Blogazine Guest Sissy!

Boy do these months past fast. Hard to believe it is going to be April fools day tomorrow. What kind of tricks do you have up your sleeve to play on someone tomorrow.

Growing up with four brothers you can only imagine the tricks they use to play on me. My youngest brother Gary still gets me on this day but for a change I am going to be ready for him. I might even get him this year.

I went out to Warrenton for a short time today and found the cutest linen outfit for a friends wedding. Will downlaod it soon and show it to you.

We are really lucky tonight I have Sissy from Musings By The Creekside as my Blogazine Guest. Just Click On her site name and it will take you to her site.
 Sissy is a sweetheart for doing this post.  Something tells me you will enjoy reading this story and getting to know her as I have for a while now.

Sissy always comes by and leaves me the sweetest comments. She is a great blogging buddy, gifted writer and has a great site.

I have to tell you I love having you all on here because like tonight I learned a lot about Sissy that I did not know already. Sit back enjoy and then pop over to Musing by the Creekside site. You will be glad you did.



Hi. I am Carolyn or Sissy, whichever you would like to call me. Maggie, here at "Just Between You and Me", requested I appear.

So here I am at 65.  I've been called Sissy by my three brothers always, Sis as they matured. Recently I lost my oldest brother. I didn't realize how hard that could be.

Soon I will be 71 years old. When I was a child, I considered someone this age as ancient. Yesterday I considered that nonsense! Today I'm reconsidering!  Living alone, having it all to do, tends to make one tough and/or competent-maybe. I'm not competent anymore. I've lost all sense of competency! Probably the reason for this is because I spend too much time at the computer and having set everything else aside to get to later. To make matters worse, I'm what some call a Hoarder. Heaven forbid, hmm? I think I should be called a Keeper. With all my 'materials' interests and hobbies,

 I could start a school for some of the local youngsters! Most young these days have only interest in their tech toys.

Experience and a busy mind have contributed to my state of affairs. A thirst "to do" has helped. Every corner of my home, storage sheds, outbuildings is filled or filling up.  Out back I have my
'Stuff and Such" Store, filled to the brim with my collectibles

 I began acquiring and keeping at age 7. My little white prayerbook I received at Holy Communion was my first dear treasure. Life has continued. "Why buy and then dispose of", I say. Just wasteful.  I'm always at some creating/crafting project. My children and such others differ with this 'keeping' creed of mine. Ha, have they got a Job in their future!

Born and raised in northeast Tennessee, now living in the farthest corner of this part of the state, surrounded by hills and mountains, I have good air to breathe as one of the assets here. The quietness is an even more valuable asset. Of course, my hearing loss my be a contributing factor. Loud noise destroyed it many years ago - factories, city traffic, rock music, etc. Plenty of trees to keep the air cleaned assist us folks around here. The Applachian Trail is close by. There are many deer, a few bears occasionally pass through and a slew of smaller animals reside in this area. We even have coyotes here now. A hybrid wolf lives across the creek from me.

I live ten miles from a town, although I fear it creeping in closer. It could be better, as I live by a highway and do get some pollution from the traffic passing. Not too much traffic these days, though, because of our economic situation across the country today, gas cost mainly. There was a time I drove the ten or more miles out of here several times a week; even known to do it twice in a day. My little Suburu, so cheap to run; I miss it. That was when I was younger and agile, fifteen years ago. These days I don't go much and liking staying home and doing my thing. I rest a lot.

I raise lots of flowers and shrubs. Hybrid Daylilies, Iris, Japanese Maples and Butterfly Bushes are a few types I also try to sale. I love gardening but unable to swing those digging tools, now the front yard is decorated/filled with garden boxes these past three years. It appears I need more for this early spring as they are being filled with perennial plants. Asparagus, shallots, strawberries and rhubarb and chives have found a new home. Today I have purple iris in bloom in the backyard. Spring is very early this year for me. You too?

Having lived alone for twenty-five years on an acre + plot of this green earth has kept me busy. Always a need of clearing, cutting, trimming, digging has brought me to now and to the point of overgrown tangle. Felled limbs from my willow trees is a serious problem to consider. I cannot use a chainsaw anymore - besides, it was stolen. There are many wild blackberries growing here; birds, fish and a few snakes, some poisonous, so I stay aware. Moles are plentiful too.
I have three wonderful children, two girls and a boy. Can't call them 'children' now as I also have three grandsons, one deceased and (wow) a great grandson. I am very pleased they have grown with my guidance to become responsible adults, standing on their own feet, so to speak. The oldest daughter has worked at the local library for twenty-nine years and will soon retire. She lives nearby and I'm able to see her often. A comfort. I'm often furnished with good home-delivered library service. Can't beat that, hmm? She takes care of the mowing for me now. The other two children don't live close, so their presence is a rare treat.

There is a nice creek by my place.

Water certainly is an asset to have around close. There is a nice mountain spring a few miles up the highway where I get my supply of pure unadulerated water; the pulloff barely shows in this picture

   The air is even cleaner here, being several hundred feet higher in altitude. Going to get the spring water affords a short vacation for me. An hour or so here brings much relief from the heat of summer. This highway takes one across the mountain into Damascus, Virginia. Take a right at the top and you will arrive in North Carolina. So I am within easy distance of these two states.

Natural running water is very handy for animals if you raise them. I don't but wish to. I had a goat once. She looked like this one.

  Her name was Prissy Pygmy. She was very strong - mind and body. Goats give so much pleasure watching them gambol about. Regrettably I was not strong enough to care for her.
Before this, I borrowed one, to eat the grass and weeds. He was a big goat, more like the one in this picture below.

I kept him tethered to a big cinderblock, yet he could briskly move afar dragging it behind him, if he took the notion. Once he did take the notion to go visit a neighbor's flock of geese and ducks. Strong enough to pull it and me, skidding at a 45 degree angle behind as I had retrieved him some distance up in the nearby hollow, I soon returned him to his owner. He only knocked the weeds down with his log chain and nibbled at the honeysuckle, blackberry brambles, the willow and maples.
Learn and live, as the saying goes. Goats don't eat grass and such. They browse as deer do - and eat everything you don't want them to touch.

Today I have four dogs only; there is Choco,an elderly tan male Dachshund; Zoey, a 'used up' female silver Poodle (I rescued her from the breeder); Charly, a hardheaded independent part Yorkshire terrier with muscles of an athelete; and Lucy, a very small mostly Yorkshire. She weighs about five pounds and leaps about when having escaped her fence, much as a butterfly flitting about. They keep me hopping. In years past I kept birds, cockateils, a couple of budgies, a lovebird who flew free as I fought a chimney fire and Bubba, a bluecrowned conure.

Bubba died. I was saddened greatly, having had him for seventeen years. He was my very close buddy, twenty two years old. I saved many of his feathers. Jewels.

I enjoy reading several blogs, especially Maggie's. She entertains us all with her antics; don't you agree? Now me? I mostly rant on my blog, http://musingsbythecreekside.com/. but you may find something interesting to read that I have written about. Stop by and visit if you take the notion. Here you may see some of the activities I have and still indulge in. There just isn't enough hours in the day to do all I desire to do.
I've enjoyed meeting you all and introducing myself to you; so stop by sometime and have a cup of tea or your preferred refreshment and follow along as I pass through this life. I practice survival; an individual who enjoys living with myself, most of the time. At times I rant at myself and often talk to myself too. Nothing weird about that when living alone. A recluse, some consider me to be. The internet eases the fact. Learning is a joy in one's life, isn't it? I don't ever intend to quit!


Thanks honey for doing this post for me. I don't know about me entertaining you all to much especially lately.  I feel like I have only been boring this past month. Who wants to hear about an ole woman mowing.


I hope you are having a special weekend.  So glad you stopped by and as always I appreciate you so much.

Love to all
Maggie