2024 So Far

Hello Friends, how has your week been?  Mine has been quiet -- and cold.  I wanted to share a few miscellaneous things with you all.     

         First of all, Hal's parents have sold their beach house at Oak Island, and while I'm not really surprised, I am sad to see the end of an era for our family.  I have posted here many times about staying there over the years, but this house was a very big part of our lives for 34 years.  Hal and I will celebrate our 37th wedding anniversary in May, so the beach house has been in our family for almost our whole married life.  We traveled there when I was pregnant with Will, and we started taking him with us when he was a baby all the way through high school.  

   Will has been able to take his friends with him since college, but he's also continued to join us down there, as well.  Such wonderful memories we have of our visits there.  My parents used to have a condo at Cherry Grove in North Myrtle Beach, S.C.  When they were visiting there, we would usually drive over for dinner with them one evening, followed by a trip to the family arcade afterwards.  It's still hard to realize sometimes that my Dad is gone now, and we're all getting older -- too quickly, it seems.   

   In other news, when I was switching out our Christmas decorations for our pieces that we usually keep out the rest of the year, I dropped my Irish Belleek teacup and it shattered into many pieces.  I could have cried, folks.  The saucer is still fine, but Belleek china is so fragile, there was no hope of repairing the teacup.  I went online and looked until I found a replacement at what I thought was a reasonable price.  I purchased it from a seller on Etsy, and it arrived today.  This set also included a bread plate, which I thought would come in handy.  I assumed the teacup would be like the one I broke, but it's not.  It's shaped differently, and the inside of the cup is different.  However, everything was very carefully wrapped and packaged, and it's all in excellent condition except for a few light scratches on the bread plate.  At any rate, it is very pretty, and I will be keeping it.  I'll show it here in March, but I'm too lazy to bother taking a picture tonight. 😏    

I really loved the teacup I had, but accidents do happen, right?   

   
I've just begun today on a book our son gave me for Christmas.  Wolf Hall is the first book in a trilogy of the same name by Hilary Mantel, and I've just discovered that the books have been made into a TV series, airing on Masterpiece on PBS.  Have any of you seen this, by any chance?  Clair Foy (who was Queen Elizabeth in the early seasons of "The Crown") is portraying Anne Boleyn.  I believe the first book is written largely from the viewpoint of Oliver Cromwell, a historical figure I have never cared for.  It will be interesting to learn more about him and the reign of Henry VIII.           Lastly, I wanted to share this picture I snapped the day I took down our Christmas tree.  I was putting the ornaments on the sofa before storing them in their boxes, and when I saw this ray of sunlight, I just had to grab my camera.     

      

I found the sparkling colors captured in this sunbeam a very cheerful sight.  Is there anything special brightening your days this month?  I'd love to hear from you!     Thank you so much for your visit, and I hope you have a lovely week!!