Secret Garden

I received an email last night from my husband. Since he works from home, I was surprised to see his name in my in-box. When I opened the email a single picture popped up. If I haven't mentioned before that I'm terribled spoiled, now you know for sure. This is my anniversary gift and I'm so excited for it to arrive. Today I may be mistaken for a woman who needs to be medicated! And it's called Ruby Tuesday! How fun (especially since yesterday was Tuesday)!

Have you been over to the Victorian Trading website? I started getting their catalog a few years ago. It's one of those that I browse through slowly, enjoying every morsel. I definitely recommend the Castle & Cottage version! It's full of delicious furniture and home decor. They even have free e-cards. In fact, some of the images I used yesterday were from there. I had shown the picture of the jacket to my husband several weeks ago but I don't actually buy much from this catalog because it's all pretty expensive (for a Goodwill gal like me anyways).

We've been planning a little trip this weekend into Galena, IL so I was under the impression that we weren't doing gifts. What a wonderful surprise! Now I'm hoping that it'll cool down a bit. Of course, the weather man is predicting near 90 degrees for the weekend. Well, it's going to get cold sometime soon, right?! ...So let me tell you about Galena. It's one of the most darling cities full of historic houses and unique stores all lined up in these quaint old buildings.

Because it's a big tourist area in the Fall, we booked our hotel a few months ago. We just discovered that this weekend is the Country Fair. It's like Christmas in October at my house today!!

I had to help make a delivery for a customer the other day and she had such a gorgeous Autumn inspired house that I just had to show you. She just moved in about a month ago.

Her dinning room is a pale pumpkin color.

I didn't get a very good picture of the kitchen but it was such a neat old room. That's the table we were delivering - very long and narrow with drop leaf sides. She plans to use it for a center island. Just outside of the back door is a charming little courtyard. I was peeking out the door when she told me that she has a secret garden...

And sure enough, there's a side garden completely hidden away. It can't be seen from either the back or the front of the house. I really wanted to go exploring but it probably wouldn't have been too professional so I took a quick picture from the window...

It's not a great picture (hey, what do you expect... I'm sneaking pictures with my cell phone, lol) but you can see that she has ivy growing off the neighbors fence and flowing over into her yard, up the brick garage and just everywhere. It was so beautiful, I was a little envious. I had to remind myself to be happy for this elderly couple who only moved to our area a month ago. How wonderful for them to have such a lovely home. And how wonderful that I got a glimpse!

Well, since I'm going to be gone this weekend, I have loads of work to do for ebay auctions so I'd better get moving. I hit some good sales with Mom yesterday so there will be some great new stuff for ebay... Can't wait to show you everything.