Summer Scenes from a West Virginia Village

Pink and purple line the streets!



























Pink/purple petunias and the church.






The fountain, pink/purple petunias, and the church.

Fountain and gazebo.

Footbridge.

Footbridge.

The planters runneth over!

Ironic?

We continue to love this place!
(They even sell gyros with an apostrophe s!)

Views of the Village on a Snowy Day

Make snow angels, not war. This tank is at the Veterans Home which sits atop a hill across the street from the First United Methodist Church.
















Some snowy-day views of First United Methodist Church from the hill.

One of my favorite park areas, right in town!

Rooftops of the Village of Barboursville. (Look beyond the parked cars. Rooftops are before the opposing hill.)

Mid-Century Antique Floor Lamp

The attic find (minus the lamp shade). A mid-century floor lamp in working condition! Unable to find a Stiffel mark on this and the pole does not have a sliding sleeve to serve as an on-off switch, so must be a knock off....but mid-century nonetheless!

I did a lot of research on this type of lamp so I could figure out which lamp shade works best. The lamp has a center bulb covered by a basket-weave milk glass diffuser and three smaller candelabra lights. It looks like this inside.

I found this lucky lamp shade at my local Ollie's store for $10. That beats the $60 I would have had to spend ordering online.

We're enjoying our mid-century lamp in our 1922 historic home.

Glenda Has a Friend in West VA!

As if I need any other reasons to enjoy Wild, Wonderful West Virginia, I have, in fact, found another!

Glenda's new friend is sweet, sweet icing on the cake. I think this is my God's way of letting us know we're fitting in just fine right here in West Virginia!

As a refresher, or if you've not met her before, here's a Glenda montage:

Now, hold on to your hats for Glenda's new friend.

She'll knock your socks off!

This beauty is a gorgeous blonde (we don't know her name yet) with articulating arms (see the cord running up her leg) which rotate the "Cold Beer" sign in a circle every so often.

Seems she's modeling a piratey-Santa's-helper look these days.

I approve!

And I'm curious about her audience to her left......

Happy is so happy that he lost his eyeballs!

We will continue to ponder this scene while we move onward to mechanize Glenda!

Oh, and if the owner of the blonde-bombshell mannequin should happen to need a new home for her, I have a good home right here! With mannequin restoration experience included!

Water Main Break Residual

 Some icy patches around town. I liked the frozen weeds.

The WVa Landscape

The view to the east of Tractor Supply in Lavalette. Layers of rock, etc.....

The view to the west. Trees and hills!

















And check out this retaining wall! Use the cars for scale....

Unfurled Old Glory

Found an old flag pole/rod in the basement of this parsonage (oh, the things to be found in basements, attics, and garages of parsonages...that's a whole nother blog post!) and the front porch already had a sturdy flag pole bracket mounted, so we replaced the little pirate flag with this beauty.

So far we've remembered to bring the flag in at dark and put the flag out in the morning. We hope for continued success with day number two. [grin]

Following the U.S. Flag Code has me breaking out in hives. I'm afraid to break a rule! The American flag requires more care and attention than my pet hamster! It's pretty, and worth the care and attention, though..... (yes, both the flag and the hamster).

Halloween vs. Christmas in West VA

Okay, not to beat a dead horse (too late for that?), but the people absolutely love, love, love Halloween around here and go to great lengths to celebrate. It's quite fun!

At the risk of being picked up by the police and charged with stalking, I took a photo today of a house I had taken photos of at Halloween.

Compare and contrast, shall we?

Here's the house, which we fondly refer to as the "witch-circle house," pulling out all the stops for Halloween.

Here's a close-up of the witches in a circle.

Ahhh, the Halloween splendor.



Now let's contrast this with Christmas. Ready?










BAM!

Yup. That's it. A wreath on the door.











From this-------

------to this. And one thing remains the same; it's still private property!

Is This Typical, Normal, Allowed, Legal?

Is this one of those, "only in WVA" things? Is this typical, normal, allowed, legal?

Funny thing, since the time that I snapped this photo on November 8, I've spotted another cardboard tag.....about a week ago. I kinda don't think it was the same car since it was in a different town.

Must be a West VA thing, because (for you West VA locals) this is something that isn't really usual.

Holidays...the West Virginia Way!

So, I found some PURPLE lights at Goodwill today. I will tuck these babies away for my extra fancy Halloween decorating next year here in West Virginia.

Driving around today, I noticed that the porches are decorated with little Christmas trees. We just happen to have a little Christmas tree, and I just happened to find some white lights and ribbon and a Santa hat at Goodwill today, too. What are the odds?!?!

Here's our front porch with a little Christmas tree.

With some daylight.....

....and without.

Finished, With Time to Spare!

 WHEW!! Finished....in the nick of time!

After extensive research on decorating American Foursquare homes, I discovered that shelves (built-in or free-standing) flanking the fireplace are the common filler for those spaces. It is also common to have lamps on the shelves. So, we are compromising with our end tables and lamps under the windows. The main point seems to be that each side be identical/symmetrical, under the windows.

Find the Kitty!

Followup pictures on the way....to show the room transformation!

Can you find the kitty in these pictures?

Gettin' ready for Christmas!

I-64 Fall Foliage

The hills are alive with fall foliage! Okay....were alive.....this post is overdue.

Did you say texting and driving is dangerous?

 View of West Huntington, from the treetops!

A Phone Booth, Feathered & Feline Friends, and a Humongous Cigar Equal a Weird Friday

My Friday started out normal enough. What with the typical walk to school and the typical picture taking of the phone booth we walk by every morning. Nothing out of the ordinary. Ahem.

Until.......I discovered two sparrows in the basement! What a surprise!

These two unexpected visitors eventually ended up on the first floor where they met two very bored and very (suddenly) interested felines.

This is bird #1 making friends with Remi. (Rest assured that no birds nor felines were harmed during the ensuing melee.) 

















With intervention, Bird #1 was placed on the front porch where it rested before flying off into the woods.

Bird #2 had gone rouge, but Remi kept watch.

Here, Remi cornered Bird #2 near Glenda's fishnet-stocking-ed foot!

Bird #2 was carefully apprehended as Remi continued canvassing the area. He is still convinced there is a bird hanging around here.

Bird #2 resting outdoors before flying off.

My morning was complete after seeing an old man pushing a cart (buggy?) around Walmart with a humongous, albeit unlit cigar in his mouth.

Since I couldn't snap a picture of Humongous-Cigar-Walmart Man, this photo will have to do. Imagine this cigar in Walmart....in West Virginia! Okay.........maybe not too hard to imagine.