It's cold. It's early. And I feel good.

T and I just returned home from our early morning assignment for the Tartan Trot. St. Luke's Presbyterian Church's 5k/10k race (this year a Peachtree Road Race qualifying event!) had 600 runners, several hundred volunteers, a large contingent of Dunwoody Police monitoring the route, and our usual frigid, rainy weather.

(One runner asked me if we felt the need to live up to our Scottish heritage - all that knees bared in the snow stuff a la Braveheart. "Yep," I said. "They don't call us 'the frozen chosen' for nothing!'")

Our assignment was the satellite parking and shuttle service at Dunwoody High School. T took one intersection; I fashioned a flag out of a race shirt so I could keep my heavy cold gear on and directed traffic into the parking lot. There was a steady stream of cars arriving right up until race time; then a few stragglers ran towards St. Luke's, hoping to catch the start.

The Tartan Trot is St. Luke's fundraiser for Youth mission trips. Early calculations indicate that we may do very well indeed for the three mission trips and two retreats planned this coming summer. (The tween and I will head to Mountain Top for the first time!)

After our shift was over, we headed to Olde Hickory House for a celebratory breakfast. I pretended I didn't have hat hair or looked like a doughboy with all the layers I was wearing. It was just good to sit down in the smoky warmth and enjoy eggs and sausage.

Now it's warm at home. It's mid-morning. And I feel even better.

You just don't notice things until you get there.

Life is myopic. We experience our lives through tunnel vision, unaware of things outside our immediate concerns.

Now that our son is driving, we've noticed how the next door elementary school parents park in the students' spots as a convenience during morning drop off. Exasperated, I tossed an email at the principal, asking him to let parents know that their patronage of those spots is ill timed and downright thoughtless. He begged for understanding (they have no parking lot at all). An older student told us that this has been happening for years.

We never noticed before.

As I visit the library, study plant options for this fall at Pike's Nursery, or enjoy breakfast at Olde Hickory House with my husband, I can hear the wailing cries of bored children who would rather be anywhere else. Their pitch is perfect, grabbing the wincing attention of every adult in hearing distance. When my kids were little, I honestly never heard those wails since my children were yammering about anything and everything on their minds. Now that I'm one of those "older moms," I hear every shriek.


"Just you wait," older friends and family have told me through the years. Aches and pains, college tuition, teen parties with beer as the star attraction, hot flashes, clothes shopping with a tween, the dog you get when the puppy has grown, boredom with stuff that was once integral to "living large" (like eating at trendy restaurants or going to a concert of ANY kind) . . . I never understood why people stopped being interested in staying current and keeping the social calendar as full as possible.

Now I'm getting there. And I get it.

Frugal doesn't mean cheap.

Every now and then, I like to wave the banner of "why spend it when you don't need to (or have it)?" My kids are firmly grounded on the Knitternall family credo: spend less, get more.

1. I love to read. I'm always trolling for the latest and best stories. I just can't afford to buy ALL the books I read each week. I empathize with the authors (they have to make a living). But the library is my best friend. I go online to the DeKalb County library website, reserve the titles I want to read - I'm often 100+ in the queue - and wait patiently until it's my turn. I just finished The Guernsey Potato Peel Pie Society book and it was lovely.

2. I love to knit. But I definitely can't buy every knitting book by favorite designers just for that single design. So I troll Ravelry to see if someone wants to sell a book they've loved and finished, explore the free patterns rampant on the internet, and work with a few designs of my own. The result is quite satisfying and affordable.

3. I love clothes and shoes. Yep, I do. My love is focused on perfect t's, stylish jeans, and really, really, REALLY comfortable outdoor shoes by Keen and Land's End and LL Bean. So I watch sales, consighment store shoe racks, and eBay. Scored in recent weeks : pristine royal blue Keen sandals at a thrift store in Greensboro, NC for $4.59, all-weather hiking books from the Lands' End store at Sears during their 75% off sale last season ($12.50), and Teva flip-flops for the pool, brand new for a measly $4 in a sale bin at Sports Authority. Lest you think I'm only about the sales, I just spent $90 on a pair of Merrell waterproof hiking boots for A because his feet are growing faster than his body and he's gotta have the good stuff for Scout hikes and camping trips.

4. I love outings with the family. But why pay full price when there are lovely bargains all around? For Spring Break, I paid just $15 a ticket for the Georgia Aquarium at a website John Heneghen kindly shared, we're hiking Stone Mountain ($8 parking pass and the outdoor parts of the park are all yours), and Helen, Georgia is just a couple of hours' drive and a kitschy day's worth of fun. Fun!

5. I love my haircut. Dunwoody salons often charge up to $100 to maintain your 'do, but I like Azima Salon. They let me stroll in without an appointment, clip and blow dry my hair for less than $35, and keep me within my "under 10 minutes" wash-dry-style maintenance rule.

6. I love dates with my husband. We've fallen into a weekly date habit at Olde Hickory House, sharing breakfast on Friday mornings after dropping off the kids at school and before we head to our respective jobs. We get some uninterrupted chat time, catch up and plan ahead, and revel in the couple-ness of the morning, all for less than $15 most weeks. We've been down the white-tablecloth-and-hovering-waitstaff route all around the world. Nothing compares to plates of simple breakfast staples and plenty of hot coffee in a to-go cup (him) and diet Coke (me).

Frugal doesn't mean cheap. It means valuing what you get.

I (Heart) Dunwoody.

When I was little, we moved every eighteen months to two years. That's the life of an Air Force family. Dad was involved in flight logistics, and specialized in bases that were scheduled for closing. I was the "new kid" so many times I thought it was normal. And every time we moved, we enjoyed the honeymoon period of a new place, but never stayed long enough to explore beneath the surface.

I've lived in Dunwoody ten years now, and I'm still finding new reasons to love this place.

Favorite breakfast: Olde Hickory House, with one egg, rye toast, and some really good coffee.
Favorite Starbucks: the one in Dunwoody Village, because it has a drive-thru and I need that mocha latte right now because I have five stops to make in the next 30 minutes!
Favorite grocery store: Publix. It's small enough to find everything I need and "Dunwoody-fied" enough to get special stuff like lamb chops and Silver Palate pasta sauce.
Favorite I-don't-feel-like-cooking-tonight-solution: Fresh Market. A loaf of crusty sourdough and some gourmet mozzarella for a grilled cheese sandwich, plus one of their homemade soups, and the whole family is content. Yummmmmm.
Favorite route from our house to Peachtree Charter Middle School: Up Mt. Vernon Road to North Peachtree Road, a leisurely 25-mile-per-hour ride across Tilly Mill, and on to the school. What the drive lacks in speed, it makes up in time saved, because I rarely pass many cars.
Favorite sight driving down Mt. Vernon Road at night: the stained glass window gleaming from St. Luke's sanctuary.
Favorite carwash: Sunshine!
Favorite teacher at Dunwoody High School: Kara Bryant, the Latin teacher. She's smart, funny, highly organized, "gets" teens, and stays connected to parents. Wow.
Favorite walking path: A 3-mile loop from our house, up Mt. Vernon Way to Meadowcreek, a cut through the social trail and on to Dunwoody Park, up Roberts and Chamblee-Dunwoody Roads, a left at the library and Womack, back to Mt. Vernon Way via Vernon Springs, and left on our street.
Favorite sight whether driving or walking: the Great Dane who walks his owner and has a huge stuffed bone clenched in his jaws as he lopes along.
Favorite house renovation: the home at the corner of Mt. Vernon Way and Meadowcreek has me sighing with pleasure every time I see it.
Favorite Dunwoody idiosyncracy: The centerpiece of the village is a farmhouse, but we're way too urbanized for actual farming.
Favorite post office: Definitely the one at the Wal-Mart shopping center on Ashford-Dunwoody Road. If you live in Dunwoody, you try to avoid the one in the village.
Favorite fundraiser: the Friends of the Dunwoody Library book sale. It's great to recycle finished books and get "new" ones for next to nothing. The volunteers who run the sale are efficient at setting up the sale and making sure members get first dibs. (There's steel in those magnolias.)
Favorite sandwich: The turkey salad on white at Wright Gourmet. It's really not healthy, but it sure is tasty.
Favorite "I'll bring dessert" without actually making it: The lemonade cake at Wright Gourmet.
Favorite service at St. Luke's Presbyterian Church: It's a caber-toss-up between the Scottish Heritage Festival (this weekend!) and Christmas Eve (the one that ends at midnight).
Favorite Fairy Godmother: Donna B, the doyen of volunteers at Dunwoody Nature Center.
Favorite neighborhood Christmas display: Redfield!
Favorite people to call when the garage door breaks: Dunwoody Door Lift.
Favorite heating and air conditioning guys: Dunwoody's Choice.
Favorite newspaper. Duh. The Dunwoody Crier.
Favorite Dunwoody blogs. www.sustainabledunwoody.com and John Heneghen's timely news.

That's just a few of the things I love about Dunwoody, the center of our universe and the best place to live. Bar none.

Howdy, neighbor

Just a few of the reasons I love being in Dunwoody for the holidays . . .

1.  Light Up Dunwoody and Cocoa & Candles. The Knitternall family can walk the three short blocks between our house and the farmhouse, enjoy the jostling, smiling, familiar crowd, and shiver in the shift from sunset to darkness before hitting the luminaria-lit trails at the Nature Center with warm cocoa in hand.

2. My darling little Preschool Phonics friends starting to wear Christmas dresses and shirts, with bows in mussed up hair, lick-lipped chap marks making perfect circles around their mouths, and hands shooting up into the air to tell me everything and anything going on in their families (I promise I believe only half what I hear).

3.  The rare quiet of very little traffic on Mt. Vernon Road on Thanksgiving and Christmas Days.

4. Red Velvet Cake from Wright Gourmet, Moravian Sugar Cookies from the Fresh Market (a taste from Winston-Salem that we'd otherwise miss), a smoked turkey from Olde Hickory House, and peppermint cocoa from Starbcks.

5.  Redfield's Christmas Eve gala, with hundreds of cars meandering through street after street of magical Christmas lights displayed by neighbors competing for bragging rights in a variety of categories (Knitternall Family Favorite: the Kids' Choice!). Plus, we always have to see the gi-normous display at the estate in the heart of Dunwoody Club Forest.

6.  The huge Great Dane who walks his owner through my neighborhood with genteel dignity, foot-long stuffed bone pillow grasped firmly in his slobbery mouth and a happy gleam in his eye as he ambles along. 

7.  The local Griswold house in Wyntercreek.

8.  The 11:00 Christmas Eve service at St. Luke's,  with its carols, communion, chrismons, and candlelit lullaby.

9. Running into friends and familiar faces in the aisles of Kroger and Publix  as I make yet another run for that one ingredient I thought was on my list but completely forgot and the gingerbread/stuffing/fudge/buckeyes/hard sauce etc. MUST BE MADE.

10. Holiday dinner leftovers. Yummmmm.

I love the holidays!

A perfectly Dunwoody day

Last evening, I sipped champagne and nibbled on fresh bread dipped in herbed olive oil with two wonderful friends.  Our gathering was impromptu, catalyzed by the death of a mom this week who leaves so much sadness in her wake.  We felt the need to celebrate life, and its inherent vulnerability. I left too soon, pulled home by my son's ever-encroaching homework load and chores that never end and so many things that take time and leave no time for the spirit.

Though I awakened this morning to a long list of to-do's, T and I nonetheless managed to walked over to Hickory House for our breakfast date. I'm so glad we did. It turned a busy day into a perfectly Dunwoody day.

Hickory House was packed, as always, and the usual mix of old, young, working, retired mingled over fluffy biscuits, wonderful country gravy, crispy bacon, and bowls of grits. We walked back in the cool fall breeze and enjoyed catching up with each other . . . the state of the financial market, the upcoming presidential election, the activities of our children, our work commitments, and more. We passed several people we knew, stopped mid-intersection to chat with a friend from church, and waved as friends honked from their passing cars. 

Now the guys are off to support a fellow Scout's Eagle project fundraiser (yum . . . cookout at the Sandy Springs fire station where he built a much-needed shed) and the girls are headed to the movies to meet three more of their group of friends (I'll be on premises to chaperone, but out of sight to give them the illusion of independence - they're still just 11!)

 It's Homecoming week at Dunwoody High School as well.  Lots of fun - dress-up days, a parade of homemade class floats, the election of the Homecoming Court, the big game today, and the Homecoming Dance tonight. 

Tonight, we'll grill steaks and enjoy this first sign of cooler days ahead (though, as Southerners, we well know that it's just as likely to be 90 degrees for Halloween). No sleepovers, no commitments - just some much-appreciated family time. I'll sew the zipper on the Central Park Hoodie, add a handle to the felted bag I made for an upcoming auction, and knit a few more rows on a prayer shawl. Bliss!

The week has been filled with joy and sadness, too much work and not enough time, but today, it's a perfect day to be in Dunwoody.

Dunwoody firsts

Who will be the first mayor?
First City Council?
First police officers?
First to answer the phone, "Hello, Dunwoody City Hall"?
First to get a speeding ticket issued by a Dunwoody officer?
First office staff?
First zoning inspector?
First city manager?

It's fun to speculate.

T and I were having our weekly Friday morning breakfast at Olde Hickory House and joined the buzz about the election, the coming campaign, who we think will run for mayor, council, etc., etc., etc. It was a tasty conversation, reminiscent of our early married days when we were regularly engaged in campaigning and civic roles in T's home town. I like the feeling of anticipation, framed by a very pragmatic understanding of just how challenging the next few years will be. Great choices will be made. So will great mistakes. Ultimately, it's up to us, the new citizens of Dunwoody, Georgia, to play an active role in shaping our new city.

Everyone is playing "what if" . . .

• What if Dunwoody could become a truly walkable city, with sidewalks on every major road, adequate pedestrian crosswalks, and bike lanes?
• What if Dunwoody became one of the first truly wireless communities, with every residence and business connected with City Hall, public services, schools, and each other?
• What if Dunwoody created our own school district? Maybe then we could have a Labor Day to June schedule (okay, that's my pet peeve).
  
• What if our recycling and regular garbage was picked up by an automated truck? We had this in Greensboro and it was fabulous. We paid a fee for two gigantic garbage bins, one for recycling and one for regular stuff. You rolled them out to the curb, recyling one day and regular stuff another, one guy in a garbage truck drove by, a robot arm swung out and picked up the can, dumped it, and returned it. Awesome.
• What if we had a streetcleaning truck and crew that drove regularly through the city, keeping curbs and drains clear of debris? Maybe then our sewers wouldn't back up so regularly. On snow days, it would turn into our own snow mover.
  
• What if our town meetings had the lively air of those in New England, where every speaks up on every issue?
• What if the city office maintained a website and blog that functioned as an EFFECTIVE, interactive communications tool? (That means someone is maintaining it and the council is actually consulting it.)
  

There's more. So much more. Because wishes can become policy. It'll be fun to see our city grow over the next decade.

What if Dunwoody became so desirable a place to live that "for sale" signs never stayed up more than a few days?

Oh, yeah.