New Day, New Year

Here we are, already 9 days into the new year! Can we believe it? Will January go fast??? Yes! I must admit, it's always kind of a letdown after Christmas, following all of the hustle and bustle, and after the final NEW YEAR'S EVE excitement. Although I really don't do anything 'exciting' for New Year's Eve, it's the anticipation leading up to midnight that gets me every time. And then, New Year's Day, I kind of crash land! Is it like that with you?

So....... the first few days of 2026 have been a little "down" for me. I don't seem to have much motivation for anything. I think I used up ALL of my motivation the last couple of months of 2025!

Looking forward to Valentine's Day crafting.

My decorations are still up. I put them up so late (December 24th), I'm going to keep them out awhile, as I so enjoy the pops of red, plaids, and lights at night. I wait until dusk to turn on my tree lights... it's always something to look forward to. 

My Maddie kitty has a new friend - she loves sleeping with him!

My Daphne is blooming!

A surprise for me is that my Daphne shrub, that I planted the summer of 2024, is blooming again! I thought they only bloomed in the early Spring! But no... it's been full of flowers since early December! Before my son and Terra came over on Christmas Day, I picked a bunch and put two flowers in little glasses, all over the house!  Such sweet fragrance.

One day right after the 1st of January, I decided to start making my Christmas cards for next year! I got about 12 cut out and ready to paste and decorate, but that's about as far as I got. They still sit in a pile on my dining table. They're from some gorgeous new Christmas papers (Christmas, from Carta Bella Designs) I received as a gift from my sister. I just HAD to work with them now, and not wait another year. I'm happy to say I DID get my dining table all cleaned off and most of my Christmas papers and epehemera, ribbons, cutouts, etc. put away to free up my space for more seasonal crafting.

Made a special card for my nephew's 40th birthday.

Of course, had my cup of tea - tried out the new honey sticks I received from my sister for Christmas.

I'm enjoying walks around the mobile home park where I live. There is a stand of very very old giant Cedars that greet me every time I walk down the path. They are so stately. I can imagine when someone planted them as seedlings, so many years ago. So far (knock on wood) the high winds  haven't knocked any down!

It's time to get back to "work" on my two part-time jobs! One.... photographing and listing jewelry in my daughter-in-law's Etsy shop, Terra Stones Astoria. 

Her jewelry is exquisite! Her Etsy shop is having a 10% off sale this month, on total purchases of $100.00 or more. I think her brick and mortar store in Astoria is having an even bigger sale! 

And I need to be entering new digital items in my own Etsy shop, Rocking Horse PrintsUS. Time for making new Valentine's Cards and St. Patrick's Day cards and all the fun stuff! Here are a couple of cards I already have in my shop, ready to cut and print.

 

The work never ends it seems.................

Hope everyone is recovering from the holidays, and safe and well and healthy.

Marilyn

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Summer into Fall

NOTE: I started this post on July 11th and never got it done! So here it is, with a few more current things added here and there.

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With the humid climate here, overly warm days, and some rain sprinkled in here and there, my vegetable (small) gardens are reaching higher and higher!

My 2 tomato plants are ginormous! They tower over my poor artichokes and onions.

Although my onions seem to love their little shady spot. They are Walla Walla sweets and I'm looking forward to onion rings. NOTE: They actally are quite big now and will be pulling them up soon!

Some baby cukes are almost ready to pick. I've already picked a few.....really early to have them in July. I'm disappointed they aren't the lemon cucumbers they were labeled to be. 

NOTE: I DID end up getting mostly "baby cukes" and now as of Sept. 1st, my vines are overloaded with them! Here is some of my harvest from the other day, plus I've eaten alot and given some away!

I'm still getting strawberries, and my cherry tomatoes are going nuts! My vines have tipped over from thre weight of the stalks.

There's such pleasure to stand and look at my raised beds. These are my strawberries. The nasturtiums from last year have come up again and are trying to take over! I've pulled many up. NOTE: I've since this photo, pulled out almost all of the nasturtiums, so my strawberries have a chance to bear fruit. And they are still bearing nicely.

Such a colorful time of year!

I took a trip to see my sister in Redmond, Oregon, the one whose house burned down a year ago. The new house build is coming along really fast! Their move-in date is set for October 1st! 

We were there the weekend of my birthday (late June) and it was so nice to celebrate it with my sister, son and his fiance. My son and his fiance drove, so I rode with them and didn't have to drive, which was nice, as it's a 5-1/2 hour drive from my place. 

Hi Line Homes has been doing a "bang up" job on building this house in the time frame that they promised.

Side, looking out to their 5 acres.

View looking out their kitchen window, of the Three Sisters Mountains in the Coast Range. There also is her garden (which she tried to keep alive this summer, but too much heat and too many critters ate it!)

So nice to share my birthday with my sister! Delicious gluten free cake.

Sharing a feast with my son!

While in Redmond, we went to the Petersen Rock Gardens, a wonderful place that has been open since the 1950's, but closed for a couple of years when the owner died. It is many acres of all stone and rock structures, houses, castles, bridges, waterways, etc. I'll show pictures from that visit on my next post.

Now that it's September 1st, I'm feeling kind of sad about the less and less amount of summer left. I still haven't gotten my camping trip in this year, and I'm very sad about that. Life just gets in the way! 

I did manage to go western dancing ONE time. Seems like when each Tuesday rolled around (when the class is), I was busy with something else (or it was just TOO hot to go dance)! Will try again for this next 6 week course. Even got me some new cowboy boots! Stay tuned for that saga.....

Be well everyone.............

Marilyn

Spring garden

Well, it's summer now, but here are some "spring" pictures of my garden. It's doing great! I took these pictures 2 weeks ago and you should see it now. With a recent rain, everything has shot up another foot!

The following pictures are my raised veggie beds.... strawberries, Walla Walla sweet onions, tomatoes and lemon cucumbers. The strawberries didn't have many berries, but I think most of the plants are everbearing, so I will have more berries later in the summer.

The nasturtiums that I planted last summer, came back with a vengence, so I took most of them out! There are a few left in amonst the strawberries!

My two tomato plants have grown at least a foot since I took these pictures! Same with the lemon cucumbers. I'll take more pictures once the rain stops!

See the pointy things in the middle? Those are artichokes! I've never planted them before and have no idea what they should look like or if I'll get any fruit.

My flowers are all looking great and my yellow roses are opening up! I've netted my vegetables so the deer won't eat everything! I didn't net any flowers, and the deer do LOVE roses, so one of these days, I may go outside and have my roses all eaten. I have a bird bath closeby, so the deer may want to come and drink. I really should move the birdbath!

I planted some more pansies in a couple of planter pots that I got from my neighbor.

My fuschias should be starting to get flowers very soon.

The nasturtiums are taking over in the front planters also! I've pulled some out to give the petunias underneath a chance.

Neighbors one lone foxglove. My property in Washougal, WA used to be covered with hundreds of them!

Neighbor's cute array of garden goodies.

First strawberries.

Maddie says hi!

Besides enjoying my garden, I spent a few days a month ago, watching our old old wood fence being removed from behind the mobile homes on one side of the park, to make way for a new tall chain link fence. That old wood fence has probably been here for at least 30 years! and then......... they removed a bunch of big old growth fir trees that were too close to the homes and ruining any fence that was there.. also to make room for the new fence. That was fun to watch!

Here's the old fence. I'd already removed a bunch of the boards.

I'd removed about every other board, using my handy dandy battery screwdriver. It worked great, but many of the screws were so rusty, that my screwdriver would not budge them. I wanted to save the better boards, to use for building "something"! (not sure what)

Here's my first stack of boards. The neighbor came over and  helped me take many more off, using his impact screwdriver. Now I need one of those. It worked so  much better.

Then came the tree falling, a few days later.........

That huge tree was encroaching into the wall of this mobile home! 

Fence all gone! See the old stumps that are on my lot? Those trees were cut down years ago to make room for the old wood fence. I hope to have those removed one of these days, so I'll have more room for vegetables. 

Now we're just waiting for the new fence. I hear that the company has been  hired and they have the supplies, so it may happen hopefully in the next couple of weeks. It sure opened up my yard area and this entire side of the park has more sun now. A win win situation, but hated to see those beautiful old trees go.

FINAL NOTE: Whenever I go into town, or at least once a week, I usually go to town (it's about 9 miles from me so I run all my errands at once), and go to McDonald's, and then find a nice place to park on one of the hills overlooking the town. I ALWAYS have a stunning view! 

It's hard to tell, but I'm WAY up high on a hill!

Until next time... please everyone enjoy the start of Summer!

Marilyn

ALL CONTENT © PINK PAPER COTTAGE.

PLEASE DO NOT COPY MY PHOTOS AND IMAGES INTO YOUR OWN POSTS WITHOUT FIRST LINKING TO THIS BLOG AND MY NAME.