Grandmother Envy

I'm in an in-between season of my life....not an everyday mom and not a grandmother. My grown kids are great. They're responsible, hardworking, kind adults who just happen to be light years away from a marriage frame of mind. I'm good with that, but I have lots of friends who are becoming new grandparents with lots of cute photos to share. That also means baby showers and shopping for tiny, cute little
baby shoes and >
socks and clothes. Now, I'm not bitter....oh no.....that's not grandparent envy you detect in my tone. It's just all those
darling pink polka dotted dresses hanging on the rack,

going to waste, when they could be put to good use dressing up a baby girl in my family. That's okay....I can be patient. It's got to happen sooner or later. Right?

Okay, back to Pink Saturday with Beverly!

Valentine Joy!

Valentine's Day in Georgia brought a rainy day, but sunshine in all the hearts of this house. You can't beat handmade construction paper cards with lots of sequins and hearts glued on to make a fabulous St. Valentine's Day.
I'm visiting my sister, her six children, and six month old Boxador in Kennesaw Georgia this week. We've been to the park, eaten lunch at the Varsity, had a 40th birthday party for my sister and played Bunko with some neighborhood ladies. Today I head up to Hartwell to visit with Mom and Dad for a few days. Not looking forward to getting on 285 then 85 north on a rainy Saturday. I appreciate all prayers for safe travel.

Pirate Invasion

Every February in Tampa, pirates invade and take over the city. A fully rigged pirate ship sails into the bay with cannons firing to find a flotilla of citizen's boats trying to defend their town. But the pirates are always the victors and are joined by the citizens of Tampa in a festival called Gasparilla which is celebrated with parades, beads, coins, and Krewes in period costumes. Even children get in on the act with the Children's Parade. Little league baseball teams, soccer teams, ballet classes, gymnastic classes, and scout groups become little pirates and march through the streets of Ybor City. A night parade and fireworks take place about a week after the Invasion. Revelers fill the streets of Ybor City to snag as many strands of colorful beads as they can. There are bands performing after the floats have passed by to keep the party going late into the night.

The Invasion is Saturday, February 7 this year. Come on down!

Super Bowl Decorations

My daughter Emily was given the opportunity to decorate the room for a Super Bowl brunch at a local restaurant on Sunday. Being a supportive Mom, I was more than happy to give her a hand. We did some trial arrangements last weekend and came up with one that featured the team colors from the Cardinals and the Steelers and the blues and greens that the Super Bowl committee used in the official logo.
Red Gerber's and gold Peruvian lilies took care of the team colors. Blue hydrangeas, green spider mums and orchids covered the logo colors, and palms and aspidistra reflected the tropical locale of this year's game. All this was to be arranged in tall trumpet shaped vases.


Happy with her plan, Emily ordered her flowers, bought the vases and put everything out of her mind until time to get the work done.Then one little phone call on Thursday afternoon changed her attitude toward the whole project. Her friend at the restaurant called to tell her that along with all the other high profile guests at the brunch would be someone who might cast a very critical eye on the decorations. Martha would be there!
Emily immediately burst into tears, not of sorrow, but the kind you get when someone larger than life, who you've admired all your life suddenly is right there in front of you. She called me full of questions about whether or not she was up to decorating a room where the queen of home sciences would be brunching. I told her she couldn't out-martha Martha, so just stick with her fantastic plan and make it beautiful the Emily way.


After the initial shock she regained her confidence and got to work on Saturday. The arrangements got done on my dining room table then put in crates.Thank goodness it was a cold night in Tampa because when it was all loaded in my truck, our garage was like a giant refrigerator thanks to the rare freeze.
Sunday morning we set out bright and early with my truck so loaded that I couldn't see out the back or right side window. Don't try this at home, kids! Since it was early on a Sunday morning and I was following Emily in her car, we got there in one piece.

We unloaded and brought everything in through the busy kitchen and the balloon folks came about an hour later and worked their magic.
One last touch was a cylinder vase filled with little bright colored footballs, Super Bowl pennants, and blue plumes and peacock feathers for the hors d'oeuvres table.
Festive Super Bowl decor Emily-style!

UPDATE: Here's Martha's blog entry from her SuperBowl visit. Some of the pictures are from the brunch.