The Mountain Laurel is Blooming and is Beautiful!

I am in Paradise in the North Carolina Mountains and the mountain laurel is in FULL bloom! Oh, it is awesome to see, so delicate and tiny blooms but the trees are huge that grow around the river here!

I dearly love them! I have been taking photos this AM and I hope they turn out OK. I also am collecting the rose petals off the bushes around here as an experiment if I can make rose petal beads. Most of the recipes I have found involve cooking the petals down to a paste on the stove top but I am opting for the recipe where I roll the very tiny cut petals in a little flour and salt to make a paste and it says to roll the dough in a thimble to get the proper amount for a bead. I still look at he thimble and it seems a little large to me but, what do I know, this is my first time trying this!


The mountains were cold and cloudy yesterday but today the sunshine is bright and so is my outlook! I love the sound of the rushing waters in the river stream and I saw Canadian Geese with their babies out of the water walking the shoreline this morning, more photos I took, but have not had a chance to upload to computer yet. I believe they also had a mallard duck swimming around with them. What a way to wake up with my coffee in the mornings!

Yesterday I went into town to the scrapbook store and loaded up on some fairy and queen papers along with mermaid and beach maidens book pages to play with. I also got some stamps, I don't see locally in Alabama. I just love the crafting store. It is called Bear Pages, in Murphy, NC and Weldon and Nancy are so nice to visit with every time I come up here.

The dogs I am up here to pet sit are fabulous and wet most of the time. Yesterday morning they got in the river and the dirt covered banks left them awful to try and clean up. I went through through several beach towels and raking their fur before they were dry enough to come in the house. I went to Wal*Mart and loaded up on micro fiber paw wipes and wet foam bath cleaner I found in the sale isle. I also found the perfect rake I needed as I borrowed from the dogs that live here full time's rake since we forgot to bring ours from home. I needed another good one anyway!I also got a good brush for tender ear areas as the girls and Bailey also have long ear hair. If I do say so myself the four Golden Retrievers together are just a fabulous group! And pet-sitting is a fabulous job to have. We have a mini vacation while we stay here thanks to our friends who have the other two golden retrievers and invite us up here to stay in their guest house. They originally had one of our real grand-dog golden's and time has passed to take them away from us.

Just as I was typing our pet-sitter we have for our cats while we are away is visiting our home as she sends us a daily email with photos of the cats and lets us know they are fine and dandy.
We just got the email already and can rest easy all is OK at home.








I hope you are having a wonderful day also!
Smiles, Cyndi