Around Our Neighborhood

The Sloane Family built a residence known as Tanglewood in 1860 in Pendleton, South Carolina. It was destroyed by fire in 1908 and rebuilt in 1910. The rebuilt home was a classical colonial mansion. The house remained in the Sloane family until 1950 when it was sold. The home again was destroyed by fire in 1970 leaving the three chimneys, the original columns, and the basement.

The three chimneys accommodate three fireplaces each; two for the upper floors and one for the basement level.

Entrance

Chimneys & Columns

Basement Level

The property was sold to the local government for a new library which appears on the left in the first pic.

(Click on photos for detail.)

Missed Opportunities

The last few weeks have been very busy for us. The grandchildren have been involved in sports. At times, we have had three games scheduled on the same evening. This past Saturday Owen had a game at 10:30 am and Cole had a double header scheduled at 1:00 pm in a different city. They played one nine inning game and one seven inning one. We didn’t get home until 8:00 pm.

Levi’s touch football is over, and Owen’s last game was last night. He may make the All-Star team though. Cole is  just beginning his summer baseball season. They have to wait until all the high varsity teams has finished.

I’ve missed a lot of blog fodder while cheering the grandsons on. I missed the whole Donald Trump president thing. (He was surprised that people had such disdain for him?)  I’m not even going to get into the tea party candidates or others who want to do away with Social Security and Medicare. Just wait until their children have to start to contributing to Grandmother and Grandfather’s living expenses. They may decide that Social Security wasn’t such a bad idea.

Now the religious leader who predicted the Rapture is saying he miscalculated again. (He “miscalculated” once before.) To tell you the truth, I was a bit taken aback when the horrible tornado hit Missouri. Anyway, now he predicts the cataclysm for the fall.

I also missed commenting on the royal wedding. No, I didn’t get up a 4:00 am to watch, but I couldn’t help but see bits and pieces of the spectacular. Her dress was very nice, and the prince looked like a prince. What was the young princess thinking with that hideous thing stuck on her head? I read that The Wiggles were bidding on the hat. I haven’t figured that one out yet.

Then there was the story, or maybe I should say “no-story,” of the mother injecting her 8 year old daughter with Botox before pageants. First there were pictures, and then the mother said it was a hoax. Huh?

I’m sure that as the presidential campaign season continues there will be ample opportunity for me to be snotty, snide, catty and sarcastic. I’ll try not to overdo it.

Warning! Gross Stuff Follows!

Mr. Fixit and I have always had “unusual” conversations at times due to perhaps language problems, inattentiveness, his hearing loss, and my general weirdness. It seems to be getting worse as we age.

Today he asked me if I wanted to go with him to get his hair cut. I said I would go along for the ride, but I would wait for him in the car and read. “Give me a minute to change clothes.”

“Why do you need to change clothes if you are going to sit in the car?” he asked.

I said, “If we have a car accident, I want to be wearing clean clothes. Didn’t your mother ever tell you about that?” His response was a roll of his eyes. I guess his mother forgot to give him that sage advice.

I changed into a pair of light blue jeans and a matching shirt. As we started out the driveway, I noticed a dark spot on my jeans. “Darn it! There’s a spot on my jeans and I wanted to wear these to the ball game tonight.”

He said, “It looks like a booger.”

I replied in my best offended and self-righteous tone, “I’ll have you know, I never wipe boogers on my pants.”

He said, “Maybe you sneezed and a booger flew out.”

“I never sneeze out boogers—a little snot maybe, but not boogers.”

Recent Daytrip

Last Saturday Mr. Fixit and I took a drive to Cherokee, NC. It’s about a two and half hours away.

As we passed through Rabun County, GA, we saw a few signs of the recent spate of tornados.

The big tree in front of this house fell over and the roots ripped the front of the house away from the main body of the house.

We saw a number of trees down, but I was taking pictures from the moving car. This is the best of the lot.

There are a number of gem stores in that area. You can “pan” for gems, buy crystal jewelry, or simply buy chunk crystal. We saw these outside a jewelry shop. Some of the crystals are opaque, most of translucent, and others are transparent. I’m not sure if the opaque ones are actual crystals; I don’t know much about the subject. I do know that they are beautiful. I missed taking a picture of the opaque, what I would call “lipstick red” ones. There were many more colors than shown here.

(Click on photo for more detail.)