Consider the Lillies of the Field

The rain continues as it has almost every day for the past week. My lillies are in full bloom and beautiful. I wanted to share the beauty with you.

Notice the "ruffled" edges.

The Minnie Pearl . . . a very small lillie and a must for Nashvillians.

Another view of the ruffled edges.

Isn't the orange lovely?

Enjoy!

Stitches Out, HGTV and Never Say Never

I had such an eventful day yesterday, I thought I would share it with you. I don't know about you, but for me life moves along at a routine pace for awhile, then when something out of the ordinary happens, normally several out of the ordinary things happen at once.

As most of you know, I finished my final oral surgery two weeks ago (hallelujah!!!). The appointment to remove the stitches was yesterday...an out of the ordinary event, albeit not a pleasant one, but one that requires it be done when scheduled.

On Tuesday, the architect who worked on our house, called. He said HGTV wanted to come to film our bathroom but the only time they could come was Wednesday morning. Well, that's not something you want to pass up, so I nominated Mr GSL to take care of HGTV while I had my stitches out. This wasn't exactly how I would have chosen for things to happen, but that's the way it was. Besides, the architect assured me that they would only be filming our bathroom and it wouldn't take very long. Fortunately, the lady who cleans our house was there on Tuesday so everything was clean and in order (except of course Mr GSL's closet which is next to the bathroom, but surely they were not going to film a closet, just the bathroom).

I made sure we were up early because Mr GSL is not a morning person and it takes him a bit of time to get ready in the mornings. They were due to arrive around 9 and I had to leave around 8:30 to get to Brentwood for my 9:00 a.m. appointment. Mr GSL was ready and everything looked fine when I left so I was relieved.

It really didn't take long to get the stitches out and I went to the office to schedule my next appointment. I thought I would call my husband just to see how everything was going. "Fine", he said, "but are you on your way home yet?" I detected a note of apprehension in his voice. I let him know that it would be about 30 minutes before I could get home and asked if there were any problems. "No, they just need to ask you a few questions."

I started home and wondered what questions they could possibly ask me that he couldn't answer. When I arrived home, every parking spot was full. I parked on the street and went directly into the house. "Are you Ann?" was the first thing I heard. Before I had time to say anything but "Yes", they had me seated facing a huge light with a camera pointed at the chair, Mr GSL had grabbed my purse and put it away, and a man was attaching a microphone to my t-shirt. Mind you, I had been to the dentist to have stitches taken out in my mouth...not something you dress up for (just jeans and a t-shirt), lipstick was not an option and I hoped my hair was ok considering laying in the dental chair and extra humidity from the rain. Anyway, they said they needed to interview me right away for the piece they were doing. I talked for about 5 minutes when the cameraman noticed that something was wrong with the camera...we started again. Now I know why Mr GSL wanted me home, if I hadn't arrived, they were going to interview him. It's probably a good thing I didn't have time to think about it.

Whew, that was over. Next, they interviewed the architect, then went into the bathroom with all sorts of gadgets, tripods, cameras and three people (in addition to the architect, Mr GSL and me). Not sure how we all fit, but we did. Well, things were not yet over for me...I had to walk around and put things into the storage area, turn the water on and off in the sink and in the tub and turn the music and lights on and off as a demonstration. OK, still not too bad.

This process took almost 2 hours. Then the "never say never" part which I still can't believe. They asked if I would put on my bathing suit and let them film me in the tub. Now, if you know me even a little, I'm not fond of letting anyone see me in a swimsuit, but in the tub for tv...no way! Well, they convinced me that all anyone would see was the tub, my face and hands. So they all left the room while I put my swimsuit on and climbed into an empty tub for filming. And I thought the interview was bad!!! They had me close my eyes as if relaxing...now, can you relax in an empty tub wearing a bathing suit with people and a camera pointed at you?? No way. I may just be nominated for an Academy Award for that performance.

Anyway, if someone told me when I was 20 that at 60+ I would be filmed in a bathtub for public viewing, I would definitely have laughed heartily and said NO WAY!!! It may very well (hopefully) wind up on the cutting room floor, but it was definitely one of those experiences that qualify for the "one day you will laugh at this" events.

I'm not clear on the broadcast details. I think it may be for a new website HGTV is launching, but the architect said it would be on tv in the fall.

Some photos I took during the filming....