Suited to a Tea


Welcome to my tea. Please, have a seat; let me pour you some Lady Grey; one lump or two; cream? ....


Thursday, March 29, 2012

A South Texas Spring

The girls and I were able to take a week and go visit Mom Ruiz.  It was a nice little get away...and I was so shocked at how green San Antonio was.  Normally, as I remember living there, it was always a dry place... and brown.  But this visit was neat because Spring was in full bloom and Mom's backyard was a perfect showcase.  So one morning while I was taking my walk I just decided to take advantage of plants in bloom.  Here are some of the photos I took.









All the photos were taken with my Iphone.  It's really amazing how in the right light, the pictures can come out looking so detailed.

Mom even has some neighbors that have some horses.  They even agreed to have their pictures taken.  They were very obliging...





While I was there we were able to get together with family and friends.  I was able to talk my one particular friend into making her famous chicken enchiladas.  This is when I came to find out that she loves her beans and rice!!  Dad fed her and it seemed like she couldn't get enough.   This child just loves to eat...Two nights we had gatherings and fellowship...Two nights I was stuffed full!






We of course had to go thrift store shopping.  Mom took us to I think the biggest thrift store I have ever been to.  I was able to find some dresses for the girls...Lizzie of course likes this dress now the best...as you can tell in the photo...the cousins played and became the best of friends.




It was a great time!! And it went by way to fast...


Monday, March 12, 2012

The Books

I can't believe that we are almost half way through the month of March already....it's really crazy how fast life just goes by.

Lately, I have really been interested in the history of the turn of the 18th century and the author Jane Austen.  I have been reading a book that details all the English customs of her time period, "The Jane Austen Handbook". It lays out the English Gentry as they would have lived and all those oddities that are a part of say Elizabeth Bennett's life in Pride and Prejudice, like going to a ball, paying a morning call...  I really enjoy reading about how people lived back in the old days.  And let me tell you...I would not have wanted to live during Jane Austen's time unless I was a member of the Aristocracy....which statistically speaking would have been very unlikely.  So that means I would have been a member of what is known in the social order as "the Great Unwashed"- Laborers, servants, criminals.  Here is the Social order of the 18th Century from the top:
1-Royalty {the King and Queen, and their numerous and dissolute progeny}
2- Aristocracy {House of Lords; and untitled persons who were very rich}
3-Gentry {Old established families with estates of all sizes, Genteel persons [one have no profession], or professionals from the Law, Medicine or the paid Commissions of the Military
4-Tradesmen, Yeoman Farmers
5-The Great Unwashed {ME :)}

Interestingly,  my father, whom I have probably gotten a great deal of my passion for history, sent me a book that he thought would interest me.  It's entitled, "The Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian"  It's a compilation of letters and journal entries kept by this young man of 24 years old who was to be a tutor to a family in Virginia on a plantation in the year 1773-1774. I haven't read it yet but I can't wait to start it!! 

So you see people have been recording their lives all throughout history...people now just do it electronically and in the form of a blog.