Friday night pizza

Brandon should be home soon and can't wait to hear his training stories!!!!!

our Friday night appetizer

and we tried a new frozen pizza which turned out great.......

Ren is thoroughly enjoying his pizza.......we do sanitize his dishes by the way!!!!! LOL

He was so incredibly excited that he started pawing over and over in the plate while he was eating the pizza.......no hair left. Almost 16 years old now but an appetite that you wouldn't believe. He eats as much as I do. Where does Ren put it???? OMG

Hello? Anybody out there?

Maybe it has to do with being a complete gray rainy day or maybe the time of the year ......or maybe alot of things but I just had too much time to think today. Time on the way to work. Time at work. Time at lunch. Time on the way home. I don't know but I did finally come to the conclusion that for the most part, I have one-way conversations. I guess the emptiest part of empty nest is being told by your own parents that your not good enough, that your parenting basically is so bad that God allowed one of your children to die. I thought I had come past that hurt but today is hard. I wonder if she was right all along. And if she is really right, then even God won't hear my conversation.

The Missing J

Today I pondered why in the world the Dutch alphabet I'm stitching has a missing J. I've had this pattern for over a year now and just figured out in the past week that the J is missing. After doing some research and asking an expert on samplers and history, I found out that the J and I used to be interchangeable and actually it wasn't until the past the medieval times did the J get created into the alphabet. So, this explains from the Websters International Dictionary as quote:

J is a comparatively late variant from the Latin I which was used indifferently as a vowel or consonant, its consonantal value being that of English Y in yet. The form J was developed from i during the Middle Ages, and it was long used in certain positions in the word merely without regard to the sound as a consonant or vowel. But the lengthened form was often initial, and the initial was usually consonantal, so the j gradually became differentiated from i in function as well as form. It was not, however, until the 17th century that the distinction of j as a consonant and i as a vowel was fully established and the capital J introduced. In English, the regular and practically uniform sound of j as in "jet" (dzh), the same as g in "gem," dates from the 11th century, that being the sound represented by i when consonantal in words then introduced from old French.

And seeming that my first word as a baby was "why" I had to find out the why of the missing J today. I asked The Sampler Girl as I knew she would be an expert on this and she helped me start searching for more information. Thanks, Tanya!!

A Nice Sunday Afternoon Drive in the Country

Phil walks bravely on slippery rock.......kinda like marriage I guess....LOL

Inside the Nacoochee church.................................

Nacoochee church where we were invited when we moved here.........of course the ladies still sit on one side of the church ............women and children on the other.........that is so bizarre to me.

Oh, lookie here at the cute little siblings. Looks like they already were experiencing sibling rivalry............

the Stovall bridge

Back to the primitve house in Sautee...........I suppose that's the gentlemen's waiting bench.....have you heard that song "Waiting on a Woman?"

This is a pleasant surprise leaving the farm.....................the sign is a quote from Psalms, 'The Mountains will bring peace to the people"

the front porch railing.....see Phil, never ever would you have to paint this! LOL

The exposed beams, a real fixer, upper......

Now for the ladies waiting bench on the right or I guess it could be time out bench for unruly kids........

ok, I had to do a Jackie pose

and just ironically it appears, the mama cow picture, right below mine.........hehehehehe....ok, no comments on that one.

The rustic dining room.

Phil and I went for a Sunday afternoon ride yesterday and it was a beautiful day. This is our dream retirement house, a little on the primitive side though. Actually, this is open for the public, near the Sautee Nacoochee Valley in North Georgia. It has bare essentials on the inside. I could only imagine the curtains and the saltware crocks that would look wonderful in the "dining room". The beams were all open and actually the 2nd story was not usable yet. Then we just drove around to see the cows. There were 2 calves, a mother cow and 2 bulls. The bulls looked very mean, but the baby calves were cute and I did get to pet the baby calf. Then we went to the Old Stovall Bridge which has alot of graffitti in it actually and we took some pictures. There is a little waterful where the river runs under it. Phil was brave enough to walk over some slippery rocks out in the river but I decided not to risk landing on my butt so I hung out on the grassy side. After that we went to the Old Sautee Store and got a snack and some hot tea and then on to the Sautee Museum. We've lived here almost 8 years and haven't looked through it yet......very interesting place. On next, to look through the old cemetary behind the Nacoochee church. For some reason, Phil and I like to walk through old....really old cemetaries......and this was one, we haven't been through yet.

Signs of early Spring 2009

Our flag on the house..............Brandon is in our thoughts everyday.

It's getting close to time

The daffodils are coming up

The Iris's are peaking though down in the bottom tier of our garden

And Thomas, is sunning on the porch for his afternoon activity. He posed so well, probably hoping I would leave him alone in his solemn peace..............it's hard being a cat, especially a country cat.