This Mike and his brother Mark on Easter Morning 1974 in Carthage New York.
Blog
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Wednesday Wildcard – Planner Love
One of my loves is office supplies. I’m almost as happy looking through an office supply store as I am a book store. Part of the manifests in my planner love. However since I left regular office work I’ve been looking for the perfect planner for me. Finally, after a decade or so it dawned on me my needs change so I need a planner that can adapt as I change. (more…)
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Tuesday Thoughts – KonMari Method
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique I like organization and being able to find everything. It was easy when we moved often. I have found living in one place more then three years means we tend to collect junk. We’ve been in Wisconsin fifteen years the longest I have ever lived in one place. Ohhh- wheee, have we collected! Our aspiration is to retire to a Winnebago, or move about to series of small places. That means we need to shed 80%+ of our stuff. That is why I picked up The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kona.
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Memoir Mondays – You Can Never Go Back To Jennifer Street
Jennifer Street my first remembered address. Jennifer Street wasn’t the first house I ever lived in, that one was was somewhere in Chattanooga Mom and Dad can tell you where. But Jennifer Street was the first house whose address I memorized. It’s the first house I have many memories of playing and living in. It is what I think of as my childhood home. We moved from there when I was in fourth grade. The next house I think of as my middle school years. This is a photo of it recently. What got me the most was how small it looked. I guess Thomas Wolf knew what he was talking about when he said you can’t go home. Things of your past don’t just sit there waiting for you to come back they go on changing too just like you. Let me tell what has changed… (more…)
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Throwback Thursday – Molly McCravey Bright
Keeping on the great grandmother portraits here is my father’s paternal grandmother Mary “Molly” Rebecca McCravey Bright. The unique thing I think is her father was a Confederate veteran. She married Thomas Bright in 1895 (about the time of this picture) whose father was a Union veteran. She lost her husband in a horrid farming accident when my grandfather was a young boy.
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Wildcard Wednesday – Orlando in October
Mike and Mom in front of the big Orange gift shop. Mom got oranges to take to friends and we shopped. In October Mike and I took my parents to our condo in Orlando. We flew to Knoxville, rented a van, picked up my folks and hit the road. We made it just about half way the first night then on to Orlando. It was a calm week there seeing the sights. Dad mostly chilled in the apartment. Mom got out to see things. Below are photos of our trip where we ate our way through Orlando.
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Tuesday Thoughts – Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique I have to admit I was on the waiting list for this book so long I gave up and got the audiobook. This is a biography of a child born in the Gilded Age to a family as wealthy as the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, or Astors. Her father W. A. Clark was a contemporary of them all. Huguette Clark was the daughter of W.A. and his second wife, Anna Eugenia La Chapelle. She was raised in the Clark mansion in New York City that took up a whole city block. However upon the death of her father she and her mother moved to apartments on 5th Avenue. Once her mother died, Huguette stayed there until she was taken to hospital on a stretcher in 1991 and there she should live for the next twenty years until her death. Along the way she was an interesting character given to childlike indulgences (dolls, dollhouses) and reclusiveness. Her life was filled with the best of the best – master art works on the walls, mansions not visited for decades stood at 48 hour readiness should she want to appear. She owned jewels that would stun Tiffanys, had not just one but two Stradivarius violins and more. Her life saw the Empire State Building go up where the Astor house once stood and the World Trade Center towers come down in 2001. The history seen and owned by her is astounding. Yet I don’t think she was ever happy nor do I think I would have particularly liked her as a person. BUT I do not think she deserved the treatment she got in her old age.
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Monday Memoir – Postcards From The Past – Guess Who’s having Fun In The Park
A bit risque for 1908! What’s the man doing with his hands behind that parasol that makes him smile so? Want to see more risque? Read the message on the back below…
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Throwback Thursday – My Snowman and Me
Let me say that growing up I didn’t have a lot of experiences with snow. That would come when I lived in upstate New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Just doesn’t happen south of the Mason Dixon line. But there were times we got what we thought was a lot (several inches). I tried to do what I’d seen in books with it but in the end it was never as fun as the movies. There they don’t seem to mind it’s wet and cold. Here I made one of the few snowmen in my life. Good thing I was only four as there wasn’t enough snow to make an adult size one. But I look like I’m having fun…. then (more…)
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Wildcard Wednesday – Alice The Corpse Flower
Oops! That’s not Alice the corpse flower but Molly the dog. Okay back in the Fall Alice the corpse flower at the Chicago Botanical Gardens bloomed. Mike and I went to see her when we had a weekend free. Sadly I have lost the photos of her. Also sadly when we got there she was going to seed and the stink was gone. I offer pictures I did find of Alice’s neighbors. Do enjoy after the cut –
Mary Louise Eklund 