Beginning the new year..

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.