The Weekend

In a word drenched. 

But Friday was beautiful. Sometimes the day before a storm has some of the best weather. Actually let's back up to Thursday since that's the weekend on my blog. 

The whole week was busy but it's a month for ticking things off the to-do list I suppose. On Monday (because I guess I'm backing all the way up to Monday now) I had labs done in preparation for my yearly physical. Since I was in the city I made a stop at Costco and picked up a few essentials. It was crowded and I made a mental note to avoid shopping there whenever possible until after the holidays. 

Hubs sent me this picture he snapped on the way to a friend's house Monday evening. October has the best skies. 

Tuesday I did the regular grocery shopping and played mah jong that evening. Then on Wednesday hubs and I both had appointments with the eye doctor. I'd like to go somewhere else, but options are limited. I don't mind the care, but they book far too many appointments at the same time and I spent more time there than I should have.  

Thursday I spent a fair chunk of the day taking care of some paperwork and then booking lodging for the third leg of our trip west next year. It's not happening until later in 2027, but we have all our accommodations booked and getting that done has me feeling a little bit excited for the trip. Hubs and I are doing a week on our own, then meeting up with two more couples for the second half of the holiday. 

Thursday night I went with a few women from my bookclub to hear an author talk about her new book. The author's name is Katherine Reay and she's written quite a few books, half on the lighter side, and then several more recent books that would fall under the genre of historical fiction/spy novels. 

Her debut novel was called  Dear Mr. Knightley, and came out about ten years ago or so, but I haven't read anything else by her since. Her newest book is The Undercover Bookshop and is set in a Cotswold village in 1950. 

She had me at Cotswold Village. 

I enjoy hearing an author discuss their writing and she was a wonderful speaker. We all felt like we'd had a little history lesson as she talked about what was going on in the world and particularly the UK at the end of the war.  I'm looking forward to reading this one soon. 

Another pretty sky on the ride home-

There might not be many faces on my blog these days, but there are still plenty of sky shots. 

Friday was a nice day. My next door neighbor has a granddaughter the same age as our Little Miss, although Little Miss lives here and my neighbor's grand lives about two hours away. She was in town visiting this week so my daughter1 invited everyone to lunch and a playdate. 

They were positively adorable playing together and the moms and grandmoms all had a nice time chatting. 

I'd made a meatloaf that morning so we had that for dinner. Hubs and I pulled all the porch cushions inside since nasty rain and windy weather were predicted, and we watched a movie before calling it a night. 

Saturday we woke up to gray skies and all day rain. We had plans to go into the city to a Fall Festival, where they close off the streets and there are lots of bands and food trucks, and it's just a fun day out. The event ended up getting cancelled due to weather so we had a Saturday to fill. 

We decided to go to breakfast somewhere because we wanted to get out of the house for a bit. Afterwards we stopped in a newish little market near the house and they have so many yummy things to buy. Snacks, sandwiches, coffee, ice cream, meat from a local farm, homemade bread and more. And it's close! When you live out of town having something like this nearby is such a treat. 

Once home hubs spent the rest of the morning on a project he has going on in the lower level and I worked out then washed my hair which takes a couple of hours,  so it was a good day for it. Our treadmill is in the lower level garage and even though it was pouring down rain I opened up the door and enjoyed the breeze and the view, even on this dismal day. 

I did some prep for my book club meeting happening this week (we read The Calamity Club) and then made a big pot of Ina Garten's Minestrone to have for dinner and leftovers this week. Her recipe is excellent. 

Even though I declared it a no laundry day hubs had a pile of towels from his project so I ended up doing a load of wash. It's just the two of us here but I feel like I am always doing laundry. 

After that it was football time in Tennessee so we watched the game. A win~yay! 

Sunday morning we had coffee on the screened porch and watched the sunrise for a quick spectacular minute. 

We went to church then pretty much lounged the rest of the afternoon. We have a lot going on in this second half of October and a day of r and r is probably necessary. 

So how was your weekend? If you blogged about it hop over to our host blogs - Holly (Pink Lady) and Sarah (Sunshine and Books)-and add your link to their Hello Monday hop. 

Everyday Images

I enjoy the Everyday Images link up hosted by Kym (Another Cup Of Coffee) and thought I might try to make some of my recent random photos fit the prompts. Bloggers tend to snap a lot of pictures and a prompt like this one is a nice place to set them down. 

Kym posts new prompts every two weeks and the most current are-

flag, simple and/or complicated, at home, Wednesday weather,

 doorway, movement, and branched

Well flag is an easy one because I'm adding patriotic decor in spots around the house and several feature flag motifs-

This is on my coffee table, a little vignette that's fun and festive. I chose poppies because they make me think of soldiers and sacrifice. The pop of red in a little blue floral vase is so pretty. These are artificial poppies, but look so real. I ordered them from a company called Luv Sola Flowers which I think is out of California. The stems have some bend to them which made arranging easy. 

Love my 'smells like freedom candle' too. What does freedom smell like? For some reason I immediately think of freshly mown green grass, which is not the scent of this candle, but that's the first thing I thought of. The label on the bottom says gun powder, but I had to check so I don't think it's obvious. 

Since we're talking flags I also bought hand soap for my powder room and some disposable towels, both with red, white, and blue flag designs on them. 

Simple and/or complicated-

I spent Thursday afternoon cooking. I made dinner to take to a friend as part of a meal train (pot roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, and glazed carrots), then made a big pan of ziti to have ready to go for Friday night's dinner when my two sisters, my brother-in-law, and my nephew will be at the lake. 

And I made hubs and I a big cobb salad for our Thursday dinner. I'll make a dessert tomorrow but it felt simpler to devote an afternoon to the bigger cooking as opposed to spreading it out over a couple of days. 

Hubs is grilling wings Friday too but that's his department and he's got it covered. 

at home-

I'm writing this post at 8 PM on Thursday and this is the first I've sat down today. Maybe all week? 

Here's the sofa on our upper deck which is pretty much my favorite place to sit and it's currently on point with my patriotic theme. Happy birthday America! 

Wednesday weather-

Hmm. I take a picture almost every morning, but did not snap one on Wednesday. It was drizzling when we got up, we had thunder at one point, humidity, clouds and then a very pretty sunset. We had gone to dinner with some neighbors and I attempted to take a photo of the pastel skies from their driveway. 

Doorway-

I didn't have anything that fit this particular prompt so I scrolled back through my camera roll and found a photo I took back in March that I never posted. Yes, of course that counts. You make your own blog rules, right? 

I took this when I was visiting my daughter2 in Tennessee and we shopped in the prettiest little store. Even the doors were beautiful-

Movement -

Well the beaver family has returned. Not the original beaver family because ahem, they're goners, but maybe one of their offspring? 

He's movin' alright. Moving is good though because we do not want him stopping and staying a while. 

We started seeing one good sized beaver swimming from the back of the cove towards the channel, which means he swims under our dock bridge. You have to get up very early to see him (which we do) and he is busy. As a beaver. Ha! That saying has merit y'all. We watched him one morning swim across our cove and under a neighbors dock all while carrying a large branch with the leaves still on it. Crazy! But kind of interesting too. 

On Tuesday he had a friend with him. Oh boy. 

We don't want him/them setting up house on our property so we're doing what we can to deter them . I don't think I'll elaborate. 

Also, I wrote back in 2020 about the beaver who ate his way through our hillside landscaping and if you've never seen one you might think they're cute, but I'm here to tell you they are not actually cute. One reason we put in the waterfall was to save the hillside and the beavers have not come up the hill since so it's working. 

branched-

This one feels like a challenge. Technically they're under some branches-

These two deer were in my neighbor's front yard the other day. They were not bothered by me at all. 

Happy weekend everyone! 

Cloudy With A Chance Of Hodgepodge

Welcome to another edition of the weekly Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered today's questions add your link at the end of my post, then go say hi to your neighbor there. Here we go-

1. What kind of winter person are you-snow lover, fireplace snuggler, winter adventurer, or indoor hibernator? Elaborate. 

I enjoy seeing snow fall but am not what you'd call a a snow lover. It rarely snows here and if it does it doesn't last. I'd have to travel to see snow and I don't love it enough to do that. 

I'm going with fireplace snuggler. When it's cold outside I like to be under a blanket beside the fire with my book. 

We got feet of snow every winter when we lived in NJ. Our pup loved it! Hubs not so much : ) 

And while we may not get a lot of snow here, when we do the little brown dog makes the most of it. 

2. The Pantone color of the year is cloud dancer, described as a gentle, billowy off white shade. The color symbolizes 'peace, clarity, quiet reflection, renewal, and a soft reset'. Of the terms just listed which do you need most in your life this winter? 

I like the name cloud dancer. I crave peace and also clarity in regards to the best way to handle some difficult situations. I know trusting Jesus and taking these things to Him is what makes peace and clarity possible. 

3. Every cloud has a silver lining, on cloud nine, head in the clouds, storm clouds gathering, or cloud of suspicion...which 'cloud' idiom do you most relate to currently? Explain. 

Every cloud has a silver lining because I'm ever and always an optimist. 

4. coconut, cauliflower, cottage cheese, mayonnaise, onions, ranch dressing...of the white foods listed, which would be the hardest for you to give up? Do you like all or any of the foods on the list? 

I like all of the foods listed, but some would be harder than others to give up. Coconut is one of my favorite flavors, but not something I have every day or even every week. On the other hand onions are in so many of the dishes I make on a regular basis, and they add to the flavor of those dishes, so I guess onions would be the most missed. I feel the same way about mayonnaise. 

5. Thomas Wentworth Higginson is credited with this quote-

"How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year." 

Agree or disagree? Tell us why. 

I would say I agree in the sense that life and the changing seasons teach us lessons if we pay attention. While I believe beauty exists no matter the season, there is something uniquely valuable about winter. I love the slowing down it brings that's sometimes missing in other seasons. 

I like the pause that comes with winter. The space it brings that encourages me to step back from the busyness of daily life. Time to reflect and time to rest. I think faith grows in times of rest, maybe more so than in times of productivity. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of clouds...I have a small obsession with the sky and clouds especially. Back in September I saw someone on Instagram share a sky collage and decided I wanted to do the same. Every morning in the month of October I snapped a picture of the sky while standing in the same spot in my backyard. Here's how it looked-

Have a nice week everyone! 

Life Lessons From the Window Seat

S is for Seven. After today that's how many letters remain in the April A-Z Blog Challenge. It's been fun and it's been a challenge. Blogging with a houseful of people requires a bit of finagling. Onward...

S is for Sunrise 

'the apparent rising of the sun above the horizon; 

also: the accompanying atmospheric effects'

If you've been reading here for a while then you know I have a small obsession with the sunrise. We have prime viewing out of any window on the backside of our house, but my favorite place to watch it happen is from the upper deck. 

And I like to snap a photo while I'm there. 

Or ten photos. 

Or possibly 365. 

Hubs teases and asks me why I take the same picture every morning but I assure him I do not. One sunrise is not like any other and my pictures are the proof. 

Recently Joanne (Slices of Life) shared some of her favorite sunrises and sunsets and it got me thinking about why it is I'm so drawn to the early morning skies. Why all the sunrises? And why now? 

One of the reasons I'm more tuned in to the sunrise in this house is because it's hard to miss. I step quietly out of my bedroom in the early hours of the morning and there it is. Sometimes soft and dreamy brushstrokes in a pastel painted sky...

...sometimes awash with all the colors of the rainbow. 

It can, quite literally, take my breath away. There are things about the sunrise that speak to me in this season that feel almost sacred. 

The sunrise tells me it's a new day, with no mistakes in it yet. A fresh start. Blank slate. No regrets. 

The sunrise fills me with hope. Anything is possible at the start of a brand new day. 

The sunrise says slow down. Breathe. Be present. 

It also tells me time moves fast. If you're not paying attention you'll miss it. Life is like that too. 

The sun rising fills me with awe for the One who made it, for the staggering beauty of this world, and the power so evident in nature.

 

The sunrise reminds me of the value of stillness and quiet, things I'm always looking for in this too noisy world.

The sunrise reminds me of the faithfulness of God. Every single day the sun rises. He never fails. 

My favorite verse, which is in my blog header but worth posting twice...

'The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; 

they are new every morning." Lamentations 3:22-23

A Post-Holiday Hello Monday

Hello friends and happy Monday. 

I'm joining Holly and Sarah for a post-holiday weekend reap today. I took so many pictures of the beautiful sky this weekend I might just post them all. 

I have a hair appointment this morning which is going to throw off my entire day, but I had to take what was available. I had to cancel my normal appointment in order to go to my daughter's house a couple of weeks ago, so I'm overdue and my stylist is fitting me in today. Do you have to book your hair appointments three at a time in order to be sure you get on the calendar, because that's what I have to do?

So how was your holiday weekend? Ours was really fun with a lot of time spent in the water because it was HOT!

Hubs brother and sister-in-law arrived on Wednesday afternoon on their way home from the beach. They brought four pounds of fresh shrimp with them, which we promptly deveined and cooked to have with our dinner. 

They lived in the Chicago area three different times and know their Portillo beef, so they also treated us to dinner Wednesday night by sending a 'to go' order to the southland. If you're a Chicagoan then I don't have to explain, but for those who are not here's the 411-

Portillos beef is a slow-roasted, thinly sliced, beef served on baked Turano French bread. The bread is key. The standard way to serve the sandwich is to put the beef on the roll, splash it with some of their secretly-spiced gravy and then have a cup of gravy on the side for dipping. It's even better topped with their oven-roasted sweet peppers and the hot giardiniera peppers which we love. 

My neighbors joined us because they also have Chicago ties and I wish I'd taken a picture but it's a bit of a production getting it all put together. I'd made a cucumber salad and we all sat around our outdoor table and it was a low-key fun way to kick off the holiday weekend.

We woke up on Independence Day and had coffee on the deck, then spent most of the rest of the day in the lake. It was HOT! but the water temp was perfect. 

For our July 4th dinner hubs grilled ribs to perfection and I made baked beans, cole slaw, and a roasted corn salad, plus there was  more shrimp. 

I made a frozen strawberry pie for dessert, which doesn't actually contain any strawberries, but does have a strawberry topping so I guess the name fits?  I made the Alex Guarnaschelli's recipe linked here.

It does contain mashed raspberries which are what give it the pretty pink color, and the pie is really light and tasty. Also refreshing, which was the name of the game this weekend.

It was HOT!! 

My across the cove neighbor does a ginormous fireworks show and boats start coming to our cove and to the water just outside our cove about an hour before. A neighbor asked if they could tie up to our dock and we said sure and they asked if they could bring a few people as they had friends at their house, and we said sure and y'all!!!

They floated over on a boat filled with 28 people and a few more in a car and it was ka-razy! 

Fun for sure, but also ka-razy!

Kids peeled off that boat and scattered like ants. Adults too! 

God bless America! 

The fireworks display was its usual fabulous happening which we all enjoyed, and then one of the adults who had come by car (and who we did not know) announced she had dropped her keys in the lake. 

Ruh-roh. 

Their car was parked at the top of our driveway, and there it sat until 4 PM the next day. It would have been moved earlier except her brother who arrived from an hour away brought the wrong key so...

All's well that ends well, right? Lol!

We had nowhere to be on Friday except the lake so it was just a funny thing to us. Maybe not so much to the person who dropped the keys, but we spent the day boating and swimming. Late afternoon the most delightful storm rolled in and we sat on the screened porch listening to it roar, feeling the humidity drop to an acceptably breathable level.

I love a storm on the lake, so long as we're all tucked safely indoors. 

Hubs grilled steaks for dinner and afterwards we sat on the deck and watched the sun make a perfectly pink exit. 

Family left Saturday morning, then hubs had some real estate-ing to do for a fair chunk of the day. I put the house mostly back in order, did five loads of laundry, cleaned out the frig, and took care of some paperwork that needed taking care of. 

We have a busy week filled with meetings and appointments and readying the house and the pantry for a big wave of family who will begin arriving this coming weekend. We can't wait to have all the grands here!! 

We also know we need to eat our Wheaties, fill our frig and our sleep tanks to overflowing, and get our steps in so we're in tip top form to keep up with the under six set. No grass grows under their feet when they're here and we gotta keep up!  

Hope your holiday weekend was grand!