Simple and Southern

AND THE WINNER IS...

2012-01-28T15:54:00.003-05:00

MAMA (AKA: Mama Kate)!!!! This is unbelievable because she is legally blind.

My niece had a baby shower and one of the games was to estimate how big around she is at almost nine months pregnant.

Before the party began one of the ladies took a yellow roll of tape (without inches) and measured her. So, the tape was passed around and everyone measured off the distance they thought it was around Liz's belly. When it got my Mom I asked her how much tape she wanted measured off. She said, "give me the tape." She took the tape and measured a length from the tip of her nose to the end of her out-stretched arm and told me to add eight inches.

If you extend your arm out full-length it is approximately 36 inches from the tip of your nose to the end of your finger. My grandmother always measured fabric and string this way because she didn't have a yard stick.

Back to my point. So the lady started comparing every one's tape to the tape measured around Liz. Most people had over estimated the measurement by as much as a foot. When they got to my Mom, who is the great-grandmother, her tape was only 1/4 of an inch short of the actual measurement of my niece. She won the prize!

I DID NOT VOLUNTEER FOR THIS

2012-01-15T22:06:00.006-05:00

We love 18th century American history. This is the century in which our nation fought and won their independence from England. Since the early 1970s we have participated in Revolutionary War (Rev War) living history. We have managed to acquire (make) more than just a few pieces of period clothing to facilitate this unusual hobby. In the past we have participated in reenactments in some of the original colonies, to include the surrender at Yorktown, VA in 1982 which was the granddaddy of all reenactments. There were over 4,000 participants and was a really big deal. In addition, we have had the privilege of speaking to school groups, church groups, scouts and senior citizens about the role of the American soldier (and his wife) during the American Revolution. Along the way we have learned a great deal about our country's early history and the unbelievable odds and hardships that faced the men, and in some cases women, fighting for America's independence.

So. Hubby decided he wanted an all black hat. He has two hats trimmed in white, but decided he wanted the all black. I don't have a clue what uniform requires an all black hat. Anyway, these hat blanks are expensive and we are known for being frugal, so he had been shopping for a hat blank. We were in Target, of all places, and he found a black wool felt hat for under $20, so he bought it. It is a woman's hat, but it met all the requirements to be made into an 18th century military hat.

He had all these grand plans to turn that hat blank into a military style hat. Some how I managed to get involved in yet another one of his projects.

The first step he needed help with was putting wire around the edge of the hat so when it was cocked it would keep the desired shape. Then ribbon had to be hand sewn around the edge of the hat, a band placed inside to allow a perfect fit to his head and then a cockade made. All of this had to be done by hand, because using a modern sewing machine was just not appropriate for this particular project.

As I finished each phase of this hat project, I kept thinking he would complete the next step, but that didn't happen. I finally finished all the required hand work and he was ready to cock the hat, which I refused to do, because I didn't want to mess up the hat if I punched a hole in the wrong place, so I deferred that task to sweet Hubby. So he ties the hat in place and I thought the project was finished.

Oh no, now he wants a cockade to place under the cording on the hat. I didn't have a clue how to make a cockade, so Hubby Googles that subject and found instructions on the internet. He produces four pages of instructions consisting of mice type print with a few photos and expects me to follow the steps necessary to produce a cockade. It took me a couple of tries, but I did manage to made the cockade. It wasn't easy, but I did conquer that spool of black ribbon.

He now wants me to put one of my sewing tags in the hat, THEN the hat will be complete.

SUNSHINE

2011-12-29T10:38:00.002-05:00

Guess what I got to do Christmas Day? Love on this beautiful boy. His English name is Sunshine, but his staff (dogs have owners, cats have staffs) call him Sunshine, but in French. Don't ask me, I don't recall. If you speak French, then you know his name. He's only eight months old and is huge.

THINGS IN THE ATTIC

2011-12-29T09:37:00.017-05:00

Are there areas of your house that are driving you absolutely crazy even though you can't see it?

Well, that was the case with our attic. I knew this mess was up there. I could almost hear it! What is all that stuff, anyway? What a mess!

Our attic has been needing attention for a long time, but summer is just not the time to deal with what looms in the attic. Just look at all that stuff, I couldn't even get in the door! I knew I couldn't ignore it much longer, because we are going to put away our Christmas decorations soon, hopefully today.

The hard part was pulling all that stuff out so it could be sorted and put back in some kind of order. It took a while to get it all out so I could decide what would stay and what would go and then start putting it back. How many cookie tins do you need? And I still didn't find my glass nativity set, even though every box and tin was opened to check the contents. I don't know what happened to it!

I did purchase a metal shelf, which Hubby assembled for me. Thank you Sweetie. It took a while for him to get that cheap shelf together. I also purchased some of those semi see-through drawers.

How was it possible to have all that stuff out in that small area of the attic?

Once I had all the stuff removed I discovered I needed more of those plastic storage drawers, so off to Wal-Mart I went. I hate that place.

Then all the sorting and rearranging began. The hardest thing I did was taking my cat carriers apart. I refuse to part with them, because I know one day I will have another cat, or two or three. I also refuse to part with the glass food dishes and basket and pillow and litter box. I just can't part with those items. I digress. Let's move on. I also deflated that exercise ball. I suppose I should part with that thing. The last time I attempted to use that thing I just about killed myself. I probably need to start using those hand weights I keep moving around in the house.

After the project was finished I had four of those very large plastic bin empty and two of the smaller bins. Now we can actually get to everything stored in the attic. I think I hear noise in the basement. Oh. my. goodness! That will be a major project which will involve building shelves requiring power tools. I can operate the tools, but I want Hubby involved in that project. That might be like moving Stone Mountain.

CROCK-POT CHOCOLATE CANDY UPDATE

2011-12-24T11:29:00.002-05:00

I've had several people ask about the almond bark in the recipe below. I wasn't able to find it so I substituted the vanilla candy coating. The candy is still delicious. I've included a photo of all the ingredients used. One reader's crock pot was too hot, even on low, so the second batch she only cooked it an hour and one-half and it worked well. Enjoy

Seven Days and Counting

2011-12-17T07:52:00.010-05:00

It's only seven days until Christmas. There are still many things that need to be done, but we have managed to put up a Christmas tree. This year we are reverting back to our childhood and have only bubble light on the tree. Did you ever have those? Hubby and I both loved them as children. So our tree looks like the 1950s. We love it.

We have a couple of special gifts for special people in our lives. Hubby has been busy in his workshop making some tin pieces. The large sconce was a gift for someone at the Docent's party at Stately Oaks, where he volunteers.

The smaller one is for a classy lady that we have known for many years, but moved to Florida. She has a beautiful home that the exterior is a typical Florida-looking house, but once you step inside you are surrounded by beautiful antiques. It's amazing that someone would depart from the beach-type decor in exchange for the wonderful traditional antiques. She is getting a hand-made tin sconce.

Then there is a special concert in some one's future. They are going to love it. So are we, because we are going as well. We have been to one of these concerts at Spivey Hall. Sprivey Hall is a music/concert hall built by Dr. and Mrs. Walter (Emily) Spivey. They left the money, but they both died before the construction of the hall was completed. Mrs. Spivey, who was an organist, designed the hall. It was sad, because they both had lung cancer from the asbestos in their home.

Mrs. Spivey was a very classy lady and quite wealthy. They owned Lake Spivey that used to be an amusement park of sorts. They had a man-made beach around the lake and a train ride through the woods surrounding the lake, a pavilion where you could dance and a concession stand. They eventually closed the park and turned the area into a gold mine by selling lots, expensive lots, very expensive lots and now there are million dollar home surrounding Lake Spivey.

We met Mrs. Spivey through Homer, our builder. He wanted her to see our house because he wanted to build one similar on one of her very expensive lots as a "spec" house. She was a very gracious lady and agreed to partner with Homer and build the house. The fun part, we were allowed to help with the selection of every thing in the house. It was so much fun, because we didn't have to worry about the cost. After we met Mrs. Spivey, we saw her in town one day stopped at a traffic light. It was in the mid 90s that day and she had all the windows down in her Lincoln Town Car. We shouted to her, "HEY, MISS SPIVEY HOW ARE YA?" She replied, "I'M FINE, DARLIN." Then we asked, "MISS SPIVEY, WHY ARE YOUR WINDOWS DOWN?" She laughed, "DARLIN, I JUST LOVE FEELING THE WIND THROUGH MY HAIR." The light changed and we both drove off. How did I get off on this tangent about Mrs. Spivey? Oh yes, Spivey Hall.

Tomorrow my family will be gathering at our house for our annual party. Hubby will be cooking a ham on the Big Green Egg, which is wonderful. We will enjoy some of the green beans out of our garden, which I canned this summer. Because of the picky eaters in this group we will have regular green beans and then pickled green beans. Pickled beans are, well, pickled with salt and vinegar. They are so yummy. Hubby requested glazed carrots. Why I don't know, but they are so simple to prepare. Steam the carrots, then put some butter and brown sugar in a skillet until the sugar has turned kinda syrupy and coat the carrots. Your finished. I'm making some lemon bars and some chocolate chip brownies. There are other dishes being brought as well. I've asked my niece to bring her mac and cheese, which is wonderful and my sister-in-law to bring her sweet potato souffle. Maybe we will have a pie or two as well.

I better get going or the above menu will not be prepared or the house cleaned for our party tomorrow. Merry Christmas to you all.

CROCK-POT CHOCOLATE CANDY

2011-12-10T17:15:00.003-05:00

This is not my recipe. I found it over at Southern Hospitality who found it in Patricia Yearwood's Cook Book.

CROCK-POT CHOCOLATE CANDY

Layer the ingredients in the order listed.

2 lbs. (36 oz.) salted dry-roasted peanuts
4 oz. (4 squares) German's sweet chocolate
1-12 oz. package semi sweet chocolate chips (about 2 cups)
2 1/2 lbs. white almond bark

1. Put the peanuts in the bottom of a 4-quart slow cooker. Layer the chocolate over the peanuts, beginning with the sweet chocolate, followed by the chocolate chips, and then the almond bark. Set the temperature on LOW and cook for 3 hours. DO NOT stir the mixture.

2. After 3 hours, stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until smooth. Drop the candy into mini cupcake liners, using just enough mixture to fill the mini cups liners. (The recipe called for regular cup cake liners and 2 tablespoons mixture, that is a big piece of this candy.) Allow the candy to cool completely before removing the cupcake liners. I was able to get 92 pieces of candy out of the mini cupcakes liners and I left the liners on the candy they are easier to store. The method using 2 tablespoons of mixture makes 30 to 40 pieces.

This does require a 4-quart slow cooker and it will be almost over flowing by the time you place all the ingredients in it.

Enjoy.

A LITTLE CHANGE IN THE UPSTAIRS

2011-11-05T20:32:00.017-05:00

We have lived in our house almost 35 years and I have made very few changes to the arrangement of the furniture and not many changes to the accessories.

One of guest bedrooms has looked the same since about 1987. I bought a Martha Washington type bedspread in Asheville, NC and it has served us well, but I wanted to update the room.

This past spring we stayed in a bed and breakfast, The Pond House Inn in Elizabeth City, NC and it was a beautiful traditional house with lovely furnishings. The room we stayed in was very comfortable, except I couldn't get in the bed because it was so high and required a chair to get up in that beautiful four poster bed. I loved the coverlet and bed skirt on our bed. The bed skirt was white and the coverlet was yellow. I knew that was what I wanted to do in our circa 1987 guest bedroom. The innkeeper was very innovative when she couldn't find a bed skirt for her very high bed, she used a coverlet and it worked well and looked really nice.

I knew I wanted a white, tailored bed skirt and a yellowish coverlet. I found a coverlet but wasn't sure if it would blend with our trim. It didn't, it was too yellow. However, I didn't give up and kept shopping until I found a coverlet that did blend with our yellowy trim. All the colors in our house are Williamsburg colors and they are hard to match. After searching the internet high and low, I found a bed skirt that I liked and thought would work well.

I wanted to keep the room very traditional in keeping with our 18th century house, but a bit updated. Only thing Hubby is highly distressed that those blue pillows with the ruffles are still on the bed. I can assure you they are staying, but I think I'm going to remove the ruffle and replace it with some piping. That is a project for another day, but for now the ruffled pillows are staying.

The room is ready for our next guests, hopefully our friends from Tennessee or Virginia. Don't know who will be our first guests, but we will be ready, unless I go to jail for removing the tags off the new pillow. Oh, that does say, "...tag is not to be removed except by the consumer." So I'll be here awaiting our guests.

Thelma and Louise

2011-10-30T19:28:00.006-05:00

We have lived here almost 35 years and we have never seen any deer.

A couple of weeks ago we were at our kitchen table and there were two young does eating away at our neighbor's flowers and then moved into their turnip green patch.

They had a feast. Then they strolled over to our yard and we ran to the living room and watched them through the blinds. They sniffed at our garden, but I think our fence will keep them out. I sure hope so because our neighbors said they love lettuce as well.

So now we watch them most mornings. They arrive between 10:00 and 10:30 a.m. Oh yeah, we have named them Thelma and Louise.

Thank You 11 Alive News

2011-10-30T18:35:00.008-05:00

STATELY OAKS c1839

About four weeks ago we received a phone call rather early on Sunday morning. It was one of the docents at Stately Oaks wanting to know if the air conditioners were being repaired because AC parts were all over the yard. Immediately Hubby knew copper thieves had destroyed three air conditioners at the 1839 home. I heard him say, "call the police immediately."

The following day was terrible. Lots of tears and statements like, "this is the worst thing that could ever happen." Actually, it could have been must worse, because the house and other buildings on the ground were not damaged.

At the insistence of Hubby, the president of the historical society call the news media. All three local networks came out and did a story about the cooper thief and the financial hardship this would place on a non-profit organization.

As a result of the story on 11 Alive by Reporter Kevin Rowson, Cool-Ray Heating and Air stepped up to the place and donated three new air conditioners to replace the ones destroyed by the low-life thieves. Then an iron fabrication company, TMC Iron and Steel Company donated iron cages to cover the new AC units.

It was an absolute dream for the entire staff and volunteers at Stately Oaks. These people were a God send to a non-profit organization that operates on a very limited budget.

Some of the docents decided something special needed to be done for the people that made this miracle happen for Stately Oaks. So, today several of the docents and volunteers had a reception for Kevin Rowson from 11 Alive News, Britt Bagwell from Cool Ray Heating and Air and Jeff Guthrie from TMC Iron and Steel Company.

Hubby presented each of the gentlemen with plaques in appreciation for their community service and contribution to the non-profit organization. Afterwards two of the docents gave the honorees and their families a tour through Stately Oaks.

I turned around and Hubby was being interviewed by Kevin Rowson and this evening there it was, right on the evening news.

So for all of you that live in the Atlanta area if you have any heating and air conditioning needs and a need to protect your air conditioners from copper thieves or any other iron fabrication we want to recommend to you

COOL RAY HEATING AND AIR CONDITIONING, Marietta, GA
TMC IRON AND STEEL COMPANY, Lawrenceville, GA

To 11 Alive News and Kevin Rowson, the people at Stately Oaks will forever be grateful for your help during a time of devastation. This is positive news at its best.

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

2011-10-16T14:56:00.005-05:00

Our dear friend, Kenny, one of our adopted sons, had a birthday, Hubby and I took a bag of Chick-fil-As and Kenny furnished the southern table wine (sweet iced tea) and I made a pound cake. We headed up to the deck of his condo complex where we had dinner, commonly called supper in the south.

It was a very pleasant evening. The weather was perfect. It was fun just talking and watching all the activities at ATL, the world's busiest airport. Kenny provided a wealth of information about all the activities on the ground and the goings on at the airport since he works directing airplanes around the airport all day long.

A GREAT DAY AT THE LAKE

2011-09-23T16:21:00.007-05:00

I thought this would be a great reminder of the warm summer days which are now history as the gray cold days are here for a while, even a bit of sleet and snow yesterday and it is only the end of November.

I picked the wrong day to stay home and clean house. Hubby and our next door neighbor caught all these fish in about an hour and one-half this morning at Lake Oconee. The lake is way down and it must have been easy to find the good fishing holes.

This is the reason I will never fish with artificial bait. Look at those fish, they are slabs. Oh yeah, they were fishing with cane poles, not fancy rods and reels.

We fished in Lake Sinclair last week with friends using artificial bait and we never got one single bite.

Happy Anniversary

2011-09-17T07:00:00.003-05:00

Today we have been married 45 years. In a way it does seem like a long time, but yet it doesn't seem like 45 years. I would marry my sweetheart all over again.

I DON'T GET IT!

2011-08-26T10:18:00.011-05:00

We installed this programmable thermostat 18 years ago and it STOPPED working. I don't get it. The air conditioning came on, but would not turn off. I pushed every button on that thermostat and nothing happened. The only way it turn off was to flick the switch on the electrical panel. Fortunately, it was on it's own power source, so I didn't have to cut the power to the entire house.
I put the little tabs on the wires and every thing is cool, so I thought.

Well, I couldn't find a screw driver in that huge tool box of mine. I have my own, because my husband's shop is, shall we say, less than organized, and I can't find anything when I'm looking for a specific tool, so I just created my own tool box. I finally checked my basic little tool box I keep in my sewing room. This one only has a few little tools in it, but it was exactly what I needed to get the job done, I thought. (I won this little box at an office Christmas party many years ago.)

I get the old unit off the wall and compare the new unit and it was smaller than the old unit, so one thing calls for another. I'm making another trip to Hubby's work shop for material to patch the screw holes, sand paper to smooth the paint ridges created when painting around the old unit and paint to cover the unpainted dry wall. I was able to procure all the necessary materials to get the job done, I thought. Finally, I realized sanding those paint ridges wasn't going to work, so now I'm looking for one of those things with the razor blades used to scrape paint off windows. Now, those little things work well on lots of jobs and I should have used that little first and saved a lot of time sanding and creating all that dust.

So, I get the wall preped, patched all those old holes and I apply the paint. It matched. I was so relieved. It hasn't been too terrible long ago that we painted the upstairs hall and the only can of wall paint I had actually worked. However, I had to wait until the paint dried before attaching the frame of the new unit to the wall. That's when the REAL fun began.

Can you see those wires coming out of the wall? Those very SHORT wires? Oh my goodness. It took a while to get those little color coded wires attached to the new thermostat. The old one had screws that you just twisted the wires around and tighten. The new unit had these tiny slots where you had to insert the wires and push down these very tiny little button things to secure the wires for proper contact. I'm telling you, that was HARD! I finally had to call in backup--my sweet Hubby.

A day or two later Hubby said, "you did a really good job on that new thermostat, you can't even see where the old one was."

Why I though I could change this thermostat in just a few minutes is a mystery to me. I should have know when you start a project one thing leads to another. It took three hours to get this little thermostat installed. The good thing? It works so well.

Best bargeque in Georgia

2011-08-25T14:28:00.017-05:00

Dean's Barbeque, established 1947

Mr. Dean opened his barbeque joint in 1947. His son, Roger, kept the business going after Mr. Dean's death and Roger has recently retired, but his sons and nephews and nieces are keeping the Dean family business going. This is the heart of America.

This is one of our favorite places to eat. It looks like a hole in the wall, but... It is absolutely the very best barbeque in Georgia! Well, I think it's the best barbeque I've ever eaten.

Several years ago PBS filmed a special program on Georgia barbeque and Dean's was one of the featured establishments. You can always tell the tourists, because they are the ones with the cameras. We find that amusing.

They only serve pork barbeque, which is cooked over an open outside pit. There are only two left in the entire state of Georgia.

The small frame building with the "OPEN" sign in the window is the original structure. The pit was to the right, but open. When EPA laws kicked in they grandfathered in the establishments that had open air pits, thus allowing Mr. Dean to keep his open pit. The pit is now covered in the screened room to the right of the original building. At any given time you can see all those hams over the hot flames from the hickory wood fire.

When you enter Dean's you are always greeted with a friendly, "Hey, y'all, how are you doing today?" We are always asked, "Do you want your regular today?" As they are writing "2 sandwiches, 2 chips, Yahoo, Diet Coke. "That will be $10, please."

They do have barbeque plates available with an order of barbeque, cold slaw, pickles and a slab of white bread. Oh yes, they have homemade cake if you want dessert. Today I read the menu on the wall and I was looking at the beverages, which reads,

"Regular Tea"
"Yankee Tea"
"Mason/Dixon Tea"

I had never noticed the Mason/Dixon tea so I asked Barbara (the lady behind the counter taking an order from another regular customer) about it. She replied, "it's half sweet tea and half unsweetened tea." Mason/Dixon tea is what I order, when I drink tea, because they have really sweet tea. The pieces of cake on the counter are homemade peanut butter cake and chocolate cake. Yum.

You always see someone you know when you eat at Dean's. Everyone from lawyers, dentists, judges, vets, doctors, law enforcement officers, neighbors, pastors, teachers, local business owners, and many, many life-long residence of the area, all of which are frequent customers at Dean's. We have even encountered the owners of Chick-fil-A and their families enjoying the barbeque (you can't eat Chick-fil-A EVERY day). This is also a favorite place of NASCAR participants and fans.

Orders can be takeout, but you miss part of the experience by not eating in the dining area. This dining room was not part of the original 1947 structure, but was added in the late 1980s. Before the dining room was added there were picnic tables where you could eat under the huge oak trees, but if it was rainy or cold you ate in your car. I'm serious, in your car. The picnic tables are still there if you want to eat outside under those old oak trees.

There are only basic accoutrements on the simple tables in the dining area; napkins, hot sauce and their own homemade sauce. If you want a straw you get that at the counter when you place your order.

This is a very popular eating establishment for all the locals for miles around Jonesboro.

As you approach Dean's, this is what you see, the old buildings with the Dean's old home place in the background. This is certainly part of "modern" history for Jonesboro, GA.

Dean's Barbeque is located about a mile south of downtown Jonesboro on Highway 3. They are closed on Sunday and Monday.

HOT CHICKEN SALAD

2011-08-12T17:38:00.002-05:00

At the request of a reader I'm posting one of my favorite recipes. I can't take credit for this, but a dear friend of my aunt's shared this with me years ago.

HOT CHICKEN SALAD

4 cups cooked chicken, diced
3 cups chopped celery
2 cans Cream of Chicken Soup (undiluted)
1 cup mayonnaise
4 T lemon juice
1/2 cup slivered almonds (toasted) I like to use 1 cup almonds
2 T grated onion
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup green pepper chopped
4 T pimento
1 cup grated cheese
3 cups crushed potato chips

Mix all ingredients except the cheese and potato chips. Pour into 9 x 13 dish, sprayed with Pam. Bake 30 mins. at 350 degrees. Add cheese and chips, return to oven until brown. Garnish with paprika and parsley.

WAS IT EVER HOT!

2011-07-24T14:40:00.004-05:00

We were able to take a day to get away, so we decided to head for Lake Oconee. It's a beautiful lake about 75 miles east of Atlanta. Our neighbor used to have a place on this lake, so we became well acquainted with it when we would spend time at his place. So, we love going out there to fish.

We left early and was on the lake by 8:30 a.m. It was warm, but not bad. We went down the lake and found a nice place to fish. It was in the shade the entire time we were there. Hubby decided we needed to move to another place, so we headed up the lake and was in the sun the rest of the day.

We have umbrella brackets on the back of our boat seats, so they were opened as soon as we anchored at the second fishing hole. Unfortunately umbrellas do not render the same coolness as shade from a tree. By noon it was too hot to fish, so we headed back to the marina where we had a picnic lunch in the shade of a tree. By this time it was so hot it wasn't comfortable even in the natural shade. So, we pulled the boat out of the water and headed home. We had fun, we caught a lot of fish (we threw all of them back) but it's just too hot to fish right now. I can't stand baking my brain in this heat.

All work and no play...until tomorrow

2011-07-18T18:32:00.005-05:00

This is what six quarts and 21 pints of green beans look like before they are put in the jars. All of these are out of our garden. I think they about stopped blooming. However, the squash are still blooming as are the cucumbers and the okra has just started producing.

Today we drove out I-20 about 75 miles to a memorial service for a dear friend. We have known Dorothy and Vaughn for probably 30 years. They moved to rural Georgia for a better life on 20 acres. Dorothy loved living in the boonies along with all her animals--11 horses, four cats and a dog.

Last week she had a stroke that left her paralyzed on her right side. As a result her dear hubby had to put her in a nursing home. Early Friday morning someone called him and said, "your wife just passed." Needless to say, he was shocked. How insensitive can one be? Your wife just passed. Why didn't they call and say, your wife is not doing well you need to come to the facility now? Or, your wife has taken a turn for the worse, please come now? I couldn't believe how they informed him his beloved wife has passed away!

The service was really nice. The people were salt of the earth people. After the service the pastor made an announcement that everyone was invited to stay for lunch. Oh my, the food was out of this world. There was barbecued chicken and all the vegetables were out of people's gardens. Then there was this homemade caramel cake.

Tomorrow we are going fishing, finally. This is the first time this year we will have our little fishing boat out.

Thursday my Mom is coming back to stay with us for a few weeks. She is still recovering from a hip replacement. That's tough surgery at any age, but at 93 it's really tough. After some complications she is recovering well. She was in a rehab facility for 20 days and hated every minute of it. She refers to the facility as "jail". I have to remind her that because of the intense rehab she received she was able to climb the stairs at my house the first day home. She has been at my brother's the past week and they have run her ragged. I think she is ready for a slower pace of life. I'm not so sure that our pace of life will be slow enough for her. She's also going to be surprised that I'll insist she do the exercises prescribed by home rehab between their home visits. She won't like that, because she has never been one to exercise. The rehab is a necessity after a hip replacement.

Hopefully, she will be able to return to her home in a few weeks. I mentioned to her she is going to be lonely and bored after being pampered and cared for the past month or so. I've also mentioned to her she can't sleep all day like before the surgery. She was in so much pain she didn't want to do anything. I'm hoping she can return to walking at the mall in the mornings and some of the church activities she just couldn't do before the surgery.

So goes life in the slower fast lane. Well, slower than my brother's household.

LIVING HISTORY REV WAR STYLE

2011-06-28T19:29:00.005-05:00

Hubby and I participated in living history back during the bicentennial (mid 1970s to 1982). Recently, Hubby has renewed his interest in living history, particularly the Revolutionary War era.

He has been volunteering at Stately Oaks in historic Jonesboro, which is mid 1800s era, that required different clothing.

The senior group (olds) at church has asked him to speak at their July luncheon about the Rev War soldier, so he has been studying and gathering facts about Georgia during the Revolution.

We have had period clothing since we started participating in the living history, but seems as though we both have outgrown our clothing. A couple of years ago I made me a new bodice that fits me better, but Hubby desperately needed a new waistcoat that fit.

We have had a pattern forever, but I never had a need, up until now, to pull it out and give it a second thought, since my Mom made his period clothing back in about 1974. After asking me over and over I decided I had to get cracking on that clothing for him, especially since he needed it by mid-July and my Mom was having her hip replaced and my time was about to be consumed by taking care of her.

I'm not the type that can just create something, I need a pattern with precise instructions. I had the pattern, but not the instructions. When I started this project I didn't have a clue which pieces of fabric needed to be sewn together. Through trial and error, and I mean a lot of errors, I managed to get the waistcoat made. This doesn't compare to all the special projects Hubby has made for me. I just hope he never asks me to make him a new pair of overalls (pants), because I don't think I have the sewing skills to tackle that project.

This is an 18th century waistcoat worn by men during that period. Civilian clothing and military clothing always included this article of clothing under the outer coat.

OUTER BANKS A GREAT PLACE

2011-05-28T18:52:00.014-05:00

We had never been to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, so back in the spring we decided to check out the place. I started doing some searches on the Internet and suggested to stay in bed and breakfasts rather than hotels/motels. So after studying the map book (we actually have an atlas) we came up with an itinerary.

We left early on Sunday morning taking I-20 East, then we took I-95 North. Our first stop was Tarboro, North Carolina. This town was established in 1790. It was a really nice town. We stayed at The Main Street Inn, which was extremely nice. The Innkeepers were Denise and Stewart Sanderson. When we made the reservations Denise told us they would not be there when we arrived, but the key would be in the box and just go on in. I said, "you must be kidding!" Oh no, she said it would be find. So when we arrived our key was waiting and we made our selves at home. We sat on the porch in the swing and greeted the people walking down the street. We had a really nice room on the second floor. The Inn was built in the late 1800s and had been restored to the historical standards established by the town. Many of the houses in the town are on the National Register of Historical Places. It was late Sunday afternoon and we wanted to have a good meal, but it didn't happen in Tarboro. There were only fast food places, so we drove back to Rocky Mount for vegetables at the Cracker Barrel. It was about 20 miles, but worth the drive.

The next morning Denise prepared the most delicious breakfast for us. We also had a wonderful strawberry smoothie. This was definitely a five star B & B.

We were out early headed to the Outer Banks. It was only about a two-hour drive. We were on a four-land highway for most of the trip. Once we reached the Outer Banks we headed south towards Hatteras where we were going to take the ferry over to Okracoke Island. This was the short ride from Hatteras to Okracoke, which was only about 30 minutes. Anybody wanting to take the ferry has to line up, so we had to wait about 20 minutes before the ferry came. Once on the ferry everybody gets out of their vehicles and just walk around and enjoy the boat ride over. Some people washed their windshields and headlight, others went up to the second deck and most just roamed around watching the water and birds. Guess who's working the crowd on the ferry? Hubby down there with the yellow hat is talking to the NCDOT employee. He was on his way to work on Okracoke, he grew up at Hatteras, moved to San Diego, but didn't like it in CA, so he moved back home. His entire family has lived on the Outer Banks all their lives.

Once we arrived on Okracoke we drove to the town part. It is only 12 miles of paved road on the island. We found our lodging for the night. It was adequate, it was clean, but it certainly was not the grand lodging we had the night before. It too was an old home which had sustained damage from hurricanes, but it had been repaired. We were on the third floor. That was rough with all our baggage we thought we had to bring along. There was no TV and when you walked around the bed you had to lean sideways because the ceiling was slanted. This 5' 1" person had to lean because the ceiling was so low. Fortunately, it was cool and we opened the windows and had a really nice breeze through our room.

We roamed all over the island. We visited the lighthouse, had lunch on the water and went to the beach. As you can see there wasn't a crowd at the beach. We did see about six or seven people. Hubby flew his seagull kite and I walked the beach picking up shells. There are no hotels, houses are structures of any type on the beach. It is part of the National Seashore and is protected from any type of construction.

There was a British cemetery not far from our B & B. We roamed around the cemetery for a while then ventured to some of the shops around the island. There were people walking all over and there were people riding bikes and some people were riding gold carts. It was busy, but not real crowded.

Next morning we left, headed back north, caught the ferry back to Hatteras. We stopped at the Hatteras lighthouse and had a great tour of the tallest lighthouse on the east coast of the United States at 198 ft high. Back in 1999 the lighthouse built in 1870 was moved about 600 yards because the sea was eroding the foundation of the lighthouse. This is part of the National Seashore and is part of the National Park Service. There was a young Park Ranger that gave a great talk about the historic lighthouse and how and why it was moved. Basically, the lighthouse was jacked up and placed on rollers to move it the 600 yards, which is approximately one-half mile. Two houses occupied by the keeper and staff were moved first, which was basically a piece of cake compared to the moving of that lighthouse. It took six days to move the structure to the new location. It was a major engineering accomplishment. This lighthouse is brick and not one was lost on the move. Amazing.

Going north we traveled through Nags Head. There were lots of houses and all sorts of commercial development. The houses were right on the beach here, so obviously some parts of the Outer Banks is not part of the National Seashore.

Our next stop was Kitty Hawk. We loved it! There was a great volunteer at this national landmark. Inside the Park Service building was a replica of the first plane the Wright brothers flew with great narrative from the volunteer. The Wright brothers were geniuses. The same principle of flight is still used today on modern planes. They figured out this method with a kite.

We headed further north to Elizabeth City, NC for a Bed and Breakfast found on the Internet. The Pond Inn. We had to circle the city a couple of times, but we finally found the place. It was in an old area of town right across the street from the sound. It was beautiful. Another five-star place for the night. This was a 5,000 sq. ft. house built in the 1930s with all traditional furniture and an elevator to the second floor. The library was heart of yellow pine with beautiful crown molding. The ground of this house were finely groomed with a beautiful lawn and gardens all around the house. There was a row boat available to putter around in the pond.

That evening we had a wonderful meal at the Cedar Tree right on the water in downtown Elizabeth City at the recommendation of the Innkeeper. This is another small town that we would like to visit again.

Next morning we headed further north to Norfolk, VA, then on to Williamsburg, VA, our favorite place. We stayed in a guest home that we have known about for years. Again, the key was in the mail box with a two-page handwritten letter to us from the owner of the house saying she was in Charleston, SC for the week visiting her daughter, but we were to make ourselves at home and her son, who lived around the corner, would check on us. We had the run of the house with more antiques and traditional furniture. This was a great place to stay right at the edge of the restored area.

I took hundreds of photos of Williamsburg, like we don't have any photos. We met friends that live in Williamsburg part time for dinner and lunch. It was great to see them. They too have a love for the place just like us. They are volunteers at Colonial Williamsburg when they are in town.

We have been going to Colonial Williamsburg since 1967 and we have never grown tired of the place. We love the buildings and gardens, but I must admit my favorite thing to do is just roam through the gardens from yard to yard.

This was a great trip. We want to go back to the Outer Banks and stay longer. This trip was more of an exploratory trip to see if we wanted to spend more time there, which we do.

IT WAS A FUN DAY!

2011-02-06T21:49:00.008-05:00

Lately Hubby has been so excited about the new addition to his shop, which I fondly refer to as his cave. Just recently he was pleasantly surprised when he was approached by Chick-fil-A's CEO, Dan Cathy, to use the shop for one of his (Dan) new leadership tool kit videos. I am so glad we decided to paint the original section of his shop and get all the tools and other stuff organized.

Here are some photos of the film crew doing the shoot. A moving van arrived with the lighting and camera equipment. Then the crew arrived. At one time I counted 14 people in the shop. It was an all day affair. They arrived around 10:00 a.m. and was here until around 7:30 p.m.

This crew was a great group of people. They all were kind, courteous, and intense. It was so much fun to watch this group of professionals work getting all the lights and equipment assembled before Dan arrived to do the video. They all knew their jobs and went about doing them with a focus like you have never seen. It took hours to get the lights and cameras set up, to put amber gels over the outside of the windows to make it look like afternoon light for the duration of the shoot and then there was a smoke machine to give it the look they wanted. Shoot, Hubby could have just turned on a saw to give it the look they wanted, because it looked like sawdust was flying around in there. You can see in this photo that the smoke machine had been running. They did move the table saw to the side to make more room for the camera and placed the work bench at an angle.

After the job was complete they packed up all the equipment and we couldn't even tell they had ever been in the shop or around it. All the trash was picked up, all Hubby's tools and equipment was returned to their original location, and we didn't have to move a thing. I loved that.

This is Chick-fil-A country. Hubby has served on jury duty with Truett the founder, we know Dan and his wife from church, we run into Don aka: Bubba, at Wal-Mart, we have seen their entire family at a local barbecue place after a funeral, so these are hometown people. Dan's son and daughter-in-law were in this same place (restaurant) months later and because the BBQ joint didn't take credit or debit cards at that time (now they are high class and do accept the plastic) son and daughter-in-law had to leave and find an ATM to get cash to buy their meal. Truett and his wife still live in the house where they raised their family, which a very modest home. These people are a down-to-earth, loving and kind family.

Chick-fil-A is a privately-owned family business that lives their values and gives back to the community. This family and business is generous and giving and this is why they are so blessed.

We LOVE Chick-fil-A. Thanks Dan for such a fun day. You and your film crew are welcomed in our home/shop any day.

Ice Skating Anyone?

2011-01-12T13:36:00.004-05:00

This is our front yard, a solid piece of ice. If I had ice skates I could be out there cutting figure eights, assuming I can ice skate.

It was in the teens this morning with a wind chill of 9 degrees. The sun is out which has caused some of the snow/ice on the roof the melt. The high for today is only 30 degrees, tomorrow is only 31. However, Friday we are having a heat wave, it's going up to 43 degrees. Get out your bathing suits. Who knew 43 degrees would be--warm?

The main thoroughfares in the Atlanta area are okay, but all the side streets and neighborhoods are still frozen. I bet there will be another snow day for all students in the metro Atlanta area again tomorrow, that will be four days. Don't get too excited teachers and students, I heard rumors those days could extend the school year by four days.

Well, I'm going to drive to the garbage can, which is still on the road awaiting the Monday morning pickup. I don't dare attempt to walk because of all the ice along our driveway. It is much like the yard. I'm just glad we shoveled paths yesterday.

WE HAVE SNOW!

2011-01-10T09:15:00.005-05:00

The State of Georgia, for the most part, is closed. Middle Georgia and all parts north. The sleet started last night just after dark and then it turned to heavy snow. I don't know the official amount of snowfall at the Atlanta Airport. There are people stranded there because hundreds of flights have been canceled.

We walked to the road this morning and saw foot prints in the snow. It could be our neighbor's cat or a fox. We were so amazed at how quiet it was outside, every thing is so still. I love this as long as we continue to have power, even though I will be able to cook and have hot water. I just like to have heat. We stacked firewood on the side porch in case the power does go off. Hubby has heat in his workshop that does NOT require electricity. We can always migrate to the workshop for warmth.

This is our road.

Watching the local news there is no, I mean zero, traffic at the Atlanta Airport. Some guy (I'm being nice) just set his BMW on FIRE from spinning his tires. It was a huge fire. The news media caught the entire episode on tape.

We are in for the day(s). I'm going to make a big pot of soup and cornbread. Yum.

WE WILL MISS YOU

2011-01-01T16:38:00.003-05:00

John Briggs
February 1948
December 31, 2010

We had big plans for New Year's Day. In the south pork loin, collard greens, and blackeye peas are a tradition on January 1st, so we were going to our friend's, John to share lunch and enjoy an afternoon of football, another southern tradition.

Last evening we received a call that John died suddenly. His wife of 28 years found him on the kitchen floor unresponsive. In spite of all the efforts of the EMTs and the emergency room doctors he didn't make it.

Hubby and John met when their employer sent them to middle management school back in the early 1980s. They immediate hit it off and became good friends. As a result our families became friends. We watched their children grow up, and now they have children.

We are devistated. We spend New Year's Eve crying our eyes out and much of today as well. Several years ago our friend asked Hubby if he would do the service when he died. Last evening when we got the word, Hubby said, "I don't know how I'm going to do this." Only through the support of prayer will Hubby be able to get through the service.

John had retired on disability back in 2000 after suffering a major heart attack. More recently he had been ill for several years with prostate cancer that had spread to his only kidney, which he lost. He had been on dialysis for over three years.

John, you are loved and will be greatly missed.

I'M DONE!

2010-11-25T21:58:00.008-05:00

The shop addition is FINALLY finished. We have been painting since early September. The outside and the interior of the new part was easy. After finishing the painting of the new part the old part looked so yellow and dingy, so we tackled painting the old part. We had to move all the stuff off the walls and on the cabinet. It was like an explosion in a mattress factory. It has taken us weeks, but it has been well worth the effort.

Now there will be many hours spend working on more projects. Hubby keeps saying over and over, "I love my new shop." He working a workbench, but before that project is finished materials for the next one has arrived.

Yesterday lumber was delivered for a wood shed. Do you ever finish with projects around the house?

Honoring our Veterans, especially one

2010-11-11T12:25:00.006-05:00

My hubby served in the Army National Guard for six years the first few years we were married. Yesterday we were eating at the best barbecue place in Georgia and a gentleman came in wearing a Vietnam Veteran's hat. My dear hubby got up and went over to him to thank him for going to Vietnam in his place. The gentleman was so stunned he was speechless. He did manage to utter a thank you.

I want to honor my dad here today. He served in the Army during World War II in Europe. He fought across France, Belgium and Germany. He was in that horrible Battle of the Bulge and was wounded twice. The last time he was wounded was after the war had ended when he stepped on a land mind. He was issued one of the last Purple Hearts during the conflict in Europe. My Mom says it was the LAST Purple Heart issued, but I can't document that statement.

I was shopping one day and found a book, "US Forces in Europe" by Ian Westwell and Steven Smith. Anything about WWII, especially Europe, always sparks my interest, so I picked it up. I opened the book and there at the beginning of the book was a double page photo of soldiers. The descriptions reads, "Previous Page: Armour--M10 tank destroyers and M4 Shermans--and infantry--men of the 'Big Red One' await the order to advance. The date is 1 March 1945 and US troops are deep in Germany. US Army via Real War Photos."

There stood my Daddy. I'm positive the fourth man from the left is my Dad. My brother thinks it our Dad as well. Unfortunately, our Mom has lost her vision and can't see the photo. My brother saw him in a documentary on the History Channel one day.

My brother told me one day, that our Dad marched a hundred miles in three days across Europe and THEN had to fight a battle. We don't realize what hardship and sacrifice these veterans of World War II did for our country. They surely are the greatest generation and I will forever be grateful to all of them for what they were willing to do to keep us free.

This last photograph includes a photo my Dad (standing alone with his arms crossed) sent to my Mom with a handwritten note on the back that reads, "Limback Germany June 1945" next to the photo in the book.

Retirement in the Fast Lane

2010-10-22T22:37:00.008-05:00

I thought retirement was a slow pace of life. WRONG! We are living in the fast lane. Stop! Let's slow this buggy down, so we decide to do another project. This time it's more than a couple of days, it's major.

Hubby has been squeezed in his work shop for years. He could hardly turn around and had to use his table saw as a work bench. Sad, I know. So, we decided it was time for an addition to the original shop we built with our very own hands in 1973. Well, it actually took us years to finish that project. How many? I'll never tell, because it's just too embarrassing.

His 12' x 20' shop now has a 12' x 16' addition. It's kind of sad, changing the looks of the little building, but well worth it giving Hubby all the much needed space.

As you can see from the photo he has really been cramped in the old space.

The best part of this new addition? We didn't have to drive the first nail, but it was very frustrating watching the carpenters struggle to get the siding matched to the old part and level. Just a minor detail that drove me crazy. It took them three days to finally get it right, only after Hubby stepped in and told them what they needed to do to get the siding level. It was a long two weeks getting the structure finished. However, we did do the painting outside and inside. It took FOUR gallons of paint to cover that new drywall, two gallons of primer and two gallons of regular paint and a week of labor. The outside was a easy, we were painting primed Hardiplank.

The new addition makes the old part look really dingy, so now we are going to paint the walls/ceiling and trim. Oh my gosh! Look at all that stuff that we are going to have to move off the back wall of shelves to paint! The dark brown trim will be painted the lighter "bisque" color to match the new part. I'm sure it will help make the old part brighter doing away with the dark trim. It just occurred to me that it will probably take two coats of the light paint to cover that dark brown. Oh no! I convinced Hubby that the goldish color would better match the saw dust. You can see every speck of dust on that dark brown trim.

The new look seem strange to me still, but I'll grow accustom to it, eventually. There are still a few little things that need to be done outside before we are finished. The underside of the soffit has to be caulked and the windows scraped and cleaned. I just sloped the paint on those windows, because it was about about to rain, so I have to scrape the paint off now. I hope it won't be years before we get around to them.

Hubby is so thrilled. He wants to build a work bench and has been searching for plans. I think he will end up with a combination of several taking the best features from the plans he has found.

Oh yes, there are now tab curtains up in the shop. They actually add a bit of coziness to the place.

I would like to get this project off the to do list before Christmas. Do you think we'll make it?

CAMP MEETING 2010

2010-08-02T20:13:00.004-05:00

Several weeks ago my best friend from high school invited us to camp meeting. So we drove to Dawsonville for the day. If you know anything about NASCAR you have heard about awesome Bill (Elliott) from Dawsonville, this is the same Dawsonville.

This camp ground was established in 1838. The church tent is surrounded by at least 50 smaller tents. Actually, these structures aren't really tents, but wooden structures that appear to have been there for a very long time. Families have been coming to this location for a week in July of camp meeting for almost two centuries.

Church services are held three times a day, 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m., and 7:45 p.m. During services the occupants of the tents (houses) can't sit out on the porches that face the preaching tent. The preaching tent is a huge tent open on all four sides, but is equipped modern items like ceiling fans and hanging light bulbs for lighting. The floor is dirt, but covered with wheat straw. It was extremely hot the day we were there, but surprisingly comfortable under the tent area with all the fans going.

The family tents (houses) are all very similar, long and narrow, with only basic necessities, like kitchen and bath facilities. There were a few new tents that looked like they were really fancy with substantial doors and real windows and a few had air conditioning. Our friends' tent only had fans, but despite the heat it wasn't unbearable inside, which is surprising considering the fact there is no insulation in the walls or ceiling and they all have tin roofs. They had a very basic kitchen, and a very old table cover with an oil cloth cloth that would seat at least 12 people. In addition there were two "bedrooms" down stairs with curtains covering the door openings. The entire second floor was nothing but mattresses and could accommodate at least 20 for overnight and a bathroom with a shower and toilet. It was a very charming place in it own unique way. This is the side of the tent that faces the church tent.

My friend's family has been going to camp meeting all of her husband's life and he's 65 and I'm sure his parents were going when they were young. It is hard to realize families just like my friends have been doing this one week in July for 172 years. We told my friend we want to come back next year for the 173rd year.

The driveway side of the tent. Despite the brutal heat this was a fun day.

IT'S HARD WORK

2010-07-01T14:53:00.005-05:00

I love having a garden, but when the produce from your garden is more than you can eat or give away you have to do some thing with the stuff. We couldn't eat all the green beans we have harvested from our three rows of beans, so I had to preserve them for future consumption.

We don't like frozen green beans and we don't care for the tin taste of green beans you purchase at the grocery store, so I can those delicious, tender beans in glass Mason jars. The past week I've canned 30 pints of beans. It is really hard and very hot work, but it will be so worth it this winter when we are eating out of our garden.

We have also had lots of cucumbers, but we are eating those for breakfast, lunch and supper. I remember when we went to Israel we were served cucumbers for breakfast and they were so refreshing. Actually, it was one of the few things we would eat, but anyway, when we have cucumbers for breakfast we always say we are having a Jewish breakfast. We aren't real crazy about pickles so we will just enjoy the freshness of this vegetable right off the vine.

Unless we get some rain the green beans are finished, at least they aren't blooming because of the hot dry weather. We do have okra that is blooming and our tomatoes are about to ripen all at once. Just what we have been waiting for so we can have BLTs, the only time of the year we eat bacon.

It was really hot on our porch. I didn't think anyone would believe me if I told them it was 110 degrees on our porch, so I took this photo. I've never seen it this not before, at least on our porch. June had some record highs, so I suppose this is one of those days.

WE HAVE BEEN VERY BUSY

2010-05-16T16:05:00.009-05:00

When you are have fun time flies. The past month has been extremely busy. We have been to Florida twice. Our first trip was to Ocala to see Hubby's cousin and her husband. The next trip was to St. Augustine to see a close friend. Both trips were great, but different.

We visited a horse farm in Ocala, which was really a cool experience. This farm raises thoroughbreds and trains them to race. They have had trained several famous horses that have won big. This farm was 460 of beautiful rolling pasture land. We met the yearling trainer who gave us an excellent tour of the entire farm. We met the training manager and the birthing manager. That's not what he is really called, but that will have to do for now, because I don't recall his exact title. He is the manager of the area of the farm that over sees the mares that are waiting to give birth and then cares for the colts and mothers after birth. We also visited the cemetery. Our guide told us they only bury the horse's head and heart. I was going to ask what happens to the remainder of the horse, but was distracted and never had an opportunity to ask, in other words, I forgot to ask. Maybe that was a good thing. We did ask why only the head and heart and he said, "that's what makes the horse run, their head and heart, if they don't have it there they don't make it as a race horse."

We had a great time in St. Augustine. It has been a very long time since we had been in that old city. Our dear friend took us on the grand tour. We visited beautiful old churches, rambled along ancient streets and allies and we ate at great restaurants. We had great shrimp at a place called "Osteens". If you are even in St. Augustine be sure to stop there to eat. It was very cold and windy at the beach. We only left our vehicle long enough to take this photo to prove we were in Florida.

We had a family of Carolina Wrens in our bird bottle on our porch column, but for some reason they abandoned the nest. I know for sure one egg hatched, because I saw the baby bird pop it's little head up to eat when one of the birds flew in to feed him. We have no idea what happened to the one that hatched, but after two weeks Hubby took the bottle down to clean out the nest and we found four other eggs in there. One was broken, but the other three were still okay. We are hoping another family will build a nest in there. We so enjoy watching them.

I'm posting random photos of our two trips, the birds and the quick project.

Hubby was volunteering at Historical Jonesboro yesterday and said he needed a haversack for his keys, wallet and cell phone. I asked him what type of fabric would have been used during the 19th century and he stated, probably canvass. Well, I just happened to have some left from his wool vest project. So I ran upstairs and whipped out a haversack for him and he was a happy camper. This is probably the equivalent to a briefcase. Haversacks were in use even in the early 18th century and were a vital part of the soldier during the American Revolution.

The garden has been planted and most of the vegetable are up and thriving. Well, except for the corn the squirrels dug up. We have declared war on the squirrels, especially after we had one on the side porch, up on the hand rail and then was climbing the post the bird bottle is on. They might be the reason our little birds left their nest. Squirrels are rats with fluffy tails.

Hopefully, we are going to get to fish before it gets too hot. We are too busy if we don't have time to fish.

We still miss our Oscar Snuggles terribly. He kept the rabbit and chipmunk population down. Yesterday we saw four big rabbits down in the back yard and the chipmunks are digging up my flowers. The squirrels are trying to take over, and I almost stepped on a big snake in the side yard. Not good. I never realized how our kitties helped keep so many critters under control. We may have to rent us some cats.

OSCAR SNUGGLES, KING OF TIDEWATER

2010-03-07T16:06:00.007-05:00

OSCAR SNUGGLES, KING OF TIDEWATER
August 25, 1994 - March 5, 2010

In mid August 1994, a small young female kitty appeared at our house. We thought she might be pregnant, but we weren’t positive. She was sweet and loving and I managed to talk Hubby into letting me keep her. After all, we had an old, sick male that we had had for almost 12 years, Buster. So, we kept this sweet little female. We named her Mollie, but we call her Mollie Moo Cat, because her markings looked like a cow. She was white with gray cow marks. Soon after Mollie arrived we lost Buster of kidney disease. It was a slow, painful illness and we soon had to put him down.

It wasn’t but about two weeks before we realized Mollie must have had kittens. We scooped her up and took her to the vet to see if she had in fact delivered kittens. The vet confirmed she had and was probably finished. So the great hunt began. We looked and looked and looked for those kittens, we looked under neighbors’ decks, under out buildings, under storage sheds, we looked every where, but we never found Mollie’s kittens. We look for a solid week. We finally gave up, but I prayed, “Lord, you know we have looked every where we know to look for those kittens, so please move on Mollie to bring them to us.”

It was Labor Day weekend and we had been out on Sunday night. The house was hot when we arrived home, so we just left the back door standing open. I had gone from the kitchen into the bedroom to after something, but couldn’t remember what I went in there for, so I went back to the kitchen to try to remember what I was after in the bedroom. I looked up and Mollie ran in the back door with what appeared to be a rat, but I soon realized it was a KITTEN!!!!! She put this plump little gray kitten that was to be named Emmie Sweet Pea, down on our kitchen rug. This little thing was so tiny her eyes were still not open.

Mollie was ready to eat, by this time she was eating really well and was demanding food. So we fed her and then I put that little baby in a shoe box. Mollie soon wanted back out, to retrieve more kittens, we thought. We left the back door open most of the night. While little Sweet Pea and I “slept” on the sofa waiting for Mollie to return with her siblings. Finally, I closed and locked the door around 3:00 a.m.

I awoke suddenly after daylight, jumped up, ran and opened the back door. Mollie dashed in. She went straight to that kitten, fed her and then demanded more food for herself. In the meantime, I was off to Wal-Mart to buy a storage container to house this little family in our back hall linen closet. I had no idea how much of a mess they would make, so I wanted them contained. When I arrived home with all the gear (storage bin, litter box, litter, etc.) I inquired to Hubby about Mollie. She had wanted out and had been gone for about 30 minutes. I had unloaded the van with all the stuff and was in the process of putting a nice soft bed in that storage bin when Mollie ran in the back door again with yet another little kitten. This one was also gray, but he was not at all plump, he was skinny, frail and his fur was fuzzy looking. This little fellow was our Oscar Snuggles. We put those two little kittens over in the nice bed we had made for Mollie. She jumped over in with her two babies and never wanted out. So we concluded she had brought us her kittens, just like I had asked the Lord to do—He moved on Mollie and she brought the kittens to us.
We had Mollie about a year, but lost her out on the road. We were heartbroken, but we still had those two kittens.

Those two kittens brought us so much fun and joy. We had Emmie Sweat Pea for 12 years. She had gotten really fat and slow and a couple of the neighbor’s dogs killed her in our back yard. It was possible she had a heart attack trying to get away from them, because there were only a couple of marks on her. Again we were heart broken.

Then there was Oscar Snuggles, King of Tidewater. He was king, for sure. You know dogs have owners, but cats have staffs. That is certainly true. He had two servants that faithfully took care of him, babied him, pampered him, spoiled him rotten and he loved it. He slept with us most of the time, especially in the winter time, because he would get cold, even though we faithfully covered him up on the sofa, but he would always join us a couple hours after we went to bed.

We lost our sweet Oscar on Friday morning. I was going down the driveway on my way to my Mom’s, Hubby had taken the trash to the can and to open the gate for me. When I saw Hubby running to the road I knew it wasn’t good. Our Oscar Snuggles had to hit and killed on the road. We have had him 15 and one-half years and to our knowledge he never attempted to cross the road. We don’t know if he was chasing something or was just going to check out the other side of the road. Who knows? He had the beginning stages of kidney disease and had already exhibited symptoms of that horrible disease. I was already grieving over the fact that he was headed for a slow, painful death. It kills us that he was hit, but we are almost positive it was an instant end for him.

To say we are heart broken is an understatement. This happened Friday morning, early and I still can’t stop crying. I know this terrible hurt will heal in time, but right now it is almost too painful to bear. Sweet Oscar you will always be in our hearts, because you and Sweet Pea have left paw prints on our hearts. We love you, little Buddy Cat.

AND THE SNOW FINALLY ARRIVED

2010-02-15T11:10:00.004-05:00

The weather man warned us. A dusting of snow for the metro Atlanta area. Well, we got a tad more than a dusting, it was a little over three inches of snow. It started snowing around 1:00 p.m. Friday. We were in Chick-fil-A having lunch with friends and there was only a flake or two, then as we started to leave it started to snow people. By the time we got home the ground was covered. This is a lot of snow for us. By Saturday noon the roads were mostly clear and by Sunday they were completely clear. That is really good since most of us don't have a clue how to drive on snow.

FINALE--On the clothes

2010-01-25T13:33:00.004-05:00

Before Thanksgiving I started on another 1860's vintage vest for Hubby. Only did I manage to finish the thing recently. If I had made this one first, it would have been the only one. The linen vest was a challenge considering the fact it has been years since I have made anything, so the wool one was, shall we say, a bit more difficult. The interfacing was canvass, which made it much thicker than the linen vest. I broke three sewing machine needles making this wool vest. Hubby is thrilled and he says it is really warm, which is nice since it has been soooo cold here this past month. Well, it's cold for the south.

I don't know how it happens, but I manage to get involved (suckered) into Hubby's projects. He had me over at the history center splitting fire wood. Don't get too excited we had a gasoline splitter, not a manual wedge and sledge hammer. I would have been out on that project if we had not had the gasoline splitter. Actually, it's good exercise and it was great just to be outside. We split all the wood behind me, plus another half row behind what you can see.

The painters have FINALLY finished painting the exterior of the house. Thank the Lord! They started before Thanksgiving and didn't finish until about a week ago. It was a long hard job, even though we didn't paint the first thing. We are still in the process of replacing some rotted wood with PVC, but hopefully that will soon be finished. Hubby is putting primer on the last piece of PVC we purchased to replace the fascia boards around the back porch. AND we still have to clean paint off some of the brick and the copper roof over the bay window. The painter didn't understand why we were upset over the green paint on that roof.

Our builder's son, Kenneth, has done a wonderful job replacing the rake boards and the gable vents with the new PVC products. We won't have to worry about rot on those places ever. We have decided as the trim has to be replaced because of rot we are using the PVC. We have found a source in Atlanta that has just what will be needed.

It will soon be time to turn the garden.

THE VEST

2009-11-01T17:25:00.006-05:00

Yep, the vest has been completed, now Hubby has a shirt, a vest and a pair of shoes for his 1860's clothing. He has decided to order a pair of trousers, and I am SO GLAD!

Both garments have been a challenge, but the vest was a set-by-set process with lots of reading of the direction and looking at the illustrations on the pattern instructions. It has three pockets and I've never sewn anything with pockets, so that was certainly a learning experience.

A picture, or two, are worth a thousand words. Hubby's head was cut off on purpose, he didn't want his hair showing, because his hair was not in order. Oh, the buckle on the back is some type of authentic type buckle that was special order.

LET'S TRY THAT AGAIN

2009-10-11T18:15:00.005-05:00

It's been so long since I last posted I posted a title without any narrative.

My computer can't "see" my memory card from my digital camera, so I haven't posted because I think a blog without photos can be, shall we say, boring.

I just discovered that I can run a cord from a port on the front of my computer to my camera and it can see the memory card. Miracles do happen. Don't you just love the technology we have today. If only I knew how to use it.

I haven't made an article of clothing in years. Probably since, oh the 1970's when we were putting together our Rev War (Revolutionary War) clothing until the past few weeks. I dusted off the old Bernina and got to work.

The sweet Hubby has decided he wants to volunteer at Stately Oaks in Jonesboro, but he needs Civil War era clothing, which he didn't have. He purchased a very complicated historic pattern from some internet site that I just wouldn't tackle. He did borrow a Simplicity historic pattern from one of the ladies that also volunteers. I'm not sure how simple this pattern was, but it was a lot less complicated than the other one he has purchased.

We have here yet another article of clothing from history, this time, it's 19th Century. I'm reading the pattern for a vest with pockets--three pockets and some type of chest padding. I might need some help on this "simple" vest. I don't think 18th Century clothing is this complicated. This simple shirt had eight (8) EIGHT gussets in it, at the neck, under the arms and at the shirt tail. The small photo with the hand is the tiny gusset at the tail of the garment. There's nothing like looking at some one's arm pit. Now I'm off to study the vest pattern.

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!

2009-10-11T18:14:00.000-05:00

ANOTHER HOBBY?

2009-09-11T07:26:00.002-05:00

My sweet husband has had all sorts of hobbies over the years. They range from money making to money taking ones.

He had a photography hobby that turned into a nice little money making deal, however, it was hard work. I'm telling you wedding photography is torture! After he lost his job and we started our own home inspection business, which was not a hobby, but a necessity, we couldn't keep up both, so we sold all the photographic equipment. He had lots, I mean, LOTS of equipment--two Hasselblads (those are cameras--expensive cameras) and several lenses to accompany those bodies, lights, light meters, backgrounds, props, I telling you lots of stuff. Those Hasselblads? You buy them in parts, the body, the lens, the view finder, the film advance handle (I'm not kidding), and they are all expensive, very expensive. Anyway, we sold all that stuff just about the time digital was taking off, so we were very fortunate in that respect. So, we took that money and exchanged the photo studio in the attic for a theater. Rather nice exchange.

During the bicentennial, way back in the early to mid 1970's he decided he wanted to do living history (reenactments), so off we go on that little hobby. This was Revolutionary War reenacting, which meant he had to have all the clothing that went along with this living history deal. I wasn't too keen on the idea, but I wanted to be with him, so I participated as well. Understand that when you do living history all your clothing and accouterments MUST be authentic, which means that all this research had to be done as to what a particular soldier would have worn. So, with the help of other members of the 2nd Georgia Battalion we start to gather our clothing. My camp follower clothing was rather easy. By the way, a camp follower was not a loose woman, she had to be married to a member of the unit and if he died or was killed she was booted out of the unit. Not an easy life for these people that fought for our independence from England! Anyway, I had to have a chemise (18th century nightgown, underwear and bathing suit), a petticoat (skirt), a bodice (basically your bra worn over the chemise), mob cap (keeps your hair out of the fire and smoke out of your hair) and an apron. All of this had to be made of linen (remember authentic to the period). The mob cap and chemise had to be made of handkerchief grade linen, which was rather hard to find, but the other clothing was just regular linen and easily found back then. However, hubby's clothing was not quite as easy. He had to have overalls (pants), a waist coat (vest), a shirt and a frock (coat), neither of which I was capable of making, well I could have made the vest, but didn't. My Mom sewed lots, in fact she made my wedding dress she was so good, and she volunteered to make his clothing. She didn't have any difficulty with anything except those overalls, which were a nightmare. Eventually, we did get all the clothing necessary to be AUTHENTIC with our Rev War living history events. We did this from about 1973 until 1982 when we participated in a huge event at Yorktown, VA reenacting Cornwallis' (England) surrender to General Washington. It was a grand event with over 4,000 participants. After that we decided nothing could top that event, so we "retired" from Rev War reenacting.

Well! Now Hubby has decided he wants to volunteer at our local history center, which is Civil War, well actually pre Civil War, because Sherman burned everything around here. We live near a very famous Civil War area just south of Atlanta. Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" made our town very famous. In fact, the battle fought here was a turning point in the war. We have a Confederate Cemetary right at the edge of town and a very good Gone With the Wind museum at the old Depot. Actually, did you know Tara didn't exist? Margaret Mitchell had relatives that actually lived at Lovejoy and it's believed she fashioned Tara after their home place. There was a big battle at Lovejoy as well. Anyway, we have people coming here all the time looking for Tara, so the historical society purchased and moved an old house and out building in, restored them and now have guided tours of a pre Civil War farm for those looking for Tara, which is a really nice exhibit.

The historical society is always looking for volunteers and guess who has volunteered, ya'll? Yep, my dear sweet husband. I've opted out of this era, I'm not interested in gathering all the necessary items to "volunteer". He does chair making demonstrations and loves every minute of it. Once again this has necessitated more authentic clothing, so I've "volunteered" to make his Civil War era clothing. It's civilian clothing but it has to be authentic as well. I'm not creative enough to just make them, I have to have a pattern! One of the ladies in the volunteer group loaned me a pattern for the pants, shirt and vest. Last night I started this project. I took me FOUR HOURS to cut the pattern out. When you purchase a pattern it comes printed on these huge pieces of tissue paper and you have to cut all those pieces out so you can place them properly on the fabric to cut that out in order to start sewing the garment. This is NOT going to be an easy project. I've made clothes for myself in the past, but I've never made any men's clothing. I'm going to tackle the shirt first, then the vest and then hopefully by the time I get to the pants I will have tuned by sewing skills to the point I'll understand the pattern instructions.

Stay tuned for the next project. Oh, by the way, we are going to start painting the outside of our house, so when do you suppose I'll have time to sew? Maybe by Christmas I'll have this sewing project completed.

LOST, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN!

2009-08-25T08:52:00.003-05:00

In February 2003, Hubby lost his Ultra Stinger Flashlight in the crawl space of a house in Peachtree City, GA while doing a home inspection. Check out the light at: http://www.streamlight-flashlights.com

He was sick, I mean sick, about losing his flashlight because it was a very good light and secondly it was expensive. Like $100 is a LOT to pay for a flashlight by most standards, but since he was making his living with the light it was certainly justified. He needed two at all times, one he was using and one charging, so he had to replace that lost light. I went back and pulled the records and it cost him $75 to replace just the flashlight. He already had all the adapters to recharge the light so he only had to purchase the flashlight.

Yesterday, August 24th, he received a strange telephone call from a gentleman identifying himself as Martin O..... (I'll not fully identify Martin for his sake) saying he needed to talk to him he had something very interesting to tell him. I immediately said, "NO" don't return the call because of all the scams going on with phone calls wanting to "verify" your personal information. Shortly after the first call the Martin called back and said, "I failed to tell you why I called, but I found an Ultra Stinger Flashlight registered in your name." Well! Hubby called him. This gentleman saw a flashlight along the road close to his home. He stopped and retrieved the light and realized it was a really nice light. He saw the serial numbers on the light and called the Streamlight people and found out it was registered to Hubby under our home inspection company name. So this Martin called Hubby.

When Hubby talked with Martin he found out he lives in NEVADA! Hubby's flashlight was found in NEVADA, ya'll!!!!!! How did it get from Peachtree City, GA to a nice area of NEVADA?

Martin is going to mail the light to Hubby. Hubby offered to pay the cost, but Martin said no, because recently he left his wallet on the bumper of his truck which was found by some nice gentleman and was returned to Martin with all his credit cards and money in tact. Martin offered to give him a reward but the person said no, just do something kind for someone in the future. I suppose this is paying it forward.

We just want to say THANK YOU, MARTIN O. for your honesty and kindness. We are excited about this event, we just wish the flashlight could talk and tell us how it ended up in Nevada.

THANK YOU AGAIN, MARTIN!!!!!

SUMMER IS FLYING BY

2009-07-07T19:22:00.002-05:00

It has been way too long since I last did a post. Seems like the summer is just flying by, it's half over. I consider July 4th the half-way mark of summer.

The following is a list of things we have been doing. I was going to post photos, but my computer can't "see" the card out of my camera, so I'll just list the things we have done.

We (this means Hubby and me, because I don't have a mouse in my pocket) went fishing at Stone Mountain and our local water authority pond.
We finished up facilitating our Financial Peace University classes the end of May. We had 13 families to pay off over $300,000 of consumer debt during the 13 weeks of class. It was a great class.
We went to the gun range for target practice. I have my target on the refrigerator. I wrote, "we call the morgue, not 911". I threatened to put this on our back door. I did really well, I can hit that target's heart every time.
We helped take photos of the Joy Prom at a local church. This is a prom for young adults with special needs that would never get to attend a prom without this event. It was a wonderful experience. There were three Chick-fil-A cows at the prom. They were all dressed up in their dresses and special flowers.
Hubby is making bird houses like crazy for a craft fair we are doing in two weeks.
Hubby has worked really hard in our garden.
I've canned 24 pints of green beans, we have eaten lots of cucumbers and squash, the tomatoes are about to ripen all at once and we have one lonely bell pepper. I managed to freeze about one-half bag of okra.
We spent the day with good friends in their home on top of a mountain in western North Carolina. Beautiful place timber frame house.
Attended a wedding, the son of Hubby's best friend growing up.
Took Mama on a tour of Turner Field (Braves home field). She was invited to a VIP tour by the Director of Customer Affairs. We were the only guests, it was a really great tour. He picked us up at the gate in a golf cart and we went from the top to the bottom of the stadium. Mama even went out on to the field and down into the Braves dugout. Then we were escorted to the spot Hank Aaron hit his 715 home run. It's is now part of the parking lot at the new stadium. This was a real BIG deal for Mama because she is an avid Braves fan. At 91 she keeps up with all of baseball.
We had a dear friend from Winston-Salem, North Carolina visit us and we were introduced to his girl friend. He lost his wife to cancer about three years ago and his sweet girl friend lost her husband last year to a stroke.
We went to the Civil War reenactment of the Battle of Resaca which was just north of Calhoun, Georgia.
We went to a craft fair in Blue Ridge, Georgia. Lots of stuff, all of which I can live without.
We have watched a Carolina Wren raise four babies right in front of our bay window. Hubby cleaned out the nest after the babies flew the coup, and they built another nest and are now raising another family of babies. I don't know just how many yet.
We had several ladies from the church come over, well, actually they invited themselves, but they brought lunch. We had a really fun time lunching on the patio. That was before it got too hot to eat outside.
We are trying to sell our Mustang. It's at a really good price, very low miles. We have had it, we have enjoyed it, but it's time to downsize. It is so much fun to drive, but it's just not practical to drive in traffic with it being a 5-speed and only two passengers are comfortable and there is absolutely no trunk space in that vehicle.
We bought us a little scooter car, a little Toyota Corolla. We love it. Found a great deal, low miles and very well maintained.
Hubby has joined the local hysterical society, I mean historical society. He will be doing chair making demonstrations at the restored house in town. He loves it. I'm not participating in this activity. I did 18th Century living history with him, but decided not to get involved in the 19th Century.
We participated in the activities at a local historic farm. In the process of digging out our 18th century clothes the top rack in the off season clothes closet fell knocking down the lower rack, so on the 4th we replaced all the hanging space in one of the upstairs closets. Such fun. It was an all day project with several trips to Lowe's to buy supplies and a couple of trips to return supplies not used.
I have several friends I meet for lunch. We all worked at the same place for 30 years so we get together to catch up on what is going on in each others lives.
Oh I almost forgot, I work a day or two each month. It's a great job, gets me out of the house, I make a little money and helps keep my brain working.

That about sums up all the fun filled activities here is the sunny south. This is pretty pathetic, I had to look through my photos in my camera to remember all the stuff we have been doing. Sad I know. I think we try to cram too many activities into a short period of time. You would never know we are retired and can slow down.

Money Changers in the Church

2009-04-08T06:58:00.007-05:00

Leading up to the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus, which is this coming Sunday, April 12th, we have been reading all the scriptures in the Gospels concerning the last week before Jesus was crucified on the cross. The reading started with Palm Sunday which was Jesus' triumphant entrance into Jerusalem and the remainder of the week will be what happened the week He was cruisfied and will end with His glorious resurrection on Sunday.

Yesterday we read about Jesus casting the money changers out of the Temple of God. He was mad! He ran everyone out that was buying and selling in the Temple, he even over turned their cash registers. The people were celling doves to the people in preparation for Passover, which by the way, starts tonight at sundown. This was a very important celebration for the Jewish people, remembering their deliverance out of the terrible bondage and slavery they were under in Egypt. God miracleriously delivered them from the death angel, if they had the blood on the doorpost of their homes. This was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, and the Pharaoh released God's people. Moses lead them out and this is when they crossed the Red Sea, yet another miracle.

In a couple of weeks there is going to be a craft show and lunch at the church to raise money for a mission project. My question, is this right? Anyway, Hubby has made three bird houses he plans to have at the craft show.

The big white one is a replica of the Fayette County Courthouse, the oldest courthouse in Georgia. Our church is in Fayette County, so this should be a really big hit, it's one of a kind, I'm sure. The green house has been painted to look like an antique finish, all cracked and the little Americana house has an American flag painted across the front of it. The roof is covered with dollhouse shingle. This is a wonderful collection of really nice bird houses, but is it right to sell them at the church?

Comb Back Chair

2009-03-19T13:52:00.013-05:00

Hubby has been working on this comb back chair for the past months/year and has finally finished the construction. He's going to put a milk paint finish on it before moving it into the house.

We have a problem Houston. Where are we going to put this chair? I just walked through the house and counted eleven (11), yes eleven chairs he has made. I don't know where we are going to put this cone back. The others are scattered all over the house--four are around the kitchen table, and the others are in the living room, foyer and bedrooms. We would love to sell four of the Windsor bow backs that are scattered all over the house. They would look really lovely in some one's home with their antique looking finish.

Hubby cut the tree(s) down to get the wood he used to make the spindles and legs. He did buy the seat blank, which was nothing more than a thick square of wood, from a specialty lumber yard in Newnan, GA. He had to carve the seat out, which is a lot of hard work! You need green wood to make the spindles and legs, so they will turn well on the lathe.

He's going to put a nice antique looking finish on it. We had to make a special trip to Highland Hardward http://www.highlandhardware.com/ to buy the milk paint he is going to use. It's always fun for both of us going to Highland Hardware. I love their book section, Hubby likes the tools, well I have purchased a tool or two myself there as well.

He amazes me at what he can make from a green tree.

IT'S SNOWING HERE IN THE SOUTH!

2009-03-01T17:46:00.008-05:00

Coming out of

church!

Coming through downtown of "Gone With The Wind" territory.

I know, I know for all of you people up north, this is not a big deal, but for all of us that grew up here in the deep south, y'all, IT'S A BIG DEAL.

Do you know what happend when we have three snowflakes? Everything closes, people do a run on all the grocery stores and it's like a ghost town!

This morning before church we heard thunder, then we had some sleet and it continued to rain. We went on to church in the rain with a little snow mix here and there. We chatted with friends and made our way to our "regular" seats. If we are standing we can see outside, but when we were seated we couldn't see a thing, so I "excused" myself for a minute, made my way around to the opposite side of the building from where we sit and politely opened the blinds on the doors from the auditorium to the foyer. We had a straight view of what was happening outside. It was SNOWING and I means it was snowing hard. During church we got about an inch of snow, please don't laugh y'all, that's a lot of snow for us. Even the pastor made a comment about what was happening outside. It was not my intention to bring to HIS attention that it was snowing, but he did mention something about what has been happening outside.

This is what what happened while we were in church! We have never seen snowflakes this large since we went snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park. It so reminded us of how beautiful all the snow was and how large the flakes can be. They must have been about half the size of my hand.

Almost home!

The roads are covered with slush, but the temperature has been right at 34 degrees all day, so that slush will turn to ice when it gets dark and that is a another story. It's almost 6:00 p.m. and we are still getting snow. We already know that all the schools and probably many businesses will be closed tomorrow. I suspect the roads will be pretty bad in the morning as the forecast is 25 degrees tomorrow morning, but it is suppose to be sunny with a high of 45 degrees. Hopefully, the roads will be okay after the sun gets up, because I tell you the people from here do not know how to drive on snow covered roads, and most of the yankee transplants don't know either!

You have to understand that when it snows here in the south, everything STOPS! Everyone thinks they are going to be unable to get to the grocery story for DAYS, so there is a huge run on all the grocery stores for bread and milk. I always wondered why not stock up on everything else while you are there. So very quickly the shelves are stripped of all bread and milk. I would think you would need something to go between those pieces of bread.

My dear friend that lives in northern Virginia just called me, and she is stuck in Jacksonville, FL and is trying to get back to Virginia. Many flights have been cancelled and she already knows she will not be getting out today. The airline told her tomorrow morning, we shall see.

Finally, we are home!

Today is my nieces birthday and she was really excited that we have all this snow on her special day. She was really excited. I think that's pretty special as well. Happy Birthday, Lizzie!

18th Century Canteen

2009-02-07T09:48:00.005-05:00

Hubby bought a new wooden canteen and has turned it into an antique looking item. It arrived lilly white, but as you can see he has worked his magic and turned it into a canteen that looks like it is out of the Revolutionary War battles fought here in Georgia. On the opposite side he carved,

CPL. K.... L....

Ga. Bn.

Cont. Line

That is Corporal (CPL.) and his name, 2nd Georgia Battalion, Continental Line. The back side reflects all the battles fought in Georgia (one of the original colonies). Savannah--1778, Kettle Creek--1779, Briar Creek--1779.

This will be added to the collection of accouterments he has already collected, to include all the appropriate clothing. Well, I have the clothing as well and the necessary accouterments necessary to prepare meals.

These items are left over from our days of reenactments (living history). They were fun, but we retired after the surrender at Yorktown of General Cornwallis to General George Washington. That was an event of a lifetime. Over 4,000 reenacters. President Regan attended the event as well as the President of France. For some reason the English weren't too excited about the event and failed to send a representative.

3-D CHURCH

2009-02-07T09:39:00.003-05:00

How cool is this? 3-D in church of all places. The kids loved it, so did the big kids. Our pastor was making a life application point in his sermon that required the glasses.

Please Pray

2009-01-17T12:12:00.002-05:00

Please pray for two young women, Mish Weiss and Leah Friedman.

Leah had heart valve replacement this week. This is one of several valve replacements she has had during her short life. You see, she is only 19. She is very, very ill and needs our prayers. You can follow her blog, which is being maintained by friends at the moment. This young lady has a lot spunk and flight in her, but she is currently in a coma. PLEASE PRAY!

http://leahmetermaid.blogspot.com

Mish is an American living in Israel serving in the IDF. She is currently on sick leave recovering from a bone marrow transplant because she has leukemia. She is progressing slowly, but she is progressing. Please pray for her recovery and patience. She is chomping at the bits to get out of the hospital--she's been there since last July in isolation because of her compromised immune system. She wants to be with her dear friend Leah, but can't until her blood counts reach a certain point.

http://mishweiss.blogspot.com

These are two precious young ladies and I am asking you to pray for both of them.

BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT TODAY

2009-01-12T11:59:00.002-05:00

This information came to me in the form of an e-mail from a friend at church through another friend that has moved away. How funny is that? These are some fact most people need to know about this conflict. I just did a cut and paste, can you believe I have those computer skills?

Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview and was asked about Israel 's occupation of Arab lands -- his response was "It's our land." The reporter (CNN or the like) was stunned -- read on.

Here are overlooked facts in the current Middle East situation. These were compiled by a Christian university professor. BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT TODAY.... (It takes just 1.5 minutes to read!!!!) It makes sense and it's not slanted. Jew and non-Jew--it doesn't matter.

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E. Two thousand years before the rise of Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel .
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E., the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 C.E. Lasted no more than 22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-ei ght percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.
13. The Arab - Israeli Conflict: The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.
14. The P.L.O.'s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to pla ces of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
16. The U.N. Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.
18. The U.N was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.
19. The U.N. Was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
20. The U.N. Was silent while the Jordanians enforced an aparthei d-like a policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

What can you do? What will you tell your grandchildren what you did when there was a turning point in Jewish destiny, an opportunity to make a difference?

START NOW- Send this to other people you know and ask them to send it to others, Jew and non-Jew--it doesn't really matter.

ISRAEL WE LOVE YOU!

2009-01-10T09:22:00.009-05:00

Israel we stand with you. You have a right to defend your land and people. This land was given to Abraham and God told him, "I will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you." Paraphrased from Gen. 12:3. Abraham was the beginning of the Jewish nation.

If the people of South Carolina were hurling bombs over on the people of Georgia, I know there would be some type of action taken to stop the bombings. The terrorists have hurled 12,552 bombs on the people of Israel since 911. Or let's say, the people in Fulton County (Atlanta) were hurling bombs and rockets over on the people in DeKalb County (Decatur), action to stop the attacks would be taken in short order! That is exactly what the Israeli people are dealing with as the coward terrorists continue to attack them.

Israel is the only country that calls up the residents of a location they are planning to bomb and tell them, "hey, we are going to bomb your house, you might want to leave." That's what Israel is doing. Israel is the only country that stops the attacks long enough to haul in humanitarian supplies to their enemies.

ISRAEL WE STAND WITH YOU!

Check out this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeVvMJdvEX8

We have RATS!

2008-12-26T11:39:00.007-05:00

Christmas Eve was rather calm and quiet. We did attend the Candlelight Service at our church. It was wonderful. We always look forward to this service. There must have been 1,500 people there, the down stairs was packed and almost all the balcony was full. We sang Christmas Carols, had special music and one of the ladies that plays in the orchestra played the harp and her young daughter played the flute. Mrs. Harp played before the service, then during part of the service she accompanied Little Miss Flute and they played "Jesus Did You Know". It was heavenly.

Christmas Day was another calm, quiet day. We built a big fire, had a very untraditional lunch--grilled salmon, fresh steamed asparagus and red potatoes. We just made a point to rest and relax after months of running and working non-stop, we treated outselves to the luxury of being couch potatoes for the day.

Tomorrow our family (my brother and all his kids, which are all adults) are coming. That menu will be a little more traditional--ham on the Big Green Egg, greenbeans (pickled and regular), mashed potatoes with sour cream and other side dishes that will be supplied by the others that are coming to the party. I don't have a clue what else we will have in the way of veggies.

However, I DO KNOW we are having some good desserts. My Mom has bakes pecan and pumpkin pies, I've made a chocolate cake, well the cake is just yellow cake with my grandmother chocolate frosting recipe. I poked holes in the layers of the cake so all that frosting could just settle down in the cake. Last time I made one everyone was fussing making sure they got their share of the cake. It's going to be wonderful. It is cooling on the kitchen counter and I caught the RATS picketing around the cake. Look at those little beady eyes. They just don't realize they are endangered species, just wait until tomorrow.

The Great Gate/Fence Project is DONE!!!!!

2008-12-16T12:15:00.002-05:00

After two months of our lives being consumed by this project we have finally finished.

Our next goal is to get through Christmas, then next spring our next project will be to paint the outside of the house.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

2008-12-09T09:08:00.011-05:00

Photo right:

Looking to the left coming out the driveway.

Photo below:

Taken from across the road.

Took us three weeks to build these gates, then they were so heavy I could hardly help get them out of the workshop.

I'm posting these photos for those of you that have been here before, during and after the widening of the road. Our little country road is now a four-lane raceway. That 45 mph speed limit sign means absolutely NOTHING! People are flying through here like it's I-75. One of the contractors told me he was driving 65 mph and people were passing him. I've told one of the majors with the county police they could make a mint if they would just set up out here. The major told me they couldn't do that until the state deems the project complete. The speed limit sign is looking to the right standing in our driveway. You can see just how wide the road is now, it's sickening. We are so thankful the house is as far off the road as it is, because we still don't really know there is a road out there once we get back to the house. We do still hear the interstate, even though it is a mile away. The sound carries, especially with it being elevated. We even heard the train in Jonesboro the other day and that's four miles away.

This last photo is looking to the right coming out of the driveway.

We now know where we live. The fence has made all the difference in the world. During the project we didn't recognize our own driveway because of all the tree/brush removal from the right-of-way. Traveling east we have to pass the house, go two streets down the road and make a U-turn and head back west, or we could turn left into the subdivision around us, but those stupid "planters" down the center of the road blocks our view of oncoming traffic and it's too dangerous, so we just drive another 500 feet or so, and make the U-turn.

We have ordered some strap "fake" hinges to go on the front of the gate, hopefully they will be here this week.

We have been working on this since October, so I'm so ready to be FINISHED! I found some beautiful artificial wreaths yesterday, so I'll be working on those to get them up before Christmas.

PLAN TWO IMPLEMENTED

2008-11-11T11:12:00.002-05:00

Well, the fence is finished all but one small space between the fence post and the gate post. We can do that in a few minutes. HOWEVER, the gates are another story. We found these beautiful gates, but in reality they are.not.working! We have spent three days working on them and we still don't have a completed frame, so we are now working on plan two.

Hubby is on his way to Home Depot to buy more materials and hopefully by the end of the week we will have plan two complete. This is really my fault since I wanted the gate with all the spindles. We just can't attach the hinges to all those spindles, so we are going to use the wide boards that match the fence.

Will we ever finish this project?

2008-11-04T10:46:00.003-05:00

The fence is progressing, slowly, very slowly, but it's coming along. We are in the process of "designing" our gate. We are gazing at a photo I took of a gate on the DVD of "Story of a Patriot" about Colonial Williamsburg, trying to decide the dimensions of the lumber we need to construct said gate.

Yesterday we put up all but one small section of wire and the boards to cover the seams of the horizontal rails at the vertical posts. We only have one small section of wire to put up, then the gates.

We are trying desperately to beat the cold weather, because we are painting all the lumber before it is put up, that way all surfaces are covered and I only have to do touch up painting to cover hammer marks. We are ready to do something FUN!

I must admit we have had wonderful weather to work, mostly in the mid 60's to low 70's. I can't imagine how we would have done this in July or August or without the help of our nephew, Addison. It was good spending time with him and enjoying the nice weather. There is a silver lining to this project.

WE HAD A TAKER

2008-10-25T06:54:00.003-05:00

All the post holes are dug, only because we had a little secret help from someone passing by, and kindly dug all but four holes with a huge auger. Our nephew, Addison, took the job to dig the last four; two right at where the utilities were marked, one by our neighbor's brick pillar and one in a clump of bushes that our secret helper couldn't reach with his big tractor.

Hubby and Addison have all the posts installed, wire up on the left side of the driveway and one row of boards over the wire. Thursday we spent the day with friends at their place on a hunting club, and when we got home we had a nice note on the front door from the CODE ENFORCEMENT man. "If you continue work on the fence there will be a citation and $1,000 fine."

A permit has to be obtained before you can put up a fence. More government intervention into our lives. It was quite easy to obtain, sorta and only cost $25, but still a pain in the rear.

BORING? NOT!

2008-09-23T08:21:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since I last did a post. It's not that our lives are boring, but we have been so busy!

Presently, we have committed to facilitate Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our church, which is 17 miles away, and at a smaller church, just about four miles from us. Wednesdays we are at our church, Sunday afternoons we are at the closer church. There are about 64 students at our church (north campus) and the other church there are about 52 students. This commitment has kept us busy. It's a GREAT course. If you ever have an opportunity to take it, do so, even if you are debt free. There is so much information in that 13-week course, you can always learn something new.

Then there are always "normal" household duties, but the garden calls. I have just canned the last greenbeans out of the garden and we have pulled up all those vines. It was a bit sad. We will miss those fresh greenbeans. We still have okra and tomatoes producing. Every time I drag my canning jars and accouterments out of the basement I think that is the last time for this year, but "opportunities" keep presenting themselves to can something else.

Our next project is going to be putting the fence back up at the road. FINALLY! We think most of the activity has been completed. All four lanes are open now, the right-of-way markers have all been installed and we know exactly where we can put our fence. We have already marked jthe fence location and all the utilities have been marked as well. We can dig legally, for now, but only until October 3rd, then we have to renew the approval before September 29th. Complicated, I know, but if you don't call before you dig, and you hit one of the utilities, then you get fined. All we need are some volunteers to dig the holes for the fence posts. Do I have any takers?

ALL IN A DAY'S WORK

2008-09-01T18:16:00.006-05:00

We found the kind of greenbeans we love at the Farmer's Market last week, so I bought a box. I actually had to do something with them, so here they are, all in cans ready to go to the basement to be stored.

Saturday we drove to North Carolina to visit friends from church for the day. They gave me a large bag of pears and apples, so yesterday after church I made pear relish and applesauce. I ended up with 16 pints of pear relish and six and one-half pints of applesauce. I suppose I'm going to hell for doing all that canning on Sunday.

My entire fireplace hearth was covered with all these items canned the past few days, so I got busy and moved them all to the basement. Well, then I had to rearrange what was already down there, so we will eat the oldest things first. Novel idea, I know. Once I got everything rearranged, I opened the freezer door--I had to face it. The freezer needs defrosting, so I turned it off to thaw.

Scarlett will worry about that tomorrow. I am pooped, so we are going to put on our pajamas and watch "Batman 3" this evening, excuse me, I've just been informed, that's "Spiderman 3".

From this to this...

2008-08-15T15:01:00.005-05:00

Rumor has it the DOT will be finished with the road by the end of August. I'm not holding my breath. When you ride down the road there are still lots of things that need to be completed, like replacing the cracked apron on our driveway. The apron is the concrete part that connects that little bit of black top to the actual road. When we got stuck (refer to first photo) they cracked it when they rolled over it with that big machine (refer to second photo) that flattens the black top to pack the rock dust/crushed rock they had to pour on that mud hold (refer to first photo). So today I was out at the road with my orange marking paint, marking those cracks on the apron and I put a great big orange arrow on the finished road pointing out those cracks. I bet DOT will be so glad to get away from us. LOL! Do you see Hubby over by the bush "supervising" (refer to second photo)?

Now we are trying to decide what type of fence we want to put back up since DOT took our nice chain-link fence. :-) We could put up a nice wooden farm-type fence for almost half of what it will cost us to put a chain-link fence, but we will have to do the labor. UGH! If we go with a chain link, we have decided we want a black one and it's vinyl. That means we would have a plastic fence! I kind of like the idea of a nice farm-type wooden fence. We just don't want to invest more money in this place, because rumor has it, people are going to be knocking our door down to buy us out for commercial property, once the highway is complete. I'm not holding my breath.

IN MEMORY

2008-07-31T16:49:00.003-05:00

We attended a memorial service today for Mitch, son of our dear friend Jane.

MASTER SERGEANT MITCHELL "MITCH" YOUNG, 39, was killed July 13 while conducting a combat reconnaissance patrol in Afghanistan, in support of combat operations while serving with the Special Forces Group (Airborne).

In May 2008, Mitch deployed in support of Operations Enduring Freedom as a member of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force--Afghanistan. This was his fourth deployment in support of the Global War on Terror and third deployment to Afghanistan. He was a Special Forces Operation Detachment-Alpha team sergeant.

Mitch, a native of our local community, volunteered for military service and entered the Army in 1991 as an infantryman. He served at Ft. Ord, CA, Ft. Campbell, KY, Germany and Ft. Bragg, NC. He earned the coveted "Green Beret" in 1999.

Mitch is survived by his wife, Robin, his mother Jane (our dear friend), his sister Cheryl and brother Brent.

The service was awesome, his childhood pastor and friends spoke along with his military friends and family to include his brother. It was a great service of honoring a man that loved his family and country and gave his life for all of us. I was okay until the military called his company roll, all his fellow soldiers answered, then when they called his name, they called it four time, each time adding to his name, Sgt. Young, no answer, Sgt. Mitchell Young, no answer, Sgt. Mitchell W. Young, no answer, SGT. MITCHELL W. YOUNG, no answer. Then they played taps. Everyone lost it. There wasn't a dry eye in the huge church that was overflowing with friends and family that came to honor him today.

He told his childhood friend he wasn't real excited about going back to Afghanistan, but his response was, "better there than here."

IS THIS A DOG OR A PONY?

2008-07-29T15:20:00.004-05:00

This great dane belongs to my niece. He is the biggest dog I've ever seen, but he's always a big chicken (Sorry Lizzie). He thinks he's a lap dog, and is in my sister-in-law's lap, for crying in the cream. He can beat you to death with his tail and his bark is HUGE! He eats like a horse, no pun intended, but Lizzie loves him. He's the biggest fur baby in the world. However, her cats rule the roost, this dog is on the bottom of the food chain in this household. Poor baby. This is one of the kitties that makes the great dane mind. She's about eight pounds, the dog weighs 150 lbs.

THE OLD HOME PLACE

2008-07-26T08:13:00.007-05:00

Hubby's cousin and her husband, on their way from Florida to North Carolina, visited for a couple of days. We decided to take a ride to East Point where he grew up and to check out the old home place.

The house still looks the same, except for the color. It was always white. The swing is still in the backyard, as is the garage. Hubby went to the door with a hand full of old photos and the young man LET US IN to look around. All the carpet has been taken up to expose the beautiful hardwood floors. The kitchen has new cabinets, in fact, down two wall, the door to the sleeping porch has been closed up, but for the most part the house is the same. Hubby pointed out the closet in the bedroom that he set on fire with sparklers. He wanted to see them before dark. His mother was an absolute HERO when she grabbed all the burning clothes and threw them out the window and his brother poured the dog's water on them. He did get a spanking for that stunt! All the rooms were small. I don't recall them being that small. Funny how things change in our minds. This is the place Hubby lived from the time he was five years old until we married. It was certainly a walk down memory lane. The young man couldn't believe we had photos, in fact, there was one of Hubby sitting in front of the TV in the corner of the living room. Would you believe the screen on the TV was round! That was probably about 1953.

Now on our home front--the road project continues. Last night at 8:00 p.m. the paving crew starts in front of the house. We were told they were working until 5:00 a.m. this morning. The noise and vibration of all the equipment drives me crazy. I've had to put rubber bands across the shelves of the shelf in the den so the items don't "dance" off into the floor. We will be SO GLAD when all this construction is finished. It's been almost three years since this project started, so we have about had it with the Georgia DOT. We are looking forward to getting our fence and gate back up. We are so sad that we have lost our once country road. We did manage to keep our driveway entrance where it has always been. Now that is a REAL victory. We have been fighting with the state about that issue since the project started.

ANNE FRANK

2008-07-10T06:43:00.002-05:00

Hubby went with a friend to the old Decatur courthouse to look at a Confederate Army uniform coat. When he came home he was excited, not about the uniform coat, but about the Anne Frank exhibit that was on display.

We went back on Tuesday. It was an amazing exhibit! There was a 28 minute video, in addition to an art exhibit from some local schools. Some of those art exhibits just ripped out my heart. There was one in particular, a wooden Star of David with barbed wire around it and all kind of baby items that was extremely sad, and then there was the scrapbook of two Holocaust survivors. Photos weren't allowed in the exhibit. I have placed "The Diary of Anne Frank" on my must read list.

We have no idea what the Jewish people experienced during the Holocaust. We must pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Caught in the middle

2008-07-06T23:47:00.004-05:00

This is not a tattoo, it's the result of getting caught between my cat, Oscar Snuggles, King of Tidewater, attempting to go outside and our neighbor's d.o.g. trying to come inside. Oscar was only protecting his territory, but I was the one injured. I think Mud Flap, the d.o.g. got smacked, because she let out a yelp. Actually, the d.o.g.'s name is Muffin, but we call her Mud Flap, because she is covered in red mud from our red Georgia clay. Our neighbor's son, who has been away three weeks attending a special camp for gifted children, came to visit and he brought Mud Flap with him. We saw him approaching the back door so I went to answer to door, but Oscar thought I was going to open the door to let him outside, only to come face to face with a d.o.g. It wasn't fun, believe me.

REAL CATFISH

2008-06-25T13:32:00.004-05:00

This post is just for Celia, my friend in England, that laughed when I mentioned feeding MY CAT, Oscar Snuggles, King of Tidewater, catfish. We bought some frozen catfish because they were processed in the US, rather than in China or some other third world country. We had seen several news items on how bad the processing conditions are in some countries when they process fish. Soooo, we got the bright idea of trying catfish. I HATE CATFISH! The very thought of eating something that is a scavenger just does not appeal to me at all. We bought the fish, tried them ONCE and I decided Oscar would enjoy them must more than we would, so we cooked him the catfish. He loved them.

My neighbor when fishing last weekend and caught these catfish and I took photos just for Celia over at http://george-online.blogspot.com.

There really are catfish. I didn't make that up. Oh, they will stick you with those whisker looking fins they have and it HURTS! They are also very hard to clean, you have to pull that dark skin off with a pair of pliers, because they don't have scales.

Look what happened on the way to the lake.

2008-06-25T13:01:00.008-05:00

We were off to Stone Mountain, our favorite place to fish. We were going up the interstate and all of a sudden, we heard, thump, thump, thump, thump. Hubby said, "oh no, we have a flat." Sure enough one of the tires on the boat trailer blew out. There are TWO holes in the side of that tire. A nice young man stopped to help us. I was really glad, I didn't have to help change the tire. I did help take the spare off the tongue of the trailer. That was easy.

We had so much fun fishing. We ran out of bait. We only had 50 crickets, but when we left we only had two left. Every time we threw our hook into the water we got a bit. Now that's the fun way to fish. I can't stand it when you have to sit and wait for something to bite. Notice the purple cloth I use to handle those fish. I can't stand to get that smell on my hands. As for the crickets, if you will cut up an orange and put it in the cricket box, they smell like orange when you put them on your hook. Is that TMI (too much information)?

We saw a fawn, well there were two of them, in the edge of the woods. I was only able to get a photo of one of them.

The turtle was in our carport. I don't have a clue why he would be there, because there is no grass. I'll take a turtle any day over a snake. I'll even take a lizard.

Oh, Oscar is the feature photo over at George-online. Check it out at http://george-online.blotspot.com. Lizzie, you'll love it'

Unfortunately, all the photos are at the top of the page and I have no control over where they are placed on the page. When they come up, it looks like Russian. I don't know what's going on with this blog site.

We Met the Cow

2008-06-11T09:15:00.006-05:00

Truett's Grill was build in celebration of Truett Cathy's 75th birthday--that was ten years ago. For those of you that don't know, Truett Cathy established Chick-fil-A back in 1946 in a little town near us, Hapeville, GA. It is now a billion, yes billion dollar corporation.

Truett's is one of our favorite places to eat. When we were working we ate there twice a day. We know ALL the personnel and they all know us. Yesterday was customer appreciation day and the cow was there greeting all the customers. WE GOT TO MEET THE COW!

Why would adults get excited about someone dressed up in a COW suit? When we drive up, I said, "OH, THERE'S THE COW!!!!!" It was so fun. So, here we are with the Chick-fil-A Cow.

THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

2008-06-11T08:17:00.016-05:00

This post is a brag fest on the love of my life--my husband. We have been married almost 42 years (will be in September) and I LOVE HIM!

I received a comment from June over at Bye Bye, Pie! about the bird feeder Hubby made, so I thought I would just put up photos of all the stuff he has made for our home.

I only have a couple of the bow back Windsor chairs he made, but we have ten (10), yes ten of them scattered about the house. Does anyone want to buy four of them? Four are around our kitchen table, so I'll keep those. He's working on a comb back chair now, but I have no idea where we are going to put it.

He has made four tables in our den--two end tables at the sofa, the TV table and the coffee table, oh yes, we have another little table at the top of the steps he made. Three blanket chests, two wall shelves, three Shaker stools, our kitchen island, a set of twin headboards, a tall case clock, a Chipendale mirror, a stage for our theater screen, and the Americana bird house, and the tin sconse, lantern and oil can.

Needless to say, I think he's wonderful, not because he builds all this neat stuff, but because he is a Godly man that loves God with all his heart and he loves me more than anyone else on this earth. And I love him more than anyone else on earth as well.

BIRDS EAT IN STYLE

2008-05-30T11:23:00.003-05:00

My sweet husband just "whipped" this bird feeder out. The old one was, should we say, a bit worn. It looks just like our house. What do you think? It's so cute, I'm not sure I want it exposed to the elements outside.

OAMEAL STORAGE

2008-05-27T09:40:00.006-05:00

Never ever store an opened oatmeal box horizontally, especially if you have run out of room in your pantry and moved a few things to your linen closet. The oatmeal box was too tall to store vertically, so I was so smart just putting in horizontal. It was a good idea until I started to pick it up and half the oatmeal went every where.

Drip System Gardening

2008-05-14T07:32:00.005-05:00

Well, another adventure at gardening. Last year it was too much fertilizer while under an outdoor watering ban.

This year Hubby decided to do a drip irrigation garden. This system is used all over Israel. The dessert is literally blooming as a result of this system. So, we thought perhaps it might work well for us. The process is slow, but we think it will be well worth the effort.

The drip pipe (plastic tubing) has to be put down first, it's on the far right row uncovered. Then the drip tube is covered with the black mesh held down with long metal stables pushed into the ground. The planting process is more difficult, because the mesh has to be cut, then you dig the holes for the plants. The greenbean planting was different. We punched holes in the mesh, then dropped the seed into the hole.

We are looking forward to eating all the delicious, fresh veggies. I can't wait for that first tomato sandwich! Better than steak! We might even buy a pound of bacon for BLT's. You really don't need the B for a great sandwich just the T.

First Fishing Event of 08

2008-04-28T13:42:00.006-05:00

Things were a bit boring on our first fishing trip to Stone Mountain since the fish weren't biting! However, I've included some photos of some things that made the trip enjoyable.

There are eight turtles on the log. You can't see one of them in the photo, but he's there. Later we saw ten on one log.

One lone goose egg on a dock.

Whale of a fish, huh! Then there is the old mill. This is on one of the walking trails around the mountain.

It was a beautiful day to be outside and being on the water made it better. Maybe next time we'll catch some fish bigger than bait.

The Lovell Sisters

2008-04-14T18:14:00.004-05:00

Friday afternoon we drove down to Macon, GA to a concert at the historic Douglass Theatre featuring the Lovell Sisters from Calhoun, Georgia. At the age of five all of these young ladies started taking classical violin and piano. They sang in their church choir and were members of string quartets and youth symphonies. They now play a mix of country, folk and contemporary acoustic music. These girls are so talented. They have traveled over 24 states and overseas. They won NPR's "Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor" National Teen Talent Competition in 2005 and have an album, "When Forever Rolls Around". We bought one of their albums and they all three autographed it. During the intermission they all came out into the lobby and met everyone.

Check out their website at: www.lovellsisters.band.com

Jessica, the oldest sister plays the fiddle, Megan the middle sister plays the dobro and Rebecca, youngest plays the tar out of the mandola, guitar and banjo. They had two other musicians playing with them, Matt Wingate played guitar and was awesome and Andy Nall played the electric bass.

If you ever have an opportunity to see The Lovell Sisters in concert don't miss them.

This is NOT good!!!!

2008-04-09T15:32:00.005-05:00

I hurried home after spending the say with my Mom taking her to two medical appointments and two cemetaries (she wants to keep flowers on my Dad's burial plot and her brother's), and to the grocery store. We med Hubby at Chick-fil-A for lunch and while we were dining some bird tried to buy our vehcile (they put a deposit right on the windshield and side window).

As soon as I arrived home I was going to wash the poop off the windows, UNTIL said snake was spotted right under the outside faucet where the water hose is connected. There was no way on God's green earth was I going to put my hand anywhere close to that snake to turn on the water, so naturally I screamed for Hubby. He was on the phone, how surprising, and was rather irritated that I was disturbing his conversation. I found a hatchet out by the wood pile and made him kill the snake. I don't have any idea what kind it is, but as far as I'm concerned it might as well be a rattlesnake. A snake, is a snake, is a snake. This is the DEAD snake, the ONLY good kind. AND this is the first real warm day we have had. Do you think I'm going to ever plunder around in the dark out there around that water faucet again? NO WAY! I'm just saying.

Sorry about the blood, I didn't realize snakes had blood.

2008-03-29T11:28:00.006-05:00

This is a test to see if I can get photos to post. It worked when I view my blog, but all I can see is this Russian looking stuff, rather than photos? In this case, I'm adding another photo, so you will have the before, during and after photos of the theater project. Just read the narrative below. The bottom photo is the before, the top photo is the during and the middle photo is the finished product. :-)

ALMOST COMPLETED SOON I HOPE!

2008-03-29T11:02:00.004-05:00

For many years we had a hobby that turned into a small business for us, a photography business. Hubby was very good at this, but it was hard work. We photographed children, weddings, families and small commercial jobs. We did very well, but I hated the weddings. I used to have nightmares about them. They were extremely stressful (you only get one shot at the job). It's not like you can go back and reshoot if the photos don't turn out well. I did an analysis of the hours and net profit and we could have worked at McDonald's and made about the same amount of money without the stress. So, when Hubby was downed sized (nice way of saying "you are fired") we started another business in order to make a living and could not maintain both businesses. We made a decision to sell the photo equipment and we had lots of it. We managed to sell most of the professional equipment, but in exchange for the photo studio that was in the attic, we put in a theater. I must admit the theater is so much more fun.

Well, the treadmill was behind the theater screen and Hubby decided to sell the treadmill. The entire screen had to be moved in order to move the treadmill. It was a big mess. I don't get it. Hubby starts projects, but he always manages to drag me into them, kicking and screaming, I might add. I had the "pleasure" of figuring out what type of materials we needed to use to close in the screen. We made a couple of trips to the fabric store, but I finally decided that burlap might work. That would allow the sound to come through the fabric, but give a finished look above and beside the screen. It took me several hours to attach the burlap to the frame Hubby had build, but I did it and he was extremely pleased. It's a good thing, because he was going to have the pleasure of figuring out what was going to be put up.

All the junk has been cleaned out from behind the screen, all the dust bunnies have been caged and we have a finished product. The only thing Hubby want to do is build a shelf that will accommodate the amp the DVD player AND store all the DVD's we have collected. I want to buy a small bookcase, but NOOOOOO, he's going to build one. He actually is a very good carpenter, but I want this project finished NOW! He's working on the bookcase. I suppose that is best, because he can make it just the right height and width to fit the corner where it will be used. However, I think that's going to require a new connection from the projector to the DVD player. One thing always calls for another. I've attempted to add photos, but I keep getting this Russian looking stuff at the top of the page. I give up. I'll just post the narrative.

2008-03-29T11:01:00.000-05:00

THANK YOU GEORGIA DOT!?

2008-02-26T17:25:00.008-05:00

The contractor had to come and pull us out of this mud with a chain and Bob Cat (tractor). Good thing we have a hitch on the back of the van! This mess has been going on for 28 months. We are ready for this project to be OVER! This is almost the straw that broke the camel's back. We have been dealing with mud, dust, inconvenience, moved mailbox, no mailbox, blocked driveway, no fence, no gate and contract issues. After three big loads of more crushed rock there was somewhat of an improvement. The surface was still spongy when humans walked over it. Then yesterday they dug all that up and added new gravel. We were able to get out of the driveway today. WHEN WILL THIS EVER END!?

MAMA TURNS 90

2008-02-23T08:58:00.004-05:00

Katie turns 90! We took her to eat at her favorite place--Cracker Barrel. All of her children (both of us) and her grands were there as well. I managed to surprise her, and my brother, by inviting Gloria and Sandra, their spouses and their Dad, Tom. We have been friends, well more like family, for 60+ years. My Mom was so surprised and so excited that "all" of her kids were there. I made her a strawberry pound cake with butter frosting with strawberries. It was delicious. No wonder it's so hard for me to get this weight off my bones!

HUBBY MAKING CHAIRS

2008-01-31T15:09:00.000-05:00

Hubby spends a lot of time in his workshop. He has built a lot of things for our home down there and enjoyed every minutes of it. His favorite thing is making Windsor chairs, because of our interest in the 18th Century. That was the century we declaired our independence from England. (Sorry Pastor--he's English, you know.)

Hubby is working on a Philadelphia fanback with arms at the present time. I don't have a clue where we are going to put this chair when he finishes it, because we are presently housing four bow back Windsors around our kitchen table, four more bow back Windsors scattered all over the house and the first bow back Windsor he made a John C. Campbell Folk School is gracing our foyer. So, does any body want to buy four bow back Windsor chairs? All the spindles of these chairs are made from oak trees he actually cut with his own hands, the legs are maple and the seats are white pine. All have antique finishes, except for the first one, which he painted green. GREEN!? Yes, the first Windsor chairs were actually 18th Century lawn chairs. They were mostly used outside and they were all painted.

He has watched Norm Abrham's video on making a Windsor chair so many times I think I could make a chair myself. I'm positive I can put the finish on it, because that is part of the video.

Living Proof

2008-01-24T17:33:00.000-05:00

This is living proof it does snow in the south. This was taken Saturday morning about an hour after it started snowing. It snowed all day long. The temperature dropped after it started snowing, but it did go up a bit, so the snow did melt. If it had not melted we probably would have had about 3 inches, that's a good bit of snow for us--just south of Atlanta. This is looking out our front door. Then it finally stopped, the winds came and the temperatures dropped to 20 degrees on Sunday morning. Church was delayed until 3:30 p.m. The delay was really unnecessary because the wind dried all the roads, thank the Lord!

KELLI NEEDS A KIDNEY

2008-01-22T17:25:00.000-05:00

Please check out the link to Living in Grace. Kelli desperately needs a kidney. She is a young woman with teenagers that need their mother.

http://living-in-grace.net/

OSCAR SNUGGLES SAVES THE NIGHT!

2008-01-13T19:14:00.000-05:00

Oscar's favorite place to sleep is between us, under the covers. We turn our heat back at night, so it gets really cold in our house. I had a sleepless night and had been tossing and turning all night, I don't think I ever went to sleep. A few minutes after 4:00 a.m. Oscar jumps straight up and runs into the den. I thought he might want out, but he was running all over the den, just crazy like. I thought he was having some kind of a spell. He then ran into the kitchen. I followed him. He was darting around the island looking up, then back into the den. I turned on a lamp, but he was still darting around crazy, back into the kitchen he dashed. I turned on the light in there. There was something FLYING AROUND IN MY KITCHEN. I pulled the door closed with Oscar still in there. I ran to to bedroom and yelled to Hubby, "THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE HOUSE!" He was in a deep sleep so it took him a few seconds to comprehend what I had said. I realized he might think SOMEBODY was in the house, so I was a bit more specific, "THERE'S SOMETHING FLYING AROUND AND I THINK IT'S A BAT!" Hubby asked, "where is it now?" I replied I had closed Oscar up in the kitchen with the flying object. Hubby darted into the kitchen, pulling the door closed and dashed to the back door, opened it and the BAT flew out the back door.

After this little episode I sure couldn't sleep, so I stretched out on the sofa and read until about 5:30 a.m. The alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. I sure hope I sleep tonight.

I think an investigation into the attic might be appropriate to see if bats are getting through the air vents in the gables of the house or maybe in around the attic fan. There have been squirrels that have nested under the cover of that attic fan in the past, so tomorrow a look at the attic will be in order. We had bats in the air vents in Hubby's work shop, but he smoked them out with his beekeeper smoker and they have never returned.

I was so thankful for our little Oscar Snuggles, he certainly saved the night for us. OSCAR SNUGGLES, KING OF TIDEWATER! I wonder if that bat was flying around in the bedroom?!!!!! Oh my goodness!

Dust Starting to Settle

2007-12-29T11:08:00.000-05:00

Whee! It's been a busy time for us. It all started last Saturday with the Little Woman's family party. Then dinner with good friends, John and Debbie, the Christmas Eve service at church, and Christmas Day with our Australian friends. I'm including a few photos from our busy week. Hubby cooking the hams on the Green Egg, sounds like a book! Both of us at John and Debbie's, our

church service, Steph (Aussie friend) preparing for Christmas Dinner.

We are finally getting some rain, not near enough. We need almost two feet of rain to get us out of this drought. We don't need two feet at once, but we desperately need rain. We got about an inch rain yesterday, and tomorrow we are suppose to get that much or more. When we came out of the movie yesterday it was raining quite hard. We are "National Treasure". Good movie.

This evening our Australian friends are coming for dinner and a movie. They gave us "The Dish", which is an Australian movie and thought we would need some "interpretation" of the language.

It has been a great Christmas season for us. We have enjoyed it, but we are ready for the new year. We have enrolled in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. It's a 13 week course on how to get out of debt. We're not in debt, but just feel lead to take this course. We are going back to First Place and attempt to get some of the weight off us that we have gained during December. How can you lose weight when you eat an entire box of chocolates in two days!? Not to mention all the goodies from Harry and David's. Actually, the day after Christmas we put all the "good stuff" in the freezer and are now grazing on salads.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

HAROLD TONEY, Life-long friend

2007-11-30T11:51:00.000-05:00

L-R: Harold, Mr. Evans, their high school woodshop teacher, Hubby

ALBERT HAROLD TONEY

February 9, 1944 - November 29, 2007

After nine years of battling a brain tumor, Harold went to be with the Lord yesterday. On the way home from the hospice last night, Hubby said, "I got so tired of seeing Harold suffer." "You know, Harold have always been there for each other when we needed help, I don't know how I'm going to handle that now." There have been lots of tears, but we know Harold is in the presence of the Lord. The sting of death referenced in the Bible is the sting to those left, not the one taken.

A TRIBUTE TO HAROLD

If words could describe Harold Toney it would be, kind, laid back, unselfish and protective. We have been friends since second grade.
We went to the same grammar school, high school and we joined the Army at the same time. I was getting drafted and I thought it would be a good idea if Harold and I could join on the buddy system. When we got to basic training, we got off the bus, they shaved our heads and gave us shots and that was the last time I saw Harold until training was about over. When I finally saw him, I said, "you don’t look so good." He said, "I don’t?" "and the bad thing, I didn’t even have to go, you were the one who got drafted."
We got jobs at the Gas Company only nine months apart and we did almost the same jobs for 36 years.
Our childhood days were some of the best years of our lives. No pagers, no computers, no air conditioning, no cell phones, and no x-box. We always made our own fun, sometimes at the expense of others. Harold never liked being uncomfortable. He slept next to a fan in the summer, he liked cushy car seats, easy chairs and didn’t like walking long distances. It’s like the time Harold, Raymond and I went to the Southeastern Fair. Raymond’s mother drove us over to the fair grounds, which was a pretty good distance from home. She told us to call her when we were finished. We all had about $2.00 each to spend. Well, we all three spent ALL our money and didn’t have a dime (phone calls were a dime back then) to call Mrs. I. to pick us up, so we walked all the way from the fair grounds home. We were about two blocks from home when we saw something sparkle on Raymond’s shoes. He had two dimes in his penny loafers. We about beat Raymond to death. It had taken us two hours to walk home. This time Raymond was the one who was uncomfortable.
In closing Harold and I have been best friends for almost 60 years and we have never had harsh words. To me Harold was a Proverbs 18:24 man, which says, "A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." He was that man to me.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

2007-11-22T07:18:00.000-05:00

This is a great time to reflect on the many blessings we have experienced during this past year. We are thankful for our family and friends, our church, our home, we have had all our needs provided, good neighbors, I could go on and on. We are so blessed in our great nation to have so much. We take all of this for granted and have come to expect and even demand so many things. We are so thankful to the Lord for ALL our blessings, both material and spiritual.

I'm really thankful we have completed yet two more projects. The 18th C. floor cloth took weeks, but it's finished, well except for some nonskid backing we have to put under it. The outside shutter looks great that Hubby has made. The other one had not been primed when it was made and rotted out rather quickly. This one has been primed on every surface, even join, every crack. Hubby tells me that tricks of the trade.

Have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING and don't eat too much turkey.

THE NOISE

2007-11-14T10:56:00.000-05:00

Packing our driveway.

It rattles our entire

house.

View from the mail box

looking towards the

house.

Oh no, Hubby has been talking with the workers at the road. They tell us it will be another YEAR before this project is completed. The good news, they are starting to grade the road bed in front of our house and will be putting the rock down today, then pour the curbs and sidewalks, then pave it. The paving part might be a while. They have had the road bed prepared for many weeks down the road, but have yet to put any black pavement down. It's really messing with our minds, not to mention all the RED mud we have tracked onto our driveway and parking area at the house and some even into the house. I have to keep telling myself, "this too shall pass."

Time Flys

2007-10-27T06:53:00.000-05:00

October has been a very busy month for us. Projects, some traveling and life. The Hubby took a short trip to our favorite place, Colonial Williamsburg. We have friends that live there part-time and Harry's wife was going to be away for several days, so he invited Hubby up for a visit. They spend four days revisiting Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg and Yorktown, all of which are in Virginia. Photo of the Governor's Palace.

These are very important places in the history of our country. Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. It was settled in 1607. The National Parks Service has discovered the location of the original fort in the past few years. They thought it was out in the James River, but realize they were wrong. They are digging like crazy and finding lots of artifacts from the 17th Century. See the photo of Hubby by the cannon at Jamestown. This year was the 400th anniversary of the settlement at Jamestown. Remember when the Queen of England was in the US several months ago, that's why.

The Capitol was moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg, I'm not sure what year that was, so I'll not guess. It was here that many important historical events occurred during the fight for independence from England. The town has been restored to it's original condition and is a "working" 18th Century town

Yorktown was where Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington in 1782, resulting in the Colonies independence from England. Actually, Cornwallis didn't surrender, he sent one of his aids to do the dirty work. Well, it was dirty work to the English.

Hubby decided he wanted to make an 18th C. floor cloth. They are very expensive in all the publication we get. Now we know why. It is very time consuming and very tedious work. All those stripes and checks have to be drawn and painted on the canvass, only after it has been properly prepared. Prepared means many coats of this stuff called Gesso, which is a special white paint. I had drawn all the stripes and checks on the canvass, then I read the instructions. It had to have four more coats of paint. Always read the instructions, FIRST! Before I did any drawing, I did a scale drawing to see how the end product would look. That took time as well. Now we know WHY floor clothes are so expensive. Hubby has decided this is the first and ONLY one we'll be doing. Hopefully this project will be finished SOON. I don't know HOW I manage to get involved in most of Hubby's projects. This time, perhaps, it was because it ended up on our kitchen table for a period of time.

The severe drought continues. Pray for rain, lots of rain. Our lakes and rivers are so dangerously low here in Georgia. I'm watering my outdoor plants with water collected in a five gallon bucket located in our shower when you have to run all the cold water out of the system in order to have a warm shower. There is a total band, state wide, on outside watering. We do cheat and give the birds water, but we bring the bucket INSIDE to fill, so not to actually use the outside water hose. I suppose this is a techicality, but we will continue to give the birds water. It also attracks those harry deals (squirrels) as well.

We are off to Blue Ridge today to visit some friends.

FISH FRY? FOR THE AMEICAN HEART ASSOCIATION?

2007-10-01T03:46:00.000-05:00

This sign is on the lawn of the county court house. A picture can be worth a thousand words, but I just HAVE to make a comment here. What were these people thinking!? Having a FISH FRY to raise money for the AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION! I would think a barbeque would be better than a FISH FRY. Normally, when you have a fish fry there are also fries (as in fried potatoes), hush puppies, which is fried cornbread with onions and cold slaw. There are four items, three of which are FRIED.

Cousins Celebrate After 64 Years

2007-09-26T03:56:00.000-05:00

My cousin, Ken, and his wife, Cheryl, arrived Sunday evening. They are on their way to visit their daughter that lives about an hour and one-half from us. They were staying until Tuesday morning and would be traveling down to stay another week or so with their daughter, son-in-law and grand baby. I decided to invite my oldest cousin, Ron, and my brother, Terry, to lunch. Everyone was able to arrange their schedule to make it to lunch.

My grandmother kept her two only grandchildren, at the time, while their mothers worked. So consequently Ron and Ken played together as very young children. Ken was four when his family moved to California. Ron remembers well them playing together, but Ken was just too young to recall their adventures. It has been 64 years since they last saw each other and it was the FIRST time we all had been together, ever. It was really a great day!

Standing is my brother, Terry, on the left, who is the youngest of the group, on the right is my cousin, Ron, who is the oldest. Seated is my cousin, Ken and myself.

It was a really great day. We all had a wonderful time being together. I hope this is the beginning of other reunions.

Happy Anniversary

2007-09-17T22:47:00.000-05:00

Today we have celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary. We were VERY young when we married, because we can't be that old! I'm so very thankful for Hubby and our life together.

We had an appointment at the church for photos for the new church directory. We got to preview them and make the selection for the directory. They were all bad. We didn't like ANY of the poses. I suppose we were too critical, but having had our own photo studio for several years we know what good photographs looks like and they didn't look like it. Afterwards we rode down to Peachtree City and ended up having dinner at Ted's Grill. The bison burger was good, we even had french fries.

Thank you for our wonderful together, I love you. I'm so grateful to the Lord for the godly man he sent me. By the way, he gave me a beautiful BIRTHDAY CARD. The verse was wonderful, it just wished me a "Happy Birthday". It cracked me up. Hubby couldn't believe it was a birthday card. He didn't think it was that funny. I suppose I'll get an anniversay card for my birthday.

Yet Another Project Completed

2007-09-12T17:02:00.000-05:00

The past three days Hubby has been working on a project at the church. This is part of the 21-day fast our Pastor is calling the church to. The first day was spent building the wall, the second day he and a sweet lady, Debbie painted the first side and this morning we finished the back and ends.

Another Project Marked Off the List

2007-09-12T08:09:00.001-05:00

We have been working on this project for weeks. All the boards have been replaced that the squirrels ate. We have finished the painting. All the bird houses have been cleaned and put back up, the rusty heart door knocker has been sanded, painted and back on the door.

Colonial Bird Bottle

Heart Door Knocker

Handmade bird house

The finished project.

We are off to the church this morning to work on a walling wall for the pastor. He is calling the church to a 21-day fast. That should be really interesting for a group of Baptist.

OOPS!

2007-09-07T08:23:00.000-05:00

A picture can be worth a thousand words. I missed the last step on the step ladder. I fell holding a full gallon of paint. At $27/gal. (wholesale) I wasn't about to just leave all that paint on the ground, so I scooped it up with my hands and put it back into the bucket. Then I used my paint brush to gets as much of that paint up and managed to paint the corner boards on the workshop. Once again I'm involved in Hubby's project. We are almost finished. Then on to the next project of repairing a cracked board on the middle dormer on the house. I'm not sure how that's going to happen, but it will be very carefully since both of us are afraid of heights.

I was covered in paint! I was literally up to my elbows in paint. My glasses were totally covered in paint, but I did manage to salvage about half of what was on the ground. Then I went straight away (that's English) and rinsed all that stuff with the water hose.

I did land on my hip, but thank the Lord it was my left hip and not on my new crystal hip.

I told you I was KING!

2007-08-25T08:12:00.000-05:00

KING OF TIDEWATER

I see you taking my photo! Why won't anyone believe me when I TELL them I'm King of Tidewater? It's nap time and this is one of my many places to nap. I've been to poop and snoop and the grass was WET! What is that all about? I think it rained last night. That's why the grass looks green rather than the brownish it's been lately. Maybe we'll get some more rain this afternoon. We sure need it. I had a puddle to drink out of this morning. I really prefer those puddles to water in a clean dish. I'll always choose the puddle water over the bowl water. It drives my human crazy. Just like I prefer fresh meat to that fake canned stuff, unless it's a sardine. I don't like getting wet and canned fish is the only way I'll get what I really like. I'm sleepy, and I need for my human to cover me up with my blanket, so tootles.

Jury Duty

2007-08-24T19:20:00.000-05:00

I have served my civic duty. Three days of sitting, mostly in the jury room. Mid morning the first day the Clerk of the Court started calling names, oh no my name was called. They led 42 of us up to the 4th floor of the courthouse to one of the Superior Court Judge's courtroom. We were questioned 14 at a time, the DA's attorney first, then the attorney for the accused. I figured out I was number 32 on the list and when the two lawyers finally chose a jury I was rejected by the attorney for the accused. I was so relieved. It was an assault and armed robbery case. It was 2:30 p.m. before we were dismissed for the day, but too late to avoid a splitting headache from having missed lunch. Next day we sat for half a day before being dismissed. The third day we sat all. day. long. Twenty were called to hear a civil case. It wasn't long before all returned except for the six chosen for the jury. In the meantime, the people chosen on Monday to hear the assault/armed robbery case returned. Not guilty! The state failed to prove their case. He was guilty, but not enough evidence presented by the state, so they said.

Rumor had it, they were running out of jurors in a murder/death penalty case and we could be carted off up to that Superior Court to be interviewed to serve on that jury. Oh no! I don't want to get on a murder case! Around 4:30 p.m. the lady made an announcement, "you are dismissed for the week, if you need an excuse for your employer, line up at the window, I'll take your name, Mr. Burch will issue the letter." I was out of there like a flash, my employer could care less.

It will be two years before they can call me again. I know it's my civic duty, but it's painful--all that waiting, the questioning, the waiting, rejected, thank goodness, then more waiting and waiting. The murder case is still being heard.

Wild Animals Are Roaming

2007-08-16T20:59:00.000-05:00

About two weeks ago I was out looking for Oscar (our cat) and saw a fox in our back yard. I rushed in the house to wake Hubby napping on the sofa. We went back outside and the fox was reclining out by the patio not at all afraid of us. That alarmed us, because a rabid fox can be very unafraid.

I was afraid he would be an enemy to Oscar, but after consulting the Internet, I discovered cats and foxes have a mutual respect for each other. We both kinda relaxed about the fox.

The following evening we found the fox out on the road dead.

Several days ago I was again out looking for Oscar and saw another fox down in the front yard over in the wooded area. I suspect he was looking for food or water. We had attempted to trap the first fox, but he out foxed us. We have a tender trap that Hubby and my brother baited with sardines. The next morning the sardines were mostly eaten, but the trap had not been tripped. We were out foxed.

Unfortunately, we found the second fox out on the road as well. It's sad because all the construction on the road has obviously run these wild animals out of their habitat.

We have lived here 30 years and this is the first time we have ever seen a fox.

We have hawks as well. We know there are three, a mom, dad and a baby. Yesterday we saw one of the hawks swoop down after a squirrel. Too bad the squirrel got away. They are rats with fluffy tails. They also eat siding off of workshops.

COOLER WEATHER?

2007-08-12T15:38:00.000-05:00

I never knew 85 degrees F. could feel so "cool". It's overcast today which helps. After the record high temperatures the 85 degrees feels very comfortable. It was 100 degrees F on our porch yesterday, but that even felt "cooler", well, cooler than 105 degrees F. Amazing how five degrees makes a difference. The forecast predicts more hot weather for next week, back up to 100 degrees F. by Tuesday. I suppose more videos will be in order.

Hubby mentioned today we need to finish putting the siding on his workshop. Ugh! We'll have to get up in the middle of the night to start working on that project in order to get that siding up before it gets too hot to work. We only have about six rows to apply and I'm sure hoping it won't take us more than a couple of hours to do what seems like a rather simple job.

We saw another very good movie, "Miss Potter". It's a true story about the life of the English lady that wrote all the "Tales of Peter Rabbit." I don't recall ever having read those children's books, so I think we'll be off to the library to check those books out. This is a video we will purchase.

HOT, HOT, HOT

2007-08-10T15:42:00.000-05:00

Take a look at the temperature on our porch. Would you believe 105 degrees F! This is why we are staying inside. We are so thankful for air conditioning. We both grew up in little small frame houses without A/C. I remember when Mama and Daddy bought a window fan from Sears & Roebuck. We thought it was wonderful. At night Daddy would close all the windows in the house except for the windows in two little bedrooms. Those windows were pulled down to about an eight inch opening, resulting in a breeze coming across our beds. It was like heaven to us. Yes, I had to share a bedroom with my brother until I was about 12 years old and Daddy enclosed the screened porch to make a room for my brother. That house was so tiny, but you know, we never thought it was small.

IT'S STILL HOT AS ALL GET OUT!

2007-08-09T06:06:00.000-05:00

I suppose everyone knows we are having a heatwave, well, if you ever watch or listen to the news. I think this is pretty widespread across the country. I just heard on the radio we are going to have a heat index of 103 to 110 degrees today!

Well, another day inside. We have literally been inside all week. Only getting out to deal with DOT and/or contractors down at the road.

This has given us an opportunity to just rent movies and veg out in the theater without the guilt. We've seen "Man of the Year" with Robin Williams. It was a good movie and not what we expected from a movie with Robin Williams. Surprising end. We saw two 18th century era movies, "Battle of the Brave" and "Copying Beethoven" as in Ludwig van Beethoven. The music was great, as we both love 18th century classical music. Both very good movies. Being the 18th century history buffs we are, we really enjoyed the clothing. Yesterday we were finally able to rent "The Astronaut Framer" with Billy Bob Thornton. Great family movie!

Today we are off to the north side to have lunch with The Hubby's brother and our good friend, John. I've already informed Hubby I'm wearing shorts and flip flops. It's too hot to "dress up"!

Saga of the Road

2007-08-07T18:20:00.000-05:00

Well, this afternoon our neighbor called us to say a dump truck was on fire at the road. We walked down to watch the thing burn for at least 15 minutes before the fire department ever arrived. The scary part, we learned the two fire stations closest to us are closed for remodeling. AND we discovered we no longer have a fire plug near us. What comfort! Traffic was stopped in both directions for at least 45 minutes, at 5:00 p.m.

IT'S HOT AS ...

2007-08-07T16:01:00.000-05:00

The past two days we have stayed inside because of the heat, well, except to have meetings with the DOT people and contractors about the road situation. Now, the county has had DOT build huge "planters" that look like interstate walls, and wouldn't you know it, one of the six is right here at us. Now we can't see to turn out of our driveway without subjecting ourselves to grave danger. This all started Friday. DOT is suppose to be making us a driveway from our present drive over to the street just past where we live. As of this afternoon they don't have the gravel down. We have informed them we are not going to drive through all that dust, or mud, if and when it rains. We have involved the county's transportation department. They are being very attentive to our concerns. The gentleman sees the safety issues and liability issues as well. We have learned that lots of other people are real unhappy with the "walls" up and down the road. Will this ever pass. The project is already a year behind schedule. We are looking at the middle of 2008 before completion.

Today I have finally typed all of the Hubby's stories he has written about his childhood. They are a hoot. I thought I would share one of the short ones. After finishing he was sharing another "event" that I've never heard before. I was laughing like crazy when he was telling me the story. He's promised to put this one on paper as well.

THE CAR LOOKS BAD

We had an old 1946 Chevrolet Coupe that looked really bad.

My Dad wanted to have it painted before we went on vacation to Panama City, Florida, but didn't have the money. My Mom had an idea. So she ordered two gallons of pain from Sears. One gallon of beige and one gallon of powder blue. She and my brother, Denny, painted that car while Daddy was at work. It looked like it had been painted with pine tops.

You should have seen the expression on my Dad's face when he saw that car, let alone the words that came out of his mouth. Words that I could never repeat to this day. After circling that car for a couple of hours he finally came in the house and said, "you know, it does look somewhat better." He fell asleep in his favorite easy chair with the newspaper in his lap after he had killed a six-pack of beer before ten o'clock that evening.

We never heard another word about our fiasco point job.

This incident occurred in the early 1950's so Hubby would have been about seven or eight years old and his brother would have been about 14 or 15. I'm not telling his Mom's age.

Why am I so tired?

2007-08-04T21:20:00.000-05:00

This has been an extremely busy week. Dr. appointments for my Mom, lunch with close friends, I had to work one day for the county, which is actually a real job, however, it's only one day per month, fishing, cleaning house for a Lia Sophia Jewelry party, whee, I'm exhausted! Then this morning we got up early to pick beans before it got really hot.

We picked and picked--22 lbs. of greenbeans and a very large basket of tomatoes. I've been stringing beans most all day, and I've managed to put a gallon of tomatoes in the freezer. This is so much easier than canning them, only thing when I get ready to use them this winter, I'll have to cook them, better in the winter than heating up the kitchen in 90ish degree weather. Monday I'll have to can those greenbeans. Last week we picked 16 lbs. and I ended up canning 11-1/2 qts. I suspect I'll have close to 15 qts. to can on Monday.

I've started to make a record of quantities and times for these type tasks, it took me about four house to can those 11 qts. from start to finish, that included cleaning the stove, putting away all the big pots and pressure cooker.

Tomorrow is our day of rest, literally. When we owned our own business we made Sunday our day of just church and rest. It has carried over into retirement, but it's a nice change to recharge for the coming week.

As of right now we don't have one thing on our calendar for next week, well, getting those greenbeans into cans. The Hubby has been testing his nail gun on pieces of the Hardiplant we have, so we probably will work on getting the remainder of the siding on his workshop. I would really like to take ONE. more. day and complete that project. Then we'll have to paint. Once thing calls for another. Now he's talking about adding on to his shop. I DON'T WANT TO GET INVOLVED in that project! How is it I always get involved in HIS projects? I did make him help me clean house Friday before the jewelry party, so I shouldn't complain.

We always look forward to church. Our pastor has been preaching some awesome sermons the past month, not that his sermons prior to that haven't been good, but he is really being bold in his stand on the word of God!

Blessings!