A Little Bit Of Always

Less than a quarter of the alphabet remains in our month long A-Z Blog Challenge, so whoohoo! Staying true to my theme of The Things We Keep: Ordinary Objects from A-Z with today's letter. Here we go-

Day 20-T is for Tradition

Remember the early days of blogging and how everyone posted Thursday Thirteen lists full of all kinds of things? Well I'm bringing it back today and we're talking tradition. 

I think by definition traditions are things we keep. Or things we want to keep. Raise your hand if your kids are grown and flown or growing and flowing and you're struggling to hold on to some of your favorite traditions. Or maybe struggling to let them go rings more true? 

My girls are grown with families of their own now, and are intentional about creating special markers and memories with their children. But take heart mommas because I see them also trying to keep hold of some of the traditions they grew up enjoying and expecting, and there's something so comforting in that. 

As I was trying to come up with a list of thirteen traditions our family holds on to I realized most are associated with holidays, Christmas especially, and isn't that part of why we look forward to the season? Traditions call us home. 

I've included a few random traditions we hold dear in our house, but of course every family has their own.  For the sake of brevity (ha!) here are thirteen of ours-

1. When you're asked what time it is the correct answer is 'IT'S FOOTBALL TIME IN TENNESSEE-GO BIG ORANGE!!  Yes. It must be shouted. 

2. Your picture is taken on the front porch on the first day of school every year. 

3. We will be watching Home Alone on Thanksgiving night. 

4. New jammies will be opened on Christmas Eve.

5. A photograph in said jammies will be snapped on the stairs Christmas morning before anyone is allowed to see if Santa came. 

You will never be too old. 

6. There will be dozens of cookies baked from recipes handed down from my momma and grandma every December. 

7. You'll find a tangerine or clementine in the bottom of your Christmas stocking. 

8. Holiday breakfasts mean a breakfast casserole will be served. 

9.  There will be an ugly egg every Easter, usually crafted by the hubs. It's made by dunking an egg into every dye available, some cups more than once, until the egg is so ugly it's almost pretty. Almost.

10. You'll have new clothes for Easter, but hubs will forever and ever wear the same spring tie he has worn every Easter Sunday for going on 40 years now. He's had this tie so long we cannot remember if he purchased it in Knoxville or Richmond. He dared ask if he should wear something different this year. What??? Absolutely not! 

11. When the song Summertime's Callin' Me is played you have to move your arm like a wave in time with the music. If you're in a car you need to put your arm out the window in order to do the wave correctly 'I wanna sit there in the sand, and watch those golden tans go walkin byyyyyyyyy..' 

12. On the first day of a brand new year a lucky dinner will be served that will include pork, cornbread, greens, and black eyed peas. 

13. There's gonna be a six foot banner on the front door on your birthday.  

I asked my girls to weigh in and one thing daughter2 mentioned was we always watched the fireworks from the Naval Academy sea wall and brought Boston Market chicken with us as a picnic dinner. 

You might have to let some of your traditions go, but know your kids remember them too.

A Bunch of Stuff

More like nothing at all but a bunch of stuff sounds a little bit interesting and nothing at all sounds quite the opposite.

Truth be told there are gobs of things I need and want to write about, just not quite yet.

I hate it when bloggers say they have something to tell and then don't tell, but I have a number of things to tell and I'm not telling. Not today anyway, but soon.

I won't say as soon as life settles down because y'all, life just does not seem to ever settle down round here.

Delight! That's my word for this year and I'm hanging on to it by my fingernails. I'm so grateful for my bracelet (read about it here) because I need the visual reminder these days to delight in all the things. I'm not successful every minute of every day, but catching a glimpse of that bracelet on my arm helps a lot.

So does sunshine, which I'm not gonna lie has been in short supply this winter. Yesterday though? Yesterday was glorious and we took advantage of the blue sky-warm air combo and enjoyed a boat ride courtesy of our neighbors. Look no socks!

Temps were in the 60's, we had blankets for our laps, and the sun felt wonderful.

Our boat is at the boat repair place (probably not the official name but whatever) because somehow we wrapped up last year's boating season with a nice little scratch on one side and wanted that fixed before this season launches. We think the scratch happened while docked at a local restaurant but we're not sure. We are sure it wasn't my fault and really that's what matters.

Hubs and I have been volunteering with a local elementary school's water safety program which means every Wednesday afternoon we get in the pool with third grade students and teach basic swimming strokes and general water safety.  There are lots of adult volunteers so we each only have a couple of kids. There's also a lifeguard on duty and I asked last week if she'd ever had to whistle at an instructor. Not yet she hasn't. Ha!

In wedding related news I picked up the bridal gown and my gown and the bride's rehearsal dinner dress from the alterations place last week which was exciting. There are still a lot of little details to be managed but in terms of our wardrobe we're ready. Also, here's a little wedding planning tip-

Use a colored envelope for your replies. So much fun opening the mailbox and seeing all that dusty blue.

Earlier this week I signed up for the April A-Z blog challenge. Kind of on a whim which, let's be honest, is how I always end up signing up for the A-Z.  Somehow this works for me. I do have an idea for a theme this go-round, I just need to find make time to write.

I think to be a good blogger you need to blog several days a week and set your posts to publish first thing in the morning. But here I am ten years in, still blogging when the mood strikes and the planets align, hitting publish on a Wednesday when I should be making dinner.

You know what they say..."If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

The Friday Five

I'm not sure The Friday Five is officially a thing, but I'm declaring it officially a thing on my blog today. I'm so out of sync with my blog and know I need to dive back in and write more often because that makes my writing better. Today you'll have to settle for this-

The Friday Five

I hope I've got Five. It might be The Friday Four. Or The Friday Fourteen.
You never know what you're going to get on This Side Of The Pond.

1. When I flip the page to May at a glance in my calendar I feel a little dizzy. There is so much happening here next month beginning with a hair appointment (that's half a day for me), the dentist, the eye doctor, a wine dinner event, cards and gifts to send for nephew and niece birthdays and a nephew's graduation, Mother's Day, lots and lots of company including college sorority sisters, a high school/camp friend, my mom, my mother-in-law, my daughters, son-in-law, and the cutest baby boy in the world.

photo credit: Sincerely Shannon

Seriously he's the cutest.

2. In preparation for his visit I've purchased a few small toys and a highchair. I've borrowed a pack and play from a friend, but bought a mattress to add to it so he'll be more comfortable. They have a full day of flying plus a couple hour car ride from the airport, plus a three hour time change so we want to do everything we can to help him sleep sweetly once he's here.

Also, it's fun to walk through my kitchen and see a highchair. This one is a Graco and was a literal snap to put together. As in you snap the parts in place. It also converts to a booster seat which is a nice feature and one we'll need down the road.

3. Do you jot notes in the Notes feature of your phone as a reminder of things you want to mention on your blog? I do that sometimes and one thing I'd written there was Big Little Lies. Did anyone watch it? What did you think? We don't get HBO here, but Daughter1 has it so we watched Season One when I was out west a couple of weeks ago.

I really enjoyed the way the show was produced and thought the acting was great, but here's my rant. I don't know why they had to use the F word as much as they did. I have a lot of women friends and nobody I know regularly drops that word a whole bunch into everyday casual conversation. It seemed unnatural and distracting.

4. Turning to the world of fashion...I don't get these tops with the super long wide bell sleeves that come down over your hands. I think some of them are so cute, but then when I imagine trying to do anything at all while wearing one the style seems completely crazy.

5. You know what they say...April showers bring May flowers.  Here's hoping! We've had so much rain this spring, three days this week it's just poured and it rained again last night. On the bright side the weekend weather and next week too all look lovely. We have a fun weekend planned with friends we haven't seen in a while and I'm excited for sunshine and warmer weather.

We did manage a boat ride on Wednesday afternoon while hubs mom was in town with some friends. Hubs was not happy about it at all. Ha!

photo credit: Sincerely Shannon

Enjoy your weekend everyone! 

Monday March Madness

Good Monday afternoon. I intended to say Good Monday morning, but it is Monday and when I sat down to blog I got distracted by
Pinterestall the things on my desk. There's still a pile, but it's smaller.

So anyway who is loving the madness of March? By madness I mean the NCAA basketball tourney, and not the crazy winter weather that's around. Not around here of course because our weekend weather was gorgeous. We text friends up north pics of us sitting outside in shorts and they text us pics of their patio furniture buried in snow. I do not miss the March snows.

Basketball! You don't even have to follow college hoops to enjoy the NCAA tourney. So many underdogs pulling off upsets and ruining my brackets but still so exciting to watch. I love it because any school can pull off a win and so many games have gone down to the wire.

Question-are you running heat or a.c at your house? It got warm here last night and I informed hubs I was not going to be able to sleep without opening some windows or turning on some air. We're trying to keep the windows closed until the pollen settles down and he informed me we don't run the a.c. in March. Huh? When did that become a rule?

I say when it's 77 degrees in the house we run a.c. no matter what the calendar tells us. I like it about 57 for sleeping but hubs thinks that's nuts so we meet in the middle some where. Also I turned on the a.c.

The view from my pillow first thing in the morning-

The post in the center is one side of a window frame but I didn't take the time to pretty up the shot. This is sunrise au natural.

Friday hubs and I drove to Asheville for the Vintage Home Show. It was a beautiful day for a drive and look whooo we saw en route just hanging out on the power line.

He looked me right in the eye and I gotta say it was a little creepy. I had my window rolled down and it felt like he might swoop right on in. He flew off instead and had an enormous wingspan. So cool!

In my opinion the Vintage show was just okay. It was really crowded and I did get a few ideas for the house but we didn't buy anything. We went over to Sierra Nevada for lunch instead because lunch is always a good idea.

If you've never been and you're in the Asheville area Sierra Nevada is worth a stop, even if you're not much of a beer drinker. They spared no expense in the build and it's absolutely gorgeous. Their food is wonderful too, and the setting makes it even better. Since it was such a nice day we ate inside then hung out for a while at the ginormous firepit out back.

Saturday Daughter2 and her boyfriend came out to the lake for St. Patty's Day and we went to a local favorite spot that was having live music and a food truck featuring Irish fare. They have one of those shuffleboard games, not a court but similar to an air hockey table, and it's my new favorite. I think I've talked hubs into getting one for the house.

Sunday afternoon daughter2 and I attended a fun event near the small big city which I'll talk more about later. Today let's discuss this picture she snapped-

My baby girl is sooo photogenic. Why do my eyes look so tired? I blame the pollen but I'm sure it's nothing a week at the beach couldn't fix. Or a heavy concealer. Or a nice pair of sunglasses. And also maybe a smallish nap. We had a splendid afternoon and not to sound like a broken record but this weather! Fantastic!

We watched a lot of basketball all weekend long, and the 'kids' played a little cornhole too. You have to zoom in to get the full effect, but my daughter's face in this picture makes me smile. She takes her game playing seriously.

Definitely her mama's girl!

Now I need to wrap this up...hubs and I are off to see a movie because it's Monday and we're retired empty nesters. Ha! Take that Monday!

California Dreamin'

We got home late Wednesday evening after spending nearly two weeks on the west coast, and then somehow I'd scheduled a full day and evening of activity for Thursday, which meant grocery shopping and errands Friday morning so here it is Friday afternoon and I've just now finished uploading photos from two cameras onto the computer.  Hi! Come on in and see my vacation pictures!

While I'd never say that in real life, this is blog life so Hi! Come on in and see my vacation pictures!

Hubs and I are determined to see a little bit of the northwestern part of the US while my daughter and her family are living there, and decided this visit we'd drive up the Northern California Coast, follow the shoreline all the way up through Oregon, and then cut over to Tacoma for a few days with our grandson. Hey, when you're in the neighborhood, right?

Not being too familiar with the geography, the distances one can reasonably travel in a day on the coastal roads, or the best places to stop for a night, I began reading and asking questions on the Trip Advisor travel boards. Everyone there was so nice and made me feel less anxious about the fires and our chosen route. We jumped on the coastal road early and had no plans to veer into Napa this time around, so no smoke or fire issues at all on our trek north.

Pinterest was also a great resource and in fact was starting to overwhelm me when I happened upon a fantastic blog called California Through My Lens. Y'all I feel like I need to send this blogger a case of beer or a dozen roses because he had the most wonderful, easy to read, helpful posts on the exact trip we were taking.

His relaxed way of traveling fit with our own relaxed way of traveling and we followed an itinerary very much like the one he followed when he went up the coast and into Oregon. He listed mileage and the hours it took to drive those miles, his favorite stops and some he thought you could skip if you didn't have an endless amount of vacation time, he shared great places to eat that we'd likely never have run across on our own, and best of all he suggested we bring shoes that could get wet (more on that later). Thanks Josh!!

I'm going to post old-school style here with a day by day recap because I've got a lot of pictures and they need to go somewhere. Don't worry... I have a lot of words to balance it out.

Day 1. Which was really Day 2 because Day 1 was a full day of travel from South Carolina to Atlanta to San Francisco. We picked up our rental car and no we didn't opt for a convertible because it's the Pacific Northwest in October and a convertible seemed crazy
even for us. Also, we almost always rent from Hertz, but their prices were double that of Alamo so we went with Alamo and had a great customer experience from start to finish. We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott close to the airport and got on the road bright and early Day 2.

Day 2. San Francisco to Mendocino. Also this post may actually be Day 2 hour one only, because it's already so long and we haven't even gotten on the road yet. Buckle up...

We decided not to spend any time in San Francisco this trip, we've both been to the city and while we'd love to go back and linger there we opted to get on the road early and start making our way north instead. We did stop at the Golden Gate Bridge, because you've got to cross it to get out of town, and also because the sun was shining and we both had that wonderful anything is possible feeling a road trip stirs up in your soul. Road trips are my favorite.

Can you tell it was breezy? We had absolutely gorgeous weather the first five days of our trip, but you will see my hair acting a little crazy in some of our pictures. I just couldn't worry about it so decided might as well embrace it. Also can I just tell you that after 33+ years of marriage hubs has not lost hope that he can improve my sense of direction? He still insists on telling me routes and showing me maps and pointing out where the sun is in the sky until it makes my head spin. We're going north, right? Or 'up' as I like to say. That's basically all I need to know. I was happy I'd ordered honest to goodness laminated maps, the kind you can fold and unfold and hold in your hand and that allow you to see the big picture.

Seeing the big picture helps, on road trips and life in general.

The first stop we made after crossing the bridge was at the Muir Overlook. We almost missed it thanks to a detour, but initially we ignored the detour because we weren't sure it was for us. Turns out it was but if we hadn't driven up the road to check we would have missed this amazing little corner of the world.

Stunning! I will use that word many times in describing both the California and the Oregon Coastlines because it fits.

There are some old base stations here that were set up following the attack on Pearl Harbor to allow soldiers to watch for potential attacks on the San Francisco harbor. They're no longer in use of course, but interesting to see and think about.

The views here are incredible and it was the perfect start to a trip filled with the beauty of creation at every turn.

Okay, next post-Day 2 for real.

Long Story Short

I am not a Saturday blogger. Saturdays are for other things, but I know me and skipping a letter in the A-Z challenge would make me twitch so I'm going to eke out something about something. 

J is for  New Jersey

Home. The place I grew up and the place I raised toddlers and the place we've come back to as 'empty nesters'. As an aside-I'm not a fan of the term 'empty nest'. Firstly it's depressing, and secondly it makes us sound old. And dull. 

We are not old. 

Not that there's anything wrong with old, it's just that we're not there yet. 

And we're definitely not dull. 

Now back to New Jersey. She gets a bad rap. About some things. 

Some of what you hear isn't too far off the mark. 

This is my third time round the Garden State. My parents moved to NJ when I was in Kindergarten and, long story short they stayed. I grew up in a neighborhood with sidewalks and street lights and lots of kids. Where you could ride your bike to the pool or the duck pond and catch fireflies in your own backyard on warm summer nights. 

It was a pretty great place to be a kid. 

I moved south for college. Upon setting my feet in East Tennessee I found my accent and my inner southern girl and pretty soon thereafter, a southern boy. I married him. The south is my adopted home.

In that funny way life has of twisting and turning, we moved back to my earlier homeland, aka NJ, when Daughter1 was a year old. Hubs corporate headquarters were located in NJ, so we always knew it was a possibility. 

We were young and poor. Poor by NJ standards-ha! What you've heard about the ridiculous cost of living here is correct. It is indeed ridiculous. So we bought a house a long way from the office, and we had another baby and we lived on love and macaroni. We called NJ home for five whole years. 

We went on to move and then move again and long story short, we moved back to NJ after six years abroad. Re-entry was brutal. 

We've almost recovered. 

It's been a crazy five+ years in this thing I'll go ahead and call the empty nest. Mostly it feels like we've spent a lot of time schlepping. Our families are scattered and our children live in two different states, now in two different parts of the country, so planes trains and automobiles have been a big part of this season. 

Such is life in the modern world. When our girls were little hubs used to try to convince them we should all live on a compound one day.

Long story short, we don't. 

Which brings me to now. We've stuck our big toe into the retirement pond, and we're figuring out what's next. We've always had a plan and also a dream. That plan and that dream were not set in the Garden State, so long story short we're headed back south. 

The south also gets a bad rap. About some things. 

Some of what you hear isn't too far off the mark.  

I'll talk about the move south another day, but right now you're wondering if I'll miss NJ? 

My answer is yes. 

If there's one thing I've learned in making a bunch of moves, it's that there's always something to miss. On the bright side, there's also always something I'm happy to leave behind. On the front end of a move, I think it's best to focus on the latter, but for the sake of this post how about a list of the other, ala stream of consciousness?

What will I miss about NJ?

I still have family here

my backyard in October

sunrise from my front porch

the view of the mountains as you come up the hill 

my hawk, our deer, mama fox tending her kits, and a black bear lumbering up the drive

my next door neighbor and friends a street over

my women's Bible Study

my hairdresser

hubs work peeps-some of them are my peeps too

my doctor

my boot camp experience

my neighborhood book club

the friendly gal who works the counter at my dry cleaners

Italian food on every corner

good bagels

breakfast at the diner

and New York City a short car ride away

There's more, but that's a snapshot. 

If you had to move tomorrow what would you miss?

Also, we are not moving tomorrow. We still have a house to sell. I'm not making a list of what I won't miss but if I were, selling a house would definitely be on it!

It's Still Friday Fragments

It's still Friday so I guess that means I can still post fragments, right?

Of course I can. Hubs and I have a saying we utter at least once a week around here, and it goes like this-"We're empty nesters. We can do whatever we want."

Not really, but we like to pretend we can.

Fragments.
Obviously I've got 'em.

It's a one day weekend here. again  Hubs has been in sunny Arizona since last Sunday, landing at a ridiculously late hour tonite, then hits the road again this Sunday. Technically he'll be in the air, but you know what I mean. I mean we have a one day weekend.

My gourmet group met today and that's always fun. Our theme this month was 'States of the Union', so everyone brought a favorite dish from a state they'd at one time called home. We had recipes from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Kansas, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, and Hawaii.

I made Virginia Peanut soup, and used this recipe. It was really delicious, and I'm thinking about making it as a starter for one of our holiday meals.

This morning when I came out of boot camp the sky was painted a pastel pinky pink orange-

I detoured past the lake to snap a photo, because I consider a pink sky at sunrise reward for dragging myself to boot camp at an absurdly early hour.

Also, I might be slightly obsessed with a fall sky.

The other night I snapped a photo of our back woods that were black as coal against a fiery pink backdrop-

There's something lonely and mysterious in the November wood, don't you think? The scene outside my door felt like a painting, and made me feel all kinds of things. The kinds of things I imagine inspires poetry, and I'm thinking about that still.

Hmmm...you just never know where a fragment will land you now, do you?

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Thursday Thirteen Old School Style

The beginning of a new school year has always been my favorite time of year.  As a teacher and a mother, it was the clean slate-fresh start of late August that shouted Happy New Year to me, much more so than January 1 ever did. I still feel a twinge of nostalgia when I see the yellow buses begin to roll, and I will never lose my love of blank notebooks and an unopened package of sharpies.

Sure there are things I don't miss...making lunches first thing every.single.morning springs immediately to mind, but mostly I feel a little wistful this time of year. How about 13 Things on a Thursday-old school style?

1. Meet the teacher. My daughter is teaching school in South Carolina and her district holds a one hour meet and greet a couple of days before school begins. Parents and students are invited to stop by the school, find their classroom, lug in their tissues and their Clorox wipes and their hand sanitizer so they have less to lug on Day 1, and best of all, meet their teacher.

When my girls were in elementary school they didn't know who their teacher would be until they heard their names called on that very first day. So much unnecessary anxiety! Parents didn't meet the teacher until Back to School Night, which was a couple of weeks in to the year.

2.  Our front porch-the rules stated that a photo had to be snapped here on the first day of school. Whose rules?  Mine of course.

This little outfit came from Gymboree. Do moms still shop at Gymboree? Does she look too little to be going to school?  I think this was PK, but even for that she seems teeny tiny.

This one is wishing we had a meet the teacher day before school started-

I can almost feel the happy scary nerves.

2. Backpacks-bigger than my children.

Ridunkulous!

3.  Lunchboxes-such a monumental decision. I remember standing in the store for hours (or at least for what felt like hours) before settling on a lunchbox. We started school most often with Disney themed lunchboxes, then graduated to canvas bags and finally in the high school years, a brown paper sack.  We had to remember to buy those when we were in the US, because at the time, there were none to be found in the UK.

4. The bus-my least favorite thing about sending my girls off to school. When Daughter1 started kindergarten we lived atop a mountain in a little town in New Jersey. The idea of that bus making its way down those winding roads, particularly in the wintertime, could keep me awake at night.

When we moved to Maryland, my girls had a short ride to school. Their first driver was, to put it kindly, ancient. I'm serious...he was a nice man and seemed capable so I didn't worry. Much. Then one day we were driving over to the school for something and my daughter casually points to a stop sign and says, 'That's the sign the bus driver hits every single day when we make the turn.'  WHAT???!!!

p.s. They got a new bus driver.

5.  The bus stop photo-Except for that one year in NJ, my girls attended elementary school in Maryland. While I wasn't excited about the bus ride, I did always look forward to the bus stop on that first day of school. We all did.  The parents all walked over too, and there was a sense of anticipation and excitement in the air. We loved our little cul-de-sac and the friends, big and little, made there.

6. First grade-This was the year Daughter2 fell off her desk. This was also the year Daughter2 cut her hair. During math. It was her sweet teacher's first year on the job, so bless her. I've reminded Daughter2 of of these little episodes as she begins her first year on the job.

Sometimes it's the cute ones you can't turn your back on.

7. Third grade-Daughter1 had a teacher who attended our church, and there was another third grade teacher there who also attended our church, and who organized the children's productions there.  Such a blessing to have teachers you know are praying their way through the school year.

My daughter is teaching third grade.
She is praying for her students.
So is her mama.
And her sister.
And her grandmamas too.

8. Fourth grade -the year I thought I might die from something called the Mad Minute. So did Daughter1, and honestly she left there with some battle scars.  Every single day Daughter1's teacher had the class do a mad minute, which essentially required you to solve a certain number of problems in a minute. If you didn't meet the deadline, this particular teacher kept you in at recess and made you take it again and again and again, until you did meet the deadline, which was sometimes never.

These mad minutes were usually simple problems, mostly multiplication and division facts I think, which Daughter1 knew like the back of her hand when quizzed at home, but then absolutely blanked on under the pressure and tone in the classroom. Instead of improving with each drill, she'd make more and more mistakes.

For the record, I do believe kids need to memorize basic math facts, but I still don't really understand why you have to do a certain number in a single minute. Does it matter if it takes you a minute and a half?  Many tears were shed over the Mad Minute and many conferences were held.

This was the year Daughter1 decided she couldn't do math.

9.  Fifth grade was the year the teacher convinced her she could. Never underestimate the power of a great teacher.

10.  My girls both had the same fifth grade teacher, and they adored her.

She had the gift of teaching, and she just might read my blog. Hi Miss S. who is now Mrs. S., but who will always be Miss S. to us.

11. Promotion-our primary school made a big deal out of promoting students to the middle school.  Parent volunteers helped by decorating the cafeteritorium, and planning and supervising an after school party at the local bowling alley.  They also had some special days and treats leading up to the event, including an ice cream sundae/yearbook signing hour.  Fifth graders left feeling important and confident and ready to take on the world.

12. Middle school cuts you back down to size.

13. We all think back on those primary years with great fondness. The school environment was warm and friendly, and for the most part felt like a great big family. We've moved a lot, and my girls have friends scattered all over the world, but once upon a time we did lay down some roots in a small town beside the Bay.

Those were happy years, full to overflowing years, fun years...

...years that made us ready for the ones that came after.