Mandala Monday ~ Strawberries

Sometimes I like to play with my food 🙃

I’ve really been enjoying my little patio container of strawberries this year. It’s such a lovely, delightful little pot, and I’m getting so many berries on it – more than ever before!  It’s an ever-bearing variety, so it’s been non-stop since spring.

Tiny, but tasty! 🍓

And the bright, hot pink blooms are so beautiful..

This is from earlier this spring…

And this is from this morning…

I’ve got to keep an eye out for the pesky squirrels who like to snatch them just as they’re ripening. Those theiving little beasties!

I also have a little strawberry plant that my granddaughter and I started from seed back in March of 2020 when she had her last sleepover just before the big C burst onto the scene here in the US.  It too has been getting tiny berries on it…

I arranged this on my potting bench the other day using some of the berries from that plant while thinking of my sweet granddaughter…

She’s getting so big…

And so is my grandson…

Gosh, how time flies… we’ve really got to cherish each moment, don’t we. 💕

 

May your Monday be filled with sweet moments…

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Mandala Monday ~ Stopping to Smell the Roses

I came across this gorgeous zinnia ‘mandala’ this past week while my mom and I were on a little outing to a local public rose garden. It’s been ages since she has been out anywhere, so it was really wonderful to get out and do this with her.

There weren’t many people there, and the ones who were there, all kept their distance from one another, which helped my mom feel more comfortable being out. I’m so grateful to have places like this nearby and I’m glad it was still open to the public during the pandemic. We really need our outdoor spaces.

We had a very nice time and of course, I took tons of photos while we were there. I seemed to gravitate toward all the pinks…

The fragrance was soooo heavenly! 🥰

Here are a couple orange beauties I noticed…

And yellow…

But back to the pink…

I really couldn’t get enough of the pink. Even in the other flowers they had on the grounds…

The bees liked them too…

And we came across other wildlife out enjoying the beauty too…

Sweet little bun bun! 🐇 💕

We also spotted some beautiful clematis wearing my favorite color…

But my favorite ‘flower’ was this one in blue…

❤

 

Wishing you beauty this week!

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Mandala Monday ~ Grandchildren

My sweet granddaughter and I made this mandala together when I went over to visit my daughter and grandchildren last week. What a joy they are to me! 💕

I found a couple of deflated balls in their garage that I thought we could use as makeshift bowls and then went around the yard with my granddaughter and gathered various blooms and foliage. She loves foraging! When she decided we had collected enough treasures, she went about laying hers out on the ground…

Here’s her layout…

Precious thing! 😍

As I began laying out what I had in my bowl, I explained to her that I was wanting to arrange mine in a symmetrical pattern, and she came over to assist. And she caught on right away. Making it symmetrical was a bit of a challenge, as we didn’t have equal numbers of the various flowers and the ground was bumpy and uneven, but it was fun and we were very pleased with our little creation.

My grandson had been busy splashing in the pool while my granddaughter and I created our mandalas, but he came over to ‘help’ when we were finished…

Sweet boy! He is so darn cute in his little swim diaper! 😍

And I have to share at least one picture I snapped of him playing in his little pool…

💦

I adore my grandchildren. 🥰 I’m so grateful to spend this time with them making mandalas and playing in the pool.  It’s the simple joys. 💕

 

Wishing you simple joys and many blessings in the coming week…

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

 

Spiral of Life

The spiral of life

 

ever turning 

spinning

twisting

Curves ever winding 

inner to outer

and back to center again

A journey of beauty

wonder

mystery

 

the spiral of life

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2020

~

 

This past week the spiral of my life brought me to Miami Florida!  I’ve never been to Florida before, so it was a fun, new adventure for me!

My sister and her husband flew me there to spend a few days with them while they are on vacation down there.  How nice of them was that?!  I’m so grateful!

But do you know what guys?  The winter loves me so much that it followed me all the way from Minnesota and made iguanas fall from the skies!  Yep.  They had a windchill advisory and everything.  One local told us it was the coldest temps they’ve had in 5 years.  I blamed myself and promptly apologized. 😉

But being a cold-hearty Minnesotan, I found it amusing that they issued a windchill advisory for 35 degree weather, and my sister and I giggled to see many of the locals all bundled up in winter clothes. You guys think this is cold?  Bah, you haven’t seen nothing!  Incidentally, I hadn’t packed any of my own warm clothes, thinking it was gonna be 80 degrees.  I didn’t even wear a coat to the airport, knowing I wouldn’t need it.  But I was wrong, it was indeed quite nippy on Tuesday evening.  But that didn’t stop us from going out to the hot tub that night.  The only other people we met out there with us were from Canada.  Maybe they’re the ones to blame for bringing the winter weather! Hahaha!

When I got back home, I heard that the National Weather Service had also issued a warning about “Falling Iguanas” on their Twitter page and that really took the cake!  But in actuality, that’s not funny.  Poor things!  And they weren’t really falling from the skies obviously, they were falling from the trees.

I didn’t see any fallen iguanas while I was there, but I did see one, and thankfully, it was alive and well.  It was really cool to see.  I snapped a picture of it, but didn’t get a good quality shot…

You can’t tell from the photo, but it was HUGE!  I wish I could have gotten closer, but it ran away as I approached.  I was lucky to even get this shot.

I feel lucky to have even seen it at all!  And lucky to have seen all of the other wonderful and beautiful things I saw while I was in Florida too!  I have 300+ other photos that I snapped during the few short days I was there.  Excessive much?  😉  But I won’t make you scroll endlessly to look at them all, I’ll try and share them little by little in future posts.

But I will share this one before I go…

My big seester and I at the lighthouse on beautiful Key Biscayne ❤

 

May your day be with love!  And may the spiral of life bring you to beautiful places, people and things today…

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Mandala Monday ~ Christmas Gifts

Happy Mandala Monday!  I just thought I would share a few photos of the lovely mandala coasters and set of magnets I got this past Christmas from my nephew and my sister. They’re so delightful and they make me happy – (the gifts and my fam 😉)!

I had both of these things on my Amazon wishlist and was so excited to receive them!  One of my love languages is gifts, so I always feel extra loved when people give me gifts.  Granted, it is a common tradition to exchange gifts at Christmas time – especially with family, but it still makes me feel extra special whenever I receive a gift!

Here is a stock photo I stole off of the Amazon listing so you can see all the great mandala designs on the coasters.  They’re all so pretty, it’s hard to chose a favorite…

And those coasters will come in handy while I’m drinking all of the fruit-infused water concoctions that I’ve set my mind to making in the new year.  The color of this one looks especially yummy doesn’t it?  Strawberry, blackberry and pineapple. Mmm so refreshing…

🍹

The magnets are such darling little things!  They were tricky to photograph because they’re only about the size of a quarter and have a glossy finish, so these are a bit blurry…

These will come in handy too, as my sweet Granddaughter loves to draw, color and paint pictures for me to display on my refrigerator.  Maybe I’ll have some to display from my Grandson one day too.  We’ll have to wait and see if he enjoys art, as he is only one year old, but he seems to like being involved in anything and everything that his big sister is doing.

Speaking of my Grandchildren…

I could share hundreds of photos I snapped of them over the holidays, but I’ll spare you from all the scrolling.  I do love these ones of the two of them though, because of the warm, loving memories I have of them helping me decorate my tree…

My Granddaughter always insists on wearing her ‘strawberry dress’ (which is too small), whenever she comes over.  But it makes her happy, so we just let her. Even though it’s winter. 🙃

🎄❤

And I’ll share this one too, because of the pure and simple joy of it…

Oh, how I love my Daughter and my Grandchildren! 💕

And while we are on the subject of children (and this looks like it’s for children), and it’s Mandala Monday, one other mandala-themed gift I received this Christmas was this mandala sidewalk chalk stencil kit from my mom…

Another stock photo, but that can’t be helped – it’s winter right now and everything is covered with snow, so I can’t exactly take it out and play with it just yet.  Maybe for a future mandala Monday…

I hope your Monday is off to a good start!  Wishing you beauty and inspiration today and in the coming week!

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Monarch Monday

My daughter has been fostering monarch butterflies this summer and I’ve been privileged to be able to experience it in part with her.  It’s been a truly moving, enriching and “transforming” experience.  Here are two of the beauties I got to watch emerge just the other day…

It was absolutely magical, you guys!  Like, I know that we have all heard the inspiring and philosophical sayings about caterpillars transforming into butterflies, but witnessing first hand, the complete life cycle of these unique and amazing creatures that my daughter has fostered has brought me to tears on more than one occasion.  I’m truly in awe…

She hadn’t intended on fostering Monarchs, it just sort of happened.  You can read more about her journey on her Instagram account at  https://www.instagram.com/wolfehartwoods/ where she has captured beautiful photos and amazing videos throughout the process – starting with the mother butterfly laying the eggs on the milkweed right outside her front door.  If you do plan to take a look, I would recommend scrolling to the very first post and going from there.  Her videos of them hatching from their eggs, munching on milkweed, crawling around, and then pupating and emerging are really amazing!

(As a bit of a side note and a proud mom’s shameless plug: Wolfehartwoods is her secondary Instagram account, she also has https://www.instagram.com/rachaelswiregarden/ for her business where she shares the exquisite and unique wire wrapped tree of life pendants she creates.)

But back to the butterflies…

Interestingly, the most moving and meaningful part of the process for me personally, was watching the caterpillars transition into a pupa.  It looked extremely uncomfortable and difficult, and on some strange level – I related and resonated, and empathized.   Here are a few photos of one of them I witnessed…

Eventually the chrysalis hardens and then becomes transparent as the butterfly gets closer to emerging.  Here are two next to each other that are at different stages…

The chrysalis’ are absolutely beautiful!  You can’t really tell from the poor quality of the above image, but there are gold metallic dots and a gold line on the outside, it’s super cool!  It’s also super cool to realize what is happening inside those little pods.  Just wow.

Just a few moments after I snapped the photo above, it started to emerge…!

It happened so fast!  I tried to take a video of it, but it didn’t really turn out.

And here she is unfurling her new wings…

A few hours later we took her and the other lovely girl (who emerged at the exact same moment!) outside, where I took billions of photos.  Many of which turned out blurry in all of the excitement oops! 🙃

But it was completely and utterly delightful!  Especially because it was experienced with my daughter and my precious grandchildren.  Sorry, not sorry, for sharing all of these…

As you can see, my sweet granddaughter fully enjoyed the butterflies!  😍

At 9 months, my grandson was only mildly interested in the butterflies, and seemed mostly intent on examining the grass and the Creeping Charlie (as you can see in the background in one of the photos above), but here he seemed a bit more interested…

So much more interested, that five seconds after I snapped that photo, he made a grab for it.  Thankfully my daughter was alert and her hand was quicker than his.

But he was barely aware when one of them was exploring his head.  But just in case, my daughter was ready if his hands happened to reach at his head…

Such an adorable little head…

💙

Neither butterfly was in a hurry to leave and even when they finally took flight, they came back to where we were in the yard and one of them landed on my hand for a little while before she took to the air and eventually disappeared from view…

Such an amazing creature.  I appreciated her special little goodbye.  ❤

And I appreciate my beautiful daughter.  I love her so much…

She’s always had sort of an affinity for butterflies and I feel like the universe wanted her to have this experience. She’s been a wonderful foster mom and hopefully with her assistance 13 little monarchs will have a better chance.

🦋

 

Happy Monarch Monday! Wishing you all a beautiful week ahead!

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Mandala Monday ~ Noelle

A little flower mandala I created on top of my notebook while I was out on the patio writing and reflecting after my sweet Noelle was here visiting for a few days…

We spent a lot of time outside – she was a very good little helper in the garden…

She really enjoyed helping water my plants on the patio.

But can we talk about how adorable her curly little ponytail is?!  At 3, the child is finally getting hair!  My mom said Noelle reminded her of me as a little girl with a ponytail.  I loved hearing that. 😍  And of course, she also reminded both of us of my daughter.  ❤

Here she is examining and rearranging a few of my rocks…

She’s a real chip off the ol block, that one!  😉

And here she is jumping through the sprinkler…

Cuz hot summer day.  🌞

[By the way, the bathing suit she’s wearing was my daughter’s. 💕]

And here’s another one of her sleeping…

#Creepingonsleepingchildren haha!  I can’t help it, she’s too sweet when she’s sleeping!  Even when she’s kicking me in the ribs.  😉

I love that precious little being more than I could ever say, and it was so wonderful having her here with me for a few days.

I think this mandala I created while thinking of her looks just like her. 💜

 

Thanks for letting me share!

 

Happy Monday, wishing you a wonderful week ahead!

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Thankful Thursday ~ Angel Face

Angelic face soft and round 

sleeping blissfully without a sound

 

© Julie Rehnelt 2019

This is what I woke up to this morning. 😍 Such a blessing having my sweet granddaughter stay with me for a few days. ❤

 

Wishing you days filled with blessings too!

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿

Thankful Thursday

Have I mentioned lately how thankful I am for my precious little Grandchildren?  Oh, I have?  Okay, well is it alright if I mention it again?  😉

I spent the day splashing around with these 3 loves yesterday.  It’s not summer yet, but the temps here sure feel like it.  I’m thankful for cool water, and for something fun and refreshing to do outside on a hot day – I had my feet in that wonderfully cool water too!  It’s the simple things…

 

What are you thankful for today?

 

 

 

✿~Peace & Love~✿