As the old year slips away

I found this clip art at Graphics Fairy. Notice the date, 1910! It will be 100 years old tomorrow.
My mother-in-law had a daily calender thing (I now have it) that you roll over each day, and there you would find another saying. I have no idea who wrote these sayings, they could be well known, but I thought that I would share December 31st with you.
"And as the old year slips away,
He kindly with him takes
The pages we have blurred
and marred
With failures and mistakes.
The blighted hopes and needless
fears are gone beyond recall.
And ours once more the fair,
clean page
The New Year brings to all."
To all of my blog friends out there, and hopefully many more to come, even if you are just stopping by for a visit...........
I wish all of you A Happy (and the most important of all), a Healthy New Year!

Tea shop stop

Is everyone having a short rest right now? New Year's is right around the corner, but I hope that everyone had a wonderful time with family and friends. Maybe your place is a little quiet now as everyone is leaving or maybe you still have some company. Which ever it may be why don't you sit back and enjoy some scenes from the Gryphon Tea Shop in Savannah. It is a pretty place to stop in and have a cup of tea (or coffee as hubby does), and they serve lunch too.

Just some of the variety of teas that they serve and sell.

Hubby wanted a slice of coconut cake, however, he did not realize how big the slice was so we shared.

They have a lot of ornate pieces here. On the ceiling it was a fabric that was stretched out. Really different looking. The orange chairs added a pop of color. Hmmm, they must have been to Europe as orange was a very popular color when we were there.

Look at this chandelier fixture! To me it looks very art deco, and you can catch a part of the stained glass on the ceiling.

Is this not gorgeous?! I just had to get a picture of it! It is much prettier in person, but I'm sure you get the idea!

I know that in different parts of the world there are so many tea shops, and I wish there were more here. I'm not a coffee drinker, so I am always on the look out for tea stops. I hope that you enjoyed this one! Makes you want to go and make a cuppa and settle down for some of that leftover dessert!!!

I was a sight

Oh boy! I know that I haven't posted in a while yet so much has been going on. With all of this rain that we have been getting we have discovered two roof leaks. One around the skylight and another in my office. So I guess it is just as good a time as any to tear the office apart. Things are piled high with paperwork, I mean do I really need an electric bill receipt from 4 years ago? It is so easy just to store things away in the filing cabinet, but I am wanting my New Year to start out clean. Besides I may have company in a few weeks and that is always a great motivator!!!
As you know the New Year is always the challenge to get fit. I have not walked in forever! I would walk every morning up and down this small "mountain" for 30-45 minutes. Then a little weight lifting too. Sad to say, I have not done that in months and months. So today was my challenge to walk again, get back into the routine. Now this is the really sad part. I do try to dress better than this, really I do, especially when I go out in public. However.....today I grab the turquoise blue set, some socks, then since the blue set is lightweight I grabbed my handy had forever fleece sweater that is black and white. Yuck, it's 29 outside, so I got my yellow jacket to keep the wind out, slipped on some el cheapo slipon shoes, grabbed the black scarf, jammed the cream beret on and off I went!!!!
Time to feed the chickens, grab the leash for my daughter's dog to walk her, and then I looked down at my feet. Mind you it was still dark in the room when I grabbed my socks. They were pink and white stripped fuzzy comfy socks.
Now I know you are laughing at me! You have to be!!! I am laughing at myself!!!
I was truly a bad fashion sight!
At least the dog didn't care, she was just happy for her walk! Thank goodness the tree cutting company had finished last week. They would have thought I was some crazy lady!!!!

Strolling down the lane

I have a few more house scenes to show from that lovely city Savannah. I think that these were among my favorites from that area. They may not be quite as old as everything else, but they are still lovely to look at.

Can you imagine strolling through here a long, long time ago with the trees and Spanish moss dripping down?

Now this is a house! I love the way it curves

There is a lot of architectural work here that really stands out. Can you see the garage in the background through the curved entry?

This was another favorite of mine.

I'm sure the city is decked out now until the new year. If you ever get a chance to go I know you will thoroughly enjoy it!

Town scenes

My daughter and I did not have much time to really walk around the town of Highlands, but here are a few pictures from the area.
These are the two oldest inns.

Is this not cute?!

This is the window scene from the art gallery. I wish I could have gotten a better picture, but I loved the old lady scene!

A very artsy flower shop!

There was so much more to explore, but not enough time. Late in the afternoon, looked like snow, temperature dropping, better get home. Turns out it never snowed after all...just rained!

Have you been busy?

I know that I have been soooo busy with so many things. It seems like you get one thing done then another pops up! Plus I have been on the phone quite a bit too, a joke my hubby makes saying that I either need more arms (since they all seem to ring at once!) or shut them all off. Now that is something I could not do! After all, hubby is the one that told me a woman needs to get in so many words in a day!!!
This past weekend there was a family reunion on my grandfather's side. I don't normally go, but we missed another one earlier in the year. My daughter was able to go along so she got a chance to see how big our American side of the family is, and it gave us a chance to visit my grandmother (her great-grandmother - 92 years old).
Here is a picture of three generations. I still can't believe my grandmother is that old, but I can tell you that she was a real beauty when she was younger!!

We had more tables overflowing with food. I believe over a hundred people showed up! What's scary is that there were plenty that did not show up. We have a big family!

The aunts all got together and made some arrangements.

Everything looked really nice, and it was good to see everyone again! I'll show some pictures from the town soon. Now I need to go and take some aspirin. I started exercising again, and oh boy!, do I ever feel it!!!!

Shopping scenes from Savannah

A very nice place to visit in Savannah was right around the corner from where we stayed. It is called Mercer House Carriage Shop. I asked if I could take a picture to put on my blog, and she was extremely nice about it since she was also starting to blog. Amazing how all of us bloggers find one another! I thought that this was a cute picture of part of her shop. Thanks very much Sharon for letting me take the picture!

I truly don't remember where this one was taken, but I really liked the bear!

Here is one from the city market area

I just love this one! It was taken from the downtown area. I loved the window display so I tried to take the picture from an angle so I would not get too much of a glare. Trust me, it was gorgeous in person! Loved the red dress and the whole display! (if you click on the picture it will enlarge for a fantastic view!)

Just a small sample for you, believe me, there are hundreds of shops, and all worth the visit!

Scenes from Savannah

We took a trolley tour for the first time in all the years we have gone to Savannah. I would highly recommend it as you can see a lot of things, and learn a lot of this beautiful city. Even though the morning was very chilly (the afternoon was nice though) we persuaded our driver to open the flaps on the trolley so we could take better pictures and see things clearer.
In Savannah there are 24 parks. Three of them were used for something else other than a park, but originally there were 24. Now from the river front to Forsyth Park is one mile, and you can easily walk it. Here are a few of the parks.

Some homes that were seen from the trolley tour

Now this is very interesting. This park is across from a church, and in this park is this small fountain for animals to get a drink from. Once a year in May all animals, dogs, cats, monkeys, goats, etc., etc., gather here to be blessed! Quite an interesting tradition.

I love how this park scene turned out with the red ribbon around the lamp posts. We just missed Savannah being fully decked out by a week. I'm sure it is beautiful.

One of the smaller houses. I forgot who had lived there, but I believe this place recently sold in the hundreds of thousands!

These bridges connect to the riverfront buildings.

Part of the river front scene. There are a ton of shops through here, and that bridge you see in the background will take you to Hilton Head Island and also Charleston, S.C. which is Savannah's sister city.

This statue was placed here where I believe a lighthouse once stood. This woman would stand here and wave to the passing ships, and she did it until the day she died.

Isn't the iron work fabulous in this picture?

On this house which is located on Bull Street and Gordan, all of the detail work around the windows and doors is made from cast iron. It has turned a lovely color.

I have a few more pictures from this lovely city to post, all of the architect details that abound here, wrought iron, fountains, etc.. Like I said it really is a beautiful city.

Fabulous southern city on the Georgia coast

What's the most fabulous southern city? Does this picture look familiar?

Or how about this fountain? I'll give you a hint....a book about this city and a movie from the book was made here. Or actually several movies have been made here.

However, after this movie was made this city received over 400,000 more visitors a year! My very favorite southern city, Savannah!

(picture from the internet)
It is a five hour drive from Atlanta, and we made extremely good timing even taking back roads instead of all interstate. The first stop was by the visitors center where the Savannah Arts College is directly across from it. This building used to house offices, warehouses, and cotton.

Our next stop was to our bed & breakfast. We don't stay in too many even though I love them, however, it is low season right now, and very affordable. This is the outside of the Bed & Breakfast in Savannah. Now, all of you remember this building because....it will be in a movie coming out next year!!!! Robert Redford was just here!!! Drats!!! I missed him, and by just a few days too! The movie is called The Conspirator and is about the Abraham Lincoln assassination. The inn's owner was telling us about it the next morning. He said people always think of Robert Redford being very tall, but he isn't.

Another thing is you'll notice on the above picture that there are no parking meters. Robert Redford was filming this section down the street, and had them cut down at street level! Sure enough when we went outside we looked down and saw where they had been cut off!
Well, come on let's go inside and check the place out! Up the stairs we go, watch your step, this was before code. An interesting fact we were told is that most men back in those times were only around 5'5'' tall!

Here is the living room section.

This room had a lot of sea pictures in it.

We had a little balcony with our room which hubby just loved! You can't keep him inside for very long!

More sea pictures along with the very comfortable bed

The bed was very, very, high so I'm sure this was definitely needed for shorter people. Hey, I'm pretty tall, and I almost needed it!

The dining area. This picture turned out a little blurry so I added some "warmth" to it. We had some very delicious breakfasts and company here!

Here you can see where there is another hallway to more rooms. I believe they said that they have about 20 rooms. They also have carriage houses in the back that you can stay in if you have more people in your group.

Lovely curtains and there is a seating area here too.

After we got settled in we headed to the river walk. Be very careful of these steps! Every time I go down them I have to hold on to the railing.

The river and river walk up ahead at twilight. Watch out for those cobblestone roads.....they are hard on heels!!! But of course, I had to have my high heel boots on!

We had a nice quick meal sitting out on a balcony, and a quick walk along the river front. I just love Savannah! It's been two years since the last time we were here which is way too long to be away. I don't know what it is about this city, but it just calls to me. Perhaps the history and the homes......speaking of homes we knew we had to head back to the inn. Each night they have milk and fresh baked cookies set out! Yum!!! More on this fabulous city with my next post!