DEBBIE-DABBLE BLOG: April 2026

I am a Victorian Soul, who lives in a small townhouse that was built in the mid 1970's, not a huge Mega Mansion!! I just recently lost my Hubby Joe, who was a Retired Letter Carrier. I worked night shift as an RN on a Hospital based Rehabilitation( Physical Medicine) Unit for 37 years before I had Knee Replacement Surgery and officially Retired in 2019 after 41 years working in Direct Patient Care ... I am so glad that we retired at 62 years of age and got to spend that time together before he passed....I still do love Retirement!!!!

I DABBLE IN A BIT OF THIS AND THAT!!!!

" IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO BE WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN"
George Eliot

George Eliot was actually a pen name for a woman named Mary Anne Evans......

BLOGGING FOR FUN AND FRIENDSHIP!!!!!!

Thursday, April 2, 2026

Easter/Spring Front Porch & Rethinking Storage, 2026

Welcome to Debbie-Dabble Blog!!

I am so happy you decided to stop by!!

Blogging has always been a stress reliever for me along with an avenue to share my passions which are my home and my garden.....

I feel it is a personal Journal that, hopefully, someday, my Twin Granddaughters will be able to look back on to learn about who I was....

I will be posting 3 times a week on MONDAYS, THURSDAYS and SATURDAYS....

As always, click on each picture if you would like to enlarge it....

PINTEREST

If you would like to Pin my pictures, please click on them to enlarge them to do so....

A NOTE ABOUT COMMENTS

I enjoy reading your comments and will return the favor by visiting and commenting on your blog or reply to you directly here if you do not have a blog but I do have my comment section set to Moderation due to spammers and hackers so your comment will not appear immediately...

And since I have a very busy life, like most of us do, it may take me awhile to return your comments but I promise I will....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In my last post, I shared the rest of my Kitchen decorated for Easter with carrots, chicks and Bunnies....

Click HERE if you missed that post!!

I want to Thank Angie, over at God's Growing Garden, for choosing my Blog Post, Easter Tree and Bunny Land in the Living Room, as one of her features from last week's Tuesdays with a Twist Link Party!!

Thanks so much, Angie!!

I want to Thank Jennifer, over at Studio 27- By Jennifer Adams, for choosing my Blog post, Bunny Village in the Dining Room Hutch, as one of her features from last week's Wednesday's in the Studio Link Party!!

Thanks again, Jennifer!!

Please stop by and link up to these charming parties!!

Hello April!!!

Honestly, April is not a good or happy month for me....

22 years ago on April 1st, we held my Mother's Funeral service and burial after we watched her die a little every day for 9 weeks from septic shock caused by pancreatitis from her gall bladder...

She passed away peacefully with grace and dignity in a Hospice Unit on March 26th, 2004

Then 2 years ago, 20 years to the date, on April 1st, I sat holding my husband Joe's hand in an ER listening to a Doctor confirm my suspicions that Joe had pancreatic cancer that has spread to the liver and lymph nodes...

We had just been handed a death sentence and Joe would pass away 2 weeks later on April 16th, 2024 also in a Hospice Unit....

I will enjoy Easter with my family as I am hosting Easter dinner like I have for 30+ years but this time of year is hard for me...

Wishing you and all those that you love a very Happy and Blessed Easter!

And now for a few Personal Notes...

For the New Year, I am trying something different with my 3 times weekly posts....

On THURSDAYS, I will feature what I cooked and ate during the week, showcasing local cuisine and a few recipes for things that I actually made...

I decided that on SATURDAYS, I will showcase What I Have Been Up To in the past week, sharing events and places I went to, if any....

On MONDAYS, I will be featuring What I Have Bought or Been Gifted Recently, if anything...

Well, What have I been eating lately since it is THURSDAY?

Last Saturday, my son Joey treated us to dinner from Buffalo Wild Wings....

For a Chicken place, they sure do make a mean burger.....

I got the Swiss Mushroom Burger with fries....

Otherwise, I pretty much have been eating about the same things....Nothing really new...

Initially, I was going to share my Front Porch all decked out for Easter/Spring in my annual Easter/Spring Home Tour but since I only took 2 posts to share the Kitchen, I was able to do a post on just the Front Porch......

Notice anything different from other years?????

The garland is still up!!!!

2 years ago, shortly after my husband Joe passed away, I was looking for ideas to make it easier for me to decorate the outside of my house as all my outside decorations are stored in a storage unit, about 5-10 minutes from my house, that I rent monthly...

I decided to bring up the evergreen garland from the unit in September and put it up , which would save me from doing so when it got colder....

Doing what I have learned to do inside the house where I use evergreen garland as a base for other Seasonal garlands, I bought Fall leaf garland and attached it over the evergreen garland

It worked out beautifully and all I had to do was simply remove it when I decorated for Christmas, when it was colder and also saving me a lot of time....

I kept the garland up for Winter like I have done for many years....

One of my FB followers suggested that I just keep up the evergreen garland all year long.....

Last Spring, I did buy eucalyptus garland, added lights to it and hung it around the door for Spring/Summer.....

Then I found an ivy garland in my stash and decided to put that one on the porch railing.....

One of my INTENTIONS for this year is to decrease what I store in the unit that I rent so I can go into a smaller unit, saving some money.....

So I thought, why can't I use the evergreen garland as a base year round????

Not long ago, I shared that I ordered this eucalyptus garland with white flowers from Walmart with the INTENTION of doing just that.........

And here is how it all looks!!!

As I go along, I will explain what I did.....

First off, this beautiful Porch sign that my great niece, Caitlin, created for me stays out year round......

Last year, I ordered a ton of the new Sun resistant faux flowers that are all the rage from Walmart to cut down on my water bill, save time in care and save money.....

I packed them away in the Fall, bagging the arrangements I did in each pot separately.....

For Spring, I pulled out the arrangements that I did in the pots in the back yard because they were in the colors of pink, yellow and purple......

For Summer, I do the Front Porch in a red, yellow and orange color theme, including the flowers, so I will just simply move these to the back yard and get out the flowers for the Front Porch......

For Spring, I decided to leave the white branches, that I had for Christmas/Winter in this black urn.....

I pulled out and threw away all the real greenery that I cut from trees on the side of my road and simply put these flowers into the urn.....

I attached a white bow to the lighthouse that I made from clay pots.....

I added the new eucalyptus garland to the railing around the doorway and the railing between my next door neighbor's house and mine......

Can I tell you how much I love this????

But first, in this pot on the milk can is another faux flower arrangement....

Bare in mind that these flowers were out on my back patio last Summer through all kinds of weather and they still look fantastic!!!

Okay, so now let's get to that garland!!!

I attached it to the evergreen garland using the garland itself and evergreen pipe cleaners.....

I think the red berries look like strawberries......

At least in my mind, they do!!

Since I took the original pictures for this post, I did a bit of painting on a few of the Easter signs and changed the wreath on the front door a bit.....

I did not want to take all those pictures over again though....

You can see I added pink bows up in the corners....

I decided to add this cross from Dollar Tree to the center of this Spring wreath that I made a very long time ago, freshening it up a bit....

Last year, I added the ivory bow to it....

On this side of the door is another pot filled with faux flowers....

Both pots on each side of the door have carrot yard stakes from Dollar Tree in them.....

Now, what did I do with my childhood sled and snowman?????

Again, I am trying to make things easier for me without getting rid of things that I love and mean something to me, while decreasing what I store in my storage unit....

My Word for this year is INTENTION so I am seriously looking at how I decorate and the storage of decorations...

I do have a garden shed in the back of my yard......

There are a lot of tools in there that I am never going to use again like shovels, picks, etc. which will be passed on so I decided that I will be storing my childhood sled in there so I do not have to haul it up and down 13 steps to my parking lot to the car and to the storage unit.....

I am also making room for the heavy snowman in my storage room in the house, until I can store it under a shelf in there after I have the air conditioners put in the windows in May.....

I did bring one chair and a table out to the Front Porch from the back where they are now stored for the Winter under tarps instead of being taken down to the storage unit.....

So this is what the Easter signs that my late husband Joe bought for 90% off one year in Big Lot's.....

I wanted to brighten them up a bit so I got out some orange paint.....

I painted the carrot and brightened up the sign hanging under it....

I also added some orange to the wheels.....

I hung these a bit higher than they were originally.....

I added a bit of orange to this sign.....

And this one too!!

Okay, back to the original pictures......

I brought this urn back out and placed a faux boxwood ball inside of it....

And I placed Bunnies from the yard on the table for Easter.....

In the corner of the Porch......

Another change I made is the Tree in the corner.....

For many years, almost 20, I have had this faux topiary style tree, that I bought after Christmas one year in Target, in the corner....

Well, it was starting to show it's age and was losing it's branches so I tossed it in our dumpsters and replaced it with this one, which you can see I decorated a bit for Easter!!

It is actually the top part of my old 7 ft. slim Tree that I had used in my Dining Room for years!!!!

It came in 2 parts so I put the top part into the metal tree stand that it came with....

For the Winter, I put the bottom part in a large pot I had and I have decided to keep it there, saving me money and time in taking care of any flowers planted inside of this pot....

I used a set of lights on the Tree that I took off of it when I took it apart....

I changed out the mail box cover.....

I keep garden tools inside of this faux mail box.....

A Dollar Tree Bunny stake until I bring out all of my faux Summer flowers to fill the pots on the Porch....

My Easter Porch flag....

Now let's look at what I did to this garland......

Since this evergreen garland is thicker than the one around the door, I used both the eucalyptus garland that I bought last year and the ivy garland that I found in my stash on this one.....

I made bows out of ribbon in my stash......

And I simply left the lights on the garland but I did add another set of lights to the one around the door.....

I made the egg garland last year by threading twine through plastic eggs....

I bought this Easter slate at a church flea market.....

I placed Bunnies from the yard in the planters in front of the railing until I put the faux Summer flowers in them.....

I am happy with how the garland looks....

The front flower bed under the Living Room window.......

Again, I removed all the faux and real greenery that I used in these pots over the Winter.....

Hopefully, the hostas I planted in them last year will come back this year.....

2 Easter mini flags....

I also brought out the large tear drop solar lights...

I will be keeping the garland up like this all Summer and take it off the evergreen garland and add the Fall leaf one to it in September....

In the end of April, I will change the Front Porch over to the Summer decorations....

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I tried to make things a bit easier for me without giving up things that I love......

For now.......

I hope you will stop by to visit again on SATURDAY for my annual Easter/Spring Home Tour, where I hope to share how the Front Porch looks lit up in the Evening and a few other things I have not yet shared for Easter....

Stay safe, healthy and most of all, HAPPY!!

And try to find JOY in every single day!

Thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!

If you do not have a blog, PLEASE give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment. If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......