February!

Jillian here. Can you believe it’s February already? Wow. It’s crazy how one week just blurs into the next. It seems like it’s always Thursday (why can’t it always be Saturday? 🙂 )

My life has been kind of limited lately. Work (my paralegal was out almost the whole month of January, so I was doing her work and mine–with help from my legal assistant- but it was still a lot), home, and taking care of a family member both at home and in the hospital. I am tired and wish I could sleep for a month but that isn’t going to happen. 😦

Funny how life seems to come in spurts- hard times seem to add more hard times, don’t they? And conversely, good times seem to multiply to bring more joy. Not much balance in my life right now– there are lots of good things, but the three a.m. bugaboos are getting the best of me. I’ve never seen so much of the wee hours of the morning than I have the last two months.

I did get a chance to go to lunch with a group of friends yesterday. The seven of us had a lovely visit and it was a much needed balm to my soul. And I had Brunswick stew which is one of my favorite things in the world. I usually eat salad for lunch but I wanted to treat myself a little and indulged. It was so yummy!

Last Saturday, I also got to judge the county history fair here. That is always fun and seeing the projects of our students is educational and enlightening. The middle school winner was based on the Clotilda. The last slave ship to America which was illegal at the time and the owner ended up sinking it to cover his crime. This is about 40 miles from where I live. It’s a shameful part of history but the families who live in Africatown are determined to make sure no one forgets about it. It is a thriving community today with the descendants of those slaves.

There are ongoing dives to excavate the wreckage and I recommend this documentary on it.

Here’s a cool picture I took of the bankruptcy court flag on my way home one day- love the early moon rise, too.

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Merry Christmas Trees from The Richards-DAR House

Jillian here. Happy December. As some of you may know, I am a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. My ancestors on that side of the family came over in 1690. We’re from the Gresham family in England with Sir Thomas and Sir John as two of our illustrious ancestors– they contributed greatly to the City of London. My ancestor, another Thomas Gresham, fought in Washington’s Army in the Revolutionary War. He was one of the brave souls at Valley Forge.

This past weekend, 14 members of my DAR chapter in Pensacola rode over for the Christmas tour of the Richards-DAR House. It is a beautiful home built in 1860 for Captain Charles Richards, a sea captain. It is 10,000 square feet of gorgeousness. It has a Baccarat crystal chandelier in the dining room and another in a bedroom, Carrara marble fireplaces and a cantilevered stair case, among other treasures and items of beauty. It’s now owned and maintained by the four DAR chapters of the Mobile area.

Since there is so much there, I decided to focus my post on the Christmas trees in the house this time of year. So, I am attaching those pictures here. To find more about the house, click here.

We had cookies and lemonade in the courtyard after our tour and then lunch at a local seafood place. An all around fun day full of love of history, Christmas and the company of friends.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.

Happy August

Jillian here. I’m looking around and wondering exactly where this year has gone. Can’t believe it’s August already. Zipping along through 2019 for sure.

My August started nicely with a fun wedding. As y’all know, I have two sons. I’ve been blessed with having one best friend of each of them work for me for a time while they were in college. One went on to be a lawyer (the older one) and the other one works in the governor’s office (the younger one). I like to think I had a little something to do with their successes, but that just may be my ego talking. Lol.

Anyway, the older one has been married a while and is the father of two adorable children. The younger one got married this past weekend. There was a a lot of laughter and love in the room. He’s Hispanic and his mother sang for him and his bride and also had some lovely Spanish dancers perform and there was a red ribbon they danced with and then wrapped around the couple. It was an interesting insight into their culture.

The mother of the bride was a different story. The bride herself is charming and shy and doesn’t say much. The mother offended a number of people by her rude behavior. Even my son, who thinks I overreact and see rudeness where there isn’t any, thought this lady was rude.

A number of people were walking down the entry hall toward the chairs set up for the service—we’d literally just walked in the door—and this woman starting yelling at us all to “Turn around, turn around. Stop right there and face the wall.” (Like we were bad schoolchildren).

Stunned, we did as ordered and in about a minute, she said, “Turn back around. The bride was in the area. You can do what you want now.”

I thought she was the wedding planner who was full of herself, but my son pointed out she was the mother of the bride. People talked about it all night. It was that weird.

Other than that, we had a nice time, some people overindulged in the wine which was kind of surprising. I’m always amazed that some folks take the risk in over doing it with no designated driver. Not that I’m preachy or anything, but that can lead to tragedy. It’s irresponsible.

The venue was the Mission San Luis. An interesting museum in Tallahassee that encompasses a lot of history of the state. They even have a virtual tour on line. Check it out if you have the time.

Here are a few photos. Oh, and the cake picture reminds me that I saved the groom from his first marital faux pas. The ladies cutting the cake asked him if they were saving the top and he said no and they could cut it. I told him he better check as they are supposed to save it for the first anniversary. He told me they didn’t have room in the freezer and turned to the ladies and told them just to save two pieces. I reiterated that he better go check and that he was no longer autonomous and had to confer with his wife. He returned a few moments later and told them to save the top. He hugged me for saving him.  😁

Happy March

Jillian here.  Today March 9 and a Saturday. Yay. This past week was crazy busy. Court for three days and one was an important trial and so I was very ready for the weekend.

I DID get to take part of the day off on Tuesday. I have a friend who lives in Indiana who is a charter bus driver. She brought a bus load of basketball players down near this area. She drives down and then hands the bus off to another driver as they are limited to the hours they can drive. She gets a rental car and so she visited a number of people she knows in the panhandle area. We took a ride out to our local lighthouse and had a seafood lunch. Lots of fun. And it was awesome to spend a few hours with her in a stress filled week.

Today, the husband and I went to an architectural salvage place about 50 miles from us (outside Mobile, Alabama). It’s very cool. I was looking for an old door to make a table from but eventually decided (they have 7 barns full of stuff) on a piece of iron to build the table around. It’ll be in the center. The guy there repurposes a lot of stuff into unique furniture and he had some he’d done with the wrought iron so I chose to go that route. I also got a small table to paint and add a chunk of granite that was left over from my new kitchen counters. It’ll be a side table. And I got a carved teak candleholder that weighs a ton. Here are some photos.

 

Of Writers’ Retreats and Friendship

I have a very dear friend who has an uncle with a house on a small lake a couple hours drive from me and twice a year, he allows her to use it and invite her writer buds over. These retreats are in March and October. I have been blessed to be invited by her to the last three. The ladies there, for the most part are nice and we get a lot done even amongst the laughter and eating. I’ve made what I feel are some lasting friendships with several of them.

Sadly, there is one who seems to be either harder to get to know or just doesn’t care for me. I fully own that I can be overly sensitive but I have a strong sense about people and what they are feeling as well. I have highly tuned empathic skills which means I can tell a lot about how someone is feeling and sometimes take on those feelings myself.

We arrived at the retreat on Thursday and from almost from the time this one woman arrived, she was all about being gruff and unkind to me. I tried to ignore her and put it on the fact that these ladies have been friends for a while and I am the new girl. On Saturday night when she came over and joined in a conversation that she was not part of, I was okay with it. But when I said something in that conversation and she told me to stop talking, I was pretty sure about her feelings for me. Then when she added, and I quote, “In fact, you can just leave.” I knew! You don’t have to hit me over the head, lady. WOW! I was flabbergasted to say the least.

I left the room and went on the porch in tears. Then I came back in and went to get my suitcase as I was heading home right then- never mind it was 9:30 pm and I had a two hour drive.

BUT the women in the group who love me gathered round and said they wouldn’t let me go. They led me out to the porch and talked for a long time until I agreed to stay until morning. I was so glad for their friendship and that they agreed she’d been incredibly rude.

When I came back inside, the woman (and I give her partial credit for this) came over and apologized. What I don’t give her credit for was saying she’d been teasing me with all the things she’d said over the prior three days. It was most assuredly not teasing and I think she knew I knew it- it was almost as if she was seeing how far she could push me and I did take it from Thursday afternoon until Saturday night. It was not the way I envisioned the weekend going.

Not too sure I’ll be going back but I am so torn as I love, love the other people. It would be like punishing myself if I don’t go. But I also don’t want to set myself up for that kind of misery again. It’s a conundrum that I have until October to figure out. What do you think? Am I being too sensitive?

The good news is that I got 8,000 words done in a new story. This one has pirates!!!

Happy March! Jillian

When they actually can hear you scream!

Okay, so November has sort of passed in a blur that is NaNoWriMo, but happy to say the end is now in sight and on the home run. Yay!

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience of NaNo and it seems to have had the desired effect of getting me back into the writing mindset. The story has absorbed me, and the best part of all, I’m enjoying writing again. But November hasn’t been all work and I’ve made time for some fun along the way.

Every month a nearby town holds a community theatre and movie night, which has turned into a girls’ night out. We four do the whole thing: popcorn, wine (for those who aren’t driving), ice cream and a shared box of chocolates. Last night’s movie was Me Before You which was really excellent. I haven’t read the book (being a happy-ending kinda gal) but absolutely loved the movie. Excellent acting, a good story, and although a sad ending it wasn’t mawkish. Highly recommended for those who might not have seen it.

We also had a theatre trip into Bath to see The Woman in Black. This was billed as being ‘the most terrifying live theatre experience in the world’ which, for those of us who love to be scared witless by such things, was impossible to resist. So off we went, the fearless four, armed with fortifying chocolate and comments such as “bet it’s not as scary as they say” and “whose idea was this anyway?”

The play was the stage adaptation of the movie of the same name and is based on Susan Hill’s story of a lawyer obsessed with a curse he believes has been cast on him. In the stage play, he employs an actor to help him exorcise his demons, but soon what is real and what is make-believe begin to blur with spine-tingling results.

One British newspaper gave the play five stars and said: “The atmosphere is so charged up that on more than one occasion, the entire audience screamed in terror”  Well, I read that with a little scoff…until I actually did. The play was spooky and I lost count of the number of times I jumped out of my skin. It was incredibly well acted, with excellent sound effects and visual aids. During one loud and blood-curdling scream which seemed to come from right behind us, we all instinctively grabbed for each other and yes, actually screamed right back. Since most of the audience were engaged in a kind of hushed nervous laughter, I don’t think we were alone in that.

So, two hours later we emerged, a little shell shocked and with the chocolates still in their unwrapped state. Testament indeed to a good night had by all.

 

(n.b. apologies for the formatting of this post – did something wrong somewhere and couldn’t work out how to get it back to normal!)

Late Again!

Jillian here. I was supposed to blog yesterday but never thought about the date since it was Sunday. I’ve never really blogged on weekends so it slipped my mind that it was my day. Hope everyone is having a great … Continue reading →

September

I love September, the colours, the early morning chill which often turns to warmth midday and cool evenings. The song  Autumn Leaves,  especially Nat King Cole’s version, expresses my feelings about autumn which has become favourite of mine over many years ago and a newer version by Andrea Bocelli conjures more recent memories.  There is an underlying sadness but also positive tones in the words.  A must do for my family in September is to go blackberry picking, make a pie but also freeze some berries for Christmas.  It has become a tradition with my son’s and daughter’s families which Peter and I keep too.  Recently we had a session over our local fields which have a bumper crop of sweet, succulent berries this year.  It has been important to keep to these rituals for me as my summer months have not been as I anticipated, autumn and winter look set to follow a similar pattern.

I began a personal journey in June this year when a breast abscess developed in my left breast. Subsequent tests revealed early cancer cells too so early in July I had a biopsy followed in August with an operation to remove the cells, abscess and two lymph nodes. Tests showed all was clear.  September is a rest period of sorts waiting to begin radiotherapy in October.  Hopefully just after Christmas I will get the final all clear. I have been helped on my journey by family, friends, especially tremendous medical care and support which is ongoing.  People I have met along the way have been truly inspiring. Lots of humour has smoothed some difficult times but I feel so LUCKY. Odd word some may think but if I had not had the abscess the cells would not have been discovered until next summer when I was due a mammogram, there was no indication that anything untoward lay hidden away. So dear friends please have regular medical checks and scans.  I wasn’t going to write a blog this month or talk to you about this journey but I realise how much help I have had and want to share what a positive experience I am having.  Not everyone is so lucky I know.

Tricia recommended a book called Show Me by Laurie Ryan, yes our Laurie, which is so positive and well written, though poignant even sad at times it made me feel positive myself.   Tricia has been one of my mainstays through this process but the main thing we do is laugh!  Books, Music and the odd glass of Prosecco have been companions too and your blogs.  I do not want this blog to be depressing and hope you all understand that my journey is very different from other people’s experiences.  One thing I have learnt is that we are all different, react differently to situations but a smile along the way helps so much.

Enjoy September in your own ways but keep smiling.

Free at Last, Free at Last!

Jillian here.  The case that has been absorbing my life for the last nine months went to trial today and it is over!! Praise the Lord. I am so relieved. It has absolutely been a nightmare and many nights I have gone home too wiped out to even function much less keep up with my friends and loved ones at home and on the web.

I plan to be able to do a lot more commenting and being supportive than I’ve been able to lately and hope you can all forgive me for being lax and preoccupied. I really didn’t intend to fall off the face of the planet.

And yes, before you have to ask, I won. My client prevailed on everything and I am so very glad that he’s happy with me and my work. He really, really, really wanted to settle the case for some ridiculous amount of money to make it go away and I kept telling him no. He FINALLY let me loose to do my thing and came out better than that settlement.

I made him repeat after me after court, “I will trust my lawyer. Always.”

My adrenaline level is off the charts and I can’t even focus on anything- I am so relieved this is over.  I have my life back!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy September!

 

It’s Ladies’ Night by Valerie J. Patterson

It’s ladies’ night!  Oh what a night!

Last month I invited the ladies from the office over for a little dinner and some poker.  I expected it to be a good night.  I expected us to have a couple hours of playing cards, eating, and talking.  I expected everyone to have a good time.

I was wrong…

It was a great night!  It was several hours of non-stop laughter and shenanigans!  And everyone had a fantastic time!

I can’t wait to do it again!

Oh my!  Put five ladies in a room together, add a deck of cards, some poker chips, food, snacks, wine, and dessert [and a charming male who makes intermittent appearances throughout the evening] and you have the recipe for an exceptional evening!

We ate.  We played poker.  We ate again.  We played poker.  We ate again.  We played more poker.  We talked about everything under the sun, laughed at ourselves, discussed work for perhaps 30 seconds, and then went straight into carrying on again.

Did I mention we played poker and ate?

It’s good to get together and get away from the stress of the job, the worries of the family, and just relax and laugh and share…and be with other women who understand that we all need to escape once in a while, let our hair down, and be completely at ease being who we are individually.

The time passed so quickly that evening, but oh my how fun it was to be there in the midst of it all as one of the gals!

Until next time, may you gather your friends together, laugh until the cows come home, and play a little poker!