5 Facts about me you might not know

1. I was born in Georgia and am a Southern belle at heart even though I have lived in the north all my life.
2. When I was in college I was picked to be on the drill team to perform at basketball games but due to my parent’s head on collision that winter I had to quit college and come home to take care of my mother and sisters. (By the way, I did go back to college and finish my education)
3. I am a Housewives of New Jersey and New York addict.
4. When I was in college I was the social chairman for the Panhellenic Counsel (an organization made up of girls from all the sororities on campus) and walked in a fashion show once.
5. I’d like to take a photography class to learn to take better pictures.

My Fall Photoshop Pictures

It’s a Blur

Is it just me or is time accelerating? I looked on my blog today and realized I haven’t blogged since Wednesday. Yes, the days have been busy. On Thursday hubby and I went to Erie just to have a day out of town. I shopped while he went to the casino (a perfect choice for him since his feet skid along the ground when he is taken shopping). We met for lunch at the Olive Garden.
  Friday night we went to Rose’s to play cards since we didn’t get home in time on Thursday for our regular Thursday night card game. It’s always fun to go over.
   Today is a rather quiet day and tonight we are going to a concert. It’s an all star country review. No not the actual singers, but imitators. I’m looking forward to that.


Sometimes life gets busy like this.

Peggy’s List

Famous scenes from movies that I love:

1. The English Patient-the first scene when he is flying her in the plane and the scene at the end where he is flying her recovered body in the plane (Same scene both times)
2. The 6th sense- when she drops his wedding ring and he realizes that he’s dead.
3. Sex and the city I: when miranda is looking for Steve on the Brooklyn bridge to see if he wants to try again, and when she sees him.
4. Sex and the city I: when Carrie runs all the way over to Miranda’s house on New Year’
5. field of Dreams-final scene where it pans out to show all the cars coming
6. The Great Escape-when Steve McQueen is put in the “cooler” (isolation cell)
7. The Social Network-where he’s walking across the campus at night
8. Slumdog Millionaire-when he wins all the money
9. The Shawshank Redemption-when the convicts meet at the end
10. Forrest Gump- many scenes, it was like someone opened up all my memories from my past and showed them to me
11. E.T. –when ET came alive again.

Please tell me your favorite scenes. Just comment (you can use anonymous)

A “CHILI” Day

There was sun, there was frost. Our walk this morning was one that required gloves and a scarf. By afternoon it was a typical fall day and warmed up. A mama deer and her two babies came down from the woods into our yard to find some food and a huge gray squirrel teased Sadie outside the window.
    Don decided to make an extremely large pot of chili. We’ll take it to Chris when we go visit the next time.
We had a nice visit this afternoon with Don’s sister Ginny from Tennessee and her husband. They are up to their vacation home in Port Allegany for a few weeks.
These are the last of the hydrangeas down by the start of the UPB trail.   I’m enjoying the last of their fading color before all the blooms will be gone till Spring.


“Nothing in our minds is really gone”.

My Office

This is where I work and play each day. 

It’s my office. I keep some of my favorite things here.



Books and magazines.


More books.

This is where I blog every day.


Pretty things and flowers.


A bulletin board and an old picture with a younger me.


My father’s camera.


And more pretties.

My article from Victoria magazine.

There’s a comfortable chair.
And a fan for hot days.

Tell me about your computer space.

Pretty things

Are you seeing beauty today? My sister and I have a running joke. Whenever I get blue or discouraged or bored we say that I need to “see pretty things”. There is nothing better than a trip to the city to cheer me up. Don’t get me wrong I love where I live, and I love my life. But the sameness sometimes can be a bit..dull at times. That’s when it’s time for  road trip. Living in Western Pennsylvania that means going either to Buffalo, NY or Erie, PA. Either way it it is exactly one hour and a half traveling one way. That means that you have to allow a whole day in order to get in a delicious lunch at a great restaurant and some shopping. Going to the Galleria in Buffalo and stopping by Pottery Barn to look at their tablescapes always gives me ideas. And in Erie I like to peruse Hobby Lobby and the Christmas Tree Shoppe. Even if I don’t really “need” anything I always come home with some little something (and in some cases some big somethings). It’s so much fun to get out of town and shop and eat. And see pretty things!

Be happier

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, has just come out with a new book, Happier At Home. It is filled with tidbits, some of them so obvious you wonder why you aren’t implementing them and some eye openers. I loved the pages about making yourself happy by pleasing yourself. Here is a little excerpt:

”I used to tell myself, “I should learn more about art.  It’s beautiful, it’s interesting, it’s fun!” But I somehow couldn’t figure out how to approach it. When I paid close attention to what caught my eye, to what I looked at with pleasure—not what I thought I should like, but what I actually did like—I found my obsession and the ways to pursue it.  I had so many claims on my time, yet I found myself spending hours looking at the work of certain artists.
Christopher Alexander remarked, “It is hard, so terrible hard, to please yourself.  Far from being the easy things that it sounds like, it is almost the hardest thing in the world, because we are not always comfortable with that true self that lies deep within us.”

Does that resonate with you? Are you doing the very thing that makes you the most happy? I once read an article that asked you to write down the three things that you did as a child that made you so happy you’d do them over and over. Then write down as a teenager what did you gravitate to that made you always smile. Then as an adult, where did you find yourself that always drew you out and was blissful. Looking back on your life you should be able to spot the repeating themes and sources of your happiness.
  Mine were art, reading, music and being around people. Those are the things that charge me up. I have often remarked that you could tell how happy I was by the amount of time I spent with my art and music. So why don’t I play the piano more often? Or pick up a paintbrush? Hmmm..

Outside changes

Do you decorate for fall? Inside and outside? Or do you hang a wreath on the door and call it decorating? I’ve always been the one that really overdoes it. Pumpkins, gourds, and leaves would fill every available space. You can’t have too many decorations, can you? But this year all the decorations didn’t make it out of the bins. I was very selective. But still there are plenty. This year I moved a stand from my kitchen and put it out by the door. 

 


There are candy corn lights on the vine too. 








My back door has an apple wreath and there is pot of mums by the door too. 

"I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. 
So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.
-  Nathaniel Hawthorne

"I love the fall.  I love it because of the smells that you speak of; and also because things are dying,
things that you don't have to take care of anymore, and the grass stops growing."
-  Mark Van Doren

"The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly 
changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools."
-   Henry Beston, Northern Farm

A lingering goodbye

 

The coneflowers are fading now as the cooler mornings signal that their time for glory is over. Soon they will be just a memory till the summer next year. I need to get my flower map made so I can remember all the plants that have made it into my landscaping this year. It certainly has been a year of change around the house. It has rained off and on today and been a brisk afternoon. I think it’s time for a nice cup of tea.

new photos of the family

Say goodbye to Summer…here comes fall.

You can really tell that fall is in the air. It’s a change that is not just visible to the eye but can be felt in the soul. The seasons march on, one after the other. Since we have seen many seasons go by the changing of the seasons can seem routine. But they are not. There still is excitement in watching the leaves lose their green and become a crazy quilt of colors on the hills. The football games encourage shouting at the tv during a missed pass or a tying field goal. The sweaters come out and cuddle you as the days get cooler and the nights come earlier than usual. And I burn my favorite candle scents…cinnamon, pear, and spice. Bowls of apples sit ready to be a healthy snack as casseroles and hearty dishes bake in the oven. The doors are shut once more and the house becomes a haven. Outdoor summer things are tucked away till Spring and thoughts will soon turn toward the holidays.









I know the lands are lit, with all the autumn blaze of Goldenrod.
    Helen Hunt Jackson

On Sadie’s Walk

This is how our morning begins. Sadie is asking, “Are we going to go for a walk today?” We try to walk everyday in the nice weather. She hops in the car and loves the short ride down to the trail at the University of Pittsburgh.
From the time Sadie was little she always loved being in the car. No matter how short or long the ride it is an adventure to her. She wants to be with her people. And besides that she knows that a ride will break the monotony of staying home all the time.
Here she is ready to pounce out of the car and onto the trail.

“Oh, look..I see Joan”

Joan is our walking partner. Sadie is always glad when she arrives so we can begin the walk.
Sadie gets so excited when her boyfriend, Thomas, another Jack Russell walks on the trail. 
On the walk Sadie is always sniffing and stopping to see what she can find.

She once chased a chipmunk through this fence and the leash became entangled in the weeds. I think the walk is Sadie’s favorite time of day.

Random Friday thoughts

me in my fantasy life…LOL