Author: Lisa -Southern Patches

Hello everyone, my name is Lisa I am a southern girl born and raised in East Tennessee. I love discovering new places and things to do. I have a lot of favorites, shopping, traveling, knitting and photography are all at the top of my list. I am married with my fur babies my only children. This blog is actually named after my beloved basset hound Patches. She passed away a few years ago but will always have a huge part of my heart. Come with me and we will explore some wonderful places and discover some really fun things. Are you ready?

A Downed Tree And An ER Visit

Hello friends and happy Tuesday. I’m sorry for the misleading tittle, which is a big no no in blog world. Thankfully the tree had nothing to do with the ER visit but I will get to that in a minute.

We have a tree in the side of the yard. It’s not a huge tree, well it looks bigger when you are standing next to it with a chain saw, but it’s big enough. My husband and I had discussed cutting the tree ourselves. The tree started rubbing against the side of the house. Some of it even touched the gutters and that is three stories above the ground level. So it was starting to cause a problem. We have had flying squirrel issues before and those little critters just love finding a way to get into the attic. A tree that close to the house is just an invitation for them. And lying in my bed at night and hearing those little things scurrying around in the attic is not what you want to hear just before going to sleep. We were also worried that if we didn’t cut the tree just right that a part of it would land on our deck. We kept thinking it was a job that we shouldn’t handle or maybe we could. We couldn’t decide.

Several weeks ago we called a man who had cut some trees for us in the past. He came to check out the job and said it was a rather small job for him. And he could cut it and not have it fall on the deck. He quoted us a very reasonable price. He told us he would get to it in two weeks. I told my husband we were probably never going to see him again. What he quoted us was not a lot of money and probably not really worth his time. Sure enough that has been about five or six weeks ago. Last week we finally decided we could do it we could cut the tree. We are not always smart when it comes to things like this.

So on Saturday morning Mark got his chain saw and I got mine, remember that little one I got for Christmas?, and we decided to tackle this tree ourselves.

You can get an idea of the size of the tree when you see my husband beside it.
And it’s down.
You can see that some of top of the tree landed across the railing on the deck but we cut it off easily.

We started before 8:00 AM hoping to beat the heat. No luck on the humidity because it was already high. Mark did several notches in the tree and then the big cutting with his saw and the tree fell. TIMBER!!!! The top of the tree was rather skinny and spindly and luckily that is what fell across part of the deck. We had moved all the deck furniture out of the way. The rest of the tree fell across the backyard. Whew!!! That was a bit scary. It then took us another two hours to cut and clean up the tree. I used my smaller saw for cutting branches and making the limbs easier to haul away. We dragged limb after limb into the woods, and cut up what we could. By 10:30 we were finished with only a couple of casualties. I had a big scrape across my arm from one of the branches. Nothing too bad. And I lost my glasses. I had taken my glasses off and hung them on the front of my shirt, why did I do that?, and I must have snagged them with one of the branches when it went into the woods. I looked around a little bit to try and find them but there were just too many branches to deal with. Luckily I have several pairs. Someday I may see a squirrel or rabbit or a deer wearing my glasses. HA!!!!

I will say we were rather proud of ourselves and strutted around most of Saturday patting each other on the back. Now for the ER visit.

Early Sunday morning at 1:00 AM I got a call from the assisted living village where my mother in law lives. She had fallen and split the back of her head open. It was bad. They had called an ambulance. Luckily a woman that I know was spending the night in the room next to my mother in law. Her dad is in heart failure and having really rough nights and she has been staying at the village with him. She heard my little mother in law yelling for help and when she got to her room she was covered in blood. Head wounds always look worse than they are but my mother in law is also on blood thinners so that makes it doubly scary. She lost a lot of blood.

Hubs and I raced to the hospital, it’s about a 30 minute drive for us, and she had already been taken back to a room. Once we were able to see her she had a huge bandage wrapped around her head and chin and she had twelve staples around the back of her head. She was very confused and didn’t remember a thing about what had happened. They did a CT scan and luckily there were no broken bones or anything. After a few hours the ER doctor decided to keep her in the hospital a day or two so they could watch her. We let her sleep and went home to get sleep as well. She was able to return to the village yesterday. I told her to tell everyone at breakfast that she was bandaged because she had been in a bar fight. She thought this was quite funny. She is almost 90 years old and pretty darned tough.

That was my weekend how was yours?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!

A Sad Week

The sun was shining. There was a soft breeze blowing and the leaves were rustling lightly in the trees. I could smell freshly mown grass and I felt it tickle my sandaled feet as we walked through the cemetery to the grave site. You could hear the loud screech of the cicadas as they serenaded us with a cheery tune that was a bit uncharacteristic for the day. My brother in law, Mitch, my husband’s only sibling passed away on Monday.

My brother in law Mitch was only 56 years old. He has had a lot of medical issues through the years, as well as addiction problems. We got the call from his wife at 3:00 AM Monday morning. We knew it was probably coming but wasn’t expecting it so soon. He was such a fun loving person who never met a stranger and truly believed in living life to the fullest. You couldn’t be around him without having a good time. Respectful, loving, caring, smiling, these were some of the words used to describe him at his funeral. What a great way to be remembered.

My husband was 3 years old his brother Mitch was just a few months old and their mom.

We spent the week making arrangements and reliving some old memories. We had to break the news to my mother in law who is in an assisted living center. Her short term memory is so bad that some days when we visit her she remembers that he has passed and some days she doesn’t. It’s almost like having to relive it each time we visit. On the days she doesn’t remember we keep quiet and don’t say anything about him.

It is so hard losing a loved one. Losing a sibling is different than losing a parent which I am sure is different than losing a spouse or God forbid, a child. I have heard that each loss is different. I only know of a couple of different ones, siblings, parents, thank God that is all

I have been a little quiet this week. Just being here for my husband and mother in law and sister in law is all I can do. Just being, that’s really all any of us can do at a time like this.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Friday Favorites

Hello friends and happy Friday!!!! It was a full week and back at work for me. When you work in tourism the 4th of July is a very busy time. And it was. I am looking forward to a weekend at home getting some things done. And now to some favorites of the week.

I have to show you a couple of things I bought at Ross. Do you have a Ross clothing where you are? Sometimes I can find things there and sometimes not. These are discounted clothes taken from other stores who haven’t been able to sell them. So you really have to dig to find something good. When you do it is usually at a great price.

I found this really cute dress it was a great price I tried it on at the store and it seemed fine but after I got home, and started to wear it on vacation, it just doesn’t hang right on me. I’m going to do that thing you should never do. I’m keeping it in my closet until I lose a few pounds.

And this cover up thingy. I also got this at Ross. It could be worn over a dress or even a t-shirt. I will use it for both.

I wore this several times on Vacation.

I ordered this phone case. You can order it with the names of your kitty cats or doggos and list their colors. I love it. You have probably seen these online on Facebook and Instagram and lots of other places. I was so happy with the way mine turned out.

You can also add you own name at the bottom.

On Wednesday one of my coworkers brought me this yummy strawberry Açaí refresher. we have had such a busy week little things like this really mean a lot. We have such a great team!!!

I also wanted to mention a few books I have read or listened to. First, Impossible by Danielle Steel this was an audio book through Libby. It was short but fun to listen to going to and from work. It was about a love affair that was impossible.

This book, One True Loves, I took to the beach and read it in just a couple of days. I ordered this one from Amazon. To give you an idea of why I could barely put it down, it started out with, I was having dinner with my family and my fiancé and the phone rang, it was my husband. This book is so good.

And this one was a favorite. The Book Of Charlie. I also ordered this one from Amazon. Charlie lived to be 109 years old. He was persistently good natured and just had a way of looking at the good side of everything. I loved this book.

But I guess the favorite of all is to be back home with all my babies. Gus has been sleeping with me every night and Kitty Kitty has camped out on my bed for days.

How was your week. I hope you have a great weekend!!!

Always remember

Love your day your way!!