Exciting News

at least for me.  I've posted before about this wonderful, delapidated, desperately in need of help house here in Huntington that I have admired for years and wished that it could be saved by someone.  I know I posted about it back a year or two or three ago and posted pictures of it but, of course, I can't find that post.

Anyway, one of the "big" news items in the Sunday Herald Dispatch this morning at Starbucks was about that house.  I knew it had had some work done on it but today's article had some pictures and information about the history of the house and builder and was just a real good read for me.  I'm providing the link to the Herald Dispatch article and also to the foundation that was formed when the house was left to the people who started the foundation.  Hope some of you will take a look and if you're interested in preservation of landmark buildings, maybe even send in a small contribution.  We've always seemed to be a country that tears down it's buildings before they have a chance to get old!  But I think the National Register of Historic Places is helping slow that down,

The Herald Dispatch Ger
 The Foundation

I got myself over to the house today and took a few pictures and was so glad to see the progress.  The house had two or three additions  going out from the back of the house and they were very ramshackle and unattractive.  Those have all been demolished now which is great and the roof is new and not hanging here and there.  They've painted it and it just is wonderful to see it looking like someone has finally decided to halt its demise.

It's a shame the location is so poor but that's where it was built and I imagine once the original owner let it go, the property around the house got bought up for various commercial purposes.  

Not much else to report really - went to the grocery store yet again - I swear for being a one-eater household I sure spend a lot of time and money at that place.  When it came to thinking about dinner this evening I really couldn't get too inspired and looking in the fridge I discovered that I had put part of a chicken breast in a baggie and also had some of a zucchini and yellow squash sitting in there.  And I had just noticed yesterday that I had an unopened package of the fig goat cheese I love so much.  I also had brought home two half bottles (or whatever size they are) of Prosecco from my last visit to the kids and was thinking that would be tasty - nice and cold and bubbly.  So I got out a "special" plate and fixed up a smorgasboard I guess.  I chopped up the chicken, sliced the squash, marinated it in some olive oil with salt, pepper, garlic powder and some curry powder and then cooked it in my toaster oven. Meanwhile, I nuked a wee bit of broccoli florets, sliced up some of my favorite little tomatoes, put my cheese in a little "thing" and that and the tomatoes on a small sushi tray, then put everything together, added some very thin and crisp crackers,  poured out some Prosecco, and voila!

Dinner!  (sort of...)

and it was very tasty too.

A loaf of bread, a good tomato...

Had such a nice day yesterday I just had to mention it here.  It was a lovely morning for one thing.  Had a bit of condo business to attend to but thankfully, it was brief.  Decided to walk to a restaurant that I mentioned quite a while back - La Famiglia - a family run Italian restaurant with wood-fired oven pizza.  They also sell honest-to-goodness Italian meats and cheeses and I wanted some good parmesan.  Walked all the way up there and discovered it was hotter than I thought it was and also discovered they didn't open until 5:00 p.m. (it was 11:00 a.m.).  So no parmesan cheese, but I had already also decided that I'd also walk to Heritage Station to go to the River and Rail Bakery and The Wild Ramp so I did.

Once I got  there I checked in at the Bottle and Wedge too to see if he had any of "my" goat cheese with ground up fig in it and he did.  Then on to The Wild Ramp where I bought some tomatoes, red raspberries, a couple of very small onions (which is nice because if I get regular sized ones, I don't use them quickly enough), and something else that I'm forgetting.  Oh, and I also stopped at The Common Ground, a really neat gift-type shop with locally made things plus "finds" that the owner comes across and puts in the shop.  It's one of those "nice to poke around in" stores.

Then finally to the bakery where I figured all my walking had earned me a chocolate croissant which I haven't had in a long time.  Also bought two mini baguettes and a loaf of what she calls French bread which is an absolutely wonderful, crunchy-crusted, nicely browned, loaf that is big enough to slice for sandwiches.  The crust is sprinkled with poppy seeds and sesame seeds and I love this bread!!  In fact, I took a picture of it when I got everything home and decided to start eating.  Just wanted to make everyone jealous! :) 

Can't you just smell it?  Don't you wish you could just taste it?  Mmm, MMM, it's good!  It was late afternoon and I was hungry so had a strange but delicious light meal of this bread with a little cold, hard butter on it, one whole tomato sliced, a hard-boiled egg I had in the fridge, and some tuna I bought at the World Market where Chris lives that comes in an oval tin like herring or something and is thin little slices of tuna in olive oil.  All very delicious and, afternoon or not, I poured myself a glass of wine to go with it.  The tomato was finally a wonderful tomato - I had begun to think I might never find one again in my lifetime. 

And, of course, another nice thing about all this wandering around town was that I had nice visits here and there with various folks I've come to know so I came home feeling like I had visited with friends.  The bread and tomato was so good that later in the evening I had the remainder of my glass of wine with two more slices of bread (no butter this time), another tomato, but no egg.  And it was just as yummy.  Today, I had my standard ham and turkey lunch sandwich on the bread so I'm certainly making good use of it.

So, that's about it really.  I'll post the next pictures here cause I forgot to post them when I wrote about my visit with my kids after I took Sophia back home.  These were taken in January and Maggie's backyard where January has herbs growing that really made me green with envy.  They also have a little pond in their yard with koi or goldfish swimming around but I swear they know when you're there - I'd wait to see some and as soon as I lifted the camera to my face, they disappeared.  So a pond picture with no fish.

 An oregano "bush", sage, thyme and I think maybe rosemary on the left.

 And I've never seen sage leaves this big!

Fish or not, I think it's so neat to have this in one's backyard.  Of course, the girls do seem to get a lot of mosquito bites and this could have something to do with it.  But, pretty and peaceful, don't you think?

And now after all that food talk, I think I'll amble on down to our local frozen yogurt shop for a little treat.  It's called Tropical Moon and when I was in Virginia and Maryland, I noticed that these privately owned shops are popping up everywhere.  I visited two over there and they have a lot of the same flavors because there are just a few companies that supply the "mixes" for the owners to use in making the yogurt in their shops.  But of the three I've now visited, only mine has "Cable Car Chocolate" which is my favorite flavor.  And, yes, I'll probably weigh 300 pounds one of these days but...

The Ohio River shrouded in fog

Yesterday was a fairly dismal, grey, wet day - perfect day for staying in which I mostly did.  But I finally decided I'd go pick up some fig cheese at the cheese and wine/beer shop and get some bread from the bakery.  Not the best day for walking but...

I discovered the bakery was closed - I never can remember that they close at 3 on Saturdays!  So I figured I'd walk over to Starbucks for my little treat.  On the way I looked down towards the river and it was covered with fog.  I've seen that on lots of mornings - I'll look out the windows and there's just this big white "roll" of fog going down the river.  But this was almost 4:00 p.m.!  So I decided I'd go down for a better view.  I do love that river. :)

It was quite mysterious and eerie and so I had to take pictures which I now have to share.  Taking pictures of fog is probably a kind of hopeless task, but if you've seen some of my many other pictures of the river and the riverfront park, you'll have a good idea of how thick this fog was.  Anyway, here they are.

Entering the park - the river is, of course, between the row of trees and the hills on the other side and the fog is higher than the steep banks on both sides.

Even as close as I was to the planter in the back left, it's already somewhat shrouded from view.

If you look real hard, or maybe if your monitor is better than mine, you will see a very faint view of the 6th St. bridge going over into Ohio. 

And a few minutes later when I took this one, it's gone from view - at least on my old monitor.

This last one I took just to show the difference between close and distant.  This was pointing down in front of me, and going out away from me.

And I guess I'd have to say, in addition to loving the river, I also really enjoy weather.  Hope you enjoy the pictures and if you'd like to see what this pretty park looks like on a pretty day, you could try a label search using Ohio River (although you'd get snowy pictures, flooding pictures, etc.)

Look at the view from my windows!

This is what I saw yesterday late afternoon after an all-day overcast and lowering clouds type day.  And I was so elated cause I've been watching and hoping for beautiful fall colors this year because conditions seemed so perfect but nothing much seemed to be happening.  The green was getting less intense and the little trees in the bank parking lot lost most of their leaves (as usual) but no really great color.  And I swear, I really think the day before yesterday it was not this gorgeous. Of course, I think the setting sun finally breaking through helped make the colors really pop.  (p.s. - and I'm right - I just left the computer to go get something from the living room, looked out the window on a bright sunny day and the hills look kind of boring...)

 So, here is October in "almost heaven" West Virginia.

 Is this WOW, or what???

And that beautifully colored hillside in the background was just kind of dead looking green the last time I looked. :)

And since I'm already here, might as well post this picture of the outside of the library roombox, finally finished and all the mess of making it put away!!  No more cardtable in my bedroom.  I still have to do things like fill the bookcases and get the books to stay put, probably also actually glue the bookcases to the back wall, but I can do that kind of work without much mess or fuss.

I really love this paper.  And I figure with such a very serious and kind of elegant library, the paper reflects January's "inner child" or maybe just the fact that she is, after all, my baby. :)

And while I'm at it, I'll post pictures of the little progress I've made on my 40-count Chinese rug...

Here's what it looked like on June 11, 2011 ( last time I had worked on it!):

And here's what it looks like as of today (I started up on it again around October 5 I think):

I know it doesn't look like much, but it is slowwww going

And this is what it will/would look like if I ever finish it:

If I get that far, I think I may try and fiddle with the two big gold half medallions on the long sides - put a little orange and white into them somehow.  But overall, I think it's a very unusual pattern.  I've seen patterns that are newer that are much more intricate and "oriental" looking but this is based on the Chinese Ninghsia rugs (that spelling may be wrong) and I really like it - so bright and busy!

Just a Quick Note

You may remember that I was planning a trip to California with stops in at least Texas and Phoenix along the way last fall and that fell through.  Well, recently I've started thinking about it again and have been torn between doing that trip first and a trip to Europe second or vice versa.

Last week I was talking to a guy in Starbucks that I have chats with every now and then.  He travels a lot and I was telling him about my dilemma of "what to do, what to do?"  He wanted to know the reason for my trip west so I told him about visiting with my grade school best friend in Texas and having the chance to meet several other people I've become friends with on-line.  And...finally getting to see the sequoias and drive along the Pacific Coast Highway in California.

That prompted him to tell me that he had planted a sequoia tree in Huntington and also in Kentucky and Tennessee for that matter.  I just sort of looked at him dumbfounded!  And he said, "so see?  You don't need to go to California to see the sequoias!"  I said "but if you planted it, it certainly can't be very big!" and he said it was probably around 2 stories high now.  So after pulling my lower jaw up from the floor I asked for details, where it was, when he planted it, etc.  And the next day, boy, I went looking and sure enough - there it was!  So, yes, a sequoia grows in Huntington (to paraphrase a book title I read back in my youth).  And here's the picture to prove it.

I posted it in "extra large" size cause, after all, it is a sequoia tree!  My SB friend told me he thinks he planted it in 1991 and it was probably about 3 feet tall then.  I just think it's so neat that it's here in Huntington!  Makes me wish I could come back in 200 years and see if it's a giant.

UPDATE:  Got a nice note from Madison (the sequoia tree planter) with some more definite information:
"Thanks for doing the story about my planting of the Giant Sequoia tree. I did in fact plant it in 1991. It was no more than 2 feet tall then. I've planted them all over the region, and given them to others to plant as well.  During the Winter the Tree always looks dull and scruffy, but once the warm air and increased light of Spring arrives, the Tree will burst out in emerald green with new growth!"  Now that I know it's there, I will check it out periodically as the seasons pass...

And a TA-DA - I've added a new page (tabs at the top) for my favorite travel  books.  Since I've also been thinking about a European trip, I bought a Rick Steve's book the other day about Paris that makes me think the European trip will come before the "Go West, Old Woman" trip!  I love travel books and once I start to dig into them I'm rarin' to go!  So, I decided to set up a page to share some of my favorite travel books with you. I also ordered another book yesterday and will report on that after I've had a chance to look at it.

And when I was looking for my tree picture I came across this picture which I may have posted before but I sure don't remember posting it and I do love it so will post it now.  I'm thinking Chris probably took this on one of his visits here.  If he didn't, then he took one I had taken and really fixed it up.  This is the view from my windows looking at a side view of the "Tom Wolfe" house, a beautiful, old house on Fifth Avenue that is now used as offices.  I've always loved this house ever since I moved to Huntington and this picture of it is wonderful, I think.

Thanksgiving Day and I'm Waiting to Eat!

And it dawned on me I had never finished reporting on my sister's visit.  I guess the main thing to report would be that we did another letterbox search on Friday.  This one was in Ritter Park and involved three letterboxes planted by the same person.

It was such a pretty day compared to the day before.  Beautiful blue sky, lots of sun, but still quite chilly.  And this was a much easier quest than the Rotary Park one also.  I mean, we had to really search for the exact spot which is harder than it sounds, but it was all on level ground - no hills to climb and slide down.  We did find all three eventually and I have to say - it's just fun to have to follow clues and poke around here and there and finally...success!!

I took a fair number of pictures because Ritter Park is a beautiful area and it was a beautiful day and there were beautiful trees.  So here's my attempt to capture some of the beauty (oh, and we saw a deer right there in the park, but I wasn't quick enough to capture that).

Pictures of our first find of the three.  I didn't take pictures of the other two - I think Chinch felt like we were going to be stopped by the Letterbox Police at any moment or, if not, then at least by some passerby wondering what these two crazy old ladies were up to.

The second one was probably the hardest to find - the planter had done almost too good a job of hiding it.  The third one would have been relatively easy except for the fact that it was about two somethings (can't say what) beyond where the clue said it would be.  But we persevered and found them both.







The rest of these pictures are just some of the trees that caught my eye.

Aren't they just something??  And isn't that sky also something??  Same tree in both pics, by the way - just the one on the right shows it all the way to the ground...

This tree is really incredible - four huge trunks coming out of one base.  These were sycamores so they're that beautiful bright white which is so lovely against a blue sky.

This was so pretty because there were two huge white sycamores across the stream from each other.  Couldn't really get the white to show well, though...

The one on the right is basically the same place but we were on a little stone bridge so I got some of that in the picture ...


















And this last one we noticed on the way back to the car because of the way the two trees were leaning in towards one another.  Had a very friendly look...

So that was our Ritter Park day.  We went to Huntington Prime that evening for dinner and to have a drink up in the new 15th floor place only to discover that it wasn't open yet!  So that was a disappointment.  But all in all, it was such a very nice visit.

As I say, I'm still waiting to eat my Thanksgiving dinner.  This is my second year of staying here by myself for Thanksgiving and, like last year, I've gone whole hog with my dinner.  But I will report about that after I've eaten it. :)  I'm trying a new roast pork recipe and figure if I don't like it I have a whole 9" pumpkin pie I can fill up on!  LOL!!

On The Trail of a Letterbox

I've been having such a nice visit with my sister.  She flew into Charleston, WV on Tuesday afternoon and we've been doing a lot of talking, walking, and eating ever since.

At some point, she got into a "hobby" called letterboxing.  Don't know how many people are familiar with that - I had never heard of it.  But it's been going on since the 1800's apparently!   The way it works is someone leaves a "letterbox" sequestered away somewhere in the world and posts clues to its whereabouts on the internet site of the group he/she belongs to.  Other letterboxers can search that site for letterboxes that might be in their vicinity or in a place they plan to visit and then try and find them.  If you find one, you open it up and there's a little book where you put your stamp, where you're from, and the date.

So, before she came to West Virginia, Chinch looked to see if there were any letterboxes near me and, by darn, there were!  Yesterday, we had our first search and will do another one today.  Yesterday we had quite a hike up hills, through woods, etc., etc., pretty much freezing cause it was cold!

This photo on the left is where we parked looking back down some of the road we just drove up.  We were way up in the hills at this point.  In the photo on the right, Chinch is started up the stairs towards that observation tower above her.  We had some trouble following the clues to this point, but finally got ourselves on the right track.  From the tower, there were two or three more clues taking you to the point where you think the letterbox should be.  We had to poke around for a while, going downhill over here, back uphill and then downhill over there, and finally...

we FOUND it!!  It really is such fun when you find it - makes you feel very victorious.  And the best part of this find (aside from the fact that we could now go back to the car and warm up!) was that she was the first locator for this particular letterbox. 

So, after stamping and dating the book in the box with her stamp, she then stamps her "finds" book with his stamp.  When her hands are thawed out, she'll add a little note about the search.  I think this was her 22nd find and, of course, as an assistant, it was my very first find.  So, feeling quite chuffed, we started back, stopping at the observation tower to take a couple more pictures.

...a long view of the mighty Ohio River

and, a picture I took trying to give an idea of how high up we were.  If you find the word "here" in red, and then look beside that and above the little red line, that dark little blob is a car on the highway.

All in all, quite an exciting morning and quite a workout for the old legs.  I think the one we're going to try and find today should be somewhat easier.  It's somewhere in Ritter Park and from the sounds of the clues, should be on flat ground rather than up in the hills.  We shall see...

I'm curious, if this was being done back in the 1800's, how it worked.  The internet makes it easy to learn where a box has been hidden and to let the person hiding the box know that you've found it.  But back then, it seems like it would all have been kind of accidental - just sort of coming across one, entering your info in the book and then figuring that at some point the "hider" would be checking the box to see if anyone had found it.  My sister's letterbox group is called AtlasQuest and there's probably more information there on the history of letterboxing which I will read sometime.  Also, if this appeals to any readers, that would be a place you could visit to see if there would be any letterboxes in your area that you could try to find.