Let's go to Charleston this weekend...

I'd like to take you all to one of my favorite cities of all time.
Charleston is a place that will take you back a century or two and will always leave a beautiful image in your mind.
We are so lucky that our daughter is living there and is a dental student at the Medical University of South Carolina...MUSC.. This has given us a chance to truly savor this "southern bell" that is Charleston.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I will let them speak to you with little commentary.
As you will see, I am a big fan of wrought iron, so I hope that you will enjoy the tour as much as I did taking these pictures.






























































From here forth are photos that I didn't take myself, but thought it was important to include in your tour of Charleston, to give you the complete flavor of this beautiful city.

Cinderella Goes to the Ball

me


I'm so excited to participate in Susan's Met Monday! I have to say that out of everything that enjoy creating.... a trash to treasure is surely my favorite!

I picked up this little orphan at the thrift store for $ 2.00 . This had been someone's dining room chair for many years. The right arm had been gnawed on either by a dog or a baby, not sure which... had to get the trusty sander out and smooth it out a bit. It had seen better days and even the cashier looked at it and just had a pitiful expression on her face.




.. I really think she felt sorry for me for having to buy such a sorry piece of firewood... But I had some grand plans for this little baby....


A little white paint, black accents and a dashing black and white damask fabric was all it took to get Cinderella to the ball...

POOOOOOOF !!!!!!!!



So you might call me the "Fairy Godmother" ..........





One of my favorite creations. As most of you know I have a little addiction to chairs and this is one is close to my heart.

Thanks for poppin' by, now go see some more amazing transformations at Susan's blog, Between Naps on the Porch.

A Little Spanish Girl and Grand Theft Auto !

Back in October I wrote a post about my childhood A Little Spanish Girl and a Tall Tree. It's about being born in a small village in Spain, living in an orphanage and being adopted and brought to the US.
Well, it was a small village...I haven't been back in 30 years or so...
Imagine my shock when I was surfing Youtube and found this video, of my little town, Ayamonte. It's in Andalucia, the southern part of Spain on the border of Portugal.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs32Dy5Yeqk

I couldn't believe that it had been chosen for a Playstation game called Grand Theft Auto!
Well, anyway...it gave me a quick peek in to what it looks like today.


I still recall going to that palm tree lined park with the mosaic benches when I was 5 to look at the processions during Semana Santa, which is Holy Week during Easter. It reallly took me back to my roots!

This is one of the many processions of Holy Week.

I had been searching the 'net for a picture of the orphanage that I lived in from the age of 4 to 6 and this picture below claims to be the door to the Casa Cuna, as it was called. Below is a picture of the little chapel that we were taken to every morning to pray by the nuns.This is what it looks like on the inside.
Ayamonte is on the border of Portugal and when I lived there you had to take a ferry to cross the Guadiana River to get to the other side. About 8 years ago, a bridge was built to make that commute easier.

So, there you have it.... who would have believed it?!? I found a bit of my heritage in a Playstation video?!?

Jenga......anyone?

So, I feel like the crazy old lady that leaves up her Christmas decorations all year long! Sorry that I have been too lazy to update my blog since before Christmas. We had both of my daughters and their friends over for the holidays. We had a great time, played a lot of games, ate a lot of food...well, you know the rest.


So now,the "party's" over, as they say. My youngest just left to go back to school in S.C. and now, it's time to get back to the basics.

Basically, scrubbing, laundry and packing away all of those wonderful Christmas decorations.


To add to the list, we decided that it was "time" to go through all of our boxes that we had not unpacked since our move from TN. which was 7 years ago.... we didn't open them in the five years we lived in S.C. There's about 25 or so and I mean big ones... Our storage room looked like a Jenga puzzle...stacks and stacks of precariously heaped boxes with mysterious unknowns inside.
We bought wonderful storage shelving units at Ikea that we are hoping will help us in the pursuit of organizing.

I have to tell you that getting rid of stuff is VERY difficult for me. Kinda like ripping a little piece of me every time I reluctantly put things in the donation pile or trash pile. I attach a lot of sentiments to objects which I know is not a good thing. So I am focusing on the freedom that purging can bring.

So far I have unpacked 5 different sets of dishes along with over 60 framed photos of the kids growing up , most of them are 8x10... and about 30 porcelain dolls in their boxes.
I know I'll be donating at least 2 sets of dishes, try to sell most of the dolls even though it kills me because you practically have to give them away and as far as the framed photos go, I will take most of them out of the frames and put them in albums for my girls.
So there you have it, I should be busy for a while!

I want to thank Susan from A southern day dreamer for giving me this cool Georgia friends award. It will be nice to see all of my fellow Georgian bloggers, who knows, they just might be my neighbors! She has a list of them and I will be doing a little visiting as soon as I get the rest of the boxes unpacked.