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Home Tour Etiquette. Is there such a thing?

September 23, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner 8 Comments

People are funny. Not ha-ha funny but interesting funny. Not interesting-cool but interesting-strange.

Okay, people are strange.  Strange as in when you open your house to the general public for home tour, you can never predict what folks will do or say.

My husband and I enjoy participating in home tour. Living in a historic neighborhood, we feel a certain obligation to share the history with others. Plus being on home tour is a great incentive for deep cleaning and getting those ignored projects completed. 
One of the best parts of the experience is visiting with the interesting-cool people who walk through with their own stories about growing up in Old East Dallas. Sometimes previous homeowners show up with old photos to share, “photos that really belong to the house,” they say. A few years ago, a prior owner attended and explained the history behind our stained glass window at the bottom of the stairs. These are exciting moments.

While the majority of people are respectful and courteous, a handful feel the price of admission gives them access into messy cabinets and behind closet doors as though our house is for sale. As though they can’t decide where to store their own Christmas decorations…
Doors marked ‘private please’ and/or roped off are the first to be opened.

(Note to guests….these doors are restricted for your safety. Why do you think the house looks so tidy? When you open such a door, a tower of crap stacked to the rafters will likely crash down.)

The oddest thing that happened yesterday—three different people opened the piano and began playing…banging really, while the house was filled with people. Who does this? 

The strangest question I received yesterday…”This is the place we come to use the bathroom, right?” Huh?
Munger Place Days 2013 was a great success! Special thanks to all the sponsors and everyone who came out to spend a gorgeous fall weekend with us. And to the people who opened my messy utility room door—yes, I’m going to finish my laundry right now…

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:

People Are Strange, The Doors

Pinterest FAIL!

September 19, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner 14 Comments

My life is not a Pinterest board.
Last night as I re-arranged bacon-wrapped dates on a platter oh-so-carefully so that I could snap a blog picture AND pin it to my Recipe and Food Pinterest Board, I thought has my life really come to this?   Was I really passing off toothpicked appetizers as supper so I could re-test a recipe?Apparently so.

grace grits and gardening
Bacon wrapped dates
I was slow to jump on the Pinterest bandwagon. A virtual bulletin board, what? But now I rearrange thirty-nine skillfully crafted boards in my sleep. Now I understand Pinterest drives blog pageviews and buying decisions more than any other media with over one million visitors per day…See, I’m even spouting off Pinterest figures like an infomercial…(I’m smart like that because I watched two webinars about it yesterday…)
The thing is, Pinterest doesn’t always portray real life, not mine anyway. My food isn’t always pin-able. My garden isn’t always pin-worthy, especially at the end of another Texas summer.

pitiful

Today I’m pinning real pins. Being transparent is all the rage now, right?

Last April when life was full of promise and the nurseries were crammed with spring flowers and veggies, I eagerly planted a variety of lettuces and radishes in my cute little red wagon and promptly pinned pics to my Garden Board. We would have a bounty of fresh produce to last us to fall.
Yeah, right.
I did harvest lettuce for three or four salads until an overnight flood flattened the plants and a scorching hot day vaporized what remained into dust.
Here’s the wagon today…

 

How about my kitchen?Today it is home tour ready. Yesterday, not so much.

 

Don’t even get me started on the third floor of our house. On Monday,we had a flood caused by a clogged AC line. I could pin soggy carpet or a wavy, saturated section of drywall. But the best (worst) thing in that space is the huge pee stain I discovered near the air conditioner. So far no one has taken responsibility for this stain. I think it should be pinned, don’t you?
a river of pee…
And how about these cracks running along every wall in our old house? Pinnable? Yesindeedy.
grace grits and gardening
I think there may be some cobwebs mixed in too.

 

I could go on and on and on, but I won’t. Tomorrow I’ll be back to pinning beautiful food and thriving flowers. Today I’m being real.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:

Bon Jovi – It’s My Life

The Sonic – Parking on the Cool Side

September 9, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner 16 Comments

When I was a kid in the 1970s, our Sonic had a cool side and an extraordinarily uncool side. If Momma parked on the uncool side, my sister and I moaned, dunked in the back seat, and laid low until our Frito chili pies arrived. We truly believed our character and reputations could be boosted or ruined during the few minutes it took to wolf down an order of tater tots in a parking spot at the Sonic in Osceola, Arkansas.

When I began driving my own car, the highlight of Saturday night was circling the Sonic until a cool space opened. My best friend and I ordered giant Cokes, emptied them onto the sidewalk and refilled the cups with Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill. Or sometimes Kountry Kwencher. We thought drinking Boone’s Farm was a cool thing too.
Today I am much older. I realize I was far from hip. Even so, I can’t pull into the Osceola Sonic (now bigger, brighter, and new) without wondering if the coolness factor still exists.

And if so, could someone tell me which side is cool?

Grace Grits & Gardening

Musical Pairing:

Foreigner, Feels Like The First Time
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Talya Tate Boerner


Hi! I'm Talya. Writer, Reader, Arkansas Master Naturalist / Master Gardener, Author of

THE ACCIDENTAL SALVATION OF GRACIE LEE (2016)

GENE, EVERYWHERE: a life-changing visit from my father-in-law (2020)

BERNICE RUNS AWAY (Now Available!)

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Talya Tate Boerner books
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