No, you have not come to wrong site. This old "new" Jersey Girl lives in the South now and is not really a "girl" anymore. No, I have not changed my gender, just my age. Finally, I found a name for my blog. Please don't tell me you hate it (although my sister will hate it because she dislikes anything Southern—including sweet tea and grits—although she has lived here since forever, or it least it seems that way to her). It reflects my Southern exposure which is my life now. I do like sweet tea, and I didn't think I would, but really it's no different or any sweeter than drinking a Coke. And I do love grits, or if you want to be fancy and give it an Italian flair you can call it polenta. Same thing either way. 

Whether or not I continue to blog in this space is anybody's guess. I am going to try. I do occasionally still feel the urge to write things down. Not often, but when the urge hits I now have a new space to put down those thoughts. My old blog had a lot of photos, mainly because I used to take many, many photos. My camera and I were inseparable. These days It's a little different. I don't have the botanical gardens anymore to roam around in and I find fewer things entice me to pick up the camera. I might go through my old photos and post some of my favorites. Relive the "old" days, if you will.

Who knows what you might find if you come back once in a while? Leave me a comment and let me know you were here.

(photo: one of the dogs' chew toys)

Yep, that's me — a dinosaur. Or my blog is I mean. At least that's what Rick tells me. I told him I wasn't going to post updates on FB anymore and he looked at me like I was nuts. Why not? he asked. I tried to explain to him that I really don't want to air my feelings to all and sundry on FB. Just to the people who really care to read. So he said: Lynne, nobody goes to blogs anymore. That's old school, obsolete! Now it's Tick-Tock,Twitter, Instagram and whatever else the latest fad is called. Everybody wants instant gratification these days, just skimming the surface of a billion different feeds instead of slowing down and really caring to get to know people. Really, the narcissism that exists these days! All the selfies, all the bragging rights. It gets old. I've had to just stop following certain people.

Back in 2006 when I first started my blog, everybody was blogging. It was a fun community and mostly we had each others' backs when times weren't so good for one of us. You read a person's blog and after a time you got to feel like you knew them personally. I even met a fellow blogger, Sally of Lettuce Eating, when I lived in New Jersey. She was in NYC for a few days visiting and I took the train up to meet her. We walked to Central Park and chatted for a few hours. Of course, there were some sham blogs, mostly the ones that were always all 'woe is me' and coming up with horrible things that just kept happening to them. But they were far and few between. I loved my little blogging community. Plus, blogging gave me a creative outlet for writing and my photography. I miss all that. I miss Reya, Pod, Sally, Jane, Steve just to mention my favorites. 

And now I am told I am obsolete. Should I even be starting to blog again?? I wonder. Anyway, here I am.

I was not going to share updates to the blog on FB like I said above, but good ol' hubby told me again that no one would bother coming to the blog just to see if I had done another entry. So, here I am, posting an update on FB. Come and see me, read me ... or not. If you have a blog, let me know please! I'd love to start reading blogs again.

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone and another one gone
Another one bites the dust.  ~Queen

Another year gone. Another Christmas season. Another birthday and finally, at the end of the year, I am a year older, marching steadily onward to that major milestone of 70 that is still a few years off. Do you think I could get away with saying, since my birthday is so close to the end of the year, that I am actually a year younger? Funny, I don't feel that old. Which I guess is a GOOD thing. Sure, I have my aches and pains and my formerly broken foot rears its ugly head once in a while, but not very often. I have no real complaints.

In the new year I promise to blog as often as the spirit moves me instead of keeping all my crazy ideas and thoughts to myself. Lucky you if you stumble upon it for I am no longer posting new entries to Facebook. After all, it's really not for eveyone even though it's public as heck. Right now I am sitting on my deck — yes, outside! — on New Year's Day, while back in Colorado I believe they are bracing for yet another snowstorm. Rick is watching a football game, ugh. I actually think I am winning right now because I am sitting here with a glass of Chardonnay, listening to bird song and being caressed by a soft breeze. No jacket, just a shirt. It's lovely. North Carolina weather has been treating us well. We had rain yesterday and I do love those rainy, gray days! Especially when they are followed by such a lovely day as today.

I look around me and in some ways can't quite believe we landed, once again, in the perfect spot. Perfect house, perfect town. If you had told me last year that I would be here, in North Carolina, and loving it I would not have believed you. And living in a house built in 1935 close to town. I know I've said the same thing before, but I am still in a state of disbelief. It all happened so quickly! AH!! I can hear the church bells ringing 2:00 from town as I am typing, right now! Perfection. I can't wait for the longer days and those lazy evening meals on our shaded deck, grilling a yummy meal and sipping on wine. Spring here must be wonderful.

As far as resolutions go, I don't really have any. I do want to explore more in the coming year and maybe rent a VRBO on the Outer Banks. They have some that are only accessible by 4x4 and inhabited by the wild horses.  (The beaches, not the houses!) I think that would be an experience to remember. I also read years ago about a place in the Blue Ridge (or was it Smoky?) Mountains where a huge number of fireflies come together and put on quite a spectacle. I think fireflies are magical and I'm so glad to have them back again in my life. The cicadas too.

I have no more thoughts to put down, so I guess I'll close this up now. Happy New Year everyone!

(A cute display window downtown.)

December 10th was a busy day in our little town. First there was a holiday Christmas market of local artisans downtown. We drove in and parked and walked the main street. We took Destin with us since he is the best and most well-behaved dog we have. Dressed in his little Santa outfit he was quite the center of attention. We couldn't walk two steps without someone asking to pet him. He loved every minute of it and gladly gave his butt up for a good scratch from anyone that was willing. We did buy something really cool, pic coming later after we hang it. We stopped for a Mocha Coffee at the Press & Porter and sat outside sipping them. (FYI, the Press & Porter is the local coffee house and gets its name from the businesses that occupied the space in the past. Press for the upstairs newspaper, and Porter for the Porter Drugs which was on the bottom level.)

In the afternoon we had tickets to the Holiday Open House Tour. The tour ran from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM. They even had a trolley just for the event so people didn't have to walk between the houses which were spread over about a mile and a half in the historic district (which starts only two three blocks away from our house). We started walking from our house right at 4:00. The first house was probably 3/4 mile from us. It was one of our favorites. It's called the Franklin C. Niblock House and was built in 1926, a mere youngster compared to a couple of the others. The brochure says it's "a fine example of Colonial Revival."

We walk by this house all the time. It was lovely inside with radiators (I love radiator heat!!) and the updates to the house were done nicely in check with the character of the house. I was able to talk to the homeowners and a two of their sweet teenaged girls.

The next house, "The Paul B. Means House" was a long way from this one, about 3/4 mile. It was the hands-down favorite! It had gone through a total renovation in 2018 when it was purchased by the current owner. The owner, a very dapper gent with a gray ponytail was checking tickets at his front door. He had photos displayed on the walls of what it looked like before and throughout the renovation. What an undertaking! The house inside is absolutley gorgeous and whoever did the decorating for the tour did a wonderful job. I can't say enough good things about the renovation work that they did. In fact, it won the Residential Preservationist of the Year Award in 2019. They certainly did this old house proud. 

Our brochure told us that the house had been commissioned by an attorney (Paul Means) who practiced in Concord during the last three decades of the 19th century. The house was built in 1892 in a Italianate and Queen Anne style with Colonial Revival additions.

A few more houses were sprinkled in before we hit the downtown area, then the houses picked up after that. Some looked so wonderful outside, but inside they were a bit of a disappointment. Either they had done renovations not in keeping with the house, or not done renovations at all leading to very small chopped up rooms. Most of the houses had 8 bedrooms all with a fireplace (non-working now) and servant quarters. Somebody had to light all those fires in the morning for the gentry! Many of them had had kitchens that were not in the main part of the house back then due to the chances of fire and also the heat. Bathrooms were few and they told us that putting in bathrooms in houses this old is no easy task.

Finally we came to the last house on the tour. You might remember seeing my Halloween photos of all the carriages with skeletons? Same house. This is the John Milton Odell house. He was a mill owner and built his house across the street from his own textile mill, now known as the Locke Mill Plaza. It was built between 1882 and 1890. The portion of the porch along the South side was enclosed as a sun room during the 1920s. The interior went through an extensive remodel during the 1960s which removed many of the original details. It was interesting inside, with our favorite room being the sunroom. The owner confided to us that it's nice during the day but colder than, well you-know-what, in the night. It was massive inside, bedroom after bedroom and bathroom after bathroom. 

Of course I had to ask him the obvious question that stood foremost in my mind and that was "Where do you store all those carriages and Halloween things?" Poor man, he shook his head and said if he had a dollar for everybody that has asked him that he wouldn't have to let people tour his house! I felt bad for asking but I was curious, you know? He said behind the house is a huge 1600 square foot carriage house and that is where all of the paraphernalia is. The carriage house was not used much since right after the it was built the automobile came into fashion and horses and carriages went away. Sad.

Another woman who overheard my question said to him "it must take a long time to put everything up and take every thing down." He was quick with his reply — "I work with a skeleton crew" ~ wink. Which is a joke you won't get unless you have seen the Halloween photos. If you want to see what I am talking about, and you didn't see them on FB, ask me to post those photos here on the blog, ok?

Since it was dark by this time and we had walked the whole way (2.5 miles?), we decided to take the trolley back home. The trolley dropped us off two easy blocks from our house. What a fun night we had! Just love our little town of Concord!

Christmas 2022

Glad Tidings of the Year!

NOTE: To clear up some confusion regarding this blog post, this is the Christmas Letter we sent out with our cards this year. I am reprinting it here on the blog with some added photos. And yes, it is me writing it.

2022 has brought a few changes to our lives, the biggest one being that we have moved (again), and this time out of Colorado and into THE SOUTH. Say what? Yup, the Robinson vagabonds have been on the roam again.

(Above photo: Moving day...UGH)

This time we settled in Concord, North Carolina, a small town northeast of its big sister, Charlotte, and so far are as happy as can be! Lynne’s sister lives in a suburb of Charlotte, so that makes it even better. We see her and her husband often.

The other major thing is that we added a new member to our family on the same day that the movers were packing our house in Windsor. No, not another dog. That is the last thing we need. We added a Maine Coon cat, Monroe, aka MR. Monroe. It’s been a long time since we had a cat in the house. Monroe fits into our family purrfectly. He loves the dogs, he makes us laugh with his silly antics, he is a buddy, and he is gorgeous. We love him.

But here I will go backwards a bit and what would a major move be without a scouting trip, I ask you? We took our almost new motorhome (first outing you might remember turned into a broken foot for me; a fractured wrist for Rick) on a cross-country search for “the” place.   

We had Tennessee in mind and Kentucky. At the last moment Lynne was looking on Zillow and found some places that looked good in North Carolina. We even placed a bid on a house, sight unseen, in this very town, but we were outbid (thank goodness).

And so we headed out and made a few stops in Tennessee. Two things changed our minds pretty fast. 1) we couldn’t understand a word they said and 2) the side of barn with a full size ad saying FUCK BIDEN. Well. 

(Photo above: Dogs while traveling)

Onwards to North Carolina where we had lined up about 5 potential houses. The last one we looked at was the house we ended up buying. It was not what we were originally looking for at all. We had wanted land, away from town, a place to park the behemoth motorhome, a pool.  This house was within walking distance to the downtown, very much in town, very old (built in 1935), no pool but a lovely backyard—fenced and no place to park the motorhome (which as you will see a bit later in this letter matters not at all). Yet, it spoke to us. Certainly not a cookie-cutter house, it had a lot of old world charm, a wonderful kitchen, wood floors that creaked when you walked on them,  delightful old built-ins, plus more space to maneuver around 3 big dogs and ourselves.

The trip wasn’t all moonlight and roses, the ugly “Adventures in RVing”was not quite done with us yet. On unhooking the car the first time from its tow position, it rolled down the hill from our campsite and took out another camper’s picnic table and dented the stairs to their RV. ($1,000 to the folks who owned it) The slide broke when we were putting it out. We had a mobile fixit person come out to the campground and somehow we managed to get it back in (almost-within an inch or so) so that we could at least drive it.

(Above photo: The Behemoth)

This meant limping home with only one slide, and way less room than we had before and not as much fun for sure. We had a lot of rain, the broken slide started leaking. The air conditioner over the bed decided to dump a load of water right on Rick’s side of the bed. He was not amused. The door got stuck, again. Neither could we open it from the inside, nor from the outside. Sound like we are having fun yet? Then on the way home it was coughing and sputtering and refused to go over 40 mph. We crawled along the interstate with my making phone calls trying desperately to find a place to have it looked at. We found one, they identified the problem but they did not have the parts. We finally found a place near Kansas City that did have the needed parts and lo and behold it was only a mile away from our campground. You’ll be glad to know that the rest of the trip home was uneventful once they replaced the spark plug wires.

The motorhome went in for service June 2nd and was finally fixed and ready to be picked up November 15th. Now what? Well, we’ve managed to sell it quickly back to the dealership (but at a loss) and it’s now history. We have had our fill of “Adventures in RVing” as they were not the kind of adventures we particularly enjoyed. I see lots of Air B&Bs and VRBOs in our future.

I am sure you are hoping for me to wrap this up soon. So…

We’ve lost a couple of good friends this year and their passing saddens us.

We love out house, we love our town, we love the life we are leading here and we love each other. What more is there to say?

May peace, joy and happiness abound for you and yours in 2023.