A home in the woods.

A while back I was ask to design three cards. These cards would be given to new property owners. You now how excited new property owners are. So I designed three cards, one for cabins, lakehomes, and in the woods. I decided to show you the one relating to the title. I loved the project and now realtors are getting into these cards.

I loved the thinking out of the box it took to come up with the words for all three, each being different due to location. I hope you enjoy the look, let me know if you would like to see more of these out of the box cards.

Summer sale on my Artfire Store

Hi everyone, I thought it time to have a sale. I can only do it for a week. My street store sales have gone up but my artfire store has not yet kicked off. So, here it is. Buy two cards and get one free. Just go to the my artfire store and read the store announcement. One sale per client and will only lasting for a week. Will end on the 8th of August. Once a purchase is made and the buyer gets the cards they will give me a review on artfire, that way others will know my product is quality. Thanks for checking it out and I hope you find something you like.

Just go to the arfire box at bottom right and click on any card it will get you to my shop. Then click on shop to get you to my front door. Remember you don't have to sign up to buy.

Have a great day.

Was I not listening?

Remember me telling you about John and I going to the greenhouse together, well, here is another greenhouse story. I feel pretty competent when it comes to shopping for plants. Not perennials, that for the big boys, but for the cute flower that makes me smile I am good.

One day, a month ago or so, John said if I ventured through a greenhouse to pick up some tall Marigold's, didn't matter about what color but old fashion Marigold's. I ventured off with task in mind, stopping in my favorite greenhouse, I was taken back at the beauty and variety.

I saw marigolds and picked up a few flats. So proud of myself I headed home. When I arrived home with plants in hands John had the funniest look on his face. With that same love and laughter in his eyes he said " these are the short ones". I said "no, they are going to get 18 inches tall.

To my lack of understand the ones he talked about would get up to two pushing three feet. So what do I know. With a hug he took the short flowers planted them and we shared a moment on the porch with a glass of wine. Later that week he got the good old ones. Pictures say a thousand words.

Have a smiling flower day.

To Whine or not to Wine...

There is always a reason not to whine. And always a reason to wine. Since the opening of this blog I have had one entry on my families get together called the steak fry. Yes, we actually eat at this get together, my brothers all rock when it comes to the grill. And I have to say that Gene makes steak grilling a true art form. By the time we eat we have the planned and performed wine testing event.

This event has a purpose, finding a wine we have never tried and sharing it. Our point to all this is to read the bottles front and back and then the test. Funny think is we always like the wine. Discriminating taste buds we don't have. But we sure have a lot of fun. Maybe it is the reading of the wine bottles that is the main purpose.

One of my brothers, Vern brought a bottle of wine in a brown paper bag. If you know Vern you would understand the mystery, he loves the element of surprise. The bottle on the end was his entry. Yes, it was a little questionable for the older ones, but the writing was by far the best. Oh well, another wine tasting is in the air so I will stop whining.

To all my friends, God Bless

May be speechless but not photoless.

Here is another one I just took hope you like it. Don't you just love suprises like this. A little drop of rain on the peddle.

I am speechless

I have had a busy week and wanted to check in and say hi to all my friends. However, with company for days I find myself speechless. Yes, you heard it from me, speechless. We had so much fun talking about everything we could think of. We sat on the deck, drank coffee, walked, and talked. Followed by great food, that's because I made it. And as always everything is from my point of view, and I liked my brats on the grill with sour kraut. Yummm.

Anyway, I thought you would like to see a flower from my garden. I am not a fabulous photographer but I think I am doing a good job.

God Bless all who follow and those who visit.

How does my garden grow?

You can judge for yourself. My dad used to say, the temperatures in the day are not as important and the night temps. And boy was he right. We have had great sleeping weather, and by human standards that makes me smile. But my plants like more humidity and heat. At least heat would be great. But this will go down as the coolest summer in a long time. I need to invite Al Gore, I am praying for a little global warming.

The plants that are doing good, not great, are all the annuals. The vine plants are really struggling to grow. I have pole beans and morning glory's. It's July and they are appearing as thought they are early June. As I have said before, we live in a very short growing season and success means lush plants by the end of July. Humm, I am thinking this year it will not happen.

I hope you enjoy the photo and will be adding more through the week.

The winners are....

Yes I do have two winners, are you ready for the names.

I was pretty excited.

The names are

Judith of Zanylife & Crazy Faith
and Margaret of Meditation.

Please e-mail me at balsamponds@brainerd.net and tell me what card from either shop you would like. Be sure to put contest winner in the subject line for me. Congrats to the both of you.

When you really need a friend.

I have been working the Internet for about one and a half years. I started up with my small greeting card business on etsy, then artfire, traveling to social networks, starting a blog all to get people to see my product.

I was told to go out and be seen, I found a few social networks. All were fun but I wasn't sure why I was spending time there, was it doing me any good? The time I spent was to me, very valuable and I had to think this over, will I stay at the social networks? The funny thing was that I had joined one social network that was for friendship only. It claimed if you wanted to meet positive people then this is the place for you.

A week and a half ago we lost a dear friend. You might have read it in my previous posts. Seeing that I have lots of friends on my social networks I said I wouldn't be around to talk for a week due to Mike dying. This social network called Friendship Society was so supportive, not the site but all the people that make up this site. I had more virtual hugs then you could imagine. I decided I had to stay there and support others and laugh with them when the occasion arises.

There is a person with such a big heart she had to start this site. Katie you are amazing and I am glad I found you and your site.

For all you who love meeting people that make your life more joyful this is the site for you. Here is the site address http://www.friendshipsociety.ning.com/

The winner is.....

Oh boy, no one won, was it too hard or are you like me, crazy busy. Well lets say crazy busy. I would feel better. So a new plan is in the making. I promised that I would give two cards away and I am still going to do just that. I also said it was for the celebration of my 100th follower. And it will be two followers out of the first 100 friends.

I gave my husband the hard duty of picking two numbers. One number will be between 1-49 the other will be 50-100. He has given me the numbers but now I have to figure out who you are. You will see the two winners on my site by Wednesday. The winners will e-mail me with your choice of card, your address and I will send you a card with love.

I will hold another with my 200th followers for the 100 and over followers. This is so fun. Good luck guys. Oh ya, this photo of a bone was displayed with a card in both sites.

It's a Party

I would love to give all my friends and followers a free card from my collection but you would truly deplete my inventory. So to celebrate my 100 follower here is my plan. I will give you a clue, and you will go to either my Artfire or Etsy site and do a search. This clue will give you what you need to find the hidden item.

When you find the item in my card photos you will go to the e-mail address and let me know where you found it. When the week comes to a close I will choose a winner, if there are more than one winner on either site I will do a drawing. Both sites will have a winner.

When the winners (2) are announced via the e-mail and on this site, I will delete your e-mail addresses and the address you are to send the answer to.

Who can apply? Anyone who reads this blog.

Time allowed for the party: July 6th through July 13th.

Winners will be announced on July 15th on this blog.

The clue is: Sniff it out and you will get a treat

e-mail address: balsamponds@brainerd.net

Subject line on e-mail should read - lets party, mostly because I don't open everything I get.

When the winners are picked I will ask what card you want. There is no cost to the winners. Just a simple thank you for those who warm my heart.

The party is on. Good luck to all my friends.

A Community in a Community

When you live in a small community you find out how much support you have when a loved member of the community dies. Everyone plans to come to the service and here in Minnesota we always serve lunch. The menu is simple, ham, buns, salads, and my favorite cakes.

The reason this story is different from all the others is the quantity of people, this small hard working community, of church women will feed. Me, being the new chairperson and green behind ears gets the call, 300 guests. Three hundred guests. Our church is small and without the community hall we could not seat three hundred. I needed to find a new place to serve lunch. The Emily City Hall was available. That part was simple.

We rely on our church community to donate the cakes and salads. Usually it's a small number of each and a few calls do the trick. Today I had to find 30 salads and 20 cakes. Just then your heart beats a little faster and I got a little nervous, then the phone starts ringing. The community around our church started to make calls. It wasn't for me but the sheer need to support the people who live here.

At the end of the day, I am tired, but satisfied. The surprise was that they weren't called they called us. Wow, just when you think our nation is in such trouble, the real people that make this nation great show themselves to us.

God Bless those that made my day a pleasure, not hard ship. To those who wrote nice comments of prayers thanks, I love my interent friends. I hope to be back reading your blogs very soon. I miss them and you.

One less good guy.

Today, we lost a friend. It was a shock due to the fact we saw him Saturday full of life. Sunday he went in to surgery for a blocked artery, Sunday night had a massive stroke, Monday he got worse, Tuesday his brain was inactive, Wednesday morning he passed away.

Mike was known in all three small communities around the area. Not because he frequented bars or talked for hours over coffee in the local cafes or for the silly things people talk about in small towns. Mike was a giver and a good guy, he not only belonged to the Lions but was extremely active. He like others in this organization gave willingly to grilling hamburgers and hot dogs on hot days to make money for local needs, but Mike never failed to give. He was also a God loving, family man who when entering a building made people smile. He was a avid golfer and helped in setting up charitable events again for local fund raisers.

Mike was in his 70's but you wouldn't have known it. He was youthful and vibrant. He will be missed. We've had a few days to think about life since Monday when we heard he was not doing well. And when deciding to write this post I too wanted to share my thoughts, don't wait till it is too late to say you love someone near and dear. Life is way to short.

As with every death, you realize that our time here is so short. And the good don't always die young. So for tonight, God Bless and may your loved ones know they are loved when they lie down and close their eyes.