New York Times article featurning my shop Barn Raising Antiques

"In tiny Rutledge, whose main intersection is an old oil drum with four stop signs sticking out of it's top, head for a shop called the Barn Rasing......" New York Times Nov, 2008


Barn Raising Antiques We were honored to be featured last November in the New York Times article titled "Antiquing in the Old South". Quite an honor for our 30 year old business located in rural Georgia. How they found us we will never know but so glad they did!

"Girls trip" Flip Flop Cottage Tybee Island Georgia July 2008

The Flip Flop cottage on Tybee Island was the perfect place for us sisters, sister in law, daughters, nieces and one little granddaughter to share a fun getaway for our second annual "girls trip" July 2008.

The girls consisted of three moms (2 sisters and 1 sister in law) with their three grown daughters and one little granddaughter who met up at Tybee from three states, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas.

Last year we all met in downtown Savannah for our first annual “girls trip” where we ate our way through the Paula Deen tour with stops at....

Lady and Sons restaurant, Polk food market, the cookie factory and Uncle Bubba’s restaurant.

This year we stayed on Tybee and sampled some great seafood there along with lots of island fun.

We were delighted to read in the Flip Flop cottage guest book, that Mary Kay Andrews, aka Kathy Hogan Trocheck, a favorite author of ours had stayed in the same cottage on Tybee.

We had so much fun on our stay...

...we'll be back!

BIG NEWS in "Small but Special" RUTLEDGE GEORGIA!!

BIG NEWS IN RUTLEDGE GEORGIA!!
BIG NEWS IN RUTLEDGE! BIG happenings in "Small but Special" Rutledge! AOL has added not one but TWO Rutledge attractions to the travel page of their website!! During National Tourism Week May 10 - 18, 2008 AOL launched a national campaign to find the most unique places to visit in the US. TWO Rutledge businesses were chosen and featured in picture and story on AOL travel's website out of the many that were nominated from across the nation. Rutledge Hardware was chosen as one of 11 unique museums to see in the nation and Yesterday's Cafe was picked as one of 19 restaurants. The page will stay up indefinately on AOL travel and can be viewed here: Enter the web address below for AOL's UNIQUE MUSEUMS to find RUTLEDGE HARDWARE look for number 9 out of the 11 unique museums featured there. http://information.travel.aol.com/tourism-week/museums This link will remain up indefinately and if you click on the picture catagory of Specialty Food below the story on the hardware store, you will find Yesterday's Cafe as number 17 out of 19 restaurants featured there at this web address: http://information.travel.aol.com/tourism-week/food
America is knocking on our door. This AOL promotion comes on the tail of our visit last November by none other than GOOD MORNING AMERICA. On Monday November 19th, 2007 Good Morning America came a'calling. I had nominated our own Yesterdays Cafe in GMA Weekend's Best Bite Challenge national contest looking for the best small town restaurant in America. We were filmed on location and the segment aired on Saturday morning November 24th where we were in the final four in the nation. Yesterday's did not win but came in a very close second to 12 Bones Rib House in the much larger town of Asheville, NC. ABC said the online voting went on until midnight with our two restaurants neck and neck right up until the very end. This was quite a feat for a little restaurant in a tiny town of 702 folks! Here is the address of the online video from that event: http://abcnews.go.com/search?searchtext=best%20bites%20challenge&type=

Little girl dreams can still come true........

There once was a lovely little Victorian wood frame playhouse on the side of the road.... I wanted it so bad I could taste it.......

I was just a little girl and to me it looked just like a miniature version of the old houses around where I grew up. It had a shingle roof with a little dormer, a front porch and a wood burning fireplace with a brick chimney on the side. It was even wired for electricity!

I grew up in the mid 1950s (so now you know how OLD I am, LOL!) Well, anyway, I wanted that little playhouse sitting on the side of the road in a neighboring town here in Georgia for as long as I can remember. I wanted it so bad I begged for one like it every time we went by until finally my dear daddy bought me a little metal playhouse with window flower boxes that I loved.

When I was 12, we moved to the town where the play house was and I always kept my eye on it. Over the years I watched as the land sold on that now busy highway and the little play house disappeared with a business going up in its place. I just assumed the little house was torn down to make way for the business and thought at the time what a shame that was....

Many years later, after I was grown and married with a little girl of my own, the little house would come back into my life. I was doing some decorating for a professional hockey player who was traded from the Chicago Blackhawk's to Atlanta and had moved to Rutledge to get away from the big city. He fell in love with Rutledge, began shopping with us in the old barn that housed our furniture and crafts business and became our family friend.

When he first saw our house he asked would I help him decorate his cabin in a similar manner and I said sure. He had my husband build lots of furniture and cabinets for him and I went out and about to antique shows and the like to shop for country items to fill his cabin.

Several years later, he married and he and his new wife wanted something more than this rustic cabin so they moved to the town where my parents still live. This was the same town where I had once longed for that little playhouse.

To make a long story short he called one day and said I know you'll like to move things (we had at the time he met us and over the next few years moved our house and barn along with a little outbuilding we were using as a guest house). He said I've got something for you'll if you want to come and take a look and see if it is worth moving. He said I'm not going to tell you what it is until you get here but I think your daughter might like it.

As we turned into his drive, curved around the beautiful lake out front and pulled up to his gorgeous new home, there in the woods behind his house and in very sad shape, sat the little Victorian playhouse of my dreams!

Imagine that, the former owner is the one who had bought the land in town and put his business there where the little playhouse was. He had moved the playhouse when he built his home and put it behind his house for his children or grandchildren to enjoy.

Now, after all these years, our Canadian friend moves there, discovers the same little playhouse and thought of us, wanting to give it to us to move again for my daughter!

He thought it an eyesore behind his home but did see the potential it had for my husband and me to move after having seen our relocated home and outbuildings. He had no idea until I told him this story with tears streaming down my face how much I had always wanted and loved that little Victorian playhouse.

My husband moved it on a flatbed trailer to our back yard with the help of a friend. My daughter and the two children my husband and I were soon to have (a girl and a boy) all grew up playing in and loving that little playhouse. It was a favorite spot over the years for them and their little playmates.

This little playhouse or one just like it must have been mine in another lifetime, its pull on me was that strong. That pull and/or fate somehow brought us together with the help of our Canadian friend, many years after I first saw the little playhouse sitting on the side of the road......

A little girls dream come true!

Accents, dialect and the like..........

As an eBay powerseller who ships items worldwide from my little shop right here in the Southern United States, I have "met" many new friends online.

Recently, I got a surprise phone call from a new friend in the UK, one whom I had just "met" on eBay when she purchased an adorable little primitive wood bucket from me.

My new friend Karen and I have found through easy conversation that we have so much in common, even though we live a world apart. Like sisters almost it seems.

We both own and operate Primitive shops, hers in the UK and mine here in the US. She loves everything American and I love everything British!

As we got to know each other over the phone, we shared compliments over each others accents, hers a lovely British one and my own slow Southern drawl. Soon I began to realize how much accents can affect language and the understanding of it .

My new friend and I were sharing website addresses, she gave me the one for her UNIT (shop) there in the UK and then some others for companies that produce merchandise like we both sell in our shops. As she was spelling out the website address, I couldn't get the letters right. She had to say A as in Apple and E as in Eve for me to finally "get it".

I had never realized how differently we say even the simplest things such as letters with our accents. When she was spelling out the website and would say A I would put down E for the sound I was hearing (eh). Then when I spelled it back to her she would correct me and say again (eh) as in A (eh) for apple. In my slow Southern drawl I say A-A-A-A-A pronounced (AY) as in WAY over yonder, I could go on but I'm sure you see our dilemma!

How fun it has been to chat with my lovely new found British friend on the phone, trading accents and the like. Learning different words for the same things such as "trunk sale" in the UK rather than "yard sale" here in the US.

In our most recent conversation, she was delighted to hear I sit on the "sofa", the same as her and not on the "couch" the word she thought all of us Americans (or Yanks) used for sofa and many do. (Now being from the deep South I just can't begin to call myself a "Yank" as many Brits do I hear, LOL!)

I am teaching my new friend to speak Southern with words like 'lite, 'nite, and 'rite and of course Ya'll. Hopefully she will teach me to speak more proper English and soon we will be able to understand each other perfectly.

On a more serious note, I would like to say the world wide web has certainly shrunk our world in my opinion and made it much easier for like minded folks like Karen and I to meet in cyber space.

My hope is that someday this easy access brought on by the www will help folks across the globe to "meet" and get to know each other "one on one" like Karen and I have, no matter how many miles or how many differences may separate them.

I feel that if we could all learn more about each others lives, finding out the many things we all have in common and exploring the differences, that someday we could all learn to live in peace..........

Drawings bring back sweet memories.....

I love the holidays but was feeling a little blue with Christmas coming and no little ones to share it with....

I have two daughters age 31 and 21 and a son who just turned 19... My baby boy was born on Thanksgiving Day 1988 (his due date by the way) and weighing in at 9 lb 3 oz.... I still haven't lost the "baby weight", guess I'll have to quit using him as my excuse now, LOL!

Anyway, back to the drawings.... I went in my laundry room this morning and there they were, you know the ones that your children did over the years and handed over to you with lots of love and big smiles on their faces... You compliment them on their artwork and hopefully guess correctly what the subject matter is - Oh look this one is daddy (beard and pants on stick figure helps) and this is sister (long girl hair on shorter stick figure) now what/who is this with the "Big hair" umm, oh yes, that is ME! Yes mommie, that is you!! See the hair, now all of them are pointing at my Big hair-giggle giggle (they still laugh about my 80's hair)...

You give their drawing a prominent place on the fridge which pleases your little artist immensely. Then when another of your budding artists hands over their artwork up it goes. Soon the fridge front fills up to the point where you can no longer see the door opening so down comes the old art to make room for the new.

Well there are some of these drawings that were just too precious for me to let go of... those are the ones that somehow found themselves taped on my utility room wall, behind the door and down the wall next to the cabinets.... I have glanced at them many times over the years and always smile at the memories they bring.

Two of those precious drawings are what caught my eye this morning as I was doing the laundry. There is one just above these two that shows a happy home with smiling faces out front that I love but the two that really caught my eye this morning were both from Christmases past. One with folds and creases across it had been a folded note left for Santa one Christmas Eve long ago along with milk and cookies... It reads "We LOVE you Santa" in the most adorable childish sprawl and Santa had written back" LOVE you too!" There was another reading "M E R R Y C H R I S M A S - I LOVE YOU - MOM & DAD - L O V E, W A D E".

There are a others, all just too special for one reason or another, to throw away. I guess what I'm getting around to is that if you are a mom of young children, be sure you hang onto to a few of these drawings. Put them in a place where you will see them through the years. Then one day, when your babies are grown, they will be like a "gift" to you. A gift given over and over again to remind you of when your babies were small and you and your husband were still the center of their world (a space shared only once a year by Santa of course :)

Rural Ramblings........

Welcome to my Blog!

Several of my friends and family have been encouraging me to blog. Now that I think I may know what a blog is, I will try and hopefully will learn more about blogging as I go along.

I have named my blog Rural Ramblings for two reasons, one Rural is where I live - Way "out in the sticks" of rural Georgia - one definition of rural "of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the country, country life, or country people, living in the country" and Ramblings because this blog will have no theme - definition "straying from one subject to another".

That is what this blog will be - tales of life in the county, rambling thoughts on life, love and the pursuit of happiness and all things in-between.

I love to write and as time allows will be adding new posts to my blog. I hope you will enjoy the time spent here : )