I have so much to update!  I'm still trying to figure out how to use Blogger and make a respectable looking blog.  Remember Xanga?  Yes, old school, but I had that figured out so well.  Now I have things to blog about again, and ideas, lots of ideas!  So I need to study and figure this baby out, because I don't really want to start over again on another site.  For instance, I want to put a nice header with this gorgeous bluebird, but this is just not right at all, way too big, and I haven't figured out yet how to do it.   **Edit:  I found a page about how to make a header with Picmonkey!**

So, on my very first post on Bluebird in the Pines, I talked about my frustrations of having dreams and never being able to make them come true.  Since then I have taken big steps!  I created a great craft room, which is a little cluttered up but has a lot of potential.  Last month I took a leap and rented a bookcase in the Zionsville (Indiana) Antique Mall, Booth #12, look for my pretty bluebird decorations.  I called my space "Bluebird in the Pines" of course!

In January I took another leap and joined the Zionsville Concert Band.  I needed to start playing my trumpet again!  We practice on Tuesday nights, and have had a couple of concerts.  A few more are coming up in July.  I know this is a talent and a gift I need to use.  Need to find time to practice though.

Here I am with my cornet and my trumpet.  Our home was broken into in January, and I praised God that they didn't steal my instruments.

I have a lot more pictures to add.  But I have things to figure out.  When our home was robbed, my laptop was stolen.  My kids all said, get a Mac!  Grumble grumble.  I know they are great and all, but I am still figuring it all out. Plus figuring out this Blogger. Also I need to work on a Facebook page for Bluebird in the Pines, then I would have an easy way to share pictures of my antique booth, my bluebirds, my farm etc etc.   I had my laptop photos etc backed up on Idrive, but I haven't gotten all of those put back up on Picasa Web Album, or wherever else I need to store some pictures to make it easier to share on here.

Yesterday morning I went out to find that 3 of my 4 chickens had been killed.  Oh I am sad. I've lost chickens before, but never 3 at once.  Things have gone so well for the last year, since we had a couple lost, that I guess I got a little careless and didn't notice a big gap in the pen that is on the back side of the barn.  Some little critter, we think a weasel, got in.  I have a barred rock that has been "broody" and that saved her life.  I want to get more, but we know we have a lot of work to do on the barn first.

Maybe I'll figure out my pictures and come back and add some to this blog.   

Deep freeze start to 2015

Super cold here in Indiana this week!  Trying to stay in as much as possible.  Making treks to the barn to check on the chickens.  They are doing ok.

Need to get into a habit of blogging, sharing some pictures and progress of goals.  Upward and onward.

Honestly, a little depressed after Christmas.  We visited the kids in Denver and it's always hard coming home and leaving them all behind.  Then with the new year, and trying to make some plans and goals for life.

Found this scripture: Yes, my soul, find rest in God.  My hope comes from him.  Ps. 62:5

Sometime I'll come and give a report of 2014 happenings and share a few pics.  I did make progress with the craft room, it looks great but needs organizing!  And I need to get to making things instead of stock piling goodies and ideas!

Birdfeeders at Bluebird in the Pines

I worked for 2 years at Wild Birds Unlimited, which I enjoyed because I am a bird lover and already knew a lot about bird feeding.  But I learned a lot more in that time!  While I was there I added to my feeder stations and have quite a variety. 

I stopped in at WBU and stocked up today!  My feeders had been empty for a while and it made me sad to look out and not see any birds, and when there was one or two they were trying to find a morsel.  Now there is plenty of nyger for the finches, suet, sunflower seed mix, peanut pieces and peanuts in the shell, and suet plugs in a woodpecker feeder.   As I was filling them up I noticed a bluejay flying around watching.  They LOVE the peanuts.  Chickadees will be here soon gobbling up the sunflower seed and finches will be back, soon becoming mottled since they lose their pretty gold color in the winter.  There are lots of cardinals, woodpeckers, nuthatches and probably there will be the fat little dark eyed juncos that come in winter. 

I love the saying that "birds are the flowers of winter."  To me it's a little like fishing, putting out the food and then wait and see what comes.  Since they have been empty, it will take a few days til the crowd is back, but they will be back!

It's never too late to be who you might have been.



Time for this chick to fledge

For years it seems I have longed to be a crafter, an artist, an antique dealer, or something of that combination.  I have hoped for it, I have stashed away supplies, made fits and starts, and then keep putting it off until I can be "ready" or have my house "ready" or have enough money, etc etc.  I see all the successful people out there and think that the world doesn't need another one.  But I still want it. 

So, I was just reading MORE of these awesome blogs about worlds that I want to belong to, and decided, what the heck, I will just start my blog, now, and quit waiting for things to be right or my house to be clean and ready.  Just start here where I am. 

I figure, I will try to do one thing every day to move towards this goal, to clear off one spot of clutter or do one thing that I have been procrastinating about and just maybe I can sit down and do one of those awesome crafts, clean those walls in my future craft room, paint those walls, start uncovering and unpacking all the awesome little things I have been packing away.  Maybe little by little I can chip off the stone that covers my heart and uncover that sculpture of the person that I am meant to be. 

Didn't all you awesome bloggers, crafters, home decorators, start someplace?  It's time for me to recognize my talents, to see what I have done already, to be proud of myself and to quit hiding.  It's time to reach out and make new friends.  To believe in who God made me to be, to quit putting it off because I am getting too old for that!