A Postcard a Day - Monday 14 Sept 2015 mapMonday

Good morning  my friends! Good Monday!

Monday on my blog is MapMonday. I have a mapcard to show you. Today I show you a card with a map of Oklahoma in the USA.

The text on the card reads:

The legend of the Cherokee Rose: An Indian story tells of how the brave Cherokees were driven west by the US Govt. God looked down upon them and forged their tears into rose shaped stones. These stones are found only in Oklahoma, the end of the ‘Trail of Tears’.

The card was sent to me by Jeremy from Tulsa (a city in Oklahoma) who is a veterinarian student. He says this is the story of his people (He is Cherokee).

The flag of Oklahoma:

The state's name is derived from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning "red people".

Being a geologist of course the rose rock interests me:

Before dinosaurs were in existence, the sea covered Oklahoma depositing barium sulphate into the sand. As the climate changed, the sea dried up and crystals (rose rocks) were formed. Iron oxide in the sand gave the rocks their reddish color. These beautiful rare rose rock clusters can be viewed at Timberlake Rose Rock Museum in Noble, Oklahoma.

So you see.... every card has it's story and this one is very interesting.

See you tomorrow at T for Tuesday,

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Sunday 13 Sept 2015 A colorful modern and a local modest church building

Good Morning! Good Sunday!

In my collection of postcards there are many churches, as churches are often an important landmark in a particular city. Churches can be beautiful buildings too.

I usually show you a church on a Sunday. Today it is not a card I got through Postcrossing, but one a colleague sent me from Barcelona while she was there on holiday. It is a detail of one of the towers of the Sagrada Familia:

The Sagrada Familia is a large roman catholic church (minor basilica) in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain),designed by Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi.

Construction of Sagrada Família had commenced in 1882 and Gaudí became involved in 1883, taking over the project and transforming it with his architectural and engineering style, combining Gothic and curvilinear Art Nouveau forms. Gaudí devoted his last years to the project, and at the time of his death at age 73 in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete. Sagrada Família's construction progressed slowly, as it relied on private donations and was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War, only to resume intermittent progress in the 1950s. Construction passed the midpoint in 2010 with some of the project's greatest challenges remaining and an anticipated completion date of 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death.

The local church we go to here in Baza is very small. It's not a traditional church building as such. We rent the venue. But it's not the building that makes a church.... It's the people.

Here is my DH saying hello (or goodbye) to someone outside the door of the church.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and a good rest.

See you all tomorrow,

God bless,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Saturday 12 Sept 2015 snow for a change

Good morning! Good Saturday!

Hope you are having a good day.

Translated this says: Hello, let today be a good day for you and let God's favor go with you!

My postcard for today has some snow in it. It has been so hot and stuffy here, just looking at snow makes me feel cooler!

 This is from Russia. I have no idea what the writing says. The sender (Tatiana) writes: Hello from Yaroslavl. After much Googling I found out that Yaroslavl is a city, and the image is  A pavillion (early 19th century) on the banks of the Volga River.

The stamp on the left is celebrating the 300th Anniversary of the Sea Infantry of Russia. The right hand stamp is from the Kremlin series and shows the Ryazan Kremlin.

That's it from me today,

Have a good Saturday,

And see you tomorrow!

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day- Friday 11 Sept 2015, Friday Smiles

Good Morning, 

 I'm linking up with Annie's Friday Smiles. I love Friday Smiles as it bursts with positive vibes and nice things and of course each post I read makes me smile for a different reason.

I feel very blessed that I live in a village, and that I know the butcher, the baker (and the candlestick maker) ahem, I meant the postmaster. His name is Juan. He's a lovely man and always helpful and accommodating. Here he is posing patiently.

 When I told him he was going to feature in my blog he smiled shyly. I see a lot of Juan as I post lots of postcards and I'm always asking him for pretty stamps!

I do www.postcrossing.com so I send and receive postcards from all over the world. I have so far only ever had one card from Norway. Here it is:

It was sent to me by Marit who is a dairy farmer and a rural postman. (I don't know if Marit is male or female....)

The picture features bridal dresses from Hardanger. Aren't they beautiful.

The stamp has a little hedgehog on it.

By the looks of it they call a hedgehog 'piggsvin' in Norwegian.

I read something remarkable about the Norwegian 

flag the other day:

The flags of six other countries can be found within the Norwegian flag! Clever!

Now something to make you smile...although I suppose only for UK people, other nationalities won't 'get it' as they don't have Dr Who:

That's it from me for today.

I hope you all have a fantastic Friday. 

Keep Smiling!

Lisca

A Postcard a Day -Thurs 10 Sept Meh-eh (goat noise)

Good Morning! Good Thursday!

I'm a bit bleary eyed as last night we went out with our neighbours from Denmark. There are bars/restaurants a couple of minutes walk from our house. The Danes are on holiday so they don't want to cook. We drank wine and ordered some plates of food. In Spain we eat late at night (10pm) so by the time we had eaten and chatted, it was past midnight.

This morning I was up early again as the electrician is coming to finish putting the cables in the new house.

Now for my card

This was sent to me by Ilya this week. He writes that the design studio he used to work for designed this postcard. It marks the Year of the Goat. The text says: 'Do good big and small'.

The stamps are very nice:

The one on the left shows the ski resort Krasnaya Polyana. And the one on the right shows the Sail Rock at Gelendjik. Sail rock is named as such because it is only a meter thick and looks like a square sail.

I'll keep it short this morning,

Have a great day,

Blessings,

Lisca

WOYWW 327 - a moan, two kitties and a decorated postcard.

Good morning desk hoppers,

It's Wednesday again and you are here to see everybody's desk. Here is mine:

 It's a bit of a disaster area. I'm participating in the CSI scrapbooking challenge (CSI color, stories, and inspiration)and the color palette was just perfect for my packet of Gelatos Tropical that I had lurking in a drawer and had never used. I watched a tutorial about a resist technique: stamp and emboss (colorless) and then rub some Gelato over the embossing, and rub with a baby wipe. Well, it was an unholy mess! I was not a happy bunny.

This summer while I was in the UK I bought an embossing pad but when I unwrapped it yesterday, it was completely dry. So I had to emboss with colored ink. Then I found a white inkpad and tried that. But I'm not happy. I gave up in the end.... Chucked it all in the bin. (Not the Gelatos, I'll have another go with those). I'm annoyed because I can order another embossing pad online. They cost only a few £s, but then I have to pay £6 postage and packing! Argh!

OK, moan over. Have I got something nice to show you? Oh yes, here are the kitties that live on our top terrace. They are very shy. We feed them and they play on the furniture. We use the terrace for building materials at the moment. There are plenty of places to have shade and to hide and play.

 Most of you know that my other hobby is Postcrossing. I received a lovely postcard from Belgium (with a photo of their royal family). The sender had decorated the address side of the card, which I found more interesting really. It's beautifully done:

 Great isn't it!

That's it from me today. Sorry for the moan...

Have a good week all of you,

Many blessings,
Lisca

I'll add a few photos of the building project for those who are interested:

DH is laying the tiles on the bedroom roof. This is where the (compulsary) solar panels will go.

This is our living area. The electrician is doing the cabling (the black line on the wall). The wood is the ceiling, and on the right is the stairs to the bedroom. The arched windows and patio doors open out to a large terrace. The walls will be rendered and will be white, but the wood will stay as it is, and the stairs will get another coat of black paint when everything is finished.

A Postcard a Day Tues 7 Sept 2015 T for Empress..Whaaat?

Good Morning lovely people and lovely Tuesday girls.

Hope you are all well. I am joining in with T for Tuesday at Elizabeth's altered booklover blogspot.

For that I must show you something drink related.... well here goes:

It is a postcard of the Russian empress Elizabeth Petrovna (1709-1761). It was sent to me by Marina from Voronezh in Russia. She tells me that she likes good food, quiet romantic evenings and interesting books. (That's my girl! I do too!) And she dreams of going to Australia and the Maldives. (Can I come with you?) But what has this to do with drink?

Well, look at the beautiful stamps:

The one on the left is of a gastronomy series and features a samovar (urn) with blini (pancakes) with red and black caviar. 
Here is a video of  how to make blini.

The stamp on the right is a joint issue of Russia and Monaco - History of Automobile Production - ZIL-111B.


And if a samovar wasn't drink related enough, I'm going to leave you with  my latest mug:

I haven't been sitting outside sipping wine lately as it has been raining the last few days! It doesn't rain much here. In fact we haven't seen any rain for about three months. And when it does rain, it washes the top soil away which is not nice for the local vegetable patches . 

I like to sit in our little courtyard under the shade of the vine. When it started raining, we forgot to check if there were any leaves on the drain hole.... result... a flooded courtyard! Here is DH trying to brush away the leaves so that the water can drain away, but couldn't quite remember where the hole was!

That's it from me today. Have a great Tuesday!

See you tomorrow when I link up with Whats on Your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW).

Blessings,

Lisca