Day Two Hundred Eighty Eight 2013

Me and my scarecrow. He’s happy to be out of the attic.

Autumn on my front porch

Day Two Hundred Eight 2013

Beautiful Saturday to be sitting on the front porch, reading a novel and being lazy. Pretty peaceful, until the mosquitoes smelled warm blood. The bug repellent works OK. If only I could spray my head and face with it. I wonder which is worse: contracting a deadly virus from skeeter bites, or inhaling the poison that’s supposed to drive them away. Oh well. Back to my book. Inside.
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Wishing my sister Jane and her husband Don a very happy 28th wedding anniversary today! Love you!!

Day One Hundred Twenty Two 2013

TODAY …

Neil and I got to enjoy a yummy meal at our favorite Thai food place, which finally reopened this week after being closed since the end of March.

We got to watch grandson Elijah play T Ball. (His team lost 30 ~ 18.)

We got to be with peeps ~ dugout daughter Holly and granddaughter Shelby and coach son in law Jerry.

We got to enjoy a beautiful sunset and spectacular cloud formations on the way home from the game. It was pouring rain from those dark clouds somewhere in town.

And we got to enjoy coming home to a clean front porch, which took the better part of this afternoon to scrub off  the dirt and pollen and tree seeds (which refuse to go away). So thankful to have had the energy to ‘getter done’ and very thankful for this life that God blesses me with each day. It’s all good. Hope you enjoyed a blessed Thursday.

Day Four 2013

Signs Of Winter

Neighbor kitty Lily hunkering down in the sunshine this frosty morning

Dirty Snowman wishing for snow

A blazing fire in our wood stove keeping us toasty on this cold night
Happy TGIF, everyone!

Day Three Hundred Thirty Five 2012

Goodbye, November, it was nice knowin’ ya.
happy T.G.I.F., y’all!

Day Three Hundred Eight 2012

Grandson Knox stylin’ in his Old Navy cap.

Daughter Holly, grandson Knox, grandson Elijah, and grand daughter Shelby on the front porch swing this beautiful November afternoon. Knox thinks it’s great fun to ‘honk’ his cousin Elijah’s nose. And pull his hair. With Shelby’s encouragement, of course.

Shelby and Knox—cousins becoming good buddies.

‘Honk!’

"Grandchildren are God's way of compensating us for growing old."

~Author: Mary H. Waldrip

Day Two Hundred Eighty Nine 2012

Fall break is over, and it’s back to school for the kids here. Grandson Elijah and his sister Shelby hang out with me after school each day. Elijah enjoyed his usual Bomb Pop while we sat on the front porch swing, waiting for his mom to bring Shelby to the house. He said he and his mom, dad, sister and cousin went to a haunted hayride Saturday night. And it was so scary that he cried. I asked him if it made him have bad dreams. He said, “No. I dreamed about a puppy sliding down a rainbow.” Sounds like a good dream.

Day Two Hundred Seventy Nine 2012

He’s back for his annual visit.  My granddaughter Shelby calls him Jeff and waltzes with him whenever she gets the chance. When Jeff appears, I know Autumn has truly arrived. Jeff says Happy TGIF, everyone!

Day Two Hundred Sixty 2012

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.
~Joseph Addison  (English Essayist, Poet, Dramatist and Statesman, 1672-1719)

Day Two Hundred Forty Six 2012

I’ve heard it all my life—don’t wear white after Labor Day (especially dress shoes) (and not before Easter). So today I will enjoy lounging around in my comfy white capris while it’s still acceptable to do so, although I doubt in my neck of the woods there will be any fashion police to arrest me if I decide to wear them again on Tuesday. And maybe I just will. I found the little essay below on this subject because I never really knew why we honor this silly dress code, so I thought I’d share it with you, in case you were wondering……

Wearing white in the summer makes sense. Desert peoples have known for thousands of years that white clothing seems to keep you a little bit cooler than other colors. But wearing white only during the summer? While no one is completely sure exactly when or why this fashion rule came into effect, our best guess is that it had to do with snobbery in the late 1800s.

The wives of the super-rich ruled high society with an iron fist after the Civil War. As more and more people became millionaires, though, it was difficult to tell the difference between old money, respectable families, and those who only had vulgar new money. By the 1880s, in order to tell who was acceptable and who wasn’t, the women who were already “in” felt it necessary to create dozens of fashion rules that everyone in the know had to follow. That way, if a woman showed up at the opera in a dress that cost more than most Americans made in a year, but it had the wrong sleeve length, other women would know not to give her the time of day.

Not wearing white outside the summer months was another one of these silly rules. White was for weddings and resort wear, not dinner parties in the fall. Of course it could get extremely hot in September, and wearing white might make the most sense, but if you wanted to be appropriately attired you just did not do it. Once Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, society adopted it as the natural endpoint for summer fashion.

Not everyone followed this rule. Even some socialites continued to buck the trend, most famously Coco Chanel, who wore white year-round. But even though the rule was originally enforced by only a few hundred women, over the decades it trickled down to everyone else. By the 1950s, women’s magazines made it clear to middle class America: white clothing came out on Memorial Day and went away on Labor Day.

These days the fashion world is much more relaxed about what colors to wear and when, but every year you will still hear people say that white after Labor Day is unacceptable, all thanks to some snobby millionaires over 100 years ago.

Read the full text here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/140464#ixzz25LEtFopX
--brought to you by mental_floss!

Day One Hundred Seventy 2012

Grandson Knox enjoyed hanging out on the front porch of Cracker Barrel this morning after breakfast, sitting in a rocking chair made just for his size. More fun than pint-sized human beings should be allowed to have.

Day One Hundred Sixty 2012

"Cats are such agreeable friends, they ask no questions, pass no criticisms."

 ~George Eliot

Neighbor kitty Lily is quite agreeable and could not care less that it is TGIF.

Have a happy weekend, everyone!



Day One Hundred Forty Two 2012

School's Out For Summer! Today was the last day of school for Grandpeeps Shelby and Elijah. They are both smart kids, and each one had an amazing school year, making awesome grades and good friends. Elijah mastered Kindergarten and will move up to First Grade. Shelby was sad to see her Fifth Grade year come to an end, but she'll be in Sixth Grade when classes gear up again in late July. Enjoy the next eight weeks, kiddos, because it is going to fly by.

Day One Hundred Six 2012

Beautiful Sunday

Enjoyed this beautiful windy sunny Sunday afternoon, mostly outside. Neil and I bought some plants from a guy who sets up his greenhouse in town every spring~~Lantana, a couple of Geraniums, an Asparagus fern and another couple of big potted ferns that I will have to re-pot. I hung my curtains (sheets, actually) up on the front porch, which creates a nice little cozy hideaway that's great for reading, plus the sheets block the afternoon sun. I'm sure people driving by think I've hung my bedsheets out to dry. They don't know I'm tucked away back there, sitting in my creaky wicker rocker, reading some novel, listening to my wind chimes making music. Not too shabby. Hope your Sunday was a good one, too.

Day Three Hundred Thirty Eight 2011

Neil and I used to decorate the front of the house like this each Christmas. Then the bushes grew up and hid the porch rail, so we quit hanging the garland. Two summers ago, we finally got rid of all those huge bushes. Yesterday, Neil dug out the garland and bows (that date back to the eighties) from their exile in the far reaches of the attic and voila! Aren’t we festive.

Day Three Hundred Nine 2011

  “And the days dwindle down To a precious few, September, November - And these few precious days I'd spend with you, These golden days I'd spend with you”
 Maxwell Anderson (American Playwright, 1888-1959)

Day Two Hundred Seventy Seven 2011

If there is light in the soul,
there will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
there will be harmony in the house.
If there is harmony in the house,
there will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
there will be peace in the world.
~~Chinese Proverb

Day Ninety Three 2011

80 degrees today. W I N D Y! This was my view from my front porch swing this afternoon while I did a little reading and enjoyed being a big lazy slug. You got to grab it while you can get it. The weekend flies by. Monday comes all too soon.