Beautiful Sunday!

We have been outside all afternoon, enjoying this gorgeous, sunny weather.  It's 71 degrees right now, blue sky, bright sun.  I am absolutely beside myself.  :)

We Easter-decorated a little outside, too, since I'm just about done with the inside.  That little tea cart won't hold no more!  So now it's time to start on the yard. 

This little bunny was light pink and rusty from age and exposure so we gave him a fresh outlook on life today and painted him white!  I think he looks great.  I bought him my first Easter at the condo so he's about twelve years old.   He looks so much better white!

Larry got this little bunny windsock at a yard sale for a dollar.  :)

And we made an egg tree!  I love how the wind was blowing them when I took this picture.

I was so worried that the cold had gotten the camellias but the bushes are full of sweet little buds just like this one.

We switched back to Daylight Saving Time this weekend so I hope we've had our last cold snap for the year.  We got things to do!!  We have plans to (finally!) get this house pressure washed, paint the shutters and plant some stuff!!

Kickin' off Christmas

Our Maw was smiling so big down at us today!  My cousin, Debee, and her husband, Ben, hosted our Hall family Christmas at their home and we had a blast!  Great food, great conversation, beautiful Christmas decorations (three trees!) and oh my goodness, lots of laughs.  My face hurt from laughing so much.  When I was growing up, we always had Christmas Eve at Maw's house.  Always.  Nobody missed it.  They knew better but better than that, they didn't want to miss it.  Debee has been so sweet to host our get-together the past two years.  I didn't get to go last year but I went today with Ami and Brian.  Here are some pictures from our day!

 One of Debee's three gorgeous Christmas trees

 

Debee made some awesome sausage balls, Ami made brownies and some delicious ham and cheese sandwiches on those yummy sweet Hawaiian rolls, I made buffalo chicken dip and Rice Krispy treats, we had pigs-in-the-blanket, a pumpkin roll, Christmas cookies and cake.  Everything was SO good!

A tradition my mama started is the Ornament Swap.  You bring one, you get one.  I got two!  A beautiful gold bird and a glittery red bow and since I don't have a tree up yet and won't until my hubby gets home on the 21st, I decorated myself!  And then all the girls joined in!

 

 Here's the whole gang, complete with Ruger and Lucky!

We just had the best time!  I hope we do this every year.  Maw would just be tickled if we did.

After we left Debee and Ben's, Brian, Ami and I went on an adventure (possibly our last for just the three of us!) to Bolingbroke to piddle around in the antique shops there.  We got there and discovered that we had JUST missed the Christmas parade!  We got some awesome pictures of this old fire truck all decked out, though.

 

We found a couple of treasures here!  Ami added a new globe to her collection and I got an antique Saltine cracker tin that I've wanted forever.

 These little cuties met us at the door!
 

This yard made us want to come home and decorate some more.  Wow!

 

And we all just loved the old Methodist church. 

Brian spotted some mistletoe down the street and we walked down to try to get some.  It was so high up in the tree that you very nearly would have to climb the tree to get it.  I had to have some!!  Larry will be home in 13 days!!  And it's Christmas and you gotta have mistletoe at Christmas.  I saw some very close to a low-hanging branch wrapped in vine and I thought I could pull that vine down and that would pull the branch down and I'd have it.  Nope.  Vine snapped in two.  Dang it!  I was struggling with it when the owner of the shop came over to see if he could help me.  Mr. Jerry Schmitt pulled the branch down and I held it while he got the mistletoe!  What a sweet man!  He and his wife were closing up by that time but they stayed open and were so gracious to us.  That's that small town thing, you know.

We had such a great day!  A wonderful kickoff to Christmas!  Which will be here in 17 days and Larry will be here in 13!!

My granddaddy, the ice man

Before every home had electricity and a refrigerator, folks kept their food cold by placing a huge block of ice inside an ice box, typically kept in their kitchens.  There was a man who would come around and deliver those blocks of ice.  In Oglethorpe, Georgia, that man was my granddaddy, Lawrence Clark.

I don't know much about my granddaddy as he passed away when my mama was a little girl.  I know he was born in 1894, he grew up in Macon County and served in France in World War I.  He was married and had one child before he met, fell in love and married my grandma and had five babies with her.  He took care of his family by delivering these blocks of ice and by digging and repairing wells, a skill he passed on to my oldest uncle, James, better known as Jiggs, a nickname given to him at birth by Granddaddy.  Granddaddy died in 1957, when Mama had just turned 10 years old, and he's buried in our family cemetery at County Line Baptist Church in Ellaville.

The older I get, the more I want to find out about my family, especially to learn things about those who passed on before I got the chance to meet them.  I know my granddaddy would have loved me.  He would have loved my sassiness.  :)

In my quest to learn more about him, I posted something on our Macon County home folks Facebook page asking for stories and memories and pretty much anything anybody knew about my granddaddy.  Kathy Fountain reminded me that the old ice house still stands beside her daddy's garage.  We were all home today for Brian's daddy, Mr. Harry Godfrey's funeral and I stopped at Mr. Roy Fountain's garage for just a minute to poke around and take some pictures.  Mr. Roy took me over there, opened the door for me and allowed me to take as many pictures as I wanted.  He even gave me a description of what I was seeing.  

Those of you from Oglethorpe recognize this little building!  This was the old ice house where those huge ice blocks were stored until it was time for Granddaddy to load them up and deliver them.

The little building is used mainly for storage now but the pipes and water lines are still intact!

 

Today was a hot day.  The high was in the 90's and the sun shone all day (no rain, yay!!) but inside that little brick building, it was significantly cooler.  Mr. Roy told me that this is why.  The walls are this thick!  I was amazed at the difference in the temperature.  I don't know when this little ice house was built, I'm guessing the early 1900's, but wasn't it so smart to use bricks and sawdust to insulate??  They had to keep that ice cold and they figured it out!

 

  

Mr. Roy showed me this old Nehi drink sign, too, that I LOVED.  He said he's pretty sure it's from the same time Granddaddy was there.  I told him if he ever wanted to sell it, find my mama and daddy and let me know.  I don't think he ever will, though.  I wouldn't.

Next time you open your 'fridge to pour yourself a glass of cold sweet tea, think about my granddaddy and his ice blocks.  They were usually 3 feet by 5 feet cubes and weighed a hundred pounds each.  He had to cut them down to the size that his customers needed.  Wow.  I often wonder what Granddaddy would think about things today.  I would love to sit down and talk to him.  He died in the 50's and everything he knew is pretty much gone now.  Well, everything except his ice house. 

Sunrise

One of the perks of getting to work at 6:00 in the morning is you get to watch the sun come up every day.

It's pretty awesome.

Before I started my job at the base, I could count on one hand how many times I actually saw the sun rise.  I didn't realize what I was missing!!  It's beautiful every single morning.  No buildings or trees to hide it, just miles of flight line serving as the canvas for God's early morning gift to us.  I'm honored to get to keep company with the sun as he wakes up for the day.  But his tail can wake up ON HIS OWN tomorrow 'cause I'll be sleeping in!!  :)

An afternoon among the camellias

We had a wonderful, relaxing afternoon at Massee Lane Gardens today!  I was there four hours and got to walk among some of the most beautiful flowers and trees in the state!  We had a picnic lunch and just took our time and enjoyed a leisurely tour of the gardens.

We had the place nearly to ourselves and enjoyed a calm, soothing Japanese garden where we sat and talked and listened to the babbling brook that fed the oh so peaceful pond that was home to some of the biggest fish I've ever seen!  You see 'em in there?? 

 And there was a canopy of cherry blossoms overhead!

Here are a few pictures of the gorgeous flowers that just begged to have their beauty struck.  :)