Thanksgiving is about spending time with family and friends and is an important time to talk less and listen more. This is hard for me …

It’s back-to-school time and my first grandbaby, Evelyn, just left for college.

Us ladies just happened to show up at AMFA’s “Wednesday Spins” after-hour party all dressed up in matching green. So, we had to take a picture.

Our life has changed since adding our new puppy, Coco, to the family. For instance, Grady and I are subjugated to her bodily functions and puppy antics, and we can no longer walk freely around the house; it is a maze of toys and barriers. There are fences and gates everywhere in my home and yard. Coco is not allowed upstairs because, just like any unsupervised baby, she gets into trouble, and she’s not allowed out of the yard for the same reason.

I have four children, three of which work with me and my husband in our flag business. This makes me happy. It makes all of us happy and (I think) makes my employees and customers happy.

The story of Matthew and Dreamland began in utero.

I was pregnant with middle-son Matthew Savage McCoy when I bought and restored the Taborian Hall with its Dreamland Ballroom on the 3rd floor. Little did I know at the time that he was going to grow and inherit my love of this old building.

To rest easy, my mother always said she had to see where her babies, no matter how old, laid their heads at night.

With that in mind, Grady and I made a trip to Urbana-Champaign, Illinois to see where son Jack was now living. If you remember the past few months, he graduated from Ohio State University, got married, accepted a new teaching job at Illinois State University, and moved to suburbia.

This past weekend, in Columbus, Ohio, we married off our last child.
As I think back, I realize each of my kids’ wedding was unique and a reflection of them.

Last week, in my blog titled “Cuba’s Secret World” I shared a customer’s flag story and video. In doing so, I realized I never wrote a blog about my 2016 trip to Cuba.

When my daughter, Meghan, called the AMFA to enroll herself and my granddaughter in an art class, she was told, because of their age difference, they couldn’t take a class together.

I wanted to wait a week longer to tell everyone the good news but, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I can’t keep a secret, especially a good one.

This is an unexpected trick I stumbled upon that has added some pizazz to my marriage and that I’ve shared with a few friends. Surprising to all of us, it works.  (And, no, I am not talking about anything sexual.)

It is 9:00 AM on Friday, July 7th, 2023, when the well-groomed young man, Mr. Jack McCoy, enters a meeting room in the horticulture department of Ohio State University. Three hours later, this adrenaline-worn student emerges as Dr. Jack McCoy.

Our family doesn’t need a reason to get together, because we do it all the time, but this past weekend we did it with spiritual purpose; It was for baby Arthur’s Christening ceremony. As we gathered around the water, donned in our best clothes (and before we did some day drinking) I broke church protocol and sneakily snapped this precious picture. Note: the Dean even has a halo!

When I saw this Memorial Day party picture and heard about the wheelbarrow full of babies, I knew I had to use it in this week’s blog.

Such is the nature of a busy life, when you must travel 2,000 miles to northern California to make time to see neighbors and friends that live two blocks from you in your hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas.

It seems like it has been a while since I have written about the business of entrepreneurship.
My daughter-in-law, the newest entrepreneur in the family, has hung up her apron as manager of Heights Taco and Tamales for more professional attire and a career as The Property Group’s newest real estate agent.

Like everything in my Libra life, there is the constant balancing of the scales. Before Christmas, I worked hard; during Christmas, I played hard; and afterwards, I crashed hard.

Many things are coming back; like the return of shopping catalogs in my overflowing mailbox, conventions are making a comeback, too.

Gran Ann and Daddy Mac are the grandparent-names given, by my children, to husband Grady’s parents.
Last week, against Daddy Mac’s objection, we planned and invited friends and neighbors to their house to celebrate his 90th birthday.