I am Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving for my American friends. Today I hosted Thanksgiving at my house. One of my friends wanted to know if I was going all “Betty Crocker” and I think I just may have. We only had eight people for Thanksgiving but man it was a lot of cleaning (the house) and preparing food and cooking and then cleaning. We had sort of a blended bunch today from both of our families. Mark’s mom came from the assisted living facility, where she is staying, and Mark’s brother. My sister and her husband and my niece and then my sister in law came so we had both sides of our family there and I loved it!!!!!

I cooked from about 7:00 AM until 2:00 PM just before we ate. I also hate for anyone to be in my kitchen cleaning so I felt the need to clean and load the dishwasher. After dinner several of us took a long walk through the woods and enjoyed the beautiful day. It was a great day all around but I am exhausted. I am getting ready to head to bed because me and one of the sisters will be heading out for Black Friday Shopping around 4:00 AM. We are not anxious to get the bargains or anything like that but we love the Christmasey feel in the air and the excitement of being out at 4:00 AM shopping. I know I know, it doesn’t take much for us. With lots of people starting their shopping on Thanksgiving night early Friday morning is now a great time to go. Anyway we will get coffee and eat lunch and we may see a movie before we head home so its just a lot of good quality “Sister Time” my other sister HATES shopping so we don’t even try to get her to come with us.

Things have been really busy and crazy for me the last couple of weeks. Next Friday I will start a Friday Favorites on my blog where I will share with you some of my favorite things I am really liking throughout the week. I did want to catch you up on some of the things that have been up to:

This is a cowl scarf I finished last week and have already worn it twice.

I have been knitting a lot!!! I love knitting in the winter it is just too cozy. It is soothing and I am thinking about teaching a beginner knitter’s class so that everyone can enjoy this.

I have joined a book club. Although Monday night is my first official get together with the other members in the club (They meet once a month) I have been keeping up with the books they have been reading. The reason I wanted to join a group like this is because I loved the diversity in the group and the very different types of books they read and shared with one another. These are books I may not have taken a second glance at before but I am loving them!!! I will share some of them on my Friday Favorites next week.

58 Thanksgiving Baskets ready for distribution.

I am serving as Secretary, Treasurer of my local Kiwanis Club. This is a Civic organization that is global and the main priority is young children. Our community has so many needs that sometimes it is overwhelming. On Saturday we gave out 58 Thanksgiving Baskets to families in our area. Anyway, being the Secretary, Treasurer of this very active organization keeps me very busy.

I have been working out, maybe not as much as I should, but I have been trying to make it a priority several days a week.

The struggle is real!!!!

Add all of this to a very busy work schedule and time just seems to slip away. So what have you been up to? I have missed sharing with you and hope to get back to posting on a regular schedule.

I’m off to bed, 3:30 AM will come quickly and a fun day with the sister will be here soon.

Love your day your way

Rainy Days and Mondays

Good Monday friends. First of all Happy Veterans Day to all of our Vererans past and present. Thank you for your service.

How have you been? I know I say this every month but how can it possibly be November already? this year has flown by. It is raining this Monday morning, again. We are getting a new deck built onto the house and the materials have been in our yard for about two weeks. Every time the workers try to get started it is raining!!!!

Last weekend, actually it was weekend before last, I drove back to the Amish Farm market and finally bought one of the braided rugs I have been looking at. There are different ones brought in every week and I fell in love with the colors on this one. It is fairly small and I have it in my entryway and I will probably leave it there.

I also drove up to Bald River Falls a beautiful waterfall in the Cherokee National Forest. I knew the colors would be at peak and that it would be a great time to go. I was not disappointed. My sister and my nephew and his wife went with me and we had a great time!!

On the way back through Tellico Plains we stopped at a little antique shop, Stone Cottage, I hadn’t been in this shop for years even though it is a favorite of mine. The owner dries flowers from her garden and makes amazing wreaths and arrangements. I bought this dried arrangement of Nigella, or Love In a Mist it is also called. I love that name. When they are blooming they are a beautiful purplish blue color. These are full of seeds that I can plant now or in the spring. Let me know if you would like some of these pods.

The last couple of weeks have been very busy for me. I had to be gone earlier this week for a couple of days for a Gift Show in the Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge area. This is about seventy miles from me so I always spend the night. I am not actually the buyer for my work but I like to go when I can and check out any possible new merchandise. The drive up to Gatlinburg is beautiful this time of year and I always have to stop and get a few pictures.

We discovered a great restaurant in Sevierville that has only been open for about two months. It is called Five Oaks Farm Kitchen. They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner and we ate there for breakfast. I highly recommend the Belgian Waffles. Check it out if you get a chance. www.fiveoaksfarmkitchen.com I also got to spend time with some of my caving buddies who were at the show. And in typical “me” fashion I realized when we were getting ready for dinner Monday night I had left my jeans on the bed at home and hadn’t packed them. Soooo at 10:00 that night we had to make a run to Ross Clothing, the only thing open that time of the night in Sevierville, and get me a pair of jeans. I hate shopping for jeans. There is nothing that can make you feel worse about your body than trying on jeans, except maybe trying on bathing suites hmmmm. But I went into Ross with only thirty minutes to spare and gathered six pairs of jeans and took them to the dressing room. Ross is the kind of store you usually have to dig for what you want. It is an overstock type of store so you can find some good deals if you really look. I got a pair of Jones New York jeans and I love them!!!! Go figure it takes me hours normally to pick out a pair of jeans and I run in at 10:00, after having a big meal and a full tummy, and find jeans I love. Go figure.

We stayed in Sevierville where one of the shows was taking place and I got this early morning sunrise pic the morning I left.

Anyway I was gone for a couple of days and then drove straight back to work on Wednesday morning because we were doing a Teacher Appreciation night for our local teachers. It went very well and we are having another one on Wednesday night. We did tours and food and door prizes and our teachers loved it. We are so thankful for them.

We celebrated my husband’s Birthday on Friday so I took an extra day off from work. I was in Gatlinburg on his Birthday and felt bad for it but he also had to work. So we celebrated on Friday. On Saturday I went to visit my mother in law in the assisted living center where she is staying and took her out for a ride. I try to do that every week so that she has an outing to look forward to. I also went to a house-warming party of a co-worker and saw some friends there I hadn’t seen in a while so that was very nice. I finished up the day with my sisters watching the Tennessee game and had pizza and beer. If you know me you know I am not a football fan I actually could care less about it. But being with my sisters is always a good time, and I took a cowl neck scarf I have been working on and actually finished it before the end of the game.

With the traveling and eating out and not having time to work out I have felt a bit sluggish. I try to remind myself that I have to make time to work out and eat better anyway. I can’t use the excuse of special lunches, dinners and being gone. I am doing those things all the time. A day at a time progress I suppose. It’s back to the gym for me today. No more excuses!!!!!

What have you been up to?

Love your day your way!!!

Juggle the Struggle

By Lisa McClung

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Got this shot of the moon Tuesday night from my deck.

Hey ya’ll I hope your week has been wonderful and you are ready for a great weekend. I do have some fun plans for Sunday I will share later with lots of pics.

I will have to say I have been on the struggle bus this week. Going back to work after being off for two weeks left me with a lot of catching up with work and co-workers. I always love getting back and hearing what everyone has been up to. We have a couple of things coming up at work that we are preparing for. We also have a gift show coming up in a couple of weeks and that will involve a quick overnight trip to the Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge area.

Kitty Kitty had to spend the night at the vet clinic on Tuesday night. She was spayed and came home the next day very quiet and unlike herself. I couldn’t wait to hear her romping through the house again. After a few days she is starting to get back to her old self.

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Tuesday night I went to see my mother in law at the assisted living center and we decided to get a hamburger. She has a really hard time getting in my car so as we were struggling to get her in the car I put my car keys on top of the car. You know where I am going with this, right? My car has keyless entry so we took off through town to Sonic. We like to get hamburgers at Sonic because we can sit in the car and eat. As we were waiting for our food I noticed a strange red blinking light on my dash. It was shaped like a car key. I thought well that’s odd my key is right here. I reached down and no keys, it hit me like a ton of bricks I had put my keys on top of the car. I jumped out of the car in a panic and ran around to the passenger side and believe it or not, my keys were there. I couldn’t believe it. I have a rack thing on top of my car and I had put them on the inside of the rack. Whew.

On Wednesday I stopped by the gym where I work out so I could pay my fees. The owner is a body builder and very strict about his eating and working out. He told me he hadn’t seen me in a while and I told him I had been gone most of the month. I told him I had really been slacking on working out and had been eating terribly. He ask what I had eaten that day and I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him about the meatball sub and fries I had just had for lunch. He said you can’t use traveling and eating out as an excuse to not eat right. Only you can take care of you. It all comes down to you. Wow, words of wisdom I really needed to hear. We talked for awhile and he worked out a routine for me to do 4-5 times a week. It is a bit grueling and about an hour each time. We are going to concentrate on cardio for awhile before I move into the weights. He helped me plan a diet that will give me a lot of protein and cut carbs. I am really excited to have someone to be accountable to.

Sooo on Thursday morning I got up at 4:00 a.m. I like to work out early and get it out of the way. I had to charge my iwatch so I could keep track of my steps and calories etc. I could not find my earbuds anywhere so I decided to stop by Walmart on my way to the gym to get some. I headed out about 5:00 a.m, it’s a 15 minute drive into town, 20 if it’s foggy and it was.

Walmart at 5:20 in the morning is a bit interesting, just saying. Found some ear buds that I thought would work. As I was walking through the store I noticed I had a strange thing going on with my underwear, I know TMI but I’m just trying to explain the struggle. With every step my underwear was slipping down and if I hadn’t had my pants on I guess I would have dropped them right there in Walmart. That probably wouldn’t be the first time that had happened to someone there Ha!!!! I think it was just the combination of the type I was wearing combined with the slick leggings. Too bad I hadn’t noticed this before I left the house. Anyway I got to the car and pulled those things up practically to my chin to stop that from happening. Luckily there’s not many cars in the Walmart parking lot at that time of the morning. I couldn’t get the ear buds package open. I had to get a tool out of the back of my car to open it. As I was trying to get the package open it flipped out of my hands and landed somewhere in the back of the car. After searching for a few minutes I found it. I got the package opened and they were not the right ones for my phone. At this point I almost went back home and blew off working out. But I didn’t. I did my workout and was soaking wet with sweat at the end and it was awesome. Totally worth all of the trouble.

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This morning I had to take everything out of the garbage can, and it was full, to look for my iwatch that had been missing since Thursday night. Me and Mark had looked everywhere for it. I found it about 10 minutes after I emptied the garbage can. I found it upstairs, not in the garbage can.

Some really awesome things happened this week too. My sisters and I met up for lunch on Wednesday with some cousins we rarely get to see, two of them from Texas. That’s when I ate the meatball sub shhhhhhhh. Got caught up with all my coworkers, snuggled with my fur babies and started a new workout program. Also got a great picture of the full moon Tuesday night. I found my iWatch, I didn’t lose my keys.

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One of my favorite places to be.

I tell you all of this because I like to keep it real and say that even with these struggles it’s nothing compared to what some people are going through in their lives. Just keep going!!!

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

Love your day your way!!!!

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Another Sister Trip In The Books

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Hello Hello, what a great time me and the sisters ( this includes my niece Tammy who is more like a sister to us) had on our annual Sister Trip. There is four of us. I probably laugh more in these two days than I do all year. We have a great time!!!!

For several years we have been going to Gatlinburg although we have gone other places as well. We have always stayed in Baskins Creek Condominiums and loved it. We have probably stayed there ten or fifteen times. Because of schedules we were only able to stay two nights so it was a pretty short trip. Baskins Creek Condominiums has changed their policy for this time of year to a three night minimum. Booo we were not able to stay there. We stayed at Park Place Condominiums. It is located closer to Downtown Gatlinburg so within walking distance of a lot of things on the strip. Park Place had an awesome balcony and that is all of the good I can say about it. We will not stay there again. It is an older property that is in much need of some updates and repairs.

As I said we had a wonderful balcony overlooking the creek and it was so peaceful listening to the water.

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We always stop in Sevierville on the way into Gatlinburg because we like the TJ Maxx there. I found a really cute dress that I love and I think it will look perfect with some black boots.

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This is not the best picture but you get the idea.

After we got checked into the condo we sort of chilled out on the balcony and just hung out talking and laughing

On Thursday we went to the Titanic Museum. If you haven’t been there you should check it out. This is the World’s Largest Museum Attraction. It is located in Pigeon Forge.

Upon arrival each guest is given a boarding pass of an actual passenger that was aboard the Titanic. The guests then follow the passenger’s story as the exhibit proceeds. The tours are self guided and at the end of the tour the guest discovers the fate of the passenger in their ticket. We all survived.

Gatlinburg is really pretty this time of year with lots of fall colors and fall decorations.

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Thursday night we ate at the Peddler Steakhouse in Gatlinburg. This place has a salad bar a mile long. Well maybe not a mile but it seems like it. Check it out if you are ever in the area. www.peddlergatlinburg.com

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The pink pumpkins are for breast cancer awarenes.

Every year on our way home we stop to do a little retail therapy in Sevierville at the Tanger Outlet Mall. I found a cute denim jacket at Dress Barn. I usually can’t find anything I like at Dress Barn but the stitching on the side of the jacket was really different than anything like I have. Did I need another denim jacket? Probably not but I just couldn’t resist this detail.

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And as usual the sisters wore me out.

Another fun trip. I think next year we will stay longer so we can return to Baskins Creek.

I am so ready to be home for awhile. I have been gone three weeks out of the last four weeks. With a work trip and then vacation soon after that, it all happened at the same time. But that is the wonderful thing about life it happens and you have to go with it.

Love your day your way!!!

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