A Christmas Advent Wreath

Only three full days now until Christmas Eve -- are you ready?  I'm never ready until the last minute, and this year is no different than any other, in that respect.  😉  Yesterday, we drove to a church that's about twenty minutes from our house to see this advent wreath that my mother-in-law told us about.   

The Beauty of Christmas

Hello to you all!  I haven't published a single post this month, and before the blog pirates take over my blog, I thought I'd better put something up here.      

Bethabara Gardens, Part 2

Welcome to House at Forest Manor.  Today I'm sharing the rest of the pictures from the gardens at Bethabara Park in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  You can read about the history of Bethabara in my previous post Here.

I had the best of intentions to publish Part Two of this post a few weeks ago, shortly after Part One.  As usual, things got busy and I forgot.  Better late than never, I suppose.  I'm posting a lot this week because I suddenly have some free time in which to work on my blog, and I never know when that will change.  I haven't forgotten about visiting you, though, and I'll be doing that throughout the week.  I hope you're all having a good summer; my thoughts go out to BJ at Sweet Nothings who lost her beloved husband this week.  

Christmas Outside the House

Hello everyone; I hope you all had a nice weekend.  It has turned very cold here in our area of North Carolina.  We now have a bitter wind blowing, making it feel even colder, but we did have sunshine today, which was a welcome sight for sure.

I continue to decorate for Christmas, and hubby is great about helping me out when I ask him to.  Today, he put some small nails in our birdhouse so that it could get a little touch of Christmas --

Old Salem, North Carolina

I had planned to save this post for a later time, but I decided to go ahead and publish it now, because it has some pretty summer flowers and gardens, and it is definitely still summer around here.

I'm trying to learn about photo composition, and I have a lot to learn.  So, I've been practicing.  I have learned that light, too much or too little of it, is crucial to good pictures.  And we all know that the quality of light is different at different times of day, as well as different times of year.

On Monday of this week, I went to Old Salem to take some more photos for a follow-up to a post I did a few weeks ago, which you can read about HERE.  I started taking pictures at about 10:30 a.m., and it was already pretty bright outside at that time.  I got some good pictures, but when I looked at them on the computer, I realized I wanted a softer light.  So, I went back in the evening with my husband and took a few more.

Then on Tuesday morning, DH had to be at work at 7:00 a.m., so I took the camera with me, and after dropping him off at the office, I went straight to Old Salem, and started photographing around 7:15 a.m.  I found the light to be much better, and the quality of the pictures to be better as well.

There's so much to photograph in this small, historic community.  There are colonial merchant's shops with wonderful, painted wooden signs.

"Little Williamsburg"

I'm celebrating Independence Day all this week -- at least on my blog.  Mr. Forest Manor had his out-patient surgery last week, and thankfully, he's doing well.  After I picked him up from work this afternoon, we drove to Old Salem so I could take some pictures while they still had their historic flags out for the Fourth of July.  I grew up in this area and have pretty much lived nearby all my life, and I never get tired of Old Salem.  I LOVE it there.  Years ago we read in a local newspaper or magazine (can't remember which) that Old Salem is like a "Little Williamsburg".  That was probably a tad ambitious :)  Old Salem is quite a bit smaller than Williamsburg, and they don't offer as many events; but it is quite old for this country, and I think it's charming.  You can read my second post about Old Salem HERE.

Old Salem was built in 1766 and features a living history museum that interprets the restored Moravian community. The Moravian church has its origins in ancient Bohemia and Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic.  To escape religious persecution, the Moravians came to America, where they settled in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Salem (now Winston-Salem), North Carolina.  Like Williamsburg, Old Salem does historical re-enactments, and the tour guides and interpreters all wear 18th century traditional Moravian costumes.


George Washington visited Salem in 1791 and slept at the Old Salem Tavern.  And this has nothing to do with Colonial America or July 4th; but... the first Krispy Kreme store opened in Old Salem in 1937;)  The doughnuts were made using potato flour, an old Moravian practice.  So that's it for facts in this post; let's look at some pictures.

Hanging in front of this shop is the Grand Union flag, commonly regarded as the first (unofficial) American flag.