Christmas

 Just a few scenes from our Christmas celebration. We drove to central Texas to spend a couple of days with one of our daughters and her family.

We did lots of baking,

and prepping  for her Christmas Eve dinner,

while Tom was enjoying the backyard. Yes, he is in shorts as we had very warm weather.

The stockings were hung by the fireplace with care, 

so I corralled a couple of daughters for a picture,

 and even Tom who I had to convince he couldn’t wear his shorts to dinner.

Santa magically installed a princess tent for our youngest granddaughter, but Larry the cat thought it was for him.

while she was content with a box.

I hope your holiday was also full of joy.

and I wanted to wish all of us a much healthier New Year.

See you in 22! Janey

Worth The Climb

 We have returned after a short trip to Austin, Tx to celebrate Christmas with two of our daughters.

One of the things that we always enjoy doing there is climbing up Mt. Bonnell which is part of the cities park dept. Seems to me they keep adding more steps…whew. It is 106 steps to the top on uneven slippery rocks. I only know this because I read it. I couldn’t count and breathe at the same time!

It is worth the climb though and a very popular tourist attraction. Below, 775 feet below, is the beautiful Colorado River, and sweeping views to the west, a great place to watch a sunset.

 Fable has it that if you climb to the top once with a sweetheart, you will fall in love, twice and you will get engaged, and three times you will marry.

People have been climbing up here for years…old photo… circa 1930’s

Adding to the view, although some don’t feel that way are the mega mansions below belonging to the super wealthy.

One thing I was interested in seeing is the home (or at least where he is staying) of a millionaire who is supposedly approaching the trillionaire  status.

The richest man in the world who has moved a couple of his companies to Texas.

You can read about him HERE

Stay well and enjoy the rest of the year🎆Janey

Merry Christmas

 It’s finally here…or maybe for some of you …..already here!

Christmas week that is. My packages are all wrapped, except for one and as soon as he runs and errand or takes a nap, I will wrap that one. I’ve also finished my baking even made a loaf of banana bread with the last three over ripe bananas.

We happened to be out after dark last night and I ask Tom to circle by an estate that is always decorated for every holiday ….and they didn’t disappoint. This is the drive up to the house which is better described as a mansion.

To one side of the driveway they had placed a plaid pickup truck full of gifts.A nice little touch, don’t you think?

I was down in the Fort Worth Stockyards this week and stopped by the Drover Hotel to see their tree, which was in the center courtyard. Oh my I think it’s the tallest tree that I have ever seen.

My sisters and I were actually there to have a group photo with Cowboy Santa pictured here with a couple of his favorite reindeer.

Have a very Merry Christmas

and I will see you before the end of the year.💞 Janey

A Block of Mansions

 Last year I decided to join the Ft. Worth Woman’s Club. The main reason was that I found out that the club was made up of over thirty different study groups, mainly studying history. 

We all know that I love history and I can’t think of a better way to meet new friends with similar interests.

The club actually comprises four old mansions surrounded by what is now the medical center. So many of the beautiful old homes, in that area that once was referred to as Quality Hill, met the wreaking ball.

One of those mansions that was saved  has an interesting history. Built in 1907 by wealthy Fort Worth businessman James Moore at the huge cost of $20,000. Unfortunately Mr. Moore died in 1911 at the young age of forty four. His widow remarried in the mansion in 1912 but sadly four years later she and her new husband were killed in a car accident.

 The house then became a dormitory for nurses working at a nearby hospital. That is,

until 1929 when it became a funeral home.

To make a long story a bit shorter. In 1959 The Woman’s Club of Ft. Worth bought the old funeral home to add to the other three mansions they owned on the block…making the whole block the domain of its prestigious club which  now has over nine hundred members.

Which brings me to this week. The study club within the Woman’s Club that I joined had their annual Christmas luncheon in one of the beautiful rooms.. (that’s not me). We were entertained by a musical ensemble playing  beautiful and familiar Christmas songs.

Sitting next to the Christmas tree, it was hard to get a full shot, but notice the decorations on the tree. This room is the music room so the tree has violins, trumpets and bows with musical notes on them.

The music sure put me in the Christmas spirit as we were invited to sing along.

I hope that you too are experiencing moments of joy this special time of year.

  * some research borrowed from the blog Fort Worth by Handlebar

Home Again

 We have been gone from home for almost two weeks. We stopped over on the way to Georgia at the beach on the Florida panhandle. We had such a wonderful time and we were thrilled with the weather. From there we headed north to Atlanta where daughter number two lives. She and her husband prepared a wonderful dinner for us. The next morning we were off to North Carolina to keep two little granddaughters for almost a week….whew we did a lot of driving!

I as they say hit the ground running when  we got home. Going to be a very busy week. We are having a few friends over for a Christmas party so I baked some cookies. I use to make my own dough for these sugar cookie cutouts but for the past few years I have been using

this. All you have to do is add an egg and some butter and you are ready to roll it out and pick out your favorite cookie cutters.

What takes all the time is the decorating!…It took me all morning.

On our drive home the other day we were just south of the devastating tornadoes that hit the Midwest. Horrible destruction and huge loss of life. My heart goes out to their families…

The Answer

 On my previous post I showed you a picture of a strange looking object on the beach.

I had no idea what it was, until I ask  a friend who had a beach house..

Seems it is an egg case from a Skate. A Skate is a bottom feeder closely related to a Stingray.

Interesting facts about the strange looking egg case:

The skate lays the case on the bottom of the sea.

The horn like objects on either end are so it can latch on to seaweed and stay on the bottom.

The pouch is made of a subject called keratin much like human fingernails, making it very strong.

The first few months the embryo inside has no gills, so there is no sea water in it.

Before it hatches, it cracks open after gills form to allow the embryo to get use to the sea water.

Once the shell cracks completely open the discarded case floats ashore.

Some people call these rather strange cases The Devil’s pocketbook

Others a Mermaid Purse

This day and age I had some friends guess that it was a discarded mask!

Hello from the Beach

 We sure enjoyed being at the beach with the beautiful weather…without the crowds.

It looks like you could walk right out onto the sand, but the condos are on a small cliff, with these stairs down the beach.

 

Every morning as soon as the sun came up, we headed to the beach with our cups of coffee in tow.

As you can see, the water is very clear here.

The second morning there were a few more interesting things that floated ashore.

We steered clear of this guy. 

and I had to ask what this thing was. Do you know? I will explain on my next post.

Perfect

 Well we lucked into perfect weather here on the panhandle of Florida.

We are happy with our 

our rental too. This little condo has a spectacular view.

The beaches along here are

white and the water blue.

Saw this guy on our one mile walk on the beach this morning.. He was not concerned with us and never moved as we walked by.

Tom was out sunning himself early this morning and had the beach to himself.

Later on there were a couple of folks down the way…but not many. We are having a relaxing good time. Getting ready to go eat at Fat Daddy’s Pizza!

Ba Humbug!

 Just when we felt that things were getting better. Omicron has to rear it’s ugly head! Makes you want to throw up your arms in disgust! So what can we do?

Don’t know about you, but I am going to lick  my wounds at the beach…Stay tuned.

Back to Clearfork

 A few posts back I was showing you the art around Ft. Worth’s newest and trendiest shopping area
but I neglected to show you the piece of art that I liked best.

This large painting is hanging in a bank building which is part of the shopping complex. It is titled Palo Verde, which is the spindly tree in the painting. Palo Verde trees are generally found in desert settings since  they are very drought resistant. Of course some of you recognize the prickly pear cactus in the background which you will also find  in the same setting.

The curator giving the tour explained it was painted on Japanese rice paper and painted on both sides of the canvas…which I don’t quite understand. The artist is Malou Flato.. Which is an usual name to me so I thought she must be Japanese. Not so! She is a Texan and I was surprised by where else her work hangs..

                         click on photo to enlarge

                                                                             

   I love learning new things, especially about art since it is a subject that I generally know nothing about.

Packing up Fall

 I know, it is still Fall and Thanksgiving in the U.S. is still almost a week away, but we need to get our home decorated because of what has become an over scheduled time of the year.

Yes, even our  neighbors trees  are a constant  reminder what time of year it is!

Don’t get me wrong, I love the warm colors this time of year, but you have to budget your time as to when you have time to decorate.

So into the storage boxes go the oranges yellows and browns,

and out comes the new smaller artificial tree. As you pop the three sections in place the lights magically come on. No searching for the plugs hidden in the tree.

We spent a lot of the day dragging out decorations, decorating the tree and the rest  of the house. Will wait until after Thanksgiving to put the wreath on the front door. Don’t want the neighbors to think we are rushing the season!

!