FAMILY WEEKEND - GA TECH

Family Weekend at Georgia Tech gave us a chance to visit with friends and family, see our son's new fraternity house and watch a fantastic football game! My Mom got a hug from Buzz at the pregame parade.

The players walk to the stadium before the game slapping fans' hands. These two guys made a fantastic play when they recovered a North Carolina fumble later in the game. #1 Morgan Burnett, a 6' 1" junior from College Park, was awarded ACC Defensive Player of the Week!

The "Wreck" getting ready to drive down the parade route.
Here's my youngest son's brand new fraternity house (Phi Kappa Tau). It's the first LEED certified (leadership in energy and environmental design) fraternity house in the United States.

It really is beautiful with paneled library, chef's kitchen, each room with it's own bathroom, several courtyards, basement with theater and pool table and yes, a laundry room!
The library........with Tech yearbooks.

Before the game there is a bar-b-q on the Tech Lawn. Forgive me, my UGA friends, but I had to get a cute little "Buzz" spray painted on my face! You do crazy things for your children!

Buzz does push ups after each touchdown is scored!
As you can tell from the angle of the photo, we had VERY HIGH seats........two rows from the TOP of the stadium! At least you could see the whole field and had a nice breeze.
Here's the whole gang, oldest son with his girlfriend, youngest son and Tech student, my mom and my husband.
The rain waited until the last few minutes of the game. Luckily I brought plenty of ponchos! Tech won the game 24-7.

Vintage Thingies Thursday - Ivory Crochet Hook

Welcome to Vintage Thingies Thursday hosted by Colorado Lady. Please visit her site here and check out all of the other wonderful blogs and their vintage items. There are some really interesting books and thrift store treasures featured.

Below is the only item I have from my maternal grandmother - her IVORY CROCHET HOOK.

All of the flooding taking place here in Atlanta this week made me think of her. She and her family lived in Covington, Kentucky just across the Ohio river from Cincinnati. In 1937 her house flooded and they lost everything. My mother was 8 years old. She remembered pinning the lace curtains up about 6 inches hoping the water would not reach that high. It did. So I treasure the one thing I have that belonged to my grandmother.

I think I take after both of my grandmothers because I love to sew. My father's mother hand-smocked little dresses for me. They are 54 years old now! Look closely at the smocking on the green dress and you can see little roses she embroidered.
I remember taking my smocking pleater to show my grandmother and she was so surprised. She told me how she marked the fabric with dots and carefully threaded and pleated each pleat with a stitch. She even smocked the tops of the sleeves.

She inspired me to learn how to smock for my daughter. This yellow one is another dress she made for me. They are all made out of very fine, thin batiste. I wish you could see the tiny, tiny stitches she used for the hem.!

The blue dress below, is one I made for my daughter. I'm sorry I didn't document them at the time and take photos of her wearing the dresses. I do remember the joy I felt making them and seeing her wear them. This was her first Easter dress.

Another smocked dress I made........calico fabric of the early 80's!

I'll save them for the next generation.........

COMFORT FOODS AND FLOODS

We are under water here in Atlanta. We had over 20" of rain Sunday night and Monday during the day! No, that is not a river in the photo, it is our main road in Towne Lake completely flooded. In the far background you can see the overpass for I-575, which was closed for 11 miles in both directions. Many neighborhoods and apartment complexes were completely under water all over metro Atlanta. I am so sorry for those that lost so much, especially the people who had family members die in the flood.

Yesterday it was so difficult to travel in Atlanta because of all of the road closings. It took me an hour and a half to get home from work the night before. On my day off, I decided to stay home and do a little baking.........yummy banana bread! I always look forward to baking in the Fall. Can't you just smell it?

My son and I cooked Curry Chicken. We sauteed vegetables, chicken and added fish sauce, coconut milk, green curry and masman curry. It was delicious.

Today, the sun finally came out. It looked so pretty illuminating my Thai Basil. It is so good to see the sun again. Natures does combine lovely colors, doesn't she? Now let's hope things will dry out around here. Just a few years ago we were in a drought and praying for rain!

Inez's Garden watercolor

I haven't been painting lately and I miss it. I've been working a lot and since my older son moved back in I haven't been downstairs to paint. I have the whole day off so I thought I would start a new watercolor of Inez's garden. I took a photo in her front yard of her Japanese lantern. Below is my start. I have a little help from my friend below. Did I mention my son has 4 cats???

MEDIA - 1960's STYLE

This is Vintage Thingies Thursday, so go and check out Colorado Lady's blog and visit all of the other Vintage Thursday blogs. You will see so many interesting items! I always learn something new. I have two items today that have to do with Media/Communications of the 1960's I found recently while helping my Mother clean out her basement. One is mine and the other belonged to my Dad. Can you guess what this is? No, it's NOT a cake carrier.

This is my old DISK GO CASE in beautiful harvest gold. It is a 45 record carrier and holds about 40 of my most cherished 45lps. I see where they are selling for about $10 on ebay. You twist the handle and presto it opens to reveal.....

Look closely and you can see The Beatles, Cream, and The Rolling Stones. And yes, I have The Beatles "I Want To Hold Your Hand"!

Below is an Amateur Ham Radio operator's Morse Code Oscillator Key. My Dad got his Ham Radio license in the early 60's and I remember him making Heath Kit radios and transmitters. He kept all of his radio equipment in one of our bottom kitchen cabinets and I remember him talking into the radio every night. He would transmit signals in Morse Code "talking" to people around the world.
After each contact, he would keep a record of the transmission in a little log book. This is his first log book from 1962.

He and his fellow Ham Radio operators kept in touch with each other by sending personalized post cards with their call letters on the front and a short message on the back. He was an engineer and was very organized. He kept his cards in alphabetical order by states.

Below are a few of the postcards I found. Some were handmade but most were professionally printed. Some even have photos of the ham operator with their radio equipment.

This shot shows the address side of the card. I thought this one was interesting with "Pray For Peace" stamped on the back. It is dated Feb 1963! Probably around the time of the Cuban Missle Crisis. He always tried to get my brother and me interested in learning Morse Code. I think I learned "SOS" and that was about it. Morse Code did come in handy when he could not contact his mother in Mississippi after tornados wiped out communication in her little town. He was able to contact a fellow Ham Radio operator in Mississippi who confirmed she was safe.

VERY TEAL

Ohhhh, men and their tools! You know how you start out changing one thing in a room and then you think "Well, now I need to change this because it looks old and dingy" and then it sort of snowballs?

My oldest son volunteered to help me repair the ceiling in our guest bathroom. He has had some experience with sheetrock and knows how to cut out and patch up an old leak in the ceiling. Well, that was going so good I decided we needed to change out the fixtures.

The guys at Home Depot persuaded us to buy this shower head which was evidently featured on a Seinfeld episode. Something about water shortage and Kramer buys it out of the back of a car. Then, I needed to buy a new faucet and knobs for the tub of course.

Then my sweet husband thought everything was looking so nice, he decided we really did need a new toilet (after 13 years of two boys using it....catch my drift?) to spruce up the bathroom. (Notice said toilet in shower) A little painters tape, a gallon of paint and presto........

.....a "VERY TEAL" guest bathroom. Of course, we're not through. My son said he would help me replace the old floor tile and carpet with new travertine. I'll post a finished photo.........soon..........I hope!

WE REMEMBER

Today we remember.

These are photos I took of Ground Zero on my trip to New York City this past July. I think they speak for themselves. The city is so full of life with it's hustle and bustle, but when you pass through this glass breezeway looking down on Ground Zero you can't help but sense the reverence for this place. No one spoke. People were walking around, on their way to work, stopping to pay homage, taking photos, gazing, but they were all silent. The construction workers were busy with their cranes, firetrucks speeding by, police directing traffic, tourists peeking through the tarps on the fences. All with heavy hearts honoring the fallen and paying tribute to the many lives lost on September 11, 2001.