a fiesta for fifty

So, my husband asked me if I wanted celebrate my fiftieth birthday with a party.  Since I haven't had a birthday party since I was a teenager, I said yes.  And wow, did I have one!

I still can't believe the time and effort my family spent planning my party (my husband especially).  Most years my birthday is very quiet - I like to relax, read, drink coffee, get a massage and have a nice dinner (usually steak and lobster made by my husband).  So I thought it would be fun to host a big celebration for once.  And wow, was it big!

For almost a month before the day, my husband was shut in his office for hours "working on the party."  For three days before, my son joined him behind the door to help.  I could hear the construction sounds of wood being hammered...a ladder was pulled out...the Amazon truck stopped multiple times a day with multiple boxes.  What were they up to?  And on March twenty-first, (which conveniently fell on a Saturday) I finally got to see the results.  

I'll try not to share too many pics.  Here we go!

My husband and kids decorated the whole house.  And I mean, the WHOLE house.

For days before my birthday, they boxed up things in rooms and put them in storage, then put tables all around the house with displays and posters about my life.

There were 1970's decorations everywhere - I think my daughter said she put 100 flowers on the walls.

There were Scooby-Doo decorations too (my favorite cartoon as a kid) as well as three life-size cutouts of myself like this one - my "Cat Lady" Halloween costume!

Decorated tables like this were all through the house.

One of the themes of the party was the 250th celebration of our country, since I was born in the bicentennial year.  My husband set up his office as the "Bicentennial Room." 

Here I am again!

My daughter made a backdrop (it's actually hard to see behind everyone) for a "Bicentennial Photo Booth."  My husband bought lots of wigs and props for pictures...

The photo props were popular!

Here is my family (who worked so hard)!

We actually kept the photo booth up for a couple of weeks, and when friends and family came to visit we took pics 😀

 

The only request I had for my party (because my husband took over the planning) - I wanted it to be really fun for the guests, and I wanted to bring back all the games we played at my childhood birthday parties, and give away all my favorite things as the prizes.

We played the marshmallow game - you had to transfer marshmallows from one bowl to another using a spoon in your mouth (no hands allowed!).

We played "wall sit" where you had to time yourself sitting against the wall (no chair allowed!).

Longest time won.  Becktur (above) was the big winner of this one.

(OMG, we played this game at every childhood birthday party I can remember...)

We played "Pin the Lips on Phoebe" (sadly, I have no action pic of this one, think "Pin the tail on the donkey).  This was my high school graduation photo my husband turned into a poster.

(At least he picked a good one...😅)

And we had the amazing good fortune of having an 82 degree day on party day in March!

I don't remember that ever happening in Tennessee before...but we were able to be outside and play "Drop the Clothespin" (in the milk bottle).

We used a glass Byrne Dairy milk jug when I was a kid in New York...

We played 1976 Trivia.

In case you're wondering, the "Best Picture" winner that year at the movies was "Rocky," the most popular breed of dog was a Poodle and a gallon of milk cost $1.63.

There was a cake (an amazing cake!) made by my friend's daughter...

...and best of all, there were friends. 💗

We gave away my favorite things as prizes (a giftcard to my favorite restaurant, my favorite book, favorite candy, favorite movie, favorite flowers, etc.).

Here are my friends Mike and Jeanette (who won best dressed!) with their prize of flowers.

I bought a plain glass vase at Goodwill and my daughter Juli painted it.

(See, I can always bring everything back around to Goodwill!)

And finally...

...there was a disco ball!

A very, very groovy disco ball!

Eight of us wound down the night dancing to '70s music.

It was far out 💥

There were also some worship songs, led by my friend Kory, who brought his guitar.

And there was prayer (before the disco ball...).

It was truly a magical evening.  I never need another party.  We did it.  The last guest exited at midnight, a reasonable ending time for a fifty-year-old's party.  I even skipped church the next day to recover, as any self-respecting senior citizen would.

I am blessed. 💗

a little late post about love

Here's a late Valentine's post; right after Valentine's Day our whole house got hit with the flu and I'm still recovering. But Valentine's Day was extra special this year, and I wanted to post some photos.

I have memories growing up of Valentine's Day dinners my mom made for our whole family - she would cook something special and give my brothers and I all a little gift, and I like to do the same for my family.  Since my son is single and my daughter is in high school, why not make the day special for all of us?  Besides, the last thing I want to do on Valentine's Day is go out to a crowded restaurant.  I like the idea much better of sharing the love!

Since Valentine's Day was on a Saturday this year, I thought I would do a nice brunch, and I wanted to invite a special friend over too.  Since I was inviting my friend Karen (who happens to be single), I also invited Greg's sister Linda (who happens to be single too).  I really wanted to do something special for them.

And it was!  Here are a few photos of the table, with all my favorite things:

One of my goals is to learn and improve my flower arranging skills.

I thought the flowers turned out beautiful on the table.

I set the table with old transferware dishes that belonged to my great-grandparents.
I love having an occasion to use them.
I also used the silver my grandmother gave me as a wedding gift.

My daughter Juli made the napkins into hearts.

I had a transferware compote that was not as tall that I wanted to arrange the flowers in.  I've never put them in a compote before, and I bought the wrong kind of floral foam (it was too hard) so it didn't work.

This vase was Plan B.

But I bought five different flower bunches and I thought they all combined together beautifully.

I didn't want to use traditional red.

I bought two glass vases at Goodwill and asked Juli (who is very artistic) to paint them for me.

I put some of the flowers I bought in each of the vases, and we gave them to Karen and Linda to take home.

This fruit trifle was angel food cake, vanilla pudding, fruit and whipped cream.

Greg with my good friend Karen who lives in our neighborhood.

We met because she's a crazy plant person like me...she has giant pots of tropical flowers (I mean 8' tall Birds of Paradise) that she hauls in and out of her garage every spring and fall to decorate the front of her house.  She's had some of these plants almost 30 years and they are almost too tall to fit in her garage (did I say she was a crazy plant lady?).

Who wouldn't love a woman like that?!

It was a family effort: my son vacuumed the floor while my daughter helped me make the food.

It's wonderful having competent help!

It was a beautiful Valentine's brunch, filled with special people.

On Sunday the 15th my husband and I went to dinner and a movie.

No crowded restaurant!

Oh, and did I mention that for my birthday last year Karen gave me one of her Bird of Paradise's babies?  She had a division of her original that she had put in a pot; its now about five feet tall.  And now it's mine!

She knew who would cherish it!

It's funny sometimes the bonds that connect us together, isn't it? 💕

the 2025 books of the year

I have a habit of collecting books much faster than I can read them.  I get them from everywhere; I occasionally buy one new, I'm given them often and I pick them up in thrift stores all the time.  Thrift stores are the best places to buy books!  I think a lot of people - like me - read most books once, so once you're finished, you pass the book on.

I've moved a lot of the books I've read and enjoyed to The House of Goodwill, so guests can find something good to read.  And if they take them, no big deal - as long as they enjoy it!

Some thrift stores have as much variety as any bookstore I've ever seen.

Last week I finished reading "The Last Battle" by C.S. Lewis, the last book in The Chronicles of Narnia series.  They were my favorite books as a girl; I read the series nine times.
I've been reading one a year for the last seven years.  I just finished - and WOW! 
Turns out I love them just as much as an adult!

Since I have shelves and shelves of books, I began a practice four years ago at the end of the year of choosing 20 books to read in the next year.  I did this in part because some books I've had sitting on my shelf over twenty years - I wanted to read them but never did.  Sometimes it's because they're the "harder" books to read, in other words, the books that aren't as fun.  Books that teach you something.  Philosophy books or theology books or history or political books.  Interesting maybe, but not fun to read.  Maybe something I want to learn more about, but not fun to read.  Sometimes the books are still sitting there twenty years after I bought them because I just never got around to them, or they were sad stories and I wasn't in the mood.  (Then or later, apparently.)

So I partly choose my books for the year in advance to force myself to read diversely.  Whenever I finish a book, I have to choose a new one from the stack.  I only make an exception (sometimes) if I'm going on vacation and just want something light and fun.

I'd never read the Harry Potter series, so I started a few years ago and read one every year.
These are always easy to find at Goodwill.  Fun to read, too!

Anyway, I chose twenty books so I could leave a little room to add a few I might come across during the year and want to read immediately, or to fit in the book someone will always give me or loan me and tell me "I have to read."

Most years I end up reading at least twenty-five.

It's not nearly as many as many of my reading friends read, but I usually do have some long, hard reads in the pile, and I try every year to read one book in Spanish.  The Spanish book I read with my translator, and I stop and translate every single word or phrase that is new.  So while it's interesting, and I definitely learn a lot, reading the Spanish book is a tedious process.  The one I read last year ("Vacaciones in St. Tropez" by Danielle Steel) wasn't that long, but it took me six or seven weeks to read, reading two hours a day, four days a week.

I try to intentionally be diverse, so I try to choose at least one political book, one business success story, one historical book, one animal story, one biography/autobiography, one childhood favorite re-read, one finance book, one theology book, several classics, my book in Spanish and a few just for fun.  The rest I fill in with "other."

Well, that was a lot about books.  Here's a photo of the pile of my 2025 books:

There are twenty-two books in this pile; I actually read twenty-six.
I also read the Bible.

Some of my favorites from this stack: The trilogy of holiday stories by Truman Capote (he's a beautiful writer), "The Last Battle" by C.S. Lewis (of course), "Look Homeward Angel" by Thomas Wolfe was interesting (this was a birthday present after we visited his childhood home in Asheville on vacation), "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot was a fascinating true story and had all kinds of interesting biology in it, "The Phenomenon of Obedience" by Messianic Jew Michael Esses was wonderful and "Birds and Blooms 2023" (not pictured - a compilation of issues of the magazine) was everything I'm interested in. 🙂

Ok, so this is a book my dad gave me one year for Christmas when I was a child.

So I'm not kidding, this has sat on my shelf for over thirty years.

Why did I never read it?  I have no idea, since I love reading.

Well, guess what?

Turns out it's still an amazing read at 48!  I LOVED this book.

Another thing I love about this version of "The Arabian Nights" it's just a beautiful book, literally.

The pages are gilded, the illustrations are amazing - everything about this book is just beautiful.

It was a pleasure to read, and not just because of the incredible stories.

I may be a little late, but thanks Dad! 💗

And finally, one more favorite childhood re-read:

I LOVED the classic Nancy Drew series as a kid and read them all.  I've had fun re-collecting them as an adult (I mostly borrowed them from the library as a child).  Whenever I see one in good condition at a thrift store I pick it up, and I almost have them all.  I re-read one or two of them every summer and enjoy them just as much as I did the first time.  There's something that feels so pure and sweet about vintage Nancy Drew - she pauses her mysteries to occasionally attend church, is often running after criminals in a dress, and has "luncheon" every day with someone.

And lastly (not pictured) I just finished "Little House on the Prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I've been re-reading those childhood favorites - one a year - also.  And they are just as fantastic the second time.  

Fun fact: I told my eighty-two-year-old mother I just re-read it and she told me her elementary school teacher read some of that same book to her class at the end of each day "if they were good."

I just collected my new reading pile for 2026.  More on that soon!

a Goodwill costume challenge

For most of the last decade, I've spent the second half of October managing a tent at Nashville's "Boo at the Zoo" trick-or-treating event.  I manage a tent for the main zoo sponsor, where we pass out candy to kids.  Over the years I've enjoyed seeing all the kids show up in their costumes, and I've been impressed at how often the parents dress up too, or the whole family comes in costume.

The parents are obviously not trick-or-treating (the zoo wouldn't give them candy if they tried - our tent does, though!).  So all these adults are dressed up, I can only imagine, for the sheer joy of putting on a costume.  I don't imagine too many of these toddler parents are off to bars or afterparties. (Or are they?)

Anyway, observing all the fun costumes over the years inspired me to want to create my own.

 And it just so happens I know the best source of cheap inspiration...and so the House of Goodwill costume challenge was born.

In 2023, I decided to make my own costume, inspired by whatever I could find at Goodwill.  Here is the result:

This was fun to make!

Except for the headband (that came from Wal-mart - I needed it to glue the star tree-topper to), everything I'm wearing is from Goodwill.

I think it cost me $20-something dollars for all.

I put it on for some photos on Halloween, but I wore it to work and pass out the candy one night.

The next year, 2024, we had just returned from five weeks in Colombia (adopting our daughter), and were just settling in when the zoo job started and I didn't have the time to plan anything.

So this year was the first official year of the Goodwill Costume Challenge.  I told the whole family they had to come up with a costume based on something(s) found at Goodwill.

I have to say, the costumes of everyone (even my husband's who planned his at the eleventh hour and bought everything on Halloween) came out great!  Here they are:

The costumes:

an undead baseball player, an old rich man, a scarecrow and a crazy cat lady.

We even had enough daylight for a photoshoot in the backyard before trick-or-treating.

It turned out to be a fun way for our family to spend time together.  Everyone's costume was his own idea, which I loved.  My son and I based our costume idea off something we found while browsing through Goodwill, my daughter came up with her costume inspiration from the internet, then I took her to the store to find what she needed.  We all helped each other with the shopping and making accessories.

Here's the breakdown of the costumes:

Nothing like the last minute!

So, my husband said he found the cape and mask in a bin of formerly used costumes we have.

He had seen a baseball helmet at Goodwill the day before, but didn't buy it.

When he went back to buy it, it was gone, so he bought this bike helmet and altered it.

He also bought the "baseball" (actually a black pumpkin decoration) at Goodwill.

The rest of the baseball uniform was his from the 1990s.

(See, it DOES pay to hang on to things!) 😆

Total cost of costume: $9.

When I saw this pink bathrobe at Goodwill, I immediately thought it would be perfect for a crazy old cat lady.  I was really happy with how the costume came out!

I bought the bathrobe ($9), leopard slippers ($6), three cats ($5 for all) and hair curlers ($3) at Goodwill.  The haircolor, face makeup and velcro to attach the cats came from WalMart. My friend saved an empty cigarette package for me and I made the cigarette out of a piece of wooden dowel.

It was just over $30 for the whole costume.

My son found this lounging robe at Goodwill, and said he could use it to be "an old rich man."

After he'd already picked it, we saw it had a giant Playboy logo on the back.  So I bought some black stick-on patches at Wal-Mart to cover it (that was a definitely not) and it actually didn't look bad from the back.

I gave him a vintage silky shirt from my closet; his sister made him the huge dollar sign (that we attached to a faux-gold chain) and the pipe (from a piece of dowel and a wine cork). Everything else was his.  Total cost of costume: $7.

My daughter decided to be a scarecrow.  We found the overalls ($9) and t-shirt ($4) at Goodwill.  She also bought the boots at Goodwill (though not for Halloween, but they were perfect!). The hat was my husband's and plaid shirt she borrowed from my son.

She painted the sunflowers on the overalls herself, and the two dahlias on her hat we cut from my garden.

Her outfit was so cute I told her she needs to wear it not just as a Halloween costume!

Total cost of costume: $13.

My son is twenty-five, but everyone always thinks he's sixteen, so his job is take his sister trick-or-treating.  This was her second time going in the U.S., and she loves it!  In Colombia (where both my kids grew up), kids trick-or-treat in stores only.  So it's a much different experience here, and the candy haul is greater. 😉

My husband and I walked the neighborhood with them in costume.  I had three people stop me to tell me how much they loved my cat lady costume.

Since I first had this idea, I've been wanting to plan a Goodwill costume contest on a bigger scale, and with prizes.  I'd love to host a Halloween party where everyone comes in their created costume.  It's challenging, because it's the one time of year that I'm working every night and have to replace myself at the zoo.  So we'll see what happens in the future...

Stay tuned!

I came, I saw, I...don't know...

Well, we did it!  Traveled ten hours to visit the potential dream house for sale in Pennsylvania.  My husband was driving from Tennessee to New York anyway, so I went with him and we took a detour through New Castle to officially look at the house.  We spent the day checking out the house and the town, then the next day he drove on to New York after dropping me off at the Pittsburgh airport to fly home.

And - it the house was EVERYTHING I had hoped it would be.  And then some.  It was a dream house for sure.  In fact, seeing it live made me love it even more.

Not only is this a magnificent house - really, just a giant piece of art - but it has barely been altered since it was built in 1912.  Old house lovers understand what a big deal this is.  Almost all the original parts are still there.  No one painted the woodwork.  No awful renovations to undo.  And the woodwork and floors, etc. are still all in amazing condition.  It is a solid house.  Made out of the best of everything.

I'll share a few highlight pics from my personal tour:

I could hardly believe I was actually standing in front of the house I've looked at in pictures dozens of times.  It is *beautiful.*

There are 16 fireplaces in the house; I was told all work (allegedly).

I was also told the current homeowners (who have lived there 25 years) only ever used a couple of them, because 16 is a lot to take care of if you don't need them (my assumption).

Each one has unique tile patterns.

I believe this one is from a child's room.

The third floor of the house is the servant's quarters.

All through the house these original calling systems are still intact, though I don't think they work anymore.

Just about every room has a beautiful window seat like this.

I couldn't believe what good condition the woodwork was in.

So I found out where the elevator goes to!

I had seen it a photo in one of the solariums on the second floor.

It goes down to the outside, next to the carriage entrance.

"What do you think this is?" the realtor asked us about this untouched contraption in an upstairs bathroom.

Here's a clue: the hole at the top is where your head sticks out.

If your guess was "old school sauna" you would be correct.

This is a sauna heated by about 40 vintage lightbulbs.

I cannot even imagine...

Outside underneath the stone gazebo were two baby deer.

Apparently they are regular visitors.

This was strange, since the house is in the center of town.

And here is the indoor heated pool, with no water (obviously).

We were told it's been in continuous use, but the last time it was drained the owners did not refill as they knew they were planning to sell the house.

Here is a picture of the carriage house from the yard.

The apartment above the garage is a shambles.  (Project!😊)

The landscaping looks like it hasn't been done this year; there is a stone wall in a rectangular shape in the above photo that is full of grass.  I assume there used to be a garden inside.

I can make that happen!

Here is a view of the house from the side yard.

*sigh*

There is a church next on this side of the house.  Not a bad neighbor.

The front porch is quite large and there is beautiful detail (woodwork, stonework, tile) every place your eye goes.

Here is a photo of a room in the carriage house apartment.  It only looks lit because of the flash from my camera.  It was totally dark up there; all the windows were boarded up and there is no electricity turned on.  You can see there is still beautiful woodwork, though!

I wonder how it got to this clearly distressed state?  I think the house went up for auction in the 1960s and the windows may have been taken out then. (?)

The current owners never bothered to restore it as the house was plenty big enough without the huge garage apartment being necessary.

There is a double sided fireplace in the apartment that's viewable from two rooms. 💗

Yes, it was the house of my dreams.  So here's the catch: New Castle.

As it turns out, apparently no one online has anything nice to say about New Castle for a reason.  As we interviewed a lot of random New Castle residents on the city we got a lot of negative feedback.  The main reason?  Drugs.  Apparently there is a significant drug problem in New Castle and all of the issues that go with drugs are problems there.  And we were told that the neighborhood and street that the house is on (apparently one of the better neighborhoods in New Castle) is not good at all.

The problem, according to one lady we spoke with, is that years ago as the original millionaires were abandoning the city and the economy was slowly going downhill, the city council in New Castle allowed many of the bigger old homes to be divided into multiple apartments.  So now instead of the beautiful old houses attracting single family units, it's multiple lower-income families in each house.  And that has changed the feel and atmosphere of the neighborhood as much as you imagine it would.

Many of the apartments on the street are HUD housing, so some of the problem tenants are difficult to relocate.

Not everything everyone had to say was bad though.  But the main consensus: New Castle isn't bad as long as you don't live in the city.  Which is bad news for this house.

I have witnessed right house, horrible location so many times now it's frustrating.

If only people didn't like New Castle because it's small.  Or boring.  I'm sure I could tolerate either of those just fine.  But possibly dangerous?  I'm not sure.  That's the part I'm not too clear on.  It's obviously a somewhat troubled area, but how bad it actually is I'm not too sure.

Meanwhile, I haven't stopped thinking about this house.  Worth it?  I don't know.