Our new home

I thought I'd post some pictures of our new home: Greenville SC

An ariel view of downtown

One of my favorite intersections downtown: Main St and Coffee. There's a great coffee bar down the steps to the right of the building. It's called Coffee Underground.

Up the street from that corner is the Hyatt where Friday Night Jazz is held. And it's just one of many free regular events. If you check out the link, you might notice that nowhere on the schedule is bluegrass found. (And before you ask: yes, I like bluegrass......in moderation!!!!)

I can hear them now.

This is Smoke on the Water. The food is great.

Sat. Farmers Market. It continues on thru Oct. so we'll be able to take advantage of it.


I can't explain this picture, except to say, "Now, that's my kind of mowing!!"

And this is my kind of way to observe Breast Cancer Awareness month. Those are bras hanging from a bank building downtown.

Two shots from Fall for Greenville. We always enjoyed it in the past and look forward to this year's. I'm thinking about volunteering through Operation Bear Hug. On one of our trips down we donated some of the bears to go to live with some boys and girls who needed them.

All pictures can be found at: Greenville Daily Photo.

We decided against the loft apartment. We're moving back to a complex where we previously lived. We loved it there and the location and neighborhood is much better. Once we get settled, I'll take and post my own pictures. We are looking forward to exploring all the old spots and the many new one since we left. Me and the digital and Tony on his scooter with the 35mm. Look out Greenville, here we come. Until then, back to packing boxes.

Oh and I applied for 2 great jobs. Both with the Greenville Public Library. Boy, has the main branch changed in ten years. They have a coffee bar in now and there must be a room with sixty public computers. It has 119,215 square feet and is the second largest public library in the state. Keep your fingers crossed.

Ah, Moving

It's not like we are strangers to the process. When we were younger, we moved a lot due to employment. So over the years, the process has been refined.

We were (still are??) collectors. In the younger days, everything was packed and moved. Of course, in the younger days, "everything" didn't consist of much. But it was moved!

Now, we are "downsizing." I'm not sure I have wrapped my head around it's exact meaning. Are we doing the Lean Manufacturing equivalent of the 5 S process? Sort, Straighten, Sweep, Standardize, Sustain. Are we just getting rid of large furniture we can no longer physically move from place to place? Are we contributing to other people's up sizing, i.e. yard sale and Free Cycle? I don't know the answer, but I do know there won't be as much "stuff" this time.

Some things we have given away. A garden flag to a little girl, a stuffed bear to another little girl. Those things we won't see again. The patio set will be visited when we visit Jonesborough as will the fire screen. We look forward to that. It will mean we are seeing dear friends who now have our "stuff." And the friends are the important thing. A friend bought a Christmas item to remember us by at our sale last weekend. It was one of those things that got moved every time. It was first bought at a Christmas bazaar. Where? Charlotte? Richmond? Idaho Falls? Reading, PA? Middlefield, OH? Who knows now, but it's new home will be Jonesborough until maybe she has a yard sale and it goes to Limestone or Key West or Rhode Island.

In the younger days, we had at most a week to pack. Now this time the physical process has been going on for about 2 months and the mental process has been going on for about 4 months. And there is still 2 months left before we actually are in Greenville. I'm not sure which was better.

Is this the last move? Probably not, but we go into it with more experience, more time and a whole lot less stuff. It's the easiest one by far.

It's Official

The Smiths are on the move. After much prayful consideration, we have decided to relocate to Greenville, SC.

There are lots of reasons, but since it's been almost a year since I've posted to my blog, I'll do some catching up first.

In Jan 2009, Tony was one of 109 laid off from Mountain States Health Alliance. That was the factor that started us thinking. He made the decision to go for early retirement. Then his doctor told him to quit driving. He's now in the middle of the process to get SS Disability. That all started the ball rolling.

We love Jonesborough, but it's not a place condusive to mobility problems. There is no way for a person who shouldn't drive to get out. We knew we should leave, but where.

Greenville was the logical choice. We probably would never have left there in 1997 had it not been for a job change. We love the area, the town, the cultural aspects, the weather and the people. They have a good transit system, so Tony will be able to get out and about. Employment opportunities for me is much greater. It's close to my hometown and friends around there.

So we drove down (2.5 hours from J'boro) and made sure we still loved it. It's always the place we would go for a long weekend or just to run down on a Sat. And yes, we still love it.

So the ball picked up speed. I let my work know what's happening and they are very graciously letting me work until we leave. Our friends all know around here. We're having a downsizing/yard sale on the 25th. We'll be going back to apartment living which I so look forward to. I've decided that having a lawn is just not something I want anymore.

We've found a great place not far from downtown. It's an old textile mill converted into modern loft apartments. Each floorplan is named for a well known Greenvillian or other famous person. Being a huge baseball fan, I think it's neat that the plan we chose is the Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was from Greenville.

Our anticipated date for moving is by Sept. 30. We won't be here for the storytelling festival this year, but I'm sure we'll be back in future years. We already have plans to be back for Thanksgiving.

We rented a storage unit there on Monday and left a van full of boxes. The plan is to head down at least once a week with a load. That way when it comes time for a truck, it will be a small one with just the remaining furniture. Then we can move out of the storage unit at a slower pace.

That's the Smith news for now. If you know of any job opportunites there, pass them on. If you are in the area next Sat. stop by the sale. I'll try to take pictures and post them and more here as things progress. I've missed blogging.

So if you are in the Greenville area after Oct. 1, let us know. We'd love to show you around.

ABC's of Homemaking

I've seen this on several blogs I read and thought I'd join in.

Please feel free to copy and play along on your blog. Just take out my answers and put in your own.


A ~Aprons--y/n If y, what does your favorite look like? Yes and my favorite is my brown one with some candies screen printed that says "Nobody knows the truffles I've seen."

B ~ Baking--Favorite thing to bake? Bread and cookies. I've found a good simple oatmeal cookie recipe that the folks at Tony's work love. Now every Wed. I have cookies to send in for his team meeting. Also, I'm making Grandmother's Bread. (Thanks Suzanne)

C ~ Clothes line? No, I'm a dryer person.

D ~ Donuts--Have you ever made them? No, never made them. I get my donut fix at the Shell station which sells Krispy Kreme.

E ~ Everyday--One homemaking thing you do everyday? Clean the kitchen. I'm a messy cook.

F ~ Freezer--Do you have a separate deep freeze? Yes, it's not huge, but the right size for the two of us. I fill it with soups and stews and chili, mainly.

G ~ Garbage Disposer? Yes, and I use it, but I also am trying to start a compost pile out back.

H ~ Handbook--What is your favorite homemaking resource? The Joy of Cooking. It's the one I go to for basics and other helps.

I ~ Ironing--Love it or Hate it? Or hate it but love the results? HATE to iron. I'd rather clean 10 gas station restrooms. I'm not crazy over the results either. I'm not good. Tony is much better and would rather iron his stuff himself. Works for me!!

J ~ Junk Drawer--y/n? Where is it? Yes. Kitchen, study, living room, uh, too many

K ~ Kitchen--color and decorating scheme. White

L ~ Love--what is your favorite part of homemaking? Having a baking day or a soup making day. I like seeing and enjoying the finished product, but I also like the processes.

M ~ Mop--y/n? Yes, after trying the swiffer thing, I'm back to a regular mop and bucket. Works much better. I hate the smell of the swiffer cleaner. The kitchen always smelled like old, dead cigarettes to me after I used it. Yuck

N ~ Nylons, machine or hand wash? Machine wash when there are any to wash.

O ~ Oven--do you use the window or open the oven to check? Both. It depends on what I'm cooking. I don't like to lose the heat by opening the door, but sometime you gotta.

P ~ Pizza--What do you put on yours? First, it's my homemade so I control the quantity of ingredients. Lots of pepperonis, mozz cheese, fresh mushrooms. I'm a traditionalist.

Q ~ Quiet--What do you do during the day when you get a quiet moment? Knit

R ~ Recipe Card Box--y/n? What does it look like? No box. I have a notebook of favorites, plus a bookcase of books

S ~ Style of house--What style is your house? 1950's ranch

T ~Tablecloths or Place mats? Both. It's usually placemats for daily and tablecloths for company or when the table isn't in use.

U ~ Under the kitchen sink--organized or toxic wasteland? Organized and not too toxic

V ~ Vacuum--How many times per week? Minimum of once a week. I've been doing more lately because of all the little bits of dried leaves coming in.

W ~ Wash--How many loads of laundry do you do per week? Gee, I've never counted. I wash when I need to.

X's--Do you keep a daily list of things to do that you cross off? I try to, but I'm not always successful

Y ~ Yard--y/n? Who does what? Yes, with lots of trees. I do the yard work and the gardening. I love to mow!

ZZZ's ~ what is your last homemaking task for the day before going to bed? Make the coffee so it will be waiting on me the next morning

Festival

The 37th National Storytelling Festival has ended. Tents are coming down. Chairs are being stacked. Port-a-potties are heading back to wherever they come from. Restaurants are going over what inventory is left. The golfers at the Ridges have their carts back. ISC is $1 million closer to the $3M goal for the Horizon project. Actually there's a little over $250K to be raised.

And yet stories are still bouncing around the town.

The weekend started with a trip to the airport to pick up Karen Chace, Teresa Clark and Meg Gilman. We dropped Teresa off at Joseph Sobel's and headed to the house for a quick supper, then on to the Library tent for the NSN Storynight. They had a great lineup of Diane Ferlatte, Barbara Freeman, Bobby Norfolk, David Novak, Gayle Ross, Faye Wooden, and Rixon Lane. The pros were good, but I thought Rixon (youth from my native SC) and Faye (local) were the best.

I had traffic duty for four hours on Friday morning, so after getting Karen and Meg downtown, I picked up my ticket at the Christopher Taylor cabin and went to work. That afternoon I wandered from tent to tent. In the evening I heard John McCutcheon, Ben Haggarty, Beth Horner, Antonio Rocha, Kevin Kling, Won-ldy Paye, Erica Lann-Clark, Tim Tingle and Katheryn Windham. IMHO, all but one were good to great. It was my first time hearing Haggarty and he's now a favorite.

We had other guests who arrived Friday afternoon. Faye and her daughter Robbie were first-timer festival attendees. Faye won the tickets Jimmy Neal contributed for the Kiwanis Convention in August. They were great to have with us and enjoyed the festival.

The Midnight Cabaret featured Andy Offutt Irwin whom I love. I got my festival ticket by ushering at Andy's Teller in Residence program in July. I was a little disappointed because he really built up his new material in summer about Aunt Marguerite Van Camp and there wasn't much of it. But I still enjoyed him.

Sat. morning my traffic duty was early (7-11). It was fun, watching folks come in to town, saying good morning to them, answering their questions (where can I get coffee?, where can I park? and where's the College St. tent? in that order.) One guy said it was nice to have a sunflower greeting them and that made my day. Me...a sunflower. How 'bout that!

I grabbed some lunch and then it was on to Onawumi Jean Moss and then Kevin Kling. I was done for after that and headed home.

Sunday morning was the Featured Listeners breakfast. The room was full and the stories abound. David and Jeff (owners of the former Dogwood Lane) and others put on quite a spread. Mike and Susan welcomed us to the Parson's Table.The group lost two members this past year. Emotions were right at the surface. It was good to hear George stories.

The afternoon was more stories. I heard Bil Lepp who told one old and one new story. The old might have been new to the festival. Michael Reno Harrell was next. He's new the the festival crowd, but has been to Jonesborough many times. Tony and I had supper with him and Joan one evening when he was playing Jonesborough Days. His song Southern Accent kept me sane the 15 months we spent in Assachusetts. (My spelling of the state.) After his set, I headed home.

The fun continued that evening at Alta Cucina in Johnson City. It's a tradition to end the weekend at dinner somewhere with any Featured Listeners who are still in town, plus us Jonesborough folks. Meg came along with me. We filled the patio there. Tony and Karen were supposed to go to Joseph's after festival party, but I forgot and took the van. He doesn't have keys for my car. So after we ate, we came home and picked up Karen and went to Joseph's to end the evening with some good music.

Monday morning was a trip back to the airport for Karen and Meg to catch their flight. Then it was home to an empty, very quiet house. How many more days until the festival???

Lots of hats

Last Christmas our Kiwanis Club adopted the Head Start kids in Jonesborough. We had a great time buying gifts and they came to one of our meetings and sang carols to us.

I had knitted a few hats on my loom knitter and included some of them to be distributed. This year, I wanted to make sure I had enough made, so on August 28 I made an appointment in my Outlook that said "Make Hat." I have it recurring every three days until Dec 1. If I follow the schedule I will have 30 hats made.

Unfortunately (fortunately??, I don't know which), the schedule got messed up. Tony ended up in the hospital the day after Labor Day with 2 90+% blockages. He was in for 3 days and I ended up with about 5 nervously made hats. He's doing well now and started cardic rehab today. I'm now the "Food Nazi" watching everything he eats.

So today (9.22) I should have 9 completed hats. Instead, I finished number 14 yesterday and started #15. I figure I'll have about 40 done by 12.1.

I'm going to make an appeal on FreeCycle to take anyone's little bits and pieces of Homespun yarn. I like taking the different colors and making a hat with them. And hopefully we'll have a little cold weather and some kids will have warm ears. Either way, I'm having fun.

Here's what I have done so far.

All of them.

Close-up 1

Close-up 2

Close-up 3

Close-up 4

It's been a while...

since my last post. So what has happened? The Appalachian Fair came and went and our Kiwanis booth did real well. We sold hotdogs, hamburgers, funnel cakes, fries, and nachos and cheese. The booth was jumping every night. Here's some pictures.

We also had race guests. The two Bristol race weekends are a boon for hotels, B&Bs and private homes. We rented our guest room to a lovely young couple from NJ. He's a race fan. She just came to the US about a year ago from Bejing. It was her first race weekend and she seemed to like it. They might be regulars for the March and August races.

It's been so dry here that the leaves are turning early and falling. There are a lot of trees here and I think I'll be raking until December. LOL

We have the month of September coming up, bur I'm thinking about October already. I have a love/hate relationship with the month. I love that the National Storytelling Festival will be here before you know it. With it comes lots of my storytelling friends. We have three staying with us along with a mom and daughter who won the ISC gift basket, including festival tickets at our KY/TN Kiwanis convention earlier this month.

That's all why I love the month. I hate the month because all the wonderful fall colors will be overshadowed in the stores by the color pink. Now don't get me wrong. As a breast cancer survivor, I support Komen and ACS in the fight. But I have a very hard time with pink M&M's, pink KitchenAid Mixers, pink boxing gloves, SpongeBob SquarePants wearing Pink Pants and more. Each year more and more companies are jumping on the BC bandwagon and getting rich with no accountability.

I especially have a hard time with Pinkwashers. They support the fight against cancer and they get rich making products that are linked to the very disease.

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox...for now. I think I have a lot more to say on this subject and will be posting again before the pinking of Fall begins.

So what are you looking forward to this fall?

Our new home

I promised some pictures and here they are....







More to come

I'm still here

The move almost did me in, but we are settled and loving the new place. There's so much light! Having lived in a cave for about ten years (not really, but log houses have some light problems), I can't get used to not having to turn on every lamp we have in order to see.

I'll post pictures later, but just want to let anyone who reads this (is there anyone??) know I'm still here.

What I've been doing

The pictures tell the story...


We can barely walk through the living room to the kitchen.

Getting to the laundry room is a little better.

Luckily we don't sleep upstairs anymore.



Because this is the bed in the bottom right.



Nothing much left to read



Sissy has been supervising my work.

We are both ready for this move to be over.

How did I miss the whole month of April?

Wow, I knew it had been a while since I blogged, but over a whole month?? Where did April go? Well, most of it was taken up with a sinus infection. Mainly, April was spent coughing and sneezing. Then there was the week in Knoxville and a trip to Atlanta. Oh and there was many happy dances done by me and a lot of others over a move of the NSN BOD. Finally, they woke up.

Also, some of the month was taken up with packing. We're moving a whole seven tenths of a mile away. So the smell of cardboard is in the air. The new place is on the other side of the 4 lane so I'm getting as bike. The walk to town will be easy. There's more yard to mow so we bought a riding mower. I've used it twice on this place and can barely getting it going on the flat areas before I have to turn, But it's fast!

We already are filled up for the storytelling festival in October. Two of my most fav teller friends are staying with us along with another teller that I don't know that well. I know what I'm like with Karen or Meg alone. Put all three of us together and add another Karen (who writes great blogs) and hopefully the house will still be standing and Tony won't have run screaming into the night. I already have the meals planned and am counting the days.

There's been one moving disaster already. Last Friday Sissy Ann insisted on checking out an open box. Most of our boxes are book size so when she jumps in, she will check it out and jump back out. Not this one.



Before I could put the camera done she had found her way out of it, but it did take a while. She's shied away from that box ever since.

I promised Tony that I would have the Kiwanis KY/TN District 7 website up before the spring meeting that was on Sat. I managed to get it done a few days ahead of time. Now I need to finish the Jonesborough club's site.

More to come and hopefully, it won't be a month away.

May Pops

I've googled May Pops and was happy to see the first listing was from a good southern school - Auburn.

May-pop, Passion-Flower (Passiflora incarnata)Passion-flower
has long attracted the attention of amateurs and botanists alike. This hardy
perennial vine comes from a family of mainly tropical plants. Its genus,
Passiflora, is the only genus of its family in the United States. Two species
occur in our state, incarnata and lutea. Lutea is the yellow passion-flower only
rarely seen. Incarnata is the purple one, common and beautiful.
Passiflora
incarnata (usually called May-pop) has a blossom with five sepals and five
petals. It has a crown or corona of white or lavender fringe banded with purple.
In the center of the blossom is a column of united stamens enclosing a pistil
with three heads (stigmas). This beautiful complex blossom is exquisite in
detail.
This plant is a vine ten feet to twenty feet long, with alternate
leaves. The leaves are from two and one-half to six inches long and wide. Each
leaf is palmately three-lobed with finely serrated edges. At the base of each
blade are two small bumps (nectar-bearing glands).
The flower buds come in
the axils of the leaves, as do long tendrils which the vine uses for climbing
over whatever is near it. The fruit is an edible leathery berry (the may-pop).
It is the size and shape of a hen egg; green at first and turning yellowish as
it ripens. When stomped, it makes a loud pop. It blooms from late May
through October.
It is called Passion-flower because the early explorers
thought there was some resemblance in the structure of the blossom to the
implements of the crucifixion.

They grew wild in our backyard until my parents planted a huge garden. I loved playing with them. Maybe May Pops was my first real introduction to storytelling. There were various tales about the flowers. We used to tell one about a lady with a hat carrying two loaves of bread. You could pluck parts of the flowers and make the lady. Then there was the fruit. What a great sound it make when popped.

I got my May Pop plant last week and today planted it. I can't wait to see those flowers. There still seems something wrong about paying good money for something that grew wild. But, it will be worth it. If you want yours go to Gurneys. They are only $7.95.

March Madness

No, this isn't about basketball.

And for any non-storytelling and NSN readers, I apologize ahead of time for the rant.

But hey, this is MY blog, I can rant if I want.

Today, my former employer the National Storytelling Network, lost an excellent Board member. Finally, there had been someone on the board who not only knew about fundraising, but had indeed been successful at raising those funds. David Joe Miller would have done great things for the organization. Sadly, he has resigned.


Let me add them up:
I resigned
Holly resigned
Jason resigned
Laura resigned
Eric resigned

That's the staff members since July 2007 who have left.

Then there were the three board members and now DJM.

I don't know the reasons for three of the four BOD members. But I do know that when all this turmoil can be traced back to one source, there is a MAJOR problem.

This madness has to end!

Way to go, Rishi

My friend Rishi defended her thesis last week. She is one more step closer to her Masters degree in the storytelling program at ETSU.She writes about the day on her blog.

I met Rishi in Feb. 2004 when I interviewed at NSN. She told me about the program and how she hoped to finish by Dec. 2004. Now three plus years later, you might say that Rishi is a procrastinator. I don't.

The whole time Rishi and I were together at NSN, she worked on her story and her thesis.

She had just married in 2003.

In 2004, there were the newlywed adjustments, buying a house, moving, plus work, flying to Bellingham for the conference, being a friend, etc.

The next year, she worked on her story and thesis, was a wife, was pregnant, was a mother, worked at NSN, was a friend, etc.

Then in 2006, she worked on her story and thesis, worked at NSN, was a wife, mother, friend, etc. Oh, yeah, pregnant and mother again.

She left NSN in Dec. 2006, which was a great loss. She had been the corporate memory as well as a wonderful face of NSN. Now I was the corporate memory (almost 3 years) LOL

Since then she has moved to NC then to WV. And last week she made another step forward to that Masters degree.

Procrastinator? No way. Persistent, preserver, prevailer, pursuer.

That's Rishi.

Way to go!

And yes, I took the picture from your blog.

What did you do all week?

It snowed in Jonesborough this week. I was hoping to have lots of pictures to post. But it was not to be. All around us got lots of snow. We hardly got any.

So I thought about cooking something and showing the end result. Well, I made a nice pot roast yesterday or should I say, the crock pot made it. And I made chili. But everyone has seen pot roast and chili.

Finally, I thought about showing off the new shower curtain. It took me over a week to find the right material. But the material is still material, not a shower curtain.

So there's the knitting. OK, fine I didn't knit either. What exactly did I do all week? Heck if I know.

It's Friday, so I'm not going to worry about it. Have a good weekend.

Happy Birthday, Zel

My friend Zel (in red) celebrated her 70th birthday this evening with 20 plus friends. I was privileged to one of the invited guests.

Zel’s story is her own. I cannot tell it. But it’s enough for me to say that I stand in awe of someone who has lived the life she has and has maintained a love of her fellow man and knows with absolute certainty that she is a child of a loving God.

She did not want a big deal to be made over her birthday. She was slightly embarrassed at the attention we gave her tonight. (Not to mention that calling down for noise that the waitress gave all of us.) She says she has reached the point in her life that she doesn’t want things. Things to dust and things to care for and things to worry about are not what she is about. So we showered her with gift certificates and donations to causes she believes in and gives her heart to. She gives tirelessly to the Compassionate Friends organization. Having lost two sons, she walks the walk.

What a strange week it has been.

This week I lost a friend to the beast.

This week I honored and remembered what would have been my daddy’s 96th (Feb 21,1912) birthday. (Yes, Cheryl, I can do math.)

And I was privileged to celebrated my friend’s 70th birthday.

Life, death, precious memories, friends, having my daddy’s ears. What an extraordinary adventure life is.

My friend CY

My friend CY

Cheryl Thomason

We came to know each other through a breast cancer survivor board. The picture was taken last August. Some of the members of the group got together in upstate NY for what was called Pinkstock 07. From all reports they had a rocking good time. The little NY town might be back to normal by now.

Cy was diagnosed April 24, 2007. She died Tuesday night.

This blog isn't read by many. (I check the stats.) But to those who read it, get your mammogram or get your lady to get hers.

Do it for that lady in the twirling pink dress whose smile lit up the NY countryside. Do it for CY.

Can I interest you?

Tony went to a Key Club district meeting today. They say he's the first Lt. Gov. to come to Key Club events. They think it's great of him, but he just views it as his duty to the kids.

That left me at home this afternoon. Here's what I did.

Then I waited

Finally...

Care to join me? Mmmmm!!!

Fast Company did it again.

They made me think.

I received my March copy today. I always flip entirely through any magaizine I get, then sit down and read it when I have time. I guess I should change the "always" in the sentence above. I also received Sports Illustrated today and it's NOT the issue I look foward to every year. Swinsuits...hahaha.

Anyway, I never finished flipping through FC when I came upon the one page article titled Another Inconvenient Truth. The gist of the article was the overwhelming knee jeck reaction of companies to hop on the green bandwagon is largely bogus.

I'll admit I like my creature comforts, but I do care about mother Earth. I don't want to contribute to her demise. And I want to believe that corporate America cares, also. Yeah, yeah, what planet do I live on.

Read the article. But I just checked. They haven't uploaded March yet.