My title contains things that I love. Sewing, Quilting, gardening and a lot of other stuff I love don’t start with a B so they wouldn’t have fit in my title! I love a lot of people, too, but this is not all about people today. It’s about my birthday week, how we have celebrated and how we continue to celebrate because I take a week for my birthday and a week is still not enough in my opinion. Everyone one should have a chance to celebrate their birth.
But, back to birthdays, I’ve had some really good ones and some not so good, but this year’s has been a good one. It started with birthday donuts.
I came downstairs and found this on the countertop. I don’t have a birthday cake. I have birthday donuts. David got me two honey buns and a chocolate iced long john. They lasted me three days and I enjoyed every one of them. With coffee that David made. He makes really good coffee. And yes, that is my age. I can’t believe I’m that old. But what’s a person to do, but keep on. None of us are getting any younger. We can’t youthen like in Camelot where one of the characters does just that. I saw a movie not too long ago where the man is born old and youthens as the years go by. That would be sad because as you get younger, all your family and friends get older.
We went to Bloomington on my birthday to watch one of our grandsons play soccer. We got to sit up in a balcony on comfortable seats in a heated building to watch. That was so much better than sitting outside in the cold, watching from the sidelines in hard lawn chairs. Plus we could see the footwork that the boys used to pass the ball and get it into the goal. I really enjoyed it. Then we went to eat at Texas Roadhouse where we had the nicest young man as our waiter. David and I believe that Covid has helped weed out the poor waiters and waitresses because the ones working now really want to work and they do such a great job. We have had the best service in restaurants lately. After that, we went for ice cream. David and I have been wanting dipped ice cream for quite a while. There are no places where we live that has it so we were happy to get some good dipped ice cream.
This is our daughter with her oldest son who is now a driver. That day was the first day he had driven on the freeway. I now have three teen-age drivers in the family. They were riding tricycles just the other day!
Sunday, we went north and had brunch with more family members at a pancake house David and I like. We had a nice visit and I received a new planter that had been made for me by a special person. I got to see three more of my grandchildren which was nice. I’ve already got flowers ordered for the planter.
Here is one of our grandsons with his corgi, Sadie. He wanted a dog for so long and finally he got one. Sadie is so cute and loves to fetch like our Lucy does. Next year I will have three grandsons graduating. Two from high school and one from college. What picture is he watching behind him? Look at that sweet face and Sadie is cute, too!
But my birthday was not done yet. Wednesday we took a ride to my hometown. My nephew’s wife had some books for me they had found in my brother’s library that were my mother’s or my aunt’s that they thought I’d like to have. I love old books so of course I had to go get them .
I haven’t seen them in years. I use to play with my nephew as we aren’t that far apart in age. Funny story. When my mother had her last baby, my baby brother, he almost instantly became an uncle when my nephew’s mother had her first child, his older brother. A few years later my nephew asked if he could bring his uncle to school to visit. Thinking his uncle was an adult his teacher told him he could bring his uncle to school. So one day, in came my nephew with my brother, who was the same age as my nephew and the teacher was surprised. She said, “I thought you were bringing in your uncle!” “This is my uncle,” said my nephew. I imagine the teacher would forever check on the ages of relatives who were going to visit her class from then on.
My mother was a voracious reader. My aunt told me one time that she would even be reading when she was ironing. I always loved looking at the books on the shelves at my grandfather’s house to see what books he had. Many of them belonged to my mother.
She instilled in me my the love of reading. I always have a book to read. I can’t imagine not being able to read. I thank all the teachers that taught me how although I think I was well on the way before I even got into school. I can’t remember never not being able to read. It was an inborn thing, I think. I love books, words, grammar and all that. I plan to read these books of my mothers. This is a geography book that belonged to my Aunt Ruth was older than my father. This book is big and heavy and I can’t imagine all the children having one, but they must have had as it’s a school book. It’s heavy for an adult to carry. And the geography of the world has changed quite a bit since my aunt studied it. This page states the picture shows “modern” French farming. I don’t think their tractors look like this any longer!Although Antarctica hasn’t changed all that much, I’m sure some of the countries in this book no longer exist or their boundaries have been changed. This will be a very interesting book to explore.
It may seem as if all we have done is eat this week. We went to one of our favorite restaurants while we were up north.
This pizza place has been around for a long time. It’s a Pizza King like where I use to work decades ago. I can throw a pizza with the best of them, I’m proud to say! It is beautiful inside with all the Tiffany lamps and stained glass windows. It has a double decker bus inside where you can eat in, if you like. We chose a booth. There is a phone at each seating area where you phone in your order. It’s really easy and quick to get your order placed and then the pizza is made fresh while you wait. It was nice sitting across from the love of my life and eat some of the best pizza you could ever eat. I don’t usually post a picture of myself, but here I am in case you wondered who this old lady is who talks about nothing and can do it for a very long time!
We enjoyed our meal, but it was time to head home to the dogs, who will be waiting for their dinner, but we did take the back roads home.
How we both love back roads. Indiana is full of them and there is so much to see. We do live in a beautiful state with interesting people along the route. Down roads with woods on either side. By babbling brooks. I had my window open and I wish you could have heard it. How many of you have seen a tractor on top of a silo? Well, this farmer managed to get a vintage tractor up there for all to see. Plus…….He had this carved character by the side of the road. He looks like a cross between a mountain man and a bigfoot. This shows he is obviously a man, but what is he looking at and why is he there, anyway? I want to know. We see these turkey vultures on back roads all the time. They are God’s garbage creatures, clearing up the dead animals on the road. This bird was chowing down on a deer that had been hit. It did not want to move when we got closer and his buddy was waiting to land down to join him, so we left them to their meal and went on.
Less you think we didn’t eat enough junk for my birthday, we found a wonderful little town I had never heard of, Laurel, Indiana where we found another ice cream store. Well, if Ben and Erin Napier have Laurel, Mississippi in the home remodel show, Indiana has a town called Laurel with wonderful old homes that is a diamond in disguise. Anyway, the lady in the ice cream shop told us their dips of ice cream were so large we should probably order just one dip or half dips of two flavors. Well, if I were a drinker I would have said, “Hold my beer,” and I ordered a full two dip waffle cone and had not one problem eating it all. David did the same.That lady did not know us. Besides, we were travelers and tired and hungry from our travels. Ha. We drove around town just looking at all the beautiful houses. I’ve never seen so many wonderful places in such a small place.
Love this house. It stood on a hill overlooking the town which makes me think this was the rich man in town. If I were a billionaire I would travel the country buying up old houses and restoring them to their former beauty. This house needs a little work, but it’s still wonderful. There were so many places like this. I was afraid people would think we were spying on them taking pictures of all their houses. An historical building. Very interesting. I love learning Indiana history. Our state has always believed that education was important because if you can’t read, do math, speak well and know common science, you are doomed to believe anything anyone will tell you. Of course, along with being educated, you must have some common sense which is sorely missing in many people today, especially in our government. And that is as political as I will get today.
Or not. This person was well ahead of his time. Now we are finding out that what his sign says is true! Oops, I got political again, but David and I got a good laugh at this sign as well as this one on a back road.
Hmmmmmm.This is a turkey vulture who was sitting above this…. A really neat tower. I tried to get David to walk up there and look at the valley below, but I think he was getting tired. I knew I could never make it as I get winded very easily. I really, really wanted to go up there.
I just wanted to show you this picture of sugar cookies I baked this week to take to my grandsons. I thought I hadn’t talked about enough junk food this week. Next week it’s all vegetables I tell you!
And I wanted to show you what we have been up to. Or rather David has been doing what I thought up is more correct. I’ve been wanting to make our back yard more of a wild grasses, wild flowers sort of place that we would not have to mow and would encourage bees and butterflies into our garden. So, David has been removing turf and placing it where we need grass and uncovering dirt where I am planting the seeds. I have some bags of wildflower seeds coming that I will add with the grasses. Here he is working himself silly making something I thought up just a while ago. I love him so much. He even put a fence around this area to keep the pups out until it’s all established.
This is the National Guard armory where David started his military career. It’s also the place where they held some pretty great dances that I would go to. My oldest brother was head of the shop here and would take me to the dances and sometimes stay unless I had a date. I loved going to the dances although at one some guys tried to start a fight with David which scared me so much I was afraid to go out to the car for fear they were waiting on him to beat him up. The Kingsmen were supposed to play there once, but were in a horrible accident on the way to get there. So we danced to records that night.
Going to my old stomping grounds brings up so many memories. I grew up in a tiny town where everyone did know everyone else and also all their business. It is still a well loved little town. There’s a facebook page for it where people give the news of the town.
This is where my very best friend in elementary school lived. I spent many happy times with her here. She lives way across the country now. She and I were born the same day in the same hospital and her mother and my mother shared a room in the hospital. I think she was born before me, but I never held that against her! If she reads my blog, I hope she sees her old homestead.
I’ve got tons more pictures and could probably go on, but I will leave you with a picture of a bird town my husband made for me this week. My birthday week has been wonderful and it’s not done yet! Bye.
