Six Blessings of Old Age

The whole "famdamly" (as my father would say) was here for Thanksgiving. We did get a picture of the whole clan including Granny but we are saving this for our Christmas card.

Front row has Wayne's daughter, Hannah age 10 and Connor Watt's, Ashli's son age 10,
Back row has Megan, Todd's daughter age 8, Caitlin Watt's age 8, Gates, age 3, Wayne's son, and Michael, age 11, Todd's son.

If you are mathematically inclined you will note we had a grand child every 6 months for four years and then a long five year pause before our boy Gates burst on the scene. Being the youngest, he is every one's darling.

Thankfully, they all enjoy each other and look forward eagerly to holidays when they get to be together.

Truly, the Lord has been good to us and I count family and friends at the top of my list.
How about you?

Neat New Thingy

First, if you have trouble with your Christmas Lights this year send your husband to Lowe's post haste for one of these magic light fixers. IT REALLY WORKS! We had four strands out on our prelit tree when we put it up yesterday. Hubs tried fixing them then headed for Lowe's for a tester....lo and behold he found this wonderful invention and the lights were fixed in ten minutes!

Roasting PC Evans and More

The Man in the Middle is my husband's Uncle Chris aka PC Evans. On his right is his wife, Sara Francis and on his left is his son David. Sorry the picture is dark but it was a dark room.

This is Dianne Chapman Warren who came up with the idea to have the roast. She invited anyone who drove a bus for PC (who was over the county school buses for long time) to come. Over a hundred showed up!

PC is now 86 years old so this was a long time coming but none the less appreciated. As a retired educator myself, I know I'd appreciate seeing former students honoring me anytime. This is Chris and his other son Ken. Daughter Kay was there too but I missed getting a picture of her.

It was funny and eyeopening to me to hear the tales these drivers told....most of it the illegal things they did with and to the bus behind PC's back. One man told of catching a few extra Z'z one am and hearing his bus crank up.....he threw on clothes and ran out.....PC was waiting in the bus!

Another driver told about getting home from his route to have a Mama driving up his driveway with the dirt flying behind her. "Where was her Tommy?" "Why didn't he get off the bus?" The driver explained he thought she must have picked Tommy up from school to go to the doctors. An inspection of the bus found Tommy asleep on his seat.

Most drivers expressed appreciation for being allowed to drive a bus because that money made them able to stay in school during hard financial times. Most of them passed the bus route down through their family to the next child in line. Often as many as five children in one family drove as they aged in.

One person shared than that $35 a month they were paid was a huge blessing. Another spoke up and said: "What do you mean $35?" "I made $20 a month." Inflation!

It was a good night for remembering.

And now for your Sesame Street question of the day......One of these windows is NOT like the others, one of these windows isn't the same........can you guess why?

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Well this picture should probably come after the next one......but we'll pretend I meant for it to be like this. What do you think I am doing?

I started out to decorate the dining room. When what to my wondering eyes should appear but a very dirty chandelier. After washing and rinsing each tiny crystal.....

It was ready to add some toes and some mistle. :)

Let this be a warning to those who think they would like a gorgeous crystal chandelier....the dang things are quite a job to wash.

While working on it, I remembered the day it arrived. My childhood best friend and her husband were visiting us for a few days. We had moved in our new house a short time before and for some reason the chandelier did not come until they were here. We opened the box and saw what seemed to be a million crystals AND a hand drawn sketch of how to assemble it. The four of us got busy and wah la.....a chandelier.

Is there anything in your house you HATE to clean? (Mark this down as my least favorite....and after today I remember why I hate to do it.)

Basting Wall for Quilters

I watched a Patsy Tompson's DVD on Free Motion Quilting. She included a video of her using her Basting Wall which was made of ceiling tiles fastened to a wall of her home. Here is Hubs installing the last of the three lower tiles in my laundry room. We were able to put a row above these making the wall 8 feet tall by 6 feet wide. Of course you can make it as big or small as you like. The tiles we bought were 2 feet by 4 feet and $40 for ten.

The is my quilt top (wrong side out) pinned to the wall with a few T pins.

I then sprayed the quilt top and laid my BLACK batting on top (carefully smoothing and getting out any wrinkles).

Then I spray basted again and "installed" the quilt back. In less than 15 minutes my quilt was basted and ready to go to my machine. Pretty cool huh!

From the Mountains to the Sea

This is the view from our friends house in Charleston, SC.

Living Room.

Breakfast Room

Guest Room

Guest Room.

Dining Room.

Master Bedroom.

Foyer.

Foyer to Living Room.

All together Lovely.

Lucy and Ethel's Wild Adventure

This picture shows the path the GPS laid out for us to come home from the mountains yesterday. You see how it has our car positioned to go off a cliff......well we almost did! You see where it says we will arrive home at 12:51? Make that 3:30PM.

See this little dirt path? The GPS put us there; when Rita attempted to back off this road....oops in a ditch we go. Ethel is sent to get help at a nearby house. She is gone so long Lucy thinks Ethel was murdered. She was very relieved when it turned out Ethel was merely using the people's bathroom. Thank God, and I mean that in a respectful way, the owner of the house was a farmer (in overalls) who had a tractor nearby and......

Wala.....we were out of the ditch and on our way with HIS directions to take us to Mt. Airy (the real Mayberry USA.....we're sure.....we saw the Andy Griffin Museum as we toured Mt. Airy looking for Interstate 77. It seems our GPS wanted us to go home via Rt 52 and COULD NOT be persuaded to take us to 77. But after several scenic tours of Mt. Airy and stops for directions....we did find 77 and came home without further event.

Desi and Fred were not at all surprised!

Do you have a GPS story to tell?

I really don't understand why people don't trust GOD but DO trust a GPS.

Lucy and Ethel Go to Meadows of Dan

As my peeps know, Ethel and I are up at Sallie and Andy's log cabin house sitting for the week. I brought Ethel along to tend to the wood stove. Everyone knows, Lucy could never master that!
I am in charge of feeding cats and dog and cleaning out the litter box....very low tech.
So here is Ethel keeping us nice and toasty. She has done a good job even on days it was 80 outside.

Sunday we visited Mountain View Methodist Church with Sallie's neighbor/friend Lynda. They have a bluegrass praise band! How cool is that?

Here is a closer, darker view of the band. We sang These are the Days of Elijah and other current praise favorites :)

Lynda took us on a scenic tour on our way home. This is Mabury Mill a favorite on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Yesterday we went to Floyd, Va the home of Schoolhouse Fabrics a three story brick school building FULL of fabric and other notions. Floyd is an artsy town with interesting shops we enjoyed browsing through.

Ethel (aka Rita) quote: "When someone tells you something is ten miles away. Those are "mountain miles" aka curvy roads and it will take you 3 and 1/2 hours to navigate them."

Ethel got her name by locking her keys in the car on her way up here during a stop at Fancy Gap. Her solution to prevent this from happening again is to put her keys on her dog's leash and attaching it to her purse. This contraption leads to all kinds of hilarious "situations." In fact after a twenty minute search for her seam ripper which was found under her chair....I may actually concede that she is LUCY and I am Ethel.

So Sallie, not to worry Lucy and Ethel are setting fires in your hand made log cabin.

Do you have a Lucy friend to keep you in stitches? I am so glad I do......right now my heart is so merry it is about to burst.

Princess' Play Date

This cute little girl is named Princess. My friend Rita rescued her when her owner could no longer take care of her. Hubs is going to take care of her while Rita and I go on a house sit to my friend Sallie's in the Virginia Mountains. Sallie has one wonderful dog, Wally, and two sweet cats....no more pets needed.

This is as close as I could get Scout and Princess when I had my camera available. They coexisted during the visit. Scout tried to get Princess to join in a game of soccer but she wasn't interested. Maybe when she comes for five days she will join in. I hope so.

While Scout and I were napping on the couch, Princess joined in, napping on the back of the couch. So maybe they'll be napping buddies!

Has your pet ever had a play date? How did it go?

Reunion Rendezvous

I chose Starfire Grill for our Reunion Rendezvous Saturday Night. It is a local restaurant with good food and great desserts (although I have always been too full to have one).

The wait staff was dressed in costume. Cute!

This is the former high school boyfriend, Mark. I did recognize him although he has aged since I last saw him in 1963. Obviously, so have I. He is also divorced; I did not know that.

He talked A LOT about Vermont Cheese......it is called Cabot Farm Cheese and is produced by a farm cooperative in his home state of Vermont.

He has led an interesting life since 1963. Community College, Viet Nam, Community College, Shrimper in Florida, 8th Grade Social Studies Teacher and now State Senator. Two of his four children were foster kids he and his wife adopted.

He did bring three pictures with him. Two of them were on my post and one was a picture taken at our Senior Prom. I didn't know males kept these things.....and knew where to find them 46 years later!

All in all it was nice to reconnect. But I definitely know....the best man won!

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