A Cat for Mother's Day!

I've had a cat since I was 15 years old. We've been 'catless' for about a year now, since I gave my cat, Miah, to my grandson, Landon. (Man, are all those commas right? Looks like a lot.) Anyway, now that we're at the lake I've been hinting to Don that I might need another cat. I've prayed that God would just send one my way and have been leaving a dish of food out on the deck for awhile, just in case God needs help. It's been eaten a few times, although I'm not sure if my visitor was a cat or armadillo. Or raccoon. Or skunk.

So we went shopping in Waxahachie yesterday (isn't that a fun name for a town?), and Don bit the bullet and bought me a cat for Mother's Day. I was so hoping not to get another long-haired, and I am a bit partial to a calico. But this one looked like it could use a good home.

A full grown cat. A very calm cat. I tend to think kittens are a bit over-rated, dealing with all that skittering around, clawing up the furniture, and cat-box lessons.

Who would have dreamed we'd find the perfect cat at an antique store?! $15 and she never needs shots or food or vet visits.

I haven't picked out a name for her yet, but I did buy a quart of brick red paint for this. It fit in the back of the Durango with a whole 2" to spare.

Still thinking about a real, alive, purring cat. Still praying - maybe God will send me one. In the meantime, the pie safe will be a great start to warming up the kitchen. Anthropologie has some monogrammed knobs - I think it's going to look great when I'm done.

Happy Mother's Day everybody!

Just Another Day at the Lake

Our day started with this - spied resting in our backyard at 7:30 am. The neighbors told us a mother deer raises her fawn in our back yard every single year. The fawn was SO little. Precious way to start the day. Precious enough that I called out to Don, "Get up, right now, you have to see this!" Luckily he thought it was worth jumping out of bed for.
I hope I didn't scare her off and she'll be back for more early morning visits.

Sarah helped me clean out a front flower bed last week, and we discovered a bush of "Knockout roses' hiding under the crape myrtles. I cook enough grits and black eyed peas and cornbread that the sign fits my kitchen. And putting anything red in this house just makes me happy. It was all pale blues and peach, so red is a step in the right direction in my book.
Finally an afternoon storm swept up, coming across the lake and sending us scurrying indoors. Impressive to see waves flying up over the seawalls all around us. The martin house Don put together for me will just have to wait til tomorrow, after it dies down a bit. It only took three trips to the hardware store to find the right fittings and poles and such. The old one was in such bad shape it literally fell into pieces when Don tried to lower it.

What you don't see is the four shrubs I dug out of the back and transplanted to the front, newly dug bed, and how nasty dirty I got doing so. Again. We're finding we're going to go through some laundry soap living out here! Working hard makes for very sweet dreams, and healthy appetites :-)

I also managed to plant three pots of herbs - cilantro, parsley and sweet basil. Still looking for chives, rosemary and one other I can't remember, but I plopped them all into clay pots buried in the flower bed. That's good enough for this year.

Just another typical day at the lake - the adventure seems to keep rolling on and we're loving it!

Just Exactly Where Did Spring Go?

The end of April - can you even believe it? I can't. We pulled into our new driveway on April Fool's Day, and the irony of that is not escaping us. A month ago. We've been here an entire month and it feels like the fastest ever. In our entire lives.

So May - let's have a talk. May flowers. And picnics. And bike rides around the neighborhood. And good books waiting to be read. And new knitting projects (finished the eternal afghan I started two years ago - hurray for Bev!). Next to June, May is my absolute favorite month, so there are great expectations for it.

This all has to happen in May because I've heard by June Texas gets so blasted hot I won't even consider being outside for picnics and bike rides and such. So I'm counting on May.

But here's the truth - May is actually going to be the month we have the house painted, shutters and faux windows installed, and gutters to deal with the gulley washers Texas gets. And find a way to get the partially torn up wallpaper off the kitchen walls and paint them before we have any official visitors because right now it looks unbearably ratty. And redo all the front flowerbeds that look like the perfect place for a snake or critter to make a little bed. And unpack the craft room, find a place for all the books that somehow made their way into our home - no way did we buy all those books! And we're hoping it's the month we are able to find a good used boat we can afford, and a golf cart for the neighborhood because that's apparently how everyone visits each other. Seriously nobody ever walks in our neighborhood. Ever. I wonder if it's hot here so long that they get out of the habit? Maybe I'll start a new trend and find a new walking partner?

And maybe, just maybe May can be a little of both? Of painting the house, then taking a day off for a picnic in some nearby state park? Of spending a day stripping wallpaper, then maybe some time riding our bikes to check out the neighborhood. And unpack all those boxes of books, one case for fiction, one for non-fiction, one for Bev's self-education and crafts, but maybe also grab one or two we've been waiting to read and curling up on the sunporch with it, just watching the sun go down on another beautiful May day in sun-drenched Texas.

Dear May - feel free to take it nice and slow. We're not in a hurry. Really.

One Room at a Time

After 14 years of not moving, I'd forgotten how discombobulated everything is for awhile. We've still got a pile in the garage, the 'let's just not look at or talk about that stuff' pile. Since the first rule of organizing any room is to get out anything that doesn't go there, I'm okay with that. We're ending up with stray lamps, pillows, decor, books, etc. that just don't have a home in this house but as soon as I toss them out we'll need them. So the pile remains.

We do, however, have one room pretty well set.

Every past move, Don has helped us get into the house, then gone off to work, busy with whatever new job he had. This one - it's just the two of us, so we're doing it differently.

I let him choose the decor for this room, and am surprised how much I love it!

Every man needs a set of longhorns, don'tcha think? They're surprisingly easy to find here in East Texas. Bought at a little place called Harvey's in downtown Corsicana. That room above is our den, and hopefully a year from now there will be a half wall where the rails are, so little kids don't fall through and the back of all the furniture doesn't show. For now we'll just squint when we look up.

Have to have some Texas decor. Absolutely have to. The clock is his retirement gift from his company. Makes a lovely chime that would wake the dead.

Cowhide. This wall used to have a honkin' big straw wreath with pale blue and peach flowers. We like this much better. Took almost two hours and a thousand staples to hang. Twenty two feet up in the air, so I held the ladder while Don climbed up. They really use the entire cow down here in Texas, apparently.

But we like it. I'm on the lookout for an old branding iron and a bit of fencepost with barbed wire. Really. If I could find a board that said 'Longbranch Saloon' I'd be over the top happy.

Using the furniture from our very formal living room in PA. Same but different.

Those double doors off to the side go into my craft room that looks like a bomb went off. So we'll just keep them shut til further notice. Much further.

Plans next year are for carpet and dark tile but for now this works very well. And you can't beat the view. Nothing but green grass and lake.

When I feel the 'I'm going crazing from moving' syndrome welling up inside me, I just go sit here for a little while, look out the window and take deep breaths.

Hasn't Looked Back

As soon as this rolled off the truck, he grabbed those safety glasses of his and climbed right on. I would have had no idea how to even start the thing, but he fired it right up and took off. 'Tried it out' for about two hours...

He said he's having fun, and never thinks about work. Doesn't miss it O.N.E.B.I.T.
As hard as he's working, digging up trees, putting in flower beds, it's probably good we got him a new toy. I like the look of this a whole lot more than him driving off in a car every morning.

Frying up our First Lake Fish

The men went fishing - a little retirement gift from me, they hired a professional guide who spent four hours with them, showing them the ins and outs of the lake.

Results: caught 140 fish in four hours.

Don and Dan, an entire morning of fishing together. It doesn't seem that long ago Don stayed busy untangling line and clearing up snags.

A nice sized hybrid - he said they were a lot of fun to catch.

Final results: kept 30 - threw the rest back in. Fried up some tonight for supper - happy men and yummy dinner!

For the Family - Papa's New Wheels!

We've been up to our elbows in septic systems (eewwwww!) and are about to tear out the front yard, but for now I wanted the kids to see Papa's new wheels.



At 59, this is his first 'new' truck. When I texted the men in the family, they wanted the scoop - so here it is:

2005 GMC, 1/2 ton, 2 wheel, big enough engine to pull a boat up a 45 degree boat ramp, heated leather seats, Bose sound system for his George Strait CD, captain seats for the first two fishermen, with an extended cab for the rest, sprayed in bed liner, some kind of lid on the bed that locks so you can put your fishing rods in there while you go to Waffle House, new set of tires. White so it doesn't show the Texas dust so much. One owner truck. He said it's exactly what he was looking for and I was tickled pink to follow him home, watching him drive that truck down that two lane road. One happy man!

We were happy to buy local, from two salesmen named Ennod and Jamison. Loving Texas more by the day.

Over the Meadow and Through the Woods

Pulling out of the driveway, the car loaded for bear, felt surreal. After planning for this move long enough to throw in a Leap Year, it was finally happening. It's hard to describe how leaving behind a chunk of your life feels. Good, bad, happy, sad, memories that come flooding in. But life is made up of constant motion - the ebb and flow of days and weeks and years - the people that come in and go out of your life. We wanted a big adventure and it was finally time to begin. So no tears, no looking back, just drive.

Our daughter phoned right after we hit the road to tell us the grandkids were following us on a US map and would we please give reports throughout the day.

PA - done. West Virginia was a blip and then we hit Ohio. Columbus, Cincinnati and we meandered our way into Kentucky. Is there anything as lovely as Kentucky in the spring? Acres and acres bordered with white fencing and newborn colts playing tag with each other, pausing from their play for a moment to nuzzle their mothers' undersides for a sip of milk. We met our driver son-in-law in Bowling Green for dinner. He'd agreed to drive the Uhaul for us, all 1300 miles bless his heart. By himself, nobody to give him a relief from the driving. After filling him up with warm bread and a large steak, he climbed back in the truck. He'd keep going - we turned in for the night. He's 30 years younger than we are; those days of driving after the body begs to stop are behind us.

We sipped morning coffee while crossing Nashville and then drove through Memphis. All signs in Memphis seemed to hint that Elvis had NOT left the building but was still very much present. Then into Arkansas. Driving into Arkansas has a unique feel to it - the terrain changes quickly, and so does the pace. Crossing Arkansas takes a chunk of a day, but it's a pleasant chunk, and I thought of my friend, Diane - her love for gardening and camping - as we drove across. A beautiful state with miles and miles of woods coming up to greet you on each side of the car as you drive along. I can imagine camping in Arkansas. Or gardening. That red soil is bound to be good for growing tomatoes and such.

Every single state we entered greeted us with a billboard - 'Welcome to....' except Texas. After waiting almost four years to move there, and finally, finally hitting the border, the 'Welcome to Texas' sign had been taken down while they were busy putting up a highway. Seeing the lone star symbols embedded in the side of the retaining walls of the underpasses, we still took a moment to high five each other - 'we did it! We're finally here!'

Having reached at least the right state of our destination, we found a hotel and were under the covers as fast as possible in Texarkana, Texas. The next morning we ate breakfast in the hotel lobby, listening to a broad-shouldered man who already had his cowboy hat on, talking about the ins and outs of breeding cattle. The size of the buckle on the belt holding up his well-worn jeans told me he knew what he was talking about.

Pulling into the driveway of our home, that has been sitting semi-vacant for the past 1 1/2 years, looking through the carport and seeing nothing but blue lake, indescribable. My home state, my favorite state, the beginning of a brand new life that we're hoping will be bursting at the seams with family and good times and friends and memory making - indescribable. Seeing our son and a daughter and son-in-law and one sweet three year old grandson running through the yard - truly indescribable. This will be home. The beginning of carving out a new life that will be whatever we make of it.

We're not in Texas, we are officially Texans!

Good Night Nurse - Moving is a Whipping!

So we're here - after leaving Pennsylvania 9 days ago, we've added 1900 - yep, NINETEEN HUNDRED miles to our car.

And you won't even believe what all has been going on - just as soon as I find my brain I'll tell you all about it. I seriously could use a venting session on 'why moving is ALWAYS a whipping'.

I am thanking the Good Lord that we have internet, however. This fifteen year old house just entered the 21st century!

Bluebirds and Walks and Lucky and such...

Things I'm thinking about:

My old library (average of 3 visits a week) has 138,886 volumes.

My new library (30 minutes away) has 63,375.

Book nerds check out things like this. The new library doesn't have the relatively new fiction book I'm reading. That tells me I may be reading more classics and less NY Times Bestseller list, not necessarily a bad thing. Possibly we need a hammock somewhere on the property to curl up with those books we're going to read. Or maybe in the sunporch with the ceiling fan.

Sonic is 10 minutes away here, 30 minutes away there. Being newly retired, we now have more time to go to Sonic, and more time to work it off on the ellyptical - a good trade off I think.

The only place I've seen bluebirds in PA is on our walking trail or in the state parks. Bluebirds like open fields and our home had woods behind it. Good for cardinals, goldfinches, woodpeckers and many other birds, but not Eastern bluebirds. There is a family that seems to make a habit of building their nest in a box mounted on the previous owner's volleyball pole. I'm not sure there's a better way to start the day than sipping a cup of coffee on the deck, watching bluebirds feed their little ones.

I love that we already call our new home 'the lakehouse'. We want it to be the place the entire family comes to get away from it all.

I'm excited that we'll get to know life on the lake, be able to tell what the incoming weather is going to be from the look of it. We'll hear fish jumping in the early morning and evenings as the sun is setting.

I'm going to love the sound of Don saying, 'I think I'll just throw out my line a few times' and I can tell him, 'that's fine, I'll call you when supper is ready.' And he'll be 100 yards from our back door. And I can watch him fishing from our kitchen window.

Our neighborhood is relatively flat and the road makes a big winding circle, perfect for bike rides or early morning walks. Probably a good way to meet the neighbors.

Spring is the perfect time to move into a place, to check out what's coming up in the beds. Discover the gifts of perennials the previous owners left for us.

There are fried catfish feeds every single Friday night within ten minutes of any direction we turn. One is at the local gas station turned mini restaurant - I love that. We plan to take all our family members to eat at the gas station. Hope they love that.

I'll be planting a garden, for the first time in twenty years, sometime in April. I've already bought the labels for the salsa I'm going to make from the tomatoes I'm going to grow.

Our bed is already made, the coffee pot is already in place with our favorite mugs in the cupboard, waiting for us. Thank you, God, that we already did the big move last summer so this time won't be nearly so overwhelming. Or hot. And we're related to the one driving the van this time, so I know when he says he'll be there Wednesday night he'll be there Wednesday night. I'll feed him a steak for being on time, and hug his neck too.

It's going to be nice to have it feel a teensy bit like home when we walk in the door. Most of our family will be there, waiting for us, when we pull up. The rest will be two hours away, waiting for us to show up to celebrate Easter together. The first time in three years that we'll all be together, and there's a new baby to celebrate this year too!

I'm thinking I may just need a cat. Or two. Possibly an older, male cat that nobody wants and I'll name him Lucky. Maybe he'll eat the lizards for me.

How am I gonna talk Don into building a tree house for those grandkids? Grandpas never want them because they're questionable when it comes to safety, but every little boy wants a treehouse to play in. And we need a tire swing too, I'm pretty sure.

I can't wait to hang the sign I just bought for the boathouse "Swimsuits optional beyond this point." It should scare the neighbors a bit and make our kids wonder about us.

Looking ahead and dwelling on happy thoughts of what's waiting down south.

Annie Get Your Gun!

A week from now we're moving to the middle of nowhere, pretty much. Ten miles from town and that town has 203 people, not including us. So 205. Not that they ever really update those signs. The next nearest town is 30 miles away and that's where Walmart, the bank, doctors, hairdressers and church will be. Being a city girl most of my life, Walmart being 30 miles away qualifies as 'middle of nowhere'.

Middle of nowhere, we've been told by the neighbors (we do have 120 of them) will include the following:

deer, skunks, raccoons, armadillos, possums, 300 lb feral pigs, coyotes, and snakes. Lots of snakes including water moccasins (that, BTW, do not stay in the water), rattlesnakes, coral and one other poisonous kind I can't remember, in spite of reading an entire book called "Texas Snakes". Most snakes, it ends up, aren't poisonous and if I could get good enough at identifying them, I would lean toward leaving them alone.

My husband seems to think a hoe is the perfect way to deal with a poisonous snake. Just take an Alice in Wonderland approach and yell, "Off with her head!" or maybe he won't yell it, but he'll do it. Chop their heads off with a hoe.

I'd die of a heart attack first.

So he decided we needed to buy me a gun. I rarely even kill bugs, am terrified of lizards, and struggle with the idea of hurting any animal, which includes the squirrel that had already been run over and was flopping in front of our house. It needed to be run over again and I just wasn't brave enough, and have felt bad ever since that day. 'Put it out of misery' continues to ring in my ears but I just couldn't do it.

So this will be a stretching experience for me. But, by golly, I now have a gun. After a few trips to Cabelas and such, we ended up at a gun shop and bought me a 4-10 shotgun. I now know the difference between a shotgun and a rifle, and the different sizes they come in. It was pretty important to my husband to buy one that would not shoot across the lake, but would reach the end of our property. Hmmm, I wonder why?

My Dad tells me you need to stand at least 12 feet away from a skunk before you shoot it. He learned this after pelting one with a big rock, and coming home to have his mother strip him bare naked in the front yard and put him in the horse trough before she'd let him back in the house. I'm taking his word for it when I deal with the skunk we've seen on our carport twice already.

It seems I'm to become a bit of an Annie Oakley, target practice is scheduled for me and hopefully within a short time I'll be able to put my money where my mouth is if most critters come into our yard, and I'll be able to decrease the number of poisonous snakes around our property. I told my daughter, Sarah, this morning that I think I'd be a better shot if I had a leather skirt and jacket, complete with fringe, and a cowgirl hat that had a chin strap to hold it on my head. She made me promise if I ever do get said outfit, I won't wear it when her kids are visiting. I personally think it would endear me to them forever - Granny with a gun!

Feral pigs.... I'm pretty sure if one of those comes into our yard, my Daddy will hear me yellin' my head off, 900 miles away! I don't think I've got that much stretch in me.

Lakehouse in Spring

Dan photographed these trees in bloom when he was at the lakehouse last weekend. Sarah tells me they're possibly Eastern Redbud. Thank you God for tastes of Spring.

Here in Pittsburgh, there's not a leaf on a tree, not a daffodil up, certainly nothing bloomin'! So we're headed to Texas, spending some time with kids and grandkids, celebrating a bunch of birthdays, meeting goats and chickens and a funny used cat, eating 'marble slabbage' as Pace calls it, sleeping in, going to church together, grilling out, taking early evening walks around the neighborhood, flipping pancakes and hamburgers - all really big stuff.

I can't wait to get down there, live in 80 degrees for a few days, and spend time with all those people we love and haven't seen since Thanksgiving.

Our daffodils are just starting to poke their heads up, so maybe by the time we get back Spring will decide to make an appearance. See you in a week or so.

P.S. to Barb - Happy One month of healthy (and V.E.R.Y. clean!) living tomorrow night, 7:30 pm I do believe- way to go!

Southern Living: Not exactly

I love the south. I even love armadillos, (the Texas state animal) if for nothing else but their sheer ugliness.

I love drawls, eating watermelon then spittin' the seeds, front porch visits, graciousness, people who 'come to call', sweet tea, grits with butter, fluffy biscuits and cornbread, fried okra, riding on the open road in the back of a beat up pickup truck, tire swings and ropes over creeks, mosquito dope trucks, fruit pies with flaky crusts, catching fireflies in mason jars, crispy fried chicken with mashed potatoes with gravy, cold swimmin' holes, white clapboard houses with peeling paint and tin roofs, ferocious thunder storms, and even the blasted heat. Maybe especially the blasted heat.

I can't say I've ever felt it was too hot. Ever. Growing up in Texas, it just was. A little girl didn't know any different. Living here in the northeast, when it gets above 90 degrees people around here close their windows, turn on the AC, and meet in the aisles of the local grocery store to complain about The Heat.

Sometimes, on a summer day, I'll look down my driveway at the yard below. I'll eye my herb garden and the bird/squirrel feeder, the black-eyed susans, hostas and lilac bushes we planted, and think how much I love the season.

So to be greeted by this sight - this morning:



There's nothing in my southern blood that's going to make that okay. Today when I pull on boots, a down coat, scarf, ear muffs and gloves to go out and retrieve the mail, I'm going to look down that snow-covered driveway and try, try, try to remember days when the lilacs will once again hang heavy with their purple blossoms and the bluejays will fuss and fight with everyone else, trying to get a few seeds to feed their newly hatched babies.

Days like today the south feels too far away. Days like today, if I was blessed enough to be about 1000 miles south, and I happened to spy an armadillo, he might look a bit more attractive to me.

Settling in

It's December by golly, and there are packages, cookies, decorating, all waiting to be done, right after I do the laundry, dehair, pay the bills, etc. When we left for Texas two weeks ago it was still fall. We've walked in the door to Christmas season and a flurry of activity, that I'm trying to NOT do at break-neck speed. I'd considered letting this blog take a long winter's nap, but decided instead to tweak things a bit. I'll post now and then, as a tool to keep up with family and friends. What we're up to, a recipe here and there, but nothing that will make for deep thought. Mostly quick posts with fun photos. I think I can do that til we list this house and hopefully sell it sometime in the early spring.

Comments on my posts? Sometimes, sometimes not. Mostly not. I'll still be reading my favorite blogs, but hope nobody will feel neglected if they don't see me leaving comments. Life just doesn't have room right now for comments on either side. So without further ado - photos of our Texas Thanksgiving:

The finished product - a decorated gingerbread house, each grandkid got to do one side all on their own! Papa added doors, windows and icicles.

We think it'll be a fun tradition to carry on, and it was a heck of a lot of fun for $9.99.

The lakehouse has an island in the kitchen. When the grandkids walked in, we grabbed the griddle and got busy making pancakes. They ate them up!

Four little monkeys, sitting on the hearth, no matter that they aren't all looking in the same direction!

Landon found a drawer full of caps and hats and thought it best to wear them all at once.

Leslie, our cyberschool teacher, found the best internet reception on the upstairs deck, so she bundled up and settled in to grade 'papers'.

Papa makes a snuggly TV partner.

All together (except Jeremy who was in Pennsylvania deer-hunting), in one place. Hopefully Jeremy can make it to Texas in the spring, when we hope to have the First Annual Family Bass Fishing tournament!

We spotted these boys very near our home and pulled off the road to capture their photo. No Christmas cards this year, but if we were going to send them out, I'd put a 'Bev' under the brown one, and a 'Don' under the black one, and we'd send them out saying 'Merry Christmas from Texas'! Our hands-down favorite photo, sans grandchildren, of the whole trip!

A quick P.S. to Diane - we could not believe how beautiful Arkansas was - driving across, it took our breath away. Lucky you!

The scent of oleander filling the air...

Touring a lake home back in May, I walked around the side, through large flower beds filled with shrubs and bushes that passed me in height. The most heavenly scent filled the air. I stopped and asked the realtor, 'what is that wonderful smell?' A tall 'bush' next to me was covered with small flowers and I leaned in, determining that the scent did indeed come from this plant, but having no idea what it was. It's surprising how big a difference there is in what will grow from point A to point B when you have over a thousand miles in between. I knew we didn't grow these back East.

The realtor , who toook great pride in his tomatoes, and had actually driven me over to his own house to check them out, didn't know much about flowers but told me he'd ask the home owner. 'Oleander' was my answer. I'd heard of it before. Even the sound of it conjures up southern thoughts, older ladies in flowerdy dresses, stockings and prim hats perched atop their heads, having lunch together, which would include sipping tea on sun porches. In spite of the lovely mental picture I conjured up, the realtor told me the plant is very poisonous, the leaves, the flowers, all of it. A few leaves ingested will kill a small pet.

Soon after that I was back at home, on the phone with a Texas resident. She told me she'd brought home a load of plants from the nursery and one of them was oleander. Oleander to plant outside her children's bedroom windows, because it smells heavenly, and apparently it grows quickly to a height that produces shade or privacy. I asked her about the poisonous issue and she told me if the dog was dumb enough to chew on it then she would be minus a dog or two, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing in her book. She assured me her children know better than to chew on yard plants and, just in case, she feeds them regularly enough that they won't be getting that desperately hungry.

It ends up our newly purchased, one acre plus homestead has four huge oleander bushes. Standing like sentinel soldiers, they line the sidewalk next to the sea wall. Taller than me, they somewhat block the view of the lake. Having cried 'Uncle' to the August heat, they didn't sport blooms. Much like those ladies I'd envisioned sipping tea, it was just too hot to strut their stuff. Any sassy shows had been on display back in May when the heat was less intense. I'm sure I would have recognized that aroma the second time around.

The dilemma. Do I keep the plants and enjoy the delicious smell of their blossoms coming up across the yard on a summer day? Should I chop them down, ensure the safety of our grandkids and all the four-leggeds who own us, while opening up the view, but miss the party a few of our five senses would be enjoying if we leave them there? I have to imagine the previous lady of the house would be horrified to think we'd chop down the oleanders she lovingly planted there, and as I'll be leaving behind bed upon bed of beautiful perennials, praying the next owner will love them for me, there's a sense of respect and responsibility to treasure what she trusted to my care.

Surely I can teach the grandchildren that the tall, wonderful smelling plants are off-limits. Maybe they make Officer Ug Poison labels in extra large, ones that will stick to tree bark? And how many pets do we have? How many leaves would a ninety pound beast have to eat to bite the dust, literally? One of them once consumed half a chocolate cake, supposedly deadly, and nary a burp passed his lips, so maybe he'd have a tolerance for oleander foliage?

Looking Ahead

This is still a work in progress, but since we're in the process of buying our Texas home, I figure we have squatter's rights at saying we live in the south. Making house payments should count for something surely!

I'll be back to use this space for sharing the ups and downs of our transitioning from being Yankees to becoming Southerners. Lucky for us you won't be able to hear our voices. Any drawl I had flew the coop a long time ago. Stay tuned, I'll be back soon.