A Time For Everything

 

Nacogdoches is a charming little town. At least the part of it I saw, which was a very small part. Its citizenry might say otherwise, but I wouldn't mind another, longer visit.

Last week, while attending my friend's memorial, my writer peeps and I stayed in a VRBO on the town square. I geeked out at the architecture in my immediate vicinity and took a few pictures. Even found a bit of inspiration for the new home of one of my characters.

One of the books in the VRBO said (and a Google search confirmed) that Nacogdoches is the oldest town in Texas, founded in 1779 by Don Antonio Gil Y'Barbo. Its settlement roots begin with the Caddo Indians who lived there before the Spanish.

Also -- fun fact: Nacogdoches is the largest producer of blueberries in Texas. Mmm...

The view from our VRBO...

And some additional images...

This is the side view of the building above. Look at that balcony that runs along the second floor!

 

Below is one of the two buildings I found helpful in picturing what I wanted for one of my heroes in the current hockey work-in-progress. The first being the place we stayed with its open floor plan and all the exposed brick.

 

Look at the decorative elements on this one--not to mention the bank of windows.

 

This building (below) has some lovely exterior brick and it's being gutted / remodeled on the inside. I'm so curious as to what the owners are going to do with the space. I'd also love to know what its shape and size is. Leaves me to image how I might build it out as well. :0)

Hope you're well. See you Thursday!

 

My monthly writers meeting has gone virtual. Our speaker for this month will be speaking to us via Zoom. Bars and restaurants in Tarrant County are going to be shut down at some point today, so the decision is definitely out of my hands now, but we'd already made the decision so that we weren't scrambling super last minute to put plan B into motion. I'm really going to miss seeing my friends this month though. These women are my people.

My thoughts about what's going on due to COVID-19 have spanned the gamut all week as I read this article and that article and the other article. I've finally come to the conclusion, however, that a) while all these closures are tragic and spell hardships for a great many people, they're necessary; b) social distancing is unfortunately necessary primarily / especially to manage the impact on our health care system; and c) many people want to blame the government and / or the media for various things going on such as panic buying, but I honestly don't know how things could have gone any different. People are still gonna over-react, people are still going to make decisions based on fear and not facts, people are still going to get their news *not* from appropriate sources.

We're a mere three months out from the first confirmed case in China. Were we supposed to shut down everything mid-January when we didn't know much? Sure, that would have been better. And what exactly caused people to think toilet paper was the can't-live-without item?

I really don't know.

But for good and for ill the world has been forced to hunker down and so we shall. We all have a chance to reconnect with our families, we can catch up on reading and crafts, television, and maybe get some spring cleaning done.

My plans include getting the garage cleaned out and getting my two books written and some other writing/publishing related stuff that I need to decide upon and write down.

Anyway...I was on a cruise to the Western Caribbean two weeks ago. That seems so long ago at this point, but I promised pictures. Our first stop was New Orleans, though, and I shared a few pictures the other day. Here are a few more from DH and my morning trek through the residential portion of the French Quarter. I have a love of architecture and I fell in love with the area. If I had money to spare, I would buy property in the French Quarter and try to infuse the area with small businesses and small living spaces...

Someday.

Here are just a few of my favorites:






There were so many building for sale and / or boarded over. It made my heart hurt.

But if you want to see the rest of my random photos, here's the link.

Take care and be safe!

Last Friday morning, I took some time to get outside and enjoy some fresh and get the blood circulating. I love history and as you can guess, Portsmouth was full of it. I didn't do much reading of the history, just enjoyed the sights. Namely in the form of buildings...I love old buildings. I love imaging who lived in them, what they looked like on the inside once upon a time, as well as what they might look like now.

So just a few pics from my jaunt around Portsmouth.

 I find these interesting with the stairs going up the second floor, which presumably is the main level of the house. Meaning the bottom level was probably for servants at one time.

 I like these too, with the front porch.

 I like the bay windows on this one.

 This is obviously a two-apartment house, with the porch/balcony on the upper level.

 Here's another with the stairs going to the second floor, but it also has two chimneys.



I'm pretty sure this one also has a basement level floor that is hidden from view. I wonder if that top-most window goes into an attic room or if the middle bedroom and the second?/third? floor has super high ceilings and the window belongs to it...

I saw one house (no pics) that was, I think, four levels (basement, two regular floors, the attic). With all kinds of random stairs attached, it had obviously been divided up into apartments. It would be so interesting to see the original layout and then how and where they added bathrooms and kitchens when they divvied it up.

And then here are the few other pictures I took...


The sunrise view of my 9th floor room. That ship there in the middle of the frame is the USS Bataan--in for some repairs or upgrades.

The river is the Elizabeth River...


My roomie and I took the water taxi across the river for lunch on Friday.

Here is a random boat sailing the river one day.



On Sunday I took a partial scenic route back to Raleigh...through the countryside of southeastern Virginia and north central North Carolina. It was a truly lovely fall day with cool temps and a brisk wind. The trees were all sorts of lovely colors and the small towns were so charming.

I passed cotton fields and a gin along the way...

 I'm used to seeing hay in humongous rolls like this--not cotton!!




 And that concludes my pictures...

I had a busy but wonderful time and am definitely glad to be home and back into the regular routines of my life--that even includes eating and exercising. :0)

Have a great rest of your week. See you on Friday.

I don't really think there's time for everything:(

Anyhow, Saturday, July 19th, was hubby's and my 15th wedding anniversary. We celebrated in a way we haven't for many, many years. It began with driving around downtown locating the restaurant we had reservations at in relationship to the hotel - would it be too far to walk in the early evening heat?

Then we searched out free parking and walked a couple of blocks to the Renaissance Worthington Hotel in Fort Worth.


We checked in and relaxed, and enjoyed the northward view of Fort Worth, including the Tarrant County Courthouse, which was just a couple of blocks away. In fact, the clock tower lit up our seventh floor room quite nicely once it got dark.



This is exactly what our room looked like. Same bed, same draperies, same chair, same layout. The room was cool and spacious. A delicious treat during a Texas July.





This is a view of The Tarrant County Courthouse, made of fine Texas red granite, from the intersection of Main & 2nd Street. I think the concrete building at the front left of the picture is the hotel.



Our 6PM dinner reservation (a first for me) was at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. YUM. Not cheap but awesome food and service. Since I made the reservations online, and had indicated it was our anniversary, the restaurant added a special touch of balloon-shaped confetti on our table.

After dinner, hubby and I meandered around downtown. I have a fascination with historical architecture and love to look at the old buildings. Which is sometimes hard to do in the car while driving around with traffic lights and other cars on the road! Some of the buildings we looked at included the Flat Iron Building , First Christian Church, Knights of Pythis Castle Hall, Joe Daiches Jewelers, the Tarrant County Courthouse, the Criminal Courts Building, and so many others I don't really know the names of. We also saw Fire Station No. 1 on the walk to the car Sunday morning. To see many of the wonderful buildings in Fort Worth and the styles of architecture they represent, go here. It's not the prettiest site I've ever seen, but the information & pictures are wonderful.