Saturday, March 14, 2009

Signs of Spring

Spring officially begins in six days, but when I step outside my door, there it is. I didn't need to go very far, or for that matter, I didn't even need to take my slippers off. When I stepped off that last step was this gorgeous blooming bouquet of daffodils. My favorite flower of all. I have loved these as early as kindergarten. I always visioned fairies flying in and out of the trumpets. And not to far out I spotted this little hyathins peeking it's little head thru the mulch. Oh what a lovely scent. This is right near my swing, and when I sit in the swing, with the warm summer breeze the scent of these beauties just take mes away. Up in the tree you will find some budding magnolias, I have a feeling that old man winter wasn't to kind. There has been a lot of branches broken off, but I am sure she will do her best to bring her natural beauty into bloom.

Springs greatest joy
beyond a doubt
is when it brings
the children out-Edgar Guest

I live at the bottom of a dirt hill. There are two little boys, each one lives at the top house on each hill. So naturally they love to play in the middle, which of course is my yard. And even better I have lots of water, rocks and the right terrain that all little boys love. Of course if they would only clean up the messes they make I wouldn't mind so much. But boys will boys..... When I did my walk around this afternoon I found these treasures to share with you.

Down by the pond sailing my little boat. What did I do, my creation won't float? Oh well, I'll lie and dream of when I grow big. Some day I'll sail the sea on my own rig.



I hope where ever you are, you find some spring in the air.
Kindredly,
Ellen

Beaded ornaments

My 50th Birthday banner my sister made for my surprise party


Hedda Hopper


Birth:

May 2, 1890
Death:

Feb. 1, 1966
Actress, Journalist. Despite a 23 year career that encompassed over 120 motion picture appearances and chorus girl roles on Broadway to motion pictures, she is best remembered for her newspaper column and radio show that focused exclusively on Hollywood gossip, a subject she was able to tell more about to her audience due to her Hollywood insider status. Born Elda Furry in Holidaysburg, Pennsylvania, she left school to act on Broadway. In 1913 she married marquee star William DeWolfe, a man who was 32 years her senior. They had one son, and divorced in 1922, but she kept his name for the rest of her life (and changed her name to Hedda on the advice of a numerologist). In 1931 she began “The Hedda Hopper Show”, which initially ran as a 15 minute gossip show mostly devoted to Hollywood marriages and divorces. Enormously popular, it ran until 1951, and on the strength of its popularity she started the “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood” column in the Los Angeles Times in 1938. She steadily gained a reputation for exposing tidbits about the lives of Hollywood figures, and created a character of herself in her own right, especially in regard to her vast collection of sometimes outrageous hats, and a long standing feud with rival gossip columnist Louella Parsons. With the advent of television’s popularity in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he radio show waned, but she herself became a staple of television programs and game shows, being a frequent panelist on “What’s My Line?’, and appear on shows like “I Love Lucy”, “The Colgate Variety Hour” and “The Beverly Hillbillies”. In 1960 she received the Journalistic Merit award, and published her autobiography “The Whole Truth and Nothing But!”, which recapped her over 20 years or being an Hollywood insider. She died in Los Angeles of double pneumonia in 1966, working right up until her passing. As a Hollywood icon, she created a number of friends and enemies; she gave harsh advice to actress Ida Lupino, which helped her gain recognizable part, but was despised by actress Joan Bennett, who once sent her a skunk. In 1985 a movie about the feud between her and Parsons was released as “Malice in Wonderland”, which Jane Alexander as Hedda Hopper and Elizabeth Taylor as Louella Parsons