Day 2: HSH Interior Renovation Update

The bathroom renovation starts today! Along with the continuing work on the heating and air. The H and A guys are now sawing and installing vents to the upstairs bedrooms and hallway. This will be an interesting day..living and working while construction is going on inside the house!. Say bye, bye to peace and quiet for a few weeks!. Lady, my dog, started growling, thinking Max, John's dog, was trying to get into the bathroom to eat her food, when in actuality it was the bathroom guys confirming measurements before starting the construction work. I was a little embarrassed. Oh, Lady, she is a sweet dog, loves people, except she does not share her food and toys with other dogs. I went to bed too late last night, so I am still a little sleep deprived. All this work will be worth it in the end..because this 136 yr old house will have modern upgrades that are necessary to function in this ever changing world! Keep checking back for updates to my blog!

Day 1: HSH Interior Renovation Update

The interior renovations officially began When I returned from Atlanta, I was there monday and most of yesterday, the H and A guys installed the floor vents in the master bedroom, John's office, the 'Gone With The Wind' room and bathroom. They left at 5pm, a half an hour before I got home from Atlanta. The work went well, it is quality, and we will have HEAT this winter!!!..No more sleeping and freezing under the covers in 20 degree temperatures!.. For a few days in December of last year or was it January of this year, I don't remember, it got so cold here, that the temperatures dropped into the teens for I think 2-3 nights. We had a couple of space heaters, sleeping on an air bed, with tons of covers but we were still cold and shivering. The ceiling in John's office are 12 foot, so the heaters did no good unless it was right next to you. The first night we toughed it out. The second night, I said, we are staying in a hotel room, I cannot take this cold. The house has no insulation but it is solid construction. Houses are not made this way anymore. The wood is so hard it is like rock. Sleeping in those cold of temperatures makes you really appreciate central heating which is what this house is getting, along with central air conditioning, 136 years after it was built! So...the work continues. Keep reading for daily or weekly updates.

Red Tailed Hawk spotted in Old Dublin Cemetery

Yesterday as I was walking my dog, I spotted a red tailed hawk in the old Dublin cemetery. The old Dublin cemetery is the oldest public cemetery in Dublin and is within walking distance of the house. The oldest gravestone in the cemetery dates to 1819. No ghosts have followed us from the graveyard to the house :)...I have been wanting to take a picture of a specific tree for a long time and I finally took it yesterday...It shows a cedar and oak tree sharing trunks. Both trees are huge, alive and healthy. Even a tree is a shining example of working together to achieve a common goal, in that case, survival. Enjoy the pictures.

First Day of Autumn

It is a beautiful day in Dublin, GA. The sky is clear and the sun is shining. Slight breeze in the air. It feels wonderful outside. Me and Lady, my dog, were just outside and doing a little reading.

Enjoy the day!

35th Annual Possum Hollow Festival- Sept 25-26th

I will be checking out the 35th Annual Possum Hollow Festival in Dexter, GA this weekend. I have never been before and my boyfriend wants to take me to it. It is an family friendly arts, crafts, food and music event. Check out the link below for details and plan to attend:

                                                      2009 Annual Possum Hollow Festival

I will update my blog on my impression of the event.

Whirlwind weekend Trip to Atlanta...RAIN!!!

Supposed to play a tennis match for a former team I was on yesterday..Got rained out..Came back to Dublin a day early. It just rained and rained and rained all day yesterday in Atlanta...It rained all the way back to Dublin however there were a few bright spots as we were traveling back to Dublin on I-16 near Macon...Check out these pictures of rainbows...One of them looks like a double rainbow...

The second shot looks cool because I magnified it on my Blackberry 5x..The first one was taken just as we were passing the Hall of Fame in Macon. If you look closely at the picture, you can see a faint rainbow just above the main one. Pretty cool. More rain to follow in Georgia today. A 50% chance in Dublin...

Antebellum homes of Dublin on Bellevue Ave

When I first visited Dublin, GA over a year ago, my boyfriend took me down Bellevue Avenue to show me the last of the few remaining victorian/antebellum style homes representative of the 'Old South' of when life was very good in this small town at the turn of the last century. When cotton was king in this part of Georgia, money flowed in effortlessly. One of the main railroads that put Dublin on the map cuts through town to deliver goods, such as cotton, to the port of Savannah, to Atlanta or other points across the United States. You can still hear the trains whistle as they signal their pass through town several times a week, traveling the same routes as they did over a 100 years ago. The pictures below are from a collection of old postcards from Dublin, GA's past. The Pope's Mill was an interesting one to include in this blog entry..Enjoy the rest of the pictures.

A few interesting pictures about the antebellum homes are shown below. I would like to personally note a couple of these homes as my favorites. The first one is the W.H Lovett home.

W.H Lovett's son, Griffin, the owner of the Dublin Courier Herald newspaper, now lives there. The home was built around the turn of the last century and my boyfriend's grandmother, Myrtis Corker-Bullard, daughter of Frank Corker (prominent banker, attorney, mayor) was born in this house and she lived there until she was 16 years old. The second home, is the Page House, which is now a bed and breakfast.

Page House Bed and Breakfast

I keep telling my boyfriend I want a tour of the house and to stay in the Capt Hardy Smith room but we get sidetracked with the real Capt Hardy Smith house as we in now in the midst of major interior renovations. Check my boyfriend's blog or click on the link at the bottom of the main page on my blog 'Capt Hardy Smith House' for updates.

Most of the antebellum homes that lined both sides of Bellevue ave at the turn of the last century were torn down as I understand it to make way for smaller, more modern homes. As I pass the Corker/Lovett home and Page house everyday, I am thankful for the opportunity to experience what life was like in the 'Old South'. During the boom years of the early 20th century, Dublin was larger than Macon. As time went on and resources to do things more efficiently came about, people moved on and Dublin's population shrank. On your next trip on I-16, see for yourself what the history of this little town of not quite 20,000 people has to offer. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Cute Country Tennis Doggie :)

I like to play tennis and I love dogs. So what little country dog like this doing in my bedroom?

My favorite murial of Dublin, GA

Visiting with a Gypsy Vanner Horse

I slept well last night. No bats...Although Max, John's dog, woke me up around 9:30 or 10am..He has certain barks for certain things and I am beginning to recognize them much better now. As I came out of the bedroom to take Lady, my dog, for a walk, John said, 'Lizzy, come here you need to see this'...So I walk over into the breezeway, and I see a Gypsy Vanner horse attached to a black buggy walking through the side street near the house to promote the 'Wizard of Oz' play put on by a local production group. I thought, cool. I need to go over to Farmers Market area and take a picture of it up close. I drove over there on my way to my Walmart run with Lady, my barking dog, in the backseat. Lady hates horses. Below are the pictures I captured.

The owners of the horse and buggy own SajeWinds Plantation in Montrose, GA. Their home reminds me of Tara in 'Gone With The Wind', John's favorite movie. The home was built in 1842, 168 years ago!. Great setting for weddings and take a carriage ride for wedding proposals..John, are you reading this?..I will find the best wedding hoop skirt dress just for you :)...They have a website: http://www.sajewindsplantation.com/  which I plan to check out. Speaking of horses, John and I are going to visit a miniature horse farm I believe located in East Dublin either today or tomorrow. John asked me, would you like to own horses again? I said, I never owned a horse but grew up with about 20 of them through high school. Maybe a miniature or two would be nice. Time to go. Enjoy the day.

Another day in Dublin, GA

Rain early today. It was partly cloudy, hot and humid most of the day.  Check out the Capt Hardy Smith House blog with updates in the interior renovation progress. I look forward to when I don't have to go the laundry mat anymore. My washer and dryer are sitting in another room waiting to be used which will happen soon. I also look forward to when we have a working kitchen with a DISHWASHER!.

On my way to the laundry mat today, I thought I would take a short cut and ended up on a dead end street. So I turned around in someone's driveway and figured my way out. Unexpectedly, I got to see another part of Dublin I have not seen before. I got lost! Dublin is a nice little town. The homes well taken care of with alot of charm to them. Nice size yards with privacy which you don't find much of anymore in this day and age. I have been revising and adding stuff to my blog to day..I am catching on to this stuff. Even my boyfriend is impressed.

He started painting the hallway today. It is a beautiful and sunny yellow color. The previous occupants of the HSH painted the upstairs hallway a similar color when John uncovered the color while scraping. Amazing. Check out HSH blog at the end of my main page for updates.

Another uneventful day has come to a close. John is watching tv and relaxing in the overstuffed chair. Not a sound to be heard anyway near the house and we are in downtown Dublin! This is a daily occurance. No one bothers us. When people leave work for the day, downtown shuts down quickly. Rush hour in Dublin? What's that? It does not last long, maybe an hour. I have not timed it. How refreshing to move to a town where it does not take what it seems forever to get home after work everyday. The beauty of country living. We experience peace and QUIET  not to mention how nice the people are here. Most of the people here are native southerners. So I am experiencing what southern hospitality is really like.

I forgot to mention, for my birthday yesterday, my boyfriend John got me a pecan tree picker upper. Judging by the picture, it looks like a hamster running basket on a stick:

For those non native southerners, a pecan picker upper by any other name is not the same or is it? Judge for yourself by looking at this picture. I asked my native southern boyfriend what you call it and he had no idea..hummmmm..Born and raised in the south eh John? :) My very own! I am so excited!.Well the day is over and time to retire for the night. Until my next blog entry. Good night.

I am offically a Dublin, GA resident!

Today is my birthday and my boyfriend, John took me out to dinner at Tumpie's Steakhouse in East Dublin. The food was wonderful and service excellent. The restaurant was an old farmhouse built back in the 1800's. The entire restaurant showcased the owners of the home over the generations with displays of pictures, music momentos and alot of rare antique collectables. See the link in this post for more information on Tumpies. This is the restaurant to go to when visiting Dublin.

Tumpies Steakhouse

Before dinner tonight, I had to get my car tag renewed. In Georgia, you have to renew your tag on your birthday or you get a penalty. I moved from Atlanta, Fulton county to Dublin, Laurens county. To celebrate, John took my picture before I changed my sticker. No more Atlanta!

First Month Living in Dublin, GA

My first month living in Dublin, GA was full of excitment. The things going through my head were: I actually did it!, I did not break anything or run over anyone during the process of packing and unpacking, pretending I was at summer camp, pretendng I was not scared of ghosts, spooky graveyards, brown bats, roaches, my neighbors, my boyfriends dog or anything else you find in an 136 year old house.

Second Month Living in Dublin, GA

I survived my second month living in a 136 year old house. The nights were 'batty' and the days 'sweltering' hot. I never knew how hot central Georgia got. I lived in the Atlanta metro area for 14 years. I was still in the summer camper mode. I slept on an airbed in my boyfriends office for almost 3 months while he worked on the masterbedroom. Don't worry, we had air conditioning a working bathroom and a shower!.

The day I moved to Dublin, GA

I moved to Dublin, GA on April 30th, 2009. My friend Adam, from my mixed doubles tennis team and my boyfriend John helped me load up John's truck and my car for the 2.5 hr trek to Dublin. As you can see, I am completely worn out from packing, cleaning and loading. Luckily, the guys moved the heavy stuff. My boyfriend John had to be a wise guy and take my picture at my not so best moment.

The congestion of metro Atlanta and urban sprawl got the best of me and it was time to move to a quieter place. My boyfriend John rescued me from Atlanta and brought me to Dublin. I am very happy here. I grew up in a small town in southern Indiana so the adjustment has been easy. Prior to August 2008, I knew nothing about Dublin, GA and now I am living here! Home sweet Home!

Dublin, GA Weather

Dublin, GA Weather

Red Neck Games-2009

Not knowing what to expect and being the good sport that I was, I decided to go to the Annual Redneck Games with John in July. It is blazing hot, like in the 90s with the humidity that I thought I was not going to make it. I got some heat exhaustion. The Redneck Games were started in 1996 as a response to the Atlanta Olympics. The original Redneck Games are here in East Dublin. There is one in Texas somewhere but they copied Dublin's. We visted the booths, went to various redneck events, like the toilet seat throwing contest and people flopping themselves in horrible red Georgia clay. Word of Caution: leave your good clothes and digital cameras at home unless you want to use them as future work clothes or your camera is mud and water proof.


With John's connections, we hung out with Rusty Henderson and some of his friends, sons of the Confederate Veterans. When Rusty drove up in 'The General' from 'The Dukes Of Hazzard' complete with a few Daisy Dukes and that familar horn sound, it was great. Alot of attention. The door on both sides of the car opened instead of crawling out.

When the mud flop contest started up again, a man with a backhoe, I thought he was just going take mud out of the pit to make it deeper to add more water. Well, with people at least 4 deep surrounding the pit, that man grabbed a load of mud, lifted it high in the air and dropped it back into the pit, getting disgusting red mud on everyone, me included. Totally unexpected. I tried to hide behind John so he could take the brunt of the mess but I was not spared.

It was fun but had to experience it. Alot of drinking and people proudly wearing their confederate garb in all forms. John cleaned off in the Oconee river like the other 'locals'. I was afraid to get in there thinking their would be gators in there. There have been past gator sightings in the Oconee but I am not sure in the Dublin area. You may find big snapper turtles though. They are nasty and aggressive. I was chicken to get in bc of the gator thing. I was filthy from the mud pit. I decided to do the easier misty route instead. Check out these pictures and google RedNeck games on google to find out more about the event. It was a hoot watching all the stuff going on. Will I go next year? Does the look on my face tell the story?

I have a year to think about it.