{This Moment}

{This Moment} A Friday ritual.  A single photo, no words, capturing a moment from the week.  A simple, special, extraordinary moment.  A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Joining in with SouleMama

The Land of Grits and Gravy

For the past few years we have timed our visits to Mississippi to coincide with a local event called The Pilgrimage.  Several antebellum homes can be toured and volunteers dress up to tell the history of the house and it's contents.

There is another reason that this is so good besides the obvious perk of getting to see the beauty of the homes inside and out.  When we leave here, our grass is still brown, we are still wearing winter clothes and our heat is still on most days.  After crossing into Kentucky, the grass is suddenly green.  The sun is out and we are shedding our jackets.  By the time we are through Tennessee, the air might be on in the car and the flip flops dug out.  We are usually able to go for lots of walks in Mississippi.  

Then, by the time we get back to Indiana, our grass is green!  The tulips are up and the daffodils are blooming!  It's great!  It's like we get an extra dose of spring.

Kate got put to work right away by collecting the tickets.  I couldn't help thinking that just a couple of years ago she would have freaked out if a strange man had tried to talk to her, much less help him do something.  She didn't speak, but she did smile and did her job well.

Not only are the houses beautiful, some of them have been handed down from generation to generation and still have many of the original families belongings.  This house had at one time been occupied by four sisters who made lace, sewed, knit, etc. to keep those Carpetbaggers from getting their property!  Some of their work was displayed and it was amazing.

Volunteers are usually in each room to tell about the furnishings or the room itself or maybe the family who built the home.  They are always dressed like Scarlet.  Callie wants a dress too! We actually looked for one at some of the consignment stores around town, but no luck.

This one wasn't on the tour, but it's just an example of some of the beautiful homes in the area.  This one is unique in the way that the front is built.  I'm sure there is a technical term, but I have no idea what it is.  I love how it is angled.

These aren't the best pictures, but I'm including them because they are the only ones I got of the "jib windows".  This is one of my favorite features of these Southern homes.  Apparently, after The War the homes were taxed on the number of entry doors.  So they built the windows to go all the way to the floor.  They were windows, so they couldn't be taxed on them, but the homeowners could walk through them onto their porch.  And they let in the much needed breezes.  They look really cool from the inside.

So this is the end of our "What We Did on Vacation" series.  :)  As always, the Cox B&B treated us well and we returned home from the Land of Grits and Gravy a few pounds heavier!

Speaking of gravy.....wait till I tell you what Cameron's dad made for breakfast one morning!

This Moment

Joining SouleMama

Ducks in a Five Star Hotel?

Our second day of Memphis included visiting the Peabody Hotel and Beale St.

Apparently, what started out as a joke, has become a long standing tradition at this hotel.  Upstairs, in the penthouse, live a few ducks.  Yes, ducks.  Every day they are escorted by the "Duck Master" down to the lobby to swim in the fountain until 5:00 PM when they are then escorted back up to their penthouse suite.

These ducks were fast!  The Duck Master said they love the fountain so the run to it, but in the evening when it's time to up they just waddle along to the elevator.

We watched them swim for a few minutes, until they started "fighting" and Kate was asking why the one duck was trying to get on top of the other ducks.  Seemed like a good time to go find some lunch! LOL

So over to Beale St. we went.

This was my favorite sign!

This is where we ended up for lunch.  It was small and Callie said it was "creepy", but it wasn't. (although the waitress did seem a bit...off)  It was delicious!!  Cameron decided to live on the edge, but the rest of us ordered normal food. LOL  My shrimp po' boy was one of the best I've ever had and they had little bottled Dr. Peppers.  Oh my.  I thought I loved canned Dr. Pepper, but this was even better.  I got another one on the way out to save for later.  I actually saved it for several days which is huge! :)

Then we waked over to Schwab's.  It's been there since the mid 1800's.  I thought it was going to be an antique store based on the displays in the window, but it was not.  They did have a lot of new items with an old fashioned flavor and one side was all candy and southern type food.  It was a lot of fun to look around.  The upstairs was full of records and Elvis paraphernalia.

So that ended our visit and we headed to Mississippi.  We had a great time and would like to go again maybe next spring and do some of the other things that we didn't do this time.  Like GRACELAND! Ha ha!

Yarn Bombing in Memphis

I can't show you pictures of what I am working on right now because it is a surprise.  I thought, however, that this would be a good spot for showing a huge yarn graffiti or yarn bombing that we saw in Memphis.

When we left the zoo, we passed by the Brooks Museum of Art.  It took me a minute to figure out what all that color was, but when I realized it was yarn, we had to pull over.  These pictures only show a little of what we saw.  There were several benches, light poles, double the amount of the shorter poles than you can see in the last picture, all covered in knitting.

Maybe next time we can check out the inside of the museum.

As for reading, I am reading How to Cook a Wolf.  After reading An Everlasting Meal, which was inspired by this book, I was curious.  I ended up liking An Everlasting Meal and I'm sure How to Cook a Wolf will have some good ideas too.  It's about eating well when "the wolf" is knocking at the door.  It was originally written to encourage cooks dealing with war time rations.  I'm only in the first chapter and I like it so far.  

                                                       

Visiting the Memphis Zoo

We made our semi-annual trek to Mississippi last week.  We decided to take a different route this year and go through Memphis instead of Nashville.  We are very familiar with Nashville (we both went to college there and I used to lived close by when in grade school and Jr. High), but we had never been to Memphis.  In doing some research I found out that their zoo has panda bears.  Well that was a "no brainer" for us!  We love pandas.  We went to a zoo in China and there were pandas there, but they were very old, and the set up made them very difficult to see at all.  Also, Kate doesn't remember.  So Sunday morning, after going to church with friends who used to live here, we headed off to the zoo.  

We were not disappointed!

Callie and I both took a ton of pictures.  I'll try to limit myself! :)

Isn't he the cutest thing?!  He was eating like there was no tomorrow.  The other one was behind a glass case sound asleep and that picture didn't turn out too well.

Few things make Kate as happy as water.  She has always been that way.  She's not picky.  It could be a sink full of water and her Barbies going swimming or a real pool or one of these set ups.  It could be 50 degrees or 90, she doesn't care.

Notice how she is the only one in the water?  See the mom in the background dragging her kid away? LOL  Some parents were looking at her like "What are her parents thinking?!"  Apparently, in Memphis, it has to be much warmer than 70 degrees to play in the water.

It was a wonderful visit and a great zoo.  I will spare you all the other pictures we took.  Suffice it to say, the other exhibits were equally well done and we highly recommend it.

Yarn Along

I finished The Inheritance last night.  It was good.  Easy, short and still interesting.  Easy and short is good right now.  I need to find something to take on our next road trip.  It doesn't need to be quite so easy or short.

I remember at some point in my childhood my Easter baskets became Easter purses.  I still have the last one I received, probably during college.  It was more like a large tote bag.  I don't particularly think it's that pretty anymore, but I can't bare to throw it away.  I remember picking it out with my dad. :)  I just use it now when we go on vacations as a book bag or whatever.  I was thinking of that in regards to Callie this year.  I attempted to make the draw string bag in my book, The Gentle Art of Knitting, but I ran into a problem with the top edge.  I wanted to give this to Callie for Easter and there was no time to get help, so I just cast off like normal.  I would like to make another one and learn how to do the picot edging and the stripes or dots.  That means learning the cable cast on so I'll be checking out some YouTube videos to see if I can learn that.

Joining Ginny and hoping to check out others projects this evening.

Easter 2013

With the beginning of the week looking like this I wasn't sure just how the weekend celebration was going to go.  

The snow was all melted by Friday and even though it was a little wet outside we were able to go through with all of our plans.

We celebrated three birthdays plus Easter.  I didn't think about getting a group shot until I started downloading all of these.  Maybe next time.

Everyone enjoyed hunting for eggs.  Since we have quite an age range, we color code them.  That way no teenagers are getting the baby's eggs!

Although this teenager wouldn't do that! :)

Then we had a wind up toy race.  This was fun!  Some of the little chicks were fast while others just went in a sort of circle.  Even the ones who didn't win were still laughing and having a good time.

Then later on there was some movie making,

and some Mario racing.  I think this is the first time I've ever seen my dad play a video game!

The weather for Easter Sunday ended up being beautiful!  A bit of a chilly start, but lots of sunshine later.

dad's don't notice things like slip straps hanging down :(