Friday Favorites Ho Ho Ho

I had every intention of blogging yesterday, but that didn't happen. About a million little things happened instead and that's life sometimes. I've been itching to write about something more than weekend happenings and home improvement but that requires a clearer head than I have at the moment, so a lot about a little it is.

1. Our backyard project. The project itself is not my favorite thing, but I know the end result will be. Once the barge issue was resolved things got rolling. The guys doing the work have laid plywood down one side of the driveway to move equipment from the front yard to the back and so far so good. 

I mean it's a lot for them because the project involves a lot of heavy rock, but they're not complaining and made a good start this week. I keep them supplied with water, gatorade, and a big tub of snacks because that's what I know. 

I was part of the original planning of the project, hubs and I together met with the construction manager, saw the plans and the budget blah, blah, blah but you know how these things go. Or maybe you don't, but how it goes is quite often a new decision needs to be made on the spot, and why does that only happen when hubs is out??? 

He's sticking close to home for the most part, but had two appointments yesterday so naturally the guys wanted me to make sure they had all the pieces in the correct spot, correct height, correct everything. Huh? 

I know from my description this doesn't sound much like a favorite but honestly it is. Forward motion is good. 

2. As if all of the above were not enough, I've had painters at my house two full days this week, and they'll be back on Monday to finish up the guest suite bathroom. It's a big change in terms of color and I absolutely love it. This room has needed zhuzzing for a long while now, and I'm so happy it's finally getting zhuzzed. I will post pictures when it's finished and I have the artwork back from the framer. 

The decorator hung out here most of the morning while they worked and by the time the painters were wrapping up I'd gotten her advice on a very long list of things I'd like to do here. 

3. Next up is this post my daughter wrote. I love it so much-

Our New Normal

4. Morning coffee. We normally have our coffee on the upstairs deck, but the early morning weather has been so nice this week that we sat right here with our coffee instead. 

5. Christmas shopping. 

No haters please. I'm not an early shopper under normal circumstances, in fact I'm pretty much a December shopper, but I'm trying to get myself in gear so I can take gifts for my grands (and their mom and dad too) when we visit in the not too distant future. Congratulating myself for ordering all the jammies in August. Whoohoo!

Linking today with Friday Favorites hosted by Andrea and Erika....Merry Christmas and happy weekend everyone! 

When Life Gives You Lemons Hodgepodge

Welcome to this week's edition of The Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered today's question add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger before you. Thanks for playing along today...here we go-

1.What was the best (or one of the best) summers of your life? Tell us why. 

Ahh, summer. What's not to love? I have many happy memories of summer fun growing up, but I think I'm going with the summer of 1975. I was a first year 'CIT' (except the year I joined the. program they changed the moniker to LTC which I think was Leadership somethin'somethin', but I'm not even sure now what). Anyway, the camp I attended had a three year training program for counselor wannabes and the first year involved an 8-day hike on the Appalachian Trail. 

I had never done anything like that and wasn't what you'd call athletic by any means. In fact I was a skinny skinny little thing, but I carried that 40 lb pack on my back over mountain and stream and up and down narrow footpaths for eight days straight. I'm not sure there was ever another summer where I learned so much. About myself, about the great outdoors, and most of all about God's faithfulness, His protection and His goodness. 

That summer was an important building block in my faith walk going forward. 

2. When you have a trip coming up do you make a list and check it twice to ensure you don't forget anything? Or are you a 'throw whatever you can think of into the suitcase at the last minute' kind of packer? When returning from a trip do you unpack immediately or leave the suitcase right where it lands? 

I like to make a packing list, if not an actual list then at least one in my head. For big trips (more than a weekend away) I try to lay things out in one of the guest rooms a day or two before traveling, which makes packing feel a little bit less overwhelming.

I am 100% an unpack that bag as soon as we get home. I usually throw a load of wash in right way too, and return the suitcase to the basement where it's stored. 

3. What's your favorite food or beverage made with lemons? Is that a flavor you enjoy? 

Lemon is one of my absolute favorite flavors, maybe even number one. I love all things lemon. Lemonade, lemon bars, lemon candies, limoncello, lemon pie...

Not sure I can narrow it down to just one favorite food or beverage, but chicken or veal piccata or chicken/veal  francese would definitely make the list. I make a couscous dish with cucumber that has a lemony dressing and that's another favorite here. 

4. When was the last time you had to make lemonade out of lemons, figuratively speaking I mean? 

The landscapers are here to begin work on our large backyard project. The project is on the lake side of the house, and involves a small hill, plus a bunch of other stuff, but the hill is why they were coming by barge. I think. 

Let me just insert here when it comes to this type of project that has 1000 moving parts I want to adopt an attitude of 'call me when it's done', and believe me I will try. Already on day one I had to weigh in on something because hubs wasn't home but my goal is to be surprised by how beautiful it all turns out lol. 

Anyway, back to the lemonade...the original deal was they would bring all the materials by barge, which let me just say, that particular cost is not small. However, when they started calculating the actual amount of materials they'd need to haul it would have required four barges. FOUR!!!! 

You'd probably faint if I told you what that number is (I sweat just thinking about it), but not to worry, we're making lemonade. Materials can and will be brought over land, which is a bit more of a hassle for the people doing the actual work, and will likely not be great for the driveway or the grass, but these things can be set right when the project is finished. 

Hubs is going to be antsy until the whole thing is done, and he will be down there snapping pictures and asking questions and giving me more updates than I want, so I don't need to worry as long as he's available. 

5. Did you like school growing up? Why or why not? 

I loved school. 

That's me in kindergarten. I think I'm wearing my Easter dress because way back when we dressed up on picture day. 

Really I can't think of a grade I didn't like, except maybe 7th grade which I'm pretty sure we should all just skip. My girls know their 7th grade years were not my favorite either. Otherwise I loved school. I was a good student, I was always conscientious and I liked learning. I still do, and I have always loved books. There were one or two teachers who weren't my favorite, but looking back I can honestly say most of my teachers were kind, caring, and pushed me to do my best.   

6. Insert your own random thought here.  

Is anyone on Threads? It's connected to Instagram in some way and I keep trying to read things that take me to Threads and then get a message saying  I need to create an account in order to keep reading. Is it a thing? Is it worth checking out? I feel like Insta is enough to keep up with, but maybe this is the next thing? Or not? 

Have a great Wednesday everyone! 

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Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 564

Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here tomorrow to add your link to the party. See you there! 

1.What was the best (or one of the best) summers of your life? Tell us why. 

2. When you have a trip coming up do you make a list and check it twice to ensure you don't forget anything? Or are you a 'throw whatever you can think of into the suitcase at the last minute' kind of packer? When returning from a trip do you unpack immediately or leave the suitcase right where it lands? 

3. What's your favorite food or beverage made with lemons? Is that a flavor you enjoy? 

4. When was the last time you had to make lemonade out of lemons, figuratively speaking I mean? 

5. Did you like school growing up? Why or why not? 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Hello Monday Thoughts and Things

Good morning friends. Is time flying where you live because it feels like it's flying here. We're still in summer mode, but school has been back in session in our area for two weeks now and that makes me think it should be fall. 

Except it was 96 degrees when we left the house to meet friends for dinner on Friday night, and that's summer, right? 

Let's back up to Wednesday. Friends invited us to their house to play water volleyball and it was so much fun. There were about 25 people there and the hosts ordered pizza and everybody brought a snack or side to share. Nobody took the game playing too seriously so we laughed a lot. 

Thursday I got a few things done at the house, including getting one of the guest baths downstairs emptied out because painters are coming next week. I told hubs the economy is tanking but we're doing our part to  keep it going here with home improvement projects. 

I've been wanting to add some wallpaper to this bathroom pretty much since we built, and I'm finally getting around to choosing the paper and finding a hanger and having a decorator help me with the paint color for the room that will be just paint, no paper. It will be two days of painting and then one day to wallpaper and I'm excited to have it finished. It's going to be a nice change. We're reframing a print we've had hanging on the wall too so once that's done I'll share some pictures.

We've been in our house almost eight years now, and it's time to re-do a few things that are in need of re-doing. I'd like to paint the whole interior but we've got that other big project happening outside, also starting this week (fingers crossed) so paint will be on next years docket. 

Friday afternoon I had my yearly mammo scheduled. My appointment was at 4:45 PM which seemed like an odd time of day to do this, but whatever, at least it wasn't busy. And since it meant trekking in to the nearby city we made plans to meet up with our old neighbors at a place we've all been wanting to try. 

Oh my it was so good. 

Do you like sushi? If you don't like sushi you might not be on board, but we all like sushi and agreed this was excellent. The restaurant is called O-ku and they have locations in a handful of cities, mostly in the south. 

They do fancy cocktails and I had something called Sugar and Spice which was a jalapeno infused vodka with passion fruit juice and a sugar rim. Scrumptious! Hubs had a bourbon something called Tokyo which he enjoyed. 

The menu is a bit different than your typical sushi restaurant and we shared some small plates to start. This was blue fin tuna, fried shallot, compressed watermelon, and a brown butter sauce, which sounds crazy but it was wonderful. 

We each ordered our own rolls which we also ended up sharing, then added some Wagyu beef we cooked ourselves (it was the real deal!)...

Wagyu beef cooked in wagyu butter is something else. Yum! We were there for over three hours just enjoying the food, the company, and the truly excellent service, and we all agreed it was a fun dining experience. 

Saturday was another scorcher here with temps still  again in the 90's. Hubs and I hung out in the lake.  Literally. We have not had a day to just chill on the water and it was so nice to have nowhere to go and nothing we absolutely had to do. 

I spent an hour right here. 

I'm tied to the dock so I don't float away. 

We followed that up with a boat ride to check out a part of the lake we haven't really seen much of this summer. We always like to see what kind of new construction went up in the winter months and we like to see what people are doing to their property in terms of landscaping in case we want to copy. 

Hubs had to stop the boat once for me to jump in because I was melting. 

We came back to our dock and swam a little, then we showered (outside because that's still a thing here) and hubs grilled us steak while I added a salad and baked potato, which in my opinion is a perfect meal. There were a few clouds in the sky after dinner, but we chanced it and ran the boat out in time to catch the sunset.

Never disappoints. 

We ended the day with more Olympics. We have really enjoyed them this time around and I'm kind of sad they're ending. I think the US Women's track team was my favorite viewing. Such talent and speed, brains and beauty too. 

Sunday. It was hot. We had a friend coming by to look at our lemon tree and give us some advice on fertilizer and care and tell us if it's in a good spot, sun wise which it is. She has a lot of fruit trees and knows how to grow citrus. Ours is loaded with lemons that are still very green, but she assured us all is well, gave us some fertilizer and told us what to buy. Fingers crossed we'll have yellow lemons in another couple of months. 

Sunday afternoon we loaded up the car with various framing projects we want done (I think there are five)  and we drove to Michaels. Nobody was working the frame department and their 'framer' was at a training all week. Ugh. We'll shift gears and go to Hobby Lobby instead, hopefully Monday before the barge gets here with the landscaping materials. 

Hopefully the barge gets here Monday. 

Sunday afternoon we beat the heat and watched a movie, hubs grilled chicken for dinner and I made a side of pesto pasta with my homemade pesto, then we ended the day with a float. 

The lake kind not the Root beer kind.

So how was your weekend? 

Linking this post with the regular Hello Monday party hosted by Holly and Sarah. 

A Light In The Hodgepodge

Hello Hodgepodgers (and everyone else too)! If you've answered today's questions, add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger before you. Here we go-

1. What's a task you do on a regular (or semi-regular basis) that feels like it should be an Olympic event? 

Changing the sheets on our king sized bed. It's a workout. Also it's a pairs event, because it takes two to accomplish...one to lift the mattress and one to tuck the corners. 

2. What's in the trunk of your car right now? 

In general the trunk of my car stays pretty tidy. Currently it holds my canvas grocery bags and not a lot else. I mean it has the spare and whatever tools would be needed under cover, but as far as what you see when you open the trunk it's just bags. 

3. Summer foods vs. fall foods...which do you prefer? 

I love seasonal food and I like the way menus change right along with the seasons. My answer is both. 

Would you rather-watermelon or caramel apple? watermelon  iced coffee or pumpkin spiced latte? iced coffee potato salad or sweet potato casserole? sweet potato casserole  barbecued ribs or roast turkey? roast turkey  ice cream sandwich or apple pie? ice cream sandwich but it's a close call  corn on the cob or candy corn? corn on the cob 

My choices confirm my love of both fall and summer when it comes to food. I opted for some of each in my answers. 

4. August 7th is National Lighthouse Day. Have you visited any lighthouses? Do you have a favorite? Is a lighthouse something you seek out if you're visiting an area known for theirs? 

I've visited a lot of lighthouses and enjoy seeing them up close and from the water too. We don't plan trips around them, but if there's a lighthouse in or near our path when we're traveling, we will for sure check it out. 

Not sure I have a favorite, but the Portland Head Lamp in Cape Elizabeth Maine ranks right up there. 

5. Light at the end of the tunnel, out like a light, give the green light, a lightbulb moment, in a new light, in the limelight...of the 'light' idioms listed which applies in some way to your life lately? Explain. 

I'm going with 'give the green light' as we recently signed a contract with a stone and landscaping company for our backyard project. I sat on the yellow light for a while, but hubs convinced me to step on the gas and it's happening. 

Not this week though. Apparently they have to load the materials on the barge this week and we'll start next week. Yes, they are bringing materials by way of water. I think I told you I was overruled on keeping it small. 

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Hubs and I  were in Tennessee last weekend and attended church in the sanctuary we were married in 40 years ago this past June. 

40 years and 51 days to be precise. 

There's a picture in our wedding album of hubs and I standing in front of a pretty arched doorway and we decided an updated picture should happen. 

We snagged the youth pastor to snap a photo as we were leaving and he obliged-

We didn't get the re-pose exactly right, but that's okay. When you've been married a long time you know things don't always go perfectly, and maintaining a sense of humor is key to keeping the proverbial train on the track. 

Forty should be celebrated all year, don't you think? 

"Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves." Romans 12:10

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Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 563

Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here tomorrow to share answers with other world wide webbers. See you there! 

1. What's a task you do on a regular (or semi-regular basis) that feels like it should be an Olympic event? 

2. What's in the trunk of your car right now? 

3. Summer foods vs. fall foods...which do you prefer? 

Would you rather-watermelon or caramel apple? iced coffee or pumpkin spiced latte? potato salad or sweet potato casserole? barbecued ribs or roast turkey? ice cream sandwich or apple pie? corn on the cob or candy corn? 

4. August 7th is National Lighthouse Day. Have you visited any lighthouses? Do you have a favorite? Is a lighthouse something you seek out if you're visiting an area known for theirs? 

5. Light at the end of the tunnel, out like a light, give the green light, a lightbulb moment, in a new light, in the limelight...of the 'light' idioms listed which applies in some way to your life lately? Explain. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Hiya Monday!

Good Monday morning everyone! We had a lovely weekend and are still soaking up summer here. 

Thursday night we had our monthly wine club get together. Yes I'm going back to Thursday night because Thursday night will always be the start of a weekend for me. I blame college. 

Seared sea scallop with a lemon beurre blanc, Miller Farms pickled radish and watercress

Also, we're retired so as hubs likes to say, 'everyday is Saturday'. 

potato leek soup topped with pork cracklins and basil oil 

Besides the two courses pictured above we also had a veal marsala with wild mushrooms, golden raisin, spaghetti squash, and micro greens. Then a fourth course which included duck confit ragout with house made pappardelle, San Marzano tomatoes, Pecorino, Romano, and Ricotta. 

Dessert was a bananas foster cheesecake with caramel stroopwaffel. Yum! The entire menu was so delicious and the wines were wonderful too.  

We are kind of exhausted. When we got home from dinner hubs announced he was not doing a thing on Friday, and we did manage to have a mostly low key day. There was more catching up on laundry happening (yes, still!) then I spent most of the rest of the day in the office sorting, shredding, filing, and dealing with the paperwork mountain that had accumulated while we were busy enjoying in person time with our family.  

Friday night a couple we knew casually but not real well, invited us out to dinner. It was fun getting to know them better over Italian food eaten at a local restaurant we enjoy. 

Saturday morning we loaded up the car and the little brown dog and drove over the mountain to East Tennessee to spend a couple of days with hubs mama and his brother and sister-in-law too. We had not seen his mama in person since March so were overdue for some actual face time. 

Hubs family lived in Kentucky for a few years when he was a child and my brother and sister-in-law had very recently been back to that same small Kentucky town. They brought back everyone's favorite barbecue and had frozen the extra so we had that for dinner, then caught the sunset before watching more of the Olympics. 

Question-what do we watch when the Olympics end? 

Sunday morning hubs and I accompanied his mama to church and then to a light lunch afterwards. We went back to my brother-in-law's for a short nap (hi hubs!) and then late afternoon some friends hubs and I have known since college invited all of us to their house for dinner.  

I didn't take any pics of the women, but that's hubs in the middle with one of his best buds on the left and his brother on the right. When hubs and I were first married and lived in Knoxville we spent almost every weekend at this couple's house. Seriously we'd pack a bag and bring some board games and our favorite tunes and we'd move in with them for the weekend. They only lived a few miles away from us, but it was just so much fun to make it a whole weekend. 

Our hosts grilled ribs and we talked about many things old and new, but most importantly our high hopes for Tennessee Volunteer football, which we're all excited about. Go VOLS!  

We have a busy week ahead. Our once small, now somewhat larger than small ahem, backyard project is hopefully getting underway today. We shall see. 

One other note before I dive into this day...my daughter1 and her family (husband plus three small children) have moved to England for a six month stay while her hubs completes an orthopedic surgical fellowship. She blogs. Her writing is rich and precious and so real. If you'd like to follow along visit her blog at Sincerely Shannon. Her first entry related to the move is here-Hello, we've moved. They landed a week ago last Thursday then left for vacation the following Monday. Carpe diem! They were determined to squeeze in some fun travel on top of the actual move travel they'd just done before her hubs reports for work. 

We all live large here. 

Linking today's post with Holly and Sarah for their regular Hello Monday blog hop. Happy Monday everyone!