Weekends

Hello Friends how are you?

My weekend was really good.  First let me tell you that we finally got the Fiber Optic Cable installed at our house.  They installed it on Wednesday.  It took about 6 hours.  This was the fifth attempt.  There had been rescheduling and actual cancellations, not by us, etc.  Mark and I are like kids.  We have been watching everything on TV that we couldn’t before.  Our Amazon Prime would just buffer constantly before we got the cable installed. It was so frustrating. We have been catching up on all the Star Trek Next Generation and Deep Space Nine Episodes we like. Mark has watched 5 episodes of The Mandalorian on Disney and he is in love with Baby Yoda. He keeps yelling for me to come and see how adorable Baby Yoda is.  You know we are geeks right?  I think I told you we had had Hughes Net before.   Hughes Net Satellite service is sort of a last resort for people who can’t get any other kind of internet service.  For this I guess it serves it’s purpose.  Even the man I talked to at Hughes Net said ” if you can get fiber optic, GET IT!!!”   Well we have it now and I can even use my cell phone at home to make phone calls.  Ahhh rural living, it’s the little things.

The rain continued most of last week.  It did stop for awhile on Wednesday and we were able to have the cable installed. Thank goodness. The big tree that fell in the back yard is still right where it fell.  Between Mark working and the rain we haven’t been able to cut it up.  Maybe this week. My nephew Tyler is going to come and help.   Friday Saturday and Sunday brought a lot of sunshine.  Still a little cool but with the sun shining all is well. My favorite kind of weather.  Cool, sunny days.

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   Look what is blooming.  We always called these Easter flowers when I was a kid, because they usually bloom around Easter.  The weather here has been so warm and we have had so much rain lots of things are starting to bloom. 

I had Galentine lunch with my friend Lorie on Friday.  We went to Kokita – Sushi Bar in Sweetwater.  It is a fairly new restaurant.  I am not a huge fan of sushi but they have a lot of other things on the menu.  I love the Hibachi Chicken and their carrots are to die for.   I have eaten there several times, actually two times in the past week.  I also had lunch there last Tuesday with my friend Dann.  If you are in Sweetwater check it out it is located on Main Street.

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    Lorie gave me these sweet tulips for Valentine’s and some killer earrings.  I will take a picture and post them soon.  I love them!!!!

Mark had lavender roses sent to me at work on Friday.   They were very different, they were in a hat box.  The hat box is reusable. He knows I love roses and hats so it was the perfect combination. My mother died on Valentine’s Day back in 2003.  Mark always sends flowers on Valentine’s Day to try and make it a little brighter for me.

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   Aren’t these beautiful. They are specially preserved and supposed to last for six months.  I’ll let you know. 

 

I visited my favorite thrift store on Saturday to check out the book section.  I get a lot of books on Kindle and on my devices with Tennessee Reads.  Tennessee Reads is the program I told you about where you check out books online through your local library.  It is great!!!  I have read  a lot of books since I got it. But I still love reading books and I have a ton of them.  While I was at the thrift store, and it is always a little busy on Saturday, I was sitting in a chair looking at a book I was debating on getting.  A woman reached for a large book above me and dropped it right on my head!!!  It didn’t really hurt it just startled me more than anything.  I had to laugh at the look on the woman’s face she was so embarrassed.  I reassured her that I was fine and very hard headed so it didn’t hurt a bit.  We had a good laugh over it.

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  Here are the three books I got.  I started the Dean Koontz book and it is creepy already. I haven’t read Dean Koontz in quite awhile.  The cat book is a book of short stories about cats.  The friendship cake is a novel but also has a lot of recipes in it.

I made Mark a pecan pie for Valentine’s Day.  We really don’t get into the whole celebration and spending a lot of money on Valentine’s Day.  We have been married a long time.  We buy what we want when we want it anyway without one or the other having to get it.

So the rest of the weekend was good.  Catching up on laundry and reading and knitting and watching some amazing shows.

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  I repotted my Aloe Vera plant on Sunday.  It has been struggling a bit.  I think it is because the pot I had it in wasn’t draining.  

I hope your Valentine’s Day and weekend was wonderful.

Always remember,

Love your day your way!!!!

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Happy Birthday To My Blog

It is hard to believe that I started this blog two years ago. I toyed with the idea for a long time before I actually secured a site, picked a name and actually did my first blog post.  I have changed some things along the way.  I decided to change the look a little in celebration of my two years of blogging.   I have heard that blogging is sort of on the way out, and that with Instagram, Instagram Stories, Vlogging and YouTube that not many people blog anymore. I don’t think that’s true.  I still read a lot of blogs and I really enjoy having a blog. I have posted 107 blog posts in the last two years.   I will tell you why I love blogging.

 

  1. It is a great way to keep a running diary of day to day events.
  2. I have met and shared things, and actually become really good friends, with some fellow bloggers.
  3. It is definitely a way to express myself in a way I didn’t know was possible.
  4. It makes me more aware of the things I do, places I visit and things I discover.
  5. I tend to want to experience more.  I want to try new adventures and share them with you.
  6. It has made me more aware of me as a person.  Reading back through past blogs makes me appreciate what I have and how I have grown in different ways.

I feel like my blog has come a long way since I first started blogging.  I have learned so much.  I am going to list some of my favorite posts from the last two years and also my first blog post ( I am a little embarrassed by this one, I had no idea what I was doing)

My second post was about losing my brother Allen.  Today is the second anniversary of his death and I am really missing him.

Here are a few of my favorite posts and my very first one.

Welcome to Southern Patches ( My very first post)
Saying Goodbye to My Brother Allen
I looked Like Jack Nicholson In The Shining
Redbud Winter
I Survived Mother’s Day
Juggle The Struggle
A Valuable Thanksgiving Lesson
Pottery, Pastries & Nancy Drew
Do You Always Know When You Are Being a Bit*h

And then there are several of my favorites about travel.  I love to travel and I think you learn so much from it.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Mainly In Maine
A Week In Chattanooga
European Vacation Part 1
European Vacation Part 2
European Vacation Part 3
Let Me Take You To Nashville

I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog whether you are a long time reader or just started reading.   I have so enjoyed the last two years and look forward to many more.

I hope you are having a wonderful day thank you for celebrating with me!!

Always remember,

Love your day your way!!

 

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Weekends

Hello friends how have you been?

We have had some crazy weather around here.  My weekend was pretty low key.  I had to work on Saturday because I spent Friday at home waiting for the tech for our fiber optic cable.  This was the fourth attempt and we were rescheduled yet again.   I was so mad at AT&T and even made a really ugly phone call to complain but I doubt it will do any good.  We are now scheduled for Wednesday but it is supposed to rain all week so we will see.  Because I had to be at home on Friday I rescheduled several appointments for Saturday.  I hate splitting my days off.


  The calm before the crazy weather.  I pass this everyday on my way to and from work.

Molly has a really bad ear infection.  She gets them constantly.  She has allergies and we really have to watch her ears.  I had to stop by the Vet Clinic last Monday morning and get her some meds. She has to be on antibiotic ear drops for ten days.  She is a gentle old girl and very easy to give medicine to.


   Mom quit taking pictures of me!!!!

Last week started pretty good with mild weather and just day to day stuff. I got Mark an air fryer for Christmas. I was skeptical about having something else take up counter space but he works with several people who have them and love them. We finally started using it last week and we love it!!!  I cooked chicken breasts in 20 minutes and they were so yummy.  We have been experimenting with several things.  Adjusting the cooking time is a little challenging with different things but we are getting the hang of it.

 

So on Wednesday the rain started. Because the ground was already saturated the flooding started quickly in some areas. It rained all of Wednesday and then even some thunder and lightning on Wednesday night.

On Thursday morning the rain continued. I was standing at the kitchen sink just before daylight and I could see something through the window that looked like large stalks in the back yard. What??? I went out onto the deck and discovered a huuuuge tree down in the back yard. I think the roots were loosened by all the rain. It missed our house by only a few feet and our deck by inches. We didn’t even hear it fall!!!! We are just so thankful it didn’t fall on the house.


You can see how muddy the lake is from all the rain.

So on Friday the rain stopped and the temperature started dropping and by Saturday morning we had snow.  With the temperatures so low the roads became slick really fast.  I had to work on Saturday but I had already gotten to work before the roads got bad.  I knew the temperature was supposed to rise by noon and the snow would probably turn to rain.  It did.  But the snow was quite beautiful while it lasted.

More rain is predicted for this week. Oh well better rain than snow I guess.

Anyway, always remember:

Love your day your way!!

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Weekends

Happy Monday friends.

I am on my way to Gatlinburg for a meeting with my Southern Highlands Attractions group. It’s always nice to catch up with this group. It’s such a learning experience every single time. I will be in Gatlinburg for a few days and I am so excited to be staying at the new Margaritaville Resort. We’ll also be going to a few places I haven’t been in a long time so that will be exciting!! I’ll have a full post on that when I get back.

Anyway back to last week and the weekend. Most of my week was just work and home and back to work again. You know how those weeks can be, they seem to just suck the very life out of you. And you know what? It shouldn’t be like that. I am always the one saying make your week special and do something to make your day or week stand out. Although sometimes just having a quiet non eventful week can have its benefits.

The quiet of the week came to an abrupt halt on Saturday when I had to go to work for a few hours in the afternoon. We had over 200 people spending the night at our attraction. Because of flu and a funeral we were short staffed and so I went in to help out. I knew I was going to be leaving on Monday for a few days so I had to buy groceries, take my Mother in law some supplies and visit with her a bit, go to a funeral and to work. That’s a lot of things to do in one day. This was Mark’s long weekend at work so I couldn’t depend on him to help out much.

The babies were very lazy Saturday morning.  I wished I could just cozy up with them and spend the day.

So Saturday morning I got up early and did some things around the house. I went into town and bought groceries, took them home and put them away, went to the Assisted Living Village, where my mother in law lives, to take her some supplies. Went to work and then went to my aunt’s funeral. A looooong day.  On Sunday I did laundry and worked on that heart cross stitch I started last week. I will have to tell you there’s not a lot of progress there. I will be very luck to finish it before Valentines Day. If I don’t I will have it for next year.

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See I told you I don’t have much of this baby done yet!!!

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Another reason I haven’t worked on the heart cross stitch is because I have been working on this scarf.  I love the pattern and the yarn is so soft.  But then you know me I can’t seem to work on one thing at a time.

Of course after hearing the news of Kobe Bryant and his daughter and all the other people killed in the helicopter crash, earlier on Sunday, all the things of the past week take on a different light. Those families whose lives have just changed forever is all I can think about. It just proves how very fragile and precious life is. We should treasure every day.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!

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