De-Vine!!

Good morning, and Happy Pink Saturday. If y'all read THIS POST, you know that Connie and I have been doing a lot of work at Mark's and Sandi's house. After we complete the work outside, I will show you what we've done to the exterior as promised.

Meanwhile, I want to share pictures of an interesting vine that we uncovered when we started cleaning out the natural area. Mark says that it must have volunteered because he didn't plant it. I'm guessing some bird pooped a seed or two. Look at the beautiful colors in the berries, ranging from green and blue to bright pink.

The speckled ones remind me of robin's eggs. Here's another picture showing the beautiful range of colors.

A Google search on speckled berries turned up a name for this vine. It's called porcelain berry vine, and is sometimes nicknamed bubble gum vine because of the range of berry colors. It turns out that you don't want this vine in your garden. It can become invasive and is likened to kudzu, the vine that ate the South. In some states it's even illegal to plant it!

Fortunately, I found another plant we can live with. In the same bed was beauty berry, showing off its bright pink dress.

So enjoy your Pink Saturday, everyone, and be sure to visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound, where lots of folks will be dressed in pink. I, however, will be wearing my Razorback red and white, which could become pink if you mixed the two together.

Where Thy Footsteps Have Trod

The University of Arkansas has created a new promotional video that will be used on this year's football broadcasts.  It's based on the Senior Walk tradition, which is one of the oldest on the UofA campus.

Beginning at the front door of Old Main, Senior Walk displays the names of more than 120,000 University of Arkansas graduates, going all the way back to the first graduating class in 1876.  It stretches throughout the campus for more than five miles.

Back in the day, names were stamped by hand in fresh concrete.  In 1986 the University Physical Plant invented the Sand Hog, a machine that etches the names into concrete.

I am fortunate to find my name on Senior Walk twice—once with the class of 1968 for my undergraduate degree, then again in 1972 for my master's degree.  LBeau's name can be found with the class of 1976 for his master of civil engineering degree.  Each of our boys is also on Senior Walk—Hunter in 1996, Brent in 2002 and Ben in 2004.

By the way, University of Arkansas graduates will recognize this post title as a line from the Alma Mater.  You can listen to it by clicking the button on my sidebar.

Senior Walk is one of my favorite traditions, so I'm linking up with Laurie's Favorite Things.  Go visit her.

Goodbye, Old Friends

I said goodbye to a couple of old friends recently.  The first to go was my Motorola Nextel radio.  After more than 10 years, I finally got fed up with the quality of my Nextel two-way service.

When I first signed up for Nextel, I was amazed at how much easier it made my life.  For a flat monthly rate and with the push of a button, I could talk all I wanted to all I of my subcontractors and suppliers.  I didn't have to use precious cell phone minutes or wear a pager, and I never had to beep someone and wait for them to return my call.

In its heyday, Nextel revolutionized the construction business.  At 7 o'clock in the morning, I could be enjoying a cup of coffee in my robe and pajamas and give instructions to the framer, painter or roofer.

My sons and their friends used to mock me.  "Hey, Billy.  We need a load of lumber up on Lot 51.  10-4."

In the end after Sprint bought out Nextel, the quality of the service began to rapidly go downhill.  I couldn't have a conversation in the comfort of my kitchen without losing the connection, so I finally decided that I could take that $50 a month and add it to my cell phone plan, which has always been with a different carrier, and still be ahead of the game.

With the arrival of the September catalog, I also decided that it was sadly time to say goodbye to Talbots.  I have worn Talbots way longer than I owned a Nextel radio.  In fact, I used to order from their catalog long before they had a store in my town.  I hate shopping for clothes in department stores.  I wear petites, and department stores never have much of a selection.  What they do have is crammed in a haphazard mess into a small corner of the store that's hard to find.

But over the last couple of years, Talbots began changing the focus of their marketing to attract the "thirty-somethings" and kicked Granny to the curb.  When their September catalog came about a week ago, I didn't see a single thing that looked like me.

Look closely at this description of their "Heritage Fit" pants.  It says, "Sits comfortably at the waist."

Wrong.  Did you know that Talbots takes the fabric that they used to put at the waist of their pants and adds it to the length?  True.  So now the petite pants that used to fit me perfectly have to be cut off 4-6 inches in length.

Truthfully, I like my pants to sit slightly below the waist.  However, even though I'm in construction, I do not want to look like the plumber when I bend over.

So it's goodbye to Talbots and hello to J. Jill.  Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with the $10.74 credit on my Talbots account.

I know it's probably cheating to link up with Laurie's Favorite Things, since these "old favorites" have dropped out of favor.  But I'm going to cheat and do it anyway.  Be sure to visit Laurie where you'll probably see lots of things that bloggers really do love.