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 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!!

Vacation At Wrightsville Beach, NC

Hello and happy Monday. It was back to work today for me and hubs. We took off last week and went to the beach in Wrightsville NC. This is near Wilmington. It is about a nine hour drive for us. We have flown there a few times but we wanted to take some beach chairs with us so we drove. We left out about 5:30 AM last Sunday morning. When my husband says he wants to leave at a particular time we will be leaving our house at that exact time. He is good about staying on time. Of course he didn’t have the million things I had to do before leaving. I always arrange who will stay with the kitties or come in and feed them. I always make sure the house is clean before we leave. That’s just a little pet peeve I have when I leave. I like for the house to be clean.

We had a few traffic delays and we stopped a few times for fuel and food. We got to the beach around 4:00 PM. The weather all week was great. We stay at the same place. Surf Suites. Each suite is ocean front. Their balconies are really large with plenty of room to stretch out and relax and enjoy the ocean and listen to the waves.

Wrightsville Beach is a fairly small coastal town. If you are looking for amusement parks and lots of shopping centers this is not the place. There are a few places to see in the small town of Wrightsville and of course Wilmington is only about a fifteen minute drive and there’s lots of things to see and do there. But the beauty of this place is that it is so laid back and peaceful. We are usually tired from the drive when we get there. We go to a local grocery store and stock up on groceries for the week and then grab something to eat.

***The first morning was a little overcast but other than that we had lots of sun.***

We started every morning walking into town. It is about a three mile walk round trip. One morning we walked a little more and made it just over four miles. It was a great way to start the day. We usually walked early around 7:00 AM. I loved looking at the beach houses and boat docks along the way. Then we usually walked on the beach. We took beach chairs this time so that we could spend more time at the beach.

And we had some really good meals.

Crab stuffed salmon. This meal was at The Oceanic. One of our favorite restaurants of all time.

Carolina crab cakes. This was at Poe’s Tavern. The music here was great and a lot of Edgar Allen Poe references. Poe’s is a chain restaurant. They are located in a lot of coastal towns.

More Carolina Crab Cakes. this was also at The Oceanic.

I went out a couple of mornings at 6:00 AM to get sunrise pictures. And one morning there was a wedding on the beach at sunrise.

***I read two books and started a third one. I will have them listed on Friday Favorites.***

I also took along a blanket I am crocheting. Luckily I just started it so it hasn’t grown too much yet. The blankets get a little warm in the summer especially after they have gotten to a certain length.

So we had a great week. We started back early Saturday morning. I missed the babies so bad. When we got home they were overjoyed to see us. They ran to us and jumped in our laps and let us love on them. HA!!!! They’re cats you know that didn’t happen. But Gus did sleep with me Saturday night and even if he didn’t want to show it I know he was glad we were back home. I know I was.

***And of course seeing this was the best sight because it meant we were almost home.***

A great and fun week but I am always glad to get back home. How was your week? How have you been? I have missed being with you on the blog. I have a lot of catching up to do and getting around to reading all your posts.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!!

Hello Monday, The Week of The Cats

Happy Monday!!! The last week or so is what I have been calling “The Week Of The Cats”.Remember that song by Al Stewart back in the seventies called The Year of The Cat? You may be too young for that song. This has been our Week Of The Cats. Yes it’s that time of year again. This past week was the week we, over the course of several days, take all five kitties to the vet for annual vaccines. Plus Gus actually had to be shaved because his long hair had gotten so matted in places. We can’t take all of them together it’s just too hard. Luckily the vet is only about a ten minute drive from our house. This is how it went down:

Allie (mama) cat went first. She is still a bit feral and I was afraid she would tear my face off. But she actually did great. Well as long as I was right with her that is. The vet got me a long pair of gloves and I just reached into the crate and lifted her out. We weighed her and then she got her shots and she was just an Angel. She made Mark and myself look like liars because we had told the vet how wild she still is.

Next was Izzy I took her early one morning hoping to get both her and Sadie but I had no luck with Sadie. She saw immediately what was happening and ran and hid. She has been rescheduled. Izzy did great. She even let the vet pull her out is the crate. Again, my little feral girls surprised me. Of course there’s still Sadie to be taken.

Next was Kitty Kitty and she is so sweet and tame Mark was able to take her by himself. Everyone at the vet clinic fell in love with her sweet little face.

Gus was scheduled for last Friday morning so I dropped him off at 8:00 AM. He also had to be shaved. He hates being brushed and his hair has gotten so matted we couldn’t get a brush through it. He had to be put to sleep to cut his hair. And I felt just terrible having to do that. When I brought him home he was out of it and not himself for about thirty six hours I will never put him through that again. I told him he would just have to adjust to the brush. We will work with him until he isn’t afraid of it.

Sadie, or I should say Houdini, is scheduled for this week. The problem will be catching her and getting her into the crate. I think it will be fine after that. I hate tricking her to get her into the crate but she has to have her shots especially the rabies vaccine. My three outside kitties, Allie, Izzy and Sadie are out during the day. We bring them into the garage at night because of coyotes. So being out they could come in contact with another animal.

So that has been my last week and a half. The Poison Ivy is finally disappearing. Work has still been a bit hectic but that is expected this time of the year.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Weekly Catch Up & Memorial Day

Hello and happy Memorial Day to everyone. Especially our veterans who gave all for us. Let us never forget them and what they have given for our freedom.

The weather here has been chilly. I’m not sure if this would be considered Whippoorwill Winter or as some of the old timers call it, Woolen Britches Winter. Whippoorwill Winter usually occurs middle to late May so that is what I think we are actually experiencing these last few days. Woolen Britches is the last winter we have before late spring or summer temperatures hit us. I know my jacket felt really good this morning.

Being in tourism the days leading up to and including Memorial Day is very busy for me. People have started vacations and traveling is on everyone’s mind. My work has been so incredibly busy. I actually worked part of the weekend. Memorial Day is our kick off to summer and the Labor Day sort of ends the busy tourist season. All of the days in between are busy.

Because I only had one day off I had to cram a lot into it. This included visiting my mother in law and taking her supplies, buying groceries, doing laundry and trying to get some time in to chill and do a few fun things.

I had a few minutes to catch up on a book I was reading and have some coffee and a muffin.

I made a blueberry cobbler. I love to make one of these on Sunday and have it for the entire week.

I also wanted to try these lasagna cupcakes that I had been seeing all over Facebook and TikTok. These are made like lasagna but instead of using pasta you use wonton wrappers. This makes them very calorie friendly. I will trim the wonton wrappers on top next time because they stuck a little bit. I used a muffin pan. I made my usual lasagna sauce for regular lasagna. You can use whatever you want. You can also use grilled veggies or anything you might want to chop up and use. But you don’t have a lot of room in the muffin tins. I used ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, and mozzarella cheese. I layered a wrapper then ricotta cheese then my sauce, then mozzarella and parmesan. I then added another wrapper and repeated the layer. For the sauce I used marinara sauce with ground beef but you can use ground turkey or whatever you would like. Basically you can make them just about any way you want to. They are delicious.

I finished the sock I have been working on a cast on the second sock. The second sock is never as much fun to knit as the first one. I can see the striping will be off a little but that will just make it interesting. Nobody will notice when they are inside my shoes. HA!!!

Other than working all I have had time to do is SCRATCH!!! The poison Ivy is slowly starting to dry up. I told you about the IVAREST I had been using. It really does the trick. It is so soothing. I think it has calamine lotion in it or something like that. I listed it on my Friday Favorites last week. If you missed it you can catch that blog post here But the problem was the biggest area affected was on my wrist and it easily spread to a few other areas.

So how was your weekend? Did you do something fun? Have a wonderful week!!!!

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!