Friday Favorites

Happy Friday!! This week absolutely flew by. I can’t believe it is the weekend already. I’m glad to have a couple of days off. Here are some favorites I have to share with you. I didn’t get to post my favorites last week because my internet was out most of last Friday evening. Here we go:

First of all I have to say I am loving our cooler days this is definitely a favorite. The nights have been almost cold and the mornings are frosty. The afternoons warm up and when the sun is shining it feels way warmer. But according to the weather forecast we are going to have some warmer temps next week with the highs near 80 degrees. I suppose that will be nice too for this time of year.

I saw these earrings on another blog post and I’m sorry I can’t remember the blog. I like a simple earring from time to time. I usually go for the big oversized dangly earrings but I have my days when I like a smaller earring. These are great!!! I got them from Amazon, two pairs for $14.94 they are very lightweight but not cheap looking if you know what I mean. I am loving them.

We finally got my father in law’s house listed and on the market. I took this picture a couple of days ago. It really is a beautiful area. I hope it sells soon but if it doesn’t then we will just hang on to it a bit longer. Today was the first full day on the market and it was shown several times and there are several showings tomorrow.

You won’t believe it but four of my orchids are now blooming. They don’t always bloom this time of year but you never know about orchids. They are so finicky. They are all a different color of pink. That is o.k. They are just different enough to have a different look. Zsa, Zsa has been blooming all year. She is really unbelievable. This is the one I got at my sister’s funeral back in April of 2022. I named her Zsa Zsa because when my sister was sick in the hospital I did her hair for her one day and told her she was so beautiful I would call her Zsa Zsa, as in Gabor. She then started calling me Eva and it was a thing we shared until she passed away. I think this is actually two orchids so I may repot them and name the other one Eva.

Zsa Zsa

I bought Simone at Trader Joe’s last year. I have had such good luck with the orchids that I buy there. They are always healthy and beautiful. This is the second time that Simone has bloomed. Isn’t she a beautiful color.

Simone

Clementine was a gift earlier this year from my friend Lorie. This is the second time this year she has bloomed. Look at those beautiful colors.

Clementine

And Delphine still has several pods ready to bloom. I rescued Delphine from a clearance table at Lowe’s a couple of years ago. I think she was $3.00 but still beautiful. I was just starting to get into my orchid craze and I went back a couple of days later to see if any were left, there were several when I got her, but they were all gone. Live and learn.

Delphine

And I have started an orchid journal. I am recording their blooming cycles and putting pictures in the journal. I love it!!!!

You have probably seen this Retinol cream, Roc, all over FaceBook and TikTok and other social media outlets. I finally decided to try it. I got this at Walmart I think it was about $25.00. It makes your skin so smooth. It doesn’t have a sunscreen in it so use it with your regular daily moisturizer. It supposedly smooths those fine lines that creep in around certain areas. I tried using it twice a day but it started to make my skin a little oily. I now only use it at night. I love the way it feels going on and the way my face feels the next morning.

O.K. I guess this is Roc’s baby sister because I also started seeing some great results from other people using this Retinol cream. I went down the rabbit hole and ordered this one from Amazon. It was about $30.00. I will tell you that I have some unsightly lines around my mouth. I have never ever smoked in my life but I have the sort of lines that people who are chronic smokers have!!!! What!!! I do notice that I purse my lips A LOT!!! I think that may be the problem. I am trying to break that habit. This Serum can be used for specific areas, around the eyes, mouth or forehead. I noticed that it does plump those areas up temporarily but over the course of a month you are supposed to be able to see long term lasting results. I will have to get back to you on that I have only been using it for about ten days. I will keep you posted.

AHHHHH!!!! My sweet Kitty Kitty snuggling on my lap is just about the most calming thing I can think of. I love it. She doesn’t do it a lot, unlike Gus, so when she does it is extra special.

I use the Krusteaz Blueberry muffin mix. I have mentioned it before. I had never tried the pancake mix. I always make my own pancakes with flour, baking soda, milk, eggs etc. It is a little time consuming. Last week some friends told me about the Krusteaz Pancake mix. OH MY GOODNESS!!!! You only add water and you can make a batch of pancakes in no time. I made some on Wednesday. I added pecans to mine. They were so yummy. I will still make my pancakes and I will have to let my husband be the ultimate taste tester. But for a quick easy few pancakes this stuff is great!!!!

The pancakes turned out so fluffy. And they were yummy!!!

I just finished this book. It was good. I would give it a four out of five. I read it through my Libby App but it is available on Amazon as well. A little slow in the middle but overall pretty good.

First Frost. Isn’t it beautiful?

I hope you enjoyed the Friday Favorites. Any favorites you have to share? Have a wonderful weekend. I am going shopping with my Sister. I can’t wait!!!!

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Hello Monday

Well here we are the beginning of a new week and almost the end of another month. October, where did you go???? I love October and it went by so fast. I love the leaves falling it makes me feel like I am in leaf globe instead of a snow globe. What a week and month this has been.

I fully intended to post a Friday Favorites post on Friday evening after I got home from work. But when I got home I realized our internet was not working. Remember I live in the boonies in the woods so no internet service means no phone calls or anything. I tried a few things around the house like unplugging everything and resetting the router, you know all the troubleshooting things to try. Nothing worked. It was almost time for Mark to get home so I drove to the top of the driveway where we do have touch and go internet. I called and told him what was going on. He has an app for our internet service. He checked and sure enough it was a wide spread outage. Internet should be restored before 6:00 AM the next morning. WHAT???? how would we survive?? Just kidding I can survive very well without internet it just makes me nervous not having a phone. I was hoping it wouldn’t be that long and it wasn’t. The internet was back up within a few hours but not enough time for me to post my blog. I will save the Favorites for next Friday and have even more favorites to share.

There are a few things I will go ahead and share about last week. On Tuesday I had quite a surprise when my nephew and his wife and their son stopped by my work to visit me. They are from Jacksonville Florida and had been near our area over the weekend for a wedding. I was so happy to see them and it was a total surprise. I hadn’t seen them in over a year. We had a short but very nice visit.

On Wednesday we had Sister Lunch. If you haven’t read any of my posts about Sister Lunch you can catch up right here: Sister Lunch. My sisters and I started this about fifteen years or so just by going to lunch and then we kept adding people and saying “see you next Wednesday” We always go to a little local restaurant at noon on Wednesday. Through the years the number of people who are able to attend changes weekly. Not only sisters but nieces and nephews and friends and cousins have been to Sister Lunch. We hadn’t met for a few weeks because of sickness, doctor visits, vacations etc so it was great to get back to our old tradition.

We have had very warm days here but the cold weather is coming this week. A ton of leaves have fallen. The leaves have been beautiful but they are really starting to come down.

Look how colorful my driveway is. I just love all the different colors of the leaves. A time to say goodbye to Summer and hello Fall let’s regenerate.
Turkey crossing on my way into work last week.

We have been busy cleaning my father in laws house and getting it ready to put on the market. I know it is hard for Mark to be there and have to clean it out. It’s something that most of us have to go through at some time in our lives.

On Saturday I decided to clean out some of my bookcases and get rid of a lot of old magazines. While I was going through some old books I found a notebook that my mother had started. I am not sure how long ago. She always kept journals but this seemed like a “book” she had started about her and our family. It is hand written in a plain yellow notebook with lined pages. It starts when she is a very young girl and goes until my oldest brother left for the military around 1969. I’m not sure how we missed it when we were going through her things. I have saved several of her journals through the years but this one, if possible, is even more special. I would like to have it printed and bound and give copies to my family. If you have any ideas how to do that or if you have done that I would be interested to hear about it.

I went to visit MIL in the assisted living village. They have it decorated for Halloween and they are giving out candy and treats to the area children and children and grandchildren of the workers and residents. All of the residents get such a joy out of seeing the children dressed up.

I didn’t decorate a lot this year for Halloween. I out up my Spooky wreath that I made last year.

I painted the little orange pumpkins a couple of years ago. They are actually rocks.

Have a wonderful week.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Hello Monday

How was your week and weekend? I worked my second full week of work at work. This hasn’t happened in a few weeks because of vacation and work travel. For some reason I think being at my work place all week has been even more tiring than all of the travel. Go figure.

Last week we celebrated my nephew Caleb’s Birthday. He turned 20. It’s so hard to believe he can be that old. We had dinner at our local Mexican restaurant that we all love.

His favorite gift was these orange and white overalls. He loves University of Tennessee Volunteers. He is such a fan.

Saturday morning I walked down to the lake and took some pictures. It was quite chilly and a fog was coming off of the water. The temperatures here have been chilly in the mornings and then warming up in the afternoon. I think that later this week the daily highs are supposed to be close to 80 degrees.

A few weeks ago this long beanstalk looking thing started to grow from one of my succulents. I have had this one for several years and it has never done this. It looks like it is going to bloom any minute. There is a close up view of it below. I posted it on FaceBook a few nights ago and several people responded with pictures of their own. I am eagerly waiting to see if it will bloom.

It looks like it will bloom any second.

I have been trying to get outside as much as possible to enjoy the fall colors. Because we had such a dry September our colors haven’t peaked yet. We usually have much more color by this time of the year. Hopefully the next couple of weeks will bring more color.

On Friday after work I met my friend Lorie for a margarita and some Mexican food. It was so yummy and we got some to catch up on some much needed girl time. Saturday and Sunday was the usual laundry, groceries, cleaning and etc. I need to make plans to attend a fall festival or something fally. Fall is my favorite time of year and it passes so fast.

What things have you been up to? Join me on Wednesday I have a wonderful display of fall colors for Wordless Wednesday.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!!