Pink Saturday ----- Easter Giveaway and more

Welcome everyone to this week's edition of Pink Saturday, hosted by Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.

My first bit of business this week is to announce the winner of this pink and white coach figurine that was featured in my post last week. There was eleven comments and I placed each name on a post-it note, folded them in half and placed them in a hat and had the Old Salt draw out the winner.

Drumroll please...................and the winner is ............Happily Retired Gal of the blog of the same name. Congratulations, Happily Retired Gal. If you will e-mail me your address I will get you lovely coach in the mail.

My entry for this weeks Pink Saturday was captured in a local antique mall. There was something about the painting that captured my interest.




To join in the fun or just visit the pink post of others visit Beverly and her friends at Pink Saturday.

Maxine on Saturday

"Maxine on Saturday" is hosted by Mary over at "Work of the Poet" and dedicated to one of my favorite ladies. Maxine is someone you either love or hate. She is a gal I can't help but love and who makes me wish I had the chutzpah to copy. After all, we all think like her but usually don't have the nerve to say it out loud.





To post your favorite words of wisdom from Maxine, or just to check out others favorites hop on over to Mary's blog

Doug Owen's Sculptures

During a recent visit to Columbia, Missouri I captured my entry for this week's Yard Art Thursday. On one of the busiest intersections in the city, across the street from a large shopping mall, we discovered a herd of horse sculptures (made from salvaged materials) grazing on the lawn in front of the Landmark Bank on Stadium Blvd. Needless to say, we parked and wandered through the display. I was fascinated by the assortment of items I could identify in the sculptures and the way the artist incorporated them into his work.




Since it was a Sunday afternoon, I was unable to go into the bank for more information. I have since talked with the bank manager and learned the chairman of the bank, Mark Landrum, is a lover and supporter of both the arts and horses. When he discovered the artwork of Doug Owen which combined both his interests, Mr. Landrum decided to make Mr. Owen's horses the signature feature in front of all of his bank's branches located in three states; Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. There are three branches in Columbia and each has at least one of these horse sculptures. But, the facility located on Stadium Blvd is the largest and it started with four horses a few years ago and has since added four more. I was told that one of the banks in Oklahoma has even more than that.



During my research I also learned the following:

Doug Owen's work can be found in several art galleries across the country including one in Kansas City. After several calls to the galleries I learned that the cost of one of these steeds is between twenty and thirty thousand dollars.
Besides the life size horses Mr. Owen also makes colts and ponies.
Landmark Bank is the largest private collector of Doug Owen's work.
A wonderful video of the artist discussing his work, plus a bio of the artist can be found here.
Some great photos of the process of creating these sculptures and the finished work can be found here.

Mary T. at the Work of the Poet host Yard Art Thursday. To check out the yard art discovered by others visit Mary and her friends at Work of the Poet.

Mellow Yellow Monday --- Yellow it is

Welcome everyone to this week's edition of Mellow Yellow Monday hosted by Drowsey Monkey. To join in the fun or visit other Mellow Yellow participants just click here.

I'm sure that those of you of my generation, remember, when every community had large apartment complexes of cookie cutter apartments buildings all managed by the same company; that have mostly gone condo in the last decade or so. Well. I live in one of those complexes. We have what was known as a townhouse with a large fenced patio that opened on to common ground. Only now the common ground has been divided into small parcels that belong to each condo.

So when I step outside my fenced patio I am looking at a large expanse of unfenced lawn chopped up into different patterns by how recently the grass has been mowed. Its like a new subdivision where the home owners have not had time to install their separate fences around the playground equipment and lawn furniture. A few days ago I noticed one lone yellow dot in the middle of all this expanse of lawn. I walked over and photographed the very first dandelion of the season. The very next morning I stepped thru my gate to hundreds of yellow polka-dots. Amazing how fast nature can change and grow.




Now you will have to look close at this next photo to get the whole picture. While driving down one of the smaller lanes in town I noticed this yellow tunnel attached to a wonderful treehouse that also has its own deck and underneath play area. I'm sure the kids that live there have great imaginative play times.

Votes are in on the yellow door.

Last week I posted my new yellow door and fact that the Old Salt was not in love with the color. I ask all of you to cast your vote on the color of our door and we agreed to to leave the decision up to all of you, the knowledgeable and savvy folks in Mellow Yellow-ville. Question was do we leave it as it is, lighten the color or change the color entirely. Based on all the votes cast both here and on our family blog the majority were definitely in favor of leaving the door as it is. I am also happy to report that the Old Salt claims the color is growing on him. So for now the door will remain its sunny goldenrod color.

Thank you all for you wonderful comments and for the many e-mails expressing your opinions.

Pink Saturday ----- Easter Giveaway

Welcome everyone to this week's edition of Pink Saturday, hosted by Beverly at How Sweet the Sound. Beverly gave us the option, this week, of posting either something in Easter yellow or doing our regular pink. I was going to go with my regular pink, than suddenly there it was, the perfect Easter yellow.


During my rounds of the local resale shops, this week, I spotted this yellow rabbit cookie jar and fell in love with it. I actually made several trips to the shop and talked myself out of buying it each time. The last trip I had my thirteen year old grandson with me and he disliked the Bunny. Something about the eyes turned him off. Sinister is the word I believe he used to describe it.

But, I loved the that it had been hand made by someone in a ceramics class. In fact, there is a woman's name in gold script on the front. It reads Gloria Williams, 12-04-50. Can you believe this gem is almost sixty years old. Plus, I found it very sad that there was no one left from this ladies family that wanted to keep such a wonderful heirloom in the family.

Now how can you have pink Saturday without something pink. So, here is a collage of photos I took this week of some of the beautiful pink trees in town. What better way to honor Easter and spring.



Do you remember this lovely coach? I included this photo in a PS post about a month ago that featured some of my many thrift store finds. So many of you expressed an interest in this little gem and stated that you would have purchased it had you been there. Someone even referred to it as a "Cinderella Coach."

Well, I happen to revisit that shop this week and not only was the coach still there, it had been moved into the bargain room. So I purchased it and will be giving it to one lucky commenter this week. You will not have to sign up to follow my blog, or jump through any of those other hoops that I have seen on other blog sites doing a giveaway. All you have to do is leave a comment here this week and let me know that you would like to give this jewel a new home. I will place all the names in the proverbial hat and draw a winner next Friday and post it in my PS post next week. Congratulations to each of you.

I wish you all a happy Easter.

To join in the fun or just visit the pink post of others visit Beverly and her friends at Pink Saturday.

maxine on Saturday #

"Maxine on Saturday" a new meme started by Mary over at "Work of the Poet" and dedicated to one of my favorite ladies. Maxine is someone you either love or hate. She is a gal I can't help but love and who makes me wish I had the chutzpah to copy. After all, we all think like her but usually don't have the nerve to say it out loud.

I was sure that with Easter just a day away Maxine would have something pithy to say on the subject. Sure enough she did not disappoint when I went in search of her comments.

Hope you all have a great Easter. and if you do find something brown on your lawn lets hope it is a chocolate easter egg.




To post your favorite words of wisdom from Maxine, or just to check out others favorites hop on over to Mary's blog

Theme Thursday -- yellow

The good folks who host Theme Thursday have decided to devote one week each month to a specific color. This is the week and the color for this month is yellow. What better color for the beginning of spring. Due to warmer weather here over the last week spring has started busting out every where. And, I am certainly glad to see all those energizing signs of life around me.

During a short drive through town yesterday on our way to check out the flooding (for the second time this year) on the river I captured all of these cheery yellows.

But, I didn't have to go any further than my own back yard to photograph these yellow and green flags. The church behind us flagged off the area they planned to use for their easter egg hunt last weekend, unfortunately, it was raining and the festivities moved indoors and the field has been to wet to take down the flags.


Even most of the fire hydrants in town are sporting fresh new coats of yellow.



Lastly, we have a photo of our newly painted front door. I posted about the disagreement over the color of our door on my post for the meme Mellow Yellow on Monday. I explained that we were going to let everyone in blog land decide the fate of the door and ask everyone to cast their vote on the color they liked best. You will find that post here, so please go vote.


Wishing everyone a blessed Easter Season. May you find new energy in all of the yellow posted this week.
To join the fun or visit other participants from around the world visit Theme Thursday

Yard Art Thursday -- Happy Buddha

Mary T. at the Work of the Poet is hosting a new meme called Yard Art Thursday. This meme features just what the title implies, all those unique and unusual things that we homeowners like to display in our yards. To check out the yard art discovered by others visit Mary and her friends at Work of the Poet.



It was just one of those flukes that caused me to capture my entries for this week's Yard Art Thursday. Yesterday, the Old Salt and I went down to the riverfront to check out the river flooding (this is the second time this year), and on the way he happened to turn on a street we normally don't drive. Suddenly, I saw a flash of purple in one of the yards on a cross street I had to go check out. Not only did I find that my favorite color, purple, was decorating this yard in what looked like pieces of glass but there was also this very happy buddha.