the road leads back to you

loving arms reach out to me, loving eyes smile tenderly, still in peaceful dreams I see.... 

Ah sigh...

Stymied....

This Thursday is the big move into the Clubhouse. for those of you that read this blog know how long I have worked on this. Months and months and months. The highly opinionated mostly tacky oldies have formed a committee to "finish" the clubhouse, which basically means they are going to tacky up my work. You see it gives them something to do. In hindsight, I wouldn't have used furniture that just came to market in this past Spring. The oldies will die before it is Walmart "new" to them. I basically put the furniture in, hang the draperies, plug in a few lamps and leave. Then they come in and work their tacky. Every other time I have decorated a clubhouse, I buy everything...the accessories, the dishes, the coffee pot, the tablecloths for the card tables and serving table, ( just to be sure they go to the floor), the trashcans, the paper towel holders, the soap dispensers, cards, poker chips, games, books for a reading library, all the way down to a stock of paper towels, coffee, cream, sugar, sugar substitute, toilet paper and cleaning supplies. Right now I am getting my head around leaving it bare... so unme. I like to completely finish to the inth degree. UGH!!!!!!!  

Meme's New Job

Meme (me) starts Monday on a new job. Natalie's Nanny. I am soooooo excited! Monday-Wednesday I will be blocking the entire world out for my Grandbaby Girl. So big ole world out there just know

I will get back to you on Thursday..................................................................

Unhappy John

It's a bird, it's a plane......no it's my John

Let's have a Barn Wedding...THE MAGIC

courtesy East Main Photography

The vision...

From day one Kirby wanted a barn wedding. It was just what she wanted. We searched high and low for "the barn". Well let me tell you, barns are not easy to come by in and around Atlanta. At least barns that will allow weddings. One day, I think it was my daughter that found this barn on the East Main Photography website. They were also the photographers for the wedding. Andrew (my son), Kirby and I went to look at this barn at Chukkar Farm And Polo Club. The moment we walked through the barn this chicken crossed our path and I for one was delighted. I thought to myself this is a sign, this chicken welcoming us to this barn. We met with Cara. We loved her, always delightful and kind and helpful through the whole process of planning and answering our zillions of questions. And it was decided..Chukkar Farms it would be. We met with Pat Holland of Holland's Designs and Holland's Flowers and Gifts (whom I have worked with forever on different projects). There is one thing you can say about Pat....she creates MAGIC. She is quiet, reserved and thoughtful and never one to toot her own horn but she has an amazing bio here. Pat wanted Kirby to come up with a theme for the wedding. And beyond the country farm southern chic she wanted the wedding to have a theme of music. Music because that is the foundation of the first attraction and the love for and love of that Kirby and Andrew have for each other. It takes a vision to create a wedding in a barn. Kirby had that vision from the start. She knew what she wanted, exactly what she wanted. Here is the implementation of that vision.

the magic...

(more real pics to follow, these are from my camera right before the guest arrive)

Arbor of willow and hydrangea with moss covered window boxes of flowers



Guest book table

Gosh, I love BHLDN

Jars of lemonade to refresh guest before the wedding

Striped straws from BHLDN

Musical note pendants from BHLDN

Engagement pictures inserted randomly in an Etsy staff book used as the Guest book

100 ball jars with tea lights scattered on the hill leading up to the barn from the polo field

"Melodies bring memories that linger in my heart. The road leads back to you."

from  the original "Georgia On My Mind"

Chalk board signs leading guest

up the road to the tack barn for cocktail hour

Cocktail hour in the tack barn

Kirby's grandmothers' quilt on the back of the pew in the tack barn

65 paper lanterns and paper bags of Georgia peanuts placed on trays lined with sheet music randomly scattered on church pews in the tack barn

Peanut paper bags in coke crate

Burlap, burlap, burlap

Refurbished "goodwill" tea light lit chandelier with burlap fabric chain covers fill the ceiling

Sheet music torn out of my childhood music books burned on the edges

Mercury glass, hydrangeas and more moss

Buffet line covered in landscape jute

Menu written on antique windows behind buffet

OMG! does that say hotdogs! They were delicious

More Pat Magic

next up the wedding......



Tom

An old friend of mine passed away last week. The funeral is today. Truly a good good man. He will be missed. I can't say enough about keeping in touch with old friends. I didn't. That makes me sad. Mr. Tom was a fighter pilot in the Marines. He flew an F4 Falcon. He took the patches off of his flight jacket and gave them to my son years and years ago. I need to go find them and give them back so they can be given to his grand kids now. Pass downables. Mr. Tom flew the inaugural flight off the USS Nimitz. He was just 64. He was married to his sweetheart for 43 years. He will be so missed.

the moon princess

Eric Clapton named this song after a moon princess named Layla who was given away in a marriage to a man leaving another man desperately in love with her destroyed.The story from a 12th century poet. he wrote the song though for a woman he was desperately in love with that was married to one of his best friends. The woman Pattie Boyd married to George Harrison. He later married her and wrote this song for her, one of my all time favorites. What could be better than a song named for a moon princess?

natalie ruth

wow, I am a grandma. decided on meme as my name. hunka will be pappy. I am still in a slight fog. I can't say yet that being a grandma is way better than being a mama like everyone says. I guess it is too early or just the fact that I think being a mama was and is pretty darn the best thing ever. and being a grandma is right up there with that. I know there is no peace that has ever come over me before ever when I hold her. She is beautiful in every single way. and I love seeing my daughter as a mommy. yep, I do so love that

Dog Days

Jake at doggy daycare

Yep it is hot. It is real hot. If you have ever wondered why they call it the dog days of summer, you can check why here.  I am just sitting in wait..... that's about all. Except I just realized that Natalie will be a Leo and not a Cancer. Which is a good thing I think. She will be "see me roar".  Hmm much like her grandma.

ADELE --MY " One and Only " chance....

Another great song from Adele. "I dare you to let me be, your one and only" good lyrics. I had a reminder set for ticket sales. I purchased a pre-ticket passcode for $10.00 that had already expired. Unbeknown st to me at the time. So wait for the day .  OK the day. Phone beeps reminder. I started at 10am, yesterday on regular ticket sales. This is how it went...
Enter Ticketmaster-ok
Select Adele at the Fox Sunday Oct. 16- ok
select tickets-4 I'll take my girlfriends
best available-ok
enter code from the box. Can't read..enter wrong..select another..can't read oh hell timed out
Again
4 tickets- no four available together ok then
3 tickets- I'll dump one friend
code again can't read entered wrong select another ok ok ok ok
No 3 together..ok I'll just go with Hunka
2 tickets.enter, enter enter, best available.....code that damn code, can't read get real close, tilt my head back to get the reader bifocal up close..damn can't read. enter wrong enter wrong...blah! OH HELL I WILL GO BY MYSELF...
1 ticket- enter enter enter code thingy....sold out

You see I love everything about Adele
I love her voice
I love her hair
I love her fake eyelashes
I love her chubbyness
I love the way she flicks her hands by her face when she sings


I would love tickets..."I promise I'm worthy"

Today is due date day!

I think I am nesting in a Grandma way. I am making sure the house is clean and the laundry is done and cleaning closets. Which is weird I know, but nevertheless I am going with it. I had a flash in the middle of the night, a panic kind of flash that I did not want Natalie to have my cleft chin. I have always hated my chin. My butt crack chin. Today I am interviewing a partial wife. I need a whole wife, but a partial wife will do for now. I am holding my breath a lot lately, in anticipation of great new beginnings. Without the butt chin. I got my fingers crossed.

The Help..hmmm

I read this book when it first come out. I read it with mixed feelings. I finished it with mixed feelings and I will probably see the movie. All of my friends LOVED this book. I have to admit when I finished reading this book, I felt as if it wasn't the author's place to write the stories of 1960's maids in the South. Somehow, a white socialite should not be telling the story of racism and segregation from an African American woman's point of view.  The author's  father claims she is "stirring the pot and her brother's housekeeper is suing her see here. I had my own "maid" Annabelle growing up.  She only came once a week to iron, but I would sit and watch her iron all day and sometimes she would let me sprinkle the clothes with the Coke bottle full of water and starch and help her roll the clothes. Annabelle's husband died when a log truck that he was driving unleashed the logs with him under them. My grandmother would put a twenty dollar bill under the ironing board when she got a new "maid" to see if she was trustworthy. And my mother would make Annabelle lunch using the same plate and glass every week. That plate and glass were put in the cupboards and were not to be used by anyone but Annabelle. I can tell you how how the injustice makes me feel, but there is no way I could know how it felt on the insides of these women to be "the help". The stories in the book I'm sure are all true. The injustices, the prejudices, the racism all true. It isn't the storytelling that bothers me. It is the storyteller. As the movie is coming out, I still have that same feeling that it is just not right for a Jackson, MS. junior leager to be telling this story from "The Help" point of view. Like me, she lived it on the other side.

Super creepy

As most of you know, Hunka was on a jury for a murder trial in Fulton Superior Court last week. He loved it, took his notebook, took massive notes and was the juror that any lawyer and judge only dream about. His first time. I have never been on a jury, but I am registered in Hilton Head so I doubt my trial would be as interesting. Long story short here is the gist of the trial. Mr. Tat (all over his autopsy picture body) was trying to turn his drug selling addicted life around and had gotten a fiance (ex Cheetah stripper) now waitress. He was contacted by Mr. Big (real name) about one more pot sell. He picked up the pot, 50 lbs. worth and drove it to south Atlanta to sell to the street sellers. We will call them Styx and Stoned. The deal was that Styx and Stoned would front Tat 5 lbs. to sell himself after the money had changed hands. They opened the 50 lbs. and it had been diluted with filler and wasn't pure pot. This made Styx and Stones super angry. as they were holding a gun to Tat he called his fiance and was talking to her on the cell phone as he was trying to back out of the apt. which by the way they call a Trap, not a real apt but a fronted apt rented to just sell drugs in. As Tat is backing out of the apt. on the phone with his fiance they shoot him in the leg and through the aorta.  The leg shot I thought was interesting as the bullet entered his knee and lodged in his groin. I am guessing Tat must have been on the ground already or falling during this shot for the bullet to travel up his leg that way. Styx ans Stones ran out of the apt. and jumped in a car and left. A neighbor heard the shots and came running. She was also an eye witness to the bad guys leaving. It seems when they found Tat dead halfway in the door and halfway out, he still had that cell phone in his hand. After all of the testimony was complete the jurors went into the room to deliberate. Two days......I will point out now that the foreman was a Georgia Tech physics professor and it is a wonder that they made a decision just because of that paralysis.
The evidence had been brought into the jury room for them to view and go over during the deliberation. They never found the gun but the cell phone was in the evidence bag on the table in front of them. The last point of communication between Tat and the world before he died. The jury voted guilty and called the bailiff . the foreman called for the bailiff to tell the judge they had a verdict. the bailiff walked in and the foreman handed him the verdict to  give to the judge. Just as the bailiff opened the door to take the judge the verdict  with the jury still sitting in the jury room that cell phone rang. It rang in the bag. The bag with the phone had been sitting in the evidence room in Fulton County since 2007 when this happened. I guess Tat was saying thank you. And yes this really did happen!

I'm into you...

The clubhouse is creeping up on me. One good thing...it is all on this board. One bad thing, I didn't write anything down. Now I have to go back and research where all these pics came from. Assbackwards.

Imagine planning

Imagine....

These Shepard hooks with

Queen Anne's lace...leading the way to this polo field...

with this flower cart greeting you with flowers and water

As you are seated....

in semi circular setting  lined with solid rows of greenery and Queen Anne's lace in  baskets of wire and moss

And then after the ceremony strolling up the hill to this barn as a back drop to a cocktail hour in the tack barn filled with ....

wonder and lanterns....

and then dining in this pavilion....

with tables covered in ....

linen and burlap

the ceiling filled with candle chandeliers.....

and filled with antique ball jars of flowers and candles...

Just a sneek peek into Imagine wedding planning for now

learning new words

Wow, today I learned a new phrase. Thanks Urban Dictionary. I don't think I like this phrase, although I think it is probably used in jest for the most part. But let's break it down....

The F part. You know, it is strange that people say F U, I'm F'd, F'd up, etc. etc. when the actual act of F'ing pretty much rules mankind. And...pro-creates and feels pretty good, too. It is the word, the F word. The slang word for the act, I get it, really I do. The negative connotation of the word, not the act. This is the part that  I am over. the negative part. We can all be negative and have negative thoughts. So here are my negative thoughts for the day:

It is hot.   but it is not cold.
My back hurts. but I am not dead.
My dog is a pain in the ass. but I have a dog.
I am not in HH. but I am near my kids.

For every action there is a reaction, and it is simply a choice to not be negative. So for right now in ML I am going to forget that I learned this urban word today. Negative thoughts are downers, negative people are downers. It is a choice....PS. sorry for the F word. I have a new word, KML because this is the Life I have chosen. I am so lucky and so grateful and have so much to be thankful for...kiss, kiss.

The List

I'm voting for the Naked Cowboy!

Here is the List. What do we have here....lots of radio talk show hosts, quite a few Minnesotans, they must be trying to escape the bitter weather for free white housing. I'm guessing we could get a little more info on the candidates as soon as the Casey Anthony trial wraps up. It appears she is the only woman on the face of the earth that has ever killed her child. Or not, that remains to be seen, because in America you are put on trial and given a verdict of guilty or not guilty. Which really has nothing to do with innocence, but everything to do about which side can put on the best dog and pony show. Back to the candidates for President of the United States of America.

Please don't be too dumb, but not too smart either. Harvard graduates are out...paralysis by analysis...trust me on this one.

Please don't be an extremist....either way

Please have at least a smidgen of common sense

Please don't try to regulate my body, my beliefs, or forget that all men are created equally.

Please be moral

Please be virtuous

Please be righteous

Please be noble

But please don't take all of my money

Oh well, that person is not in existance.... just go ahead and appoint Glenn Beck. The money saved on paper alone with the use of chalkboards will save millions and the forest too.

At  least the Naked Cowboy can play the guitar.

oy vey Gregg Allman

Busted bubble, knocked down a few notches. How can this burly man

that rides this Harley

own this frou frou dog?

and even worse....a poodle

Sigh

Natalie, I want to count your fingers and toes!

Natalie, I am ready to see you. I want to see who you look like. I want to see if the image in my head is true. Dark curly hair and blue eyes.
I am going to be in the labor and delivery room. So I am gearing up for that. I am pulling out all of the rational and sqaushing all of the emotional to see my daughter in pain. That part I don't like. I am a mother that fixes things. I want to fix everything, the pain of childbirth I can't fix. I wish I could. Lord knows I have seen my share of women in labor. But they weren't my child. She is prepared and she has my strength. and she has the best husband to hold her hand. I have got about three weeks to get ready for my heart to jump into my throat and choke me with joy and emotion.