Monthly Archives: December 2021

christmas comes to wildflower farm in willistown (hopefully)

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This evening at Willistown Township, the Township officials voted in an agreement with Wildflower Farm, specifically a settlement agreement. As I am a friend of the Heenans, I knew the agreement was coming, but was waiting for the official evening which was the Supervisors Meeting this evening. I have not been privy to the terms of the agreement, I should be CLEAR about that. I also didn’t ask because it’s not my business. I am just happy an agreement was reached.

Well, here it is:

I have to admit the Willistown Supervisors were very patient with the charming neighbors of Castlebar Lane. Still can’t decide if they are Super Stepford, Desperate Housewives throwbacks, Knotts Landing or just jerks of the first order.

And yes, Castlebar dwellers, that is my opinion and I am allowed said opinion. I would never have thought twice about any of this if I hadn’t seen things with my own eyes, including but not limited to someone driving back and forth and back and forth in front of Wildflower Farm’s driveways when I was there one time. For quite a while. I still think that was super creepy and stalkeriffic.

One of the neighbors, who was speaking a lot during settlement agreement identified himself as Frank Houder. He is on the Willistown Planning Commission and his business has gotten a lot of work out of Willistown Township over the years, correct? So I guess as an observer this evening I am a little surprised that he seemingly doesn’t get how things and ordinances work?

I don’t know. It’s a great mystery of life. How these neighbors can be so horrible even when tamed down at a meeting being recorded, escapes me. Again, my opinion and it’s allowable. But those people are why I do not go to many meetings and am grateful for Zoom and streaming. I can watch them and have my meeting Tourette’s and not disturb anyone. Because frankly, people like this make me want to stand up and tell them they are terrible and would they please just STOP.

So all these Scrooges of Castlebar Lane and their ilk will now sit and stew in their McMansions with their cold, dark hearts?? Will they keep filing things against Wildflower Farm? Will they keep essentially spying on Wildflower Farm?

People, it’s freaking CHRISTMAS. Do you get the whole reason for the season? Do you get how horrible you have been to your NEIGHBORS you supposedly wish to get along with?

And why do these neighbors think they should have been privy to a settlement agreement between the township and the farm? That has nothing to do with the neighbors, does it? Or do these people think so highly of themselves that everything has to do with them? (Umm hello, if the world revolves around them, stop it I want to get off.)

Well only time will tell what the Scrooge Collective on Castlebar Lane does. Here’s hoping they just accept they live in an area where farms used to be more plentiful than McMansions. Here’s hoping they realize how LUCKY they are to have a Wildflower Farm in their midst. I mean what if they were allowed to be pig farmers? Me thinks pigs would be far more offensive and odiferous than flowers, yes? And they could have a field of townhouses or ticky tacky new construction crammed in, but they are looking at a FARM and a nice rehabbed one at that. Be GRATEFUL.

As a gardener I have shared my garden resources with this farm – sources for unusual bulbs, tubers, roses, and native plants/trees. As a gardener, I am thrilled to have them close to home. They are wonderful and their flowers are awesome and so is their honey. And they are nice people I have come to know and I am grateful to call friends. Nice people. Beautiful children, hardworking. Chester County is LUCKY to have them.

Merry Christmas Wildflower Farm. Your friends and customers and nice neighbors believe in what you are doing!

Here are the prior posts on Wildflower Farm:

October 7, 2021: the strange tale of wildflower farm: in willistown when is a farm not ok to be a farm?

October 8, 2021: this is wildflower farm

Merry Christmas Heenans! Can’t wait for spring flowers!

magnolia cottage shop in malvern is looking magical and holiday bright!

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Last year none of us were out much because of COVID19. This year we are taking baby steps. It is sometimes disconcerting being out because face it, we are not used to it. I think that’s why I appreciate the small businesses in our area even more.

One of my favorites, Magnolia Cottage Shop is all decked out for Christmas and Kathy the owner has gone out of her way to make it so wonderful and welcoming. The shop is full of so many fun things right now, I could have stayed far longer than I did!

I found a few things I loved including this little vintage Annalee white elf. I don’t know much about these Christmas collectibles, I have a couple of friends that love them so I have gotten a few here and there over the years and I think this one is a Frosty! He looks really cute on my tree!

Magnolia Cottage Shop has something for everyone and one of my other favorite things were the vintage Pimpernel Santa placemats:

Magnolia Cottage Shop is located at 288 Lancaster Avenue Frazer/Malvern PA 19355. They are closed Mondays. See website and Facebook and Instagram for more!

art imitates life or life imitates art?

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In 1998 a little show launched on HBO called “Sex and the City” based on Candace Bushnell’s 1997 book of the same title.

That show spoke to so many women. I was 34 when it launched. So 23 years have passed and I still watch re-runs of the show. With the show you also had all the fabulous New York City settings and the clothes…and the shoes…. I still can love the shoes and still not be able to walk in them!

The show back then was not only a fun escape, it also provided humor into the lives of women then. As far as TV goes it was ground breaking in its own right. We identified with some aspects of the life situations (though a lot of it was often portrayed in a campy unrealistic fashion), and wished we had the clothes, shoes, and even apartments and more.

I remember some of my friends and I knew a guy we used to call “Mr.Big” (like one of the characters from the show.) We didn’t date him, he used to come down from NYC and visit other friends sometimes for things like Radnor Hunt. Expensive cars, expensive cigars, big career. At the time it was kind of amusing. Always fun to be around, and if you ever happened to be in New York City, and he was free, he would always take you out for a fabulous dinner or drinks. I remember having dinner with him one time at The Monkey Bar, which was definitely New York City iconic, and closed during COVID in July, 2020. The guy we laughed at being a very “Big” and larger than life died in 2008 in NYC. He was 48.

Sex and the City ran as a series until 2004. Then there were two movies, one in 2008 and one in 2010.

Meanwhile, time passes for all of us. Some of us got married, others divorced, and some of us were liberated from bad relationships and were fortunate to find the relationships we should have waited for life to show us in the first place. Some of us had kids, some of us didn’t. Some of us got sick, had things like breast cancer. Some of us were widowed and lost life partners.

We’re not kids anymore. So it makes sense that some of the TV characters some of us followed for years would also grow and change, yet parts of them like parts of ourselves remain the same. Enter the Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That.

I watched the first two episodes early this morning, before I even had coffee. Yes, I know, ridiculous at 57, but I loved that show. I wanted to see where they went.

I wasn’t disappointed, and if you loved the show, you will too. It’s real, it’s funny, and the first two episodes, much of it is bittersweet. They covered the no Samantha thing as actress Kim Cattrall chose not to reprise her role. Her part was pretty iconic, so I’m glad they did not try to recast her because I don’t think it would work .

Spoiler alert: they moved Samantha to London. And like happens to many of us as we age, some friendships don’t stand the test of time, and this is what is alluded to here. But the biggest spoiler is literally kill off Mr. Big in the first episode. That was fairly realistic and so sad. And a shock. Throughout the first series we always rooted for the off again and on again relationship of Carrie and Mr. Big. But I guess that is the case with real life, with age, also comes loss.

But even within this kind of television earthquake is so much of what we love about the original series. The characters are just older. They are dealing with different things: career shifts, kids growing up, dealing with teenagers of both sexes, being parents. And the clothes. Still great. And the sets? Still amazing. It’s adulting with flair, and they still have the clothes, cool apartments and houses that made the original show so fun.

I think this show is going to be a nice escape this winter and I hope it does more than one season. It is not Shakespeare, and it’s not the world that most of us live in, although certain situations with touch us, but it’s still entertaining to watch. And it reflects bits of our world as it now exists.

Life doesn’t stand still frozen in time, so I am guessing our TV shows can’t either.

Here are some articles about it:

Hollywood Reporter: ‘Sex and the City’ Boss on His HBO Max Revival: “This Isn’t What Was; It’s What’s Next”

Washington Post: ‘And Just Like That …’ is ‘Sex and the City’ for 2021: A bloated, laugh-free comedy about grief

Time: Why that Big twist was necessary

New York Magazine: And Just Like That … Series-Premiere Recap: A New Start
By Maggie Fremont

poseidon on paoli pike is fabulous!

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My friends have been speaking about Poseidon Asian Cuisine & Sushi Bar since they opened. We finally got there this weekend and it was fabulous!

The restaurant is super clean and the staff is so nice. And the food? One word: FABULOUS. It was all amazing, and their dumplings and dim sum are sublime. The sushi is so fresh it practically melts in your mouth.

They also serve wonderful green tea in nice pots at the table. That’s a little detail that is important to me because a lot of restaurants have stopped giving individual pots of tea to each table, and if you like tea you don’t want to keep flagging down your waiter or waitress, you want to be able to just pour it yourself at the table. Oh also this restaurant is BYOB.

We will be going back soon and I just thought I would tell everyone how much we enjoyed it. It is like night and day inside as well when compared to what was there prior to them, which was Redhound Grill before they went under.

Poseidon’s hours are as follows:

Monday – Thursday 11am – 9:30pm
Friday – Saturday 11am – 10pm
Sunday 12:00 pm – 9:30pm

Poseidan is located at 128 Paoli Pike, Paoli, PA (610)-812-3333. You can also find them on Facebook and Instagram.

Five star food and many more “Yums.”

I was not asked to write this post, nor was I compensated. We just really enjoyed our meal.

Thanks for stopping by.

festive and wonderful marshallton!!

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This afternoon started at The Cottage Shop in Marshallton. It’s a lovely little spot which is only open a few times a year, and it is something I missed during COVID19. This little gem is on W. Strasburg Rd not too far down from The Four Dogs Tavern.

Then it was off to the front porch of The Marshalton Inn for a Holiday Artisan Market with Re-Imagined Style and others. (They are there until 3:30 PM then it’s all hands on deck as they get ready to light the tree and welcome Santa to one of my favorite and so historic villages! The tree lighting is at historic Martin’s Tavern at 4 PM and festivities run until 6 PM!

Our last stop was The Four Dogs Tavern for lunch and to get some more Four Dogs swag (T-shirts, they make great gifts!)

Four Dogs Tavern is one of my favorite places. The atmosphere is awesome, and the food is always very good. I was very amused today after lunch when I had stepped outside and was waiting for my husband and this small group of Trendy Wendys stepped out of the Four Dogs and one said to the other “Well it looks like an old building I guess.”

Wisely I said nothing. But in my head, I was definitely rolling my eyes because oh that building has history!

If you are interested in more of the history of this area or would like to support the history, please check out The Marshallton Conservation Trust website.

Although we didn’t make any other stops we ended up coming through the Borough of West Chester which is also getting all gussied up for the holidays and looks very festive.

I will note that I decided to go to Marshallton today on my own and I was not asked to write anything, nor am I being compensated for my opinions.

There’s lots to love in Chester County this Christmas! Go exploring!

the little christmas things

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“It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.”
— W.T. Ellis

For years I have been hunting for a mistletoe ball like the one that hung from a chandelier in our house when I was really little. I have seen some from time to time, but they were never quite right.

Until today. And it was like a friend of mine reached decades into the past and pulled it forward. I have found the doppelgänger of the one from my childhood!

I hung my new old mistletoe ball on a chandelier that may have hosted the original one in my parents house in the 1960s.

It’s such a simple thing and really gave me some extra Christmas spirit today.

Thanks for stopping by.

december 1st musings

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Well dear readers, it is December 1st. 2021 is in the home stretch.

And what a year it has been. More crazy politics and the COVID-19 of it all still lurks, now with a new variant just in time for Christmas: “Omnicron”. (Who names these things? The hurricane namers?)

In some regards it has been a good year, in some regards rather difficult.

For me it has been a year of personal loss. A friend I had since 7th grade left this earth literally right after we did the memorial service for another friend I had since the 10th grade and lost during 2020. They were tough losses for me. Then almost too close together two friends from adulthood, and I wouldn’t have ever met one, had I not known the other. Then a favorite cousin, and two of the ladies who were part and parcel of happy memories of childhood and Society Hill…and whom I had seen throughout adulthood. The older we get, every now and again the fabric of our lives snags and pulls at our heart and memories.

I will admit parts of this year just got to me. Sometimes for different reasons. Yet here we are, entering into the Christmas season, one of my favorite times of the year. It makes up for me missing all the months of mad gardening, which still make me look out of the window to wonder what everything will look like when it comes up next year.

2021 was a year I definitely marveled at people…like the woman who posted the photo of me on Facebook in a hospital gown during October (AKA “Breast Cancer Awareness Month”). The photo was from either right before my 2011 surgery or just after but before I started treatment. More recently, is this rather obsessive and wound guy who is running around social media calling me a “shill for CVS” because I had posted information I had learned because I had the initiative to go to CVS corporate and tell them how bad things were here and ask what they were going to do about it. Once again I have to say, I am not paid to do these things and am not a compensated blogger.

2021 was us getting back to trying to feel normal and see friends and family. But I have to ask, who else almost has a panicky feeling if they are somewhere where a lot of people are? Or even if it is not a lot of people it feels like a lot of people? Of course now we are getting into corporate Christmas party season. I do not miss those days and wouldn’t be going if I was still a teeny cog in a large corporate wheel.

2021 is a year where the hangover of 2020 politics haunted us all year long. I expect these politics will haunt us for a very long time. I miss some whom I consider friends, but who don’t seem to have time for me now that they consider me ” super liberal” which I am still truly not. But I can’t and won’t conform to Stepford Wife style politics or herd mentality and follow the sheeple. Simply not my jam, and those who truly know me have no problem with that no matter what their politics are. I wonder will we ever be able to have civil political conversations again some day?

2021 was feeling like I was under siege as a blogger at times. I have been blogging long before it was commonplace and I will never understand why I am so, shall we say, “fascinating” to some? I am not so unusual, I actually quite ordinary. Is having a point of view that doesn’t have to be crowdsourced first on Facebook so unusual?

2021 was a year I cherished my family and friends even more than ever. But there for the Grace of God, go I. When you look at what others are going through, you do quite literally count your blessings. Life is not a Hallmark Christmas movie with a hero at the end and a happy ending, but it’s not so bad, and I am blessed. A phrase I don’t use often like tossing bits of popcorn into the air. But this year marks my 10th year surviving breast cancer among other things.

For all of us, it has felt like an eternity since our world went upside down in March of 2020 due to COVID-19. And honestly, I don’t feel we are out of the woods yet. And please, save your conspiracy theories like the one I heard last weekend when someone said to me that the people spreading COVID-19 were all the people who got their shots. And that, friends is one of the more irritating as hell aspects of 2021: it has been the year of the anti-masker/anti-vaxxer. By all means, keep protesting in front of malls and such, just stay out of my way. And don’t tell me I am wrong if I wear a mask somewhere. I hate wearing masks, but sometimes you just have to.

Now I am going to turn my attention towards getting my decorations up for Christmas. I am excited to be able to share this holiday season with some of my family. Nothing huge, but it will be Christmas.

I am, however, amused by somewhat extended family whom I have not heard from since way before COVID -19 hit inquiring as to Christmas plans. I would be offended, but that would require more head space than it deserves. Yes, it’s Christmas but umm where have you been? Some people sadly have no sense of their own optics based on behavior. You can’t always ask, sometimes you have to give.

Today I marked December 1st by having a photo taken with Santa. Nope sorry, that is my photo for my Christmas memories, but he was a rather marvelous Santa as you can see in the photo.

Seeing a Santa today really made me believe in the magic of Christmas. Here’s hoping we all have a magical season sprinkled with happiness. (And if you use Spotify listen to their just released list of what we listened to in 2021 – I like my list so far!)

Ho ho ho and thanks for stopping by.