Happy Tuesday & A Quick Trip to Nashville

Hello friends and happy Tuesday. I didn’t post anything yesterday my husband and I had an overnight In Nashville. I may have mentioned a few times that since having the kidney transplant several years ago, my husband has to return to Vanderbillt Medical Center three times a year. This is so that he can visit with his nephrologist and get blood work and make sure everything is still going well with the kidney. It is about a four hour drive each way for us. However traffic in the mornings going into downtown Nashville has become unbearable. Last time we had the visit it took over five hours to get there. We almost missed the appointment. We have spent the night in Nashville a few times but with all the kitty and dog babies it was hard getting them farmed out and taken care of. Sadly we no longer have our doggos and you know cats require little care for just the twenty four hours we are gone.

After the last fiasco we said never again. We were in the road for over nine hours that day and we were exhausted. We decided to do the overnight again. My husband was so set on not doing the entire drive in one day that he made all the arrangements himself!!! What? We have stayed at this hotel before. It is only about five minutes from the hospital. It is also the hotel we stayed in many years ago with some of our family after the transplant. So lots of good memories. It was a little pricey for an overnight but totally worth it.

We drove over yesterday after I had worked half a day. We arrived around 5:00 PM central time which is 6:00 PM for us. Traffic was not bad at all. We checked in, had some dinner at a nearby restaurant that also featured live music every night. It was so nice not having to worry about getting up at 3:00 AM and driving over. We always prefer early morning appointments even when we drive over. That way we get back home at a decent hour. Also we have found that the later in the day we schedule the appointment the longer it seems to take getting seen by the doctor and getting blood work.

***Vanderbilt Stadium, if you look closely you can see Vanderbilt hospital just beyond the stadium. We were probably within walking distance.***

***A great view from the balcony. We were on the 14th floor.***

***The band was good. Local song writers are featured every night. I love to hear the lyrics this is quite a talent all it’s own.***

***And on the way home we always stop at DQ and get an ice cream. After a great check up we feel the need to have a little treat. Or a big treat***.

Last week we received a large dish garden at my brother in law’s funeral. I took it home and proceeded to take all the different plants out of it. This one had about seven different species of plants. You can’t keep them all together because they all require different things to grow and thrive. So I took this apart and repotted all the individual plants. Then before I placed them in the house I checked to see if they were kitty friendly. They were not. Well one of them was ok to have around the kitties. I have been given some additional office space at work and one of the rooms has two large windows. I hauled all of those plants to work with me and they look great!! Now I can have my plants around me at work. I will have to stick to the orchids at home. They are safe for the babies. I think that may also mean I am ready for another orchid. Yes I definitely think that sounds like a great idea.

I had so much fun repotting all of those plants. And the large pot they were in I will keep for something else. It is absolutely beautiful. I think it will look great for something “fallish”

So that is what has been going on with me. How was your weekend?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

My Summer Bucket List

Yes summer is quickly passing us by. Here it is nearing the end of July and school will be starting soon. It’s crazy how fast that happens. We’re starting to see all the back to school items in our local Walmart. I can still smell pencils from first grade every time I walk down the school supply isle. In tourism we are in the heart of summer but we know it is slowly winding down. Labor Day is on the horizon and that usually ends the especially larger crowds for us. I am always ready for the slow down.

I wanted to share with you some things I still have on my summer bucket list, as well as some summer fun that I have had so far. I think the summer flies by so fast we have to make it count. First off are some things I have done this summer. It’s not a lot because I don’t get a lot of time off in the summer so I have to make every weekend count.

1. I went to the Lavender Festival in Oak Ridge. I would love to find more festivals like this. They are so much fun. Here is a recap of the Lavender Festival of you missed my post.

2. Go to the beach. We did get to go to the beach last month and we had a great time. The weather was good all week and the crowds were not bad at all. We love to go to Wrightsville Beach in Wilmington NC. Here is a recap of that.

3.Plant and grow beautiful flowers or ummmm pretty flowers. I love flowers and I love to have them inside and outside. Marigolds are my favorite but sadly my marigolds didn’t do very well this year. It could be because of all the rain we have had. It has been the rainiest summer I can remember in a very long time.

4. Growing fresh tomatoes. I myself do not eat tomatoes but I love to grow them and give them away. We had several tomatoes from our one little container pot. They didn’t get really big but Mark said they were delicious. We also had plenty to give away. Something has been eating our tomatoes and I’m not sure if it is a deer or some other critter. We have a lot of them hanging around.

5. Eat Ice Cream. What can I say. It screams summer time. I try not to buy too much or I will eat it every day. Sweetwater Creamery in local downtown Sweetwater makes ice cream daily and it is delicious. I will work my way through every flavor this summer and give you an update. If you are local head on down there and get you some ice cream.

6. I also love cooking and eating lots of fresh vegetables. We have a Mennonite community close to us and they grow the best vegetables. The vegetables are so fresh and very reasonably priced. That’s where I got my tomato plant.

7. Cherries!!!! I love them so much!!! This is the best time of the year for them. I’m not fond of cherry pie, I just eat them one by one.

Here are a few things I haven’t done this summer that I would love to do. Most of them are quite simple but that’s how I role. I will give you an update on some of those things hopefully before summer is over.

8. Go on a picnic. Picnics are the best The food always tastes so much yummier when you are eating it outside. When I was a little girl we would take picnics to a local lake or the mountains. And it was sooooo good. We always had special treats when we were on a picnic and I guess that’s what made it even more special

9. Visit a sunflower field. We have one close by and I want to do that maybe this weekend. The flowers are beautiful right now and sunflowers are some of my favorite flowers. You can actually pick the flowers, and there is also zinnias which is another favorite of mine.

10. Lay on a blanket in the backyard and watch the clouds. Maybe take some pictures of them. Just another thing we did when I was a kid.

I guess I’m seeing a pattern of wanting to go back and do simpler things, fun things that don’t require a lot of thought, time or money. You just do them. When the world gets a little crazy I think simple is the best. Take a break.

What are some things you are doing this summer? or maybe have on your summer bucket list?

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!!!!

Friday Favorites

Oh Friday I am so glad to see you. It has been a really long week. Here are a few of my favorites from the week:

I listened to two audio books this past week: The Whittiers by Danielle Steel. A sweet story about a large family who came together after the death of their parents. And though they are all a bit dysfunctional they make living together work out. I know Danielle Steel can be a bit predictable but sometimes that’s just what you need.

The next book was Moon Shell Beach by Nancy Thayer. It was pretty good. Again a bit predictable. When I am driving I don’t like to have anything too heavy to listen to unless it is a long drive.

I needed a new pair of sneakers for work. I like black because they go with everything I wear, imagine that. I love New Balance so I ordered these “fresh foam”, that sounded intriguing and comfy. And they are!!!! They are so light weight and just what I need when I am running all over the property at work. These were on sale for $52.92 marked down from $84.99. I just checked and they are still on sale. I love them.

I wear reading glasses and I have a pair in every room of my house as well as in my car and a pair or two at work. If you’ve ever had reading glasses most pairs are not very attractive. I found these through an ad on Facebook. I ordered them through Amazon. I love them. Only $16.99 for the set. And each one comes with its own little case.

I actually got this new orchid from my friend Lorie last week but I just had to share it with you this week. Isn’t she a beauty. I named her Kalliope. She is doing great and adjusting to all the other orchids and her environment.

My husband and I love to see the musical CATS. We’ve seen it several times in different places. Maybe it is because we love our cats so much. But even before we had cats we loved seeing this. When we heard that Cats was coming to Knoxville to The Tennessee Theatre we knew we had to go. And Wednesday night we went. It was awesome!!! Just like always. Check out the Tennessee Theatre here for more information.