1440. I’d rather have flowers on my table than diamonds on my neck. ~Edited quote by Emma Goldman

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Natalie, Natalie ever so merry,
how does your garden grow?
With pinks and stock,
as well as tulips and hyacinth,
and a teeny, tiny daffodil.

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But wait, it’s January! It’s wintertime! And tomorrow night may bring bitter cold temps with freezing rain or sleet and snow into north central Texas. So how can it be that her garden grows anything at all right now? Well, you see there’s a table out here in Natalieworld that’s reserved for such things. So how does that work? Is it a lipped table laden with dirt like a flower pot? No, no, no, but there’s the grocery store where she shops, and this time of year, they sell little pots that have already been planted with bulbs and she buys flowers every Sunday because little Natalie Scarberry, like Claude Monet, “must have flowers, always, always” be they cut flowers or bulbs in pots.

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For those of you who are new to my blog or for those of you who may have forgotten, Natalieworld is the part of our house that we added onto the back of the garage for my mother when she could no longer live alone. It connects to the main part of the house only through a small hallway that leads to the laundry room in one directions and the kitchen in the other direction, and so there is a distinct sense of privacy about it. After Mom passed away, I thought  since it would make a bigger master bedroom and bath, James and I might want us to move out here from our bedroom in the main part of the house. But he said no; he wanted me to have it as a studio for all my creative endeavors. So out went Mom’s furniture and in came new desks and file cabinets and book cases and two recliner rocking chairs–et voilà, a marvelous studio complete with big windows and a French door looking out on my back yard with its greenhouse, numerous flower beds, bird houses and feeders. Now as my 3 grandchildren have grown and spent time with me out here they’ve all declared that one day they too will have a Natalieworld of their own.

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“What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them! Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment, and would rend the air with their shrieks if condemned to such a life. Sometimes I feel as if I were blest above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily. I believe I should always be good if the sun always shone, and could enjoy myself very well in Siberia on a fine day. And what can life in town offer in the way of pleasure to equal the delight of any one of the calm evenings I have had this month sitting alone at the foot of the verandah steps, with the perfume of young larches all about, and then moon hanging low over the beeches, and the beautiful silence made only more profound in its peace by the croaking of distant frogs and hooting of owls?” ~Elizabeth von Arnim

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…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life…and work with your hands… ~Excerpts from Thessalonians 4:11 ✝

**All photos taken today by Natalie

35 thoughts on “1440. I’d rather have flowers on my table than diamonds on my neck. ~Edited quote by Emma Goldman”

  2. I want my own Natalieworld, Natalie. I have my orchids and several pots of plants up here, but I need the rest of your studio to make it better. What a beautiful thing to have. I am a transplanted city dweller now and sure wish I could be back at the farm with all the space for gardens, both vegetable and flower, and just the freedom of being able to look out the window in winter and enjoy the view. I love your world. Thank you for sharing it on this cold and dreary day. OH, yeah, I get a new orchid each month, sometimes two, but usually try to limit it to one because of the space limitations here. ❤ ❤ ❤

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  4. Love it, just to have the time to sit and enjoy nature all around you. It was a fairly nice day here so sat on the porch while the cat ate, and just enjoyed the little breeze. Hopefully soon that breeze will waft in the scents of new blooms from my gardens, I so miss that. ❤ ❤ ❤

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  7. Oh Natalie, a soul sister. Nature, space and peace and creative endeavours…so much love to be created and nurtured there. I love this post. Hugs xXx ❤

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    • Great minds think alike they say😊 Natalieworld is a wonderful blessing and I’m so grateful to have it. There’s even an angel who resides therein for it was she who pushed me up on my feet to get into where James was after I’d had a stroke and fallen onto the floor helpless to get myself back up. Time was of the essence that day and had she not gotten me up I probably would have perished before James begin to question why I had been absent for so long. I couldn’t even speak to cry out to him either. My daughter calls me her walking talking miracle because there were two very bad clots in a very bad place in my brain. But prayers were answered and the doctor managed to surgically remove the two clots and I had virtually zero residual damage from the stroke. God is good and prayer is powerful when it fulfills His will and purpose. At 75 I’m beginning to feel obsolete but my daughter insists that I can’t be otherwise I wouldn’t still be here. Blessings and hugs, Natalie❤️🌹xoxoxo

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  10. I have a geranium that is in full bloom on my balcony here in Vancouver, so I opened the patio doors and read your posting out loud so it could hear. I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure I heard a tiny contented sigh come from that direction, and when I looked up, I think it was smiling at me. Great post. Have a lovely day.

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