Happy Halloween

It's Halloween and a lot of little spooks will be out tonight!

and a very large cat!

Do you celebrate Halloween?

Boo

On previous blogs I have shown you some of the large estates in our town.

 

This is an entrance gate to one of those estates. They seem to decorate for every holiday, and yes it's almost Halloween, Boo!

Linking to: Good Fences

A Small Museum

I love that Fort Worth has saved so many of it's old buildings.

 

This old Fire station (one block from the courthouse) built in 1907, and in operation until 1980, now serves as a small "free" museum . You can walk through and view exhibits tracing 150 years of the history of Fort Worth.

My Walk part III

I never tire of looking at beautiful estates...but maybe you do....so just one more

 

This one I guess is Old English or Tudor style. There is a cliff behind most of these places, so they have beautiful views to the west.

 

The house also sits on several acres, which adds to it grandeur 

 

Of course these are scattered around the property. Rather old school. Newer security cameras are not this big and bulky.  I half way expected this one to pivot around and look at me :)

Marianne, in answer to your question. No, we do not have a past president living in our town....just a lot of very wealthy people.

 

 

My Walk part II

Tom and I try to walk every morning. We are new in this neighborhood, and have yet to find a gym to join. I always take my little camera (which every good blogger is always equipped with).

 

This is yet another gate to a large estate. I had the urge to walk closer to the gate and peer in. Now I am glad that I didn't

 

It has it's own guard house, which I thought was just for looks. The next day when we walked by, the uniformed armed guard came out. We smiled and said, "good morning". He just nodded ...which made us feel like we should move along...!I was tempted to take his picture...but thought ...maybe not!

Water

I know I should be out taking pictures of works of art. ....but my granddaughter is visiting.....  Hannah likes water,

 

and insists on washing her own dishes.

Like so many towns...we have one of those water parks, where kids can play. It is downtown in Sundance Square. Hannah loved it.

Afterwards we went to the Live oak restaurant that has a stellar view of

the skyline of downtown from their rooftop. They, by the way, do not have booster seats...but Hannah was a good sport. Really really fun day!

Th Back Way

We sure enjoyed our short get away down to Central Texas. There is a way to get there using the smaller highways, where there are fewer eighteen wheelers and a lot less stress.

 

When you take the freeways, it is not easy to pull over when you see a scene like this. As a blogger, do you find yourself stopping a lot to take pictures? I sure do. I hope that you are having a great weekend...Janey

Fire Pit Chairs

We are getting settled in our forever home. A zero property line house in the city, which means we have a minimum of outdoor space.

 

Remember, I told you that one of my Tom's wants was a fire pit, which you can see pictured above on our side patio. The problem is the area is not that large.

 

Taking up a lot of this small space is our outdoor table and chairs, which we had at our Houston house. I think the round table and chairs take up too much room. A shorter rectangle table would do nicely, but there has to be and end to our spending ... or so I am told.

 

A very popular fire pit chair is an Adirondack style chair. The depth of these chairs make them too large for the space, and we have friends and relatives that would have trouble getting out of this style chair!

The chairs we would really like are these outdoor wicker ones that are oh so comfortable ....but they are way too big for the area and very expensive.

So we felt like we had hit the jackpot when we found these all weather outdoor wicker chairs. They are not too large

 

 or too small, and very comfortable

and better yet, they fit nicely around the fire pit. I know, there is no room left for dancing...I am working on that.

Private

Ever wonder what the gates to a billionaires house looks like?

 

Well, here you go. This huge estate, hidden by high walls, is also on my morning walk. There is an 18,200 ft mansion behind these walls, surrounded by perfectly manicured twenty two acres of gardens..

 The new bride (2nd wife), was not happy that there was a tall two story house across the street, where it's occupants could see over that wall. So, when it came up for sale. She bought it, and had it torn down. Me oh my...the cost of privacy! Don't get me wrong....this wealthy person (who shall remain nameless) loves our town and we all benefit from his generosity.....except maybe for that missing house!

Linking to: Good Fences

Another Small Town

On our mini trip down through central Texas we went through the charming town of Glen Rose.
It is the county seat of Somervell County.

 

The courthouse built in 1894

The sculpture out in front by local artists Robert Summer is of early settlers. Juana and Charles Barnard. Charles who operated a trading post with his brother, bought Juana for $300 dollars worth of horses from the Comanche Indians who had abducted her a few months before in South Texas.

The Tree

We are on a little mini trip this week. The floors (downstairs) in our new home had to be re-finished. Long story; consequently we had to be out of the house for three days. I love mini trips....so we have vacated.We decided to drive down to Austin to see daughter number five and family. I don't like freeways, unless I am in a hurry, so we took an alternate route , winding through the back roads (with no big trucks). I also like pulling off of the highway in small towns.

 

That is when I saw this beautiful live oak tree. It was hard to miss it, since it was in the middle of this street. This was not a boulevard (divided street). I was surprised the there was no barricade around it, not even a flower bed...or a reflector on the tree. If you were a stranger in town driving down this street at night, I am not sure how you were supposed to know it was there!!!

The Fabric Store

I needed a spool of thread yesterday, so I stopped in a fabric store.

I was looking at the thread displays, trying to remember the name of the German thread I had used in Colorado to make some table runners. It was great to sew with because it didn't break so easily, or knot up. Then I looked up and saw this. It really tickled my funny bone. It's the store clerk, cutting some fabric. I guess she was getting into the spirit of Halloween? I hope that you are having a fun day!

A Big Fan

At first glance I thought this neighbor had decorated early for the holidays.

Then I took notice of the colors and realized that this was more than likely a TCU fan. (Texas Christian University). They have a very good football team this year, and it looks like this neighbor is celebrating that by wrapping his trees in the school colors....Purple and white.

 

Actually, this was my first attempt at a photograph. The trees are on a busy street, and I jumped up on a curb, because a car was coming. Ha!

The Rodeo Queen

My niece Vinnie is flying out to Oregon to a friend's birthday celebration; which is a costume party. If you are from Texas, what could be more perfect than to go as a Rodeo Queen....and she knew the perfect place to look for a costume.

 

I pictured this boot collection in a previous blog (May 2013) when I was a guest at a luncheon on a ranch south of Ft. Worth. Maudi who is the owner, is a friend of Vinny's step-mother and was more than happy to fix her up.

I think this outfit certainly fits the bill for Rodeo Queen. The custom made shirt is covered in Swarovski crystals, as is the hat band. Throw in some matching boots and a pair of black jeans....and you have mastered the look. Oops, I forgot to take a picture of the crystal studded belt buckle. A rodeo Queen always has a glitzy belt buckle. I will try to post a picture of Vinny ready for the party.

Those crystals are heavy. I am betting the shirt alone weighs five pounds.

A Beautiful Home

We were invited to a cocktail party at a beautiful new show home this week. Hubby really didn't want to go, so I took one of my sisters. Every year, one of the area builders showcases one of their homes that has been decorated by professional decorators. They charge admission, and the proceeds go to a charity. This year benefiting terminally ill children. We were invited to this special showing (private party), because the same builder built our new  house.

I forgot to take a picture of the exterior, so I photographed the magazine. I think it looks similar to the house I passed on my walk the other morning.

 

I fell in love with the blue and white ginger jars in the entry. I was also surprised by the use of wallpaper. They say people are using it again, and I kind of like it.

 

Both sides of the entry were decorated.

T

The large living area opened into the kitchen and was decorated in creams and blues.

T

There was a large island in the kitchen and an unusual vent a hood. I am not sure what it was made of, but I wasn't terribly fond of it.

I

I did like the pottery over the stove

I

I thought at first that this was a wine fridge, but it was the main refrigerator. It just happened to be full of champagne for the party. My goodness is your fridge neat enough to have see through glass? (mine isn't)

 The most unusual thing about the kitchen was that it had a built in pizza oven.

.

 

I won't bore you with the whole house...but this was the media room (I don't have one of those either).

I

I couldn't believe that there was yet another living area...where was a young lady was playing a harp.

I lost count of how many bedrooms there were, but I especially liked the soft colors of this room.

 

Getting away from the creams and blues, there was a glitzy green powder room.

All of the decorating was done by this team....mainly Celeste in the front. She is the lady that helped me pick out our granite, tiles and wall color. Summer (third) from the bottom, designed my closet. There I have admitted it.....my one guilty pleasure.I have always dreamed of a fabulous closet..and yes, it involves a chandelier.

My sister and I didn't really know most of these people (even though there were close to 100 in attendance), so we stood above the main room on a catwalk (a hallway above the room, with a railing), people watching.

 We decided it was a beautiful home and a fun evening.

Another Button Dress

I had a post about a button dress back in April of this year. Tom and I had driven out to a small town southwest of Ft. Worth and toured an Opera House there.

 

This unusual dress was displayed in the lobby. The lady at the desk didn't know much about it. It did appear to be old.

Well, yesterday I was unpacking my genealogy albums, and couldn't help but look through. The lady standing is my great grandmother, and she seems to have on a dress with a lot of buttons. Not as many as the other dress, but it must have been a style of the time. I am not sure how old she was here. Adelia was born in

Garrard, Kentucky in 1867, and moved to Texas with her family as a child. She married my great grandfather in 1888 and had eight children, dieing at the age of forty six in Tioga, Texas in 1913. Her ancestors, who were from France, arrived in America in 1685. Interesting that her husband, my great grandfather, lived to be ninety eight.

Pictured with her are her sister Callie(1863-1893) and brother Herndon (1878-1951)

The Course

I mentioned in yesterday's blog that Tom and I drove west of Ft. Worth about thirty miles to a public golf course in Weatherford.

 

The entrance looked like a gate to a typical farm or ranch. Old water  tank and windmill

 

The clubhouse was very nice, with all of the golf carts lined up in front.

 

Tom said when he played golf the day before, that they had little vignettes set up along the course, with western scenes like this old wagon

 

I got a kick out of the putting green which was covered with little Texas flags.

 

It appeared that on the first hole they had a rock art replica of Texas. Being from south Texas...I was a little disturbed by this so called map of Texas. It is like South Texas doesn't exist?Hopefully it was just the angle I was standing. Oh well, it was a nice drive out to Weatherford. I hope to go back out with him and play golf. We were back at home by 9am.