Celebrating Granny's 94th Birthday

For a change of pace on Granny's birthday this year we invited two of the "girls" who grew up on my in-law's farm along with 13 brother's and sisters in a two bedroom tenant house. The lady above, Minnie Wilson, became an LPN and worked at the nearby nursing home. On her time off, Minnie would help my mother-in-law with house and yard work. Together they decorated the Christmas tree and took it down and hoed in Granny's garden.

Minnie developed melanoma on her left foot and has had to go to Duke for treatment many times when the doctor's around here ran out of options. She has endured chemo being injected into her groin. Even now she must go to Florence four days a week of edema treatment which takes four hours (plus the trip). She is not a complainer....or even much of a talker but she did laugh and join in as Hubs and her sister Sue reminisced about old times growing up on the farm.

Sue kept us all in stitches. She's got the "tell it like it is" gene that I do. When I commented that their Daddy was really a fine man.....she chimed in...."when he wasn't drinking" my thoughts exactly.

She also told about playing on the roof of their house with her siblings and Granny flying down there in her big white Buick telling them to get off the roof before they broke their necks. The kids then hid behind the house until she went home and got right back on the roof. Imagine 14 children, two bedrooms, picking cotton, putting in tobacco.....

Although Granny's cake looks like a white football on fire.....it was shaped like an Easter egg with candles stuck in purple flowers (her favorite color).

All in all it was nice to celebrate her day with friends who are like family.

Do you have any friends who are like family?

Free Counter

Pixs from the Housesit

This is my sweet, little boy, Gates, on the front porch of the house. He will be 4 next week.

Hannah, Gates and Charlie in the pond. Don't know where the swans, ducks and geese were. Evidently they didn't get the memo that this was a photo opportunity :) LOL

Gates is at the waterfall on the far side of the pond. He is wearing Pop Pop's beloved "Tilley".

I meant to take pictures of my favorite works of art in the house but never got around to it......as you can see I DID get pictures of my favorite works of art outside (my grandchildren) :)

Forty-Four Years and Counting

Free Counter

   

Friday, Hubs and I celebrated our 44th anniversary. It was a beautiful day here on Golden Pond! It turned out we didn't DO anything special.....just enjoyed being together and reminiscing about our 44 years of marriage.

Yesterday son Wayne and his two children came for the day. Niki has graduate school on Saturdays at USC so they took her to class and then came out to Golden Pond. It was warm (79) and it wasn't long before Gates and Hannah were IN the pond with the ducks, geese and swans. Soon they were dipping their heads in the water like the swans....too funny!

Hannah's dog Charlie liked the pond too. He jumped in right away and swam around.

Hannah said she wished we lived here. I was surprised I thought she's be bored in ten minutes. She stayed outside all day; loving it. Gates conned Pop Pop into a game of T ball. Gates is playing T ball this year. He told me to write down his schedule so I can come to his games. When leaving day care Friday he waved as his "buddies" and said "See you at the ballfield!"

At our advanced age, hubs and I no longer need to go out an hit the town on our anniversary.....just a nice quiet day together.

What do you like to do on your anniversary.

Housesit in Heaven

Free Counter

   

Hey, that is a cool idea! I wish God WOULD let us (anyone who is game) do housesits in heaven. I bet we would come back here with new enthusiasm for the joy that is before us if we accept Jesus as our Savior.

Since I haven't been offered a housesit THERE I took one for the closest thing to heaven THAT I KNOW ABOUT!

We are on a 75 acre estate/nature preserve near Hopkins, SC. There is a gorgeous lake in front of the house with four black swans.....a swimming, two canadian geese, a mating, and a lone feathery looking goose whose breed I can't remember. His mate succombed to something a while back and he is trying to mate with the two mallard decoys. Unsuccessfully I needn't add.

In addition there are two house cats, Bogie and Wheezie. Oh, and a feral mom cat and her kitten the owner is trying to tame so she can become a pet.

There is a greenhouse, a huge art studio, an organic garden.....Lovely!

Our daughter, Gabby, and family came down Sat and spent the night. It is hard to know which of all the above the kids loved the most. Yesterday they fished and fished and fished.....everyone caught about 16 bass or bream a piece (excluding Gabby and Donnamo who cheerfully sat in the swings and chairs and just enjoyed the day together.)

Kids have never had a cat so they were very entranced by B&W. So much so that grandson's eyes swoll shut....a cat allergy perhaps????? Not to worry all members of my family carry medicine for any possible calamity.

Another favorite thing of everyones was watching the raccoons come to feed at night. Owner feeds them and sofollowing her directions we put out the peanuts (in the shell) she said are their favorite food. She has spotlights trained right on their "feeding area" so we could watch Discovery Channel right out the window.....a total of 6 racoons appeared at one time....we noticed they have a pecking order like chickens....baby racoon had to eat last!

One more totally cool thing......Owner is an artist and has the most gorgeous art work and artifacts all around this magnificent house. I will take pictures to show later but the laptop they left me will not accept my camera's memory disk.
Just picture me and hubs happy and relaxed :)

Pray for Ian

Today on Chris Fabry Live (my favorite radio program) Chris interviewed Larissa, pictured above. So I went to her blog at www.prayforIan.blogspot.com. I suggest you go there yourself and get a big dose of encouragement.

Larissa and Ian were in their Senior year of college when he was in a horrific car accident and declared brain dead. Now about four years later he is in a wheelchair, he can talk, and they are planning to be married in August.

I really recommend you go to ChrisFabryLive and listen to today's program so you can hear Larissa talk about their situation.

Let me know how this hits you!

Free Counter

Spring is Springing

It has finally warmed up around here. Hubs brought me my second bouquet of daffodils yesterday. Daff's are my favorite flower. Mental note family.....I want them on my casket spray...hopefully I die in spring when they are plentiful !

Scout is enjoying the warm weather too. Yesterday and Sunday she dug in her digging fields for most of the day. She hunts moles with her nose six inches in the dirt and her rear end straight up in the air. Once hubs caught a live mole who got stuck in our courtyard and she was not the least interested. Go figure.

Last year I went on a daffodil rampage. I dug up my existing clumps (well some of them anyway) and divided them and planted new groups EVERYWHERE! I am being well rewarded...anyone can grow a daffodil, trust me!

I finished raking all the leaves out of the courtyard yesterday. I love seeing it all clean. I like it even better when the grass is all green.

What do you like best about SPRING?

Queen Priscilla Visits Her Subjects

Folks, this is Priscilla Hair, the Queen of the South Carolina Quilters. She is preparing to teach a workshop that includes dying fabric so she is not wearing her queenly robe. She brought a lot of her quilts to show. Priscilla is a fun, sky person, so I was not expecting such great work.

This is one of her "fun" pieces made from other quilting attempts that did not work out so she recombined them to make this piece. I think she said it was supposed to be a penguin but I could be wrong. She did say that one observer criticised the belly button jewelry saying penguins do not have belly buttons. "This one does!" Priscilla replied.

How gorgeous is this!

This is made from about a million nine patches. Awesome!

What I like best about Priscilla is her sense of fun. She said she and her husband who are both in their eighties we pruning their shrubbery last spring. They got tired so Priscilla suggested they lay on the grass and look at the clouds like they did as children.

Suddenly an ambulance screams to a stop in their driveway.....the neighbor thought they were dead and called 911.

Yep, Priscilla is my kind of girl :)