Category: travelling

A Trip to Justin, Texas

We visited Justin, Texas. What a cool town!

What do you think about, when you hear Justin, Texas??? I always think about Justin Boots. That must be where they originally made the boots, right? Nope. Think again. Did they name the town after the boot company? Nopity Nope.

Justin, Texas was actually named in honor of Justin Sherman, a chief engineer with the Santa Fe Railroad. Justin was once a center of salvage companies. After Western wear became very popular, in the 1970’s, the Wallace family started focusing on Western wear. The three major salvage companies closed and the salvage industry disappeared.

Justin is a town of about 4,500 people, close to Denton, Texas. It is really close to the Texas Speedway. In fact, years ago, the town almost bought the Texas Motor Speedway, but didn’t have enough money to run and maintain it. So the Speedway ended up with a Ft. Worth address.

We decided to visit Justin, on Saturday. It’s a nice town, with that down home feel. There is a pretty park, on the south side of town, that has a veteran’s memorial. I had my veteran stand by the memorial. The lighting wasn’t very good, but I’m so proud of him! On the west side of town, there is a Municipal building and another municipal park. The Municipal complex was really nice.

We stopped at an Antique store. There was a fun Halloween display, right outside of the store. We found lots of treasures within, but, alas, no heads! Next door was a Mexican restaurant, and there was another restaurant that was close to that one.

We decided to look inside the Justin Discount Boots & Cowboy Outfitters. Oh my gosh! There were rows and rows of boots. They actually have three buildings, with over 90,000 square feet of displays. WOW! I fell in love with a pair of toddler boots. So, SEE??? They DO have a ton of Justin Boots in this town!

Before we left town, we decided to get something to eat. We found the The Mule Barn. It was a sports bar and restaurant. What a fun place! The food was delicious, a band was setting up, and the place was huge. This was where you saw people coming in, and waving to others, because everyone knows each other. I love that kind of atmosphere.

Where have you been lately? Any fun, little towns? I like to explore the little towns around my area. I’m thinking a day trip to Hico will be in our future. Every time we go through there, it appears to be a happening town.

Please , if you please, leave a comment on here, and a Like.

Grandma Sherry

A GIRL’S WEEKEND IN HOUSTON

Houston is a lot more than big skyscrapers. Check out all of the fun things to see and do.

A couple of weekends ago, my daughter and I took a girl’s trip to visit my sister, who lives in Houston. She recently moved there, and she’s still discovering the city. Her name is Toni, and she treated us royally, taking us to so many wonderful places. Jessi and I had sent her a list of odd things that we wanted to see, and Toni had her own things to show us. Plus she had a nice, new apartment that we were thrilled to see.

We drove there on Friday and spent the night. On Saturday, we packed it all in. Toni started our day by going to Tiny’s for Brunch. I felt so elegant! I rarely go to brunch. This was a nice place with great food. It sure beat my usual cheerios and diet coke!

Next, we went to The Beer Can House. (This, of course, was on my list.) The whole outside of the house was covered in Beer Cans that had been smashed and adhered to the house. The couple had drank 50,000 cans of beer to help their art. The man had also made wind chimes out of the cans, and he had a cement sidewalk, with designs in it of marbles and cans. It all started because he didn’t like to do outside work. So he covered it all in Beer Cans. Pretty fun…you should definitely go see this!

Next on our list of quirky attractions, was the fenced lot of Giant President Heads. The artist, David Adickes, is known for his heroic scale sculptures of historic figures. If you’ve ever driven on highway 45, from Dallas to Houston, you probably passed the giant statue of Sam Houston. That is by the same artist. We saw one of the heads in Branson, last year, of President Kennedy. This was really fun to see all of the President heads in Houston. Just wished we could have been able to go inside the fence.

Toni had a great place for us to explore. It was a huge park and grounds of Ima Hogg’s beautiful house. Bayou Bend is gorgeous, and we took a tour of the house and her grounds. Ima was a great benefactor to Houston, and her father was Governor Hogg. Ima was a society lady and collected art. The park and house are now owned by the Houston Museum of Arts.

And from there, we toured the Houston Museum of Arts. We didn’t have a lot of time before they closed, but my sister is the Marketing Director there, so she took us to lots of cool places and things to see. The Museum has 3 or 4 buildings at this site, and they are connected by tunnels that are artsy in themselves. This is one of the best museums I’ve seen in a long time. My favorite thing was laying down on a building, and it is projected up on the wall to look like we were hanging from the building. There was a really neat exhibit when you first come in, that is interactive. I need to go back when I have more time, and explore the rest of the museum.

Our Sunday finale , before driving back to Ft. Worth, was going to Joel Osteen’s church. My word!! It was like a huge theater, with several layers of balconies. We sat pretty close to the front. The first thirty minutes were praise music, with lights and singers. It was kind of like going to a concert. Then Joel came out and preached an uplifting sermon. Don’t know your feelings about this church, but it was something we wanted to experience. Pretty cool!

We had such a good time! Hope this gives you some ideas for when you go to Houston. It’s not just big buildings downtown. But then, again, I like to look for kooky things that are a little different. What do you like to do in Houston? Leave me a comment.

Hugs,

Grandma Ruddell

Projects and Organization

Happy September and Happy Fall! I’m starting to feel more alive, since the weather is finally down in the mid/upper 80’s. All over town, the Texas Sage is blooming their beautiful purple blooms. I bought two new mum plants today. Tomorrow, it will finally be cool enough that I can work in my flower beds.

Margaret and I, at my nephew and fiance’s bridal shower, two years ago.

We’ve recently returned from Kansas. My sister-in-law, Margaret Wood, passed away last week. She had gone through four different bouts of cancer, in the last 30 years. She was fun, classy, with impeccable taste in furnishing her home, her wardrobe, and was super organized. She planned her Celebration of Life service and it was a beautiful service. We were all worried about Covid but the church was very aware of the things that needed to happen to make it healthy and secure. Afterwards, the family met at the farm, and had lunch and visited….6 ft. apart, and masks on. We were able to see the newest member of the family, Brooks Treaster. He’s a little doll!

Brooks Treaster, our newest member of the Wood family.

My husband, Dick and his sister, Lu.
My cousin, Scott, my brother, Mike and my cousin’s wife, Sonja.

I bought my brother a fun mask to wear. Will he see the humor in this?

A Classy Mask for my Classy brother!

PROJECTS

Though I still love the light turquoise color that I have decorated with, in the past, I was ready for a change. Our breakfast nook chairs were a total mess. Too many toddlers have sat in them! So I took on the task of recovering the cushions. I also recovered the bar stools to match. Navy is now my go-to color for my breakfast area and family room. We bought a new area rug, curtains and pillows. I will eventually make pillows that match the chair cushions. Oh wow, I LOVE having a new look! I also decorated for fall.

The old decor.

The old rug.
The new rugs and pillows.
New cushions and curtains

Cussing at the corners of the bar stool cushions

The new bar stool cushions

Adding a bit of fall decorations

Fall decorations

ORGANIZING THE SHELF IN THE LINEN CLOSET

I have a wide shelf, at the top of my linen closet. It has been full of cleaning supplies, that were kind of mish-mashed together. I had a little time this afternoon, and I decided to organize it. And now you see, my lovely baskets with labels on them. What is it about labels that make you feel so much more organized?

Before
Before
After

After

After

My next project is cleaning out the big mess of gift bags. Yuck! I’m going to winnow them down and see what I need to add.

What kinds of things are you working on during this time? Are you a person who enjoys Fall? Are you able to get out and go anywhere? I hope that if you have kids, that you are able to help them with online school, or home schooling. I’m so happy that I’m no longer teaching!!! Leave me a message telling me what’s going on in your life.

Blessings,

Grandma Sherry

JUST CALL ME SUCKER!

I AM A SUCKER! Read on to find out why this happened. Oh my!

OK….I’ll get to that part in a bit. I am totally humiliated by the idiotic thing I did. Never let me go shopping again, in a port of call!

We’ve had a good January and February. I’ve done some organizing, and am STILL organizing. We had a Super Bowl party at our house, enjoyed our grandkids, celebrated our anniversary, and went on a cruise.

ORGANIZING…I threw out 3/4 of my tupperware type of containers. Then I bought some new ones, with matching lids. The problem with my containers, is my daughter and family come over for dinner, and then they take home food in one of my containers. Somewhere along the way, things disappear. So now I have less things and everything has lids. Woohoo!

Cleaning out and getting in new stuff.

This week, I watched “Jamie’s Journey”, on You Tube, and admired her clear plastic bins that she had for her refrigerator. I thought that could be a big improvement for mine, so I ordered a set. When my husband saw the box, he said “where are you going to put them? The refrigerator is full of food!” Silly man. I cleaned out the fridge, and organized things in my containers. You can’t see them very well, in the photo, but it’s so much nicer.

We had the Super Bowl party at our house, and I won $80. Woohoo! Had several young teenagers here, plus Isaac. Good game and ads, but we felt the half-time show was pretty risque. Suddenly, during half time, I looked up and it appeared we had our own half-time show! My daughter was riding the tricycle. My word!

Our half-time show!

We used to live in Toledo, OH, for 14 years. About 16 years ago, we moved to Texas. But we still keep in touch with the fun group we used to hang out with. When we lived in Toledo, our “gang” took a cruise together. We celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary on that cruise. Last week, we toured again, and Dick and I celebrated our 44th Anniversary. We had so much fun! We miss having a fun group like this to hang out with.

My good win, in the casino!

Well….here’s my Sucker Moment on the cruise. I went down the main shopping street in Nassau. There was a gal, standing outside of a store, with a sample of a skin care pad. I took one, and she lured me into the store to try out a cream to fix the bags under my eyes. She put on some nice cream, and then the pressure started to have me buy it. It was ONLY $1,000! WHAT??? No way. Well, she could make a deal with me….(she whispered this)…she had a pkg. that had a torn area in the celephane covering. She could sell that to me for $130. So…SUCKER…SUCKER…SUCKER…I bought it.

Oh my gosh! What was I thinking? It doesn’t look like the same stuff, though it’s in a pretty container. When we returned home, I looked up the company and the reviews. Everyone said that it was a big fraud and it wasn’t the same thing that they thought they were paying for. So I say unto you…don’t let them sucker you into the store! DON’T BUY IT!

Have a good week. Let me know what time, if any, that YOU got suckered into something.

Toodles,

Grandma Sherry

October Happenings

Woohoo! It’s finally October, and maybe only a few more days of high 90* temperatures. Everyone is so tired of the heat, but we may have a bit of a reprieve next week. Bring on the Fall!

My husband was supposed to leave tomorrow, for a 4 day Men’s Golf Outing, in San Antonio. About 8 guys from our church were going to go. The spouses, including me, had great plans for our weekend. Unfortunately, the friend that headed up the golf outing, has become seriously ill in the hospital. Please put him on your prayer list!

I have talked my hubby into going to Little Rock, Arkansas, for our tour of P.Allen Smith’s big garden estate, on November 1st. We’re going to make it a weekend trip. I hope to go to see the Clinton Presidential Library. Dick is hoping to play golf with a friend. I have our tickets reserved for the garden tour. Woohoo! And a friend, very nicely, volunteered to have us stay with them. Wow.

Cut and Paste

My grandson, Isaac and I have been having Nana School. He just turned three. He’s learning how to use scissors (no easy skill!). He loves to Cut and Paste. He’s learning to count and I put out some numbers, and he has to put that many counting teddy bears to add up to those numbers. Then Isaac makes a pattern out of the bears. He’s loving it! Yesterday, he painted a Jack-O-Lantern form, and then we played Please Don’t Spill the Beans!. Fun.

Learning to color in the lines, and making a pattern

Painting a Jack-O-Lantern

My daughter, Jessica, had a birthday recently. She got to use the Red Plate. We only use that for special occasions, and then I write down who used it, and what we had to eat.

The Red Plate

Our church just had a Live Auction. My donation to the auction was a Dinner for 8, followed by Mexican Bingo. I couldn’t believe it! A group of my friends bought that for $725. Another friend bought a second one for $700. My word! This should be fun.

Mexican Bingo

Another friend, Lorraine Sheppherd, gave me her extra ticket to see “Phantom of the Opera”, with her and her kids. It was at Bass Hall, and it was spectacular!!! Love it.

Phantom of the Opera!

How is your fall going? October is going to be a great month. What are your plans? Let me know if you enjoyed this post.

Grandma Sherry