Whimsical Fashion Fun 2021...

 There isn't a linky and there are not any rules.

Check out the dress and pick the shoes you think go best with the dress!

It's all for fun and just a whimsical thing! 

Photos always from The Storybook of Dreams & Beauty!

After last week's black dress that most of you (including me) thought was awful, I decided something sweet was in order for this week.  Young and ready for a prom, a quinceanera, or a walk on the red carpet... but she needs some shoes.  Count down from the top 1-2-3 and tell us which ones you like best for the dress!

My Thoughts:  This dress is fit for a princess.  I would have loved wearing this to a prom when I was in school.  All of the shoes are pretty but I choose #1 for dancing the night away!  Can't you just feel that skirt swirling when you dance... or even just walk!!  What are your thoughts?

Peace & hugs!

Jesus is always the way...

Goodbye to September.  Wow.

An Old Hodgepodge from This Week in 2013...

 Joyce is having grandma fun today so I resurrected an eight-year-old Hodgepodge from this week back in 2013.  I didn't change anything.  Always fun to look back.  Not much has changed.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Wednesday Hodgepodge...

It is Hodgepodge Wednesday again!  I enjoy this every week and hope you do too.

Link up with our Hodgepodge creator here: Joyce - From This Side of the Pond

1. What's one thing that's still the same about you as when you were young?  I am still just under 6’ tall, and I have big feet to go with it! I used to be a whole lot thinner, though!

2. What’s more important-history or science? Why? I have no idea how to answer this one, but since I love history, in MY world, history is more important.  Science would be included in history, I think. Scientific discoveries become part of history – so don’t they sort of go hand-in-hand?

3. Lima, kidney, string, garbanzo, black, or pinto-your favorite bean?  I truly can’t say I like one of those better than another. I love beans and vegetables of all kinds (except okra).

4. What's something people come to your town to do? They come to see the Detroit Tigers in Spring Training; they come to enjoy the Frank Lloyd Wright architecture; some come to see Joe and me; others find Lakeland a good location to stay, with Orlando and Tampa both just a close ride away, as well as the beaches.  We are in an excellent, central location for many of Florida’s attractions.

5. When was the last time you were in a meeting? Sum it up for us in five words or less.  Monday was our monthly Board meeting.  Time well spent.  (3 words!)  Today was our staff meeting, and it was also time well spent.

6. What special event would you like a VIP pass to attend?  I find the older I get, the more events I try to avoid. I really can’t think of an event I would want to attend, VIP or not.

7. What's one piece of advice you'd give a writer?  I am not a writer, but I do read all the time.  I hate long descriptions. Stop with the long descriptions. Say it in fewer words, and keep it moving.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.  I’ve been thinking a lot about joys and sorrows these past few days, as the family deals with the unexpected loss of a loved one, much too soon, right after the joyful wedding and family reunion we just had.  Trust in the Lord. We will understand someday.

Thanks for stopping by!!  Peace, love & hugs.

Current Update:  #8   The wedding was for our nephew, Julian and the death was of our nephew, Larry.  It was a joyful and then a sorrowful time for the D'Orsaneo family.

This is Julian, his wife Rachel, and their two 

sweet little boys, 8 years later.

Larry's wife, Linda, is doing well.  Their kids are also doing well.  Nicholas is married to Carolyn, Gina is married (and she and Stephen are moving to Orlando!), and Alaina is working on her Ph.D. in theology.  

Peace & hugs!

Jesus is the way...

 

No Tuesday 4?

It is almost bedtime for this girl and I haven't seen a Tuesday4 posted yet so I will just wish you all a blessed Tuesday!!  After my long post yesterday, a short one is probably in order, anyway!  Thanks for coming by.  Peace & hugs!  Jesus is always the answer! Trust Him!

A Very Fun Weekend Recap on Monday!

 

I left for Georgia right after work on Friday.  My cat sitter, Mary Jane, was watching my fur-babies and the house, so I was on my way.

The drive to Brunswick usually takes about five hours.  I take Rt. 301 most of the way and it is an easy drive with lite traffic.  There was a little glitch, though, when I got outside Callahan, FL.  The police had all of Rt. 301 blocked.  There were news vans and a helicopter flying low.  My first thought was a really bad accident... OR a man-hunt.  No way to know at that time, but my GPS/WAZE took me in a circle and back to 301 so I decided to follow a couple of 18-wheelers that were turned away, too, and we had a string of cars and trucks heading southwest (the wrong way!) for quite a few miles before getting us to Rt. 1 which finally put me back on a north-east route.  It ended up taking an extra hour to get there, but I got there safely.  

We did get to see on the news what was going on.  It was, indeed, a man-hunt for a man who had shot and killed a deputy. The Sheriff said on the news that if the dangerous fugitive tried to enter your house, use your guns to blow him away.  I don't know if they caught him yet, but the roadblocks were gone when I got to Callahan going home on 301 yesterday. Glad of that!

Update:   As of Sunday night, they are still looking for the fugitive.  HERE is a link for the story. Scary stuff. So sorry for the deputy and his family.

Darlene had enough help at the Ranch to be able to spend all day Saturday with me.  I offered to help her with her mom's things but she wants family members to be able to get some things they might want before she cleans up and donates.  I was happy to have an entire day of fun with Darlene!  She needed some time away, I think.

We got up Saturday morning and had some pumpkin bread I made and took with me (my mom's recipe) for breakfast with our coffee.  Then we decided to hop over to St. Simon's Island.  We parked at the lighthouse and walked down to the coastline.  It was a beautiful day!!

St. Simon's Lighthouse

Steps down into the drink!! Not sure why these are here since it isn't a dock or boat tie-up.  Swimming isn't allowed.

Barb, I took this one for you!  They are still pulling out bits and pieces of that barge that went down!

A different view of the lighthouse.

We sat on a bench in the shade and got to talk to Joey for a few minutes. That was nice!  Then we got in the car and drove a few blocks before we saw that there was an arts & crafts festival going on!  Wow. There were a lot of tents.  I guessed 40 or 50.  We strolled through them all but resisted making purchases. It was a great day to do that!!  The weather was perfect.

Birdhouses with license tags for the roof.  $37.50 seemed high.

He would have sold more for $20 or $25. This is just half of the table.

This is just one little section of the tents. 

Sparky... this one made me think of you! When I got closer, it is a bicycle

instead of a motorcycle, but it still made me think of you!

There is that lighthouse again!

We went back to the house for some lunch. Tuna sandwiches, pasta salad, and chips. 

These are my grand puppies, Zoe and Brooke.  They wanted some tuna, too! 

They are Havanese (a Cuban breed).

Of course, I wanted to see the donkeys and horses, so we went over to the ranch.  I got to meet a couple of their new employees.  I'm glad Darlene has some good help again so she doesn't have to be there every hour of every day.  These are some of the rescue donkeys.

I had to pet all of them.  Darlene took a couple of photos...

The big horses were all out in the pasture.  I walked out and got to hug a couple of necks but they were mainly interested in eating grass.  We weren't there for feeding time in the stalls.

Darlene ordered Vietnamese food (delivered) for our dinner.  It was delicious and I had some leftovers to take home to Lakeland for my dinner!!  We settled in later and watched The Voice before going to bed.  

Sunday was Dar's birthday.  I took her out to breakfast for her birthday.  Joey told her (on the phone) to pay for my gasoline for the trip home, which she did.  We always go to a big Denny's at the Flying J truck stop not far from their house, so after breakfast, we filled up my car.  Got a couple of hugs in, too!  She had her Jeep and headed for the ranch while I set out for home.  It was a very fun weekend.  I loved just spending time with Darlene.  We hadn't been able to do that in a long time.  Did us both good.

Darlene's brother, Ronnie, stays with her while Joey is gone.  He has claimed the room above the garage as his and it is good that she isn't alone there with Joey halfway around the world. (They do live in a nice, gated community.)  (Ronnie has a good job in Brunswick.) He was a big help with their mom, too, before she passed  Anyway, all of that is to tell you that Darlene and Joey wanted me to have Cecelia's tri-cycle.  They knew I had been looking for one (way before Joe died).  Joey was going to bring it in his truck before he had to go overseas but then wasn't able to get the time off.  Ronnie helped put the tri-cycle in my car!! It fit with the seats down!! I am so excited to have a nice (safe) bike to ride around the community this winter!!  I already had a lock so locked it to the backdoor banister (under the carport).  You will notice there isn't a seat.  I took it off and will keep it inside as an extra bit of security. It is easy to pop off and put back on.

So that was my fun weekend away!!  It is a long drive but an easy one.  I am tired, though, and will turn in early, I think (writing this on Sunday night). I will try to catch up on your blogs as best I can!  Forgive me if I don't leave comments on some!

Peace & hugs!

Jesus loves you and me!

Saturday and Sunday...

 Dear Friends,

I finally made it to Georgia to visit with Darlene (daughter-in-law)!!  I am taking the weekend off but will have my usual Monday Recap with pictures!

Thanks for all of the sweet comments on my cake post yesterday (Friday).  I will say that I got so sick of cake and making icing that it was a few years before I could even think of baking a cake or making icing again!!  I still have a bigger hand and wrist muscle on my right hand from all the decorating. Those icing bags are wicked when you have been squeezing out the icing for hours. It was fun, though. I wouldn't take any of it back.

Peace & hugs!! Jesus loves us!!

Friday Fotos...

 Get Comfy...

Most of my long-time readers have probably heard my bakery story but quite a few of you asked questions when I posted the cake picture last week, so here is the story...

Way back in the late 70s, I took a Wilton cake decorating class at Montgomery Wards, in Rockville, Maryland.  I wanted a creative outlet and thought cake decorating sounded like fun, and it was!  I did cakes for friends at work and for the family now and then.  I didn't charge anyone because it was a fun hobby. 

I got a divorce and moved to Virginia where I continued to do cakes for special events.  Joe and I met, got married, and I continued to do cakes now and then, for fun.  Then we moved to Florida. (Just an aside... in Virginia, you can run a home business without a license and health department - at least you could way back then.  That was not the case in Florida, where you had to have a separate kitchen approved by the health department and have a qualified food manager present, and business licenses.)

I found a part-time job working for Alicia Harner, at The Wedding Cake, and worked with Joe the rest of the time to get his CPA business up and running. He brought a few clients with him from Virginia, to work long-distance but things were lean for a while.  Having a paycheck was helpful and I was having fun learning "the business".  

Alicia was a trauma nurse in the  ER at Tampa General Hospital.  She worked three days a week in Tampa and did cakes the other four days.  Her husband was not employed at the time and he did a lot of the baking and delivering so Alicia (and then, me) could do the decorating.  

After six months or so, Alicia asked me to buy the business from her because she was tired of it.  She had borrowed money from her mom to buy equipment and still owed a small four-figure amount to her mom.  She said if I took over the payments to her mom, she would walk away.  What a deal!! She also gave me the cakes still on the books and let me keep the name and the phone number.  She was renting the space from her aunt who was fine with me taking over the lease.  Without those, I wouldn't have been as successful as I was.  It was a very easy transition.  

I did it for almost four years before I was getting tired of it too.  Food service is a hard business and you have to be committed 24-7.  Joe helped and we were both there sometimes at 2:00 a.m. cleaning up.  He helped me deliver cakes on Saturdays (most wedding cakes had to be delivered on Saturdays).  My grandmother was still living and helped me sometimes too.  But I was at a place where I either needed to find a bigger space and hire help or just give it up.  I was doing five and six weddings a weekend and the last Valentine's Day weekend I had 10 cakes (four were small and could be picked up).  I was tired.

Mickie (the aunt who owned the building) knew someone who might want to take over and he did (yes, he).  He did cakes and catering.  I let him keep all the equipment (it was old!) and the phone number. I had paid off Alicia's mom after the first year.  He did change the name of the business to All Occassion Cakes & Catering.  

I had a new full-time job at Santa Fe Catholic High School as the business manager. I was there for four years before I went to Polk Museum of Art.  So, that's the story and below are some of the cakes I did.  It was fun and I'm glad I did it.  It was a great learning experience.

Please note that fondant wasn't a thing back then. I only used buttercream icing for all of my cakes. Also, brides were crazy for fountains and stairways.  I tried to do what the client wanted me to do, even when I wasn't crazy about their vision.... the customer is always right!  LOL

Also, sometimes the bride would send me a picture from the wedding. Always nice. And I did all kinds of cakes, not just wedding cakes.  Some of these that look rather plain got fresh flowers on them at the venue and I didn't usually get to see them "finished".

I painted the little plastic dolls, over and over, to match color schemes.

The bride wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

See the little heart cake in front?  I always made what I called a "honeymoon" cake (free) for the bride and groom to take with them.  It had a separate box with napkins, forks, and a knife. Always appreciated and commented on.

This is the last wedding cake I did, 6-7 years ago for my friend Fran and her hubby Bob.

I have a big photo album full of pictures. These are just some of them and remember that it was back in the early 90s.  Thanks if you made it this far!!

Peace and hugs!

Praise Jesus!