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ContessasHome formerly Contessas Garden and Gift, LLC

~ Vintage fine and decorative art, lamps, mirrors, chandeliers, small occasional furniture pieces, classic "hard cover"books, vintage "smalls", and handmade decorative art craft

ContessasHome formerly Contessas Garden and Gift, LLC

Category Archives: Reflections

Gardening Friends

24 Tuesday Jan 2023

Posted by ContessasHome in Gardening, Gratitude, Professional Services, Reflections, Sharing, Tonight’s Thought

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Today we visited each of your garden spots. You didn’t know we came by….it was intentional because we came just to view the process of winter. It’s been a mild one so far and the growth and dying back process is about where it shouid be. We did do a few things at each property. With two more full months of winter likely, we are making notes and planning tasks and thinking about new ideas to introduce to each of you…….come spring

We are fighting flu like symptoms but a much needed outing helped us to fight off the chill and fever. We needed fresh air, space and some filtered sunlight. It seems we accomplished soaking up these attributes from our much needed outing. We are feeling somewhat better this evening. Hoping our chilled feelings and mild symptoms of winter flu are giving in slightly…..to the rest we have cherished and so needed over the last seven days. It’s our winter hibernation of sorts. Plain old fashioned rest.

We have made notes and have some ideas we will share with each of you as we get closer to spring. Mother Mature  certainly knows what she is doing…. and our brief respit is perhaps her intentional way of slowing us down. The earth is at rest and so are we.

And now we will sleep. And so will each of your properties also rest. And we can work out visions in our mind of “new” projects for each of you when spring arrives.

Good to be in touch and good to see your lovely spaces today. We will communicate individually with all of you between now and March 15th.

Do take good care….and be well  

“Contessa”

love…affection…honor…respect

21 Saturday Jan 2023

Posted by ContessasHome in Reflections, Scripture, Sharing, Writing

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Romans 12:10

Love one another with brotherly affection.

Outdo one another in showing honor and respect.

•••••••••

•.  Who are you going to honor?   •

 

AMEN

Dragonflies….the keeper of dreams

20 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by ContessasHome in Evening Prayer, Faith, Gratitude, HOPE, LOVE, Reflections, Sharing, Today's Update, Tonight’s Thought, Writing

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Magical

 

Dragonflies are the keeper of dreams,

the energy within, that sees all our true potential and ability.

Dragonflies inspire individuality and creativity

They help us on the path of discovery and enlightenment.

•  ••••••••••••••••••••  •

They remind us, that anything is possible. In almost every part of the world, the Dragonfly symbolizes 

change,

transformation,

adaptability,

and self-realization.

The change comes with mental and emotional maturity

and understanding the deeper meaning of life.

PRAYER

LORD, my omnipotent Father God…may I call out to your mercy and kindness. I wish to change, and transform my life. Help me to adapt to new ways and fulfill the possibilities of my mental and moral qualities. I know that these changes can only materialize with growing in your maturity. Teach me your ways O Lord, that I can become the woman who appreciates all of life, and help me to understand the true meaning and purpose for my life path. I only wish to honor you in all that I do. I now pray to be granted the dream your dragonflies are keeping for me. I await, I trust and I know that anything is possible with your blessing over me. Amen.

Calm….and creating “hygge”

20 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by ContessasHome in Gratitude, Helpful Tips, Houseplants, LOVE, Reflections, Sharing, Today's Update

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To create “hygge” in your life there are well known things you can do to bring that sense of calm, and cozy…ness in to  your personal space. And with more of us working from home during these times, it’s essential that you carve out habits and rituals, if you will, that help you bath your inner self in tranquility and real “calm.”

Tea rituals are special. Take the time to visit a true organic market and see about purchasing some whole dried herbs,  such as mint, orange peal, or clove. Experiment and create you own hot tea recipe. If you prepare the blend yourself; the simple act of preparation/mixing and assembling your tea, can bring meaningful ritual into your life. This in itself shows you that you are taking time to do something for “yourself.” This act is so calming and cozy.

While you are at the organic market maybe purchase a revitalizing fragrant candle. We use Lavender scent. But each person has their own preference. Explore and experiment.

Greenery is a terrific way to bring beauty, clean air and a calm feeling into your personal space. An Aloe plant might be a good start. And you can acquire one plant at a time. Learn it; what water it needs, what light it prefers and treat it with calm and tender care. This one conscious act with regularity can bring a peace and calm into your life and make your personal space more cozy and personally inviting. Your little heavenly spot where you visit your “calm” and while there…in your “calm”… experience profound gratitude for your life and your well being. Amen!

Making time for tea,🫖 candles,🕯and greenery🪴can be the beginning of your journey to exploring more Calm. You deserve this calm in your life.

Add beautiful music 🎵 to your menu for calm. Remove clutter, bring light🔆into your personal space, slow down and your “hygge” will find you. A coziness and well-being.

So……give yourself permission to “get your hygge on.” Your own cozy and calm.

Namaste 🙏 .. from “Contessa”

P.S. …… and now that we are “calm,” we will proceed to our 12 Noon Yoga class!

Tea Time…….

18 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by ContessasHome in Gratitude, Handmade, Reflections, Sharing, Special Events, Tonight’s Thought

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Today we received a special “gift” sampling of nutritional, medicinal, herbal tea recipes. The art of herbal tea preparation is a ritual of creating the perfect delicious blend and flavor balance. It encompasses a mix of select herbs appropriately measured to create flavor, nourishment, and served in calm and peace ….with love and care.

Enjoyed by those who treasure

“the art of tea.”

• ••••••••••• •


Tea Pots

Tea Leaves

Tea for 2

Tea Prep

Tea Cup

Tea Lover

Tea & Writing & Books

Tea Party

Tea and Sympathy

Tea….a hug in a cup

Afternoon Tea

Tea Sandwiches

Wedding Tea

Art of Tea

Tea Samplings

Tea Mixing

Tea Shop

Sweet Tea

…….thank you dearest friend…….

……having tea now……

feeling very warm

and very relaxed!

Just As I Am….

17 Tuesday Jan 2023

Posted by ContessasHome in Art, Faith, Gratitude, Morning Prayer, Reflections, Sharing, Today's Update

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When we look at a Tree do we think about these reminders. They are powerful. So every time you pass a tree… be it small or large in stature…..think of what the tree is telling you. It’s a great example of how equally important both tree and “me” really are.

Thank you God….for all the trees…..and all the “me’s.”

Amen!

About Us

11 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by ContessasHome in Reflections, Sharing, Tonight’s Thought, Writing

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Tags

“zerotohero”, Birds, Blooms, Bushes, Creatures, Faith Journey, Flowers, Gardening, healthy cooking, Houseplants, Insects, Nature, Photography, Plants, Prayer, Scripture, scripture study, Weather


Hi…. I’m “Contessa.” I’ve been blogging as Contessa since 2010. I opened a garden and gift shop in 2008 and began blogging two years later in 2010. This was my choice to communicate using a social social media platform, so as to communicate, with the locals in my community. I was new to social media, but I had heard about WordPress from an intern I had hired to come to work with me during my first six months in business. I began by purchasing a WordPress account, with a yearly subscription. Prior to that, I had been operating a home-based gardening business for three years. It was actually my first attempt at owning something that was my own. It sustained me for three years, but I had always wanted and dreamed of owning a small retail shop. So after almost ten years of searching for a spot to begin my dream, I found a vacant location, signed a five-year lease, and began moving a few pieces of garden furniture and antique furniture, along with “antique smalls” of my own, into my new building suite. Once in…and open for business, I began contacting vendors from previous relationships at a business where I had worked part time, prior to owning my own shop. That previous part time job, gave me enough knowledge and confidence to venture out on my own. In fact, that was the very reason I had taken that position. I searched for so long to find a place to launch my own business, and the day I finally found it, was very exciting. My own brick and mortar store had become a reality. My official name was Contessa’s Garden and Gift, and I was now a retail business owner. The storefront I chose was in a trendy growing community called Delray. I opened my doors on March 1st, 2008. Little did I know…..that combining a gardening business and a retail shop was going to mean that I had bitten off slightly more than I could chew. I thought I could continue serving my gardening clients in my neighborhood, about one mile away from my new store. Within two weeks time I realized it was going to be either the gardening business or the retail store. But in my mind and heart….I did not put the idea away of gardening again. My home was in Parkfairfax about one mile from my new shop. It’s a known fact that starting a business from the ground up requires hours of one’s own “good will” and very hard work. I literally worked every day for six months from 7 am to 7 pm, and then at 7 pm, after closing my store, I would work until the midnight hours to unpack, price, display, clean, balance my books and go about setting up new accounts with over thirty nationwide vendors, so that a flow of new merchandise could be timed appropriately to arrive each season for my new customers. All of this was part of my huge dream of shop ownership. I’d achieved my wishes. Tears of joy and gratitude came.

Social media was the best way to reach my audience so I chose WordPress as my communication vehicle and began photographing with a digital camera and posting new arrivals of merchandise every day. I was so pressed for time as a sole proprietor, that I posted mostly pictures in the beginning. I was trying to win my audience by “wowing” them with daily photography posts. Within a year I purchased an Apple iPhone and my digital camera became history. Technology was moving fast and I had to learn very quickly to keep up. I was writing by now and content was very important. During this time each store visitor signed a contact roster when they came to visit. My contact list grew so rapidly I hired a Russian student part time to come three days a week and enter my new contacts into my customer contact database. It worked and became successful enough to put me “on the map” so to speak. I taught myself how to navigate WordPress and the rest is history. I was on social media and it really helped me grow my business.

It’s now Jan 2023  I’ve closed my store and once again I am back to my first love…. Gardening. My posting on WordPress has taken on many new posts related to my gardening projects, my Yoga practice, my Etsy selling activity, spiritual reflection, cooking and recipes and my faith based beliefs and highlighting the profound relationship I have with my creator, nature and my gardening endeavors. I believe God is calling me to write and to share through and with my faith. And…..the “love of my life” is encouraging me and politely “pushing” and attempting to stretch me, in his own loving way, to become the author and the person he knows…..and I know….has the skills and gifts to achieve all these dreams.  Amen!

So….where do I go from here. I believe I am being called to become a writer. I’m at the stage of contemplation. Do I write my “story,” do I write about gardening and nature, do I write about my faith journey… and how it has led me to this important calling in my life?  I’m praying about this and I know the Lord will bring me to his plan and path for his greater glory. I wait…and I pray….I am still… and I trust.

May I put my heart out there to those of you who might shepherd and encourage me. I’ve led a long life with so many blessed experiences and plenty of real life barriers, and a few mountains to climb. But I am confidant that I have an amazing opportunity to share how I have come this far, and how my creator has led me and changed my heart and my life. I feel chosen to share with others….so that I might make a real difference in others lives, as it relates to their future spiritual paths and calling from their God.

Thank you for hearing my story. I am happy to hear your comments on where and how I move forward from here. I have great hope and am anxious to proceed. Your comments and encouragement are most…. Welcome!

“Contessa”

Learning New

05 Thursday Jan 2023

Posted by ContessasHome in Helpful Tips, Reflections, Sharing, Today's Update

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good morning!

A new day to learn new things…CARPE DIEM!

They say you learn something new every day! I wholeheartedly believe this, however when I started to ask myself what did I learn yesterday it was rarely top of mind. It did not lead me to discount this adage; it did make me realize I needed to be more conscience of the information coming into my life. For 30 days I decided to actively keep track of one thing I learned  every day. To make this experiment more robust, I also kept track of where this learning would make an impact (Work, Personal or Both), and how did I learn it (though conversation, an event, or was I seeking knowledge – i.e. a book). Through doing this I learnt far more than 30 things.

  • I confirmed that only when I choose to be conscience of what I am learning can I understand the impact it can have on my life, and will have a better chance of remembering it to be able to consciously use it in the future.
  • Things that impact me personally, both just personally or both work and personal, are the things I remembered most frequently, as these things have the biggest impact on my life as a whole.
  • Although I actively seek out knowledge that is of interest to me every day, most of what I recorded was learning that happened through a conversation or an event. Interactions I have with other individuals always create the most meaning in my life.

This lead me to confirm that we do learn something new everyday; however, I think I realized that we learn so much, and have so much information coming in, we are more naturally selective of what we remember. If I look at the things I choose to write down, they were things that I knew if I could remember them, would have a positive impact on my life and others. Enabling me to create more meaning in the information I receive.

Yes, we learn something new every day; I know I learned at least one new thing yesterday. It was: to ensure that the learnings coming into my life can have a positive impact, I need to create more awareness around what it is, what it means, and the impact it can have on myself and the world around me.

I’ll report back later today on what new I’ve “learnt” today.
How “bout” you?
Seize this day…. on your end….
“Contessa”
cl
Sent from my iPhone

I….Write……

31 Saturday Dec 2022

Posted by ContessasHome in Faith, HOPE, Morning Prayer, Reflections, Sharing

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76 years of life. I am not retired. I work. I own my own gardening business. I still earn a living. I am working at one of my passions and one of the special gifts my Lord and Savior has given me. I have several passions. My brain is curious about so many things and I have cultivated my various interests. So blessed am I.

I just listened to the nightly news,  I don’t like to. Because it digs deep at my soul. Why should I be so fortunate to live so long, to have work that I love, and the internal courage to keep learning, striving for success, caring for loved ones, caring well for my health and keeping fit.  I wonder why I am so “simply….blessed?”

My heart tells me to pray. My heart tells me to believe, my heart tells me to care. But this world is so troubled and I don’t know what I can do to help make it better. It’s overwhelming in my soul.

I am reaching out to explore a writing career. I want to use my life story in some way to give great hope to others. There are thousands of people hoping to do the same thing. So why would  I think that my story, or the way that I  might tell it, could change anything in this world. And why would  I think that I have the gift of writing.

These answers lay in my “calling.” Sometimes we have to try many things to reach our destination. I pray these days for a more clear direction. With Gods help I will proceed.


I pray…. oh my God, hear my prayer.  I know you are calling me. Amen

Exploring My Task List From Yesterday

27 Tuesday Dec 2022

Posted by ContessasHome in Books, Gardening, Reflections, Sharing, Today's Update

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Today I completed a few exercises to cover some suggestions from yesterday with regard to my pursuing a new career in writing.

One of the suggestions was to read your own writings from some time ago. I surmise this gives you a perspective into your writing skills at that time and perhaps may even reassure you that your writing is actually pretty good. Affirmation perhaps.

………………………

So… I followed the first instruction on my list of ways to avoid putting off beginning to write again, and stop procrastinating. Something has created a road block. Getting past that road block could be just a matter of taking a walk or a run. It’s one of the suggestions on my task list from yesterday. I myself chose an early morning walk at 29 degrees. It does get you going and well worth the chill you feel. An awakening for sure.

But I also decided to go back in time to my blog, and visited my very first post on June 30th of the year 2010. I’ve included the txt of my first post below.  It was interesting…..because I had, by that time, owned my new shop, Contessa’s Garden and Gift for a couple years. I had only just acquired a new digital camera and was still using a “flip phone” and I was teaching myself how to master WordPress, an online yearly subscription tool, that I’ve now subscribed to for over 13 years. I was using a laptop at the time. WordPress opened up a whole new world for me in communicating my gardening and store ownership knowledge, to my customers using the internet. Within a couple years I was into the purchase of an Apple iPhone and so I ditched the digital camera for a camera right on my iPhone. It was a fantastic transition. And it changed my business from known,  to very well known. And my writing skills from good to pretty darn good.

So it’s now almost 2023  and I’m going to take a whole day to read back to where my blog began. Check out my writing style and see where I can improve and learn some things about how my blog has evolved. In terms of “my writings.” I think it might prove to be an eventful exercise🦋.

One of the other tasks on the list from yesterday, was to read a book. I am reading a book right now and this is giving me an insight into the writing style of another author.  It gives me a focus on what this writer is trying to communicate, and in the case of this particular book, it has exercises in teaching you new skills. To see how the author writes and what he is trying to convey is interesting. This reading will broaden my vocabulary, perhaps improve my  spelling and grammar skills, perhaps teach me how to incorporate some humor into my writing and open my eyes to content that I have never read before. 
Of particular interest to me in the book is a technique in a chapter called Progressive Relaxation. The suggestion that if you are not truly in a relaxed mode your creative energy may not flow. For example, you sit down to write or create and you are just not able to spit it out or get the words on paper. It happens. Burn out, can sometimes paralyze creativity. So doing the exercises mentioned in this book might help, and focusing on some mind exercises to “relax” you, could very well be a great answer to turning your writing creativity around. Some deep breathing combined with some muscle tension exercises might create relaxation and bring a calmness into your heart and it might even lower your blood pressure, creating a sense of better, and a more whole relaxation. All good points and ways to combat, what I myself might call brain fatigue or brain fog.  

So today to recap, I explored two items on the task list which could help me to get past my current roadblock that’s keeping me from  creating new “writing,” and new ideas for content.

More exploration tomorrow. Tonight I am reading “past”
 blog postings and my book called; Fighting The Inside Dragons.  New steps to explore in broadening my new writing career.

We will return tomorrow to reference my task list again. I look forward to sharing once again with you.

“Contessa”

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Our First Blog Post from 2010

Gardening Tips for July

30WednesdayJun 2010

Posted by ContessasHome in Garden Tips

≈ 1 Comment

NOW  is a great time to clean up your garden beds and your pot containers.   Remove dead leaves and blossoms.  Cut back your stems by half.  Yes it will temporarily make you plants look bare, but nature is divine and she will  replenish your blossoms and beautiful leaves within about two to three weeks time.  Add fresh Miracle Grow Potting Soil by about one inch to your pot containers.  Push garden dirt towards the roots of your garden flowers.  They will love the attention and the protection they get from fresh, moist dirt around their stems.

Our intense heat in Virginia has been relentless and some flowers are looking a bit weary.  Mid summer is a great time to plant a few new flowers with color.  Try some marigolds, nasturtiums, morning-glory and sunflowers.  The birds will love these new additions and in the fall you will love the fact that these lovely colorful blossoms are still “Hanging In.”

Another great addition for July is to add some Sweet Potato Vine and Coleus.  They provide endless color and if you take clippings once your plants are established, you will be able to bring some in  and place them  in a vase with water.  They will root in a matter of days and you can then create new plants to enjoy and even share with friends.

Lastly, water only in the early morning, or late evening, but do water daily.

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