When Did It Get To Be Fall?

I think it was this week. I can sit on my porch and look across the mountain ranges and see subtle changes in the verdant green that is characteristic of the summer mountains. The wild cherry trees, first to poke their little green noses out in the spring, are also the first to yellow and surrender their leaves in the fall. The sun is lower in the sky during the day, and it makes its appearance much later in the morning. The nights have a distinctive nip in them, though the days are still warm. The seasons come and go and are mirrors of how life unfolds...this, too, shall pass. Regardless of what your experiences are, they will pass, and their heart-rending throes will pass along with them.

I love you guys!

Celebrate Everything and Other Stuff

One of the things my family does every so often is to have a "Celebrate Everything" day. It is a chance for all of us to get together and to celebrate all the things that are good in our lives. We trade around places to have it, and the hosts invite not just family, but others in their sphere that are important to them. It is always a great time...good food, good drink, and good companionship. This last time it was at my sister's house. She and John have a new house with some acreage and it was so nice! The only thing is that it rained all day.. Luckily, her wrap-around porch sufficed to keep people dry and comfortable!










I really hate blogspot. I can never get it to work right. I'm sure it has nothing to do with my expertise! Anyway, here are pics of my sister, Judy, and my brother, Charlie. I can't find a picture of Mary so, oh,well! It's hard to put toothpaste back into the tube!

Other good things that have happened is that I went to Green Mountain (about 40 miles northeast of Asheville) and spent a couple of days playing bridge with my friends from Charlotte, Nancy, Millie, and Gayle. It was such fun! Nancy has this great farm in Green Mountain...not sure what county that is in..that she and John have restored and it is just beautiful! Her daughter is going to be married there next spring and Nan is busy with all those plans. I can't wait to go back, but she has to come here first!


This is Nan and Millie. I'm going to try to put a pic of Gayle on here, but, geez, I really struggle with this! I love all of them (even if they are Democrats)! Oh, here's Gayle!





A couple of really good things: Our garden was just stupendous this year. We have terrible dirt up here, so we made raised beds (sort of like square foot gardening) and planted tomatoes, squash, cukes, broccoli, cabbage, okra, radishes, green beans, beets, and onions. They were just prolific! I had many picking of green beans, the squash nearly ran me over, and I threw out cucumbers in droves because I could not give them away or even pickle them fast enough. I hope the raccoons enjoyed them! Tomorrow I am going to blanch and freeze some tomatoes to use in soup this winter. Here's a picture of the basket I picked this morning, only one of many this season!


JR and I tried to take a picture of a beautiful phenomenon (a?) last night. It had rained all day, just a nasty day, but it cleared up later. Last night, we woke up (to put the dog out) and saw this wonderful scene. The fog was in the valley, but we were above it and the moon was shining to beat the band. There is a "widow light" down below us and it made a truly eerie view. We captured it on film, but it is not good as we are not photographers. Every day up here I find something new, and just wish that I could capture it. This is the most amazing place! I get up, look out, and am awed that I can experience this.

Love to all of you!

More Flowers and Celebrations

Here I am, once again, trying to figure out what I did with my time. Of course, we did actually finish moving and we closed on the sale of our house. We are now the proud owners of only one residence! And today is my birthday, so I wanted to get this done before I got a year older.


After an extraordinarily rough winter, the spring was extraordinarily beautiful. I want to share some pictures of the wild flowers that were on the ridge. If I can figure out how to get some pics on, I'll share some with you. I now have the pictures on, but whenever I try to caption them everything goes haywire. So, you'll have to settle for running commentary. These three wild flowers (from left to right) are trillium, wild strawberry, and flame azalea. They are some of the most dramatic flowers in the springtime landscape up here. I have more, but getting pics on is so tedious that I quit!


Of course, the Fourth of July always brings an excuse for getting together with friends. Jarleth and LT came, as well as Jim's niece, Fran, and her husband, Neal. The Longs from Cashiers came along with their daughter and her significant other. We had a wonderful time cooking out, eating, sitting by the fire, and watching fireworks off our deck.











These pics on the left are of Christine Long and her daughter, Elyse. On the right are the "boys"... JR, Curt, and Neal, all standing around Lynn's raised bed garden. It is doing very well, by the way!

Adam and his family came to visit from Texas. While they were here, Jon and his family came up. It was such fun having all the grandchildren together in one place...even though it was very much like a gerbil cage around here! The kids went gem mining and went in search of waterfalls. JR and I stayed home and rested up! The following pictures are of us with the boys and their children; the boys and their families; and of us with our 5 grandchildren. Aren't they beautiful? MiMi and PapaJim love those little things! Well, we love the big ones, too, but grandchildren are just the best!

This past weekend our friends Jim and Eileen came for the weekend. We were great friends in Charlotte when Eileen and I were teaching in the same school. Our kids were about the same age and we played bridge together regularly. When the kids were little, we'd take them over to Jim and Eileen's and they'd do the same. Now, their children are "mature" and so are ours! It was a great weekend. I forgot to take any pictures, though, and Eileen forgot her camera. Well, age is a beautiful thing! We haven't seen them in about 10 years. They have moved to South Carolina (via Orlando and Atlanta), so we're going to visit them in September at their lake house. It was such a fun weekend. Jim P. and I won at bridge! I'll take pics then...but not one of me in my bathing suit!

The next family thing is "Celebrate Everything" at my sister's house in Rural Hall, NC. That's a little thing we do at least once a year and sometimes more to celebrate friends and family and all the good things in our lives. JR and I are going to spend the night with Judy and Johnnie. It'll be like a slumber party...if we can stay up that late!

Just so you know...as I post this, I am STILL only 63 years old!

So until next time. I love you guys!

Guests and Mountain Flowers

Wouldn't you think that somebody who is retired would have time to do a simple blog? Well, yet again, nearly another month has gone by and I haven't done one. Now I had the BEST of intentions ( have your heard about the road to hell being paved with them?), but, okay, I'm just lazy.

But here the new one is. I meant to make this political, but gave that up as I couldn't figure out how to write something reasonable without alienating almost everybody I know. I have thought about sticking pins in the dolls of everyone who disagrees with me, but I'd have to buy too many dolls! You're safe for now. I don't think I'll become the feminine equivalent of Glenn Beck...at least not this week!


The first weekend in May my friend, Carolyn Petty, and her husband Tim came to spend the weekend with us. Carolyn, bless her heart, was recovering from a torn ACL (I think) and , actually spent a pretty miserable weekend, but she was a trooper, and we had a good time anyway. Jim and Tim drove over the county and did some tame four-wheeling. We had never met him, but really liked him and hope that they will come back again soon. He has old cars (as does Jim), so they hit it off. Jim went to see him when he returned the shirt Tim left and got to see his cars. I'm not sure what men see in cars, but if it makes them happy, so be it! The above is a pic of Carolyn and Tim taken in front of our fireplace (which doesn't work at this moment). New house?

The next weekend my Bridge Girls came...well not all of them, but some. They came on Friday afternoon and we spent Friday night eating and playing bridge; Saturday, eating and playing bridge; and Sunday morning eating and talking. Gayle Aughtry, Susan Gibbs, and Vicki Jaus spent the weekend with me. We laughed and laughed, ate (did I already say that?), and played bridge. Gayle was the overall winner. She got a tea towel that says: "If a man says something in the woods, and a woman doesn't hear him, is he still wrong?" (We decided "yes") I, on the other hand was the overall loser. Oh, well. I finally did get tired of not getting any cards, so we called it an evening and just didn't pick it up the next morning. They are such a wonderful crew. Here is a pic of the four of us on my deck...looking out into the beautiful beyond.

Vicki Jaus, Gayle Aughtry, Me, Susan Gibbs

And I do need to show you the beautiful spring flowers that are up here. Domestic rhododendren and wild iris.

I meant to get a pic of one of the pink lady slippers that we have, but I always forgot to take my camera down when I went out the gate where there was a real pretty one. I showed it to Gayle when she left that Sunday.

I have a couple of other pieces of news. JR and I FINALLY sold our house in Charlotte. It was on the market for almost a year. We didn't get what we wanted, but we got what we needed and we are looking forward to having only one house to care for. It's been 15 years (almost) since that happened. We will close on the 30th and it can't come too soon! I have joined a couple of civic groups here in Jackson County and am meeting really nice people. This is getting to be home!

Love to all. I will try to be better as I'm sure that all of you wait with bated breath to hear about my exciting life.

Love to all of you.

Breaks and Grandchildren

OK. I took a nap and April disappeared. I've thought many times that I would add to the blog, but somehow never quite got around to it. Part of the reason is that I have been cogitating on the ObamaCare bill that passed the Congress in March. I'm not happy with that, but I wanted to make sure that I was reasonable before I commented on it. I'm not going to do that now, but that will be my next post...fair warning for those of you who don't like my rantings! :):)

However, some really wonderful things have happened to me since then...Mary, her children, and her friend, Abby, came up for a few days during their spring break; we got a REFUND on taxes (first time in living memory); and I spent a wonderful weekend with my grandchildren (and son and daughter-in-law, of course) this past weekend.

First things first. Mary, the kids, and Abby came for a few days. We didn't do much of anything. We had lunch with another of my friends, Cathy Baker, one day (it was raining hard), but I forgot to take a pic of the group that day. Ana brought a friend, Christina, who is a very nice girl. I liked her. Mary took the kids and Abby gem mining one day, but mostly we just hung out, played Chickenfoot (if you don't know what that is, you should), and drank wine. I always love having Mary up here. She just brightens days! Even after how hard her life has been, she always sees the glass as half full.

Mary and Abby

Ana and Christina (left), Zach (right)

I am so bad at this stuff. I can hardly believe that I even DO a computer, much less pretend that I know what I'm doing!

The next great thing was the 5 days I spent in Charlotte this week. Almost all of the time was spent with my grandchildren, and though I meant to contact some of my friends there, I just didn't do it. I saw Jon's ballgame on Thursday (though I went on Wednesday, thinking that was the day..I got lots of kidding about that); went to a wonderful Grandparent's Day at Saint Gabriel's on Friday,; went to THREE ballgames for all three grandchildren on Saturday, and to Reni's birthday party on Sunday. I have made the transition from Charlotte to the mountains and consider this home now, but this weekend was one of the best I have spent there! All thanks to Jon and Patti for opening their home and hearts for us...and to our good friend, Jarleth, who gives me a place to stay with grace, style, and love.

Reni's Birthday

The Cousins
Reni, Mikey (Giroux), Jonathan, Katie, Charlie (Giroux), Robbie (Giroux)

A wonderful time was had by all!

Mamas and Sisters

I had a wonderful two days with Mama this week. I don't get to see her as often as I'd like, so this was a real treat. She will be 86 years old next moth. She still lives alone, and is in reasonably good health. My brother, Charlie, and my sister, Judy get the credit for looking after her so well. While I was there, we went to see Judy's new house. It is a really cute log home with a wrap around porch. Judy cooked lunch (delicious), we sat on the porch in the warm spring sunshine, and took a walk to examine an old family cemetery that is down the road a ways. All of us like cemeteries, and this one was very interesting. The youngest grave we saw dated from 1965, and the whole plot is in great disrepair. We saw some graves marked with inscribed stones, but many graves were marked only with stones stuck in the ground. Many young babies were buried there, and most of the current "residents" were not really old.

Only 14 months separate my birth and Judy's, so we were very close as children. We got away from that closeness as were were young women rearing young families, but as we have aged and as concerns about Mama have enabled us to reconnect in a most wonderful way. Isn't family great?

I'm going to try to put a picutre on this site, but I'm having some difficulty with the blogger site, so who knows. Well, I got it on, but it's not where I want it. Beggars can't be chooers, I don't guess.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

It happens everywhere, but in the mountains when the winters can be, and often are, harsh, a day that is a harbinger of spring is received with joy that is just short of giddiness...or not!  Today was such a day...sunny, warmish (50's), light winds.  Although I should have worked on my taxes, I resolved to wait until the next rainy day (tomorrow).  JR and I joyfully spent the entire day outside, cleaning up small (very small ) amounts of winter detritus and burning them in the firepit.  When I had used up every bend-over that I could, I sat by the fire with my book and enjoyed the fresh air (when the smoke wasn"t following my beauty) and reveled in the opportunity to be out of the house.  

The winter is not over, and there will be other inhospitable days, but today was a promise of things to come.  I just can't wait!!!