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!!

A Short Trip to Gatlinburg, TN And a Stay at The Margaritaville Resort

Happy February friends,

Can you believe that February is here already? I can’t. Last Monday I went to Gatlinburg for an attractions meeting. The organization is called Southern Highlands Attractions and is made up of several top attractions in the south. Check out our website. I have probably mentioned this group before. We meet three times a year and visit other tourist attractions in the area and even some out of the area. We have traveled to San Diego, St. Louis and other states and this year we will be visiting Niagara Falls. I can’t wait for that one.

On Monday I left for the Gatlinburg meeting. Gatlinburg is about an hour and a half from me. We stayed at the new five star Margaritaville Resort in Gatlinburg. I had not been there before so I was really excited about seeing the resort and getting a chance to stay there.

The Margaritaville Resort is lovely. Of course it has an island theme and Jimmy Buffett music coming from speakers everywhere. All of the staff members wear tropical shirts and they are beyond nice. Customer service is something I always pay close attention to. I believe in it totally.

After getting checked in I went straight to a meeting that started at 1:00 PM. There was a lunch set up for us before the meeting started. After our meeting ended at 5:00 I had an opportunity to freshen up before we headed uptown to the Gatlinburg Sky Lift and Sky Bridge. You may remember I visited the Sky Lift and the new Sky Bridge, which is the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in North America, back in the fall when I was on my Sister Trip, you can read about that here. The bridge is 680 feet across with a height of 140 feet at its midpoint. The middle of the bridge has a glass-floor panel where you can see straight down. This part is a little scary. The night we were up there it was dark and rainy and the bridge was not as scary somehow. Darkness can do that. It was beautiful seeing the lights of Gatlinburg from such an altitude.

The next day was a full day of sight seeing. We started the day at Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies. I have been there many times and so had everyone that was with us. So I though meh so what. But this time we met with the GM and we were able to do a behind the scenes tour. WOW!!! So much goes on to keep such a place running day to day. We were able to see how they prepared the food for the sharks and the other animals. It was just a different world from what is seen by people every day. So much to see.

This big girl is Sally. She is a sea turtle, she weighs about 500 pounds and she is 60 years old. She has to be put in this holding tank while the sharks are being fed, if not Sally will take the food right out of the sharks’ mouths.

Next we visited the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum. I mentioned a few months back, on my Sister Trip post, that a wildfire spread through much of Gatlinburg in November of 2016. While a lot of the city was left untouched by the fire many many people lost their homes and businesses and several people lost their lives. It was horrific. After the fire many businesses were renovated and updated. The Ripley’s Museum is one of those. I have visited the Museum many times. I was really happy to see a wonderful change to the museum. The GM explained to us that they had discovered that people wanted to see more modern, and I know that modern and museum doesn’t necessarily mix, but in this case it does, pop culture. So we saw a lot of different and new things. It was very hands on and interactive. I loved it and can’t wait to take the hubs back to see it.

This village was built with 15,000 match sticks. Man I would hate to transport that.

We lunched at Ole Red’s, a fairly new restaurant owned by country star Blake Shelton. The food was good and the atmosphere was nice with lots of music. There is often a live band that plays. Since we were having lunch there was not live music. I think that is saved for night but I’m not sure. The home made tater tots are a must have as well as the fried, smoked okra and the yummy cornbread.

The next stop was Ober Gatlinburg. Another place I had not visited in many years. You have to ride a tram to the top or drive a very steep and winding mountain road. The trolleys in Gatlinburg will not drive this road. We took the tram.

It takes about 10 minutes to get to the top of the mountain by tram.

The temperature has to be below freezing, at night, for several days for Ober to be able to make snow. They were making snow the day we were there. You can ski, snow board, go tubing in the snow, ice skate and lots of other things. We didn’t get to do a lot because we had a very limited amount of time. I had on some boots that were not really for a lot of outdoor activities and were a little slick on the bottom. I was happy to just look around. Remember the part about the slick boots because they will come up again in a minute.

Our last adventure was a tour of the Smoky Mountains National Park, visited by 12.5 million visitors a year. I did notice on the agenda that a two hour plus time limit had been allotted for it. Nowhere on the agenda did it mention a hike. We pulled up to the Visitor’s Center and a Park Ranger got on the trolley and we drove down the road for about 3 miles. We pulled up to a lot that had a sign for Laurel Falls. I had heard of this waterfall and I knew it involved a hike. The Ranger was giving us instructions and precautions that we might want to take during the hike. Make sure you have plenty of water, almost none of us did, make sure you have comfortable shoes for walking up hill , lots of us didn’t. I showed the ranger my boots and she said they should be fine. She also told us it was 1.5 miles round trip. It was not. It was 1.3 miles each way. The first 1.3 miles was all uphill. The trail was narrow and wet and paved in most places. My boots were so slick. I probably should have turned around, some people did, but I continued on. Keep in mind it was not just the shoes but I am also out of shape and overweight. Also again we were on a time limit. I gave up on the time limit and just took my time. I had come this far and I was determined to see the falls and take some pictures. I was the last one to the falls and the last one back to the trolley. This was mildly embarrassing but I saw the falls and they were beyond beautiful. The falls are 80 feet high and named after the mountain laurel that grows wild around the falls. I will go back with my husband and I will wear hiking boots and take water and take lots of time.

See I told you it was beautiful and well worth the hike to see it even if it was a little scary. I am so glad now that we did the hike and got to see the falls.

That night we had a wonderful dinner and I think I was in bed by 8:30.

A full day I would say.

Wednesday was a half day of meetings and then headed home. All in all a great meeting and visits. As always I am soooo glad to get back to my little family.

Until next time, Always remember

Love your day your way!!

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.

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

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!!!

Forever Is Now!!

Images from Pixabay

Emily Dickinson stated that Forever is composed of nows. This is what is happening right now and right this minute. You may think the things that are going on in your life day to day, hour to hour or even minute to minute are too mundane to even think about. But you will think about them in a few minutes, a few hours, a few days and even in a few years. You will go back to some of the things that have happened this past week and remember remnants of them forever. Some things will stand out and some things you won’t even remember. Do you ever wonder what will stick in your memory forever? You never know when something happens if it will last forever in your memory. Or maybe you have something so good happen that you store it away to remember forever.

The last couple of weeks have been very full. I guess that all weeks are, in their own way. I worked two full weeks which I haven’t done since way before Christmas, Mark smashed his head into the concrete outside the basement and had a very bad bloody head, It was raining and he was emptying the dehumidifier and misjudged the wall. Don’t ask. We took an all day trip to the doctor at Vanderbilt in Nashville for a four month check up, not for the bloody head. All was good. I went to book club, I had a long meeting with a colleague and ad vendor, I bought Valentine decorations, I cooked several dinners, knitted, grocery shopped, walked the dogs and took a million pictures. Mark bought a new truck, I spent a long fun day with my niece Hailey, I attended the funeral of a dear woman, who I knew through work, who had lived to the ripe young age of 96. My nephew’s wife had open heart surgery at the young age of 40!!! WHAT!!! We had a tornado warning. One of my favorite aunts passed away. Wow!!! I would say a lot has happened already for 2020. But that’s life isn’t it?

I think we sometimes wait for a big moment or day to happen but when you think about it, it is happening right now. This is life!!! Forever is now!!! LIVE IT!!!!!

Always remember,

Love your Day Your Way!!!