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.***

***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!!!

Lavender Festival In Oak Ridge Tennessee

Hello and happy Monday. What a fun weekend I had. My friend Lorie and I decided a couple of weeks ago to check out the annual Lavender Festival in Oak Ridge Tennessee. Oak Ridge is about an hour from us.

The Lavender Festival has been held annually since 1999, always the third weekend in June because that is when the lavender is in bloom in Tennessee, and was voted “Best Festival” last year by The Middle East Tennessee Tourism Council. The Festival is free and so is parking. More than 150 vendors are set up for the festival. There were several bands playing and lots of food and drink vendors. There were some Lavender garden tours that could be purchased but you had to sign up for those and I think there was an additional fee for those.

Lorie and I took off early Saturday morning and got to the festival around 9:30. Lorie spotted a prime parking spot very close to the entrance. What luck. The weather was perfect. It did get a bit warm as the day wore on.

I bought one of these lavender plants and then discovered they are toxic to cats. Lorie is taking it to her house.

This booth had infused glass. I love the designs. This artist has amazing talent.

There were a couple of vendors selling these concrete planters. They are made by mixing concrete and pearlite together and putting them in boxes or buckets to frame them. I bought the one on the right with this gorgeous succulent.

We didn’t get to try the lavender lemonade the line was just too long.

Several Bands were playing. This one was really good.

More of the infused glass. I especially loved the little cat ornaments.

Lots and lots of flowers, succulents and even fresh fruits and vegetables. Lots of everything.

By mid afternoon the crowd had really grown.

Me and Lorie. We have so much fun when we get together. I love hanging out with her she is up for whatever adventure we get into. Nothing is too crazy for us when we get together. This might be good or bad, HA!!! We decided to make the Lavender Festival an annual event for us.

We didn’t get to try the lavender lemonade but we did try the Bold Rock Blackberry Cider. It was yummy and really hit the spot in the heat of the day

Before coming home we stopped in Sweetwater at Sweetwater Creamery and got some ice cream. This is such a cute place and the ice cream is homemade and delicious. I got Peppermint Pattie.

Peppermint Pattie. They also make the waffle cones daily. This is a single scoop!!! Yummy.

I brought my succulent home and put it on the deck. I think it fits in well with the rest of my cactus family.

Sunday was a rather quiet day. Mostly hanging around the house with hubs and working on clearing some things from the garage. A really nice weekend. How was your weekend?

Always remember,

Love your day your way!!!!!

Hello Monday

Hello and happy Monday. I had such a lazy weekend. I like having those occasionally but they make me feel like a sloth, and that I should be doing more. I did the usual groceries, laundry etc etc. Mark was off on Sunday and we grilled hamburgers and hotdogs outside. We’re trying to do some summery things but we both like being inside. Mark has really bad allergies. Plus it is rare lately that we have days off together.

The first thing I did Saturday morning was give some much needed attention to my orchids. I have ten now. I had one that was needing to be repotted. I don’t like repotting unless I really have to, but with this one I had to do. The roots looked terrible. I trimmed off the rotting roots and replanted her in a clear planter with fresh orchid potting medium. I gave all the others some love and trimmed off a couple of dead stems. They all seemed much happier.

I also did my grocery pick up but I wanted to stop at a little Marketplace in town. It is set up in a large building decorated with individual booths. So the booths can be very different. I didn’t have a lot of time but I will go back this week and get some things I had my eye on. Look at this little Americana Uncle Sam:

And I love the weathered look of these flags.

Of course seeing those flags made me want to come home and get some of my patriotic things out. I made these flags two years ago. If you missed the post on how to make them you can check it out here. Patriotic Bouquet. I actually thought it was last year that I made them. But I started going back through my posts and realized it was two years ago. Man, time flies. That could also be the reason they are looking a little worn HA!!

Last week I finally got around to painting my little wrought iron bench. I did the chair a while back. This bench was in pretty bad shape. It came from my mother in law’s house. It had been in her garage for many years. It had a lot of rust spots on it. I scrubbed it down and painted it black. I used a spray paint with primer. I love the way it turned out.

A few weeks ago I bought a tomato plant from the Mennonite market near my house. It is doing great!! It has about twenty five tomatoes on it. They are all green and I can’t wait till they get ripe.

***Tomatoes. I don’t even eat them but Mark does.***

***Marigolds are blooming. I just love the orange ones.***

How have things been with you? Have a wonderful week!!!

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!!!!