A Late Holiday Post

I didn't get a chance to wish all of you a Happy 4th. So I will say it a day late. I hope everyone had a fun, safe 4th of July. In the midst of all of the celebrating, I hope we all remembered to say a prayer of thanks for our freedom and a prayer for those who are fighting to make sure that we keep our freedom. I say a prayer for our military people and their families every day. But this year, the words and the meaning of what I pray were put into reality. Just a couple of weeks ago, our home town streets were lined with flags and hundreds of people as they waited for a hearse to bring one of our boys back from Afghanistan. So as I look at our country's flag, I not only feel pride and honor, I also shed a few tears. Because to me, the flag represents more than a piece of cloth with stars and stripes. It symbolizes a couple of hundred years of human sacrifice and the many citizens who worked hard to make this the country what our fore fathers envisioned. It also symbolizes a great land that up until recently, ALL Americans wanted to be "one nation under God".
We went to friends' house for a barbecue and a quick swim in their pool. Well, actually for Chatty, her friend, and me it wasn't quite swimming. They floated and I stood. This has been a tradition for me for years. The girls just started doing this since they have been old enough to wear makeup. My friend swims. She has a perm that she just fluffs up and she wears no makeup, so for her it's not a problem. I bet you're wondering why it's such a problem for me, aren't you? Well, right after the swim, we always go to the public fireworks display in town. You still don't get it, do you? Well let me put it in terms you will understand. My hair is not the care free kind of hair. It requires a curling brush and some maneuvering. And let's just put it this way, if I went straight to town right out of the pool....I would look like a raccoon from all of the mascara running down my face. Get the picture? So I don't swim. I just stand and do my favorite thing....TALK.

Even though our kids are grown and Mr. Chat's hair is thinning and some of his blond hair is being replaced by silver, he still has a lot of kid left in him. He disappeared while most of us were still eating. I knew where he went. And it was confirmed when I heard the big bang go off in the yard. He does love 4th of July and he still likes playing with fire.

And what better way to end the evening than to be with friends sitting in a safe country!

So I hope all of you were able to celebrate in a way that brought you peace and joy! May God bless you all!

Night Time Stories

When I was a little girl it was always a thrill to go to my southern grandparents' house to spend the night. I loved everything about it! Every thing, except one thing. Usually at night, someone would start telling ghost stories. Then as we would head for bed, my grandpa would tell us kids to be good and stay in bed, or RawHead & Bloody Bones would grab us and pull us under the bed. Before you get the wrong idea about my grandpa, I want to make it very clear that he loved us all and he was very protective of everyone in the family. That being said, I don't know how to explain why this was one of his favorite things to say to us at night. As I got older, I figured it was one of two things...either he didn't have enough entertainment throughout the day and this was his way of getting a chuckle. OR he wanted to make sure none of us kids wandered outside after everyone was in bed. But one thing I know for sure, it worked! We always made sure we made a stop at the bathroom before we went to bed. Because there was no way after the lights went out that any of us would get up...Not even for a trip to the bathroom...Not even if we had to go so bad that our eyes were floating. One time as I lay in bed thinking about this thing that was under my bed, I started daring myself to put one foot on the floor for just one second. I wanted to see what would happen. I uncovered my foot. Then I eased it to the side of the bed. Just as I was about to swing it over the side of the bed, someone in the next room started snoring. Not only did my foot go back under the covers..but my head and the rest of my body did, too.

Now I'm older and my grandpa is gone. My mom, my brother, uncles, aunts and cousins still talk about grandpa's ghost stories and his way of keeping us in bed. Now it's not so scary. Inevitably, someone will mention it at family gatherings. There is always a lot of loud laughing when we re-tell his stories. When someone even mentions RawHead & Bloody Bones, 2 of the 4 generations that are there will all break out in a smile. My uncle came to visit me the other day. He has an eight year old daughter. She said, "Dad, tell her what we read about RawHead & Bloody Bones the other day." It seems like RawHead & Bloody Bones is a real Missouri folklore. We always thought grandpa had made it up. According to what I've found on the internet, there are 2 versions of the story. One from the south and one from Ireland. Neither of them are like grandpa's version. But I'm guessing that southern kids and Irish kids all possess strong bladders, too!


"Good night! Don't let the bed bugs bite!" That was another one of grandpa's favorite nightly sayings that freaked me out. Not only was I busy making sure that my foot did not fall over the side of the bed, I also had to keep an eye on the sheets to make sure there wasn't anything crawling on them. I guess that's why when I came home, my mom always let me sleep late the next morning-----She knew that I had a few hours of sleep to catch up on.

It's getting late. I'm heading to bed. That is...after a quick stop at the bathroom.....I wouldn't want to have to get up in the middle of the night, you know!

On the Road Again!

Another weekend and we hit the road! This time I had the whole family---my immediate family, my parents, my brother's family and spouses & my great niece----in tow. We loaded up and headed for a town that's about 2 and a half hours northwest from here.

My aunt had a family get-together for everyone who has birthdays and anniversaries in June. Believe me when I say that June is a very popular month for my dad's side of the family. His mother (my grandma) had 3 children. They are each 8 years apart and each born in June. Talk about family planning! She was precise, wasn't she? I would say she could teach the modern day girl a thing or two, wouldn't you? Not only are their birthdays in June, but there were 2 other birthdays and 3 anniversaries. So there was a lot of celebrating to do. Mr. Chat was back from Texas in time to go with us. He gathered the younger people together for a lively game of volleyball. I'm not sure who won. But they all had fun. We played the White Elephant game but that sort of fizzled out. It seems as if everyone on that side of the family is too polite to steal from each other. My niece and I were the only ones bold enough to swipe what we wanted from someone else. I wonder what that says about our character?

Well, I've finally decided I'm going to break down and buy new batteries for my camera and fire Chatty from her photography duties. My aunt has a beautiful yard. Her roses, plants, and yard foliage looks like it came ordered straight from a catalog. But I'm afraid that there are NO pictures of it. From what I can tell, Chatty was more intrigued with getting pictures of trees from different angles. Since I can't show you any of my aunt's creative yard talents, I will share a couple of Chatty's tree shots with you. It's amazing how the younger perspective of nature differs from someone who is 30 years older. I guess, maybe when I was younger, odd looking trees would have caught my attention more than a yard that someone had carefully planned, planted and cultivated, too.

It's been a very busy weekend. Yesterday, we had another birthday to celebrate. One of our dear friends celebrated his 60th birthday. We had a day of barbeque and plenty of sun. Now it's back to the work week. I'm going to try to catch my breath because this weekend there will be 2 more birthdays. At the end of the month, my step-son will be celebrating his 27th birthday. Oh! I forgot. We have to squeeze Father's Day in there, too. I'm thinking that I really need to get a third part-time job.....especially through June.

A Relaxing Sunday with Nature

It was time for another girls' day out. Today we were lucky enough to have another girl join us...my mom. My dad retired 7 years ago. Before then, my mom went on all of our adventures with us. We were always the 3 Musketeers. But now, my mom likes to stay pretty close to my dad---which is pretty amazing considering tomorrow they will be celebrating their 52nd wedding anniversary. Anyway, Mr. Chat wasn't home today, so I threw some ham sandwiches & chips into the cooler...grabbed my two girls and we hit the road. My mom can never go any where empty handed. When she climbed into the front seat, she tossed a few sodas and some home made cinnamon rolls into the cooler. And off we went. Destination: A natural spring.

And we had some company on our stroll around the springs.

The weather was great. The park wasn't overly crowded. It was one of those days that was just right.

A Quick Walk Through Our Yard

I know this post is going to leave you wondering why I'm making such a big deal out of my yard. I know a lot of you have A LOT more things going on in your yard. But if you are new to my blog, I will catch you up. For the past 16 years, Mr. Chat has done a lot of landscaping on our property. His efforts paid off, because it was always so beautiful. People would stop and make comments about how pretty our yard was. Mr. Chat even got offers to do landscaping on other properties. He would love to do landscaping for a living, but he has a full time job and just doesn't have as much extra time to devote to it as he would like.

I never get attached to a particular land scheme he has created from year to year, because he gets bored with it. The man moves plants, bushes, & trees around in the yard like a woman moves furniture in her living room. I was accustomed to the look and the personality of the yard constantly changing from year to year...but two years ago..I was SHOCKED and a little embarrassed. The ditch beside our property started to create a flooding hazard. Mr. Chat stripped our yard. He hauled in a lot of dirt so that he could build the yard up. It never failed, every time I saw a little green twig of grass peeking through, he would get on his mower and rake it down. Then he would have more dirt hauled in. I'm sure our neighbors weren't happy with us. First of all, our yard was hideous looking. But also, he created a lot of dust every time he ran his machine across the dirt. I guess doing all of that put him in a pretty destructive mood because he took down some of our Willow trees along that ditch. Of course they had been killed from the ice storm that we had 2 winters before. Then he had the nerve to go to the front yard and take some of our trees down there. We had two trees that he had planted side by side when they were saplings. He twisted them together. They grew and formed together and looked like a spiraling tree. I loved that tree! But he said the roots were going to break up our driveway. He promised that he would replace them with a tree that's roots grow straight down. But after 16 years, I'm use to seeing full grown trees, not little shrimpy looking things. This is going to take some getting use to. Anyway, I will show you how a few of our plants are developing. Remember, everything out there is a work in progress, so I'm only going to show you a few things.

Smoke Tree

Dwarf Chinese Red Maple

Various plants in the front garden

Hibiscus Tree

That's all for now. Mr. Chat has planted some new bushes along the sidewalk, but they are teeny-tiny so I won't show them. I was going to show some of the plants in the back yard, but the neighbor man was out in his yard. He's new to the neighborhood and I didn't want him to think he has a stalker. I'll let him live here for awhile before I let him know just how weird the neighbor lady is.

Best Friends and Life on the Mississippi

There are a couple of people who are a very important part of the Chat family life. We have shared some great times over the past 11 years. We've seen each other through the good, the bad, the loss, and the heartaches. But no matter what, we are there for one another. We share our strengths, weaknesses, flaws and above all else, our love for God & Christ. We are not "conventional" Christians. If you met us, you would know what I'm talking about. But you would instantly know that we love to laugh. We like to find humor in all things. And when we're together, humor we DO find. Chatty says that she can't take us ANYWHERE!!!!! If the truth be told, she gets a real kick out of us. Although, I have seen her walk away when we start having "too" much fun. *heeheehee.* Ain't life grand?

This holiday found us , along with our friends, making our way to a very popular town along the mighty Mississippi river. Yes, that's right! Hannibal, Mo. The boyhood home town of Samuel Clemens (a.k.a Mark Twain). The town and the characters in the Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn books were based upon the town and the people of Hannibal.

I still haven't gotten the knack of taking good pictures for my blog corner. I always forget to take a camera along on my adventures. Chatty gets so engrossed in sight-seeing and shopping that she misses a lot of great photo opportunities. I guess I'll have to quit laughing so much and start taking my blogging responsibilities more seriously.

Hannibal, MO

These are some buildings along the main drag of the old part of Hannibal. In fact, all of the buildings in this part of town have been maintained to keep it's original look of the 1800's. On this Memorial Day weekend, the town was having a festival. This street was closed down so that Merchants and Vendors could set up booths to hock their wares.

Display in Mark Twain Museum

Direct your attention to the buildings to the right. The brown building is the Clemens Drug Store. Mark Twain's dad purchased the whole front row of buildings around the corner from the Drug Store (The view that you can't see from this angle. I will get better at taking pictures, I promise). If I remember correctly, Mark Twain's dad died at the age of 49 when Mark Twain was 11 years old. The family fell on hard times and had to sell everything they owned to pay bills. The white building directly behind the Drug Store was Mark Twain's dad's law office. After a man was shot in the street, this is said to be the building they dragged him into. They put a Bible on his chest so they could see when he stopped breathing. We failed to get a picture of the outside of Mark Twain's boyhood home. Becky Thatcher's home was under renovation so we didn't get to take a tour of it. This picture was taken standing in front of Mark Twain's boyhood home. WRONG..WRONG..WRONG.. Correction....The buildings to your right are not the drug store and the law office....the white one is Mark Twain's boyhood home. The brown one is the gift shop. The picture was taken when we were standing between the Drug Store and the Law Office.

Chatty in front of the infamous whitewashed fence.

We're not Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. But we ARE best friends who get ourselves into some pretty amusing situations sometimes. THINK: Lucy & Ethel!

Whose idea was this anyway??? At the foot of the steps there was a sign posted that stated whoever made it back down would get a survivor's award. And us being the crew that we are, we accepted the challenge. The sign, however, failed to inform us that there were 244 steps up (which means, 244 steps back down...a total of 488 steps).

This was at the top of the hill. Which (yippee!) meant the end of our uphill climb. This Memorial Lighthouse was built in 1935 for the commemoration of Mark Twain's 100th Birthday. In 1960, a wind of 70 m.p.h. blew the Lighthouse down. It was restored and dedicated in 1963. On March 24, 1963, President Kennedy pressed a button in Washington D.C. to turn the light back on. In 1994 President Clinton pressed the button to relight the beacon.

This was our view from the Lighthouse. The Mighty Mississippi.

And now

In honor of the men and women who fight to give us our chance to experience "peace & freedom" and to share good times & holidays with family & friends. A salute to the people who fight to keep our country "One nation under God":

To all, past and present, who have served and are serving....THANK YOU so much! Words can never and will never express how much gratitude and respect the U.S. citizens and the country owe to you and to your families!!!! May God bless you all!!!!

Italian? German? Who cares? PRETTY!

My love for Tuscany decór and the fact that it was Maifest weekend, led us on a family outing to the vineyards of Hermann, MO. Yes, I am mixing my ethnic cultures. I realize that we were in German country and they were celebrating a German holiday. But in my mind, grapes and wine making belong to the Italians! While I don't drink (I won't judge those who do), I like grape designs and all stemware glasses. I'm looking for a couple of ideas on grape themed designs to add to my dining room. I loved browsing the gift shop at the winery. Everything was beautiful but also very pricey. I wanted to buy it all. But since the economy is the way it is and I have a budget to stick to, I just browsed. This required a lot of self-discipline on my part!!!! I did, however, get an idea of something I could put on top of my curio hutch. I think I can come up with the same look by shopping at Gordman's...or better yet, the dollar shop.

Chatty was in charge of the camera for the day. Because;

(1.) she is a much better photographer than I.

AND
(2.) I was too busy drooling over everything.

Hermann is a river town. It's citizens have managed to keep a lot of it's old architectural structures maintained and well preserved. Chatty failed to get pictures of the street vendors, old houses and buildings, or the gift shop. Maybe next time we visit this town, we will get more pictures to show to you. I guess she was busy drooling, too.

Here are some of the pictures she remembered to take:

This is the door leading to the restaurant on the vineyard property. The restaurant was originally a horse stable. They were able to revamp it into a stylish restaurant while leaving a lot of the stable's original floor plan and fixtures. The tables are made from old wine barrels. It has an elegant atmosphere. But you have to watch what you order, because Germans really like sour tasting food. Apparently, they add horseradish and vinegar to a lot of their food. They must also be great fans of meat and potatoes.

"VINEYARD PHOTOS"

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We were taken on a tour through the wine making process. At the end, there was wine tasting. We skipped out on that part and went directly to the gift shop. :-D!

This was at the entrance to the gift shop. My thought was, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Very pretty. But that won't fit anywhere in my dining room....So let's hurry on into the gift shop so I can soak up some creative ideas that I can use and will fit in my dining room!"

From the gift shop, Chatty bought 2 bottles of grape juice and a bag of cheese curds. Mr. Chat bought what he thought were 4 glasses with grapes painted on the outside. He likes finding great bargains. Especially when he thinks he is getting a two-for-one deal. Pleasing me AND doing it cheaply. He took his purchase to the car. On closer inspection, he saw that what he really bought were 4 plastic tumblers. I don't think he thought it was such a great deal after all. ----But I was thankful. (I won't use them for decor but they will make great drinking glasses. Which my family will be grateful for. When I get something really pretty, they have been trained to ask, "Is this for decorations or can we actually use it?" I'm still trying to train Chatty's friend. He couldn't figure out why everyone at our dinner table gasped when he grabbed my spice grinder. Chatty discreetly took the grinder out of his hand, cleared her throat, said, "Decoration". Then she handed him already ground spices and said, "Usable spices." At the time, the only response he made was, "Huh?" I think he thinks I'm weird. But I have every confidence that I will get him trained, too. Either that, or he will take her out to eat a lot more! )----Getting back to the gift shop.---- My wallet stayed closed and my finances intact. The only thing I lost was a lot of saliva from the drooling I did over the pretty displays.

"ADVENTURE RATING"

I don't have Siskel & Ebert...

But I do have Sissie

AND

SISSIE SAYS:

2 thumbs up on our vineyard experience.