What Others See

In the last few weeks, while I have been absent from social media, other bloggers were so sweet to feature my accounts.

Last week, Kristi of French Creek Farmhouse did a shout out to Steve and me on both her blog and her Instagram account @frenchcreekfarmhouse .

Brenda of Cozy Little House wrote a post titled, Living Large in Little Houses: Carol's House, where she talked about our colorful home and how much we use our outdoor spaces.

Kristi had us both in tears as we read her sweet post, but I laughed when I read this paragraph in her post.

I laughed because I think of our house as mostly white these days.

I created my new blog header before I read Kristi's post.

White linens,

white dishes and 

white decor are what I see.

Then I looked at the photos Kristi chose to use in her post and I saw that while there is white, our house is definitely full of color.

I thought most of the color at our cottage was in the garden.

 I snapped a pic this morning and I notice now that the white walls, windows and furniture are merely a backdrop for bright colors.

If you were to walk around our garden you would see a few white flowers, but mainly

you would see color.

Not what I imagined

On the sidebar of my blog I have this little blurb.

I love that Thoreau quote

and even put it on a pillow.

Until December 13th,  I was living the life I imagined and then .  .  . 

we were in a horrific car accident.

I will spare you photos, but suffice it to say that I will always think of Friday the 13th as a lucky day because it's a miracle that we are alive.

For the last 2 months, I have been living a life I didn't imagine, but it gets better every single day.

The first three weeks were BAD and I imagined what I would do once I could move around and use my hand.

It felt wonderful the first time I actually decorated the house - the Christmas decor is still in the garage.

The basket of flowers was arranged with one hand (broke my left hand), the center was with one and a half hands (velcro brace) and the pink roses were arranged on Sunday with both hands.

As you can see, I have started to decorate for Valentine's Day.

The challenge is using whatever I can find in the garage or shed because neither of us can pull down the attic ladder yet.

 I am not ready to polish the silver, but maybe next week.

I'm slowly decorating each room in the house

and working in the garden for short spurts of time, 

but what amazes me the most is that I am actually typing with my hands on the keys correctly.

I go to occupational therapy twice a week and on Monday, I would never have imagined that my baby finger would work voluntarily today - even yesterday was a struggle.

In December, I could not even imagine working in the garden

or walking Lulu on the beach.

But as I said at the beginning of my post, each day is easier and we just booked a flight to visit our little grandsons.

 I am back living the life I imagined - just slower for a few more months!

Holiday Door Decor

Welcome to the Holiday Door Decor blog hop hosted by Amber of Follow the Yellow Brick Home.

If you are following in order, then you arrived here from Belle Bleu Interiors.

Shannon's home is beautiful and she has such great style.

I usually focus on decorating this door, but it's not the original front door.

In 1928, the door (not a Dutch door at the time, we added that) opened onto the utility room from the alley.

The front entrance to the house faced a sidewalk that ran down to the beach - all the sidewalks were closed off in the '60's and the alleys became the only street entrance.

So I thought I would show you the real front door of the house today.

I love this door, from both the inside and the outside,

but I have never hung anything on the door at Christmas.

Most of my Christmas decor is old - I have had the wooden candy cane for about 25 years.

The chalkboard sign was in the attic and I chose the easiest words I could write.

There are actually two garlands on the old window and they are both at least 10 years old.

Once the porch and window were finished, it was time to style the bench.

I love my Maileg pixies and it would be fun to leave them on the bench,

but Steve sits on the bench nearly every afternoon and my poor pixies would end up on the ground.

I need to get back in the house and finish decorating, so I'm sending you off to Calypso in the Country.

Shelley's home is beautiful and I can't wait to see how she has decorated her door.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Oh, Canada

Steve thoroughly enjoyed our June vacation in France.

He came home with lots of inspiration for paintings

and a willingness to feed my travel bug.

We weren't up for another 12 hour flight so in September we settled on a 5 hour flight to Montreal.

This was a quick getaway, 4 nights/5 days, with no plans

other than walking the streets of Old Montreal and Old Quebec City.

We definitely wanted to see the Leonard Cohen mural on Crescent Street - that day we walked over 9 miles.

We simply wanted to wander, but thanks to Instagram,

I was searching for this cute spot

and it's smaller version.

I snapped pics

of things that caught my eye

like the fun stairs in Thursday's Bistro on Crescent Street.

I love clock faces and the city of Montreal is full of them.

We wanted to stay in the old part of the city

via

and chose the Vieux Du Port in Old Montreal.

It is the only hotel settled along the Saint Lawrence River - the buildings (originally warehouses) date back to the 1800's which explains the thick stone walls.

The only thing we had planned, and my favorite part of our vacation, was meeting Suzan of Simply Vintageous and her husband John for drinks at 3 p.m. - we ended up leaving our table at 10 p.m.

The drive to Old Quebec City was filled with fall colors despite everyone telling us there was nothing to see on the drive.

I felt right at home when we arrived at our hotel, Auberge Saint Antoine

and saw the red doors.

Just as in Montreal,

we wandered the streets of Old Quebec City.

I loved the greenery

and window boxes full of colorful blooms.

Many of the shops had lovely fall displays.

This fun pumpkin display caught my eye - we popped in for a lunch of French Onion Soup.

We spent less than 24 hours in Old Quebec City

and we loved every minute of it.

Now we're in the planning stages of an April getaway to celebrate 50 years since we met.

We want to keep it in the 6 hour flight range so please leave ideas in the comments.

We're looking for great architecture,

vibrant street life

and wonderful restaurants -

fun art installations would be a bonus.