And the Oscar goes to........Who cares?

I love movies! Old movies, new movies, action, drama or comedy, no matter, I love them. What I do not like, and have not watched for a very long time, is awards shows. The last time I watched the Academy Awards was when Billy Crystal hosted back in the early 90s. I still love movies, but I am not all that enamored with actors and actresses.

If I could watch an award show and be entertained, instead of preached or lectured to, I might tune in, but that ship has sailed. I watch movies because I like, or are interested, in the topic or story, not because I care about, or even know about the actors political or social views. I appreciate their acting talent, but that is all. I want to be entertained by the actor, not lectured to by them.

I also love music! I sing everyday and always have a song in my head. I always tell my kids I have musical turrets, because I will just break out into song at any time. But, I feel the same about musicians as I do actors. I go to a concert to be entertained, to hear their wonderful musical talent. I want to hear the popular songs that I sing along with on the radio, the songs from their CDs and new songs that they share and delight us with. I do not want to hear a political or social speech between each song, or propaganda flashing on the screen on the stage. I want them to sing and make me forget about all the turmoil in the world, because that is what music does for me.

I have no problem with people in the entertainment business having political or social views. If they have a need to share those views with others that is awesome, but do it in the proper forum. Award shows and concerts are not the appropriate forums. Rent a lecture hall, have a town hall meeting, go on a news show, and if people are actually interested in your opinion, they will show up to hear your views. No one buys a ticket to a concert because they want to hear the musician's opinion, they want to hear them sing. People do not watch award shows because they want to hear the entertainer's views on any topic other than the movie they were getting an award for, and how grateful they are for being able to make a mass fortune playing make believe.

So what I, and many other people will do tonight, is watch a rerun of some other show, get on line after the Oscars are over and see who won in each category. That way I can see what movies I now might want to go see, agree or disagree with the winners, or losers of the movies I have already seen, and happily not be annoyed by all the speeches.

Now that you have read this, doesn't sound a bit like a speech given at an awards program?

A Furry Addition to our Family

Our youngest has been quite busy the last few months.  He graduated from Grad School in mid December,  received an offer for a great job in December, moved to a new city and into a new apartment in January, and started his new job in February. As if that was not enough, and against all advice from his parents, he got a puppy. He ignored warnings and pleas by us for him to wait until he had been working awhile, or until he got settled into his new home. The warnings of the difficulties of having a puppy in an apartment, and potty training it in the winter, all went in one ear and out the other. So, less than a week before he started work, he adopted a rescue puppy that was about 3 months old.

Meet Nellie

The fun started immediately when he had "the unnamed puppy" for less than 24 hours and found out that she had fleas. After a very early call to me, and some groggy advice, he took her to the Vet, got his apartment cleaned up and sprayed, and the problem was solved by the afternoon. Now all he has to worry about is potty training, lol. On that front he is on his own. He drives home each afternoon for lunch and takes her out. He has to clean her, and the crate, and then do it all over again after work. Puppies have the bladder the size of a pea, and just cannot hold it for more than a few hours. But this too will improve as she gets bigger.

Nellie is a Australian Cattle Dog Mix. At least that is what we think.

The biggest challenge thus far was giving her a name. He had several options that he pondered over, but in the end he decided on Nellie. One thing that was not a challenge, him totally falling in love with the puppy. The boy is smitten with Nellie, and from the conversation I had with his girlfriend Nellie feels the same way about him. She follows him everywhere he goes, and even want to jump in the shower with him.

Welcome Miss Nellie to the family. You are joining a family of dog lovers. Just ask our dog Edy.

Edy and Nellie have the same coloring. And they Nellie also seems to be a very loving dog like Edy. I am sure Nellie will not be as big of a sleeper though. We think Edy is really part Koala.

Our Daughter's dog Dakota.

Dakota and Edy have the same mother, but Dakota is a jumper and she got that from her dad. She has that in common with Nellie who is also a jumper. I think this picture is hilarious be she is a Texas dog and is covered in snow.

And our Son's dog Dahlia.

Dahlia was my Son's Fiancee's dog and my son is totally and completely in love with both girls of the house. Dahlia is very sensitive and a big sweet baby doll.

Sweet Nellie you will be loved, very well taken care of, and you will always be a welcome part of our dog loving family!

Chandelier Ornaments

My new chandelier ornaments.

I am not sure where she got the idea, or if it just came to her in a dream, but my sister Lynn started to hang ornaments on her dining room chandelier. I think at first it may have been at Christmas time and she decided she really liked the look, so it became a permanent decoration.

Lynn's original chandelier ornaments

She found some star ornaments at a store and bought 6 of the same kind and hung them on her chandelier. Then, in her home in Florida, she found come cute fish ornaments filled with shells, so she bought 4 of them and hung them on her dining room chandelier in Florida.

I simply love the fish!

Just so Florida looking!

My sister Jean followed suit and found this beautiful glass ornament and hung in on her chandelier in her Florida home. Jean's ornament catches the light and makes a beautiful colored kaleidoscope effect.

Look how beautiful Jean's ornament looks. You can see all the colors reflecting in it!

So, now I have caught the bug and decided to join the chandelier decorating party. Unfortunately I caught the bug in early February, and there are no Christmas ornaments to be found, so I have decided to make my own. I live in Texas, so I decided on horseshoes and stars for my ornaments. I went to Joann and bought 3 of each made from a thin wood.

I first need to drill a hole in the top of each ornament so that I can add string or ribbon to hang them. I may use some fishing line so you can't see the string, but that will be decided at hanging time.

Next step is to paint them. My dining room is black and lime green, and the chandelier is black. I think I will paint them all silver or gray, and maybe rub a little dark gray on the horseshoes to make them look dirty, and highlight the stars with dark gray and white to give them a little definition.

This was my attempt at painting my ornaments. As you can see I am not a detail painter, lol. 

Not too bad for a first attempt.

I decided to use black ribbon to hang the ornaments. While these are hanging I will be keeping my eyes open for some professionally made ornaments to replace them. I may even stop at some antique shops to see what I can find. The possibilities are endless.

Paris, Texas Style

What do you do on a Saturday in February when it is 80 degrees? Go on a convertible ride to Paris, Texas! We had about an 80 mile drive and it was a bit windy out, but being from the Midwest, there was no way we were going to let this beautiful day go to waste. We decided to take a short detour on our way and stop by a "ghost town" that was kind of on the way, and I will blog about that part of the trip at another time. This blog is going to be completely dedicated to Paris.

First stop, the town square. Paris has a beautiful fountain in the middle of the town square. The fountain was donated by one of its wealthy and prominent citizens J.J. Culbertson. The fountain is circled by antique shops, small businesses and restaurants.  We stopped at Jaxx Burgers and had a great hamburger that was made to perfection and served on a homemade rosemary bun.

The beautiful fountain in the Paris town square. You would never see a fountain running in February in the Midwest.

Great hamburgers at Jaxx Burgers. Mine is the one in back without the cheese and bacon.

March 21, 1916 is the day that Paris, Texas burned. It had been a dry month in Paris and the buildings and surrounding areas were all dried out. It was the day before the cities annual Spring Cleaning Day and at 5pm a trash pile was burning in the yard near the Long's Warehouse. Not only was the town dry, but there were 35 to 50 mph winds that took a hold of that trash fire and started burning the warehouse. From there the fire spread and ended up burning 264 acres, 1440 buildings and killing 3 people. The slogan for the town to rebuilt was one simple word "SMILE". They call it the slogan that rebuilt Paris, Texas in twelve months.

Paris before the 1916 fire.

This is the sign commemorating the 100th anniversary of the great fire.

Our next stop was to the Lamar County Historical Museum.  County museums are so interesting because they always tell a great story of the county and the people that lived there. I will write a blog on the museum at a later date, but I have to tell you about this one item in particular. The gentleman that was working at the museum was a wealth of information and told us great stories, and I will share my favorite one with you. As you walk into the museum they have a display of their local historic businesses and their goods. My favorite item came with a great story. The Famous Shoe Store in Paris was where this gentleman went to buy shoes when he was a kid.  When he moved back to Paris many years later he went back to the shoe store and asked if they still had the X-ray machine that they use on customers back in the late 1930s. The owner said yes, it was up in the attic. The owner ended up donating the machine to the museum. The museum gentleman said that when he was a kid his mother took him into the shoe store and with his prospective new shoes on his feet, he would step on the X-ray machine, put his feet in the slot on the bottom, put his chest up against the wood frame of the machine, and they would X-ray his feet. The salesman and his mother both had a view finder to look through to see the X-ray of his feet to see if the shoes fit properly. He said that once the reality of the amount of radiation that the machine was putting out came to light, the machines were banished and were then illegal to use. Heaven only knows how long it took then to figure that out. Thank goodness by the time I wore shoes they only used the thumb method where you push your sideways thumb at the toes of the shoe and if you had a thumbs length you were good to go, and no radiation was included!

This was the Adrian X-ray machine that was used at the Famous Shoe Store. It was encased in glass so it was hard to get a good picture with our glare and you can see my reflection in the back. I hope it was not in glass because it was still radioactive.

One of the main reasons to go to Paris, France as we all know is to see the Eiffel Tower. Well, that is also the main reason to go to Paris, Texas.  OK, so it is only 65 feet high and it has a little embellishment at the top, it is just the Eiffel Tower, Texas style. It definitely does not get the number of visitors that the original tower gets, and it is not located in the City of Love, but is most definitely the tacky over the top tower we have grown to expect of Texas. What is not tacky, and when finished, will be a beautiful tribute, is the Red River Valley Veterans Memorial right next door to the tower.

Bonjour Y'all!

There is a lot of work yet to be done on the memorial, but they are off to a very good start.

I saved the best sight in Paris for last. In Paris there is the Evergreen Cemetery that has 40,000 permanent residents. One of these residents is named Willet Babcock. Willet was from Ithaca, New York. He was a Union lieutenant in the Civil War, and was a furniture and casket maker that opened a factory in Paris, Texas. Willet was a well liked citizen and from the looks of his final resting place he was a man with a sense of humor. Willet ordered his headstone from a local German master stone cutter named Gustave Klein. Willets's head stone is an elaborate piece of work that at first glance looks like Jesus carrying the cross. On a closer look you are not sure if maybe it is an angel leaning on a cross. What you can make no mistake about is that the figure is definitely wearing cowboy boots. The marker has been known as "Jesus in Cowboy boots" since Willets death in 1881.

From a distance the monument looks so angelic.

And then you see the boots!

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of Paris, Texas style!

New Floors = Short Drapes

We had some renovations done on our condo in Florida last winter, and as with every renovation once you change one thing there is a domino affect and you end up having to change several things you had not planned on. So we went from carpet to hard surface floors and that change made our drapes about 3 inches too short.

You can see by the light shining in from under the drapes that they are now a bit too short. 

When we purchased the condo one of the requirements from the management company was to have ceiling to floor darkening lined drapes on the sliding glass patio doors. This window/door goes all the way across the back of the condo. So, we called a drapery company that came in and made the drapes for us for a whopping $900. These drapes are massive and very heavy.

When they came to install the new floors the first installers (yes we had to have a second installer come in to fix the work of the first group) left the drapes hanging and got putty on the bottom of the drapes.

Try as I might, I could not get the putty to come off of the drapes. It is still wet from the last attempt.

I knew I was going to have to have the drapes altered, and could not find anyone that would do the job. I decided I would drive into Florida with my sewing machine and do the job myself. On my last visit I saw that there was a very large hem in the drapes, so it should not be a big deal to let it out 3 inches. WRONG! When I got to Florida and started to take the hem out I found the putty stain and a stain at the bottom of the old hem where the drapes had been rubbing on the carpet over the last 5 years that left a permanent dirt stain. Once the hem was let out I tried to clean the putty stain and the hem stain to see if I could get them out, but that was unsuccessful. I tried every stain removing trick and product I knew and no matter what I tried the stains would not come out. Time for Plan B, once of course I thought of a Plan B.

Not the best picture, but you get the idea of the hem stain that was all across the bottom of the drapes.

I went to one of my favorite fabric stores, Joann Fabric, and found a tan, heavy, 3 inch lace and bought about 8 yards of the lace. I had a coupon for 40% off and was able to get enough lace for my drapes for less than $50.

Once I was able to get the heavy drapes down off the hooks by myself (no easy task) I started taking the hem out of both panels of the drapes.  I folded  and pinned the new hem and ironed out all the creases from the old hem.  Then I sewed the hem in place.

Hem is sewn and you can see the lovely dirt line, yuck!

Now I could see the dirt stain about 3 inches from the bottom of the drapes all the way across the drapes bottom. I pinned the lace with the bottom of the lace covering the stain line and leaving about 2 3/4 inches of drape showing below it. I then sewed the lace in place by sewing it along the top and the bottom of the lace.

The lace is pinned in place.

Time to sew the lace in place. First at the top and then a second seam at the bottom above the scallop.

Next was the hard part, hanging the drapes back up. It took me several tries and almost falling off the ladder a few times to get them back on the hooks. They were so heavy that I tried to hold them up to keep the weight of the drapes from pulling down on the section I was hanging and it was a truly harrowing experience. But as you can see. I was successful.

This would not have been my first choice on how to alter our drapes, but they turned out nice and hopefully they will last at least another 5 years.