Meet Me in Marietta Monday with a Mug

Oops… It’s PM not AM and I’m finally posting Monday. It’s been a busy day, lots of phone calls, errands and White Tornado stuff. I’m working on the kitchen right now. That’s the toughest one to have done because it’s one of the rooms we use all the time, but the pantry cupboards are becoming wild confusion for the places I can’t reach. So, I’m recruiting my tall hubby to help organize those cupboards to have the less everyday things out of reach and the total everyday things, like soup, closer. I’m ready for lots of “shorty” jokes!


When I went out this afternoon I swear it smelled like summer! In fact, the record for the warmest day in Toledo history for March 19 was 78 degrees in 1921. Today it was 79 degrees at 6:00 PM! I’m happy to say I’m again part of Toledo history, but sad too. This winter was so awful for my flowers! This is only their second spring and perennials need the cold and snow to “rest.” Just like people need sleep to be their best. The crocuses bloomed way too early after our practically snow-free and mostly too warm winter and they just weren’t pretty like last year, not robust at all. March isn’t even over and the crocuses are all gone.

Friday - March 16, 2012

(Notice the withered remains of a purple crocus?)

Last year I took photos of the very first blooms on March 28. My gorgeous purple stripe crocus and the daffodils were in bloom April 10 and the rest of the narcissus joined in after the crocuses were done April 22. The narcissuses are all bloomed after yesterday morning’s rain and they just look weak compared to the photos last year. This is web-published, so feel free to come back to it and link me up to myself if I complain next January, but I really hope it’s much colder with a lot, a real lot, more snow. They say that after the nuclear winter there will be robust growth and there were definitely beautiful flowers after Snowmageddon!

Okay, there’s my crying over spilled petals. There will be fewer flower scrapbooks pages this year and the photos won’t show as much of spring’s splendor. I’ll concentrate on the older daffodils that predate me living here. They are more established and are much stronger on short rest!

April 10, 2011

Meet Me On Monday

And now I join the bloggers who share with Heather at Acting Balanced for Meet Me On Monday...only mine is Meet Me On Monday Night!

1. How do you like your eggs?
I prefer Egg Beaters, omelet style or as the Quichettes I talked about Friday. Oh those are so yummy! When I do get the mood for a yolky regular egg, I like them over medium, better if they’re overdone than underdone if it’s in a restaurant.


2. Who is the last person you spoke to on the phone?

David. Even though it’s his Sunday, he’s been monitoring the temperature for work so they can report it.


3. Do you have a place you keep 'junk' in your home?

Yes, our home. *See White Tornado Project


4. What is on your 'spring cleaning' list?

See answer for #3.


5. What blog post have you written recently that you'd like more people to know about? (don't forget to link it up)

I’ve actually been pretty happy with the hits to my blog since I started blogging daily during the week. I’ve become a regular reader of more blogs too. I don’t always comment but I still read. Although right now I have a bookmarked file I need to catch up!

If there is a post I wish had more attention, it’s The Main Event, from January 2009. It’s not so much that it needs attention, but I’d love to share it with my newer blog friends. It’s the post where I revealed to my cyber coffee shop regulars that I’d eloped.




Monday Mug Shot

Marietta, Georgia

When I was bound and determined to end up in Atlanta, Marietta was where I hoped to live. The visitor’s center is the old train depot and freight trains still run past it when you visit. I got to see a Piggyback train th3e first time I was there with my Mom in 1989. It was double cool because the construction company I worked for at the time got shipments of upgrade lumber from Canada via piggyback; semi containers already on the trailer ready to go from the rail car and be attached to a waiting truck. Yes, that was a vacation, but I liked trains anyway and it was an opportunity to see the headache I wasn’t having at work; “Piggyback, and I don’t care where it’s going!” They are very cool cars to watch!

I stayed in Marietta when I went to Atlanta on my own in 1990. That was the trip where I sat with a Headline News writer at lunch and talked. His advice to me was to enroll at Specs Howard Broadcast School when I get home and come back. I took that advice and a year later I was back. John came with me that trip because I had an interview with a production company in Marietta that did train videos and he wanted a trip with lil sis because I was about to become a 12-hour drive away and he wouldn’t see me as often. We stayed in the same hotel I had in 1990.

On the day of my interview, I drove John to the bus lot. He was going to go to Six Flags since I wasn’t a big theme park fan and he was, and I’d drive back after my interview and shop at Underground Atlanta a little before we met and got dinner in the city before we took the bus back to my car.

I thought the interview went okay. It would be a dream job, videoing trains all over the country as an assistant producer for the small company. I also knew I was really inexperienced and the job was a bit over my head as my first interview after broadcast school. When John and I met back up downtown I was excited to tell him about how the interview went. He had enjoyed Six Flags and told me about th4 roller coasters he’d ridden. He was 32 years old and put him near roller coasters and the inner child just blossomed! Then he gave me a plaque, which hangs on the open wall in our closet area today. There was a booth where you could get personalized plaques done and he had my very unusual name in wood letters next to a carousel horse, which I had a modest collection of at the time. SO perfectly me. It was to hopefully be my congratulatory gift. John always had more faith in me that I had, but everyone needs friends that can lift you up that way.

I called the company on Friday, just before we were leaving. I didn’t not get the job. They had done some number crunching and decided that the new position for which I had interviewed was one they would have to put on hold. They gave very positive feedback about my interview and welcomed me to keep an eye out because when they did decide to hire it, they’d post in the same magazine I’d originally gotten their address from and welcomed me to apply for it. They could have not told me where they’d post it and not said to apply. I took it as a good interview. I got a week’s vacation with a dear friend and one more week in Marietta.