Life - grace grits and gardening

Simple Pleasures #1

September 28, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

Our first official week in our new (old) home was busy and often overwhelming, yet filled with happy-to-be-back-in-Arkansas simple pleasures. Simple pleasures worth recapping now to remember later…

Cool, fall weather. Chilly mornings, perfect afternoons. Sleeping with the windows open. What can I say, fall is my favorite season! I bought my first pumpkin:)

Lots of long walks. Lucy and Annabelle are dog tired by day’s end. John and I enjoyed walking to the square and farmer’s market, Dickson Street for lunch, and Razorback Stadium. Living in a walkable town is such a bonus.

Farmer’s Market, Fayetteville, Arkansas

I am thankful for the luxury of time. Time to unpack boxes and arrange things we’ve collected through the years. Even with all the chaos, there was time to think and talk about planning our yard and garden.

Beans and Cornbread. Cooking my first meal in the house felt good and right. Brown beans and skillet cornbread – yum!

Television. After two visits from AT&T UVerse (never fun), we had television just in time to watch college football. The Razorbacks didn’t fare so well, but my Baylor Bears looked strong! Supporting multiple teams is a good thing.

Ice Cream. Last summer thanks to Yarnell’s and Arkansas Women Bloggers, I won a free half-gallon of ice cream. I finally collected it. I chose Ozark Black Walnut. Yummy! Yarnell’s is an Arkansas tradition.

What simple pleasures did you enjoy last week?

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

“I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

yet another post about our move

September 19, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

Yes, this is another post about our move. I promise there will come a day (soon) when I will stop with the incessant talk about moving to Arkansas. I will return to blogging about FoodFarmGarden&Life or whatever pops into my head.

Today is not that day.

(I do have a post coming up soon on mayonnaise. See how I worked in a little teaser to keep you hanging?)

Today I’m still blabbing about the move. How can I not? After almost thirty years in Texas, more than half my life, I am headed home to Arkansas. That’s huge. Plus, we’ve been in our Worth Street house twelve years. In twelve years the kids grew up and moved to college. So many meals and parties and conversations occurred around the dining room table. We planted trees and shrubs that now shade the yard.

Yesterday I loaded my car with things the moving truck wouldn’t carry.

Plants.

Plants riding shotgun.

When I pulled from the driveway, I looked at the backyard with a different eye. Soon the Japanese Maples we planted and nurtured will belong to someone else. (sigh)

And then I drove away.

Everything I passed took on a different, bittersweet meaning.

Other than a traffic jam in Atoka (for real), my drive through Oklahoma was uneventful. (In case you don’t realize, driving from Dallas to Fayetteville is mostly spent in Oklahoma…)

I snapped yet another blurry picture of the Welcome To Arkansas sign through my bug-splattered window, because that’s what I do. This time it felt different.

Driving the final stretch into Fayetteville, I watched for turning trees. A hint of fall colored the landscape, but it’s still early.

This year I will see it. Live it. Experience fall from beginning to end.

Look what greeted me at our back door! I planted this coneflower two weeks ago when we closed on the house. It was sad and scraggly and hidden on the clearance rack at Lowe’s. I expected to wait a year to see blooms.

This pop of color made me dizzy happy. What a perfect ending to my drive.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

P.S. Fair warning—today the moving truck arrives. I’m sure there will be a blog somewhere in there.

“Reality isn‘t round, it‘s flat. There are edges where you can fall off and this October when I moved to Maine, I fell off one.”
― Carrie Jones, Captivate

Musical Pairing:

Uncle Kracker – Smile

Moving Day!

September 17, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

Yesterday our moving company (Bekins) sent a crew over to “prep” for our move. And to pack our kitchen. I decided it would be best to leave our breakables (all those egg dishes) to the professionals. And man alive, THEY WERE AMAZING.

Silly me. I thought they would only pack up dishes. No. They wrapped every single can of beans and tomato sauce individually. I had no idea.

These guys had some mean packing skills.

In the past few days, I’ve packed most everything else. The house echoes the emptiness.

Our truck did a drive by yesterday to make sure it could clear the thick canopy of Live Oaks shading Worth Street. Thankfully, it did. And the truck is my favorite color, so there’s that. (It’s the little things.)