mail!

Making your own invitations is a project anyone can do beautifully. Just plan ahead, organize all the needed elements, and pay attention to the details!

Show & Tell Friday

Last Fall I posted about the redecorating project in my family room. Most of the work had been completed but I hadn't gotten my new furniture yet. So I thought I would show you that today. I've never had anything green in my house. But when Love and I went shopping for our new furniture the first pieces we gravitated toward were upholstered in a sage-y green textured fabric. We still looked other places but we always went back to the green at the first place we looked. We needed small pieces because furniture in that room can really only be arranged one way - the person who designed our house should be throttled! As you can see, the fireplace is huge. It looks impressive but it leaves very little wall space for furniture...the fireplace takes up almost all of one long wall, a full size door wall to the patio takes up an end wall, and the wide entry to the kitchen takes up half of the other long wall. We ended up ordering a sofa and two chairs with ottoman's in one style, upholstered in the green textured fabric we found on another set in the showroom. I was holding my breath during the 8 weeks it took for the furniture to arrive because of the green. If you go back and look at the first posting I did about the family room project you'll read about how many times my poor husband had to paint that room! I simply could not ask him to do it again! So the green really needed to go well with the raspberry on the walls - without looking like Christmas year round! I think women usually know immediately when something is a go or not. As soon as the first piece was carried in the room I know I loved it - whew! As you can see in the pics, I have gradually changed over to all white wood pieces in that room. I still have a drop leaf oval stained coffee table in front of the sofa and it seems to go ok in there. I also still use a stained wicker stand and a stained antique secretary in there. Our mantle is also stained oak. I bought the big screen for my Love when he retired in June - so naturally we had to get the entertainment unit and book shelves too! It's all an eclectic mish-mash, but it somehow seems to go together anyway.

I found pillows and lamps with the perfect shades of green and raspberry AND the roses I love at Home Goods. Don't you just love Home Goods? We'd never had a Home Goods near us until last Fall. Now a Hobby Lobby is opening in March right next door to Home Goods. Now, if a Steinmart arrived over there I'd simply have to be revived! I'd just have to take my pillow and blankie and hide out under a counter!

After all this time I still need to hang some more things on the walls in the family room - just can't seem to find the right things. We also want to remove the carpet in there and replace it with wood like the rest of the house or perhaps tile of some kind. Other than those things, I'm happy with the way the room turned out. I've already moved on the the living room -as we speak!

Before moving on to the pictures below, I want to remind you of my one year blogging anniversary giveaway. You'll find the details here.

I'm on my way to Kelli's House in search of links to many wonderful Friday Show & Tell posts. Have a wonderful, perfect weekend everyone!

One Year Of Blogging - And A Give Away to Celebrate!

I published my first post on March 9, 2008. My friend CeeKay, Thinkin' of Home, had been blogging for about a month and she begged me to start my own blog. She said she knew I would just love it. Frankly, I was happy C had found something she loved doing so much, but I couldn't imagine I would like it that much. I couldn't picture myself "talking" to strangers online regularly, actually making friendships. My husband and I visited CeeKay and her husband in mid February last year. Several times during our visit she sat me down in front of her computer to see her blog and interactions with other bloggers. I could see that C really enjoyed it and that all of the people she communicated with and the blogs she visited actually seemed quite normal - even nice! So when Hubby and I came home after our visit to Arizona I created my own blog. The rest is history!

How did I choose the name for my blog? First of all, my granddaughters call me Mimi. I knew I wanted to be Mimi as a grandmother from the time our son was a toddler. Our daughter and all the children on both sides of the family called their grandmothers Grammy - except Jacob. He called my mother and my mother-in-law Mimi as a toddler. I thought it was cute and loved that he had chosen a unique name - at least unique in our families. The Garden attachment to Mimi happened because I adore flowers and I've always loved gardening. I work at creating several gardens each Spring, adding new plants and accessories. Whenever our four year old granddaughter visited as a toddler she always asked to go out to see Mimi's garden. So it just felt natural when naming my blog to choose Mimi's Garden.

I am still quite stunned at my involvement in Blogland! I, Kathy, check my blog several times a day. I take pictures of my house and dishes and crafts and projects to post for perfect strangers to see - and comment on! Ok, CeeKay, I admit it...I LOVE it! Thank you for relentlessly encouraging me to create my own blog :) !

I have gotten to know some perfectly wonderful ladies during this year of blogging. You are all so incredibly creative, talented, generous, and kind. You encourage and inspire me, you pray for me, you provide incentive to accomplish more and reason to believe that the world is mostly made up of good and kind people! I am truly thankful for all of you!

To celebrate my one year blogging anniversary I would like to host a give away. To enter, leave a comment on any post between today, February 20 and midnight March 8, leaving your e-mail address and expressing a desire to enter the give away. The winner will receive an original watercolor, painted by Yours Truly. I'm not going to advertise the give away on other blogs because I would like the winner to be someone who already visits my blog rather than someone who just enters give aways. I'll post the winner's name on my one year blogging anniversary, March 9.

Finally, if you do not already have a "Mimi's Friendship" graphic pictured below, please take it now and link to Mimi's Garden. I would be honored to see it on your blog!

Tablescape Thursday

Every month my husband and I lead a couples Bible Study. Each month a different couple in the group hosts the study at their home and we've made it a tradition to have dinner together first. Saturday, Valentine's Day, was our turn to host the Bible study. What a great evening to have a couple's party! We had a great evening together.

I used a red tablecloth with a 6" red velvet band all around and embroidered flowers at the corners. I bought it after Christmas. The flowers at the corners are probably small poinsettia's, but you really can't tell that when it's on the table. It looks totally appropriate for use all winter.

I dressed my table all in red, pink, and white. I started with heart shaped white lace doilies at each place setting. I used white china with pink floral trim, topped with a clear glass dinner plate and matching bread and butter plates. My napkins were pink printed with Valentine conversation hearts. I love these napkin rings. They look more like pearl bracelets.

Centerpiece: I started with an antique pedestal cake stand in pink milk glass. I added a cream colored angel, then wrapped and twirled some red heart foil garland around it. I scattered some pink foam hearts on the tablecloth around the centerpiece.

A couple of old fashioned valentines were held by glittering cherubs on two sides of the centerpiece. Crystal embellished candle sticks were placed on the other two sides. Pink votives in clear glass holders glowed at each place setting.

I placed my favorite pink goblets on rosy pink felt coasters...

Thank you for visiting my Tablescape Thursday post today - I hope your Valentine's Day was as lovely as mine! Be sure to visit Susan at Between Naps On The Porch to find links for many more wonderful Tablescape Thursday posts.