Land of a 1000 smokes

Living in the Great Smoky Mountains provides you with so much beauty no matter what the season. Our mountains take up an estimated 187,000 acres. According to Wikipedia, the name "Smoky" comes from the natural fog that often hangs over the range and presents as large smoke plumes from a distance. This fog is caused by the vegetation exhaling volatile organic compoaunds, chemicals that have a high vapor pressure and easily form vapors at normal temperature and pressure. 

That's the technical description of the mountains and why the name Smokies. However, I love the more mystical description of the Cherokee Indians who gave it the name of Shakonohey which translated means land of the blue smoke. It has also been referred to as the Land of 1000 Smokes. Some days when I am driving to work, it is easy to see why it has been given so many names relating to smoke. But no matter what you call it, they are absolutely the favorite part of my drive to work every morning. This was my view when I was about a 1/2 mile from work yesterday.

Have a great Monday!

Sunday's songs

Just some stuff...

After several years of saying I was getting a sea turtle ankle bracelet, I finally did from Wish.com. It was $1.00 and $2.00 shipping. I love Wish. It takes 3-6 weeks to get your order but at these prices I am glad to wait. It took 4 1/2 weeks but my darling sea turtle arrived this week. I am loving it.

Now to see if I can find this bracelet at a reasonable price. 

I think Hobby Lobby has some charms of sea turtles. I may go there soon and see what they have. 

Have a great day.

What a fun time....

Seven years ago this week, I took three of my grandchildren to a place called Circle G Ranch in Kodak, TN. It is no longer there but the memories of that day will linger on forever. For my Friday Foto Friends, I thought I would share some of the photos from that trip. 

The Circle G was a place fenced in on the outer perimeter but inside, the majority of the animals roamed free. They were mild mannered for the most part but their were quite a few nosey ones. Our favorite memory was the emu that kept coming up and looking in the window. Alexis started watching in our truck's rear view window and would yell "Emu Alert!" when one started coming near. She was only about 6 or so and it was so cute. We would roll the windows down and keep going. You drove real slow over some rough terrain because you never knew what was going to pop out.

There were a lot of pot bellied pigs who just roamed around wherever they wanted.

Some were inside fences and some weren't. This crazy llama and a young yak came right up to the window as well. 

There was a big water buffalo who did not want to get out of the middle of the road. After much honking, hollering and hanging out the window telling him to move, he step out of the way so we could go buy. The kids were laughing hysterically and I was thinking "Oh my gosh what have I gotten us into?"

As I am looking out one window, Garret turned around and said, "Uh, Mamaw, there's a zebra at my window. 

Up ahead was a whole heard of them so our windows went back up again.

Around the next bend I slowed down to a stop so we could look at some what I believe were called mule deer. As we were looking at the herd on one side, nobody noticed the one that was just standing at the window staring in. It was a little creepy. 

When we were going through ostrich territory, the car in front of us had their window down. The ostrich stuck his head in all the way over the to passenger side. I would have had a heart attack right then and there.

It was an amazing day. We did the drive through part then parked and got out for the petting zoo area and the domestic farm animals.

At one spot there was a rooster on a fence and Garret wanted my camera to take a pic of it. Turned out to be one of the best pictures ever so I framed it and it is still in that frame in my kitchen with all my rooster decor. Wonderful memories.

Need to get on the ball...

I was taking stock of my Pyrex last night to figure out what I need to complete some current sets. My three favorite sets are Town & Country, Autumn Harvest and Colonial Mist. Town & Country was made between 1963-1967. I have the mixing bowl set which is about the only set of mixing bowls that does not have the large 404 size bowl, it was just a 3 bowl set.

I do have the largest on the Cinderella set. But I need the three smaller sizes. 

The interesting thing about this set is that it was offered in two options. The one with medallions on each bowl like listed above and then one with the solid color smaller bowls, each coordinating with a color on the largest bowl. I don't know which one I would rather have the all matching or the solids, I am leaning toward the solids. Then again, I could just collect the three smaller bowls in both patterns so I would have the entire collection.  

My other favorite set that I want to complete is the Autumn Harvest set with the wheat pattern made in 1979 - 1986. I have three of these and they are very special to me. Allen bought them for me on our last vacation together before he passed away. We found the whole set in an antique store in Panama City for just $29 for the set. Usually sets like this go for $40-$60. I still need the largest 404 bowl featured in this picture. 

Colonial Mist was the last opal PYREX pattern ever designed before production ceased of Pyrex bowls as we knew them. These were made in 1983 - 1986.They are also the dearest to my heart because it was the very first pattern of Pyrex I ever owned. We had been married two years when they came out and Allen surprised me with a set of the Cinderella bowls. Over the years we had parted with them and then when I started collecting Pyrex he, with the help of family, and me making some trades got me another set of them. I will never part with these again. Then I started collecting the mixing bowls in the same pattern. This is what I have so far in that pattern. 

I still need the biggest bowl in the mixing bowls as listed below.

They also made the set with the alternating, white on blue and blue on white bowls. So it would be cool to find the two with the white back ground to intermix with my blue ones.

I am on a mission to find all the pieces in that pattern. This was the magazine ad they released to introduce this pattern. These were all the original items made in that pattern in 1983, but they made some other items in it over the following three years. Their Corning line launched these but they are still part of the Pyrex line.

I have never seen them, but I see online where Corning came out with the matching cups.

As well as the plates. Oh how I long to find some of these.

The only other two sets I need to complete are the original primary color bowls. I only have the yellow and it belonged to Allen's family so it goes way back. You see this set a lot but people want to sell the whole set and they generally run $70 - $125 and I'm not willing to pay that. I will keep looking and eventually I will find the smaller three. This is the set that most people respond with "My grandmother (or my mother) had that set." And yes my Mom did have a set.

And the last set I need to finish is the Friendship. I have the two smallest bowls but need to find the two biggest. 

So there you have it. Lots for my eyes to seek in the months ahead. Wish me luck.

Have a fun day today!

Weekend wrap up...

My granddaughter Shelby spent my two days off with me. One was on Sunday and she wanted to run up to the Douglas Dam overlook after church. It was a beautiful day to be there.

She was tossing around the idea of where to have her birthday party later this month and her Daddy suggested seeing what she thought about the Overlook. This was the pic I had to sent her Daddy to say she loved it!

Then we had to go to the Pavilion to see if it would be a good place to have a picnic. It's not decided yet because we don't know if it is rented out already. But as she said "It's a possibility."

No matter what they say, it was a great day to get a good picture of the lake.

We just vegged out the rest of Sunday except to go to choir practice. Then Monday we went with her other mamaw to Walmart and Dollar Tree. Nothing major purchased, but I did get one of the succulents at Dollar Tree. I got the one on the upper right side of this picture.

I had a plan. I like these but I saw friend plant a real one in a tea cup so that gave me an idea. I had a small vintage sugar bowl. I took the lid off and waa - lah! I got a cute little plant for my desk. 

I love the way it looks and the blue goes with the blue in my beach decor office. So I was very happy.

Between going to the overlook, being out in the heat and then getting in rain coming home from church, Shelby's natural curly hair ended up as "big hair". It's so pretty but that's a lot of hair. Both of my granddaughters have such thick beautiful hair. And the natural curl just does what it wants.

She was playing in the floor with her dry erase board last night and decided she wanted to be a dry erase artist. This is her picture she did. She named it "Bloom". She says she could be the first artist to draw on dry erase boards, take pictures of her drawings and sell them to become famous.

So all in all it was a relaxing couple of days off.