Off to Nashville

I'm heading out on a road trip to Nashville in the morning. It has been 9 whole days since I last saw the grandkids, so I gotta go get my fix. And, after all, Collin asked his Mommy tonight at dinner, "when am I gonna get to see my Nana again?" Well, you just can't let a request like that go by and also Annie Francis has learned about 4 new words this week. I just gotta go hear her! The kids gave me a computer video camera for Mother's Day so that I can hook up with them and see the kids on my computer and they can see me. It's great, but if just doesn't beat the real thing!

Andy and I would really love to move to Nashville. Don't know exactly how the son-in-law would feel about having us that close all the time, but we love the city and of course would love to be near the kids. I'm sure we would want to be back here in Huntsvegas when Drew and Lindsey have a family though. I'm just lucky to be able to take off anytime I want to and go see them now.

I will mix the visit with a little business and work with one of my seamstresse while I am up there. We are busy getting ready with our Holiday collection for Royal Southern Baby and I have many things to give to her to finish. Erin and I will be doing a "trunk show" in Atlanta on June 6th at one of her friend's house. We are really looking forward to it as Erin will be able to catch up with a lot of her Atlanta friends. We will do this trunk show and one more in June and then we will have to get ready for the Junior League Christmas show in Nashville in November. This was a great show for us last year and we are looking forward to promoting Royal Southern Baby there again.

The weather has been wonderful here this week. Very mild, sunny days. A couple of little showers, but for the most part it has been beautiful. Andy and I have eaten on the screen porch every night and then watched our favorite show, Bill O'Reilly, and scoped out the political mess we are in. I don't know if anyone else feels the way that I do, but if I was prone to anxiety attacks, I almost feel like having one given the political and economic future of our country. As if this is no secret, I am somewhat outspoken about my views and feelings on anything you would like to get me stirred up on, but why can't these crazy liberals see what a mess they are getting us into? I just hate that our wonderful country is so blasphemed by the awful media, (not FOX) and that many poor, uneducated people are totally taken in by their spins! Don't they see that all the money we could use for gas, schools and education, poverty, etc is being shoved into the Democratic cesspool? Anyway, I'm getting way off track....

I have a huge Angel Wing begonia growing on the screened in porch. It is on the top shelf of the etergie out there and some little birds have decided to turn it into a nest. They have a little space in the top of the gable of the porch that they sneak in and bring small pieces of pine straw to build the nest. Arthur and Guthrie, the cats, are going crazy watching them. Tails twitching and ears are perked up as they think they might catch one. I think I am going to have to move the plant out onto the deck however. If baby birds hatch out there, I don't know how they will ever learn to fly and get out of the porch. I need to look up on the internet and see if the mama and daddy bird will come back to it once I move the plant. Anyone know? I guess I will leave it till I get back on Friday.

I have to come home and get ready for our big Memorial Day weekend...more sitting in the wicker rockers on the porch while I sew, watching Bill O'Reilly and checking out the little birds. Boy, are we boring, but peaceful and happy. I feel guilty with all the tragedy going on in China and Burma everyday. My heart breaks for all those parents of the children trapped under the schools. I pray for God to have mercy on them all. I give thanks for all our blessings and for living here in the United States.

Back to Posting....

I can't believe it but it has almost been one year since I last entered a post to my blog. Lots of water has passed under my bridge this past year. I am now officially working from home for myself and Royal Southern Baby. So much has happened this year and it has all been challenging but exciting and wonderful. Erin has helped me so much with the business and we are growing by leaps and bounds everyday. Our website, www.royalsouthernbaby.com is getting hits and I am getting many wonderful calls and orders for my designs. Erin has been handling much of the marketing for the business, but recently she learned how to do shadow work embroidery. I think she really loves it and she has a real talent for it. Her work is incredible. Tiny, precise stitches. I know our clients are truly going to love her work on their garments.

We have done a couple of Junior League markets and several home trunk shows. We have a real exciting trunk show coming up in Atlanta next month with all of Erin's old Atlanta friends. We can't wait to see them all and will bring lots of pretties for them all to see.

The summer will keep us busy traveling and getting ready for the holiday markets in October and November. We are working night and day right now on all the Holiday collection and will begin taking orders for Holiday garments next month.

We have also been asked to do a photo layout of Annie Francis' nursery for Sew Beautiful magazine this next month. We will have to "spit-shine" her room to get ready for the photos. I will add pictures as soon as we get these back.

My precious grandchildren are my creative stimulation and my complete joy. Collin is now 3-1/2 years old, smart and beautiful, of course. He just cracks us all up with his cute little remarks. You can't get anything past this boy. Annie Francis is 17 months old and absolutely full of herself. She is beautiful, witty, cunning and busier than Collin every was at this age. We absolutely can't stop her. She goes full steam ahead all day long and then crashes soundly in her bed to sleep at night. (Collin still does not like to go to sleep). I know, I am a totally biased grandmother, but they are two of the smartest and cutest kids I've ever seen.

I'm still rocking and sewing daily on my screened in porch and the honeysuckle is smelling sweeter this year than ever. We have had many thunder storms and lots of rain these past few weeks and I think it has totally invigorated these vines. The aroma is almost smothering on these late spring evenings. I have a mama and daddy sparrow that have built a nest in my fern on the porch. The cats are going crazy watching them dart in and out. I know this may sound dull to some of you, but I thank my heavenly Father daily for this sweet slow pace of my life out on the porch. It is fuel to my soul and my creativity for my business.

But alas, it is springtime and this year's basketball season is over. Once again, we await to see if Andy is going to change jobs and thus we might be moving. This is always going to be the life of a basketball coach and especially when you coach in college. I will miss my porch and yard, but if God chooses a new life for us somewhere else, I will find another porch.

Hope to post some pictures on my next post. Have lots of beautiful new designs to share.

Keep the faith!

It's a New Year.....

Happy New Year!

It's been so long since I've posted anything that I almost forgot how. Things in my world have really been busy lately. The grandkids are doing great and I am spending lots of time with them. Just babysat them for 5 days while their parents went to the mountains for New Years. Annie Frances started walking while they were with me, so this was certainly a big highlight. She was busy, busy wanting to go everywhere and get into everything. But sooooo cute. Collin was a good big brother helping me take care of her and keeping her from getting into all of his toys. We got Grandy a Wii for his birthday and Collin learned how to really play it while they were here. He is the only 3 year old that I know that can beat me at bowling and golf!!!! He still has a little trouble with tennis, but he loves the boxing too. They were both just too cute and fun. Erin stayed a couple of days after they came back and we worked on the Royal Southern Baby website and things for the business. The website is up and running now and we are getting lots of good response. Erin and I both are gearing up for 2008 to be a big year for our business. We are going to the market in Atlanta the end of this month and have lots of new ideas and plans for both Royal Southern Baby and Tollie's Times. We will be introducing a new website for Tollie's Times later this month called www.TolliesMarketplace.com. We hope to have additional gifts and vintage looking clothes for little girls on this site. Look for lots of new fun things coming. I am really enjoying working with Erin on these projects. She has lots of wonderful new ideas and helps to keep me motivated and excited. Another goal for 2008 will be to introduce another new newsletter for little boys called Collin's Gazette. We hope to give lots of wonderful creative ideas to little boys and girls for good old fashioned play time. Whats wrong with playing jacks, hopscotch and stick ball, having tea parties, camping out in the back yard with a tent and a flashlight or going on a scavenger hunt? These types of play activities were certainly entertaining enough when I was a child and kept me and my brother busy. Kids today don't have to be glued to the tv or the computer games to have fun. We hope to just tickle the imaginations of the children who read our newletters enough to make them want to bake cookies with mom, play dress up and have an imaginary friend for a while. Children are little for such a short time . We need to nuture them gently and keep their little minds free from too much "world clutter" while we can!!! Time to go and sew....

Ramblings....

I must not be too good at this blogging business as I don't seem to keep it up regularly. I love to read other people's blogs, but yet, I never get around to writing in mine. Anyway, it's 1:00 am and I am waiting to get a call from my daughter-in-law that my son has arrived in Switzerland. He is traveling for the next week overseas and I am anxious to know that he arrived safe. Do any of you ever worry and fret until you know that your children have made it safely to their destinations? Now, I know that he is a grown man, but he is still my baby and I want to know that he got there okay!!!! So, since I can't sleep, I decided to jot down some things here. Actually, I sleep very little lately so I guess I could be writing more often. But I am up working into the night usually. I am trying to start my new business and there never seems to be enough time to get everything accomplished. Hopefully, my new website will be up in a couple of weeks. I am frantically trying to get all the pictures taken, downloaded and descriptions written of the heirloom children's clothing that I make. I did not realize that starting a business, even a home-based one like this, would be this overwhelming. Hopefully after all the website issues are completed, things will settle in and I can get back to what I love the best....sewing!!!! I sent the cutest little daygown off to a baby shower today. It was yellow batiste with a little yellow and brown shadow worked giraffe on it. I prayed for the little unborn baby the whole time I was making it. I hope the little gown will be a blessing to the new mother. I love to think about the little babies that I sew for all while I am sewing for them. I ask God to bless them and keep them and hopefully they will be drawn to him at an early age. I pray this for my own grandchildren all the time and I just like to pray for all these other little babies that I sew for too as it seems to make the sewing more personal, even if I don't know the children or their parents. I love to enven put scripture into the hems of the slips of my christening gowns as another blessing to the children. I will be posting pictures of some of these gowns and the slips with the scriptures on the website soon. Children are truly a gift and heritage from the Lord. I just ask God to bless my son tonight as he travels and give him traveling mercies. I will turn this over to my Lord and not be anxious. Maybe I can sleep now.
God's blessings on anyone who reads this....

Super Nana

Grandy and I spent this past weekend babysitting our two darling grandchildren, Collin, age 3 and Annie Frances, age 7 months. Erin and Matthew went away for the weekend to Atlanta and left the babies with us. We were so excited to have them and they seemed equally as excited to see us when they arrived on Thursday evening. There is nothing else in the world as wonderful as when Collin gets out of the car and runs as fast as he can to jump into our arms and give us a big "squeeze hug" to greet us. Annie Frances just starts kicking her legs as fast as she can when she sees us. Erin and Matthew were reluctent to leave and stayed until early Friday afternoon before departing. After all, this was Erin's first time to be away from Annie Frances. This baby is definitely a "mama's girl" and of course, Erin is still breast feeding her a couple of times a day, so this was going to prove to be quite challenging with Annie. Collin has stayed with us many times by himself since he was 2 months old. He loves to come to "nana/grandy house" as he refers to it and is always eager to push Mama and Daddy on off. He also did not want Annie Frances to stay so that he would definitely reign supreme for all the attention, but this wasn't going to happen.
Erin and Matthew needed a little R&R and we were more than happy to have our babies with us. Annie did pretty good on Friday evening and I got her to bed but she would not take a bottle of milk. Saturday morning, again the same, but I filled her up with her cereal and she seemed pretty content for awhile. Then I think some homesickness for her mama started setting in. She seemed to be constantly looking around as if hoping that Erin was going to walk around a corner and rescue her. She was fretful with both me and Grandy and only seemed to light up when she saw Collin as I'm sure he reminded her of home. I don't know what we would have done without him. He will go up to her and hug her and talk baby talk to her and she just lights up! On Saturday, we were invited to go over to one of our friends to swim with her and her 2 grandsons that are 4 and 1 and were also visiting from out of town. This was our first time to take Collin swimming, so we were a little nervous. But Grandy donned his swimsuit and he and Collin were both like ducks in water! Collin had a great time and did not want to come out of the water. He and Whitt loved playing in the sprinkler beside the pool and filling up buckets of water and pouring them on the plants. Annie Frances was a little fussy, but my other friend Nancy, rocked her in the swing until she fell asleep. Thank goodness! But she only took about a 20 minute nap, so when she woke up, we wrapped things up and went home. They both fell back asleep and slept a good long time that afternoon. Later that afternoon we made a trip to Uncle Drew and Aunt Lindsey's to feed their dog. Everyone seemed happy on the ride over and while we were there they enjoyed playing with the dog. But oh my goodness, the ride home took on a new meaning for blood curdling screams. I don't have a sun visor to screen out the sun in my car like Erin does, and the afternoon sun was in Annie Frances' eyes. She began her tune up and it lasted all the way home with so much gusto that Grandy and I might have new nerve damage to our ears. We never could get her to be very happy again after this for the rest of the evening. Even though she eats baby food now and had no trouble consuming that, she really never would take a bottle of formula for me. I was able to get a little juice down her, but that was it. Next time we babysit, we have frozen breast milk ready, which we should have done this time. (Grandy is not too sure about these little pouches of frozen breast milk in our freezer however. He hopes he doesn't mistake it for ice cream!!!! I do too!!!) Anyway, Erin and Matthew made a hasty trip home on Sunday morning to retrieve the little darlings. Collin was napping when they arrived, but let's just say Annie Frances had a hissy fit when she saw her mama and daddy. She had been rescued at last!!! Erin and the kids stayed over on Sunday and even on Monday as Erin was not feeling too well, so all in all, we had the kids with us for 5 days. Now this was great for us as we love every minute of spoiling and doing everything these little ones want, but poor Erin is paying for it today!!! Collin has not been a happy camper since he left. He cried and cried and keeps saying he wants to come to "nana/grandy house". Now don't you think that this makes me feel so good but yet so sad to have to leave him. I don't think Annie Frances is missing us too much though!!!

Encounter with Redtail Hawks

I have spent just about my entire weekend sitting on my screened in porch watching a family of redtailed hawks in the trees in my back yard. I am totally fascinated by birds of prey and I love watching these incredible birds. I have known for some time that there was one hawk that stayed in the trees in the back yard, but I didn't realize there were more. I came home one day at lunch and saw this beautiful bird sitting in the leaves right down below my screened in porch in the yard. He was sitting there in the leaves, fluttering his wings back and forth in a frenzy manner. I was so shocked that I screamed out when I saw him. It frightened him/her (I can't recognize their gender on sight yet) that he flew up into the trees carrying a baby armadillo in his talons. Oh my goodness was I shocked. Ever since this, I have been watching for him and hearing his screeching call out in the trees each day. On Saturday morning, I was sitting in my wicker rocker looking out over the woods and all of a sudden a big dark shadow appeared across the yard and the hawk flew right up on the roof above the porch. Again, I was startled, but I stayed calm and quiet this time. He sat on my roof and would poke his head over the roof edge and look in the screen at me. How exciting to see him eye to eye. It was almost like he was trying to connect and make friends with me (or maybe he wanted to eat my cats who were having a fit on the porch that he was up there)! When he flew off up into the tall pine trees that are about 100 yards from the porch, I noticed another hawk sitting in the tree. This captured me that there was more than one and I began my quest watching them the rest of the weekend. Finally, I've figured it out. There is a male and female and then I saw two more smaller hawks that must be their babies. At one point I had all four sitting just a short distance from me in the tree watching me watch them. Wow what an experience! I think the parent birds were trying to teach the young ones to hunt. We have many squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits out in the back wooded area. The young birds are still sort of clumsy. They will try to fly from one branch to another and sometimes they miss on the landing and have to scramble and fly to another branch. The hunting doesn't seem to be going real well either. This afternoon I saw the two young birds each sitting in different trees watching a squirrel on a tree in between them. At the exact same time, they each flew off aiming for the squirrel and almost collided. The squirrel survived and ran frantically down the tree. There is much screeching by all of the birds as the parents seem to be calling to the young ones. We had quite a thunderstorm this afternoon, but they all stayed out in the tall pine tree under the branches during the rain. Once the rain ended, they all began soaring through the trees again. I've tried to get Andy to come out and watch them with me. He isn't too interested. He truly is not a bird lover like I am. Anyway, I truly appreciate these magnificent creatures that God created and I thank Him for sending them to live in my back yard. I really needed this diversion this weekend to take my mind off of some of my problems. Thank you Lord.

Summer storms

It's storming out tonight. I've been sitting out on my screened in porch watching the thin blue shafts of lighting snake down through the black silhouettes of the trees. I'm drawn to watching it. The drum of thunder rolls on and on like a concert. I listen as it rambles away into the distance, thinking that is the end of it, only for another charge to begin before the last one ends. I smell the rain, but it hasn't gotten here yet. It's coming and we need it desparately. The ground is parched here as we are in an awful drought. One of the worst ones we've had in several years. I love sitting out here in the blackness on my porch watching and listening to the storm. It's mesmerizing and just brings back so many memories of sitting on the big front covered porch at my Grandmother and Grandfather's house in the summertime. We would all file out there after the dinner dishes were done and take our appropriate places. Papa would be positioned in one of the metal chairs up by the railing. The little round fire on the end of his cigar was all you cound see shining in front of his face. My brother would usually sit next to him in another metal chair and they would begin the methodical rocking back and forth in their chairs in unison. Grandmother and I would snuggle together on the glider. She still smelled like the supper she just finished cooking and as I lay up against her, the apron she always wore was slightly damp. Back and forth we would go in a rhythmic swing and I could hear her shoes click on the floor as she pushed us gently. Fireflies would dance in and out of the big arborvitae bushes that framed the porch. The smell of those bushes was pungent and mingled with the sweet aroma of Grandmother's petunias growing in concrete planters along the front railing and the curling smoke of Papa's cigar was an aroma that I will never forget. I loved those smells. I can't walk past a flat of petunias at WalMart or see a package of Tampa Nuggets behind the counter at a gas station, without thinking about that porch and summer evenings there with my grandparents. We loved to sit out there during storms. The dark shadows of the porch hide us all out of sight only until the flashes of lightening would fill the surrounding air and we would all see each other's faces for just a moment. "One, two, three, four, five" we would count until the thunder began. Papa would say that was how many miles away the lightening strike was. I don't know if this is really true or not, but we really believed it and couldn't wait until we saw another blue flash to count again. Rain smelled sweet on that porch and the little splashes that bounced on the concrete railing rolled down to moistened the porch's brick floor. Grandmother would warn us all to be careful so we would not slip and fall. We would stay out there until bedtime or until Papa's cigar burned out, whichever came first. Summer storms on that ole porch were magical. I'll never forget them.