BEACHING IT

Hubby and I finally went on vacay!!!  And I sure needed it.  We have gone to St. Augustine for many years, but this year we decided to step outside our box and go someplace new…Amelia Island/Fernandina, FL.  It made for a shorter trip of about 2 ½ hours vs over 4 hrs. it took to get to St. Augustine.  And…we really liked it, maybe even better.

Our condo at AMELIA SOUTH CONDOMINIUMS was really nice and spacious with lots of beachy décor.  My only complaint was the size of the bathrooms and the poor lighting in them.  

However, the balcony and its view made up for any inconvenience.  We spent more time there than anywhere else.  The view was beautiful and the sound of the waves was soooooo peaceful and relaxing. 

Of course, we spent some time in the sand and sticking our feet in the surf.  My husband…who used to LOVE riding the waves…has decided if he goes out more than toe-deep there is a shark waiting to devour him!  

I didn’t do something this year that I have ALWAYS done…I didn’t pick up any shells!  Though it was hard for me to resist, I just left them behind for some other shell hunter to discover.  Every year I have brought home shells and then not done anything with them, other than one year when I gave each of my students a shell on the first day of school and asked them to write a story about it😊  

  

I did bring home this shell though...couldn't resist.  I've never seen this done with shells, only rocks.  Our little town went wild with the painted rocks for awhile.  Such a sweet way to spread some cheer in a world that needs more to smile about these days.

But we did see some cute creatures.  This crab was playing hide-and-seek with me for awhile, popping in and out of the hole he was digging.  And this tortoise was really getting around on the beach.  Two different people picked him up and toted him into the grasses on the dunes, but he would just come right back.  At one point he visited hubby and me and just decided to sit awhile under our chair…guess he was seeking some shade…or either he wanted to see if we were sharing some good gossip!

 The Fernandina downtown area is really interesting with lots of cute (and expensive) shops and good places to eat lunch or grab a scoop or two of ice cream. We ate great burgers in an old converted gas station called T-Ray’s.  Just like in old gas stations, the bathrooms were outside and you had to get a key to enter!!!  While we were there we ran into a couple from here that we know.  Seems like no matter where we go we see someone we know…guess that tells me we need to behave!

And, of course, we had to play tourist and take some silly pictures.

We did have a couple days that it rained, but you know what to do at the beach when it rains…right????  You go SHOPPING!!!  My husband is the best ever person to go shopping with.  Yes, lady’s, I am a lucky girl.  We shopped at a very nice store that I think is only in FL…Beall’s.  So excited to find a cute pair of Life Stride shoes on sale for only $18 (regular $60…SCORE!!!)  In GA we have Beall’s Outlets but they aren’t nearly as nice as the parent store.  Hubby also let me shop around in TUESDAY MORNING (swoon, swoon!) while he napped in the car😊

We stayed only a few days but it was so relaxing and I always love having some alone time with my soulmate.  

Unfortunately, we did have some unpleasant excitement when we got home and realized we had left something somewhat valuable in the condo!  I was in a panic, but LONG STORY SHORT…I was able to contact the condo manager and we had some friends who were still in Fernandina who went to the condo and retrieved our item for us.  WHEW!!!  So thankful to all of them for their help.  I was in a major tizzy…and GA girls know how to have rather elaborate tizzies!  I even had to take an anxiety pill.  All’s well that ends well.

On a less happy note, I found out this week that a very close and dear high school friend has brain cancer and her time she says is very limited.  I am heart broken…love her so much, but she has a great attitude about the whole situation.  Also learned this week that my 24-year old niece’s cancer has returned and surgery will be soon.  So if you are a praying person, we would really appreciate any prayers for my friend Joan and my niece Kala.  If you don’t pray, then could you please just send some good vibes.  

 Hope all of you have had time and opportunity for some summer vacation whether at the beach or somewhere else of your choice.  If so, I’d love to hear where you went.  Everybody needs some “away” time…away from the daily grind, the troubles and problems that we all have from time to time, and just time to relax and do only what you want to do when you want to do it!!!!  I love vacations😊

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS...SING IT, JULIE!

One of my favorite blogs is NANA DIANA TAKES A BREAK.  Diana is such a sweetheart with a really witty personality; just the kind of person I would LOVE to have for my next-door neighbor (vs the people we never see!)  She recently had a post that I loved (yet another one) and I hope she won’t mind but I’m stealing borrowing her idea and sharing with you some of my VERY FAVORITE things. Please do read Diana’s post here.

Like Diana, there are certainly some of my favorite things that go without saying…my wonderful husband of 49 yrs., my son, DIL, and two GRAND grandchildren, my home, my career, church, etc. etc.  But this post is not about them, but rather about THINGS that really might not mean anything to anyone else but do mean an awful lot to me.

These boxes hold SO many memories.  There is one filled with childhood memories…report cards, dance recital programs, my autograph book (remember those?), and other reminders that I wasn’t always “this” age.  There is also one for my high school days…notes passed in class (and thankfully not confiscated by the teacher), photos, school play programs, a crushed prom corsage, and more of those things that high school girls just can’t seem to part with no matter how much dust they gather.  The next one is for my college days from back in the late 60s and early 70s…if you missed those days, you missed some really fun (and interesting) times😊  And the fourth box contains various mementoes from here and there that I just can’t part with.  I thought all these things deserved a pretty place to reside! 

Side note:  a few years ago I bought a more “masculine-looking” box and filled it with various memories from my son’s childhood and teenage years.  I gave it to my son for Christmas that year, and I’m pretty sure he thought it was a wonderful gift.  At least he sure did smile a lot as he sifted through everything😊

Now this is something you may not have ever seen before.  Do you know what it is???  It took me awhile with lots of research to find out that it is a Luxardo wine bottle from the 1960s.  It was a gift to me many years ago from a very prim and proper (but sweet) 80+year old lady in the Sunday School class that I taught!  You are probably wondering, therefore, why she gave it to me…sans the wine…right?  The bottle had belonged to her (deceased) husband and she gave it to me because she knew that “bunnies” were special to me and she thought it was a rabbit!  Turns out though it’s a squirrel.  It was a quandary to me for quite awhile…long ears, long tail.  Rabbits have long ears but short tail; squirrels have short ears and long tail!!!  I think perhaps the person who designed the bottle may have partaken of a little bit too much of the wine!  Anywho!  I love the bottle…heavy as lead, but the pink color is just lovely…and it reminds me of this lady who was always quick to correct me when I pronounced a name from the Bible incorrectly, but she did it in a very kind-hearted way!

Another one of my favorite things is this precious tea set.  One day 2 or 3 months after we lost our daughter, I was having a REALLY bad day and just got in my car and took off…anywhere to get out of the house and the walls closing in on me.  I ended up at an antique store (that I didn’t even know existed) in a nearby town.  I saw this tea set there and just fell in love with it so it came home with me (and at a good price I might add).

This lovely hat was also in the same shop and goodness gracious I don’t know why but it came home with me too.  I think it’s probably from the 1920s or about.  I had no idea I would ever wear it but it came in handy several years when we had HAT DAY at the primary school where I taught.  A reporter came by one of those days and took my picture along with one of my sweet students and put us in the local paper.  I think the Lord knew I needed a pick-me-up that day and that I needed my 5-minutes of fame down the road!

My almost 91 year old mother still lives in her home which holds many memories that my siblings and I will have to sort through one day, but years ago she presented this to me.  Oh, how I love it!  It’s a dresser set from her youth…a perfume bottle and powder box…the kind you filled when they were empty.  There was another bottle but sadly it was broken somewhere along the way.  When I look at this set I am reminded of the day when ladies were so feminine and would never leave the house without having tended to their daily toilette.  This will be my granddaughter’s some day. 

Sometimes I think I should have been born decades ago when there seemed to be more romance in life!  This gown belonged to my mother’s mother, my sweet Granny.  She made it herself “by hand”…even the buttonholes.  I don’t know when or where Granny wore this, but I like to dream that maybe she made it for her wedding night.  Yes, I am a terrible romantic.  We have lovely (sexy) lingerie these days, but this gown is absolutely beautiful to me.

Now you might be wondering why this old, tattered thing is one of my favorite things.  Well, it is a scrapbook that belonged to my Aunt Katie who died before I was ever born.  I wrote a post about my “eerie” connection to her; you can read it here.  The scrapbook pages are so yellowed and brittle now, but oh the memories she preserved…gum wrappers from a boyfriend, dance cards (yes, they really used those back when), school programs, etc.  I also have a book of her writings and guess what!  She was a romantic like me.  My post about her is one of my favorites.

And I couldn’t leave out my sweet teddy bears.  I collected them for years but decided I needed to bring a halt to that before they became an obsession.  When you are a primary school teacher and collect teddy bears (I was known as the “Teddy Bear Teacher), you get all sorts of “interesting” gifts at Christmas!!!  I finally did decide to part with some of my collection but these and a few others will be with me for awhile longer.

So that’s enough for now…although I do have other favorite things!  I am, however, trying to pair down our belongings now that we are over the hill beginning to age.  A few years ago we downsized my mother-in-law and I don’t think the lady had ever gotten rid of anything….literally!  It was a grueling experience for all of us, especially her, seeing many of her belongings and memories being thrown out or given away.  I honestly do not want my son to have to deal with that same situation.  I know he will have to someday, but I want to do what I can now and in the days to come so that he won’t have quite so much to deal with.  I mean, I don’t want the guy cussin’ his mama after she’s gone to heaven!!!

I’m sure we all have our favorite things…things that mean something special to us but perhaps won’t be so meaningful to our children when we are gone.  But hopefully my crew will keep at least some of these things to remind them  that I was a romantic who loved her family and loved the memories of her favorite things.  What are some of your favorite things?

And just in case you have Julie's tune in your head but can't remember the lyrics, here you go....

GRANDMOTHER CENTRAL: Installment #2

A while back I wrote a post titled GRANDMOTHER CENTRAL and explained that I was going to share some activities that I had done with my two “grandloves” when they were younger.  I know several friends who are always looking for some new fun things to entertain their grandkids just as I often did.  I would literally scour the internet or books for hours!  You can go HERE and read about our BUBBLING BLOWING fun, but today I will share our “wormy adventure” with EDIBLE DIRT…sounds fun, doesn’t it?  It was!

Here’s our recipe (one serving per child)

 vanilla cookies (crumbled)

 chocolate cookies (crumbled)

miniature marshmallows, M&Ms, a gummy worm

1 clear cup

And here are the directions:

Place the marshmallows in bottom of cup; this is the "parent material".

Add the vanilla cookie crumbs; this is the subsoil.  Then add the chocolate crumbs; this is the topsoil.  Arrange the M&Ms on top to represent the organic matter in the soil.  Finally add the gummy worm; this is the decomposer.

We also read the MAGIC SCHOOLBUS: INSIDE THE EARTH, then went outside and dug up the real thing…earthworms!  It was like finding buried treasure and they loved how the worms would wiggle in their hands. 

can be ordered from AMAZON 

Of course, we then went back inside, washed the “real dirt” from our hands and then chowed down on our EDIBLE SOIL.

As a retired primary teacher with a lot of years of experience, I encourage all parents and grandparents to integrate good literature with fun activities.  The more we can read to them, the greater the chance they will be life-long learners!

My grands are now too old (so they think) for these types of activities, and I sure do miss all the fun we had.  

But I love watching them grow and change, and pray each and every day for their futures and hope they will always remember all the things their CHERI did to make their childhoods be filled with wonder, excitement, learning…and, of course FUN!

THE COLOR PURPLE

What’s your favorite color….red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple???

I really love all colors, but if I was “forced” to narrow it down to just one I suppose it would be RED.  It’s one of the colors that I seem to wear well, plus it’s just a bright, cheerful color (in my opinion).  But this post isn’t about RED!

Awhile back I wrote a blog post about the color BLUE…you can read it HERE if you are a BLUE fan.  But today I have had the color PURPLE on my mind.  

Have you read the book or seen the movie THE COLOR PURPLE?  I haven’t read the book but did really enjoy the movie. 

And…I can never think of the color PURPLE without thinking of my good friend and co-worker CINDY.  She taught kindergarten for many years at the same school that I taught 2^nd grade.  We also went to church together.  Sadly, we lost CINDY a few years ago due to cancer.  Not only did the world lose a wonderful teacher but also such a sweet, sweet person.  Anytime I see ANYTHING PURPLE, I think of her.  Cindy adored PURPLE!  She even had PURPLE shag carpet in her master bedroom:) 

I decided to do some “surfing” (my hobby) and see what PURPLE images I could come up with.  (As I’ve mentioned before, I am usually on my computer while sitting with my hubby as he watches TV.) 

If PURPLE is your favorite color, you might be interested in this.  Let me know if this fits you😊

I love the smell of lavender...isn’t this just absolutely gorgeous?  Can you image the smell????  So lovely!!!

Is there really such a thing as a PURPLE rose?  I’m not sure, but this one sure is pretty.  I do love PURPLE coneflowers…my husband says they remind him of his grandmother who planted them.

And PURPLE hydrangeas!  One of my favorite flowers.

These days it seems to be popular (at least among the younger crowd) to sport various colors of hair…blue, pink , even PURPLE!  This looks lovely in the photo but I think I’ll just stick with my gray brunette.

But who could resist PURPLE M&Ms…or any other color for that matter!  (Like Lays Potato Chips…I can’t eat just one!)

I imagine the photographer of this photo used some type of special lens, but no matter how she did it, it’s absolutely gorgeous.  But God’s handiwork always is!

And did you know this?  PURPLE is not seen on any country's original flag.  (A very few redesigned flags of our time have some purple on them.)  Can you guess why????

ANSWER:  PURPLE dye was much, much too expensive! 

Until the 1800s PURPLE was worth more than its weight in GOLD!

I learned this from a VIDEO I came across; it's really interesting & I learned some new things…(don't you just love to learn new trivial stuff?)

*PURPLE has been associated with royalty, power, & wealth for centuries (but you already knew that).

*Queen Elizabeth I forbade anyone except close members of the royal family to wear PURPLE.

*PURPLE dye was obtained from a small sea snail that was only found in the region of Tyre in the Mediterranean.

*10,000 of these sea snails were needed to produce 1 gram of this PURPLE dye.  (That’s a LOT of snails!!!)

*A single pound of PURPLE dye cost 3 pounds of gold (the equivalent of $56,000 today).

I sure am glad that (synthetic) PURPLE dye is more accessible today because our school colors are PURPLE & GOLD and I have several PURPLE shirts in my wardrobe to cheer on our teams!

And one other teensy bit of wisdom that I'm sure you all really need to know...there is NO word that rhymes with PURPLE.  (Of course, you could make up one...GURPLE, MURPLE, TURPLE????)

So…as FOREST GUMP would say:  That's all I have to say about that PURPLE.                        Hope you enjoyed all my PURPLE nonsense!  And now I leave you with this to ponder on….

*IN MEMORY OF MY SWEET PURPLE-LOVING FRIEND, CINDY

A BODY FULL OF FRUITS & VEGGIES

I wish I could give credit to the person who came up with this, but I have no clue!  This is something I copied years ago, and stored away in my WORDS OF WISDOM notebook.  It’s yet another reminder of HOW GREAT GOD IS…and what a sense of humor he has😊

Enjoy….

God left us some great clues as to what foods help what part of our body.

*A sliced CARROT looks like the human eye.  Can you see the pupil, iris, and radiating lines?  Science teaches us that carrots greatly enhance the blood flow to our eyes helping them to function better.

*A tomato has 4 chambers and is red.  The heart has 4 chambers and is red.  All the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are great heart & blood food.

*Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart.  Each grape looks like a blood cell, and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

*A walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums.  Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex.  We now know walnuts help develop more than 3 dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

*Kidney beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and, yes…they look exactly like the human kidneys.

*Celery, bok choy, rhubarb and many more look just like bones.  These foods specifically target bone strength.  Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium.  If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak.  (Think about a limp stalk of celery!)  These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

*Avocadoes, eggplant, and pears target the health & function of the womb and cervix of the female…they look just like these organs.  Today’s research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and may help in preventing cervical cancers.  How profound is that?  It takes exactly 9 months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit.  There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

*Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow.  Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of sperm as well to overcome male sterility.

*Sweet potatoes look like the pancreas and actually can help balance the glycemic index of diabetics

*Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries.

*Oranges, grapefruits, and other citrus fruits look just like the mammary glads of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

*Onions look like the body’s cells.  Today’s research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells.  They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.  A working companion, garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

Isn’t  God  Amazing?

*Just so you know…I did not check the validity of all this but (in my opinion) it all sounds just like something God would do.  The world is full of so many wonderous things if we will only open our eyes and see them😊

HOPE  ALL  IS  WELL  IN  YOUR  NECK  OF  THE  WOODS

&

BE SURE TO EAT YOUR FRUITS & VEGGIES!