In the bleak mid-winter

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

-Christina Rosetti (1872)

 

What if it were always winter and never Christmas?

Merry Christmas, dearest darlings!

What would be nice today...

That was the morning prompt that I sent my little writing group today. My goal in sending it was just the simple thought of what you could do that would make today a nice day. I was hoping to send my friends a little nudge to make them write down (or just think about) at least one thing that they knew they could finish today. It might be exercising, it might be getting at least 4 presents wrapped, it might be hanging the picture in your son’s room that was taken down two weeks ago when his room was painted, or perhaps it was even finally removing the un-carved pumpkin that never found its jack-o-lantern soul from the front porch. It would be nice today if I could...


I think sometimes we all expect a little too much of ourselves. The overwhelming feeling of being ever on a treadmill and always moving without actually getting anywhere can be just plain discouraging. So, I decided this morning to write just ONE thing I had to accomplish that would allow me to be able to look back when I got in bed tonight that I could say, “well, at least I got that done!”. As it turned out, over-achiever that I am, I jotted down a mini to-do list of about five things which by the way included something involving both a picture and a pumpkin. If those got done, I could call it a day and a nice one at that.

At the end of the day, here’s where I am on the list. I ran 3.5 miles on the treadmill AND I got several very important work items done (including showing property and setting up my new iPhone e-Key – by the way to whomever put the instructions for that behind the cutting board in the kitchen, you are not my friend). In addition, I have finally cleaned my kitchen from last night’s family gathering, washed sheets, made beds, drove my parents to doctor appointments, picked up my parents from doctor appointments, helped Mary Rollins find an ugly Christmas sweater for a youth group party (tip for finding those: Grandma’s closet, total treasure trove of amazing options), picked up two boys from the mall (that took an HOUR), dropped a boy off, picked up another boy for a sleepover, learned that my parents think there’s nothing wrong with putting strawberry syrup in milk that’s gone bad to make it more palatable for drinking. Oh yeah, did I mention I went to buy some milk for my parents at the grocery. I also threw away a perfectly good frozen pumpkin…so sad. I really wanted to get the pumpkin seeds out but wise daughter said, “Mom, let it go”. No longer is a pumpkin mingling with the Christmas décor.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you start your day with achievable expectations. And, sometimes you can even make a blog post. Total bonus!

So what would make a nice day for you?

A Hope Center morning

Snow. Beautiful snow Monday morning, still and silent, and even with the inconveniences of no school, it was a morning reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell Christmas card.

Gifts for the Hope Center and Harrison Elementary

And cold. Bitterly cold.

I confess, it was not with a fully joyful heart that I left sleeping children in bed yesterday morning to deliver the Christ Church Angel Tree gifts to the Hope Center for men -- our homeless shelter. But two friends and I had agreed that this was the day and 9:30 a.m. was the time – the only time that fit our busy schedules for the day and week. I left several early morning messages with Heather, our Hope Center contact, trying to determine if with all the snow it was still a good morning for our delivery for them. Hearing nothing, Priscilla and I decided to head out anyway. As I pulled out of the garage, my phone rang and it was Heather. This morning was fine, she said. She had a long-standing meeting so she wouldn’t be available when we got there but she had left word at the desk that we would be arriving at 10 a.m. Then she apologized for being a bit frazzled and said, “Remind me again what your church is bringing.”

“Cold weather things – gloves, hats, sweatshirts, long underwear for 75 of the men plus we have several new coats as well.”

“Oh yes,” Heather said, “the items for our Christmas party at the end of the week. Thank you SO much!” And then there was a silence for a moment. “Do you think your church members would mind if we didn’t wait to give them out? If we used them today? I have men standing here at the desk waiting for anything warm that might come in. It’s so cold and normally it’s not this cold until January. With this weather…”

I really didn’t think anybody who brought those gifts would mind.

“Your gifts couldn’t have come at a better time. We’ve been desperate for long underwear. Your church is such a blessing to us.”

I’m home now and warm. MR and Will had been sledding while I was gone and I was a little bit sorry that I hadn’t taken them with me to help deliver the packages, but frankly, there wasn’t room in my car, or Lissa’s or Priscilla’s with all the packages our church had been so incredibly generous in providing. I am thinking about how grateful I am to have been part of our Angel Tree and what a small but meaningful difference we made. Today you helped keep someone warm. Today, when it was so desperately needed, we got to be God’s hands. I heard one man say as they scrambled to help unload my car, “oh my, she’s even got stuff on her front seat!”

Of all the gifts that will be given this Christmas will there be any better?

Sunday 25 gift cards were delivered to Moveable Feast, today at noon, we’ll deliver gifts to the children and families of Harrison Elementary. And, we will share with them much-needed gifts that you provided. If you’d like to help deliver to Harrison, please let me know. In the meantime, thank you my friends for being Angels.

You forgot my water...

I'm shopping for Angel Tree today (which will shortly be a separate post) and I get a call from the middle school from Will who says, "did you put a water bottle in my lunch today?".

 I realized I had not (please note that I NEVER forget this and why I did is a semi-complicated story in which Will has some accountability). 

So, he says, "where are you?".

"I'm across town at the mega-Kroger in Beaumont shopping for Angel Tree."

"So can you leave and bring me a water bottle?".

"Ummmmmm....no.  Are you crazy?"

"Seriously, Mom.  You won't bring me a water bottle?".

some postlings at Bluegrass Moms...

Hi my darlings...I have some new postlings on the Bluegrass Moms blog.  Please feel free to make comments there also.  And, to my faithful readers here, any suggestions on how to manage both spots?  Isabug, anyone? 

xoxo--g

On getting ready...

I love Advent.  I love the whole idea of Advent being a time to get ready to celebrate the mystery of Christmas.  It's the time in the church when the colors change from the ordinary-ness of green to the majesty of purple or the peace of blue.  A time to wait for the wonder of Christmas.  And while we wait, filling the days with decorations, present shopping, gift wrapping, parties, nutcracking and cooking.  As well, as a quiet moment or two for reflection.  I love Advent because unlike Lent, it's not so serious after all we're getting ready to celebrate birth not a death.  And, not that I don't deeply value Lent but Advent is such an expectantly happy time when we can all be together on the road to Bethlehem.   

Over the weekend, I did most of my Christmas decorating.  We still have our real tree to put up.  We're redecorating the family room so the living room is full of that room's furniture and there's no room for the tree but most everything else is more or less out and almost everything is in a place. 

I like to think of Christmas decorating as a part of our preparations and looking at our decorations is a great visit into the land of memories.   Growing up, I can remember the boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations that we had at the Williamson house.  I vividly recall some of my favorite decorations as a child:  three wise men my mother had made out of coke bottles brilliantly clad in exquisite velvet robes with carefully crafted felt, bed and sequin faces sitting on a nest of fiberglass "angel hair" and and entire Christmas village that was erected under the Christmas tree that I set up every year.  I particularly loved a white swan that sat on a large round  mirror to look like a pond.  An electric train, that never ran in my lifetime, wrapped around the town and it took hours to arrange everything in its exact place under the tree and in our living room. In my memories it took all 5 of the Williamson children plus my dad to get the job done.  As a teen-ager, I think I did the decorating all by myself as the youngest child.  My older sisters were married with their own homes and my brothers didn't get into the decorating.  But, I couldn't wait for everybody to come home and the house to fill with people.

Today, the Mathews are waiting expectantly for Christmas and the gift of family and our house is ALMOST ready to welcome them.  They won't come in one huge bunch like when I was growing up.  On Christmas morning it will be just us four --  our little family we like to call it (we're looking forward to that -- our sweet Christmas morning) but over the next two weeks we can't wait for the arrival my BFF Stacey (Friday) and of the Selby girls next week.  All I can say is "yeah, yeah, yeah!" 



One of our favorite ways to count down the
days until Advent.  Oh look...it's a Nutcracker.

 So, there's probably no real point of this blog post except to say, I love getting ready to celebrate Christmas and I'm so thankful that wonderful friends and family are coming to visit.  Yeah, yeah, yeah!!!

Bluegrass Moms Blog

You can finally find my BluegrassMoms At Home in the Bluegrass blog at Kentucky.com under featured bloggers.  It's actually not going to be entirely a duplicate of this blogspot blog as I'm not sure the whole world wants to read about Williamson girls.

Williamson girls...

 Mary Rollins was telling me about a new high school friend named Sophia.  She said she was so glad that Sophia was in her German class because she was like a "Williamson girl".  She reads books all the time, loves the Shopaholic, talks about art & music and she gets our humor -- "I think she might even speak our language." 

I don't know about you, but I think we need to meet this girl!  Wonder if she plays Scrabble?

I hope when/if Will and John get married, they find nice "Williamson girls!"

Our Thanksgiving...

/Straight from the pages of

Southern Living -- Sweet Potato/

Yukon Gold & Gruyere Cheese

Torte.



Pumpkin & Chocolate Chip Pie
plus real whipped cream



I know Thanksgiving isn't really supposed to be about the food but if we ever had a Thanksgiving for which I was thankful for good things to eat, this was it!Almost everything was a Southern Living recipe,  YUM!!!

Mary Rollins & Taylor

There were some pretty fun people there too.

Scary things in the night...

Harry Potter was fantastic and quite possibly, in my opinion, the best Potter movie yet.  And, I managed to stay awake through the whole movie, yeah me!  And, I survived the next day on my mere 3.5 hours sleep.  We, all three, looked a bit pale and Deatheater-like most of Friday and I'm still not quite sure I'm back on a normal sleep routine.  My unscientific research indicates that you recover from a night of four hours sleep at 14 more quickly than at 44.

A woman and her iPhone can rule
the world.  So long as she doesn't
delete the Phone app...

Last night's  post-Potter sleep might have been the worst.  Granted I've been feeling a little stressed lately so that may be more of the cause than Harry Potter movie adaptations but I had the most frightening nightmare.  I dreamed that I accidentally deleted the Phone app from my iPhone.  Seriously.  I couldn't make or receive any phone calls or get to any contact information.  Is that even possible?!?!??!!  Not only that in my dream, I had a house full of company, out of town clients needing to look at property, and my parents and children who all needed to be delivered in various spots around town (hmmm...basically my normal day).  So there I was trying to manage all of that with an iTouch because in dream world when you accidentally delete your Phone app you also can't text or access your email from your phone. 

I awoke in a cold sweat to the sound of the chirping cricket alarm.  I have now checked.  You cannot, indeed, delete your Phone app from the phone. 

I *heart* Harry Potter!!! or bad mommy...

Yeah!  Harry Potter Day, Harry Potter Day!!!  Or, technically, is that tomorrow...

On today's to do list...stop by movie theater to pick up pre-ordered tickets for the midnight showing of HP and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. 

MR, Will and I are going AND we're going to eat a big bucket of buttery popcorn!!  MR is going to dress up because she's a geek.  I was going to dress up as Sybil Trelawny (thanks for the suggestion Peddie) but Will said he wouldn't go with me if I did.

I hope I can stay awake!! 

Wonder if I have any pictures of little Mary Rollins dressed up as Hermione somewhere from Halloween past.  She and Abby both went as Hermione one year...so cute!!

Is anybody else glad that the movie is in two parts now besides me?

Life lately...an update.

Eek...I can't believe I haven't posted in a week but I've been doing my best impersonation of a gerbil on its wheel or maybe the analogy of being the peanut butter in a sandwich is better -- hello! I am the sandwich generation, trying to raise children as my parents decline and need more attention.  Anyway, the blog has been empty while my brain and days have been full. 

Also, the At Home in The Bluegrass Blog for Kentucky.com's Bluegrass Moms is going live just as soon as a write a blog post for them -- I have an identity and everything!!  But, I'll be duplicating posts between this site and that one so if you are following here, no worries in keeping up.  I'll just put them both places.  Feel free to comment on either site.

Here's an update on that Nutcracker poster-posting activity.  I have 6 posters up so far, no pictures taken, and haven't had much fun doing it yet!  I think I would have needed to do it on bicycle with a bunch of girl relatives, if you know what I mean to have a really good time. 

Here's the dreaded poster.

Have a wonderful weekend and I promise to be a better blogger and in a better mood next week!

Nutcracker Season is upon us

Russian Corps (2009)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  Yesterday, MR noticed on our afternoon trip to ArtsPlace that the city of Lexington has already started decorating for Christmas with garlands around the light posts (and yet a banner is still up with Autumn leaves on the same post).  Her comment, "that's just wrong." And, yet Nutcracker Season is in full gear with a Tschaikovsky accompaniment to breakfast and a daily watching of Flowers, Snow and the Party Scene from a previous year DVD.  Soon, very soon, I suspect it will take a full frontal lobotomy to eradicate the ever-playing Waltz of the Flowers out of the interior of my brain. 


Backstage at the 2008...Oh the glamour! 



Aaaahhhh...I love it. 

Yesterday, the Lexington Ballet staff offered a free ticket to the Nutcracker if you could post 10 Nutcracker posters in "verifiable" locations around town.  It makes me want to give Peddie's little "heheheheh" laugh.  I'm thinking that we could have a really good time putting posters up around town AND taking pictures to "verify." 

Reverse Scavenger Hunt + iPhone Camera = Fun Time + Free Ticket to Nutcracker.

Let's start talking...Spring Awakening

I got one of my favorite offers this weekend!  Free tickets to a Broadway show at The Opera House.  Four free tickets, great seats.  You may know that MR and I love all things Broadway.  Maybe love is an understatement so let's go with obsessed...

Back to the story, I got a very late offer for four tickets to Saturday's show of the National Tour of Spring Awakening which won mulitple Tony awards and starred both Lea Michelle (Glee) and Jonathon Groff (Glee) in the Broadway show.  I also got the caveat with the tickets that the show had adult themes and I should be prepared.  The adult themes included but weren't limited to sexual abuse, teen pregnancy, abortion and suicide.  Here's the description of Spring Awakening from the website if you haven't seen or heard about the show:

The winner of 8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical - told by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater through "the most gorgeous Broadway score this decade" (Entertainment Weekly) - SPRING AWAKENING explores the journey from adolescence to adulthood with poignancy and passion you will never forget.


The landmark musical SPRING AWAKENING is an electrifying fusion of morality, sexuality and rock & roll that is exhilarating audiences across the nation like no other musical in years.

Join this group of late 19th century German students on their passage as the navigate teenage self-discovery and coming of age anxiety in a powerful celebration of youth and rebellion in the daring, remarkable SPRING AWAKENING.

After a significant amount of deliberation about whether I should take or not take Mary Rollins and her BFF Christina, I decide after talking to a friend who'd seen the musical that the girls can go if it's okay with Christina's mom.  We had a talk about the mature themes that they might encounter (see above list) and we bravely headed off into the world of the theater.  The fourth ticket went into the hands of my neice who's a current  freshman at Transy and was dying to go see it too.

The show was great although I don't think we'll be singing any of the songs out loud in the kitchen along with the iPod... particularly not "You're F****ed".    It was indeed a checklist of difficult subjects from  masturbation and wet dreams to homosexuality, sexual abuse, teen pregnancy (following a pretty good acting job of intercourse on stage), abortion and suicide.  Yep...that about covers it.  I had some serious moments questioning my sanity in bringing these girls to the show (even the 18-year old) and wanted to whip my hand across their eyes and plug up their ears but you know what...I'm pretty darn sure they knew all of those things happen in life.  In fact, I'm pretty certain (see previous postings) they've seen pregnant students at their schools.  What was really great is that we actually talked about some of that stuff on the way home and the next day and the day after that.  Things like suicide often being fatal and the dilemma of abortion, the downside of parents who don't listen and aren't honest when their children when they ask them difficult questions.  As a mom, I know I'd much rather talk about those things with my daughter than let somebody else do it for me and Spring Awakening sure opened up the conversation. 

Oh...and for you Broadway fans, the music and dancing are excellent.  I need to see if Seth Rudetsky has any commentary on it!

P.S. I would not consider taking anybody younger than high school nor would I take my 82-year old mother!  She'd have hated the music anyway. 

coming soon...Official BluegrassMom blogger

Dear Potential Future Employer of My Children:

If you are reading this blog because you are trying to find out if my children are going to be good employees of your company, shame on you.  If, for example, you think my 12-year old son (who shall remain nameless in this particular post) would be unsuitable for employment because he once combed his hair with a salad fork OR thought a ball-point pen would work well as a first line of defense if facing down a wolf than perhaps my son ought not to work for you.

Sincerely,
Gwennie

P.S. If you are reading this blog because you just like being at home with us in the Bluegrass, we probably like you too. 

And, to those dear readers, guess what!  I'm going to be an official Herald-Leader (Kentucky.com) BluegrassMom Blogger.  Okay, some of you know that already because you know me in real life and I told you, but, I hope you won't mind that I'm selling out to be perhaps read by a larger audience.  Who knows!  Chances are it will still be the same 6 people who are reading this at the moment.  A girl can dream though (and in that dream Jennifer Aniston plays me in the movie).  Anyway, I hope the new readers don't mind that I don't always blog about parenting except that I'm ALWAYS a parent so therefore everything I write is about being a mom, right? 

And, to the person who declared that my children were going to HATE me (LOL...you know who you are), MR is cool with the new audience -- she read a few posts and didn't think it was too embarrassing.  Pfshew...I was little bit worried about that but I figured if she liked "Bike Lexington" all would be well. She did.  

Oh, and about the above letter to my children's future employers. I read an article recently about all the digital impressions of our children that were flying around the Internet these days--kids with their own domain names, baby photos on Facebook pages and blogs, et cetera.  The article claims that one day employers would be using this info to find out background info on potential employees  judging that if they were late potty trainers they might be "slow".  So, I just want to be perfectly clear, right now and forever more, that I firmly believe that the goofy things children do should not be held against them by anyone -- future employers OR voters  -- with the exception of their siblings who may tease them until the end of time about things they did as a kid.

Have I ever told you about when my brother pistol-whipped me after watching Wild Wild West?

Mr. Bones says...

Boo!

Time to get the skeletons out of your closet and onto the front door!!

Table manners..

True story from the Mathews' house: last night our wonderful new priest and her son had dinner with us.  During dinner, Will picks up his salad fork and starts combing his hair with it. 

I guess it's something to do with your salad fork when you hate salad.  If only he were 2 and not 12. 

(We all thought tt was pretty funny, but don't tell him I said that.) 



These are pretty ballet girls after going to see Lexington Ballet's
"The Haunted" on Saturday night.  These girls always have charming
manners and never confuse their salad forks with their hair brushes.



Off to the races...

I wish there were some ugly horses.  It might help
narrow down the betting choices.

Yesterday was the most beautiful of Kentucky autumn days that you can imagine.  And, lucky girl that I am, I spent my day at Keeneland as the guest of some very nice people who invited us to a party in their corporate box.  If you've never been in a corporate box at Keeneland, it's pretty swell.  There's really great food (yesterday some amazing sesame-crusted ahi tuna), delicious cocktails (nothing beats a Keeneland bloody Mary), great views of the track, and engaging company!  It's especially nice if you are at Keeneland and it's not the most beautiful Fall day in the history of Fall days.

I love betting on horses  and hearing everybody's different take on their horse of choice for a race.  Many people just bet the handicappers favorite listed in the front of the program -- almost fail safe but not nearly as fun as the strategies I typically use throughout a day to achieve betting success:  eyes closed - finger pointing, choosing the high pay-out long shot, betting on grey horses, or my favorite -- just choosing the one whose name I like best.   Yep, it's pretty scientific.  After I lose about $6 when the aforementioned techniques don't work, I forget the horses and just bet my favorite jockeys. Yesterday's winnings using the jockey technique? $3.60 which is just about enough for a pumpkin spice latte at Starbuck's.

End of the harvest

Remember last spring when I made all of those hopeful statements of what a great garden I was going to have this year? How I was going to compoast, blah blah blah. 

Here are the pictures that sum up the bounty of my harvest.   I grew a few peppers.  In total, there were four and one more still clings to the vine and a handful of cherry tomatoes.  There were a few big tomatoes, too, but hardly worth the effort it took to water them.  There wasn't any effort to plant them as my mother did it for me.

I think I'd better keep my day job and hope that I never reach a point where I have to grow all of my own food.  The Mathews family will be pretty hungry!

   

Voila...Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

The really yummy, even if you think you don't like pumpkin* Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin Recipe

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 cup sugar
1tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 stick butter (melted -- real butter, of course)
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling -- just plain pumpkin)

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (Will and MR encourage more chocolate chips)

1/2 cup dried cranberries

Whisk together wet ingredients (butter, eggs, pumpkin) in one bowl then add chips and craisins and blend together stirring well.  Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and spices in a separate bowl.  Gently fold in pumpkin mixture just until dry ingredients are moistened -- be careful not to overmix.

Spoon into greased muffin tins. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.

Makes about a dozen regular-sized muffins.

*Disclaimer: Marc does not like pumpkin OR these muffins so the title isn't quite true.  A lot of other pumpkin dislikers like it though.  Me, I like pumpkin.  I thought I didn't like pumpkin for a long time but I was young and stupid.  Now, I know better.  Pumpkin...good and good for you!

The Cathedral Writing Group

Writing is good for you.  I promise  It's something anyone can do and something everyone should do. 

I'm a huge fan of daily writing, not that I accomplish writing every single day, but I do believe it's a powerful means to knowing yourself better and understanding your story.  We all have a story to tell and we all tell our stories differently every time we tell them.  Knowing our own story can help us relate to other people and see the mysterious ways that God works in our lives.   Personally, I find it's an important part of my prayer life as well.  When life feels like it's spiraling out of control (and frankly when doesn't it!), I find writing brings the same kind of peace and balance to life that I get from running.

This Fall, after much deliberation and prodding from my friend Elizabeth who is the Minister of Christian Formation at Christ Church Cathedral, I am leading a writing group that meets on Thursdays at 12:15.  It's an open group with folks who make it in when they can armed with their pens and journals, I don't "teach" writing, I merely facilitate and I send group members a daily prompt (except Sunday) via email.  During our meetings at the Cathedral, we do a variety of exercises to explore writing and talk about what we find in our writing. 

While we don't use a particular text, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is probably my favorite writer who writes about writing.  I like Julia Cameron an awful lot too, author of  The Right to Write and The Artist's Way. 

If you'd like to be a part of the Cathedral Writing Group, let me know!  You can also be a virtual member and I'd be happy to send you our daily writing prompt. 

Top of the Muffin to you...

Remember that Seinfeld episode?  Brilliant, but then again, weren't they all? 

Oh happy times when the morning starts with pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.  Thank goodness the great pumpkin shortage of 2009 is over and a bountiful pumpkin harvest is at hand.  I have been checking the baking aisle at the grocery for months looking for my canned pumpkin and the empty "pumpkin" space is finally full!  Can you believe there was actually a crowd of us?  Well, two of us!  My larder formerly known as the pantry (had a nice appointment with a British client last week who showed me her "larder") is now full of pumpkin!  Six cans.  Just in case they run out again before my pumpkin tooth is satisfied.  I just couldn't stop myself from stocking up. 

Let me know if you want the recipe.  They are really yummy!

Race for the Cure

WEG...gone for a whole week as of today.  I still want to talk about it.  That and I have 100s of random pictures of horses doing reining, dressage, driving and dashing across road that I have no idea what to do with now.  Want to see them?

We're getting on with life here though.  Yesterday, was one of our favorite annual Fall events:  The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.  I ended up as the mom alone with a pack of ballet girls and a couple of boys at the race who ALL abandoned me as soon as we got to the festivities. After the race started we all managed to catch up with each other.  I ran the whole way, some of the girls took a short-cut (yeah Sarah for your fabulous run -- if ballet doesn't work out I think you might have a cross-country future) and the boys claimed to have not taken any shortcuts but somehow ended up beating me across the finish line anyway and I ran the whole way.  Hmmmm...They did claim to be highly motivated by the free stuff available at the end of the race.

Longing for excitement

One of the Double Dans demonstrating that you can
train your horse in the comfort of your living room.

When I drove to ballet last night, it was so quiet.  I miss the world and the odd things they do with their horses. 

At least, I  have the Race for the Cure to look forward to!

Good-bye World

Dear World,
Thank you so much for coming to Lexington for the World Equestrian Games.  Thank you for spending so many fun-filled weeks here, bringing your gorgeous horses and making Lexington the coolest place to be on the planet!  It was a great time. 



Driving World Championship

 Thank you, as well, for telling us how nice we Kentuckians are and how genuine that nice-ness was.  I think you are certainly nice, too, for noticing and for saying so over and over again!  You were a lot of fun and reminded me that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the U.S.  If you hadn't been here, I probably wouldn't have ridden my bike out Legacy Trail four times (!) or even gone to the Horse Park once before the end of the year, much less 6 times in two weeks. 

When you told us you were going to come visit four years ago, I never really believed that World Equestrian Games would live up to the hype.  In actuality, you vastly exceeded every expectation I had.

Again, World, thank you for coming.  I hope you have safe travels home and will come back to see us again soon.  We'll miss you!

With Best wishes,
Gwen

Indian Stairway

My minions

 


Queens of the Hill!





Spider Monkey demonstrating his beast climbing skills on the Indian Stairway



"I get up with a little help from my friends"...MR helps Christina overcome a slight fear of heights



Are y'all coming up?



This picture makes me think, "Yeah!"



My butt's not actually THAT big...it's just my fanny pack.



We found the Flintstone's Living Room!!  The latest in pre-historic furniture design!

Pretty....

Frog's Head.  So...we were amazed as we were told we'd go past a formation that looked like a Frog's head.  Wow...

Still happy.  The point we climbed up from was to the right of the photo and we hiked around the ridge.  We went past several rock houses we climbed down to (Flintstone's Living room) and then climbed back up to the ridge.

You can barely see the Frog Head across the ridge top in this photo.  Sadly, people had carved their initials and other unsavory things on his little head.  Bad vandals...

Adena Arch

Huh...well it turns out I hadn't ever been to the trail called Indian Stairway!  I think where I had been before was actually a place called "Cloudsplitter".  While I have a bit of a  tendency to live in the moment and think that whatever thing I'm doing, book I'm reading, Christmas tree I'm decorating, is the best ever, I think that Indian Stairway, might just be THE BEST TRAIL EVER (in the Gorge at least...thanks for pointing that out yesterday Will...we have hiked cooler trails out West -- that would actually be in the Virgin River in Zion Canyon, Utah!!)  Anyway...where was I...Indian Stairway, perhaps one of the best trails in the Gorge?  It definitely is at the top of the list and Mary Rollins said it was the best trail she'd ever hiked there!

I've heard about Indian Stairway for years but never hiked it because I couldn't figure out where it was.  It's not an "official" trail and I sometimes tend toward disorientation so I've hiked multiple other trails instead of the trail I'm looking for when my minions start to get irritated with my losted-ness.  But, yesterday, we struck gold and I found some awesome directions on the Internet which I copied and pasted into an email I sent to myself so we could keep looking at them in the phone while hiking  I was feeling pretty clever and while I suppose I could have printed them I'm trying to be paper conscious.  Also, I made sure that I had the message downloaded in my phone BEFORE we got out of cell phone coverage which happens pretty quickly in eastern Kentucky.

We did have a few "lost" moments even with the great directions and my iPhone compass and we only nearly took one wrong turn off a cliff (my bad...MR was leading the way and I was trusting her sense of direction as it's usually spot on!) and we found many many geological jewels along the way.  Will and Wyatt said they saw a wolf/coyote (MR sand I suspect it was a squirrel--it is easy to confuse them) and asked me for his pocket knife I was carrying to defend themselves.  Sadly, I could not find it in my bag at that very moment, so I gave him a ball point pen I was carrying.  The boys seemed quite pleased with that as a weapon and scampered ahead on the trail while Christina, MR and I went back for a fanny pack inadvertently left at the bottom of the Indian Stairway.  We made a loop hiking the ridge top with GORGEous views, hiked along a section of the trail that had us on the cliff's edge -- definitely not a trail for small children -- and ultimately ended up back on the Sheltowee Trail and back to our car.  In all, I suspect we hiked about 6 miles.

And a good time was had by all (except Will who claims he'll never go hiking with me again because I don't do what he says...)

"Tent City" behind Miguel's.

And, to end the day:  Miguel's pizza.  Hooray!!  We saw license plates from: Utah, California, Ontario, Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ohio and Connecticut.

Hooray for Fall Break!!



Destination Lunch...



Fall Break....fall break...fall break!!!!  I have four children upstairs sleeping in on a Wednesday that I shall soon roust from bed, feed some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and force to go hiking in the Gorge today.  Yippee!!!   We're going to hunt for an "unofficial" trail called Indian Staircase that I haven't hiked since 1994.  There's a good chance we'll be hiking a different trail as my map-reading skills aren't always the best.  Probably it's a good thing, I have GPS in my car...

Technically, it's a "WEG Break", but we're making it a Gorge Break today (We'll be back out at the Games on Friday and Sunday).  And, if everybody's really nice and doesn't fall off any cliffs today we're going to Miguel's Pizza for lunch in Slade.  Miguel's is a super kooky little restaurant/climber rendez-vous joint with cars from all over the Northern Hemisphere in the parking lot.  I love just walking around checking out all the license plates.  Most of the time there are more out-of-state plates than in-state, with travellers coming from all over to climb and hike the Gorge. 

Four-legged celebrity alert

FYI...the horse that starred in Hidalgo as well as the horse that stars in Secretariat and Dreamer were both in town yesterday for the World Equestrian games.  They were here for some horse training demos at the Convention Center held in conjunction with WEG.  A friend of mine saw them yesterday. 
(And, he also bought a memory foam saddlepad for his horse.  Wow, that is one lucky horse -- a tempurpedic saddlepad.  Talk about things coming a long way.)

I wonder if celebrity movie star horses have special requests like no brown M & Ms...

Hello Fall...It's nice to see you again...

Pumpkin Picking 2004...just a little blast from the past

It must be Fall.  Yesterday, I wore a coat the entire day.  Even inside on two listing appointments and a home inspection.  I couldn't seem to warm up which seemed ironic because it was so chilly and dark at 6 am here that I ran on the treadmill for the first time in months and couldn't cool down for more than an hour afterwards.  But, I guess once I did cool down that was that.  This morning, I just came upstairs to write for a bit and I can smell the furnace which we turned on yesterday.  When MR came home from school yesterday, she even said, "oooooh, I love that smell when we first turn on the furnace in the Fall!"    It is certainly a scent that they haven't made into a potpourri yet.  Maybe we could and name it, "Fall Furnace". Or, maybe our duct work needs cleaning.

I probably spend too much time inside my head debating my favorite season.  I like them all no question -- one of the best parts of Kentucky is having four seasons but the real choice is always between Fall and Spring.  At this moment though, even with our trees a little too dry for the glorious autumn colors they normally achieve, I think Fall wins.  Boots, football, leaf raking, pumpkins, Halloween, sweaters, the beginning of Nutcracker season...

Of course, remind me of that next Spring when I am extolling the beauty of daffodils and looking back through pictures of Spring Break and Easter Egg Hunts.

In the meantime, I'm going to go make some pumpkin muffins and see what happened yesterday at the World Equestrian Games.  What's your favorite part of Fall?

Secretariat, the movie...



 As if Lexington weren't exciting enough, this photo that looks like an empty street is the closed street for the world premiere of Secretariat! The showing is at our own Kentucky Theater and Diane Lane herself is in attendance!! Unfortunately, I was not invited nor could I afford to buy my way in! Oh well, I had to pick Mary Rollins up from youth group at church so at least I got to see the closed street. 

Much of the movie was filmed in Lexington. We've seen the trailer with lots of great shots of Keeneland and Spindletop!  I can't wait to go see it.  I was only seven years old when Secretariat won the Triple Crown in 1973 but I still remember the day he won the Kentucky Derby.  My dad had Secretariat in our family Derby pool and fell of a ladder the same day.  I remember it was a lucky/unlucky day for him.  I also remember going out to Claiborne Farm as a girl to see Big Red in retirement.  Probably (if my parents could find any of their photos), I have a picture with him. 

Now that might make it worthwhile looking through my parents' basement!