Sunday Gratitude for Seventeen Years of Joy

Today's Sunday Gratitude post looks a bit different from the others - it's about my gratitude for just one "thing" - but it's a biggie.

This week Kaefer turned 17. Seventeen.

I'm not quite sure how this happened... I mean it's not that long ago that I held her in my arms as a baby, then a toddler, an elementary school kid, a pre-teen, a teenager...

Seventeen years. Seventeen years of joy.

Oh yes of course, it wasn't always joy and blissful moments. There were tantrums, tears, "attitude", sometimes lies though very seldom, grumpiness, moping, the occasional drama. A rather usual list of a mother to a daughter.

But all in all, it has been mainly joy to raise a daughter, to see a sweet toddler developing into a confident girl, a goofy teenager, and to witness her growing into a lovely young woman. A young woman who is very concerned about our planet and takes care of the earth. Someone who wants to do her part and become an environmental engineer. She takes school seriously without being an overachiever and has opted to take German classes every Saturday morning for one school year to be able to get her German Language Diploma. She loves history and science; she's not so fond of writing essays for her English class. She can be a giggling, goofy teenager and dead serious the next moment. She has a group of good friends with whom she would like to spend more time if there were more hours in a day. She is wonderful with small children (her little German cousins love her) and enjoys her volunteering work with them.

She drives a stick like a pro.

She likes Jennifer Lawrence and Downton Abbey. She is quite "artsy", draws and paints beautifully, loves to work with polymer clay and sometimes sews her own clothes, be it for the homecoming dance or Halloween. She is quite inventive with her hair style and during the summer it's either barefoot or her Teva sandals.

And sometimes - way too seldom - she turns into a little girl again for a moment, curling up next to me and telling me that she loves me.

Oh, do I love her back... as we said when she was little, to the moon and back.

I am so very thankful for this biggest gift and miracle in my life.

Sunday Gratitude

"Every moment is a gift" - I just read this yesterday evening in a book, and I thought this is so true. When I look back at the past week I can see many moments that were a gift.

Our friend D, who has cancer and just finished her chemo, joined us for dinner one evening. We spent a wonderful time together, laughing a lot. I admire her attitude, she is so inspiring. Her surgery is in May and we all hope that things will look so much better for her afterward.

I spent a few hours with my friend K. We meet every Wednesday and just do some creative stuff together. She usually works on albums for one member in her family, and I brought my knitting this time. I'm currently knitting a summer sweater for Kaefer for her 17th birthday later this week. She chose the yellow sparkly yarn and I chose the pattern that I found on Ravelry. My "moment" was when I arrived at K's home and her dogs just stormed to the door to greet me. So heart warming!

When I came back home around 2:30pm that day I found a deer lounging in the shade below my kitchen window! That was a surprise. I am used to them coming into my garden and fill their bellies, but settling down for a siesta? That was a first. It then occurred to me that this actually meant I had achieved with my front garden what I wanted - a wildlife habitat!

The garden gives me many beautiful moments - butterflies twirling from flower to flower, scrub jays nesting, hummingbirds feeding on the nectar, orioles chatting, California towhees hopping through the plants, bees buzzing around the Spanish lavender. It provides many, many moments of gratitude.

And I'm happily planning my backyard. The past three years I mainly focused on the front garden, but now I will also work on my backyard. I want to change it into a beautiful garden as well, also a wildlife habitat where birds, bees, and butterflies find food, water and shelter. It will certainly take some years. At the moment it just has a dead lawn, some border beds, a few trees and raised beds. I love to spend lazy Sunday mornings searching Pinterest for ideas - so much inspiration to find there.

One morning I also managed to walk around my lake and I saw one of my beloved Black-crowned night herons. He was just a few feet away and thankfully stayed long enough for me to take a couple pictures before he took off. It was so beautiful to walk the trails around the lake. It always feeds my
soul.

So much to be grateful for. What about you?

Sunday Gratitude

This was a bird and bloom week! Some of our migratory birds have returned - like the orioles. I saw a female one sitting on the feeder and dipping her beak in the nectar, so I knew it is time to put out the grape jelly. Shortly after that the male oriole appeared and fed on the jelly. Orioles go crazy over grape jelly. They are quite spectacular birds, always chatting when they're around - and yes, it does sound like chatting. I found a site where you can hear this specific chatter call - if you go to the bottom of that page and click the very last call (called "chatter call") you can hear it. Unfortunately these birds are rather shy and it's difficult to photograph them. Here's a photo of a female from two years ago.

I am so glad that they are back. They will stay around for the entire summer until they make their way south in early fall. That's when they hang around the feeder a lot, filling up for the journey.

I have also noticed that the red shouldered hawks are getting more active which often results in fights with the crows. There is a pair of hawks very close to our home and I hear and see them every day now. Sometimes, when they're in one of their crow fights, they fly very low over my backyard. Against the sun their wings look almost transparent. I love birds of prey, but the red shouldered hawks have a special place in my heart. Again, no new photo, but one from 2013.

Spring is a really exciting time in the world of birds. Our scrub jays were busy building a nest in the big bush in front of our office - while I sat at my computer I could see them diving into the bush with their beaks full of grasses and tiny twigs. They had a nest here last year as well. It is a very protected site.

The "bloom part", of course, is very exciting, too. Unfortunately I have a nightly visitor who digs up my garden both front and back. I have no idea what animal it is; I suspect it is a skunk looking for grubs. To be honest, it is quite annoying to see the holes in the morning, soil thrown everywhere and unfortunately, some flowers uprooted as well. Since I can't really do anything about it (except for waiting all night and then shooting the animal - which is totally NOT my style) I try to see the positive - s/he loosens the soil and s/he is eating the grubs before they develop into nasty Japanese beetles.

Apart from that the garden is beautiful. The poppies are blooming, the French lilac is already past its prime, the California poppies are everywhere and the Spanish lavender is THE bee magnet. Two kinds of bees are buzzing around it all the time.

Jo and I went to some nurseries on Friday. This is always so inspiring! I was looking for some clematis - I love these climbing vines, they're cheerful and add amazing color to the garden. At one of the nurseries I saw this beauty and knew at once that I want it. It's called "Ville de Lyon" - my French friend lives in Lyon, what a lovely connection!

Isn't it amazing?

I will go out now and plant some more flowers as long as it is still cool out there. There is also a rose waiting to get into the huge planting box. Oh, I love gardening!

Have a lovely week and look at the small things in life.

Sunday Gratitude

Easter Sunday is such a great day to give some thanks, don't you think?

First of all I hope all of you have had a wonderful Easter Sunday. Ours was quiet but very nice. It was quite telling that in our drought ridden county it was raining today!! It is not raining for weeks and months, but on Easter Sunday the skies are opening up with a wonderful downpour. I enjoyed it, but I can imagine the disappointment of many children who were looking forward to an Easter egg hunt. It was clearing up in the afternoon, so there was still enough opportunity for that!

Kaefer and I baked some bunny buns (we found the recipe on Pinterest). While they didn't turn out like the ones in the recipe they were still delicious. Many of our bunnies didn't resemble bunnies but looked more like cats or even little hippos! Kaefer and I had fun baking together nevertheless and even made fun about the weird shapes our "bunnies" decided to take. I love to spend time with my girl this way.

Our week was rather uneventful. Kaefer was back to school, the Geek back to work and I tried to find my old routine again which is always difficult on the very first day. I have to admit that I get a bit tired with routine and I want to shake it up a little bit. Thankfully I can do this since my work - the shop - allows me to do exactly this. Usually I go to Jazzercise in the morning, but after having done this for more than five years I feel a bit exhausted with that. I still will go to Jazzercise - I need it, plain and simple -, but I will not do it five days a week anymore if I don't feel like it. A good brisk walk does wonders, too, and it's outside which I prefer so much more anyway. This week I walked around my lake again, but since I wanted it to be a brisk walk I decided not to take my camera with me, otherwise I would have stopped all the time and take pictures. I also knew that the birds weren't there but at the smaller lake, so I thought I was safe. Well, of course, I was walking just ten minutes when the first deer hopped into my way, then another. A little bit later I discovered a black-crowned night heron (so they are back now) and when I was almost around the lake I saw another one. Murphy's Law I guess. However, even though I stopped for a short while to watch the animals and birds I got my brisk walk and was quite sweaty when I reached the car. When I was starting to drive out of the parking lot I saw a coyote running across the picnic area - what a sight! I drove around the one-way road and back into the parking lot, got out of the car again and watched the coyote who by now was on the other side of the dried up creek and walking up the slope of the hill. I could watch him/her for quite some time until s/he disappeared among the trees. How wonderful! What a lovely start into the day! Kaefer was the wise one who told me that if I had my camera with me I probably would have taken so much longer walking around the lake that I wouldn't have seen the coyote at all. So it was a good thing that I didn't have it with me. Smart girl!

So here's a picture of a coyote that I took in 2008 in Yellowstone National Park.

Our "neighborhood" coyote is still around - I heard him or her again last night. S/he seems to be gone for several days up to two weeks, and then we suddenly hear the howling. It's kind of a sad sound I think and utterly lonely. I'm glad that s/he is still around.

There was a lunar eclipse in the very early hours of Saturday. We got up at 4:45 am to watch it, and it was so worth it. These nature events make me feel very small and completely in awe of our entire universe.

I wish you a wonderful new week with many opportunities to be grateful.

Sunday Gratitude

Today, our spring break comes to an end. It's back to school and work tomorrow.

It's been a beautiful week and there is a lot to be grateful for.

We all slept in, almost every day. I usually get up at 5:45 during the week, 7:30 on weekends. However, this week, with just a very few exceptions, I slept later than 8:00. This just shows me how much we all needed some rest and really good sleep. Today I feel so much more rested than a week ago.

I enjoyed going to the Swedish bakery in our neighborhood in the morning with the Geek. It was lovely when we met friends there and walked back together, stopping at their garden, chatting and talking about the new gardening season. They had loads of oranges and gave us a few from which we made fresh squeezed juice we had for breakfast. What a treat!

I did a lot of gardening, planting some more peonies and clematis. My French lilac is already blooming and I enjoy its beautiful fragrance. My freesias got knocked down during a brief rain, so I cut them and brought them inside where they filled the house with their lovely scent. They still do, and I enjoy it. The first poppies have opened their beautiful blooms, however, the deer had their share as well. Happy deer...

The Geek built a clothesline for me - out of redwood again, our favorite wood. He added a huge planting box and a trellis on one side and there will be a little "seat" on the other side where I can put the laundry basket while hanging the clothes on the line to dry. I am so happy. Pictures will follow when it will be complete.

It was wonderful just to spend time with my family. Having time to talk during dinner, watching movies afterwards. My daughter loves the British series "Mr Selfridge" and we watched the two seasons together before the third season starts tonight. At the beginning I wasn't too enthusiastic, but then the characters grew on me and I quite like the series now. It is not as good as "Downton Abbey" though.

On Friday we went to the South Bay to go to the German bakery in Los Altos. We had German pretzels, raspberry cheesecake and great coffee. Across from the bakery is a German grocery store and we just loved it - it's wonderful when you find food that you're missing. We also went to IKEA which I always find inspirational, and returned home via Highway 1 up the coast which was lovely and so much more beautiful than boring and crowded 101.

Yesterday Kaefer and I went prom dress shopping. She had some ideas about her prom dress and honestly, they were all a bit on the expensive side. Both my husband and I are very conservative when it comes to spending money, so I offered Kaefer to go with her and see whether we can find something in our stores here instead of doing our shopping online. Guess what? We found quite a lot of affordable AND beautiful dresses and she finally decided to buy a stunning red dress that suits her so well. I'm very proud of her that she didn't mope but went with our suggestions and was a very reasonable girl.

And now it's your turn - what are you grateful for on this Sunday?

Sunday Gratitude

It's already Sunday evening while I'm writing this - somehow I didn't find the time to write my post the entire day. It's the start of spring break and we were contemplating whether we should go down to San Luis Obispo and visit CalPoly, one of the universities Kaefer is contemplating to go to after she graduates from High School next year. However, since she said she will apply there no matter what and she really doesn't need to see the campus first and gets all the information she needs from their website, we decided to stay home for the week and perhaps do a couple day trips instead and work on some projects we have been planning for some time.

Yesterday we (other German friends and us) did a huge rummage sale as a fundraiser for our friend D. who has stomach cancer and has just finished her third round of chemo. I am grateful for all the volunteers of our German group who organized and helped at this event. We raised a good amount of money for D. and got rid of a lot of stuff at the same time. By the end of the day, the owner of the place were we held the sale took everything that wasn't sold and brought it to a charity organization who are thankful for any help they can get. Thus we actually helped two good causes. We were tired, sweaty and rather dirty (and probably smelly), but very contend. Unfortunately D. is not doing well at all and is currently in the ICU in one of our hospitals.

I met with my friend K. and we spent the morning at the Salvation Army thrift store center and yard in a small town nearby. We had a really good time - I found a few books and while K. was looking for clothes I walked around the area and took some pictures. Green hills and beautiful trees - it looks so lovely at this time of year.

Two mornings this week I spent at the lakes - the big one and the smaller one that is very close to the big one. While I did see almost no water birds at the big lake (except for the geese and ducks), I found them all two days later at the smaller one - Black-crowned Night Herons only a few feet away from me, Green Herons in flight and I witnessed some swan drama when the swan defended the nest he was just building against a pair of Canada geese who came out to tease him again and again. Stupid geese - you don't mess with an angry swan!!

I'm sure you know the song "Happy" by Pharrell Williams. That's a song I am grateful for because whenever I hear it I feel happy, I smile and everything is just a little bit better. I start to move, I can't help it. Don't know the song? You can listen to it here.

What are you thankful for this week?

Sunday Gratitude

It's hard to believe that another week has passed so quickly.

Our week here started with foggy mornings. Often the coastal fog hangs around for quite a while and eventually burns off to blue skies and bright sunshine. On Monday instead of going to my Jazzercise class I went to the Laguna for a walk and some very foggy photos. It was a beautiful start to a new week and set the tone for the days to come. I enjoyed the fog, the wonderful trees and the many birds that call the Laguna their home.

We finally had some rain again - not much, but a little is still better than non at all. It was enough to get some moisture into the ground - not only the garden was thankful!

This week I once again realized how much I love where I live. Although Santa Rosa has a population of 160,000, it often feels more like a small town. When I go to our neighborhood market I am always greeted; the sushi men throws a "how are you" to me, the butcher has a couple of jokes. One of the staffers and I usually stop for a brief chat and a laugh - she has been working in that market forever. At the post office - not the main one but a smaller branch - waiting in line is seldom boring as there is always someone who strikes up a conversation. The clerk is super nice and has a delightful positive attitude. If I need a pick-me-up I just have to go there!

I spent a creative morning with my friend K. She was sorting through photos, I was creating graduation cards (soon in my Etsy store). We chatted, sat outside on her deck, talked about gardening and I got my "dog fix". We usually just spend three or four hours together, but these hours always feel like a mini vacation.

Yesterday it was so warm that we had our first BBQ and ate dinner outside. Afterwards we sat around the fire and had pie for Pi day. I love these warmer days when I can finally drive with the windows rolled down. It wasn't too warm but not cool either, just right for having the windows open in our home all day long. The perfect weather.

And finally - yesterday I received my US passport in the mail! Wow - that was fast. It took less than two weeks; I'm quite impressed. The passport is beautiful - every page inside looks different with pretty pictures and great quotes. Of course I love it!

You might think everything is nice and pretty in my life. It is not. There are enough challenges and not so nice things happening in my life just like in everybody else's. However, I have decided to look at the bright side and focus on those things that bring light and happiness into my life.

I hope you can do that with your life as well. I wish all of you a wonderful week.

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Do you have a graduate in your life?

Send her or him a handmade card from my Etsy store.

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Sunday Gratitude

This has been a good week - busy and full, but good. Let me tell you what fills my heart with gratitude.

The best certainly was that Kaefer got more sleep this week and had less homework than usually. This resulted in her being more relaxed and so much nicer and sweeter than she often is when she doesn't get enough sleep and is slammed with homework. It's the only thing about her high school that I truly don't like - that they give way too much homework. IMHO teenagers should also have the opportunity to have a social life and do teenage things like hanging out in the mall or going to the movies together. Kaefer almost never does that. Every now and then she goes shopping with a friend of hers or two, sometimes they make it to the movies together. I wish she had more opportunity for this. Since she is stressed with the amount of work for the school, she often is very short, gets into teenage attitude and we sometimes fight with each other. While I know that all of this is quite normal for a girl her age, I rather have her around when she is more relaxed. So this was a wonderful week when she laughed often and was her funny, chatty self.

I saw two of my good friends that I hadn't seen for quite a while.

K. and I just sat on her deck, enjoying fruit and veggies while talking and catching up on each other's news. Their new dog occupied some of our time as well - you know how much I love dogs and enjoy every opportunity I can spend with them.

Seeing Jo in the spring usually means we visit nurseries together while catching up. We are both passionate gardeners and quite crazy about birds. It's simply beautiful to share this love with someone. We also both enjoy knitting, so after the nursery we also visited a yarn store where we had a lovely chat with the lady who works there. I love this kind of connection.

At the end of the week I got an unexpected custom order from a Girl Scout leader for one of the girls in her troop who is moving away. It reminded me so much of my own years as a troop leader for a Brownie and then Junior group of Girl Scouts. I enjoyed working on this custom order very much and I am thankful to be able to do what I love.

While walking the neighborhood I came across a yard sale held by an man whom I often meet when he is walking his dog. We just sat at the side of the road, chatting for a while. This is what I will always love - connecting with the people in our neighborhood, sitting for a short while and chatting. It's a small thing, but so beautiful. It makes life a little bit brighter. Again, it's the connection.

While Kaefer goes to German School, I often hang out in the public library until she's done. Often I take a few dvd's home with movies that we want to watch. While I usually look for movies that one of us "knows" (= wants to see), every now and then a completely unknown movie (at least to me) grabs my attention and I take it home just out of curiosity. This happened last week when I chose "An Unfinished Life" with Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman, both actors I like a lot. Please don't roll your eyes that I didn't know this movie! I loved it!! This is the kind of film I like to watch, especially when it ends well like this one does. It is satisfying I guess.

A few weeks ago I told you about the Varied Thrush that suddenly appeared in my garden. Well, he has brought his extended family, and they hop around in my garden joyfully. It's a pleasure to watch them, they are such beautiful birds. However, it is almost impossible to capture them on camera. They seem to sense it and fly away - darn!

I hope you had a pleasant week as well with many opportunities to be grateful. Have a wonderful week!

Sunday Gratitude

After having read my blog this week, what do you think I am most grateful for this Sunday?

Yes, of course, the US citizenship that we received last Wednesday. It's been a big step, a long process with such a happy ending.

I am also deeply thankful for all the kind reactions I got, especially from you, my friends. You showed so much kindness and joy for and with me, it truly touched my heart. I feel so blessed because of you. Thank you.

This week was also our wedding anniversary - 17 years. I am such a lucky woman to have a husband like him. He is a good man, and I love him. I can't imagine my life without him. We went through some tough times together, but also some incredible happy times, and I still cherish his humor. He is the best companion I could ever imagine.

I enjoy our evening walks. Almost every evening after dinner we take a short or sometimes longer walk through the neighborhood. It's the time when none of us is busy with anything else, it's just for the two of us when we can talk or also be quiet together. It has become a beautiful routine in our life.

Yesterday I discovered a new state park, Olompali Historic State Park. While Kaefer was at German School I went to this park and explored it a little bit. Next time I'll take my hiking boots and hike up one of those trails! It's beautiful up there with lots of gorgeous trees. I love trees and this was some kind of paradise for me. How lucky we are to live in such a beautiful area.

I spent a lot of time in my front garden, redoing the garden path I had made two years ago. It was just a little bit too straight, and I wanted it more in a meandering way. The hummingbird sage is spreading out as well and got into the path which I didn't like either. Every time I walked along there I had to push the pink flowering currant to the side which isn't ideal either. It was just poor planning on my side. So I finally pulled out the path stones and laid them in a different way through the flowers. It looks so much more beautiful now. I'm still not done because I ran out of the path stones. I need to go to Home Depot and get some more. I also transplanted my coffeeberry bush since it clearly wasn't happy in the place it was and got crowded out by some salvia. This has been resolved now. And there's still a lot of trimming and pruning going on.

And last but not least, we got some rain yesterday on our way back from Novato. It was raining so hard that we could hardly see the cars in front of us. The sky had turned very dark, there was some lightning, and then the hail started. It was over after ten minutes.

How was your week?

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Spring means gardening.

Write down ideas for your garden in a journal 

available in my Etsy store.

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Sunday Gratitude

Hello Sunday evening!

It has been a busy week with work, school stuff, doctors appointments and waiting in line at the post office. Now it's time for some gratitude.

A new regional park was opened last weekend and the Geek and I decided to go for a hike there on Monday (remember? that was a holiday). While it was still busy, we didn't experience the craziness of the two days before. It was easy to find a parking space, chat with the ranger and then take off. The park has a sunny part and a shady trail through the redwood trees, connecting to a bigger state park. We chose the sunny part, leaving the shady part for the hot days in summer.

It was beautiful. We hiked up the mountain where we were rewarded with wonderful views over the mountains, vineyards and the plain over to the Coastal Range where the coastal fog already rolled in. We heard birds and listened to the wind rustling in the leaves of the trees. It was so relaxing and refreshing. How lucky we are to have such a jewel so close by!

After our hike we went shopping at CostPlus World Market on our way back home - the Geek still had a coupon we wanted to use. Lucky for us they had a special on a German chocolate we love and bought quite a bit of that. It's always nice to have little reminders of our native country at home!

The first tulip of the season appeared in my garden! Tulips usually don't do too well here since winters are not cold enough. When I buy bulbs - these ones I got at Costco - I first give them a six week chill in my fridge before they go in the ground. Even then they are only good for one season and seldom come back the following year. I simply can't imagine a spring garden without tulips, so I repeat this every year. The nice thing about it is that I can always have different colors. These ones are yellowish-white with a pink edge around the petals.

Our coyotes are still here. At the beginning of the week they were very close and howled at 5:00 in the morning which actually got our neighbors talking. Many didn't know what this "eerie" sound (their words) was, and we advised everybody to take special care of their cats and small dogs.

I have worked at lot in the garden and am still not done. Last year's poppies have re-seeded like crazy and are crowding out the other plants. So I am out there almost every day pulling poppies and thinning them out. I'm also planning to change the path through the garden (this is at the front of the house) - I have lots of ideas anyway. I enjoy my garden every day and I love the work. It feels so good to spend many hours outside and work up a thorough sweat.

And our sunsets - they are still spectacular.

I feel so blessed.

What about you?

Sunday Gratitude

Since this is a long holiday, today feels more like Saturday than Sunday - until I realized what day it really is and I know that it is time for Sunday gratitude.

It's been a beautiful week. Most of the time felt like an early spring with temperatures often in the 70's. After the rain at the very beginning of the week, everything seems to come to life. The air feels different, too - there certainly is spring in the air!

I wonder whether it will keep like this - or is a cold spell still possible? Sometimes we have some frost in February and sometimes even in March. I think just to be on the safe side I wait another two week before I start some serious pruning in my garden. My fingers are itching to start right now!

It was also a short week since schools were closed last Monday as well. It was nice to sleep in a little especially since I felt rather tired due to a bad cold. I'm feeling so much better now, and the tiredness has gone! I'm so happy - I don't really like to have less energy and being tired.

On Friday I finally walked around the lake again. It was quiet there, almost no wildlife except for a few birds. My "friends", the Black-crowned Night Herons, were nowhere to be seen, and only from the distance did I spot a Green Heron. However, I enjoyed the different bird sounds like the funny noise the Red-winged Blackbirds use to call each other, or the loud screaming of the Steller's Jay.

There is always a variety of ducks out on the lake. I'm not quite sure which ones these are, but I think it's a Bufflehead. I need to learn more about ducks and the different kinds.

I was very surprised when one morning I saw a "new" bird in my garden. I first thought it's a robin, but when I looked closer I saw different markings and figured that this is a Varied Thrush. They usually stay here only in the winter, and I had never before seen one - what a lovely surprise! Sorry for the very bad picture, this was taken through the window, and this bird is very shy and flies away immediately.

Kaefer was invited to a birthday party at the beach - on a day when it was 70 F out there! Usually it's much cooler at the beach than here, but the weather is really weird these days. Anyway, she and her friends had a blast and a really good time. Afterwards two of her friends stayed here for a sleepover. We had a noisy dinner, and I thoroughly enjoyed the chatter and laughter of the girls. Teenager can be so much fun! I am lucky to have them in my life!

We also had some colorful sunsets again -

Oh, and there is work! I got a huge custom order in this week that I am still working on. I love custom orders as there is usually some communication with the customer beforehand and I know a little bit more what they need the item for. It somehow makes the work different. Today I ran out of the ribbon for her project, so I had to go and find the right one - a nice excuse to do some shopping and look around the craft store!

And - I enjoyed Valentine's Day! We don't give each other gifts, but I loved to decorate the breakfast table with dark chocolate hearts. Kaefer didn't have to go to German school, so we had the entire morning for us. Such bliss!

It was a beautiful week. I hope yours was wonderful as well and you have many reasons to be grateful.

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Sunsets over the ocean are the subject 

in some of my photo art cards,

available in my Etsy store

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