Second Time Around

Once again...catching up....

2009-01-19T11:54:00.000-08:00

Hello again and a late Happy New Year to all of you...it is still the New Year..right? :) I thought I'd better fill you in on what's been going on with me so you won't think I left the planet again!

I was having some minor health issues which started after Christmas. I started having pain in my left ribs which wasn't all that bad (it only hurt when I breathed) and also my ears plugged up and were ringing constantly which then turned into a roar. That, in turn made me dizzy. I was sure it was just a sinus infection and as usual for me, I put off going to the doctor. Neither symptom got any better so I gave in and went to Urgent Care one evening. The doc that I saw there said my ears were clear (???) but my sinuses were inflamed. Then she did an x-ray and said there were no broken ribs but she thought I had bruised them somehow and it would take time for them to feel better. She gave me antibiotics and said my regular doctor would follow up with all this.

The next day she called to tell me she had taken another look at my x-ray and found a couple of nodules on my right lung and was making me an appointment for a CT Scan which I had. I went to my regular doc the next day and he told me the spots were infection in my lung. Just to be safe he wanted to do another scan in a couple of months just to be sure. So all was well and I was relieved.

Then today I get another call from the Urgent care doc saying she had made me an appointment with a lung specialist for tomorrow. She just wanted to make sure everything was okay. So I said fine and wrote the appointment down. Then about 30 minutes later she calls me back and says she forgot to tell me they also found an enlarged blood vessel on my liver and she was sending a referral to my doctor to have me see a specialist for that!!!! My doctor had read the scan results and didn't seem concerned so I think she is just being cautious. I have a call in to my doctor because I want to know what she is seeing that he obviously didn't...but we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I hope all is well with all of you and everyone is staying warm. We are getting a little snow here today but no accumulation. We had about an inch this morning and up to 3 inches in the higher elevations. I know some of you are sick of snow but it's exciting for me!! :) I took Tobi for her walk earlier while the snow was coming down pretty good. It amazes me how quiet everything seems when it's snowing. It's so peaceful!

I need to go start my supper now so ya'll take care and I'll try to visit soon.

For your holiday entertainment...

2008-12-17T15:39:00.000-08:00

Catch up and house pics...

2008-12-14T21:19:00.000-08:00

First I want to say thank you all so much for the warm welcome back! It is so nice to know that I was missed. On August 7th Dave's mother passed away, then 2 weeks later his brother also passed. Needless to say, that was a very trying time. We received friends here in our home during his mother's funeral. In this post which was July 9, we were painting, clearing out junk, moving furniture upstairs and just general cleaning, so we had just finished when we opened our home to over 60 visitors! We actually fed 60 but had many more coming by to pay their respects.

I also promised to show some after pictures when everything was done. Since the living room and stairway was the only actual "finished" areas, that's all I'm showing right now! LOL The first pics are the stairway before and after. There was carpet on the stairs and landings so we pulled that up. We started at the top landing and it came up so easily I was amazed! Nothing has been easy here in this old house! Well, it didn't let me down because when we got to the stairs the carpet had been glued down!! Here's how it looked when we finally got it all up:

We tried everything we could think of to remove that yellowed glue, even a heat gun and scraper. It was coming off but very slowly and Dave was uttering a few choice words! :) I wasn't much help because of my bad back. It was such a mess we knew we couldn't just paint over all those lumps and bumps! Then he happened to think that he had some adhesive remover in his shop and tried that. Believe it or not..that glue rolled right off. It still wasn't an easy task but much faster. There were also a gazillion carpet tacks to be pulled up! Then came the paint which we matched as close as we could to the original, and the stair treads which we had bought about a month earlier! The results:

After a couple of weeks we started moving things upstairs to reclaim some much needed space in the living room.

Our next project is to do the downstairs bedroom and take out the ugly ceiling tiles which some previous owner had put in to lower the original high ceiling. We want the high ceiling back!! Maybe in the spring!!

So, that's just the highlights of what has been going on with me. Maybe you can all forgive me for not being around for so long! :)

Little Bits of Christmas at our House

2008-12-12T13:52:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm still alive and well even though I've been a real slacker when it comes to blogging. Life does tend to get in the way sometimes. I'm sure most of you thought I might be "buried in junk" after my last post months ago. A lot has been happening but I'll fill you in later. I just thought a little Christmas cheer was in order for now. You can also see that we have been getting some snow this year. Have a great weekend!

Buried in junk....

2008-07-09T10:39:00.000-07:00

Just a note to let you all know that I'm still here but very busy. I was also offline for a few days until we got our DSL moved upstairs. We finally got our stairs finished and can get our den set up. Now I have a living room with space to actually move around in! I'm in the process of moving things around as well as organizing, sorting and doing away with a lot of junk! When you have 2 pack rats in the same house it makes for lots of junk!! :) I hope to have some pictures to share with you when it's all said and done.

As for me personally, I'm doing much better. My face has cleared up and the skin cancer gone. I still have the same old face under it all...just clearer!! LOL My blood sugar is in check most of the time (if I behave and watch my diet) and my body is finally adjusting to the meds.

I hope all is well with each of you. I try to pop in during my breaks from working and see what's going on but haven't had time to leave many comments. Just know that I'm thinking about you all and missing you much. I'll be back......

Happy Birthday, Collin...

2008-06-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

Fourteen years ago today, God sent a special little bundle of joy into my life and I've never been the same!

He was named Collin, after my mother's maiden name, and I got a new name too. I became Granny. What a pleasure this boy has been to me!! He was such a good baby..always happy and smiling..showing his big dimples. He started growing up much too fast for me.

The following two pictures of Collin were made in Mount Airy, NC, home of Andy Griffith and Floyd's Barber Shop. Does he remind you of another little red head named Opie??

It makes me really sad sometimes to look back at all Collin's pictures and see how fast he grew up, but then I see the fine and handsome young man he has become and it makes me so proud.

Happy Birthday, my precious boy! You will always be the light of my life.

I love you,
Granny

Hello again, hello..

2008-06-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

Hello, my dear friends! It's really me this time! I can wear my glasses now and I CAN SEE!! Thank you all so very much for your concern, prayers and well-wishes. I missed all of you and it will take me a while to get around to visit each of you and catch up. One thing I've learned during this process is that you all stuck by me and didn't give up on me.

(Thank you, Brandy, for letting everybody know what was going on in my absence.) I had several skin cancers on my face that I had burned off. The one that really worried me was the one that went all across the bridge of my nose and was spreading out under my eyes. None of these were serious, just over-exposure to the sun. They burned off 4 of them but the one on my nose had to be done with medicine which did a slow burn...14 days of applying it and each day burning worse! No fun at all! After that I had to apply a steroid cream for 14 more days to help it heal. I'm glad that's over!! Here's a picture taken on day 4 of applying the medication.

It got so bad by the 14th day that I didn't want a picture!! I tried to wear my glasses on the very tip of my nose to check out your blogs but I kept forgetting and pushing them up. Then I would have to re-apply the medicine. I even tried to read without them but all the words were a big blur so I had to quit trying! :( A lot has been going on with me in the meantime so I'll have to catch you up a little at a time. We have been working on our house again and I've been taking some pictures to share with you. I hope to be back in full blog swing next week. Have a great weekend!!

hello

2008-05-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

This is Brandy, I am blogging for Hope today. She is on the phone with me right now. She wanted everyone to know that she had some skin cancers removed and cannot wear her glasses right now. She is doing ok, she just cannot see to blog. She wants everyone to know that she misses you all and she will be back as soon as she can wear her glasses again.
Thanks Brandy

Catching up on awards....

2008-04-14T20:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, once again I'm behind but not only on posting this time but on picking up my awards. I apologize for the delay. So without further ado....

First an award from my dear caring friend, Betty, who checks up on me if I'm MIA!! She first leaves a comment, then an email, and if she still hasn't heard from me she calls on the phone to make sure I'm okay and to let me know she is praying for me. How sweet is that? How sweet is this award?

Thank you so much, Betty, for the award and for being my friend. You are so special to me!

Then I got a comment from Mike saying he had a special award for me on his blog. He has given me this award because he says I have been a help to him. Mike has so many health problems he is dealing with daily but he still takes time to check on me and pray for my needs. Mike, thank you so much for this award and for being the wind beneath my wings too!

Last but not least is this special award from Brandy that made me cry! Here is what she had to say about me and the award:

Hope this is for you! You have been a rock in my life lately, you have been there for me when I have been faced with tough challenges with the kids. You have taught me so many things in the last few weeks. I know that you are in my life because of Daniel, but you know I don't talk to a lot of his family, I don't know them that well. I am glad that you are in my life and I have a great friend to talk to about important things and I want you to know that I really look up to! I know that God has put you here for a reason and I thank him for doing that to! So this is for you. I am calling it the rock award!

Some of you have wondered what connection Brandy and I have to each other. Brandy's husband, Daniel, is my great nephew and has always been very special to me. I use to babysit him when he was a little boy and he spent a lot of time at my house, growing up with my children. He has always been like a little brother to them. Here is a picture of Daniel, Brandy and their 3 sons. I have always called the boys Huey, Dewey and Louie. (Donald Duck's nephews for those of you who aren't old enough to remember the cartoon! LOL) In this case, these 3 boys are my great, great nephews!! How old does that make me feel?? :O)

Brandy and I have know each other for years now but have been developing a closer relationship in the last few months. A lot of this, believe it or not, was due to blogging!!
We have become coffee buddies too and have been trying to find time to have Bible study together. We have done a lot of our study over the phone!

Brandy, thank you from the bottom of my heart for the Rock Award. I love it and I love you! Let's do coffee and Bible study soon!

Who Am I

2008-04-13T01:07:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this yet please watch. This skit is done with just hands. The song Who Am I is by Casting Crowns.

Still here...

2008-04-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm still alive and kicking...well, alive anyway! I want to thank each of you dear friends who have lifted me up in prayer and thank you for each sweet comment left. It is so nice to hear that I have been missed. I really am doing a lot better this week. My body is slowly but surely adjusting to my blood sugar meds, thank the Lord! My count would be over 200 then drop suddenly after I took a pill, which caused me to get the shakes, sweats and nausea. No fun at all!! The time I've been spending on the computer has been research on diabetes and diet and I've learned a lot! The good news is, I have lost 6 pounds and still eating well!!

I especially want to thank Jo for all the emails and advice on diabetes. She has been so helpful to me and even did a post on her blog, Bits and Pieces, telling about her struggle with this disease. If you haven't already read this post, you can go here to read it. Thank you, Jo, for caring enough to help me and especially for letting me know that I'm not alone
in this. Also for letting me know that it's okay to obsess over it a little! :O)

Now on to happier things! We have had beautiful weather here this week with temps in the upper 70's. I think it might have even gone into the low 80's today! Dogwood winter is getting ready to set in so another cold snap is due. I've really been enjoying the warmth and sunshine while it's here. My flowers aren't blooming yet but my yard is blessed with wildflowers, dandelions and violets...

and even some weeds that look pretty to me!

Last year the grandkids got me a lilac bush for Mother's Day. Lilacs are my favorite! All during the drought we had last summer I watered the little bush faithfully but it kept looking so bad. Even before fall came it had lost all it's leaves and looked like a dried up twig. Dave suggested once that we just needed to pull it up...there was no hope for it...but "hope" is my middle name (pun intended! LOL), so it stayed put!! This spring we have had a lot of rain and plenty of sunshine and my little lilac bush is thriving and now getting ready to bloom! I will take pictures as soon as it does!

I'm going to try and get around to visit all of you and catch up. I know I have missed a lot so it will take me a while! Much love, Hope!

Catching up....

2008-03-31T00:57:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't been a very good blogger lately so I'm going to try to catch up a bit starting with Easter. We actually had our Easter get together on Saturday since we have to work around everybody's schedules. Nothing about our Easter was very traditional. We had pork barbeque, baked beans, cole slaw and chocolate eclairs for dessert!! (I had a little of everything except dessert!) We usually do Easter dinner at my house but this year my daughter was our hostess. We all had a great time eating, hiding and hunting eggs and just enjoying our time together. And of course there were photo opportunities for me!

I took this picture of Claire explaining to Uncle Dave and Kian how to jump a big ditch, and trying to talk Kian into jumping!

When her powers of persuasion didn't work, she demonstrated...looks like she's flying!

Finally Kian got brave enough and jumped too. He looks like he's falling into the ditch but he actually made it across.

Then the adults hid the Easter eggs for the kids to hunt...

and the kids hid eggs for the adults to hunt:

While some of the adults were pushing and shoving trying to get to the same egg, Jenny was wandering off by herself finding one egg after another and won the egg hunt!

It was too windy for Josie to be outside so she napped while we played. She had her own purple and pink Easter basket and a personalized egg:

After her nap she posed for Granny to get some pictures:

She even smiled for me (actually she was smiling at Daddy):

Even Pamela posed for me with her new outfit, actually a hand-me-down that Josie outgrew!

Even if we weren't traditional, we had a great time making our own traditions and most importantly, making memories!

Goodbye, Ms. Fran

2008-03-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

Most of you who follow Peggy's blog know by now that Ms. Fran passed away on Monday at 4:45 PM. Please go to Peggy's post here to read her account of Ms. Fran's gentle passing from death unto Life. I read a comment on Peggy's post left by S who referred to Ms. Fran's death as BITTERSWEET, which I find very fitting at this time.

Many months ago Peggy began to share Ms. Fran with us and we came to know and love her.
I looked forward to reading about her and seeing pictures of her sweet, smiling face. Peggy shared their good times together:

Even after she became ill and her body weakened, she still liked participating in the fun that Peggy could cook up:

Thank you, Peggy, for unselfishly letting us be there in Ms. Fran's last days.

As a tribute I would like to share one of my favorite poems with you. I hope you will take the
time to read and absorb what it says. We say "goodbye" to Ms. Fran for now but only for a while.

Gone From My Sight

Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck

of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,hull and spar as she was when she left my side.And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"

there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices

ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...

He is Risen

2008-03-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

"The stone was rolled away from the door, not to permit Christ to come out, but to enable the disciples to go in." - Peter Marshall

Wishing all my friends a blessed Easter.

2008-03-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. Psalms 34:3 KJV

Another Meme..

2008-03-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

I have been tagged by Mary at Mary's Writing Nook to do a meme on 8 facts/habits of mine. Most of you already know most facts about me AND my habits so it took me a while to come up with 8 things. If I repeat myself from other memes just ignore what you've already learned! Here are the rules:

In the 8 facts about yourself, you share 8 things that your readers don’t know about you. Then at the end you tag at least 8 other bloggers to keep the fun going.

1. I am not a morning person!! I can't think well in the morning and sometimes can't remember things. My daughter says she never tells me anything important in the morning because by noon I won't remember it! Morning dementia??

2. When I was young I wanted to drive a car so much that I had recurring dreams about driving! Now I hate to drive.

3. I like to fall asleep with the tv on in our bedroom and it has to be on Nick at Nite! The reason is that I've seen all these shows so many times and don't get deeply involved in them like I would if I watched a movie or any show I've never seen.

4. It has always been hard for me to accept a compliment without undermining it in some way. For instance, if someone tells me my hair looks nice, I would say something like, "It's only because I finally washed it!" I'm trying to learn to just say, "Thank you!"

5. I am fascinated and at the same time repulsed by serial killers. I've always wondered what goes on in their minds when they commit these heinous crimes, but at the same time it would sicken me to know!

6. I love puzzles..crosswords, jigsaws...I'll work about any kind except Sudoku. I never liked math or working with numbers.

7. I like to eat green bean sandwiches! JD had confessed in a meme that he likes potato salad sandwiches. Well, I like those too! I also like buttermilk with cornbread crumbled in it! My kids never could watch me eat that because it made them sick!!

8. I am not a fanatical housekeeper and never have been. I do try to keep a "path" through the house and give it a thorough cleaning occasionally. I have always felt there are more important things to do. My theory is that all the dust bunnies will be here when I'm dead and gone!!

Here are the 8 people that I tag:

Brandy at Mommy's Quiet Spot

Jennifer at Dust Bunny Hostage

Sandra at Nora Lee's Nook

Rosie at Rosie's Whimsy

BJ at Sweet Nothings

Carolyn at Talk to Grams

Adrienne at With a Grateful Heart

Lisa at A Place to Land

I tried to pick 8 people that I though hadn't already been tagged so if you haven't then start confessing your habits!! :O)

My birthday boy...

2008-03-10T02:14:00.000-07:00

Today my baby boy turns 35 years old. How can that be when just yesterday I was 35? :O) My how time does fly. Willie came into this world weighing 9 lbs. 11 1/2 oz. and was 22 1/2 inches long! I often tease him and say that if he had been born first he would have been an only child! It was rough carrying him especially since I'm so short and he had no room to move, but move he did!! He made up for all this discomfort by being a really good baby, so jolly and happy and always smiling...unless he was hungry, then I heard about it!

My son has grown into a fine young man and I'm very proud of him. He has been a soldier and is now a police officer. He's a good son and little brother to Jenny:

He's a good husband to Angie and father to Kian:

And as you all know, he just recently became a father again when Josie came into the world:

He has been playing drums since he was 4 years old and continues to play with a local band called Spank:

As you can see, the fruits of my "labor" have paid off!! Happy Birthday, Willie! I love you and I would do it all over again!!

God's Painting

2008-03-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the LORD behold the earth..

Stamp of Approval

2008-03-07T22:19:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally got my stamp of approval, thanks to Betty! Check it out:

I am just tickled pink (or in this case tickled rose red) for this award! Betty, thank you so much. I'm honored to receive this.

If you still don't know Betty or haven't visited her, please go over to her blog, Betty's This and That and say hello. She is one of the sweetest ladies you will ever meet and has become a dear friend to me.

I just wanted to tell you all that I had a much better day today. I think my medicine is starting to kick in and work for me and watching my diet hasn't hurt either. I know this has to be a life style change and not one of those quickie fad diets. I'm just concentrating on watching my carbs and sugar intake right now. I've done well with that in the past week. Thank you all for being here for me! :o)

Thankfulness

2008-03-04T21:09:00.000-08:00

First. let me say how grateful I am to each and every one of you for your prayers and well wishes. What a wonderful and supportive group of friends I have here in Blogland and I thank God for you.

One reason I hadn't already asked for prayer is because I felt that what I'm dealing with is just a minor little thing compared to what a lot of you are going through. But I also feel that the Lord has given me a wake up call here and now it's up to me to do something about it, with His help and the prayers of those who care about me.

Now on to cheerful things! Jennifer at dust bunny hostage gave me this award a few days ago. Even though I'm just getting around to picking it up, I appreciate it very much. I met Jen when she first started her blog and I was immediately drawn to her....probably because of that magnetic personality of hers! When I visit there I always get a blessing, a smile, or a belly laugh and sometimes all these emotions from one post! I love this girl!! Thank you so much, Jen, for acknowledging our friendship with this award.

Many of you have asked to see new pictures of Josie. Well, today was the debut of her first studio pictures and her Mommy sent me the proofs to view. Even though they can't be enlarged you can get an idea of how she's growing and changing. My sweet baby is already 7 weeks old!

Now I'm off to visit all of you and catch up on all I've missed the past few days.

Feeling unnessary..

2008-03-03T05:59:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before that my mother had a strange way with words. One thing I can remember her saying was, "I feel so unnessary!" I learned at a young age to "read" my mother but I never fully understood this statement until I was older. I realize now that she was in a state of limbo..not feeling well enough to keep going but not bad enough to sit down and quit or just go to bed. Well, that's the state I'm in right now...feeling unnessary!

I've never been one to frequent my doctor's office. I'm more of a wait and see what happens kind of person. I started having symptoms which I thought was just a virus and I'd wait it out. Then came even more symptoms until I could wait no longer. I went to my doctor on Friday and he officially pronounced me diabetic! I've been teetering on the border for several years now. He seems to think that all these symptoms stemmed from my messed up blood sugar levels. So he put me on medication which my body seems to have a problem adjusting to. He said it might take some time so I'm waiting it out again.

I told Betty in an email last night about what's going on with me. She had noticed that I wasn't online as much or blogging as much. She told me she would be praying for me, but reminded me of the wonderful prayer group we have in Blogland and that I really should ask for your prayers. So here I am, asking. Basically, I'm asking you to pray that my body will adjust to this medication soon and that I'll be able to turn around all my bad eating habits. I've been on diets off and on for many years but this is a whole new ballgame to me.

Thank you, my friends, for always being there and praying. A special thank you to Betty for giving me a nudge!

The Lighthouse

2008-03-02T22:08:00.000-08:00

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom do I fear?
The Lord is my life's refuge; of whom am I afraid?

Psalm 27:1

(Old Orchard Beach, Maine)

A book, awards, fun and games...

2008-02-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

My book arrived today from Karla at Ramblin' Roads! She thought I might be a "rattled" Granny since I haven't taken care of a baby in 8 years! Thank you so much Karla. I know this little book is going to come in handy!

I received this award from my new buddy and hammered dulcimer player, Mike at Rambling Stuff. Thank you, Mike. I'm honored that you thought of me. If you haven't visited Mike yet, go on over and say hello. He has a link to a video of a very talented girl playing the hammered dulcimer.

The following awards are from my sweet friend and coffee buddy, Karen at Karen's Korner. I love to tease Karen about visiting everybody very early in the morning and drinking all the coffee before I get there! We have had lots of fun with that one! Thank you so much, Karen, for passing these along. I will treasure all these awards!

When I did this post with a list of my weirdness, one thing on my list was the fact that I can write backwards. Karen commented that I should show this talent on my blog sometime! Okay, Karen, you asked for it! Here's a sample:

Now get those hand mirrors out and tell me what it says! Maybe some of you have the talent to read backwards which would be helpful here! Then after you've done that fun game, look at this 3D stereogram and see if you can see the picture within a picture:

Have a fun Thursday, all.

My tiara fits...

2008-02-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

When I visited Tammy's blog today I was reminded of why I started this blog. This one line from her touched me: Hey, I'm here, and I matter. Please read all that she has to say and you'll understand why I "wear" this tiara proudly:

First and foremost, I had things to say, stories to share...stories passed down to me from my parents and their parents before them...then finally my own stories. After all, I haven't lived 60 years for nothing...I've seen things happen in my time and many changes take place.

For instance, Karen had a post today about Martin Luther King, in honor of Black History Month. When I read it I thought, I was there...I remember. I remember riding the bus to town with my mother when I was about five years old, long before we had a car. I always begged her to sit in the back where the big long seat was and lots of windows where I could peer out at the sights that were all new to me then. She would quietly tell me no every time without explanation and I wasn't allowed to question my mother. It wasn't until I started school and learned to read that I noticed the sign at the back of the bus...COLORED ONLY--NO WHITES ALLOWED! I was there...I remember.

I have this sign at one end of my porch:

With today's hectic schedules we don't do much sitting and talking anymore. Even families don't communicate like they should. But, my children and grandchildren read my blog and they read my stories. Another important reason to blog!

I also wanted to share bits and pieces of our old farmhouse, the remodeling, the fixin' and more fixin'. This old house may not look like much to some but it was a dream come true to me. It's certainly not perfect by any means and neither am I, and you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way! It's a work in progress and so am I!

So, I started a blog! Then an amazing thing happened. I started meeting friends in Blogland. Through them I met other friends, and on and on...and comments were coming from these new friends. Then comments came from people I didn't know yet, people telling me they were praying for me and my family and our needs at the time. I knew in my heart that these comments were sincere. I looked forward to my daily visits at each friend's blog home. I started looking forward to my comments, knowing each of these people had come here to see what I had to say!

I had to chuckle today when I received this comment from a new friend, J.D.:

"You have so many visitors here, I almost didn't find a place to park.....JD"

Well, J.D., I'll just have to build a bigger parking lot cause I hope to have a lot more company here!!

Hey, I'm here, and I matter. And as most of you already know, I have much to say! Thank you, my precious family and my dear friends, for listening. Thank you, Tammy, for the reminder!

More weird things about me??

2008-02-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

I have been tagged again to tell you 7 weird or random things about me! This time by Betty at Betty's This and That. I think this is about the third time I've done this meme but I just keep coming up with more weirdness, not to mention random-ness!! Lots of that going on with me. Anyway, ya gotta have rules in every game...right? Unless, of course, you make up your own game with no rules! I've been know to do that too! But, since this wasn't my game, I'm going to play nice. So here's the rules:

1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

Ok, I did cheat a little..I copied Betty's rules from her page! :o) Here again is some of my weirdness:

1. I have always had strong nails and could grow them easily but I never liked long nails!

2. I always peel my apples when I eat them. I can't stand to bite into an apple peel. It makes me shiver and get chills. Sorta like the fingernails scraping on a chalkboard, which by the way never bothered me at all!

3. I am the youngest of 6 children. My next youngest sister is 6 years older than me. I grew up with my nieces and nephews who felt more like my siblings.

4. I love to eat cake batter. I always loved to "sop the bowl" when my mother made a cake but I could never get enough of the batter. Dave and I once made a chocolate cake batter and ate almost all of it. We were sick!

5. I like for people to look me in the eye when they talk to me. I don't trust people who don't! I feel they have something to hide!

6. I can write backwards about as well as I can write forward. I don't know what this skill will profit me but I have it! I do it to entertain the grandkids. I write something and tell them it's a secret code. They have to have a mirror to read it! I guess I do use this skill...to entertain!!

7. Now that I'm older, I hate getting dressed up to go out. If I could I'd wear my PJ's 24-7. I'm all about comfort!

Ok, that's it! Everything else about me gets even stranger so you better not ask for more! I'm just kiddin'. If ya'll really want to know I'll tell ya!

Now for the fun part...I get to tag 7 people. I'll tag some of my new bloggy friends, but if any of you have been tagged before you don't have to play. But, hey, I know I can't be the only one that can list 21 weird things about themselves and still think of more, can I??

I tag:

Lisa at A Place to Land

Jo at Bits and Pieces

Lynne at Lynne's Little Corner of the World

Claudia at Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Ruth at Whispering Oaks Cottage

Mike at Rambling Stuff

Adrienne at With A Grateful Heart

Most all of these new but already dear friends showed up on my blog when my little Josie was sick to tell me they were praying for her. I had never met them before but they were praying for my baby. How that touched my heart! Claudia is a new blogger in our community and such a sweet person. I just met Jo who lives on a mountain..I like that about her! :o) Please go over and visit each one of them...oh, and don't forget to tell them Hope sent you!

Most of you already know my sweet southern belle friend, Betty, but if you haven't met her you don't know what you're missing. Thank you, Betty for asking me to participate.

Be grateful for the morning dew...

2008-02-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

Be grateful for the kindly friends that walk along your way; Be grateful for the skies of blue that smile from day to day; Be grateful for the health you own, the work you find to do, For round about you there are men less fortunate than you. Be grateful for the growing trees, the roses soon to bloom, The tenderness of kindly hearts that shared your days of gloom; Be grateful for the morning dew, the grass beneath your feet, The soft caresses of your babes and all their laughter sweet. Acquire the grateful habit, learn to see how blest you are, How much there is to gladden life, how little life to mar! And what if rain shall fall today and you with grief are sad; Be grateful that you can recall the joys that you have had.
Edgar Albert Guest (1881 - 1959)

Happy things..

2008-02-20T07:14:00.000-08:00

I called this morning to check on Josie and I'm happy to report that she had a good, restful night. Mommy and Daddy are a little tired from being at the hospital, worried and losing sleep but doing better today too. Thank you again, my friends, for your prayers.

On another happy note, I want to share Dave's new find (my new treasure) with you. He found this little enamel top table at the flea market at a great price, as usual! He thinks it needs to be painted...I think it just needs to be scrubbed and left looking chippy. What do you think?

Usually when you find a table like this it's just that..a lone table. This time there was an added bonus...two little white chairs with the matching red accents.

The chairs had been covered with the red and white checks which I think says "farmhouse"!

Our kitchen is not big enough to be an eat-in kitchen but this table and chairs are small enough to fit plus we will have extra seating if we need it. I think it will be nice when spring comes and we can have our coffee here at this little table in front of the open window! Ahhh...Spring....

Good news...

2008-02-19T08:15:00.000-08:00

Josie is going home today at noon!! Praise the Lord! I talked to my son this morning and he said she was doing great! I know so many of you were praying for her and you'll never know how much this has meant to me. What a great prayer line all made possible by blogs and blog friends that I've met here. It never ceases to amaze me! Just a couple of examples: Yesterday Jennifer sent me an email and prayed with me in the email! Then I got a comment from Karen saying she was praying for Josie. She asked me to stop by when I could and see her newly decorated blog. While I was having my morning coffee, I stopped in to see, and found that Karen was praying right there on her blog for Mary's daughter and for Josie, and I wept..a sweet release to me! Such an humble prayer that I know came straight from her heart to God's ears. While Karen has had some hardships of her own recently, she unselfishly cares for others. To me this is what Christianity is all about. We can sit on church pews Sunday after Sunday, but if we aren't uplifting each other in prayer or just a simple word of kindness along the way, what good are we doing?

A new bloggy friend, Betty at Country Charm, that I met just recently has given me
an award. She is a sweet lady and has become one of my daily habits! :o) Thank you, Betty, for this honor and for thinking of me as a best blogging buddy.

I want all of you to know you're the BEST and I want each of you to have this award. Please take this award and know that even though I'm not naming you all individually,
it comes from my heart and I ask God to bless my Bloggy Friends.

Prayer needed for Josie

2008-02-18T07:36:00.000-08:00

Update on Josie:
My son called earlier this evening and said the doctor had ruled out RSV or the flu. He thinks now it's just some sort of virus. He said they tried to start an IV to keep her from dehydrating but after sticking her 6 times, couldn't get one started! They gave her Pedialite in a bottle which she drank and kept down. She is a breast fed baby so the fact that she took the bottle is a miracle in itself. Then later this evening my son called my daughter and said they put her back on milk and she was keeping it in too. They are keeping her overnight just to be on the safe side but may let her go home tomorrow if nothing changes.

Thank you all so very much for your prayers. I knew I could count on you to be there for me. I know some of you had already visited my blog and commented before I posted this prayer request. Please continue to pray for her that she will keep improving.
*************************************************

Saturday evening my son called and said they needed my help. The baby had been awake all night on Friday night and they hadn't had any sleep. I went up there and spent Saturday night with them. She had a lot of gas and was sneezing some. After I got there she seemed to be fine and slept 5 hours straight. When I left there yesterday she was fine...no temperature, not fussy, just resting good. Then last night he called and said she got worse and had a fever of 99.3 and was vomiting. He said she sounded congested too. They talked to a nurse practioner and she told them to keep a check on the fever. If it went to 100 they needed to take her to the hospital. They made it through the night okay but took her to her pediatrician this morning. My son just called and said they were putting her in the hospital to run some tests because she may have RSV.

I ask that you please pray for my baby. When they are that young you don't know what's wrong and it's scary. I know I can count on you all. I have 2 grandchildren out of school for the holiday here with me today so I'll go to the hospital later on. He's going to keep me informed and I'll try to let you all know something as soon as I can.

New surprise...

2008-02-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

I had a very lazy day yesterday..too lazy to blog even. I did manage to visit around a bit and leave comments. I seem to have eaten way too much chocolate! (Rubbing belly)

I had another surprise waiting for me at Karla's blog, Ramblin' Roads. Karla has frequent book giveaways at her place. This time she picked me specifically! Here's what she had to say:

Now. This particular book is for a very specific audience, so I have to admit I chose the winner for it based on who I thought would be most interested in it. And the winner of Rattled is... Hope at Second Time Around. She is a new blogging friend and she has a brand-new grand-baby!

I was telling her that it has been 8 years since I took care of a baby so I'm going to need all the help I can get and I so appreciate Karla for thinking of me! If you go over to her blog you can read all about this book. Tell her Hope sent you! Oh, and you might just want to leave her a comment..you never know when you might be the next winner!

Through Karla I also found the Ozark Country Parson blog, who just happens to be Karla's Daddy!! I always enjoy reading his Sunday Sermon notes and devotionals. I know you'll get a blessing when you visit him, just as I do.

Thank you again, Karla. I look forward to receiving this book.

2008-02-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

From my heart to yours...
Hope

****************************************

MY PACKAGE FROM PEA HAS ARRIVED!!

I am so exited to share this with you. My package from Pea's giveaway has arrived here in VA just in time for Valentine's Day! Dave went to the post office and came back carrying a package. He put it on the table and was ready to tear into it and I yelled, "NO! I have to take pictures!"

Then I let him tear into the package while I took more pictures:

Look what came spilling out of the box...pink petals and a red envelope with a red rose!

Just look at the pretty tissue paper with the pretty hearts edging:

Dave and I both oohed and aahed as we took each goody from the box. Then I arranged them all on my old sideboard to try and get a good picture. Believe me, the picture doesn't do justice to all these treasures!

Let's see, there was the cutest little bear holding a red heart box, little sundae candles, pink roses floating candles, a sweet little key chain with a glittery little purse attached, a pair of soft, warm socks with hearts on them, a box of maple cream cookies, a package of french vanilla truffle hot chocolate mix, Peeps hearts..strawberry creme flavored and a package of party napkins with hearts!! I will be enjoying all these treats for days to come..if I limit myself and DH!!

Then I opened the little red heart box that the bear was holding. More surprises! There was something wrapped in cellophane and I spotted a little card stuck in the top that said, "Made by Pea"! I knew instantly what it was:

Pea's wonderful homemade assorted chocolates!!

I had to sample one right away...oh my..melt in your mouth chocolate with nuts inside:

Is your mouth watering yet? :o)

Of course, Dave felt like he was also entitled to sample since he brought the package to me:

Then he sampled again, and again..telling me each time what flavor he got..until I made him stop! "Save some for later...savor them a little!" (Which in Hope speak means..get out of my chocolates..they're all mine!! LOL)

Last, but certainly not least, was a little hand-written, heart-shaped note from Pea.

Pea, I can't thank you enough for this wonderful package and for totally making my Valentine's Day so very special!!

Most of you know Pea already but if you don't you MUST visit her fun blog. Besides having fantastic giveaways, Pea is just an all-around good friend and Canadian neighbor. Thanks again, Pea, and I do hope your Valentine's Day is as sweet as you've made mine!

This Old Kitchen

2008-02-13T07:47:00.000-08:00

The first time we toured our old house, the kitchen was such a mess. The make shift counters were falling apart, the drawers were hanging in different directions. The old farm sink had been a beauty in its day but had started to rust through in places where the enamel had chipped off. The whole thing was a big mess. Actually the whole house was a mess. Dark paneling on every wall plus dark curtains left hanging on windows just added to the cave-like quality. Depressing!

I remember that day clearly. We had a friend who was here from Hungary and brought him with us to see the house. He walked around with his camera snapping the whole time. He would look around, snap a picture, then look at me shaking his head and say, "Oh, Hope!" On to another room...snap a picture..shake his head, then, "Oh, Hope!" That's all he ever said during the tour. The lady who owned the house and had lived here was there with us, so I would whisper to him, "It's okay, I can make it nice, you'll see!" He was here just long enough to help us slap some paint over the dark paneling, rip down the dark curtains and move in, all within a couple of weeks. He was amazed at the change in such a short time.

I wish I could share some of the before pictures but I got a virus on my computer and lost them all. You can't really appreciate all that we've done here without that evidence. So just trust me when I tell you...it's come a long way, baby! We began by tearing out the counters and old sink. We were working with a budget of...ZERO, ZILCH, NADA!! DH was about to be sent to Atlanta for RR training and we had to rush just to get moved in before he had to leave. A friend of ours was having some remodeling done on his kitchen including new cabinets. So I called and asked him what he was doing with his old cabinets and he said they were in the yard ready to be hauled away! We told him to hang onto them and we'd be right there. So we got some lower cabinets and a stainless double sink for free! We kept the original upper cabinets which were painted with white, flat ceiling paint! We installed the new/old free ones which were wood color and with our trusty Lowe's credit card we got a new counter top. We lived with the two-toned cabinets for months then finally got around to deciding on a paint color. We added new brushed nickel hardware to help to match up the upper and lower cabinets.

It's hard to get a good overall picture but you get the idea. You can see the upper cabinets that reach all the way to the top of the 9 foot ceiling! I'm 5' 2" tall so all the shelves are useless to me except the first one, plus there are only 2 sets of cabinets. Most old houses had none so I guess I'm lucky to get that many!

The double windows over the sink are very high too as you can see. They do let in lots of light but I can't look out!! We do have a long window on the side though. We added a bead board backsplash and painted that. There was plastic over that part before to keep out the cold!!

Then there's the big white elephant, otherwise know as a refrigerator! We would like to figure a way to disguise it but since it's a necessity so we deal with it! There is a doorway coming into the room from the laundry/mudroom and another doorway on the other side of the white elephant going into the dining room.

You can see the corner of my stove in the third picture. It was just sitting there all by itself with no cabinets, range hood or anything. We recently bought one of the over-the-stove combination microwave and vent. We had a small upper cabinet left over that we weren't able to use so we put that over the microwave. We haven't finished that area yet so I'll show pictures later when we do. We also want to do different flooring later on.

We have lived in our old home over 3 years now and each room is still a work in progress. I'll try to do a room by room as we finish projects.

The old shelf...

2008-02-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

Way back there in January (feels months and months ago) I posted about my new/old wooden rooster tray that DH found for me. Some of you that have an observant eye noticed it was sitting on my old green shelf and inquired about it. Here's the picture I showed in that post:

Here is a picture of the whole shelf. You can see some of our collections..old crocks, a couple of crock bowls, some of our old jars. The black object with the wheel is some sort of old mill..not sure exactly..but it's very heavy. The red and white object is a vintage ice crusher. I have a big basket on the bottom shelf to hold all my spices since I have very little storage (old house drawback). Underneath is my old juicer and more old utensils! Oh yeah, my little wooden churn is hiding in the corner!

I have had this old shelf for over 25 years now. I found it in an outbuilding of an old house we were renting at the time. I never knew what it was made for originally but it was handmade by someone, probably the old man who had owned the house, and seemed to have been made using old scrap wood. So we dragged it out and I started scrubbing and cleaning on it. It had been painted white and most of it came out okay except for the wider top shelf. There were rust rings on it where old paint cans had been and I couldn't get them off no matter how much elbow grease I applied! I had no paint available either, nothing that I could think of except some handy, dandy contact paper. As some of you know, that contact paper was the going thing then and we covered everything with it...even walls!! Nasty stuff to remove though as I found out many years later!

I liked living in the old house but since it was very close to a state park, the state decided they wanted to buy the old place to expand the park. We had to find another place to live. I decided right then and there they weren't going to get my old shelf!! It would probably have been hauled away to the dump anyway. So I took it with me from place to place. When DH and I moved into a small apartment, my daughter stored it away for me in her basement. When we found this old house, I knew the shelf had found a home too. When we painted our kitchen cabinets I decided to give the old shelf a face lift with the same paint..after struggling to remove the 25 year old contact paper! I'll try to get some decent pictures of my whole kitchen later and show you.

2008-02-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

I have received several awards from Grams at Talk to Grams. Here are the ones she passed along to all her blog friends:

How cute is that?

She thinks we are all cool cats!! This one I have to pass on to Claire since she loves cats!

Toadally...I love that play on words!

And what a BIG honor this one is. Especially when we all know that Grams is the one with the BIG HEART!!!

Grams also gave me this Valentine a few days ago and I hadn't had a chance to blog about it. Thank you Grams. How fun to be your Blog Buddy!

By the way, Grams, when you learn how to make a separate page for all your awards, please share with me!! I think I'm gonna need it! Thanks again for everything!

Still waters...

2008-02-10T06:33:00.000-08:00

...He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul...

Josie and sunshine..

2008-02-07T09:27:00.000-08:00

As you all know, since baby Josie's birth 3 weeks ago, Dave has been under the weather. He was sick with flu-like symptoms when she was born and since then has had the blood clot to deal with. Yesterday the doctor released him to go back to work and since we had a few hours before he was to be called to work, we decided he could finally go to see the baby. Here is Dave holding our granddaughter for the first time. As you can see, it was love at first sight!

She is growing and doing so well. She listens intently when you talk to her and tries to follow voices, especially the ones she recognizes like Mommy and Daddy's. She is such a sweet and cuddley baby!

We were having thunderstorms yesterday when we went for our visit. On the way home, the rain stopped and the sun popped out for a while from behind the clouds and touched the mountaintops.

I took this picture from the back of our house to try and avoid all the power lines. If you look over the top of houses and into the distance you can see our big mountain.

After the drought we had in the summer we still need lots of rain and I'm thankful for it. But when it stops for a while it's as if God is smiling down on us. :)

I'm back...

2008-02-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

I am back in Blogland today! Hopefully things will get back to at least semi-normal now. My company left this morning. Dave is doing better and is hoping to be released by the doctor today to go back to work. They are still trying to regulate his blood thinner and he should find out today how that is doing. Thank you all for your prayers.

I have been keeping a tight rein on Dave for a week..keeping his leg elevated. Over the weekend I gave him a reprieve to go to an auction and of course he went nuts and bought a truckload of stuff which we didn't need. But he did find one item that we've been wanting for a long time...an old sideboard!! We had found several with BIG price tags so we kept looking to find a cheaper one. A couple of month ago he went to a flea market and found a huge buffet. The same dealer had 2 bookshelves that we had also been looking for. She told Dave if he bought the bookshelves that she would throw in the buffet for free!! It was too big and not what I wanted but we have been using it. Here is a picture of our mismatched dining room with the monster buffet taken just after Christmas:

As you can see, not one piece of our furniture matches. We bought the table with no chairs, then he found a set of 6 tiger oak chairs and bought them. Then he called from the auction and said he was bidding on an old sideboard made of tiger oak. I never know what I'm getting but this time he got it right! Here is the new/old sideboard:

It has a few dings but that's to be expected for an old piece especially at a good price! I love the old, original mirror in the back. I couldn't get a decent picture yet and we haven't moved out the monster to make room for the new one. It's in front of the fireplace right now. I'll take more pics when I get it all situated. I just couldn't wait to share it with you.

I'm off now to catch up with each of you and see what's happening in your world. I know there's been a lot of sickness going around and I hope you're all better now.

The Valley of the Shadow

2008-02-03T10:28:00.000-08:00

Psalms 23:4 KJV

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

I heard a preacher say one time that without the Son there would be no shadow. I had always interpreted this scripture as death is only a shadow when Jesus is right there walking through that valley with us. Either way, He is right there with us!

Thank you all my dear friends for your prayers for this family.

Cleaning....

2008-02-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

Some of you already know that my DH developed a blood clot in his leg last Saturday. The doctor put him on blood thinner, pills and shots he has to give himself in the stomach. He's been out of work all week and still hasn't been released by the doctor. His blood still hasn't thinned enough with the medicine.

Then this morning we got a call from his sister in Ohio. Her mother-in-law who lived here died this morning. They are coming in tonight to stay with us during the funeral.

I've been cleaning all day, changing beds, doing laundry, etc.

I ask that you pray for both situations that we are dealing with. I will try to check in over the weekend with all of you if I get the opportunity. Love to all!

Hope

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KIAN

2008-01-30T12:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my grandson, Kian's, 8th birthday. Due to unforseen circumstances I didn't get to spend time with him on his birthday like I wanted, or get pictures like I wanted either. We have plans to do this later on. So today I'm honoring this very special boy here on my blog.

On a cold, snowy, January day, Kian came into this world. He was born a month premature with lungs that weren't developed enough and immediately taken to another hospital and put in an intensive care unit. Here he was attached to every tube and wire imaginable and the only contact we had at first was just touching his little hand. A very scary and heart wrenching time. It was about a week before I got to hold him the first time and then it was with all those tubes and wires still attached. But God had plans for this baby boy and in his short 8 years, he has blessed so many people especially his Granny.

When he was still a baby and came over for a visit, he would reach for me as soon as he saw me. When I took him in my arms, the first thing he would do was lay his little head on my shoulder and pat me gently on the back. He was saying "I love you, Granny" even then, without words. As he got older I would tell him I loved him and he would say, "Lu you too!"

This kid is a nut:

He's right out of a cartoon and makes me laugh:

He's such a cool kid:

He loves being silly with his cousin Claire:

And adores his cousin Collin:

Last year he lost his first tooth, and unlike most kids, loved to show off the gaping space:

Now he's looking so grown up..but he's still Granny's little man:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KIAN! GRANNY LOVES YOU VERY MUCH!

Blessings..pay them forward..

2008-01-30T07:31:00.001-08:00

Brandy and Jennifer both chose me for this award and I am honored. Thank you both for thinking of me. Here's the idea behind this award:

The idea…it’s a game of tag with a difference, rather than looking inwardly, we look outside ourselves and bless, praise and pray for 3 blog friends. By participating in this endeavour we not only make the recipient of the blessing feel valued and appreciated, but we are having some fun too. We’re going to see how far the bloggin’ blessings can travel around the world and how many people can be blessed! Recipients of a bloggin’ blessing may upload the above image to their sidebar if they choose to. If you receive a bloggin’ blessin’ please leave a comment on this thread here so that we can rejoice in just how many blessings have been sent around the world.Now, I am to pass this Award on to 3 ladies.

I want all my Bloggy Friends to know what a blessing each of you have been to me and each of you deserve this award. But I am only suppose to pick 3 people to bless. I thought about this for a while and I chose 3 ladies who have not always had it easy, or they are still going through some trying times. But in the midst of it all, they keep their chins up and do what they have to do. They have had sickness, financial problems, or just plain heartbreak and worry, but they just trust God for their needs and perservere. Grams, Karen and Brenda..I want you all to know that you've been a blessing and encouragement to me.

Thanks again, Brandy and Jennifer. I hope my little blog corner of the world will continue to be a blessing.

A New Award and an Old Town

2008-01-29T07:39:00.000-08:00

First of all, I have received this award from Sandra at Nora Lee's Nook. Here's what she said about me: "Hope at Second Time Around where it is always fun to stop by and see what she is up to, and also for some laughs!" I am so glad that I can bring a smile to the ones who visit here. As I told Sandra, laughter is good medicine, and I'm a firm believer in laughter! If you haven't visited her at Nora Lee's Nook, you must run on over there and check it out. Sandra has many old items which she shares passed down through generations of her family. She's also a girl after my own heart who loves junkin' and she also shares many of her great finds!! Thanks you so much, Sandra, for this honor. When you drop in on her, tell her Hope sent you! :)

Next, an old town! This past summer DH fulfilled one of my dreams by taking me on a trip from VA to Maine. It was a long, tiring trip but we saw so many interesting places along the way, as you can imagine. There's no way I could get all this into one post so I'll break it down so that you don't get "picture overload"! As I mentioned in one of the meme's I did a while back, I love the movie Baby Boom with Diane Keaton, about a devoted career woman who "inherits" a baby and leaves her city life for the country. The name of the area in the movie was Hadleyville, Vermont, but in real life, it is a very small town called Peru, Vermont. This little town consists of a town center:

an old cemetary behind the towncenter:

a post office:

a beautiful, old church:

and my favorite place, the old general store:

In the movie, Keaton's character buys a farm, sight unseen, complete with a beautiful old farmhouse and an apple orchard. With so many apples laying around going to waste, she decides to make baby food apple sauce for her newly inherited baby.
Being a sharp business woman, she also decides to try and sell some of this baby food so she takes some to the local general store. Tourists drift through this small town from a much larger, neighboring town which is a resort area. (We actually stayed in the resort town for one night. Very expensive place but nice.) This little store is the actual one from the movie.

It took me back in time for a while. The lady who now owns the store was very friendly and told us all about the excitement that went on during the making of the movie. I was amazed at all the goodies sold in this one small place. Fresh muffins and coffee in the morning, cheeses, pizza and of course, Vermont Maple Syrup. It even had the old wood stove still used for heat where the old men use to sit around, swapping stores and spitting tobacco juice in the spittoon!

Notice the original old wood floor around the stove. The original wood counters are still in use too, along with the old cash register. (Oh yeah, they also sell night crawlers and worms!)

A sign is still displayed over a doorway showing the original owner.

When Keaton's character was driving to her new home in the film, this is the beautiful tree-lined road she was on:

The store owner told us that the house used in the film was just a few miles down the road but was too far back to be seen from the road. We left this town by way of the tree-lined road on to our next destination. I was amazed at all the dirt roads in this area which are main routes! We use to have a lot of these in our county that have now been paved.

I hope you've enjoyed your little tour today. I want to show more of the places we visited at a later date. I also hope my pictures aren't chopped up a lot. The only thing I could do was resize them but then when I loaded them to Flickr they were bigger. :( The only other way I could find to change my template and make it wider was with HTML and I know nothing about that! Oh well, maybe sooner or later a more computer literate person will be able to help me!

New/Old Treasures

2008-01-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

I want to share a couple of Dave's new finds. First is this old wooden sled which we are told was used to haul supplies, etc. DH wanted me to tell you that he decorated it! :) Please disregard the ugly film on the mirror. This is what happens when you are a blogaholic!! That's my story (excuse) anyway and I'm stickin' to it!! I took one picture and realized that my scary reflection was in the mirror! I know I've already showed you some frightening pictures of me but this one was bad....bed-head and all!! So I took another picture and this time ducked down behind the greenery!! :) The mirror, by the way, was one we found in Vermont for 2 bucks!

Next is this cool, old wooden tray. It appears to be homemade but is really nice. It has black, wrought iron handles and the rooster and chicken picture is what appears to be a piece of border. You can also see part of my collection of crocks and crock bowls in this picture.

Every day is like Christmas here with Dave finding new treasures. The hard part is finding room for them all. I love finding new uses for old things, you know, the Second Time Around!

Edited to add:

Blogger keeps cutting off my picture on the right side. I have so much room on either side of the page but everything is crammed in the center. When I do my post and preview it everything looks good. Then I go to my blog page and it's all cut off! If anyone knows how to fix this I would appreciate any advice!

I always choose the medium sized pics to post here and now have done the small. There is a big difference in the size but it does show the whole picture! Maybe I just need to resize the pics beforehand!! Thanks to all who tried to help!

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This is a picture test:

Thankful...

2008-01-27T08:34:00.000-08:00

O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Psalms 136:1

(I've been asked about this picture. It was taken by Dave from the train he was on. He took it with his cell phone! This area is near Natural Tunnel, VA)

Another one....

2008-01-26T15:40:00.000-08:00

I got another one!!!! I'm so excited. That's two of them just today. I didn't get as many as Grams got (pout!) but I'll be okay :( I'm just kidding!! Grams chose to give me this award and since she hasn't been doing too well lately, I'm so happy that I sent some cheer her way cause she's a very special lady in my book! And I Love Lucy, seriously! I'm certainly not the entertainer she was but I'm so happy to be her runner-up!! LOL Thank you so much, Grams. I'll proudly display this on my sidebar!

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Well it looks like Grams either felt sorry for me or got tired of looking at my pouty face because she gave me another award!! LOL Actually she had already given it to me, I just didn't see it before!! Thank you so much Grams!! I already have this one on my sidebar so I'll add your name with Lib's. I am honored that I am one of the people who make your day!

An Award!!

2008-01-26T09:44:00.000-08:00

I received this award today from Rhonda at FarmHouse Style. Now most of you know me by now and you have to know there's a funny story here!! Let me explain:

I woke up (not really awake yet) this morning (well, almost afternoon) and made coffee, stumbled to my computer, still half asleep, and checked my email. There was a comment from Rhonda telling me that she had a little something for me at her blog and to stop by. So I go (stumbling) over there to see, still in my morning stupor and what's the first thing I see?? A big plate of food!! Meatloaf!! What I thought was, "Oh she has taken a picture of her wonderful meal and wanted to tempt me with it!" You may remember my post about my country supper and how I was craving me some meatloaf?? Well, she had found a new recipe that she shared and I have to try!

Then I read on down her post and realized she was giving me an award instead of meatloaf!! Ok, so finally I get it! I was thrilled to get this award. Then I started to wonder why Rhonda thought I had integrity! You know how sometimes when you stare at a word a long time it looks odd to you and you start to wonder if you really know what it means? Well, maybe YOU don't but I tend to be a little anal sometimes! I've always had a fairly good vocabulary even though I don't use these big words much, being a Hillbilly and all. Anyway I decided to look this word up and see exactly what the definition was.

The first definition was:
1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values
Ok, I'm pretty firm about my morals...artistic..I'm not so sure.

Next was:
2 : an unimpaired condition
I'd say that definitely leaves me out! I am SO impaired, especially in the morning. (Now that I look at the word impaired I wonder exactly what it means! hummm)

Then:
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided
I'm not sure...depends on what time of day it is! :)

Finally:
synonyms see honesty
Now that I can relate to! Even though I have in the past told some whopping stories, I now try to always be honest. Besides, I was being honest when I confessed to you that I wasn't always honest!! See how much that word applies to me! And..see how strange that word honest looks after you look at it a long time? I have to stop this!! It's driving me nuts!

I want to thank you, Rhonda, for giving me this award and I'm so sorry for analizing it to death! (HONESTLY, I needed something to blog about today!) I really do appreciate it and am humbled that you think I have integrity! I so want to have it!!

If you haven't visited Rhonda, you must! She is a wonderful, good ole, country girl! I found her one day on somebody's blog (can't remember), and her blog name, FarmHouse Style, caught my eye. I found we had a lot in common, namely old farmhouses,children and now meatloaf!! She also drives a truck named Ole Bessie that makes me green with envy!! Go on over and say "Howdy". You'll be so happy you did!!

I know so many ladies in Blogland who have integrity and the more I get to know you all the more I see your good qualities. I had the pleasure last night of talking to Betty, from Betty's This and That, personally on the phone. We had a great conversation and got to know each other a little better. She is genuine, real! I like that. And such a sweet, soft voice too! A true southern lady! AND she has integrity!! I want to pass this award on to her! Please take time to visit Betty and get to know her and you'll see what I mean!

Tag..I'm IT

2008-01-25T01:11:00.000-08:00

I have been tagged again by Brandy. This one is different. It is sets of 4 things I know you're just dying to know about me. I gave you a little intermission so you should be ready for another tag game by now after the hat fashion show. The only thing these tags prove to me is what a very boring person I am!! So here's another very boring list for you:

4 jobs I have had:
1. Hair dresser
2. Went to work for the government at age 19..FCC secretary
3. Typist for Geico..typed policies and endorsements
4. Sewing job with Buster Brown..not the little Dutch boy with the bobbed hair but the company! (Yuck and double Yuck!)

4 movies watched over and over:
1. Gone With the Wind
2. The Color Purple
3. John Q
4. Baby Boom

4 places I have lived:
1. Clinchport, VA (Big town of about 200 people)
2. Washington, DC
3. Rockville, MD
4. Back to VA (Another small town of less than 2500 people)

4 shows I watch:
1. Lifetime movies
2. Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
3. Reba reruns
4. Golden Girls reruns

Are you yawning yet? If you're still awake, keep going!

4 places I have been:
1. Florida
2. Bahamas
3. Peru, Vermont (where Baby Boom was filmed)
3. Old Orchard Beach, Maine

4 people who email me regularly:
1. Betty.
2. Brandy
3. Jennifer
4. Lib

4 favorite things to eat: (Only 4??)
1. Soupbeans
2. Cornbread
3. Fried cabbage
4. Biscuits and Gravy

I know, I know...even the foods I love are boring to most people, but I get excited over soupbeans and cornbread!

4 places I would rather be:
1. There's no place like home...
2. But if I have to be away from home..Lancaster, PA
3. Home
4. Home

4 things I look forward to this year:
1. Finishing our stairway
2. Taking a very short vacation!
3. Spending time with the grandbabies and my family
4. Getting to know my Bloggy Friends better

4 people to tag:
1. Betty
2. Lib
3. Brenda
4. Peggy

Please humor me girls and play along! Betty, don't make me break out my "Magic Mirror"!!

Hats, hats, hats.....

2008-01-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I was tagged again for another MeMe but I thought I'd give you all a break today and do that one tomorrow. I know you're probably tired of hearing about ME!! So today is a little fun post.

After eating at Cracker Barrel (Brenda's favorite place) the other night with Jenny and her family, Claire and I shopped! We found lots of hats so I tried one on. She laughed at me and wanted to take my picture because I looked so funny.

That one really helps to accent my double chin, don't you think?? How scary that is! Then I tried this one:

I don't think I'm going to join the red hat society for obvious reasons!! The fun continued with this hat:

This hat just wasn't right for Claire. She didn't like this little straw number with the pink foof! She's more of a glam girl preferring the glitz and glitter! (Say that sentence 3 times real fast! :)

Now that's a cowgirl!! When she was about 3 years old she told me she wanted to be a cowgirl when she grew up and showed me how she would twirl her lasso above her head. Then she said, "Granny, you can be a cowgirl when you grow up too!" How cute is that?? Don't laugh. I might just be a cowgirl when I grow up!!

What about this one? Too cute!!

Then we found this strange little hairpiece and had to get a picture of it too:

Claire and I really do have some silly, fun times together. Making memories! I told you before she will always play my silly games! Kian and Collin don't really get into this kind of fun much, even though I think they would have looked cute in these hats too! I hope Josie will like silly games when she gets older!!

I hope you enjoyed our little hat fashion show. Maybe next time we will model bikinis!!

National Pie Day 2008

2008-01-23T11:59:00.000-08:00

In honor of January 23 being National Pie Day, a group of bloggers, inspired by Tammy at The Pink Magnolia, decided to share some pie recipes. I found this one over at Tina's place, Cherry Hill Cottage. I have made it twice now and it is always a big hit. It tastes so yummy and it's easy...and I'm all about easy!! Sorry I don't have a picture..maybe next time when I make it I'll post one.

Crescent Roll Apple Pie

Bake @ 350 - 45 minutes...
1 package Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
1 granny smith apple
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup Mountain Dew
Spray 8x8 dish with Pam. Separate Crescent Rolls, stretch out to make larger. Peel, core and cut apple into 8 pieces. Divide apple into 8 pieces. Divide apple slices onto crescents, roll up into crescents. Shape and place in dish. Mix mixture of butter, sugar, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla. Spoon onto top of crescents. Pour Mountain Dew all around rolls. Do not pour directly on tops...Bake.

You'll find many more great recipes here.

Tagged...Again!

2008-01-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

I have been tagged by my buddy Karen H. to do a MeMe of 15 reasons why it's great to be me! This MeMe began with Jan at Bold &Free because she didn't want to dwell on the negative things in her life that day, but to focus on the positive! A great lesson for us all! If you're tired of reading all about me by this time, feel free to click on the little x at the top right hand corner!! :) BUT, if you are truly my Bloggy Friends like it says on my list in the sidebar here, you'll suffer through this list and read them anyway!! :)

1. It's great to be me because I am married to a good man who is my best friend.

2. It's great to be me because I have 2 wonderful children who are grown and doing well for themselves.

3. It's great to be me because my 2 wonderful children have given me 4 wonderful grandchildren, 2 boys, 2 girls.

4. It's great to be me because all of the above 3 on this list love me, light up my life and keep me feeling young.

5. It's great to be me because Love lifted me.

6. It's great to be me because I finally have the old house I have wanted since I was very young.

7. It's great to be me because I am surrounded by beautiful mountains.

8. It's great to be me because I'm not working right now and I can be a "homebody"!

9. It's great to be me because I have found so many new friends here in Blogland.

10. It's great to be me because I know if I need someone to pray I can count on these friends.

11. It's great to be me because I live in a great country where I still have freedom! GOD BLESS AMERICA!

12. It's great to be me because I live in a small town where people know each other and speak when you pass them on the street.

13. It's great to be me because I have drawings on my refrigerator that were done by my grandchildren. I have a friend who has no children and really never wanted any. But she looks at my refrigerator which is loaded with photos and drawings and says that is one thing she feels she has missed by not having children!! I also have what I call my "treasure box" where I keep the older drawings, little notes from the kids, valentines and special cards. I am so blessed!

14. It's great to be me because I've always been surrounded by music.

15. It's great to be me because I have been blessed enough to list 15 reasons why it's great to be me!!

If you have read (suffered through) my list of 15 and would like to play along, consider yourself tagged!!

I've been tagged...several days ago....

2008-01-22T01:30:00.000-08:00

Hello again!! I'm back, at least for a while. Hopefully things have settled down with me. I have missed all of you and have tried to visit each one briefly to catch up. Thank you for all the baby love, well wishes and prayers.

Several days ago, Lib tagged me for a meme of 7 random or weird things about me! Since you already know that 7 doesn't even begin to cover weirdness about me, maybe we'll do random!! LOL Anyway, here goes:

1. Playing tag was my favorite game as a child!! Thanks, Lib, for inviting me to play again!

2. I was born over 60 years ago at my aunt's house. I was the last of 6 children and my mother had the first 5 children at home. She was close to 40 when she was pregnant with me and her doctor insisted that she at least get closer to the hospital since she refused to go into the hospital! So she went to my aunt's house and gave birth to me there. My Aunt Claudie gave me my beautiful name, Hope.

3. My Uncle Jim fed me gravy when I was 2 days old!! Could that be why I have a weight problem today??

4. I have a brown birthmark on the inside of my arm near the elbow which looks like a sweet potato. My mother always said it was because she craved sweet potatoes the whole 9 months she was pregnant with me.

5. At the ripe old age of five, I fell in love with a man in his 20's. Obviously that didn't work out, but I never forgot him! :)

6. I grew up wanting to live in the city...anywhere but these mountains. Now I don't want to be anywhere else. They are my haven and security.

7. I have been a Child of the King for over 30 years. His Royal Blood flows through my veins and He loves me unconditionally!

I think now I'm suppose to tag 7 other people. Most of you have already been tagged for this meme so I have tried to pick some of the newer bloggers:

Jennifer at dust bunny hostage, Brandy at Mommy's Quiet Spot, Mary at Country Girl at the Beach, Rachel at A Romantic Porch , Denise at Denise Truesdale's Blog , Sandra at Nora Lee's Nook, and Karla at Ramblin' Roads.

Rules: Link back to the person who tagged you. List 7 weird or random things about yourself. Tag 7 people and link to them.

TAG, GIRLS, YOU'RE IT!!!

All my grandbabies...

2008-01-18T23:24:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know you're probably glad by now that I don't have home movies to show you but I do have one more picture. Jenny (aka GranSissy) took this one for me. I've had company and haven't been over to see the baby again or take any more pictures. I just had to show you all my beautiful grandbabies together.

From left to right: Kian, Claire holding Baby Josie, and Collin, my teenager! They are all still my "grandbabies" to me no matter how old they get!!

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I have had company for several days so I just jump on here when I get a minute to say hello. I'll be back soon...my usual gabby self! I miss you all and will have so much catching up to do!!

Then there were four...

2008-01-16T07:11:00.000-08:00

I am still not totally recouped from all the excitement!! I use to be such a night owl and had no problem staying up all night. Now it just seems to wipe me out. Besides that, it had been a long time since I had pulled an all-nighter!! I did manage to visit most of your blogs a little last night, then back to bed! I'm sure you will agree with me though that Josie was well worth the loss of sleep.

My daughter, Jenny, left a comment yesterday asking me to tell you that she is a proud GranSissy!! Kian gave her that name when he was little. Willie always called her Sis growing up so she wanted Kian to just call her Sissy instead of Aunt Jenny. He was always getting confused and would start to call her Granny, then would say Sissy right after so it became GranSissy!! It stuck and she loves the name. Here's GranSissy, my firstborn, holding her long awaited niece:

There is nothing more precious to a mother's eyes than seeing her own children holding their children. Here is my baby holding his baby:

I talked to Kian on the phone yesterday and he says his baby sister is so cute and he thinks she's a keeper!! Collin and Claire can't wait to meet their new cousin.

And so my legacy lives on! Two wonderful children that have made me so proud and now four very precious grandchildren. More pictures to come as soon as I get everybody together.

Introducing......

2008-01-15T06:13:00.000-08:00

Miss Josie Elizabeth, born January 15 at 3:57 AM. She weighed 7 lbs. 10oz. Mommy, Daddy and baby are all doing well. Granny is very tired and going to bed now. See you all tomorrow sometime!

Ben

2008-01-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

This is Ben......

He's the love of Tobi's life.

Ben is the reason she endures her grooming..the bath, haircut, toenail clipping and other unmentionable things that we won't go into here....and even the cutesy little bows that she sometimes allows the groomer to put on her ears, it's all for the love of Ben!

Unfortunately for Tobi, Ben is a "man about town" and usually won't give her the time of day. You know the type. He goes traipsing about town from one end to the other, usually looking straight ahead. Everybody in town knows Ben and knows his name and it's not so much that Ben is friendly with everybody, he is actually kind of aloof. If you call him by name he will stop and look at you for a minute, then go on his merry way without so much as a "howdy-do", leaving you with the impression that he doesn't have time for you or can't be bothered.

Poor Tobi. She gets so fiesty, in spite of her almost 14 years, when she see's Ben on the street. Even though Ben is not a bad looking speciman, he's no spring chicken either, so to speak. With every chance meeting Tobi starts prancing along and shaking her beautiful, long, blond, tail from side to side...looking at him longingly with those big brown eyes. The other day Tobi and I were taking our walk out the street and we met Ben walking down the other side. He just kept walking on, refusing to look in her direction. She started to run from me to get to Ben but I held tightly to her leash. She then began a whining sound almost like crying. I really think she had tears in her eyes. Then she started a low, woofing bark to try and get his attention, but Ben kept right on going down the street, completely ignoring her.

My heart breaks for Tobi when I have to watch her go through this humiliation. She received a little bit of encouragement a few days ago when DH took her for her walk. Ben's "daddy" drove by them with Ben perched in the passenger's seat. He stopped the car and said, "Ben says, 'Hello', and Ben goes, "Woof, Woof!!" Tobi was such a happy girl for a little while.

I just know that someday soon Ben will realize what a wonderful old girl Tobi is and it will be too late for him. She will become so weary with vying for his affections that she will decide she doesn't need him at all. Then when she sees him on the street again, she will turn that beautiful, blond tail in his direction and say, "Talk to the butt, Ben. Talk to the Butt!"

Isaiah 40:31, KJV

2008-01-13T01:40:00.000-08:00

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

De-lurking Success!!

2008-01-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

I just have to tell you what a huge success my de-lurking post was. It actually became a party with a big turn out!! I think it was partly due to the fact that some people got scared. It might have been because of my magic mirror! Here's the comment Betty made, and just keep in mind that she's a friend and a regular here:

After reading your post I'm afraid to not leave a comment on everyone's blog that I visit. They might track me down like you did these three people. Leaves me wondering how you know they've been lurking. I'm scared!!

Just imagine, if I scared Betty who already knew me, the lurkers must have really been shaking in their boots and constantly looking over their shoulders to see if I was there!!

Remember when I said that when I looked in my magic mirror I could see Mary and Kaycie? It wasn't really magic! I actually knew for a fact that they had been lurking and not commenting!! When they were visiting me at Christmas I told Mary that she had better start leaving a comment or she would see herself on my blog. If you'll look here you'll see that it wasn't an idle threat! You'll also notice that I referred to her as one of my "oldest" friends!! :) I hate to keep wording it that way but we do go waayyy back, and let's face it, we are getting older! We've been through the good times and the bad times together. We also had some great adventures too. Our "then" husbands called us Lucy and Ethel. I'm sure you know there are many, many stories behind those nicknames!

Knowing my old (there's that word again) friend like I do, I can tell you she always was one to do things in a bold way. Just step right out there and do it with a "devil may care" attitude even if you don't have a clue what you're doing. So, while she STILL hasn't figured out how to leave me a comment, she just jumped right out there and started her own blog yesterday!! You will find Mary at Country Girl at the Beach. Please take some time to visit her and make her feel welcome in Blogland. You'll be so glad you did. She has a way of growing on people, ya know? Oh, and don't forget to tell her Hopie sent you!

Also on de-lurking day I met some new friends. How exciting is that?? First there were 3 girls who followed each other to my blog. They had been friends when they were younger and were reunited after 20 years through blogging! Rachel at A Romantic Porch, who has only had a blog for a short time. She lives in an old house built in 1904 so I knew right away I was gonna like this girl!! Then came her friend Denise at Denise Truesdales Blog, another lovely young lady, then their other friend Karla at Ramblin' Roads, another sweet girl. I know you will enjoy visiting these girls when you get a chance and please leave them a comment.

Then came a comment from Sandra at Nora Lee's Nook, named for her grandmother, Nora Lee, a woman with much history! I felt an instant connection to Sandra when I visited her blog and enjoyed reading every word and looking at pictures of all her beautiful, vintage things. Drop in on her sometime and you'll see what I mean. And again, tell her Hope sent you!

Sandra Evertson stopped by with a comment too! When I visited her blog I found out she has contributed to Romantic Homes Magazine, has her own line of rubber stamps and is the author of several books among other things! How impressive is that? See for yourself when you visit her blog.

Next new commentor was Katherine at Yellow Rose Arbor. Katherine is a beautiful, genteel southern lady who was drawn to my country supper! There's just something about fried green tomatoes that seems to bring the southern gals right out of hiding!! Check out her lovely blog when you get a chance and tell her Hope......well, you know the drill by now! LOL

Last but not least, I had an anonymous comment from Another Hope, who came out to say "Hi", since we share the name Hope. So, Another Hope, I hope you will come back again and leave me a comment Please don't go back into the shadows and hide. And if you don't already have your own blog, maybe you will venture out just like Mary and start one. I can promise you won't be sorry you did.

Thank you to all my new friends for joining in the fun on De-lurking Week and to all my old friends (sorry for that word again, girls) who take the time each day to leave me a comment. I appreciate each and every one!

Country Supper

2008-01-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

Not long ago Lib was talking about how she was going to cook up all sorts of good food and freeze it, then when she didn't have time to cook a big meal she could just take something out and thaw it for supper. Good idea, huh?

I have to point out here that in mine and Lib's neck of the wood, we have breakfast, dinner and supper. Up north they have breakfast, lunch and dinner. When I lived up north I always thought their dinner looked more like our lunch!! They ate a lot lighter than we do down here in the hills!!

One of the foods Lib was preparing to freeze was meatloaf. Then I kept hearing Karen talk about making her famous buttermilk cornbread and I would be drooling. Almost daily I visit Sandi over at the Whistlestop Cafe Cooking blog and what do I see staring me in the face every day when I go there? Check it out...fried green tomatoes...right there on her header!!

What's a hillbilly girl, with thoughts of all this good country cookin' dancing around in her head, going to do? As a general rule I don't like to cook, but sometimes there is only one place to get good foods like these girls made and that's to cook it yourself!!

Last night I could stand it no longer and had to have meatloaf so I made one and stuck it in the oven to bake. You know, don't you, that if you have meatloaf you have to have mashed potatoes (mashed taters) to go with that and I do make some pretty good mashed taters if I do say so myself! :)

It just so happened that this past summer we grew some tomatoes right here in our own back yard. We had to water them faithfully every day because we had no rain here but we had a good crop right up until cool weather was coming. I decided rather than let the frost get the green ones I would try putting some of them in the freezer. I had never tried this method before or any method for that matter but I remember my mother canning green tomatoes. She would open a can and fry them up when we had snow on the ground and it tasted like summertime heaven! Even though I knew the canning was a tried and true method I wasn't equipped for it so I put mine in the freezer.

What could possibly go any better with meatloaf and mashed potatoes than fried green tomatoes? So I took some out of the freezer and fried them up:

Not bad at all. Not exactly the same as fresh ones but close. If you know anything at all about country cookin' then you know that no meal is complete without a pone of cornbread. So I dragged out my cast iron skillet, greased it up and made some cornbread!

Up north they say the presentation of food is the most important thing. Down here in the country, we say it's the taste. Since you only have my bad photography to go by and I'm not big on presentation, you'll just have to take my word that it was good. Can't you just feel your arteries clogging as you look at the picture??

National Delurking Week

2008-01-10T22:52:00.000-08:00

Pea passed the word along that Jan. 7-13 is National Delurking Week. I don't know about the rest of you but I was once a lurker( wasn't I Pea?? :) It doesn't make you a bad person or anything, just a person who is shy about commenting. It took me a while to come out of hiding and leave a comment but, do you know what I found out? These ladies were so nice and seemed so genuinly glad that I left them a comment! I don't know if I expected them to say, "You git off my land and don't you ever come back", or seek their dog on me or something! Well they didn't and they won't. Neither will I. So if you are visiting my little blog today please take the time to let me know you're here and at least say hello in a comment.

I have three lurkers that I know of and I'll take this opportunity to say hello to them: "Hello" to Jennifer in Florida and Mary and Kaycie in New Jersey!! Love you all and wish you would leave me a comment sometime!! I feel like the Romper Room lady, remember her? With her magic mirror in hand, "I see Mary in New Jersey, Jennifer in Florida...." lol

If you'll go over and see Pea, she has several of these little caption you can choose from to use on your blog.

Join the Club

2008-01-10T18:02:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this is not exactly an award. Well I think it started out as an award and morphed into a club or group. It is the Blogaholics Anonymous Award given to me by Grams. Now I really don't know what gave Grams the idea that I needed this. I mean, just because I have to check my comments first thing in the morning before my coffee has dripped and I still have those night cobwebs in my brain, and just because my laundry is piled up and my house is a wreck, and there is no contact with friends or family unless they blog or read my blog...could this really mean I need help? Is there a 12-step program for this addiction?? Well, Grams, here is my statement: Hello, my name is Hope and I'm a BLOGAHOLIC!!

I know there are several if not all on my sidebar that need to join this club. The award originated from Melanie at Livin' With Me. She has a handy code to copy and paste on your blog. Then just leave her a comment and she will add your name to the Blogaholics Blogroll. I pass this to Lib, Karen H., Brenda, Brandy, Penny, Peggy and Pea.

Thank you, Grams for all the fun you pass along!

One more award!

2008-01-09T20:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, one more time!! Grams has given me this other wonderful award. She says I inspire her!! I'm overwhelmed! Thank you so much Grams. You, my friend, are the inspiration!

I'm inspired by so many wonderful women on these blogs. You know who you are. I visit you every day to be uplifted in body and soul. You faithfully come here to comment and encourage me and you'll probably never know in this life what this has done for me. I thank you all for that.

Sometimes, though, you have one specific person on your heart that you feel might need uplifting. I would like to pass this award along to Karen H., my sweet weather girl. Karen is so kind and encouraging to all and is truly an inspiration.

Thanks again to Brandy, Lib and Grams for my awards. I treasure them all.

A New Blog Award

2008-01-09T17:47:00.000-08:00

I got another award!! It seems Lib is trying to help get me out of the embarassing situation I got myself in when some of my little skeletons came flying out of the closet!! It's all in fun, folks!! I don't really have skeletons!! :)

Seriously though, this blog award means so much, especially coming from Lib because I feel the same way about her. Thanks so much, Lib for coming to my rescue (wink) and for thinking of me.

New blog award!

2008-01-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

I received a new, crazy..er..I mean sweet.. blog award from my crazy..er..I mean sweet.. little niece, Brandy!! Seriously I think it is so cute and I'm so glad she thinks of me in this way...er...I think! LOL

Anyway, there's a funny story behind this award. You already knew there was a story coming, right?? You know me too well!! :)

After reading my post about "poor ole Darty", Lib and I were chatting via email. She was still laughing about the big lie..er..I mean STORY..I told. We had discussed before about how we'd like to meet and go junkin together. Lib said it probably wouldn't do for us to get together and go junkin cause we would probably get kicked out of the stores, meaning because we would be laughing so hard! I made the comment to her that I was also given to peeing my pants if I got tickled and laughed too hard. Then later I get this comment from Brandy telling me to come to her blog and pick up a "special" award she has for me. Do you see a pattern forming here?? LOL

I think I'm starting to get a bad reputation. But now that the truth is out there in the universe I can't call it back. So now you know that I tell lies and I pee my pants. But that's as far as I'm going with this. No more of my dark secrets will I put out there again....at least for now. Well..maybe next week in another post! What can I say...I'm just an open book!! :)

Thank you, Brandy, for this special (and I use the term loosely!) award and the laughs too.

Tobi and the mountain

2008-01-09T09:02:00.000-08:00

Well, folks, I finally got out of the house and away from the computer yesterday to visit family in TN. It was a beautiful sunny day here too, perfect for a drive. I took my handy, dandy little camera with intentions of giving you another tour. The problem was, we were driving into the sun the whole time and on the interstate most of that time so I either got a glare from the sun on everything or just a blur as I tried to take pictures of things in passing. I do want to show you a couple of attempted pictures of Chimney Top Mountain. My mother grew up right smack dab on the top of this mountain in a log cabin. My uncle took us up there once years ago when I was just a kid. The old cabin was still standing but I cried when I saw that what was once my mother's home was being used as a barn to hang tobacco in.

I waited until a little cloud covered the sun for a minute and snapped this picture:

As you can see, what I mostly got was the electric wires!! You can see the tall, smoky looking mountain that comes to a peak. Then after we got off the interstate to a country road I took this one:

This time I got mostly the trees in the foreground. Since this mountain can be seen almost from the time we cross the state line and from most areas in East TN
you would think I could get one good view of it. Oh well, maybe next trip.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This morning I had to venture out again to take my dog, Tobi, for her grooming. I've mentioned to you before that I have a dog but you haven't seen pictures of her yet. There is a reason for this...Tobi is very camera shy! Actually, it's more than that. She has camera FEAR! If she even sees the camera in my hand she runs to the bedroom and hides! Tobi is a little Lhasa Apsa who came to live with us 2 years ago. She had been an outside dog and because this breed grows hair all the way down to the ground, she stayed a matted mess! With Tobi and me it was love at first sight. I could always appreciate animals from a distance, but I actually have a fear of them up close and personal. But it was different with her. Tobi will be 14 this year and she's still very spry for an old woman especially when she gets to go for her walk to the park! She is a somewhat high maintenance old girl, with the hair, allergies, skin problems, but we love her and she's worth it all to us. Since she was all clean and had a new haircut, I wanted to try and sneak a picture to show you. I can't let her see the camera or she'll run away and I can't use the flash because I won't see her the rest of the day if I do, but I managed to get a decent picture:

She is such a sweetie and has big brown eyes that will melt your heart! As soon as I snapped the first picture and tried to take another, here's what I got:

Then she ran away to the bedroom!! I know how she feels. I don't like having my picture taken much either, even when I have a new hairdo!!

Darty Rhoten

2008-01-07T12:13:00.000-08:00

This chair has been in my family for as long as I can remember. Actually, at one time there were about 4 of these old ladder-back chairs. I can't tell you what happened to the other three but this one was my Daddy's favorite chair to sit in on the porch. Over the years, usually every spring, my mother painted it many different colors. The last color was this green. You can see where the paint has worn off over the years. Since you know me pretty well by now, you know there's a story behind this chair besides the fact that it was Daddy's Favorite.

My oldest brother got married when I was somewhere around 2 years old. By the time I turned 3, he and his wife had a son named Ronnie. With only 3 years between us Ronnie and I grew up almost like brother and sister. We were the best of friends and each other's only playmates. Every day we played together and invented games to keep us occupied. My brother at that time worked for the State, working on roads and such, hard work. We heard him talk a lot about two friends of his that he worked with named Guy and Lubert. I had a tricycle and Ronnie had a little pedal car so we would pretend to be Guy and Lubert and jump in our vehicles to go to work for the State. Part of our job description was raking leaves, a job that was actually assigned to me by my mother not the State!! But my inventive mind and Tom Sawyer cleverness, incorporated this into our job for the State where I could get help from Guy to rake the leaves.

One day while we were in the yard "working for the State", an old man came walking down the road with an old grain sack on his back. At this time in my life we lived right beside the main road before the "holler" days. This wasn't the first time I had seen him and had heard my parents many times say, "There goes poor ole Darty up the road!" This man's name was Darty Rhoten, always referred to by Mommy and Daddy as "poor ole Darty". All at once my mind kicked into gear and I grabbed Ronnie and dragged him around the house and made him hunker down beside me. You can imagine his surprise at being snatched up and made to hide so suddenly. Well, being the imaginative child that I was and given to story telling even at a young age, and having a mind that worked in mysterious ways sometimes, I conjured up a story!!

"Do you know what I found out?" I asked in a whisper, "You see that sack Darty carries on his back? Well, I found out that he goes up and down the road stealing little children and putting them in that sack. So from now on we have to hide when we see him coming so he won't get us!" His eyes got big as saucers and he began to shake and tremble in fear, because after all, WE were children so WE were in danger! Questions started to flow from his trembling lips like, "What does he do with the children...where does he take them?" The more questions he asked, the more I conjured, telling him that Darty probably takes these children on up the road and dumps them somewhere to empty his sack so he can come back and get more children! It never occured to me then that I was just flat out telling a bare-faced lie!! But oh, I was good! So good in fact that somewhere during this conversation I started to believe my own story! I can't even blame television for this (warped) imaginative mind I had because we had no tv and only listened to the radio on Saturday night to hear the Grand Ole Opry. I don't remember anybody on there ever singing about an old man with a sack who stole little children!! It all came from my own strange, little mind and I became so scared of Darty that I would run inside the house and hide when he walked by.

Then one day while "Guy and Lubert" were at work in the yard, we saw HIM coming and started to flee into the house. On the front porch we were met by my mother who told me to run out and stop Darty. She had something she needed him to do. I was in shock! Had my mother lost her mind, sending me out there to stop a man who would take her daughter and grandson and put them in his sack and take them off to God knows where?? Didn't she know? So I just froze there in my tracks, not saying a word, knowing my feet wouldn't carry me back to the yard to stop this man. My mother was frustrated with me but didn't have time to argue. Darty was walking on out of sight so she ran herself to holler at him. Ronnie and I stayed on the porch in utter disbelief, trembling. My mother was actually bringing this man, this kidnapper, onto our porch and we could see for ourselves, up close, his sack was full!!

We stayed to watch what happened next...our curiosity outweighing our fear. And besides, my mother was there and surely she would let him get us! She pointed to the old ladder-back chairs and told Darty that the bottoms were wearing out and breaking and she needed new bottoms put in them. Darty was a man of few words and immediately lowered the big sack from his back to the porch. He slowly opened it up to reveal....STRIPS OF BARK!! Ronnie and I breathed a collective sigh of relief! There were no little children in there! We watched in amazement as he removed the old chair bottoms, then taking the strips of bark from the sack began to weave them in and out almost as if by magic. As our fear dissapated and our awe began to grow, we moved in closer to watch the nimble fingers of this great craftsman at work. He didn't talk, he just worked until every chair had a new bottom. We were seeing this man in a whole new light as he left our porch that day, once again with the familar, no longer mysterious sack on his back continuing on up the road to help others.

I found out after I grew up that Darty had once been a homeless man who had been taken in by some distant relatives who lived in our little town. He was homeless but not a "freeloader". He went all over doing woodworking or chair bottoming to earn a little money to pay his keep. Even when we moved to the holler, I swung on wooden gates that had been built by him. I'm sure there are samples of his work still evident in that area. He built things to last. Just like the chair bottoms. Over 50 years have gone by but you can see from this picture the lasting handiwork of Darty Rhoten.

new blogger

2008-01-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

We have a new friend in Blogland. Her name is Brandy and her blog is called Mommy's Quiet Spot. Brandy is my great niece-in-law!! How's that for a mouthful? She is married to my great nephew, Daniel. They have 3 sweet little boys who are my great, great nephews!! (Talk about feeling old!) I refer to the boys as Huey, Dewey and Louie from the Donald Duck cartoons...remember them? They visited me during the holidays and we were discussing my blog. Brandy didn't even know what a blog was but had been on My Space. I teased her and told her she needed a "grown-up blog"!! I think she took me seriously!!
Since we were all new bloggers at one time (not that long ago for me), and couldn't wait to get a comment, I'd like to ask all of you to visit Brandy and make her feel welcome. She has some exciting news on her last post too!

Tell her Aunt Hopie sent you!!

I'll be back later with my daily post. I'm behind today, as usual!

2008-01-06T19:14:00.000-08:00

I just received a new blogging award from my dear friend, Grams!! Most of you already know her but if you don't already you really need to visit her blog. Most of you also know how I feel about her from my post yesterday. The originator of this award had this to say about the reason behind her creation: "So here's to all the blogs that you've discovered that you can't possibly live without. They make you laugh, cry, think and feel connected every time you read a post. They give you a thrill as you see them loading into your browser and you get an equally satisfying thrill when you see that they have commented on your blog."

That about says it all. Grams, your blog is one of those places for me where I go to get my daily dose of sunshine, but since you already have the award, just know that I would have given it to you!! Thank you so very much for thinking of me and for always being so kind and uplifting.

I'm going to pass this award along to all my friends whose daily blogs have become such a habit for me that I have to have MY DAILY DOSE: Lib, Karen H., Betty, Peggy, Brenda, Rhonda, Karen, Brandy, Pea, Tammy. I know some of you have already received the award but that's okay. I still want you to know that I too think you deserve it!

THANKS AGAIN, GRAMS

Looking upward

2008-01-06T10:05:00.000-08:00

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help" Ps 121:1

This blogging thing..

2008-01-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Last night Jenny and I went to the surprise baby shower for Angie. I couldn't mention it before because it was a surprise and she might have been reading my blog. I want to share that with you later but for now I want to share some of the conversation I had with Jenny on the way there and back in the car.

I have no pictures today...just words. As most of you know I'm full of words!! I think it's due to the fact that I was so shy growing up, afraid to speak...and actually brought up believing that "children are to be seen, not heard". As I got older I came out of that silence and talked to anybody who would listen!! Age is a funny thing, well not funny ha ha, but a strange thing I guess. Strange in that I can look back on my life and see myself at different stages, how I felt then and some of the trying times I've been through, but how it has all made me what I am today. I spent so much of my life, from early childhood on into my adult years, wanting to be somebody I was not or wanting to be like somebody else. I was never happy with ME! This is not going to be one of those whiny posts so you can keep reading! :)

Mine and Jenny's conversation had to do with blogging and how it has been good for me to put my feelings down in writing (type). I spent so many years bottling up my emotions and even got to the point where my heart was getting hardened, ceasing to feel. There were times when my heart felt like it was going to explode but I couldn't shed a tear. That is a scary feeling. I will spare you the 60 years worth of dealing with my emotional roller coaster.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that this is where you, my Bloggy Friends, come in. I had tried at times to keep a personal journal to express my feelings but that's like talking to yourself!! I needed feedback!! I needed to know that somebody understood and would share that understanding with me! When I started this little blog, it was mostly to put down my feelings and share my new-found adventures with my old house, but it has become so much more.

I met Peggy way back before I started my own blog. I felt a kinship with her from the get go. She made me smile when she dressed up the goats for Christmas. She warmed my heart with the way she genuinely cared for other people. I loved that she shared her family fun times too.

Then I found a link on Peggy's sidebar which caught my eye. That's how I met Lib! What a sweet, down-to-earth person she is and always has a kind word for everybody! Lib is a private kind of person who lives in her own little Paradise. Since I've met her we have shared many emails and found that we have so much in common. I still say there is a family connection somewhere! :) I just know we're going to meet face to face sometime soon.

Through Lib's blog I met my dear little weather girl, Karen H.! She starts each day with a weather report that I tease her about. We also fight over who gets more coffee at Lib's house!! LOL I talked to Karen on the phone one night while her hubby was away on a trip. She is as REAL in person as she is on her blog. What you see is what you get with Karen!

Ms. Pea is my Canadian friend who feels like she's right next door. Pea, I was even there lurking when you got your tattoo and you didn't even know. I was shy then about commenting.
She is so friendly to all and so cute too. She reminds me of one of those big-eyed children in the artwork from the 60's.

I don't remember how I got to Brenda's blog but I'm so glad I found her! She wants to be my neighbor in VA and I so want her to be. We share a lot of that same emotional roller coaster! She makes me laugh and cry, sometimes at once. Just last night I cried with her when she announced that her son, Rian in Quatar, had made Senior Airman, and I remembered my pride in my own son in uniform.

The night I found Karen, she had just lost her Daddy and her heart was aching. I didn't even know this girl yet but I cried when I read her sweet words about him, prayed for the Lord to comfort her and rejoiced when she said that he had gone to be with his Savior.

Then there's Grams, who is really Carolyn, but will forever be Grams to me. She is the picture I always get in my mind of the perfect grandmother. Such a sweet, wonderful lady, and I'm always uplifted when I visit her.

There's Rhonda who is busy raising a beautiful little son and has such a childlike faith which we all need. She is a new friend but I know she is a keeper!

Tammy is also a new friend who invited me to view her new, more private blog. I'm just getting to know her but I like what I know already!

I'm just getting to know Sandi from Whistlestop Cafe even though I've been to her sight lurking for a long time too. All that food and especially the fried green tomatoes makes my mouth water!! I was drawn there because one of my favorite books and movies is Fried Green Tomatoes!! Sandi has a great sense of humor too!

I know that down the blogging road I will meet many more wonderful people and I look forward to that but I just wanted to say, "THANK YOU" to each of you who have welcomed me. It is amazing how small the world suddenly feels when you have friends from all over praying with you, praying for you, sharing your heartaches and your burdens. Always there with a kind word to help you along life's way, making you smile or laugh out loud at times. Very important!

Last but certainly not least, THANK YOU, my beautiful daughter for loving me and encouraging my blogging endeavor. I love you!

Collections, collections...

2008-01-04T10:24:00.000-08:00

Let's see...I think I met Tiff @ Folded Gingham about 30 years ago...no not really, but at least a year ago...we'll say that since I suffer from CRS!! I don't remember what route I took to find her either but I can tell you that I fell in love with her blog immediately and loved her style. The more I read and the more pictures she shared, the more I saw that we had so much of the same tastes in our collections. One in particular caught my eye. She had a lot of old red handled utensils which she had displayed in an old juicer and had them on an old hoosier cabinet. I had a bunch of the utensils and had wanted to figure out a cute way to display them together. I emailed Tiff and commented on how neat that was and if she didn't mind I wanted to copy her idea!! If you go here and enlarge the picture of the hoosier you will see it. Being the sweet girl that she is, she didn't mind at all!! :)

Then one day she had a giveaway on her blog. I was so excited and immediately left a comment and I WON!! The prize was a little quilt and a little bird, both handmade by Tiff. These are my prizes that I will always treasure:

Then yesterday she blogged about her enamelware collection and had displayed some of it on a hutch. She also informed me that she has more to show!! Well, not to be outdone, I have to show you my little collection too.

I love the red and white. Notice the little green pan? You can also see that one hanging on the backsplash in my header picture. I think that one is my favorite because I'd never seen a green one before. If you don't already know, green is my favorite color!! I also think this little black and white double boiler is so cute:

I also noticed that Tiff had several chamber pots in her collection. At least I think they are. Forgive me, Tiff, if they are bean pots instead! Tomato...tomahto.. lol You never know!! :)
Anyway here's mine:

Now here's where I think I'm one up on Tiff....I actually used one of these when I was young. That's right, in the cold winter I parked my little butt down on that cold enamel many, many nights. Hey, it sure beat going outside and down the path to one of these:

Anyway, if you haven't visited Tiff be sure to go over today. Tell her Hope sent you. She's a very busy girl with a big family--SIX beautiful children! She is also very crafty and is always rearranging things in her home. :) It makes me tired sometimes just visiting her and seeing all that she does in a day's time! (And while you're there, take notes on all the cute little displays she has so you can come back and give me some more ideas that I can copy!!)

It's almost time..

2008-01-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

Remember I told you I am going to be Granny again?? My son called a little while ago and said Angie went for her doctor visit. Her due date was Feb. 3 but he says now that's wrong! She is 2 centimeters dilated and 80% effaced. The doc says probably no longer than the middle of January sometime but it could be any day!! I'm really excited!! Kian, youngest grand, will be 8 on the 29th of Jan. so it has been a while since we've had a little baby around!

This is a collection that I call my Rocking Chair pictures. Each one is me holding my grandbabies right after they were born, starting at the top with Collin, who is now 13! Kian (last picture) was premature and in intensive care. He had wires attached to him everywhere but they let me hold him for this picture. Can't wait to add the 4th picture!

Old photos...OLD???

2008-01-02T11:06:00.000-08:00

I was sitting here one night not long around just browsing on the net, not really looking for anything in particular, when I happened upon our local Historical Society webpage. I found this site very interesting. It had old photos of our little town, old school buildings present and past, some which no longer exist, including the one where I went to grade school. My school, along with most other buildings in the little town where I grew up, was destroyed by a big flood back in the 70's.

Notice the old cars? See that big sycamore tree to the right? I use to be allowed to dust out the erasers on the trunk of this tree. Every child in class would beg to do this chore just for a short reprieve from the classroom.

There was so much on this site that I spent hours looking and looking...way into the night...all the old places that I recognized, some that I didn't because they were before my time. There were pictures of many, many people, also some I recognized and some I didn't, some I had heard my parents talk about but never met. After I had scoured the many pages listed by categories, I found MISCELLANEOUS! What could this one be? When, what to my wondering eyes should appear?? This:

Yep, there I was in black and white...most of the white being the petticoat I was modeling that day!! (Another little meme fact that I omitted before: I hate wearing clothes!! lol) That's my mother holding my hand.

You can imagine my surprise. This was a photo from the collection of a man I never knew and also a photo that I had never seen before!! I'm going to have to investigate this further!! And, did I say OLD photos??

Beginning the new year..

2008-01-01T20:36:00.000-08:00

Well, folks, it's 2008 now. DH and I spent a quiet night watching the big ball in Times Square drop last night. Of course, we had food too...always food!! lol I feel as though the holidays went by in a blur. I haven't even bothered to make any New Year's resolutions this year. I would like to do what Lib suggests by living a more simple way of life. There are so many things I need to improve on but I'll just keep them to myself, that way ya'll won't know I failed!! lol

Sunday night my grandson, Kian, came and spent the night with me. DH had to work so we spent the evening alone playing games and giggling together. He makes me laugh. My daughter and her family went to Florida to visit a friend the day after Christmas. They just got home last night and came to visit me today which meant more games and fun with the kids. She made chili and it tasted so good on this cold day! Nope, no black-eyed peas or greens here today!!

Tonight Dave and I took our decorations down inside the house. It took a while to do and now things look a little bare. I kinda like that look....for now! :) I usually want to rearrange everything once all that is out of the way! Dave went outside to collect some of the things off the porch to pack away and hollered for me to come out there. Here's what I saw:

The snow was pouring down!! Can you see it in the street light? I was so excited and ran back in to grab the camera. (I've never taken the time to figure out the settings on my camera so the picture wasn't great.) I couldn't believe it was snowing....finally!

Just look at those big flakes!! Beautiful!! I know this is nothing compared to the snow Tiff has had but, hey, it's still snow!!!

I'm so grateful for all my new friends that I've met in Blogland and I'm looking forward to this new year getting to know each of you better.

2007-12-31T13:02:00.000-08:00

glitter-graphics.com

Just wanted to pop in with a message to all my wonderful new "Bloggy Friends". I wish each of you a very happy, healthy and Blessed New Year. I have so enjoyed the friendships I've made since I came aboard in November and I am looking forward to 2008 and getting to know ya'll better! Dave and I are just spending a quiet evening at home tonight and probably watch the big ball drop on tv. Whatever your plans are for the Eve, have fun and be safe.

Love and Hugs to each of you,
Hope

I HAVE BEEN TAGGED

2007-12-31T07:21:00.000-08:00

Here's how it works:

Link to the person who tagged you. Peggy @ Hidden Haven Homestead

Post the rules on your blog.

Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.

Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Random Facts About Hope:

1) I use to live next door to the White House. Well, not exactly. I went to D.C. with another girl to work for the government when I was about 19. We lived on 16th street and could see the top of the White House from our apartment building. I lived in that area for 7 years before coming back to the hills.

2) I was born at my Aunt's house..not a hospital. I was the youngest of 6 children and my mother had them all at home. She was older by the time I came along and must have had a few complications because with me she had a doctor and not a midwife. She refused to go to the hospital so the doctor asked her to please try to get closer to the hospital at least which is how I came to be born in Tennessee instead of VA.

3) I am a smoker (insert condemnations here). I have Chantix tucked away in a drawer. Hopefully I'll get up the courage to take them in this new year and quit. We'll see how that goes.

4) I would love to be a writer. I have so many true and interesting stories inside my head that I would like to share with others but it doesn't seem to flow from my mind, through my arm to my hand, and onto paper! I can't seem to collect my thoughts as well as I get older!!

5) Speaking of old....I turned 60 in September. I find myself wondering where all those years went!! My mind still feels young but my body keeps arguing with my mind!!

6) I was very shy growing up. If somebody even spoke to me I would hide behind my mother. As a result I would let people run over me in a sense. I was like that until I had my daughter. When that mother bear instinct took over I got over the shyness fast.

7) I have a fear of flying. I flew one time when I was about 21 in a small plane. We flew over DC into Maryland. I was enjoying it until an engine went out and smoke started coming from it. A friend of ours was the pilot and must have been a good one. He landed us safely even though we bounced down the runway!! Now I get this crazy feeling in the pit of my stomach if I even watch a plane taking off from the airport!!

Ok, Peggy, I did it. Now tagging 7 others might be a problem. All the people on my list have either already been tagged or are out of town!! lol But I'll try!

I tag:
1) Sue @ Country Pleasures
2) Brenda @ Country Romance
3) Tiff @ Folded Gingham
4) Karen@ Kindred Haven
5) Pea @ PEA's Corner
6) Christie @ Serenity Now
7) Carolyn @Talk..to..Grams

This Old House

2007-12-29T09:43:00.000-08:00

I have been asked by several people about my old house and the style of it. Yesterday Brenda at Country Romance came by for a visit and asked about it so I thought I would share a few more pictures. (Brenda loves this part of the country is still working on hubby because we want to be neighbors, right Brenda? :)

From what info we have been able to gather, this little area we live in was once a farm and was later divided into parcels and sold off and streets built in different directions later. We aren't really sure but it would explain why we have a farmhouse in the middle of town, or the original owners of the house just liked the farmhouse style of house. Who know?

I have many before pictures of the house which I had developed and no longer have on my computer. Hopefully I will have a scanner soon and can show you, then you can appreciate all our hard work more! :) I do have some thumbnail size pics that I loaded back to the computer but you have to have really good eyes to see them!! I think you can get an idea though. This little picture was taken from the back of the house before any repairs began:

The roof had about 4 layers of shingles stacked on top of each other. When all those came off there were the original tin shingles. They were in bad shape and couldn't be preserved...as a roof anyway, so all of it was torn off and replaced with a metal roof. Then my crafty neighbor, Wayne, that you hear a lot about and see so much of his handiwork in my home, built me this cabinet made from old barnwood. If you look closely you will see that some of the old tins from our roof were preserved and are now part of the cabinet doors!!

I've mentioned before how hard it is to get a direct picture of our house, especially the front, without being in a helicopter!! This one was taken back in the fall. Notice the original stone wall along the street in front:

It is equally hard to get a good picture of the porch which is really big but looks so much smaller in the pics. This one I took today and you can see that our Christmas decor still hasn't come down. As you can see, the sun is shining so purty here today after several days of rain. It is casting shadows of the bannisters draped with garland onto the porch floor. That's Tobi, my sweet old dog, basking in the sun...her favorite thing to do. See the sign hanging at the far end above the porch? It says, "SIT LONG...TALK MUCH", which is exactly what I do when the weather is warm.

This is the AFTER picture of the back of the house and of course my beautiful mountain in the foreground. We added a big den and also a bathroom upstairs. The building on the left is our garage:

Just to show you how close we are to town, this picture was taken from the end of our driveway looking toward our little town.

We have lots of neighbors within "spittin' distance". Shucks, if you are a good spitter you can spit from one end of town to the other!!

I hope you've enjoyed another tour, well mini-tour. I'm off now to search out a spot for Brenda when she gets here :). There are still lots of old houses just waiting for some love and attention!

Around the county

2007-12-28T07:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day here, up near 60 degrees. DH and I took advantage of it and went for a ride. Even in winter, with no foliage, there is beauty. We laughed about collecting "blog fodder"(feed)! We live right on the edge of our small town but less than 5 or 10 minutes away we have some beautiful mountains and farmland. I've showed you here that I can walk out on my front porch and see the mountains but I thought you might enjoy more views.

You will notice that one of my favorite things to photograph is old barns.

This picture is an old swinging bridge which once led to the old house across the creek. There is a door on the bridge. I don't get it!! Maybe to keep people from crossing when it started to get run down??

This creek always looks so inviting to wade across in summer but not in the winter! Brrr!

Old country stores like this are almost completely a thing of the past.

An old mill dam. It is flowing good right now but during the dry summer we had it only had a little trickle of water.

I never tire of looking at the mountains especially when the sun is just on their peaks.

Another old barn on the hillside.

There are a lot of hillside farms in the area. The cows in the distance look like black specks.

I love how the clouds make shadows on the mountains.

I've mentioned to you before how it saddens me to see old houses long ago abandoned. Notice the outhouse in this picture. I think I've mentioned those before too!

Here's another swinging bridge with a door!! Painted red??? I think this one might be privately owned. All the swinging bridges around here use to be state maintained but they are becoming a thing of the past too.

Here are two favorites together..an old barn AND a corn crib! If you notice, there are mountains in the background of just about every photo!

An old tractor inside:

The only remains of an old homestead:

This one is a beauty!

A house nestled in this little valley:

This is Dave's shadow puppet of a duck...but no shadow!! :o He's a nut!

Back home again to our little town which you can see was also built on a hillside :)

We enjoyed our ride and hope you enjoyed it too. Dave says he will be happy to give private tours (for a fee, of course) if anyone is interested!! The shadow duck show will be included in the fee.

Handmade Christmas

2007-12-27T08:29:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share a few handmade treasures that I got for Christmas. If you will look on my very first post here, you will see my outhouse painting that I love. I think I was so nervous about jumping into the blog world that I forgot to give credit for it. My very talented neighbor, Wayne, is the artist who did that painting and others that I'll share with you later. What I want to show you today are the two handpainted Christmas ornaments he made for me.

For some reason Blogger has been chopping off my pictures on the right and I can't seem to fix it. So I'm making all my pictures smaller but you can click on each one to enlarge them. The pictures don't do these justice. The detail on them is amazing!

My sister-in-law and friend, Shirley, gave me a handmade gift too. She didn't make this herself but she sure has a good eye when it comes to pleasing me! :)
Shirley is a talented artist also and has showed me a couple of beautiful paintings she has done. I have hinted for one but she didn't offer to share!! Just kidding, Shirley. Seriously though, you need to do more painting!! :)

Ain't that cute?? The little prim star was already on the base of the planter. I had a small barn star that I got for free while on vacation so I added that and a little greenery. I would like to put a little bird's nest in there too.

Thank you, Shirley and Wayne. I will treasure these gifts!!

Since I don't have any real talent myself, it's so good to have family and friends who are talented and creative.

Christmas

2007-12-26T08:03:00.000-08:00

Well, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! We had our gathering last night and had a wonderful time with family and friends. The kids had a ball opening their gifts with wrapping paper flying in all directions!! I'm so proud of them. They get a lot for Christmas but they are always appreciative of anything they get. I tried to teach my kids to always be grateful and they have passed it along to their kids!! It makes Granny's heart smile! :)

We were finally able to get the whole gang together for a photo op and the only place we could all fit was on the porch!! Brrrr!!

Dave's Mommy was here wearing her red Mrs. Santa hat. Ain't she cute???

We also had surprise visitors all the way from New Jersey!! My sister-in-law, Mary, and my niece, Kaycie. You may recall here when I talked about Kaycie making me the snowman gift that I treasure. She is a beautiful young lady now, all grown up!! Mary is not only family but one of my oldest (sorry Mary!) and dearest friends. I miss her so much since she went back to NJ but I just know that someday she'll come back to these hills where she belongs!! :)

As usual when we get together there was lots and lots of good food. I meant to take a picture of the buffet after it was all set up but we were all hungry and I forgot!! An after-picture wouldn't have been a pretty sight! lol

I was so tired last night after everybody went home but it was a good kind of tired. You know, the kind where you worked hard to make the evening all happen but at the end of it you have some precious memories to tuck away in your heart.

2007-12-23T20:44:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS

WISHING ALL MY BLOGGY FRIENDS A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS....PEGGY, LIB, KAREN, KIM, BRENDA, RHONDA, TIFF, RHEA, PEA, CHRISTIE, GRAM, AND TO ALL WHO READ MY LITTLE BLOG.

More favorite finds

2007-12-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

A few posts back I shared with you some of our junkin on vacation finds. Now, I know it is almost Christmas and I should be sharing Christmasy things but I was beginning to get nostalgic overload! And besides, I didn't show you all my good junkin' finds yet!! Here's a couple more that were very cheap and I love them.

First, this little banner that says, Home Hearth and Country. I love that! The little primitive looking stars are hand stitched. And I love the patriotic colors too. I think it was 50 cents.

Actually now that I look at it, the little banner does look Christmasy!!

Then there's this beautiful wicker bed tray that I fell in love with. We found it at a tag sale in the mountains of Vermont. There were four very nice ladies doing the sale together and since we bought so much :)) they gave us some great bargains!! I was almost afraid to ask the lady with the bed tray how much she wanted for it and when she told me 2 bucks....well I had that thing in the car so fast it made her head spin!! Two dollars for this:

I have a little fantasy about this bed tray: I'm lying in bed on Christmas morning all cozy and warm and my DH comes into the room carrying this cute little tray. I can see the steam rising and then I see that he has made me biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs and country ham with a side of homemade apple butter!! And of course a big piping hot cup of coffee (or hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows, depending on my mood!) in my favorite Christmas mug:

There is a red checkered placemat and a matching cloth napkin held by a snowman napkin holder!! Oh yes, and I see a nice vase with a poinsetta in it. Then he tells me just to stay in bed, watch tv and take it easy and he will clean the whole house and get it all ready for Christmas AND cook the food! Hey, if you're gonna dream, dream big!!

Kids say the darndest things..

2007-12-20T07:04:00.000-08:00

I was visiting yesterday with Judy over at Anybody Home and reading her post on visiting her mother at the nursing home. I left her a comment about how children and old people are so much alike. It also got me to thinking about an encounter I had with a little "princess" on Halloween.

Back in the spring I decided to make a little arrangement on my old church bench on the front porch:

Dave had found a little pair of yellow rain boots that he thought my granddaughter could wear, but she has a purple pair (her favorite color) that she loves. And besides, I had just the thing in mind that I wanted to do with these yellow boots!! Somewhere online, maybe a blog but I can't remember, I had seen just one little rain boot with flowers in it. I just thought it looked soooo cute and I decided to do this flower arrangement with both boots! I had some thrifted flowers that I added and put them on my bench. I liked it!

Then Halloween came and I still had this spring display on the bench. I had several little goblins visit that night for candy and I always take time to talk to each one, telling them how scary they are or how much I like their original costume. One little girl in particular made a lasting impression! My doorbell rang (again!) When I opened the door there stood a cute little blond haired princess (around 4 years old) with big blue eyes, dressed in a beautiful white glittery dress with a big smile on her face and her goody bag held out to me. Her daddy had accompanied her but was standing back a ways and letting her do her own talking. I could see he was beaming with pride when he looked at his little girl. Here is the conversation that ensued:

"Trick or Treat!!" "Well, hello there, Little Princess!" I said. It was at this point that she spied the yellow rainboots/ flower pot! "What a beautiful dress you have on!" "Yes, I know!" she replied, still looking at the boots. "And you are such a beautiful Little Princess!" I said. "Yes, I know!" was the reply again, looking at me but still glancing at the boots out of the corner of her eyes. At this point her daddy said, "Tell the lady which princess you are." "I am Princess Fiona." she told me as she twisted from side to side making the glitter sparkle in the light. I said, "But you're not green, and you certainly are more beautiful than Princess Fiona!" "I know!" she said once more very matter-of-factly.

I proceeded to put a big handful of candy in the bag she was holding out to me, but she was all the while looking toward the boots. She started to walk away then just as suddenly stopped and pointed at my masterpiece and exclaimed, "That just looks silly! You're suppose to wear boots in the rain, not put flowers in them!" Her red-faced father who had just minutes ago looked at her with such pride now looked like he wanted to sink through the porch floor and kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" I was laughing the whole time and saying, "Oh, don't worry about it, I have a granddaughter who's always been very outspoken!!" Then to his little girl he said, "Now you're the silly here. You didn't even say, thank you, to the nice lady." She stopped at the end of the porch and looked back at me with her eyes lowered and said, "I'm sorry, Ma'am. Thank you for my candy!"

As the two of them walked on out the street I could hear her Daddy talking in a low voice to her and her reply, in a very loud voice, was, "I'm sorry, Daddy, but it really did look silly!!" I'm still laughing!!!

Kids and old people...they tend to say exactly what's on their minds!! Who knows, maybe someday when the Little Princess grows up she will learn to appreciate "Shabby Chic" decor! :)

This just in...

2007-12-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

I just received another award from Lib over at Private Paradise!

I have to admit, it took me a while on this one for the meaning to get through all the fog in my head, but now I understand it: "I, too, heart your blog"! At least I think I'm right on this. If not, please correct me.

Lib, thank you so much for another great honor. I feel the same about your blog but more so about you personally as I told you earlier today in my comment to you.

A Lesson About Raisins

2007-12-19T07:33:00.000-08:00

My mother was, well not exactly a woman of few words, but a woman of strange words, to me at least! For instance, when she was amazed by something she would say, "Well, I wish to may never see the back of my neck!", or "Well, 'pon my word and honor!" Growing up with my mother and knowing her the way I did, I always got the gist of what she was saying even if the words made no sense to me. If I was doing something I wasn't suppose to she would sling out a verbal threat to me as she went about her work, "You better behave or I'll take a keen willer limb to you!" I knew full well what that meant and had felt the brunt of it many times!!

My mother was full of advice for us kids too, like, "You better eat that food. There's little children acrosst the waters starving to death!" Now being a somewhat rebellious child and not a lover of food at that time, I would think to myself, "Well, give them my food 'cause I don't want it!" I was never allowed to backtalk or to even voice things I thought but it sure didn't stop me from thinking them!

One piece of advice my mother gave me has forever been embedded in my mind. I don't remember the whys or wherefores of the conversation or even if we were having a conversation that day but her words to me were, "Don't ever get above your raisin'." You know how sometimes when you hear someone say something you instantly get a mental image? (Sometimes one you wish you'd never seen and could just as instantly erase?) The image I saw when I heard those profound words was RAISINS. Yes, good old Sunmaid, dried in the sun from grapes, raisins! What did it mean to "get above your raisins"??? It wasn't until I was almost grown that I understood what she was saying to me. Don't ever forget where you came from and never look down on those less fortunate than you.

With all that being said, I want to share with you where I came from. I grew up in a holler, or "hollow" for those of you that don't speak hillbilly. I've often joked to other people that we had to pipe in sunshine which wasn't that far from the truth. The only direct sunlight we got was for a short period around noon when the sun was straight overhead. About the only modern conveniences we had were running water, electricity and a radio which brought us the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night and how we looked forward to that!! We had no bathroom, just the little brown shack out back. We took baths in a big washtub behind the Warm Morning stove. I've shared with you here about my feed sack clothes. My mother washed every Monday on a wringer washing machine and we hung clothes on lines strung all over the holler! Tuesday we ironed all day. The chores for these two days were written in stone by my mother. It never varied. One of my chores, also written in stone, came after all the clothes were washed and strung on the lines. I had to empty the still hot, sudsy water from the washer into a bucket and with an old broom scrub down the outhouse from top to bottom. I think we must have had the cleanest outhouse in all the surrounding counties..my mother would make sure of it!

In today's society we would have been considered poor, underpriviledged, deprived. But I now know we were rich in so many ways. Our house (and outhouse) was always very clean, we crawled between fresh smelling sheets every night to sleep, had lots of handmade-by-my-mother quilts to cover us against the cold in the winter. How I'd like to go back (now that I love to eat) and taste those wonderful homemade meals we had..fit for a king!

I now live in a nice (old) house with many modern conveniences that I'm very thankful for, especially a bathroom! :0) I'm also thankful that I had parents who took care of all my needs, not my wants. I'm especially thankful for the piece of advice given to me by my mother so long ago, "Don't ever get above your raisin'.", very much akin to the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Back in the spring Dave took me to see the little house in the holler again. The house itself still looks about the same but the once cleared land around it is now almost completely overgrown. At one time there was even a sawmill on up the road past our house and big trucks went in and out hauling the logs to different places. Now the road is almost invisible and totally impassable. But this holler is still a big part of my humble beginnings where I learned many valuable life lessons, one that I have stored away in my heart and tried to base my life on: "Don't ever get above your raisin'."

More Awards

2007-12-18T07:15:00.000-08:00

The awards just keep coming!! This one I actually received from 3 people, Gram, Karen and Lib:

Thank you, ladies, for thinking of me and making me feel like a part of your blogging community.

And this one I got today from Lib:

Thank you, Lib, for this honor, but you are the real treasure!

I got an Award!!

2007-12-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited!! Today I have had 3 firsts, my first tag game, my first time of posting twice in one day and now...an AWARD!!

Grams over at Talk...to...Grams! has so generously given me this "blogging with a purpose" award. Here is the award:

and here is what Gram had to say about me:

Hope at Second Time Around is a so sweet and always has a uplifting comment she writes to give you that much need lift for the day!!

Now I ask you...how nice is that??? Gram, I am just so honored that you thought of me and felt me worthy of this award. Thank you so much. And the kind words you wrote about me....well... right back at you Lady!!

Christmas Hoopla

2007-12-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

Rhonda at Farmhouse Style has tagged me, my very first tag by the way, to play the Hoopla game. I'm not sure I know what I'm doing but here are the rules she listed:

Here is how to play:
1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas.

2. Please refer to it as a 'hoopla' and not the dreaded 'm'-word. I suppose that refers to the 'M'eme list.

3. You have to specifically tag people when you're done. None of this "if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged" stuff is allowed...then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people you tag is really up to you -- but the more, the merrier to get this 'hoopla' circulating through the blogosphere.

4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible.

Okay, here goes my list:

1) I DON'T like shopping! I don't like the crowds in stores this time of year, the crying kids who are tired and just need to be home in bed!

2) I like the IDEA of the season. I have images in my head of Christmas, peaceful scenes of houses all decorated and lit up waiting for family and guests, carolers singing outside. In my mind all that just magically happens. Then the reality of dragging out all those decorations and sorting through them and arranging sets in. Lots of work. I have images of shopping too. Snowy streets with people all bundled up, arms full of packages, smiling and speaking to each other as they go. Then reality sets in again and I find myself in the middle of Walmart....nuff said!! lol

3) As a child I wanted so much to believe in Santa. I wanted all those wonderful presents he would bring especially dolls, I always wanted dolls. Then one magical night it happened! Santa came by my house riding high up on the back seat of a convertible!! You can imagine my excitement...Santa...Convertible...I had never seen either one before! A car with no top!! Shoot, I had only seen a couple of cars in my lifetime, period!! In our little town we walked to visit friends and neighbors and to the store and to church. If we had to go farther away we went by bus! The best part of it all was when Santa handed me a baby doll of my very own that I immediately named Billy!

4) My parents weren't big on Christmas so if we even had a tree it was up to us kids to do it all. One of my favorite memories is going back in the woods in the holler where we lived to cut a tree. One of my older sisters was married by this time and her husband was along with us 3 girls to help cut the tree. Being a newly wed of 3 months, she was trying to still look "cool" around her husband. We had some snow still on the ground and a lot of muck and mud. She wore very inappropriate shoes for this journey and stepped in a big pile of mud, deep mud, losing her shoe in the process. We never could recover that shoe even though her prince came to the rescue, digging in the mud to find it! My other sister and I had to let her hold around our shoulders and hop all the way back home while my brother-in-law carried the tree. She cried because she lost her shoe and her "cool" in front of her new husband, and because we laughed at her. But what are mean little sisters for??

5) My favorite Christmas movie is It's a Wonderful Life. I have seen it too many times to count. One of the parts that always makes me cry is when the whole town opens their hearts to give and help George Bailey.

6) I love the magic that Christmas seems to bring that we don't have at other times of the year but should.

7) I love Celtic Christmas music. There is something so soothing to me about this music. I suspect there might be Scottish blood in me but I haven't been able to prove it yet. I told my DH that and he said he was Irish and that's why he didn't like the music!! lol

8) I use to collect snow globes. My first and favorite was one Dave bought me. It had a little house nestled in some pine trees and of course snow all around. When we downsized to a small apartment we had to store these. When we brought them out of storage my favorite little snow globe was broken...no little house...no water, no snow. I was so upset that I sold all the rest of them at a yardsale!

9) There is a sadness in me when I see houses with absolutely no signs of Christmas. There are several old, seemingly abandoned, houses on our street being left to fall down. They look so empty and cold. But it's much worse when the houses are actually occupied and still have this look about them.

10) I love the sights and smells of things that say Christmas to me, like candy canes, oranges, apples, tangerines, creme drops, cakes and pies baking and snow cream...yummm..heavenly taste of snow cream!

11) My grandmother, Mammy, was and still is so very dear to my heart. I remember when we would visit her or she came to visit us at Christmas her greeting to us was "Christmas Gift!" That's what she would say. I never knew or questioned why...it was just something she had always done.

12) When I was 5 years old my brother, Dewey, turned 18 and had to go into the Army (draft was enforced then). I loved him dearly and followed him always, even into the woods to cut logs...I had to go too. This time I couldn't follow and I didn't understand why he had to go away. I was so lost without him and the only connection we had were his letters that Mommy would read to us all, and we hung on every word. Then one night in December, by the magic of Christmas, he was there..home..in the flesh...my brother, a man I hardly recognized, standing proud and tall in his uniform, so very handsome. How our hearts rejoiced to see him. Not long ago, he went away again, this time to be with the Lord, but this time I know in my heart that I will see him again.
____________________________________________________________________
I pray that God will watch over and bless all our soldiers who are away from home this Christmas fighting for our freedom and their families who won't get to be with them except in spirit.
____________________________________________________________________

This was much harder than I thought it would be!! Thanks, Rhonda for inviting me to play my first cyber tag game!
Okay, now I tag Lib, Peggy and Karen if ya'll haven't done it already!

The Reason for the Season

2007-12-15T19:10:00.000-08:00

I am by nature a big cut-up and goofball. I've always been the clown. But I do have a serious side.

I come before you now, all my wonderful, new bloggy friends that I grow more fond of with each post or comment, my old and dear friends and my wonderful family and precious grandchildren, to all who tune in to my little blog, to tell you about the Greatest Gift I've ever received...the gift of Salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ. He has been the Constant in my life no matter how far I've wandered off the straight and narrow or how much I've failed Him. He is right there by my side and loves me unconditionally.

Constantly Aware is an old song that has always meant a lot to me. "Constantly aware that He is everywhere". I see Him... in the beauty of nature all around me. I see Him in the faces of my sweet grandchildren. I see Him in Jenny's hands as she signs silent praises to Him. I see Him in my son, the policeman, who tries to always be so stern but can be brought to his knees when touched by a Christmas play. I see Him in the friends who have come into my life. I hear Him... in the laughter, the voices of those I love. I hear Him in the voice of my dear son-in-law as he asks the blessing over our food and never fails, just before the amen, to add, "I love You, Lord!", and my heart agrees.

At times He does things for me to touch my old, sometimes hardened-by-life heart, like painting this beautiful picture for me as I sit alone on my back porch, and I smile..

How can I not thank Him for all these blessings? How can I not thank Him and praise Him, especially in this joyous season, for all He has done for me and for my undeserved gift of eternal life.

"Thank you, Lord, for giving me peace in my life and especially the peace in my heart! Peace that is beyond all understanding! I love You, Lord!"

Junkin on the road

2007-12-14T08:28:00.000-08:00

I was talking to my niece, Sarah, and her husband a while back about their vacation, where they went, what all they did, etc. Her husband looked at me and said, "Can you imagine somebody going on vacation and going to every thrift store, Goodwill and junk place they can find??" Sarah and I just looked at each other and cracked up!! She said, "I come by it honestly from my Aunt Hopie!"
Dave and I went on vacation this past summer, traveling by car from VA to Maine, which had been a long time dream of mine. Just go where the wind takes you, stop when you want, move on when you're ready. Sounds fun and romantic, right? Wonderful dream, right? What I didn't picture in this dream was moving in and out of different motels, loading and unloading LOTS of luggage and having to rearrange the car each time to accommodate all the little "extras" we picked up here and there!! Keep in mind, too, that on this journey we took my Rav4, just a little bigger than a Volkswagen!! :)
We saw many beautiful sights along the way between motels and junk stores, but we found ourselves looking for home....the mountains, the small towns and friendly people! What should have been a 2 week vacation turned out to be only one week. We did make it all the way into Maine, then we clicked our heels together in unison and said, "There's no place like home...there's no place like home!" and headed back to the hills of Virginia. That little Rav was packed so tight with all our found treasures that there wasn't a spot big enough to stick a needle in there!! We did pass up a few bargains that we just couldn't fit into the car like a beautiful old Victrola in excellent condition and very CHEAP!! Leaving that one behind broke Dave's heart. Later on I will share some of the pics I took of the interesting sights we saw but right now I'm going to show you just a few of my favorite things that we found.
This cute little cloth settin' hen :)

This old crock with a handle..you don't see many of them. The flower arrangement that I put in it came from Goodwill in PA for 25 cents. It has little bunches of green and red berries that I love. At a little flea market in Vermont I bought an old metal frog for arranging flowers. I put it in the crock and used my 25 cent flowers in it.

Since it is Christmas time I just added some bigger red berries to make it look more festive:

I love bringing new life to old things....the Second Time Around....

Rainy day

2007-12-13T10:21:00.000-08:00

When I walked outside this morning the sky was full of rolling gray clouds and it was raining.

I try never to complain about days like this because our summer was so dry. Our grass was so dry it crunched under your feet when you walked on it. We still have patches that look like this:

but lately God is blessing us with much needed rain. It has been very warm here this week so the birds have been fluttering around and singing and our grass is turning green again!!

The mountain in front of my house looks beautiful to me even in the foggy rain.

It never ceases to amaze me when I walk out on my front porch and look up at it. What is even more amazing is that I don't see all those electric wires either until I take a picture, then there they are!! I seem to just block them out and look beyond. They are a necessary eye sore so please try to look beyond and see what I see! Some people have to travel for miles to see this view that I can look at any time and I'm very thankful.

I'm just staying in today where it's nice and cozy and do a few much needed chores around here. I hope you all have a wonderful day.

More favorites

2007-12-12T10:29:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share with you more of my favorite things. But first, please take a minute and go here to see why I had such a restless night!! I begged and pleaded with her not to do it as you will see if you read my comments to her on the last couple of posts, but she stubbornly persisted. To each his own, I guess. Christie, this has been great fun and laughs!! :)) (Seriously, folks, I really do fear for her sanity!!!)

Anyway, I want to share my button collection with you. I've always loved buttons as far back as I can remember. I use to play in my mother's box of buttons, fascinated by the different colors all together and the feel of them as I sifted them through my fingers. My collection came about, not over many years time but just a few months. I started with my own jar that I intended to add special buttons to as I found them. My DH got in on the game and suddenly everywhere he went he would come home proudly carrying another jar, or box or even garbage bags full. I kid you not. I have bags of them that are still on their original cards. If I had them all displayed, my little "button corner" would become a "button room"!! I have been teased unmercifully about them...like..."Hope, do you think you have enough buttons there?", or "Hope, I'm missing a button on my shirt. Do you have any idea where I could find one?"...things like that. I just turn a deaf ear because I really do love them all:

Be honest now, wouldn't you just love to run your fingers through these:

feed sacks and memories

2007-12-11T09:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this morning I was visiting over at Lib's as I do just about every morning while I have my coffee. The thing is, she always get me to thinking which I don't do well in the mornings!! :)
Her post today was all about her stash of material for crafting and what she was seeing when she looked at it. She was seeing future crafts such as dolls, snowmen, etc. I, in my morning stupor, and just having taken a few sips of my coffee, was literally looking beyond the stack of fabric in her picture and trying to find those dolls and stuff that she was seeing! He! He! So funny when I finally woke up and realized!! Anyway, I feel so connected to Lib in so many ways. She brings things to my mind that I haven't thought about in years! Today it was feedsack material and old quilts.
A few months ago Dave and I were doing our usual junkin' at a nearby flea market. I always visit one lady's booth just because her things always catch my eye. This particular day my eyes fell on a small stack of material laying on a table. I knew immediately that it was feed sacks which I was very familar with. I had to have them, not because I had plans to use them but just to have and look at and feel.
When I was young I always considered our family to be poor, at least by everybody else's standards in our little town. One of the reasons I felt this way was because I never had store bought clothes but clothes that my mother sewed for me and I so longed for and dreamed of a dress straight out of the Montgomery Wards catalogue. Back then our feed for our hogs (Daddy called it "chop") came in pretty sacks, not like this one...

but like these:

Being the youngest of the family and having 3 older sisters, I always got the hand-me-downs, which were "made over" for me because I was always tiny! Ha! Those days are over now!! I do remember one time that I got the pretty new feed sacks all for my own outfits. I didn't realize then how talented my mother was. She even made her own patterns that she used! She made two outfits for me, one with a red skirt and a white shirt with tiny red flowers on it and another was a green skirt and a shirt with yellow and green flowers. The skirts were made with circle tails which would flair out when I twirled and oh did I love to twirl!! After I wore these outfits to school a couple of my classmates (the ones I considered to be rich) showed up at our door begging my mother to make them outfits like mine! I couldn't believe it!! They could have store bought dresses and they actually wanted ones like MINE! They had even talked their parents into buying the sacks of feed, giving the chop to my Daddy for his hogs so it wouldn't go to waste, then having the sacks for their much coveted outfits!! I never looked at my clothes in the same way again!!
When I had outgrown my clothes they were then recycled again into quilt pieces. My mother was a very frugal woman and wasted nothing! Here is one of my favorites, probably because I helped to make it when I was about 8 years old:

There is a story behind this quilt which I will save for another time. I've rattled way too much today. Lib, thanks for the memories!!!

Immanuel (The Kings' King)

2007-12-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to the Christmas Cantata at my daughter Jenny's church. It was just beautiful and I wanted to share a little clip of them singing Immanuel (The Kings' King). Jenny is a deaf interpreter and is seen here sitting on the left of the stage signing the song as they sing. I am very proud of her and the work she is doing. She always has such a serene look on her face when she's signing. Her friend, Joy, also an interpreter, is on the right of the stage signing some of the songs. I could never get in a position to get a good picture of her signing but I did get a picture of the two of them before the service started:

They seem to have shadows around their heads, I'm thinking maybe halos?? and not my poor photography. Besides, the lighting was set up for the program and not my photos!! (Joy on left, Jenny right) These girls also are in a deaf ministry group called "Hands of Vision". It is really something to see when they are singing praises to the Lord with their hands. Very moving.

Some of the youth group did a little skit with the manger scene to go along with the singing program. My handsome grandson, Collin, was one of the shepherds. He is the one on the left. One of the shepherds seems to be a little camera shy!! :)

Ain't he just the cutest little shepherd?? You can't see them here but this boy has some killer dimples!!

I hope you enjoy watching this. This is my first time putting a video on my blog so let's hope it works! Keep in mind that this is just a little country church but I think they have an exceptional choir and many great voices!

Happy Birthday, Claire

2007-12-08T11:58:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago I received a wonderful early Christmas present named Claire and she has brought much joy to my heart and life. If I could describe my grandaughter, Claire, in one word it would be VIBRANT!

I've already told you here what a good little Mommy she is to Pamela but there is so much more to tell.

This picture speaks volumes about Claire. She can be very feminine and stylish but at the same time she can climb trees with the best of the boys: (Click on picture to enlarge)

She is very artistic and sometimes looks as though she is lost in her own thoughts:

She likes to dance on mountaintops...

and sometimes in the rain. This time it was at Granny's suggestion because we were having a drought and after a little shower I told her she should do a rain dance so we would get more rain that we so desperately needed. I also love her because she plays my silly games! :)

Then at other times she can be very mischievious, like when she's trying to drown her brother in the pool :))

She enjoys clowning around with friends:

She has the cutest little feet:

She loves fudgcicles!

And just trust me when I tell you that she was the most beautiful Magical Winter Wind you would ever want to see:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY BEAUTIFUL GIRL. GRANNY LOVES YOU DEARLY!!

A few more good men..snowmen that is

2007-12-07T05:52:00.000-08:00

I have a few more snowmen to show you today. This little fellow:

A primitive stocking that Dave found recently while junkin'

I have several snowman throws some of which you can see on my house pics. These are just a couple of my many, many snowman throw pillows:

Dave's personal favorite is these little snowbells that adorn our tree every year for many years now:

Last but certainly not least, this treasure was made for me years ago by my niece, Kaycie. She wanted to make me something so she just used what she had available. She also knew I loved snowmen! The cute part is that she wanted to write the words in red but didn't have red paint. The next best thing was nail polish!! Cute way to improvise, huh?

I know, I know, enough with the snowmen until next year! Unless of course I find another one this year that just has to come home with me......

Snowmen, snowmen everywhere!

2007-12-06T12:41:00.000-08:00

I was visiting my friend Lib's house today and saw the great goodies she received in Peggy's stocking swap. We talked about how we love snowmen. I started looking around my house and realized how many I've accumulated through the years. I want to share some of them with you, starting with my front porch:

My hobo snowman wreath on the front door:

One of my mantles..the trio of snowmen was handmade for me by my niece, Patsy, which makes it extra special to me.

A favorite of mine:

My latest addition:

Just a few of them for now. To be continued tomorrow......

Pamela

2007-12-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

I would like to introduce you to my Great Granddaughter, Pamela (wink, wink)
Pamela has been in the family for about 7 years now but in a recent conversation with Uncle Dave, Claire (granddaughter) said that Pamela is actually 5 months old because she wants to keep her little. There have been times when I've felt the same way about my babies and grandbabies.
Recently Claire, Jenny (my daughter), and I went to an open house event of all the little antique stores in town. At one store Claire saw a double-decker baby bed that she liked. It was too pricey for Granny :) but at the last store we visited she discovered a vintage cradle in excellent condition except the bottom was missing. I knew it could be easily repaired and it was a bargain so we bought it.
Uncle Dave came to the rescue and replaced its dowels and added the new bottom. We will be adding some bedding and cute little handmade quilt that I have. Ta dah:

But that's not all...our neighbor, Wayne, saw the cradle and remembered that he had the perfect thing to go along with it. He came back carrying this highchair in all its precious vintage pinkness:

I hope Pamela will love vintage things as much as I do. Shhhh...lets keep it secret until Christmas Eve. I'm not sure if she reads my blog!! :)

update:

We gave Pamela her new bed and high chair and she just loved it!!

See, she is so comfortable in this bed:

Latest found treasure

2007-12-04T08:40:00.000-08:00

Dave comes home almost daily with a new found treasure. Every day is like Christmas! This one I think he brought to me just to keep his own sanity. I have had many, many paper towel holders that I just haven't been pleased with. Nothing irritates me more than trying to pull off one paper towel and the whole roll comes flying at you, so I keep looking for the perfect one! So when Dave brought this beauty in I was so excited...and it was red too!! Perfect for my kitchen! Also a bonus..the upper slot held wax paper! We had a partial roll of towels and immediately put them in the holder and tried them out. ONE towel rolled out perfectly and ONE towel tore off. PERFECT!! I was so happy! Then the partial roll was gone and I brought out a replacement. To my dismay the big roll would not fit in the slot.

Do they even make the smaller rolls anymore, I wondered? How old was this little red gem? As far back as the 30's, 40's? Did they even have paper towels back then? So I did a little research and found that this invention came about accidentally. You can read about it here if you are interested. Bottom line, paper towels were officially introduced to the public in 1931 but did not

gain acceptance until later. So I'm guessing red probably didn't come into play until late 30's at least. The question still remains..will I be able to find smaller rolls? Will this turn into an educational blog where readers can come and find much trivial tidbits to ponder on? Tune in and see..

Simplify

2007-12-03T07:49:00.000-08:00

According to the dictionary, the word simplify means "to make simple or simpler: streamline". I visited Lib's blog this morning and saw her little simplify pillow. So cute. I was reminded of a conversation my daughter and I had when she saw my Simplify sign. She laughed when she saw it in my home. Imagine!! To her it means streamline...less stuff and clutter. To me it means getting back to the basics of life, to a much simpler time without all the hassles and stress that comes with living in this modern day time.

Maybe it's my way of justifying all the clutter I have?? :)

What do you think of when you see the Simplify signs?

Time to relax

2007-12-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

Last night was the annual Christmas Parade in our small town. We had a wonderful time with family and friends with lots of good food and fun afterward. I hope to post lots of pictures later.

Today is just going to be a laid-back kind of day. Dave and I are relaxing and watching Christmas movies on tv and of course, eating some left overs from the party last night. Maybe a little nap would feel good too! Hummmm.....