Category: Random

Posted in Random, Sunday Report

Ten years later…

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

Watching an interview with a 90-something-old Walmart greeter, I snorted when he said, “you should never retire, or you’ll rust”… I’ve read some AARP articles that imply the same sentiment: Don’t relax or you’ll lose your edge.. I completely disagree with these opinions, possibly because I’m not metal and I never had an edge.

What I did lose when I retired 10 years ago was a whole lotta stress and worry. Even nurses who love their jobs feel the strain of their responsibilities, and I did not love my job.

What I did gain when I retired 10 years ago, has been nearly 20 lbs., but more importantly, I have peace of mind (which has obviously made me hungry). As for the rusty part, we take our role as stewards of these acres pretty seriously, and that keeps us well-oiled.

Looking back at these first 10 years of retirement, I’m pleased with how well we adjusted to living together, just the two of us. We had four years of trailer-trippin’ with our dream RV, and another four of gallivanting in Goldie. We’re active in the lives of our grandchildren and present for our children. We’re Disney World Annual Passholders. There’s plenty for Casey to fix around this house. I’ve always been a housecat, and I curl up and read a couple of books a month. I play the piano nearly every day and learn new pieces often. I write a blog weekly. I cook supper dang near every evening. Naptime is 2pm. Maybe I’m being a little defensive?

I have to admit that there are days when I feel absolutely worthless, days when I consider getting a job, but I’ve heard they put you on their schedule and I’d prefer to put them on mine. Then there’s the inevitability that I will have to quit and that is a whole Bad Mood waiting to happen. No, thanks, I’ll keep my Peace of Mind…and my appetite…

Anyway, I’ve been writing a flurry of words this week, and I’m nearly done with a story about my Grandmother’s Family, spanning 1818-1918. Blogging has trained me to keep it short, so it has been a blast to just keep writing for 100 years. The “end” of the tale is too hurried, though, and I need to fill that in. It is a long read, (and getting longer) and I’m thinking I should break it up into chapters. Would you prefer a 20-minute read or four 5-minute reads? For reference, today’s report is a 3-minute read. Let me know what you think.

These are the rather dull lull weeks just before we find ourselves in the Holiday Frenzy. I am starting to plan our Christmas activities, and it seems Samantha’s up for The Nutcracker and Peppermint Pops this year. Anybody out there want to meet me at Handel’s Messiah (Trinity UMC)? We’ll be in NYC for Christmas Day and that’s always a treat.

But right now, the Autumn leaves continue to paint an awesome mosaic of yellow, gold, red, ever changing with the wind. I’m going to corral some up to cover my perennials. I hope this involves the sound of scrunching..

Peace

Posted in Random, Sunday Report

Rained Out

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

It was a soggy week here at Sonnystone. I’m personally sick of it, and even the gardens seem over it. Despite the assault of storms, we made our way through a fairly mundane 7 days – time with Samantha, hair appointment with Dusti, monthly phone call with Kathy. Now, we are ready for something Fresh!

Eliza and her mother will be here by Wednesday evening and the Fun will begin. The rains are supposed to recede and we’ll put our pool up for floating and frolicking. Ellis Park will be dried by next week-end, so we’ll have a Day at the Races. Eliza is demanding Orange Chicken from the Mall food court, so it had better be there. They will be here until August 1, when we’ll head up the road to Ohio for the Columbus Feis and the Dublin Irish Fest. Sooo excited!

We’ve kept most everything propped as relentless rains pelted down, and that’s about all we can do. I’ve harvested and am still harvesting tomatoes of all sorts and green beans are plentiful.

After I talked smack about the squash and the bell peppers, they decided to give me some fruit…

My poor Peace/Bird Garden is simply saturated. It looks a little tired overall, but if you focus on the blooms, they are bursting with energy!

We’ll be finishing up the preparations for our company these next few days. I would love to hear from any of my dear readers who might want to meet up with us. Let me know! You know how to find me…

Peace

Posted in Random, Royal Family

Just one more thing…

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

I’m picking up the Jr girls at 11 and we’re off to the mall and other adventures, but I just have one comment on the Platinum Jubilee and the Royal Family…

Harry and Meghan are seriously mental and their decision to leave the Royal Family was based on the belief that they would be able to make more money by capitalizing on their association with them — note she still calls herself a Duchess. When that didn’t materialize and Prince Charles cut them out of his payroll as Duke of Cornwall, their revenge interview with Oprah was full of lies — 17 of them proven to be outright porkies. The Queen’s response that “recollections may vary” is as close as it gets to the RF calling them out. They filed several lawsuits, one against the Queen’s own government for extra security, and refused to come to Prince Philip’s funeral, further hurting Her Majesty.

But they still play off of their royal connection here in America where they maintain a fan club who call anyone who despises them like I do a racist. I hate that and it’s hurts the cause of fighting true racism in our country and the UK. They are seriously unpopular in UK, and disliked by about 67% of Americans, last poll…

Still, they continue to pull stunts like her showing up in Uvalde the day after the shootings, like she represents anybody or anything other than Narcissism. She truly makes me sick.

I’m not going to defend Harry, but he’s very mentally unstable (a fact that the RF covered up for years) and I believe he is abused by her at the same time that he preaches at the rest of the world to get help… And did he Ever acknowledge the Queen’s Jubilee and Thank her for her service — no…

So they got their come-uppance at the Jubilee. They had not coordinated with the Family regarding plans for the many engagements that Senior Royals were attending (Princess Anne was in charge). They did not bring their children to the Trooping the Colour when they could have met all their cousins and Aunts and Uncles, instead having a “birthday party” for their daughter-with-the-stolen-name on Saturday when All of the other Royals were either in Wales, the Epsom Derby, Northern Ireland, and Cornwall — arrangements made well in advance of the Harkles decision to attend.

About that decision: HMTQ ordered them to let her meet her great-grandchildren and they were informed that there would be No Pictures of the event, though it appears there was an official Royal Photographer present to take pictures that Belong to The Queen, not for commercialization. They actually tried to bring in their own photographers, even after being Told not to — that’s who took the pictures they released today.

After they were booed at St. Paul’s on Friday, and seated far away from the Senior Royals, they disappeared, unable to face the public. That’s the smartest decision they’ve made in a while–or was it mandated to them?

Since all the families were present in the room where they made their cameo appearance alongside the Tindall and Phillips children, it must have been icy in there. The next morning they were summoned to see Prince Charles before heading out to St. Paul’s and I believe it was him who let them know they should stay home for the rest of their visit. If you watched as closely as I did, you would see the cousins Blank them at St. Paul’s.

Anyway, today a photo was released of their daughter and she’s a cute little thing, but poor Archie hasn’t been seen full-face in years now… I’m sure they’re jealous that All the other Royals brought their kids and had a great time at the Party and the Pageant, so could hardly wait to get back to America and get their PR machine rolling again — and the darling little girl is certainly a palate cleanser.

I feel so sorry for Archie and Lily…they could have been part of that rambunctious group of cousins, just like Harry was when he was growing up. When will Harry’s therapists finally convince him that living with a narcissist is unhealthy for him and the kids?

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I gotta go. Just wanted to put my 2cents worth in…

Peace

Posted in Random

It was the 3rd of June,

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

Another sleepy, dusty Delta day…mama hollered out the back door, y’all, remember to wipe your feet!
And then she said, I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge
Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Where were you when you got the news? It was 1967 and ever since I heard I’ve wondered just what happened.

Bobbie Gentry, who wrote and performed the song, said regarding what happened at Choctaw Ridge: “I left it open so the listener could draw his own conclusion.”

The song was #3 on the Billboard Charts for 1967 which explains why it is ingrained in our brains; it’s a good song, but disc jockeys must have been playing on a loop to win out over songs like Light my Fire, Groovin’, Soul Man, and even Respect! Bobbie Gentry quit performing in the 70s, so we could consider her a 1-hit wonder, unless you give her this loophole: She wrote “Fancy”, copied by Reba McIntyre in 1990, which has brought her millions in royalties over the years — more than she made off of the Ode.

Just thought you’d want to give a thought to Billie Joe McAllister today…

I’m still watching The Royals, the Party goes on!

Peace

Posted in Random

The Sunday Scoop

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

IWe had our first snow of the year on Thursday! Accompanied by bitter cold, I was snug as a bug in a rug, watching the birds flock to the feeders.

Just the day before the temperatures dropped, we had to spray the house for fleas! Our venerable cat, Wink, had been declining ever since our return from Disney World in October. We noticed he was scratching and licking himself a lot, but mostly that he was just sleeping all the time and stalking me, meowing to be rubbed and petted constantly. I thought it might be dry skin and old age, but after a couple of weeks I got some flea bites on my ankles and raised the alarm. We were still unsure and a bit afraid to spray him when he was doing all that licking, so we got him a flea collar, but he continued to seem skinnier and more lethargic. He’s 17-years-old, so it’s easy to blame old age and we did. However, Casey finally got some flea bites and took matters to hand. We put the Winkster in the laundry room and bombed the whole house, then sprayed him down real good. He’s a new man and back into trouble, knocking over plants trying to get to the birds outside. I figure he’s got several more years in him…

I’m in a quandary regarding my Trip in June for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. I seriously don’t want to miss it, but if UK keeps its quarantine requirements in place, I don’t know. This trip has been cancelled and rescheduled three times since I originally booked it in 2019. All of the $$, both hotel and airline charges, have been credited to me, so the money is spent and I want to use it. I’m going to contact the hotel, Queens Gate in Kensington, and see what they recommend. I am so over the Covid — still wearing my mask, ready to be boosted prn, practice social distancing, but we have to learn to live with the fact that we might get sick. I suppose that if HM The Queen can show up for the Jubilee, then I definitely should, but quarantining for two days of a 5-day trip doesn’t sound fun.

Casey has an abscessed tooth and is as lazy as Wink right now. That’s rare, so I’m enjoying it…for a while. We’re starting Phase I of a kitchen remodel, so he needs to rest up and get back to it!!!

Hope your next week is a good one!

Peace

Posted in Random

The Sunday Scoop

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

It seems like forever since I bid you adieu. It felt like a good time to step away from the entire internet thing, go outside and clear my mind of the slime. I hoped to bring myself back to earth, focus on the Now. So I did, sort of.

It was late August when I changed my ways and I threw myself into the garden harvest, as well as pruning and moving shrubs around. By mid-September we were able to pull away from it and take a trip.

Casey has been steadily improving our campervan, Goldie, so we were anxious to take her on the road and try out our new canopies and storage. The Smokies is one of our go-to places, particularly Townsend, TN, “the peaceful side of The Smokies”; it’s only a 6-hour drive and it sits at the Cades Cove Entrance to the National Park. I managed to snag a riverside campsite for a couple of nights and we tooled on down, even though we knew that it was going to rain. Rain it did, damn near the entire time we were there. Because we were able to set up during a dry spell, it was a great test of our new awnings. It rained and rained and rained some more. We spent most of our time sitting watching the Little River flowing around the rocks, changing with every downpour. We watched squirrels and birds and walked around the campground watching people when we could. The last evening the skies began to clear, revealing a full moon rising above the mountains. The next morning the sun slowly rose in the same spot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hXoAMeGVfo

It’s always nice to come back home even if the trip is short and we got busy with the garden again. We’ve put a rock path from our Edible Garden to the firepit. The view is still weird since our neighbor dug a pond last summer and it’s only half full. By mid-October we were done, so we traveled down to Disney for bit. It was an impulsive trip, trying out something I’d been mulling for a while. We spent two nights camping in Goldie at Fort Wilderness and then moved over to our “home” motel, Pop Century; doubtful we’ll do that again as you lose a day making the move, even though they are only 15 minutes apart. From Fort Wilderness you can take a quick boat ride to Magic Kingdom; we wanted to see the new Castle Wrap and Fireworks. We had some inside information that Disney allows 100 people to watch the show from the top of the train station and we managed to be the first people up there! The next day we moved over to Pop; from there it’s a 15 minute skyliner ride to Epcot where we rode the new Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure (very cool). We’d never been over to the Boardwalk, which is just a nice boat ride from Epcot’s exit. It was lovely. As we returned, the full moon rose over Epcot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD2DuYS1Qv0

All this time, I missed the blog. I did publish some genealogy stuff and have done a lot of research (so much for staying off the internet). I started planning a comeback a couple of weeks ago, hoping to give the site a whole new life, but was feeling a little shy. This is it, though. I’ll just upgrade my media space and slowly work on deleting any unnecessary photos and Sonnystone.com ought to be good for another ten years… We’re back!

Just in time for the holidays…

Peace

Posted in 2020, Random, Spring at Sonnystone

Sunday Rerun: Derby Days

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

Finishing up the Loooooooong month of April was quick…!bam! it was the First Saturday in May, aka Derby Day in the Casey Family.  It was the Best Weather for a Derby we’ve had in years, but No bets were placed, no hats were donned, and no Juleps were consumed.  We did tune in to watch the Virtual race of past Triple Crown winners, won by Secretariat with Seattle Slew right behind.  With the Derby rescheduled for early September, we’re still a bit leery of the idea of such a large group gathering, but it would be nice…

Instead of preaching to you about wearing a mask (please do) and physical distancing (stay 6 feet away from me), I want to relive the Kentucky Derby…

Here’s a rerun of reruns from the 2018 Derby!

 

Finally free of complaints — incision is healed, foot is okay — yesterday we got out into the (new) garden… It was a beautiful sunny day and I was overjoyed to be outside.

Read all about it!

Peace…

Autumn Garden Journal #1

Posted in 2019, Camp Sonnystone 2019, Random

Camp Sonnystone 2019: The Movie

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

Our Theme for Camp this year was Magic and we’ve had Ten Days of Magical Fun…

 

 

It’s a Magical Life…when you can find Magic in Every Day…
Magic in an everyday night…Magic in an ordinary Life…
Peace