Sunday, January 01, 2023

Another One Bites the Dust

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!

Wednesday, January 04, 2023

Dinosaur

(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.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

A Name for My Blog ... Finally

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.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Daily Bread

There is nothing quite like homemade bread. The aroma as it's baking, filling the house with a heavenly yeasty smell. The beautiful golden brown color of the loaves when they emerge from the oven. The crackling of the crust as it cools.

I hold the loaf up to my nose and breathe deeply of its warm scent. I am so tempted to cut into it there and then, slather it with sweet butter, picturing it in my head as the butter melts on the just-out-of-the-oven warmth. I ask Rick, as I do everytime he makes bread, can I please cut it now? I ask even though I already know the answer he will give. No, Lynne, it needs to cool before you can cut it, he says. It's a ritual. He knows I will ask.

So I wait. Impatiently. Walking past it again and again, touching the loaves to see if they are cool enough. The waiting is really hard. But as I was always told when I was little, good things come to those who wait.

Finally it's time, and I cut through the crispy outer crust with a bread knife. It's perfectly baked with a beautiful crumb, and warm enough that the butter melts immediately. Sooooo good. Yum. Now we can look forward to great toast for breakfast. 

Rick has not made bread all summer—too hot to keep the oven going for hours—both during the preheating time necessary for the pan it gets baked in, and for the baking time itself. But with the beautiful temperatures we've had for days it finally made sense to fire up the oven. Welcome, cooler weather.

Thursday, September 21, 2023

The Waller [sic] Around Chair

There it sat in a room full of other assorted bits of furniture at the Salisbury Antique Emporium. The Chair. The warm gold of the fabric (and it is very gold) pulled me to it like a moth to a flame. It was a wing chair, but more. The tag attached to its wide back called it a "fan-back" chair. As I stood there taking it in, I felt like its wings were just waiting to enfold by body.  You need me it said every so gently. It didn't scream—oh no, it was much too refined for that. 

I sat down. Rick said it looked like the chair had swallowed me up. It was so cozy. So comfortable. I could see myself curled up reading, my feet tucked up underneath me, my head lying on one of its wings. I have always wanted a chair like this. I loved it. 

Rick said no. We don't need another chair for no one to sit in. Where would we put it? I had thoughts of exactly where to put it and how to rearrange existing furniture to make room. But I could see his point. So I caved and we drove home without it. 

Yet last night I was still thinking about it. I just couldn't get it out of my mind. I decided to sleep on it. Think about it carefully. Did I really need this chair?

This morning when I got up I was still thinking about the chair. It seemed to speak to me over the 20 or so miles between the Antique Emporium and our house. You need me. 

So I called the shop and asked them to please take a few measurements for me so I could see if it would fit where I wanted it too. It had looked enormous on the floor of the shop. He was nice enough to do so and also he rechecked the price, which I thought was way too inexpensive ($99). Yep, he said, $99 as if he couldn't believe it either. 

It took a bit of cajoling to get Rick to agree to "go and look at it one more time" since he knew there was probably no way we would come home without it.

As we were carrying it out the door the owner said to me "now there's a chair you can waller [sic] around in and in just about any position." Wallow around. What a perfect way to describe just how I was going to use my chair. Wallow, or waller [sic] if you're from the South. 

I can't wait for all the wallowing I am going to do from this day on.

(Pillows in chair woven by Rick; throw over back of chair knit by Yours Truly)

About

Welcome, I'm Lynne. You know me better as a 'new' Jersey Girl. But now I've moved once again, this time to North Carolina. Here I write about my thoughts, good food, and of course, dogs.

© 2006-2023 Lynne Robinson All photography and text on this blog is copyright. For use or reproduction please ask me first.

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