My 75th birthday party

We arrived at our son Bill's home in Florence, SC on Sat., Nov. 19th after spending the day in Lexington, SC, attending our granddaughter Caroline's Mock Trial competition. Her school made it to the final (4th) round but didn't make the final cut. This was the state final so there were so many middle school students at the courthouse that day. Caroline won a very nice award as "The Most Effective Lawyer" in the 3rd round. She was so happy.

We got to spend some time with the other granddaughters on Tues -Fri. On Wednesday afternoon, they planned a big birthday party for me before taking me to dinner at the Outback Restaurant. Bill and the girls decorated the table and put the gifts in place while I was getting ready to go to the restaurant. They wanted to surprise me; and they did indeed. Even had a birthday cake for the event.

I received two big packages. One contained a floor lamp with a reading lamp, which I had told Jim I wanted. The other package was something I needed also, a new portable mixer and a new can opener. When you get older you ask for things you need to replace instead of diamonds!!

Then we all (6 of us) went to the Outback for dinner. We enjoyed a large blooming onion appetizer and then steak. The waiters came and sang Happy Birthday to me and brought me a big ice cream dessert (which I shared with my family).

It was a great birthday celebration and somehow I don't feel like I'm 3/4th of a century old. On Thanksgiving Day at the beach, I was honored again when they sang Happy Birthday to me.

This year I received a lot of cards and had fun reading the messages in them.

And Ladies of the Club

In the 1980's I remember reading an interesting book "And Ladies of the Club". It took the author 50 years to write the book and she was in a nursing home when it was finally published. I remember that some ladies started a book club and they could only have a limited number of members. You couldn't join without an invitation, and you had to wait for an opening (someone moved away, died, etc.). I remember the book had about 1400 pages and I thought I'd never finish it.

My book club that I belong to is not that restricted. We don't even have a name. We meet the 3rd Tuesday of each month downtown at Just Folk Coffeehouse.

We select 3 books at the time and each person talks about the book selection for the month when we get together. This month it was a good mystery by Michael Connelly. It always so interesting to hear each person's comments. While we agree on lots of things, we also have differences. My comments about the book and the main character, a lawyer, were that I hope I never have to have a lawyer representing me in court! Others in the group had the same comments. It was an easy book to read, read it in one day.

I love to read and usually just for fun. But when you read a book club selection, you take notes about things you would like to discuss, etc. I was so anxious to find out the meaning of the title "brass verdict" and didn't find out until the end of the book. That's probably why I didn't put the book down until I finished it (a rainy day so I didn't feel guilty for taking the entire day to read).

Now I'm reading "The Help" and we aren't discussing this book until next spring. I haven't read the Dec. selection yet since I will borrow a copy from one of our members. Sometimes I get my own paperback copy of the selection of the month, or borrow a copy from the library.

The atmosphere of the coffeehouse is great for sitting around a big table, drinking latte or expresso coffee, eating a sandwich. I ate before I went today because I thought they might think my sandwich a bit strange - a pineapple sandwich. I grew up eating those. I even saw one on a menu at Sprayberry's Restaurant in Newnan, GA once.

Next month we will have a little fun. Our leader suggested we each wrap up a book we no longer want to keep and we will exchange them. I already have in mind one I will take.

I suggested we read Julia Child's biography and each prepare one of her dishes to share for lunch. Didn't have any "takers" for this!

For the past week I have tried to read in the evening and I get so relaxed I fall asleep before 9 P.M. I read best early in the morning when I can stay awake. So, my advice for people who have trouble falling asleep - get a good book to read and get comfortable you'll be asleep in no time. Good night zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Doing My Civic Duty

Last Saturday Jim and I were volunteers - selling tickets at the main gate, at the big Barbecue Bash at the old football stadium in downtown Elba, working 2-4 P.M. This photo was taken just before Jim was stung by a yellow jacket on his right hand that was full of money. He saw the bee in the act of stinging him!

This was the 2nd year for the big barbecue cook-off and there was a big crowd of people coming all day long (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.). Winners of the cook-off (professional and backyard) were announced at 5 pm. The cooks came from all over SE Ala, GA and NW FL. They came a day or two early and camped near the stadium and set up their cookers. Lots of smoke coming from the campground on Saturday morning, and ahh... the smell of barbecue cooking was great.


The event was sponsored by Elba Chamber of Commerce and we were recruited to work by my cousin Stevie Sauls wife Denise. We couldn't turn her down. She's such a hard worker for the chamber. Besides, we had fun seeing all the people (and eating barbecue).


There were lots of inflatables at the back of the exhibits where children could play, and a stage set up near the stadium seats for music groups as well as an amateur hour where local people perform (and they were all great).

Finding Myself

The sun is shining, O Happy Day!


"Remember life is not about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself." Those words hit me in the face and woke me up this morning. I jumped out of bed at 5:53 this morning to see if the clouds had disappeared. I am so tired of dark, rainy, dreary weather for the past several days, thanks to Hurricane Ida.


Guess what! The sun is "rising" in the east and the sky is getting bright. Now I can ago about my life as if it has meaning. I have good days, bad days, and days in the middle! I'm glad I have mostly good days.


I was inspired by the following info I read this morning in Life's Lessons by Ron Herring (interim pastor at our old church in Paris, TX):


"Life is like that for all of us...some days we soar, some days we run, and some days we can barely crawl! We have days of great inspiration and activity...followed by days of "nothing"!

The truth is, sometimes we don't feel very "inspired". In fact, sometimes we don't feel anything...however, life goes on. Life doesn't revolve around how well we think or feel. The key to success in life is not in soaring along with days of inspiration (don't get me wrong...those days are great). The key to success in life is in the ability to "keep plugging" when there is no inspiration.

Longfellow said it this way, "The heights of great men reached and kept, were not attained by sudden flight; but they, while others slept, were toiling onward in the night."


For days we were so busy putting together our greenhouse kit that nothing else mattered. Then suddenly it was almost completed when the rains set in and we had to stop.


 I scrambled around looking for things to do that were short term while waiting for the rain to stop, i.e. making banana nut bread for Thanksgiving, cutting out the last big Teddy bear from an old quilt (made each of 5 granddaughters one for their 18 birthday and I'm working on Caroline's now altho she is only 14), designing and printing invitations to a DAR Good Citizen luncheon, and completing the church membership roll audit and directory, etc. Yesterday I went to the country to the Farmers Coop store to buy some cracked pecans to pick out, so I can have them for holiday baking. While there, I went down the hill to the cemetery to visit with James a bit. I didn't have to look for projects to do when he was living. He was a big "project" that took up a lot of my time. I just wish I could have done more for him. He loved the costumes I used to make for him. When I would be busy with some of my "projects" he would often say, "Can you stop and spend some time with me?"


I love working on projects, especially when they turn out well. I looked outside this morning and saw the sparkling white greenhouse which looked like a white ghost. We left the heat lamp on all night to check the temperature this morning. It's very humid and warm inside the greenhouse but in the low 40s outside. I think it might just keep our house plants warm and cozy this winter.


When it gets a little warmer outside today, we will be busy building shelves and moving plants into the warm environment for the next few 3 months. That's how long winter is in South Alabama.

Waiting for "Ida" to come blow our greenhouse down

News of Hurricane Ida over the past few days was not very welcome to us since we were in the process of assembling a greenhouse kit we bought from Sam's Club.


Now it has been downgraded to a tropical storm and that means lots and lots of rain. We're hoping the winds won't do a lot of damage here tonight.


Jim is pictured here inside the greenhouse making sure all the nuts and bolts are tight. We anchored the base of the house with metal poles driven into the ground (which is hard clay).


One of the toughest tasks was assembling and hanging a Dutch door. We finally got it hanging so it will open and close.


After "Ida" leaves us, we will build the racks and shelves inside and put all our house plants in the greenhouse for the winter. I hope there's room for the plants I am propogating in some small pots. Plus the many small ferns I have growing - for next summer.


We will be adding a heat lamp for cold weather. I can only imagine the fresh oxygen inside the little house this winter. I will put a chair there for us to go out and sit a spell among all the green plants and get fresh doses of oxygen every day. Maybe this could be our solarium. Too bad there's not room for a hot tub inside the area!

I don't have any other projects planned for the near future. This one just about did us in. We're getting too old for projects such as this.


But we will soon forget the problems we had building the greenhouse when we bring out the beautiful house plants next spring to decorate our back porch and carport.


We placed the greenhouse in the middle of the back yard in plain view of our breakfast room window. The bird feeder will be nearby so we can watch the birds while we eat and read the newspaper.


That's what you are supposed to do when you retire!  Sit back and take it easy?

My new Green House

I have wanted a greenhouse for a long time so I asked Jim to get me one for my birthday on Nov. 25th. Then I suggested he order it (a kit from Sam's Club) now so we could put it together and get all the outdoor plants inside before a cold spell. The kit arrived about 2 weeks ago and we just kept looking at the big cardboard boxes and wondering if we were going to be able to build this beautiful green house. The photo on the right is what it is supposed to look like when we finish.


Tuesday afternoon we opened the big boxes in the middle of the back yard and took all the thousand or more parts out to make sure nothing was missing (found an important template missing today).


Then we selected a spot to place the greenhouse. We wanted it in an area where we could see it from the back porch, or from the breakfast room window.


That done, we had to dig up a redbud tree and move it to another place. That little tree had roots all the way to China! Then we started putting the frame of the greenhouse together. What a chore! It's bad when you can't follow directions using drawings and pictures. They leave out a lot of steps, or at least for us it seems they do.

We laughed when the instructions stated that 2 people could put this greenhouse together in 1/2 day. It took us that long to unpack it and just lay out the parts. Today we finished "snapping" the frame together. The more you add, the heavier it gets. The next step is to start putting the "glass" into the frame. It isn't really glass but some kind of special material that looks like glass and can take the high temperatures. 


We probably will have it finished by this time next week. Can't wait to put all of my many green pot plants inside the greenhouse for the cold winter. We will have electricity and water connected to it (will have to pay someone to do that).


I'm thinking that on a cold winter day I will take a cup of coffee out to the greenhouse, a good book, and a chair with a cushion and spend some time in my "solarium" - and breathe in some good oxygen.


An added note: The banana tree we dug up last winter and took to a dump behind our house, came up this summer and I hadn't noticed it until a recent frost turned the large leaves yellow. It really stands out with all the tall weeds and trees. Maybe  next summer it will have some bananas on it.

Leaf Peepin' in North Alabama

We spent 3 days this week on a trip to north Alabama to visit the Bankhead National Forest area where we used to live in the little town of Haleyville in Winston County. It was raining when we got up Tuesday morning and it rained all day. We stopped along the way several times and arrived in Haleyville just as it was getting dark. We were amazed that the Imperial Inn was still operating and the Galley restaurant was just as we had left it 22 years ago.

We met some old friends, Nancy and Tom Stovall, for breakfast and got "caught up" on Haleyville news of the past 22 years. Tom told Jim he really didn't think he wanted to go back to the plant where they used to work - that it was so sad to see how the building had deteriorated over the past few years. Yes, it was very sad but we had to go see for ourselves.

Everything in the town looked pretty much the same; not many changes over the years. Later that morning we drove northeast of town toward the Bankhead National Forest to look for our old house. Had to get a map of Haleyville to find out way around and locate the road leading to our house! Once we started driving the 6 miles we remembered many of the landmarks along the way. The autumn leaves were beautiful, just as I remembered it in October 1986 when we moved to Haleyville.

We found our house and it looked pretty much the way it looked in 1987 when we left except for the landscaping. All the beautiful azaleas were gone, as were other flowers and trees. You could hardly see the house when we lived there. We had to hire a yardman to take care of all the flowers and big lawn. I guess the new owners didn't have time for all of that. 

We had a catfish pond at the edge of the yard and it was surrounded by azaleas and other flowering shrubs and trees. Not so anymore. There was a beautiful balsam tree at the edge of the water that I didn't remember.

We continued east from Haleyville to Double Springs, the county seat. It looked the same as when we lived there. We traveled on to Corinth National

Recreation area on beautiful Smith Lake and enjoyed the beautiful leaves while we had a picnic lunch. The weather was beautiful.

We continued east until we got to Cullman, and then headed south to spend the night in Opelika, AL.

The next day we spent going to cemeteries in that area, looking for graves of my ancestors.

More about that later.........