Hello November

Good Monday morning friends. The last two weeks of October have me waving the white flag in November and looking forward to a quieter, gentler, less sugar-fueled month. 

As per usual I'm linking with Holly (Pink Lady Blog) and Sarah (Sunshine and Books) today to discuss our weekend shenanigans. 

Friday morning I had my hair appointment which lasts for hours but one does what one must. I like my stylist a lot. She's the same age as my girls and we're on the same page about a lot of things so always have a nice conversation. I read while I wait on the foil to 'cook' and then I'm in a good mood the rest of the day because fresh hair does that. 

I came home and made a pot of tortilla soup for dinner and then put together the treat bags for the dock or treat happening late afternoon. Kayakers paddle to the host docks for a sip and snack, and while it was a little brisk out there on Friday everyone had a good time. 

Most years we dress up and the kayakers usually wear costumes too. I didn't wear a costume this year because I honestly hadn't had time to think about it. Hubs did pull something out of the costume box in the attic and I wore my pumpkin t-shirt so we were festive enough. 

We gave everyone a sip of our homemade limoncello and I made savory thumbprints which were really good and definitely a keeper in terms of recipes I'll make again. (I used the recipe found here and it made two dozen so I'd double for a party). 

These thumbprints are a cheesy cookie with a dollop of pepper jelly in the center. I put them in cello bags along with some candy because it was Halloween after all. I've learned after doing this a couple of times putting the snack in a bag makes it much easier to pass to a kayaker. 

After they left hubs and I had soup and relaxed until the kids came by to show us their costumes. For the most part I don't post pics of their faces on my blog these days, but trust me they were awesome. They did a Monty Python theme with the boys as knights, my daughter as the witch, my son-in-law the coconut character, and little miss as the 'bunny'. She loved her costume. 

My Tennessee grands were completely adorable and had a great day. They even won the under-10 costume contest in their neighborhood. If you're a lover of children's literature you'll get it-

Saturday morning we watched college game day while I baked a coke cake. Yes. More dessert. I had signed up to bring something to a pastor appreciation luncheon we were attending on Sunday and my baking window was Saturday morning. 

This is an old recipe but also one that never-fails. That warm fudge icing is the best. I wanted something I could make the day before and easily transport and I remembered how much I used to love this when my momma made it. Still so good! 

Saturday afternoon we headed back to Daughter1's house for, guess what??? 

Yup. Another birthday party. 

Because Max's birthday lands just a couple of days before Halloween his parents had his party the day after. Thankfully the weather was perfect because they had a crowd. 

Also, that's a giant balloon. Spiderman didn't actually make an appearance. 

Hubs and I got Max soccer goals and most of the boys were happy playing soccer all afternoon. The party had a Superhero theme and my daughter had a few fun things they could do in addition to the ball game. There was a cardboard city she made that the kids could knock down wearing Hulk gloves, and they absolutely loved this. 

There was also a super hero frisbee toss, decorate your own mask, and capes for everyone. 

Pizza and cupcakes because what's a birthday party without food and candles on a cake? We got home just in time to watch the Vols play. Whew another brutal game and loss. 

Moving on...Sunday morning hubs got on the road to Tennessee to pick up his mom and bring her to the lake to spend the week with us. I went to church and then stayed for the lunch afterwards. 

I grocery shopped on the way home because we have someone coming to refinish our front door on Monday and I'll need to be home until the job is completed. Which may mean all day. Hubs and his mom will be home around lunchtime and then he'll manage the door project because that's his department. 

We have a few fun things planned with his mom, and she's excited to see the her Carolina great grands.  I'm getting a shot in my ankle and whoohoo! that will be a good time too. 

What kind of fun did you have this weekend? Hop over to our host blogs and tell us all about it.

Monday Miscellaney

It started out a gray Monday here today and we made a wasted trip to the DMV which is a little snapshot of how it's going so far. Who knew you could make an appointment at the DMV? I think it's a grand idea and will put that in the plus column when sorting Corona fallout, but of course knowing it's a thing would have been even better.  

I try to take care of all DMV business online, but this task requires an in person visit so hubs masked up and went in, paperwork in hand, and they told him without an appointment it would be an hour and forty-five minute wait. An hour and forty five minutes!! And oh yeah, don't leave the parking lot. 

So we left the parking lot and ate Mexican food instead. Much better. 

Let's talk about last week when Daughter2 was in the house and the weather was glorious and we enjoyed a  leisurely fall boat ride in our own backyard. We accidentally took the dog which does put a little kink in your level of relaxation, but nobody wanted to tell him he wasn't going and he was all in. 

He is always all in. When he's wearing his life jacket he thinks he's going for a swim and he was not going for a swim. 

Which took some convincing. 

Hubs and I have not had a 'day out date ' in a while so we made plans Friday to drive over to a nearby mountain town for lunch, browsing the shops, and leaf peeping. It sprinkled a little but was still a gorgeous ride up and over, and the color was lovely. 

fyi-we were not the only ones who thought a day out was a good idea. The place was hoppin'! 

Highlands is a charming little burg with loads of fantastic eateries, beautiful homes, and plenty of shops all plunked down in the middle of a scenic mountain landscape. I don't think I'd want to live here because it's a destination and has destination-like traffic but it is a great day out, and a trip to the mountains helps clear my head. 

Daughter2 had a little bridesmaid weekend with her girls, minus her favorite sister, and she brought me back a fun little mug as a gift. There are many things that make my girls think of me, but tops on the list are London and hedgehogs. Not related in any way shape or form except to say my run in with the hedgehog occurred while we lived near London. 

Also, run-in might be overstating things. More like an encounter but I shrieked a lot so maybe my girls will say run-in is accurate.  

I know, I know it's too early for Christmas mugs, and I'm someone who doesn't like to rush the holidays, but I'm going to rush it for a quick minute. I had a cup of coffee in it last night, snapped a picture in front of the candy corn so as not to confuse anyone about which holiday is happening now (aren't we all confused about the day-time-month-season???) then put it back in the cabinet until Thanksgiving has come and gone. 

Happy Monday and Merry Halloween everyone!

Monday March Madness

Not the fun kind of March madness because fun was cancelled this month, wasn't it?

Well maybe not cancelled but we are definitely having to work for it. Pretty soon all my blog posts will be titled 'what I ate this week'. We're all learning to get creative and figure out new ways of connecting and socializing from at least ten feet away.

Are you on Zoom? We had a Zoom call with a group of college friends Friday night, and another with a former work colleague of the hubs on Saturday. I don't know why we never did this prior to social distancing because it's a great way to connect as a group and we laughed a lot. I even played cards with friends last week via Zoom and our Sunday School class is meeting that way as well.

Temps have climbed into the 80's here which is delightful. We haven't dropped the boat in the water yet, since pollen has run amok-

Don't think we'll be dining out here just yet, but I am looking forward to al fresco dinners in the near future. And once most of the pollen is down we'll be back to meeting up with friends by water. Everyone can stay safely on their own boats a healthy distance away and life might feel a little bit ordinary. Whoohoo!

Hubs has been spending his at-home time painting all the trim in the house. He enjoys a project and this is a tedious job that needed to be done. He's a meticulous painter and it all looks so crisp and clean. Perhaps if we're confined to home much longer he'll get to some of the walls too?

We've cooked some stuff. Ha! We're all cooking these days aren't we? We tried a new recipe on Saturday for grilled shrimp tacos with avocado salsa and it was a keeper.

So easy and I'll definitely make this one again. I found the recipe here.

Still have two dogs to walk which is a happy distraction and a reason to leave the house. I'm watching very little news, but do tune in to hear our governor's updates and catch headlines to see if there are new developments to be aware of on any given day.

We started watching a program on netflix called Tales By Light and are enjoying that. Each episode features a photographer taking pictures of something fabulous somewhere in the world and their shots are pretty amazing. My daughter and I have been binging old seasons of The Great British Baking Show and are completely addicted. I'm determined to bake something I've never tried before using my one packet of yeast, which I was lucky to get. Suddenly everybody's a baker.

Speaking of baking, daughter2 and I finished a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle last week-

It ended up being 998 pieces thanks to a lightning fast little brown dog who shall remain nameless, ahem, but still fun and really pretty. How long do you leave a completed puzzle set up? We wrapped this one up on Thursday and I put it back in the box Saturday. Since it looks like staying home is the name of the game for a while longer I need the table space to start another.

So that's about it-reading, cooking, walking the dogs, working puzzles, a little TV, a few home cleaning/organizing projects, and more blogging than I've done in months are what's filling the time here. I have to say many of these activities are things I enjoy doing anyway, even when social distancing isn't the norm.

How 'bout you? What are you doing to stay busy?

The Monday Evening Gazette

I had every intention of blogging this morning, but hubs and I had a gazillion errands to run and that meant going to town. I sound like Ma Ingalls when I say that, but we literally had to 'go to town'. Town isn't all that far, but it's not real close either so it makes sense to tackle your errands with some forethought.

Also, one of our errands involved a stop in Academy Sports to look at 'just one thing' which is code for we'll be there for hours. Hubs could spend all day in that store and we practically did.

Since I missed my Monday morning deadline how about I share a short list of random unrelated nonessential information that for some reason I feel needs to be written down somewhere?

Great! Here we go-

1. We had a house guest this weekend. You're shocked I know, but we actually weren't expecting house guests this weekend. This was a last minute happy surprise visit from hubs brother who lives in Virginia but had been in Tennessee visiting my mother-in-law. Hubs suggested he detour through SC on the way home and that's what he did.

2. I think he and hubs had a great time catching up in person. I had a brutal headache all day long Saturday and barely lifted my head off the pillow so I can't say for sure. I do know they kayaked and later took the boat out and visited all the fun spots on the lake. They were gone all day which made me feel less like a party pooper so I'm calling it a win.

3. We also had house guests last weekend that I never got around to mentioning because one day rolls into the next round here and I'm what's affectionately known as a slacker blogger.

Actually I don't know if it's affectionate or not, but this blog does hang on by its fingernails from week to week.

A friend I've known since high school and who still lives in NJ was vacationing in Charleston last week, and planned a weekend stop over at the lake on their way down. She and I actually met while working at a summer camp in Maryland back in 1970-something and discovered we were from the same NJ town although rival high schools. Our guys get along great too, which is always a bonus.

Hubs and I made sure they tasted some of the foods from the Southern Food Groups (yes that is so a thing) and I think fried green tomatoes, pimento cheese, and shrimp and grits were all hits.

4. A new generation of bluebirds are about to be born in our back yard. There are five eggs this time and incubation takes a couple of weeks so not long now.

In case you're wondering, I'm not a bluebird expert, I just play one on my blog.

We had so much fun watching the first round of babies hatch, peep out of the birdhouse, learn from their parents, and grow into teenagers. Do birds experience the teen years? The teen weeks? Whatever the case, they are so pretty and we're looking forward to round 2.

5. It's almost summer which means I will unapologetically be posting too many pictures of beautiful sunsets. I took this at the gas dock the other night while we were filling up the boat. #sorrynotsorry

Also, who else is a fan of 9 o'clock sunsets?
Have a great week all!

It's Her Turn

I had every intention of blogging on this rainy Monday morning but instead spent hours (read: painful hours) on the phone with the very helpful gentleman at ATT trying to figure out why our smart TV is no longer smart. I had to reconfigure the settings on the TV while this patient soul walked me through all the screens and boxes and dealt with all my 'wait wait wait I hit the wrong box' and 'wait wait the screen is gone! Where did it go???" and 'wait I hit the wrong box again'. I think you get the idea.

Also Jason deserves a medal.

I'm not intuitive about these sorts of things which is why I like hubs to handle anything technology related. And he was except as luck? would have it a plumbing thing was happening at the very same minute, so he was forced to hand me the phone while he dealt with the plumber. Can't we just hang up and call back when you're finished???

Y'all I reconfigured that TV like a boss. I think I need to use my brain more. It feels good.

Let's talk about something more fun-

This little peanut is getting married.

I don't care if you've married off one daughter or six, each time is like the only time and your heart feels a little tug at the letting go. It's a happy mushy tug, but a tug all the same.

It's been a little over three years since we were knee deep in wedding planning here, and while I know we moms have no real say in the timing, I'm grateful for the space between our two events. Daughter2 and her fiance (how fun it is to write that word!) are planning a spring wedding so we're busy pinning down the date and venues now.

When Daughter1 got married I wrote about it. A lot. I wrote ten posts after the event and several leading up to the day so like I said-a lot. Besides sharing all the nuts and bolts of the best day ever I also wrote quite a bit about how it feels to see your first born baby girl get married. To watch your daughter become a wife, leave home for real, and join her heart and soul to the boy who has stolen her heart.

And now it's Daughter2's turn. And it's the same only different. My girls are like two peas in a pod in the sense they've been best buds since the day Daughter2 was born. They have loved one another well all their lives, and as grown women now it's even more lovely to see. Daughter1 worked in design and had a very clear picture as to how her wedding day would look. She could drill down on some graphics y'all. Whew! But in the end it was perfectly perfect and a wonderful reflection of her personal style and taste.

Daughter2 has her own sense of style and her day will reflect that too. She's always loved sparkle and I suspect there will be more bling in her day than her gypsy souled sister had and I'm good with that. If anyone could wear a tiara on their wedding day it's this girl. She's not having it, but I like to keep throwing that option out there anyway. As we visit reception venues and think about a color palatte and peruse menu options I'm very much aware of my Daughter2's desire to make her day her own.

As every bride should.

In the age of the Internet, social media, and wedding marketing hype there's almost too much out there for brides. It's easy to get caught up in a million little things and lose sight of who you are and what's important to you on your day.

Here's what I tell my girls about a wedding. The most important thing is to pick the right groom.  If at the end of your wedding day you are married to the right groom then I will truthfully declare it the best day ever. Because your wedding is one very important beautiful day in your life and marriage is all the days after, forever and ever amen.

When Daughter1 was planning her wedding I was living in NJ. She was living in D.C., the groom was already on the west coast, and the wedding was in SC sooooo....yeah. A few crazy logistics, but we made it happen. Daughter2 lives in the town where she'll get married and that town is just a hop, skip, and a jump from the lake so whoohoo! I look forward to a more leisurely planning process this time around although I think every wedding comes with a little bit of crazy. Sorry hubs, it really can't be helped.

And I'm going to share all the nuts and bolts here because it's my blog and she's my girl. And she's so much like me only better in all the ways that count, and I want her to know that her best day ever is going to be her best day ever.
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Silver Linings

Good Morning Afternoon? It's Monday, a fact I am well aware of because life around here today is behaving like a Monday.  That being said, even on a day that feels like a Monday, and is in fact an actual Monday, I think it's good to find the silver lining.

Because there always is one.

That half full glass, the bright side, that thing cynics lack. Sometimes it smacks you in the face, and sometimes you have to look hard, but it's there. On this Monday that is full of small aggravations and problems of the first world kind, I choose to look-

It's Monday-Went to bed far too late last night because hubs and I got all caught up in finishing Season 1 of Homeland.

The Silver Lining-I still dragged myself out of bed and made it to Boot Camp at 6 AM.

It's Monday-We've got Homeland Season 2 on deck, Monday Night Football on live, and The Making of the DCC (don't judge!), The Roosevelts, and Person of Interest on our DVR. 

The Silver Lining-We are not going to get sucked in to the new Season of Homeland until the weekend. 

We're going to try not to anyway. 

It's Monday-Went to bed with a sudden and mysteriously clogged kitchen sink, and woke up to a still clogged kitchen sink. Ugh!

The Silver Lining-I popped down to the supermarket and the hardware store at 8 AM, bought Liquid Plumber (the JUMBO sized bottle) and a plunger, patted myself on the back for developing biceps and triceps in the last six months, and then I plunged and I poured and I plunged.

It's Monday-No luck. Did.not.budge. And now I'm feeling a little woozy from inhaling all those chemicals.

The Silver Lining- A real plumber is sometimes better than Liquid Plumber, and thankfully we have a local plumber we trust who will be out to save the day.

It's Monday-the day he's gonna save will be tomorrow not today, because I have now emptied half the contents of a jumbo sized bottle of the liquid variety plumber into my sink and it needs to dissipate.

The Silver Lining-just texted hubs and told him it looks like we'll be dining out tonight.

So how's your Monday so far? Can you see the silver lining or do you have to hunt for one today?

It's Monday and yes, I have some miscellany

I have a collection of thoughts today so I thought I'd try rambling for a change. Ha. There is so much wrong with that sentence isn't there? If you read here regularly you know what I'm talking about.

Our weekend began with hubs flight home from India landing safely at 4:25 am smack dab in the middle of a horrendous thunder and lightning storm that woke me up from a semi sound sleep. fyi-once you hit a certain age the ability to sleep soundly vanishes. Anyway, he was back at the house by 6:15 and we went to the diner for breakfast. We came home and I began my normal pre-weekend tidy up while he went promptly to bed so he'd be alert for his 1 PM conference call. Honestly, his travel/work schedule about kills me and I'm not even the one traveling/working.

He took a few pictures while he was in Delhi but I am going to share just one...this is a gentleman he ran into while visiting a local tourist site...take note of the t-shirt-

Hubs tried his best to explain to this young man that he knows Pigeon Forge TN very very well and in fact grew up in a nearby town. Not sure the message conveyed but it definitely made hubs smile to see a little piece of home in a city that is about as far from East Tennessee as you can get.

A friend from Maryland spent the night on Friday since he needed to collect a piece of furniture in our area on Saturday morning. We enjoyed a fantastic BBQ dinner courtesy of the project manager who designed our patio. A couple of weeks ago he surprised us with a box from Jack Stack Barbecue in Kansas City. Everything was frozen, sealed, and packed in a cooler of dry ice when it arrived so all we had to do was heat it up and dive in. And we did! It was absolutely delicious...ribs, burnt ends, chicken wings, BBQ brisket, baked beans, corn and sauce. Another friend also happened to be on his own Friday night so we invited him to join us and we all agreed we'd be ordering more Jack Stack in the future. Incidentally, this is just my opinion and I am not being compensated for this review blah blah blah.

Saturday afternoon we attended a college grad party for a longtime friend and enjoyed the day and the weather. Sunday, Father's Day, and not a kid in sight. That's kind of sad but hubs loved chatting with his girls on the phone and their sweet facebook messages left on his wall.

And he especially loved the cards and gifts they gave him which included a photo mug that is now his new favorite cup.

Sunday afternoon we took a drive to a nearby town and visited Washington's headquarters, which includes a museum and the house he used as home base following the Battle of Trenton (aka Washington Crossing the Delaware) and the Battle of Princeton. There was a guided tour of the house which was interesting and the setting is beautiful.

Hubs and I would now both like to read a biography of Alexander Hamilton because he sounds like an interesting character and I don't know a lot about him. I do know he was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr who happened to be the Vice President at the time. Funny to think they attempted to settle a political dispute with swords. Now we just use really mean words which I guess is better?

After the tour we decided to wander over to another nearby town and browse thru some antique shops. As soon as we parked though, we noticed an outdoor shop and ended up buying a love seat and comfy chair for in front of the patio fire pit. I'd post a picture but in the end it didn't fit in our vehicle so it will be delivered tomorrow.

Hey kids! Pay attention in geometry because while you may think you'll never need it again I can tell you, as an experienced furniture mover (some might even say expert), you will definitely need it.

Hubs grilled steaks for dinner which were delish...isn't it funny that on Mother's Day we don't want to cook but on Father's Day they love to cook? At least mine does. I do believe standing in front of his BBQ grill is one of the happiest places on earth for my hubs. He also grilled peaches which we had marinated in a little brown sugar, vanilla and almond extract and then poured them over ice cream for dessert. This was eaten while watching the Miss USA pageant on TV. I love my hubs. He's an excellent father and a very good sport when it comes to his girls.

This post is linked to Miscellany Monday hosted by Carissa at lowercase letters...click on the button to read more random~