The Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster has joined forces with Columbia and Wrightsville to do a historic tour of 20 homes. Mine is included in the tour. It’s October 8th. Come join us and see what our blood, sweat and tears have gotten us…and 19 other people, too!

http://www.hptrust.org/calendar.php

We are all recovering from a full weekend of painting. What an awful job!! Thank God for paint sprayers… what a blessing in disguise on wheels.
Yesterday when I was getting out of bed, I realized that patients who had been telling me for years “Don’t get old, it hurts” really had some wisdom in those words. Your back doesn’t forget anything! It’s been screaming for mercy for 2 days now. I’d love to stay in bed past 8 am tomorrow but no such luck. Poor Tony has to feel worse. He did much more work than me. I promised myself I wasn’t going to whimper at all this w/e but an hour before calling it quits I finally said “I can’t roll with that huge roller thingy!!” I felt like my head was going to roll right off of my shoulders…. those ceilings are soooo high and far away.
Thankfully, we are truly in the home-stretch. The brand new concrete sidewalks (a real source of contention for me) are being repoured tomorrow.
The granite was to be delivered tomorrow but some poor soul dropped it and it cracked and broke in half. The shop owner called me today and apologized profusely. Jose, just add it to my list of chronicles for this book I’ll write called: Never build a reception hall unless you own the town, the land, the state and all of its people.

Here’s a link for the party pics.
http://www.pictage.com/event.jsp?event_id=224070
Courtesy for Conte Photography - who did the photography for the evening.

The party was a huge success and I definitely had a great time. - I think from the pictures you can see everyone else had a good time, too…. or maybe the Martini Luge was what was making them smile.

Everyone was really helpful and I met some really good contacts and vendors for future engagements (no pun intended).

I hope you like the decor…. especially the lounge… it was my favorite. My vision was met with the rental company, he did a great job. Telepathy works wonders. I just love when my vendors acquire telepathy from me…

Thought I’d post a link to the photoshow.
http://www.photoshow.net/perfectsettings
Just copy and paste the link onto your browser…. Loretta!

The Susquehanna Style Magazine article featuring Tony and me (and even the dog, Pebbles) is finally on newstands.
As soon as I get a copy for myself I’ll scan it here.
The article is called “If Walls Could Talk” - actually if they could, they’d say we were nuts.
www.susquehannastyle.com

One heck of a week it’s been!
On Tuesday it finally happened…. Whit moved out and we helped her move in at College. I cannot tell you the sadness that overwhelmed me when it was time to go. As I was swimming in denial (all day) I knew the time would come that I’d have to say good bye but I kept packing those feelings down. She said good bye to her Pop first…. and I thought I was ok until she turned to me and I saw that she was crying. UGH… I couldn’t pack the feeling down any longer and Niagra Falls needed out. G’ Lawd, I couldn’t stop crying and my son (God love him) had never saw me cry like that and he must have thought I lost my mind. I could tell he was nervous and I was making him anxious.
On the way home I couldn’t turn the faucet off (or like Tony says “put the onion away”). I felt bad for Whit’s friend that was riding home with us b/c I couldn’t stop crying let alone speak. When we got to Ephrata, off of the PA turnpike, I thought; “Ok, I can keep it together now” but all of a sudden another wave came over me and I sobbed harder than I did when I left her. Of course this all surprised me - as it did Tony - we were expecting Tony to do all of the crying. My excuse was I even cried when I sent my kids off to Kindergarten.
Wednesday I was emotionally drained. The public doesn’t need to know this when you are working for yourself…. sooooo …. on goes the Emmy Nominated personality and you keep your emotions in check…. ALL DAY LONG.
Thursday…. Good Lawd, Thursday. I prepare myself to have my Mother-In-Law come over for dinner. This is an all day process - emotionally. If anyone knows me, they know that my Thursdays are Market Day. Our town’s Market House is open and I really look forward to going to Market if for nothing else, seeing townsfolk. At any rate, I never made it to market. Instead, I go to run errands and come home and start cooking. When my MIL gets here she wasn’t feeling well and really didn’t want to talk…. hmmm. Ok. Long story short? We have dinner (that was too spicy for her) and she starts having a nicotine fit - she thinks Tony doesn’t know that she smokes - that’s another story - she starts getting anxious and wants to go home. We’re going down my steps and the cigarettes must have been calling her name b/c she starts to really go down those steps. I look down just in time to see the bottom of her feet in mid air and she slams her head on the last step. I think she misjudged how many steps there were and thought she was on the landing. I scream at the top of my lungs…. I mean scream. I could have been a sound over for a Friday the 13th movie - I couldn’t believe the sound came from me! I run down the steps and she is clearly not focused. My son comes running…. and we are all hovering over the MIL. We head off to the ER (it’s 7:30pm) clearly knowing that that bump on her head meant something since she shook the whole staircase. But she kept complaining about her leg and how much it hurt - she never hit her leg! At the ER there’s not a soul in the waiting room - thank God, I think - and they take us back right away. The Dr. who is appointed to her comes in and asks “how long have you had that cough” but then the Dr. starts hacking worse than MIL’s smoker’s cough. They send her back to radiology. In comes the Sister in Law…. NOT a good thing since her and me grew up together and we find humor in the simplest of things. She asks me “how’d she fall down the steps” - with a smirk on her face… I tell her the grave story. Tony starts chiming in about how MIL was running down the steps and wouldn’t let him help her down…. the giggling starts….I see a childhood friend and go over to extend my sympathies over a dieing family member and she gets up and hugs me soooo hard that my back cracks from my shoulders the whole way up to the cranium! I think “she cured my neck kinks”. I go tell Tony and SIL … more giggling… and it didn’t stop for 3 more hours. They roll my MIL in and her daughter dutifully talks to her mother. My MIL is 4′ 8″… I put her shoes in her purse and they fit like 2 little cell phones…. when my SIL asked where her shoes were I opened the purse and showed her and she about had a coronary trying not to laugh. We were just delirious. It was approaching 1 am. The Dr. comes in an announces that the CT scan of MIL’s head is fine but she broke her leg. SHE BROKE HER LEG!! UGH… of all flippin’ people.
I can go on and on about the night…. my MIL was hating the 3 of us… we just couldn’t stop laughing. We all were up that morning at about 8 am and we were there until 2:30 - clearly we were all sleep deprived and we had the sleepy laughs. We got home at 3:30 am - it was one long night.
I announced to Tony “I’m going to sleep like a rock”… especially since I knew I wouldn’t have a kink in my neck the next morning….
Friday my phone starts ringing at 8am… I’m on deadline for the Knot Party…. “PASS THE COFFEE” I demand and start answering phones.