We had a really great time.  There were rides, food, crafts, music, pie-eating contests, and horse-drawn carriage tours of the plantation.  You could also go into the fields and pick your own strawberries.  The strawberries were the best I have ever tasted!  They were so sweet and juicy.  As usual, my children made the most of the juice by letting it drip down their chins and telling me they were bleeding.  It looked so real that if I didn’t know my children as I do–I may have believed them.

It was a perfect day for the festival.  Sunny, but not too hot with a breeze blowing.  After we each picked a basket of strawberries we sat at one of the picnic tables and ate almost all of them.  Being the “good” mother that I am, we ate funnel cakes too and used the powdered sugar to dip the strawberries in.  After our picnic the boys rode the “Berry-Go-Round”.  It was a carnival ride shaped like a giant strawberry that they could spin thenselves around in.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking–strawberries, powdered sugar, funnel cakes, and a spinning ride.  Not exactly the best combination,  but they had no problems.  Thank goodness because that would have been a LONG car ride home with two sick kids.

Once again, I am really sorry that the pictures would not load.  So please, click on the Boone Hall link and take a look for yourself.  While you’re there, check out the rest of the site.

See you later, Violet

This welcome sign is for my new store, Miss Violet’s House.  As if I’m not crazy enough, I have opened an online store. Let me give you a little background. Little by little I have been trying to redo my house.  Let me rephrase that.  As my children remodel(aka destroy) my house, I have been replacing items with things whose sole purpose is to be COMFORTABLE.  At this stage in my life, comfort is priority one!  This goes for clothes, shoes, furniture, and life.  Nowadays when I see magazines with models in high heels and tight short clothes or houses with rooms that look perfect, my first thought is, “GET REAL”.

I am sure that the perfect rooms in those magazines probably don’t have boys that like to practice their football throws and golf swings in the living room or a dog that can clear the coffee table with one sweep of her tail and whose latest favorite game is “tag” with the cats.  As a single mom I want to live life with as little stress as humanly possible while still actually enjoying my family.  Some days, the enjoying part, is much harder to come by.  Remember, just keep repeating, “I love my children, I love my children…..”

Well, back to the subject of my new store.  My goal is to fill my store with items that are comfortable and easy, no batteries required.  I want to bring back the days when families had fun at home that did not revolve around the television or when neighbors could drop by for a visit without having to make plans for it in advance.  The days when eating dinner in the dining room happened every night, not just on holidays.

I am planning on starting a new page on this blog that will feature items I have in my shop.  Stop by MissVioletsHouse.com and my blog page “My Shop”  to see the latest.  I really hope you like it.  Write me a comment and let me know what you think.  I would love to hear from you.

Well, I am thankful that my children (2 and 4 legged) let me write this post uninterrupted, but I just heard a crash so I have to go now.

See you soon, Violet 

She is a pointer/dalmation mix, we think.  Annie joined our family very unexpectedly.  She came from a home that left her tied up outside no matter what the weather.  When she came to live with us her ribs and hip bones were sticking out and she had a terrible cough.  The cough turned out to be bronchitis.  The first day she was out in the yard after getting over the bronchitis she got out, got hit by a car, and broke her leg.  While still in a cast, she got sick again.  Of course, it happened on a Saturday night  when the regular vet’s office was closed, so off we went to the emergency vet clinic.  Thirty-six hours and $1,000 later I picked her up and took her to her regular vet’s office with her IV bag still attached to her leg.  Two weeks later she was back at the vet because she started losing her hair.  The vet explained that all dogs have a type of mites on their skin that normally don’t bother them.  When their immune systems are under stress, the mites attack and cause mange. 

Flash to the present.  It’s been seven months since she came to live with us and she is healthy(knock on wood) and spoiled rotten.  These days she spends her time chewing shoes, rugs, furniture, blankets, and clothes.  During breaks from chewing she digs up the yard and “plays” with the cats.  As you can see in the picture, we don’t have a lot of grass left. 

Annie is such a part of our family now that it seems as though we have always had her.  I can’t imagine our house without her.  I can say this today because it’s been a good day–nothing chewed up beyond repair.  There are some days when all I can think is WHY, WHY, WHY did I agree to this.  I must be REALLY crazy.

Most days it’s just the usual.  Dog, cats, boys, dirt, shredded furniture, torn up trash bags, blood, stitches.  You know, another day in Mayberry.

Well, it’s almost 8:30 and my children are being a little too good.  I had better go do little checking before Sheriff Taylor stops by.

See you tomorrow, Violet

It has been so HOT around here lately that I would love to spend all day every day in this fountain.  This fountain is in downtown Charleston at Waterfront Park.  What a great way to stay cool. 

Charleston in August is hot and extremely humid.  Sometimes  walking outside can just take your breath away.  The heat hits you like a brick wall and doesn’t let up.  By the way, can you tell that warm weather is not my favorite?  Anyway…It’s really funny when you go outside during the day because my street looks like a ghost town.  There is not a single sign of life.  Our dog, Annie, won’t even go outside during the day.  We could leave our front and back doors wide open and she wouldn’t go near them.  It is so funny when I open the front door and call her name, she just looks at me from her spot on the couch under the ceiling fan like I have lost my mind.  It always reminds me of the line from the Christmas story …not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. 

Night is a different story!  As soon as the sun goes down we all start to crawl out of our little air-conditioned caves and rejoin the human race.  The adults move from porch to porch visiting neighbors while the kids ride bikes, play basketball, and generally try to get rid of all their pent up energy.  I am really lucky to have such great neighbors.  Take my word for it, I’ve had more than my share of not very nice ones in the past, but I’ll leave those stories for another post. 

Another problem with the heat is cooking.  I hate to turn on the stove during the summer.  You would think that I would do a lot of grilling to keep the kitchen cool, but that would require me to go outside.  In this heat, that is just not an option.  Instead, I mainly use my best friend, “Mr. Microwave”.  Truly one of the best inventions of the 20th century.

Well, it’s almost 5:00 and I should be in the kitchen getting creative.  Wish me luck and I will see you tomorrow.

Bye for now, Violet  

Thanks for reading what is probably the shortest blog post on record.

See you soon!  Violet