A Captivating Tree

Since our arrival on Campbell Street, some seven months ago, I have been thoroughly captivated by the Japanese Maple tree that stands in the small front yard. Looking at the bare tree in March when we put our contract in, never could I have imagined just how much I would come to love it in the coming months. By the time we moved in on May 3, the tree was covered in leaves that at some times of the day were deep purple.  I thought to myself what will it look like in fall if it looks this amazing in the spring? May I suggest to you that it is even better? I took the photo below about one week ago and as you can see it was still multi-colored with both reds and green.

About a week later, the color is so deep red it hardly looks real.

And you do not have to remind me that I have been spending a lot of time waxing eloquent, or so it seems, about the glories of the tree, but have no fear, I am nearly at the end because the brilliant red leaves are dropping off at an alarming rate. Perhaps it was the fierce wind late last week that loosened them up.? We are all learning this together as most of my friends in Florida are as inexperienced as I am when it comes to autumn!

As has been the case most of this past year, our days are full. Between cooking meals, baking, playing pickleball, church activities, shopping, walking, and creating, the days are flying by. For Bill and Fallon they are counting the days until Christian makes his way into the world. Typing that, isn't it just something when you think about new life? When we were young, I took so many things for granted, birth being one of them. Along those same lines, when we learned we were having twins, mostly we thought about how we could not afford to have two more children, certainly two at once, never thinking about how absolutely remarkable it is to have identical twins. Now we know better. 

Muffins are an easy and yummy baking project with ingredients that I normally have, even more so since I ordered twenty pounds of flour from Costco,

that I have had to store any way that I can. I purchased the container on the right at the dollar store and it's been handy, but small. At the same time I ordered ten pounds of sugar, knowing that it would get used over the coming months. Well, the flour came intact, however, the enormous bag of sugar tore which meant I went scrambling for a container in which to store it. I dumped the remainder of the pretzels in a one  tub like above, using the pretzel container for the remainder.

The small bowl on the counter is filled with chopped apples from our trip to the orchard and I combined them with rosemary to make a tasty muffin indeed, one that is both sweet and savory. Haha, I am so in love with it, I included it in my last post!

As you can see, those counters get very busy but I am figuring it all out as I go and so far it has been manageable.

Tuesday Dottie asked me if I could help her with the Christmas decorations in the morning. While I agreed, I told her I was not great with seasonal decorating. Maybe because I have had so little practice? Whatever the case, she assured me that she would instruct me as we went along. I met her on the third floor where she was already busy. I had three tasks, one of which was to clean the glass in the candle holders.

Any soot left over from last year came off with ease. Although there were plenty of wreaths, she made them even better, adding decorations where she felt it was too empty. Another task was to fluff up about ten, eight foot pieces of artificial garland that was hung like this following church on Sunday. Looking at it just now I am reminded that I put batteries in as well.

One of the things that we so like about this church is that the pastor is very involved, not asking from the congregants more than he is willing to do himself. Plus, because he is so young, he is silly as well. 

That would be Mr. Peck in the blue vest. All in all, I believe Dottie made/enhanced nearly twenty wreaths, including this huge one.

Another job she assigned to me was to fluff up all of the poinsettias, something that would never have occurred to me to do. It all came together nicely; many hands made light work.

Plenty of wreaths inside and plenty on the outside.

It was with great joy that we welcomed Mary on Wednesday afternoon. The day began with rain so no pb for this couple; instead we fiddled around the house. Once she arrived, the rain had disappeared and we wasted no time, getting busy right away. We went to the river walk and made a plan to meet Bruce at the wine shop around five. Something that was so good turned out to be that Mary and I are both mindful walkers, or that is the name that just popped into my head. As you already have learned, most everyone is in a big hurry and it is always hard for me to keep up. Not so with Mary though as her steps are just as measured as mine.

Because we had rain overnight, as well as in the morning, the water level was higher than it has been for more than a month.

Should you be wondering why I include that sort of thing, wonder no more. It serves as a guide for me of this strange new world we are living in.

Heading to see her daughter in Memphis for Thanksgiving, we were grateful she went out of her way to visit us. On Thursday we had Soul Table which we really couldn't miss, however, she was game for that, eating lunch with one of our friends. While we were at the church early, Mary went to the nearby urgent care for a UTI. When she did get to the church she remarked on how caring everyone was, something that we have experienced for ourselves. Afterwards, we shopped around downtown before returning to the house to be prepared for our dinner guests which turned out to be a dinner guest as Randy had driven to Atlanta earlier in the day and was just plain pooped. Because the weather has turned cold I made a big pot of chili, as well as a Mexican Chocolate cake. Simple, but good. David brought an Amaryllis in a box and after reading the instructions, Saturday I soaked the cake in my small basement waste basket, using the sink down there that has proven to be invaluable.

We shall see! 

What came next was wind and plenty of it. Friday morning the group was slated to go on a hike, however it was canceled due to the potential for inclement weather. Time for plan B. 

First we drove over to Andrews to check out a new coffee shop that we had heard might be right up Mary's alley. Sure enough, she enjoyed it.

From there we drove to Hayesville with the idea of walking along the dam at Lake Chatuge. During the drive we saw some trees with colorful leaves hanging on for dear life.

The earlier rain gave way to the blue skies we have become accustomed to by the time we arrived at the dam over Lake Chatuge where we planned to walk, with planned being the operative word. Not only was it super cold on top of that dam, it was incredibly windy with my hair whipping every direction and covering my face. I know it sounds super wimpy but take a look at how the surface of the water looks.

Practically waves in what is otherwise super calm water. We should have known when we pulled up and there was but two other cars in the parking lot! Although we got a start, my nerves got the better of me and even though intellectually I knew we could not get blown off the top of the dam, I still asked if they minded if we turned around and went back the way we came. Fortunately they agreed.

Driving back into town, we had lunch at a familiar place that has a new name and owner, roamed around an antique shop, eventually returning to Murphy where we returned to Latasha's boutique for Mary to shop. You have read about Latasha in this space before, however, not with the sad news that her young husband died recently, as well as unexpectedly. Seems like death is a familiar theme right about now as our friend Pam's mother died last week, Lamar died, and just two days ago Jonathan alerted me to the sad fact that an old friend, a woman a few years younger than me from when the kids were young, also died. Oh yeah, Matt's best friend's grandmother died as well. Yikes! 

Mary is such a good friend and her stock has risen even further because, God bless her, she brought my fabric here in the back of her SUV. After she left Saturday morning, I visited with my fabric, sorting it and in general admiring my stash.

Note three very large baskets filled with goodness, including two Christmas stockings!! Hurray! Here I am auditioning fabric for a new quilt for the guest room.

Meanwhile Bruce made a frame for an oil painting I'd purchased a few weeks ago at an antique store.

Although it was in progress when I took this, soon it will be on the wall.

Painted in 1975, the artist's name is on the front but who that person was is a mystery.

What is not a mystery is some exciting news that I received while writing this post. Plans are in place for Fallon to have an induction on December 2 in the evening so it seems as if Christian will be born on the 3rd of December. Their lives are about to change in a big way. 

If anyone should know it is your friend's the Pecks!

your friend,

Gail

Variety is the Spice of Life

When you have been blogging as long as I have, it is easy to wonder if I will have anything new to write about? Understandably, one would think that after nearly 18 years worth of stories there would be nothing new to cover. And yet, there seems to  always be new experiences to put in this little space on the web.

Let's get right to it because, as is so often the case, I've got a lot of ground to cover.

Scanning through my photos I'm thinking that maybe I never included the quilt I pieced and hand quilted for baby Christian, who is but weeks away from making his long awaited appearance. Fallon and Bill are so ready to see his sweet face and who could blame them? I mailed this down to Nancy who brought it to the shower. BTW--that card table has been very helpful indeed.

Being fully aware that not everyone, especially young folks, love quilts like I do, so instead of re-inventing the wheel, I saw a version of this on the Pottery Barn website and thought that might bring some cache to my humble efforts, using the fabric that Margie was kind enough to give me.

Speaking of Margie, she invited us to a Friendsgiving celebration Saturday night where not only were we thankful for all of our many blessings, the fact that David, Margie and Bruce were finished caning the chairs that once belonged to her grandfather! She estimated it took 60 hours total!

Unfortunately, Bruce's chair does not show even though I backed up as far as possible in her dining room! It was lots of fun with delicious food and good company. 

Margie's husband, Ricky, pictured in the reddish shirt, smoked both a brisket (a nod to Margie's Texas heritage) and a turkey.

At the same time that Bruce was working on the chair, sometimes at home, he was building a cabinet for the parlor, my fancy name for the front room! 

Unlike me, he uses no pattern, designing and building it, well, I don't even know how! It has been decades since he built a cabinet, but you would not know it as he never missed a beat. The process took maybe a month, working on it when he could. That might be off by a little bit, but let's just say, you cannot build a cabinet quickly!

He also built those little sawhorses out of the old wood from the valances that used to be in the living room.

Originally he'd planned on using oak, but as it was difficult to procure, we agreed on paint and doesn't it just look lovely? 

I am also very, very happy to report that we found a new rug at Lowes for that room. At the moment it the paint is curing, so in a week or so, we will begin using it as we could definitely use the storage!

In my last post, your favorite blogger was working on a quilt. It was an upstairs/downstairs situation around here for the last week or so. I kept my phone handy in the upstairs sewing room while Bruce was downstairs in the basement,  Thus I could call him, rather than go down two flights of stairs. For a long time I've wanted to do some spiral quilting and now that desire has been fulfilled. As I believe you have come to expect, I am okay not being perfect because, well, only Jesus was perfect, so who am I to imagine I could be too? I spent hours and hours going round in circles, only to discover something was not quite right when I was nearing the finish line. 

Do you see what I see? Yup, it went haywire while I kept turning it and I was too busy going round in circles to notice!! The family member who always tries doing his best came to the rescue. We had to cut off about half of the outside squares to make it work, however, in the end, I think it turned out kind of fun.

Another project Bruce tackled was the driveway which was somewhat precarious before. Adding about ten bags of dirt, along with concrete and paving material, he laid the pavers back down and it is a huge improvement.

Things look very different without the leaves. No surprise there, but still we had no idea what we would be seeing as late fall came around. Now we do. Bruce never realized that the library was but two very small blocks away as it was hidden behind the full trees..

Which brings me to a sweet story that happened in a sweet town. Friday morning I was heading to the pharmacy and realized that using a restroom was in my best interests, so I popped into the library, finding the key hanging beside the check-out desk. I don't know about you but I can't go into a library without looking at something; in this instance it was a big quilting book on the sale table for, ready? Ten cents. Flipping through the pages, it wasn't long before I was flipping out because, when I came to the back of the book there were some magazine pages torn from a 1987 Family Circle magazine. Get this, all those years ago I had torn out the EXACT same pages!!! Because I had come with a debit card only, the librarian told me to take it and return when I could. Now that is what we are talking about when we say how much we love it here! Something else to like. "Take what you need."

Another awesome thing happened last week and that was, as I was standing very near to the suet cake holder, this cute little Downey Woodpecker came over and did not leave!

It's the little things folks! I am so sure that you agree.

As to the bare tree situation, I took this from our street and now we know how we saw the house from the church! 

Not only is there a free lunch every other Thursday at our church, there is now free produce available that Liz drives to Franklin to procure from a farmer co-op.

She made some little salads for folks to try using the arugula.

Look who is getting the hang of this baking thing again. I may have included this link to the most amazing muffin pan before, but if so, it needs to be shared again.  No oil or liners necessary! These are apple/rosemary muffins btw.

A cool full moon the other night both in looks, and the outside temperature. Really it has been very comfortable, so much so that I wore a tank top while playing pickleball this morning. Starting out with an over shirt, layering is the answer at this time of year.

The Japanese Maple is just beautiful. Mary is coming to visit on Wednesday! Hurray!! Here's hoping that tomorrow's storm does not blow off too many more leaves. 

Look what else I can see from the front porch as well as my kitchen window!!!

These are the two houses on our side of the street. I never imagined that I would have a mountain view here.

The pickleball ladies have been such a blessing to me, taking me in like I am not the stranger that I am. Many of these women have been playing together for nearly a decade! Friday we went to Crane Creek Winery and the adjacent restaurant called Paris & Company, where we enjoyed delicious food and scintillating conversation. Well maybe not scintillating but it sounds good!

This picture is pretty funny, at least to me, because three of the women decided to walk to the tasting room from the restaurant. One such woman left her phone there and Lori is standing waiting. She was also waiting for a few of us who were riding with her. Waiting is not her strong suit. :)

This is a place, even near wintertime, that is very photogenic.

I am showing great restraint, showing only a few of the photos that I took.

Yesterday afternoon I went to a ladies meeting at the parsonage. The group of about fifteen was made up of lots of young mothers including two women who have four children. Listening to some of their challenges it occurred to me that living here has been such a joy for many reasons, one of which is that we are old. I know that sounds crazy, but seriously, we have no responsibilities and that feels very nice indeed. Sometimes I wonder how in the world we did it.

your friend,

Gail

What a Time We are Having!

It's a beautiful day here in Murphy, North Carolina. We missed playing pickleball this morning as it had rained overnight, albeit only a smidge, but the courts were wet at our normal time. The sun is shining brightly now, and the doors are open to the cool breeze. Mr. Peck is downstairs making magic with his saws and other tools, while Mrs. Peck has been doing the quilting on her latest project. Made from thrift store finds and other sources, it is coming along nicely, if I do say so myself. More on that topic later.

The leaves are mostly gone now and many trees look more like this.

And while I would be a bit of a fool to declare that this is my preference over what we have just witnessed, I really don't mind it at all. I kind of like being able to see birdies so clearly. 

Lots of ground to cover today as I have left so much out and it is important to me to document the seasons and folks we encounter. Seriously, I really need to up my game on the posting because things are happening all of the time! Our field trips have been few and far between of late, and maybe that is because we have plenty to love here at home? I took this on the river walk the other day. Just lovely.

With that in mind, let us go back about two weeks and begin from there. Knowing that the end of the colorful leaves was approaching, we took a ride along Junaluska Road, a beautiful drive beginning in Andrews. Of course anything to do with the Andrews landscape is going to be fantastic, or so we have learned. If only the town could catch up to that beauty! On our way to Andrews the fields are plowed and if I am not mistaken that red is sumac. Is't it striking?

There is this beautiful home in Andrews, probably one of many that I have yet to see.  

The drive was still beautiful in spite of the drought which has diminished the color somewhat. Our friends, David and DAnna's home is off of Junaluska Road near Nantahala Lake, but we had yet to visit them there. Although we tried calling, a common theme here in the mountains is no signal which is what we experienced. Except, after turning around and once back in Andrews, David called saying please come back! And so we turned around and went back.

Oh my goodness do they have a special place. 

I can't remember how many acres, all of then beautiful. The house! Holy cow. One of the porches!

The views!

The cute birdhouse! 

The multitude of birds flying around their yard was a joy to behold! They have had a place in the area for quite some time that they visited fairly often because they are from Atlanta where he was a police officer and she was a social worker. About two years ago, they decided the mountains is where they wanted to be and moved up full time. Really great folks. While Bruce marveled at David's "toys", she drove me over to Nantahala Lake, a very short drive away. Oh my goodness! 

Of course I took more photos than the one above!!

What a beautiful sight to behold! Here's hoping next year there is rain and it will be even more beautiful! Be still my beating heart.

So with my enthusiastic post about the trip to Gibbs Gardens, I left out something very important to the life of Murphy and that is Halloween which is celebrated with great enthusiasm.  Yeah, I meant to do that because really there is no other word to describe what we witnessed downtown. My pictures will no do it justice, I am afraid to say. Finally we have a home again where we could have candy for trick or treaters which is not allowed in Lake Pineloch Village, our Orlando residence. Except, after consulting with neighbors, we learned that no children go door to door, instead they go from business to business downtown. Walking the two blocks to see the festivities, they did not disappoint. We will start with Laura who was manning the booth for Downtown Murphy. I love that smile!

Please note the short sleeves on October 31, a warm evening indeed. In the parking lot of church, some friends dressed up, giving out treats from the back of their vehicles.

We have never seen the sidewalks packed with people before, but now we have!

There were loads of great costumes on both kids and adults alike. The business owners get into the act as well. This is the staff of a real estate company. 

So cute! As was our friend Lisa and her friend Samantha. My goodness, Lisa (l) was barely recognizable! Her voice gave her away though.

The people kept coming and coming and from what we have heard, many folks gave out more than 1,000 pieces of candy! Have you seen the price of candy lately? 

Because we went home to Orlando last year we had no idea, but now we most certainly do.  Speaking of Halloween, a few days before the above we were invited to a party at our neighbor's house across the street. I'm mostly a non-costume kind of gal and here, even more so as I don't have much to work with yet. About half of our clothes are still hanging in our Orlando closet, making putting anything together more difficult. Bruce said let us go to Walmart and see what we can find, words that I never dreamed my husband would utter just two years ago. Now, it is the answer to everything. 

He found a costume alright and it requires some explaining. Ages ago, while visiting Jon and Alissa in Austin, Jonathan introduced Bruce to a whiskey called Fireball. Actually it was a cocktail that not only had Fireball but ginger beer and a squeeze of lime as I recall. Already a fan of ginger beer, the addition of cinnamon whiskey was a match made in heaven for him. Fast forward some years and people got wind of him enjoying that cocktail every now and again and the gifts of that whiskey came flooding in. By now some of you are chuckling because you know how easy it is to drink and sometimes to excess. The nickname "Fireball Bruce" was born. 

So.....

this was a bit of an inside joke that went over quite well at the party.

Remember what I said about gifts? A ten pack of shot size had been in the pantry so I said to Bruce, "why not give them out at the party?" He's making his bag of them and once at the party he had no problem finding takers. 

The house is about thirty years older than ours and huge, with five, yes five, fireplaces, all of them identical to ours and don't work like ours either. They kept the lighting so low it was really something.

Pretty creepy, right? In spite of not really knowing anyone, aside from Michelle and Zach, it was a fun time and now that I think of it, we ran into some folks we had met before. I told you it is a very small town! 

Winding this post down, a few things from our wonderful home. Actually stuff we have been making, one of which I know will please you to see. 

A SUCCESSFUL CAKE! It's true! Finally I discovered what had been vexing me since we moved in. A disposable tray set on the bottom shelf that was here when we moved in, explaining why the oven was so clean. It came to me one evening, so the very next morning, I baked some muffins and voila! I am a baker again!

The very same pumpkin cake that failed a few weeks ago, turned out delicious and looked good too. I took it to the bi-weekly free community lunch where we are volunteers. In a bit of a funny twist, there were two other pumpkin cakes brought in by others!

Bruce finished the caning!! Gosh it turned out beautifully.

At the same time as he was working on the above, he began making a small cabinet for us to use in the parlor. It's been a long time since he built a piece of furniture but, of course, it is turning out great. Don't tell him I told you that because he will get mad at me. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but he is so darn humble it is crazy. 

Here's what I have been up to. Or at least this is what things looked like a week ago,

I am about three-quarters of the way done with the quilting which is, as mentioned in the beginning of this post, going very well. 

Finally, almost out those bedroom windows, it looked like this two weeks ago. 

I am already dreaming of next Fall. Well, that's not entirely true because we are dreaming about having a grandchild, and of course having snow. One of them is a guarantee, only three weeks away, while the other, we shall see. 

Thanks for coming along this crazy ride we are on.

your friend,

Gail