Hello Monday

Hello friends and happy Monday. I am in Chattanooga, TN for a short work trip. I will be meeting this week with my Southern Highlands buddies. This is a group of attractions from Lookout Mountain Georgia to Luray Virginia. I have mentioned that we meet three times a year and visit other attractions and share ideas to help each other out. It is a really fun group and I always come back with something to share at my work place. We will be visiting some really fun places while we are here and I will be sure to share all of those with you later in the week.

Last week was a bit of a crazy week. By the time Friday rolled around I was ready for the weekend. Labor Day, well actually the entire weekend, is one of our busiest times at work and also the end of our tourist season. So it is both anticipated and a bit sad. Our attraction remains open all year but the crowds definitely dwindle after Labor Day. It seems like I am always ready for a break by this time and then I am ready again when the season first gets started.

Friday morning I went with my sister to see her oncologist and to get blood work and set up a CT scan to see how everything is going with her. By the way she is doing so great!!! Her blood work came back great and the NP that we actually saw was just overjoyed. So were we!!! But what we thought was going to be a quick in and out visit wound up taking a long time. Plus we were in Knoxville, about an hour from home, I was very late getting to work on Friday and still had a ton of things to do. This always causes me a lot of anxiety. I know it shouldn’t but it does that is just how I roll. I decided that in future I will not try to do a doctor visit with her and plan to work the same day. A bit of staffing shortage is what had put that plan in to place to start with.

Like I said by Friday evening I just went home and crashed. I made some popcorn and watched my favorite movie, When Harry Met Sally. I needed something to watch that I didn’t really have to focus on and could just chill at the same time.

One of my favorite movies of all time.

Saturday was pretty quiet and just what I needed. I finished a book I had started on Friday. Freak which was the sequel to Creep. I know they sound very strange. Both books are about a serial killer and quite a bit of mystery. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

I also finished this scarf I took with me on our trip a couple of weeks ago. I had it finished except weaving the ends and blocking it. I love the colors and it is so light and airy. I think I may keep this one for myself.

My meeting in Chattanooga didn’t actually start until around noon on Monday but I decided to go down on Sunday evening.

We are staying downtown Chattanooga for the meeting and there is going to be a huge parade for a man, Larry Taylor, who is receiving a Medal of Honor. This will mean that a lot of the downtown streets will be closed for the parade and a lot of rerouting will take place. Because I am not that familiar with downtown Chattanooga I decided to get there really early. I am about two hours from Chattanooga and I knew if I had to get up early on Monday and make my way through all of the traffic and deal with closed streets, it would not be good and I probably wouldn’t make it on time. So going down on Sunday evening worked best for me. I called the hotel and changed my reservation to come in on Sunday night. I was able to stop at Target on my way in, get something to eat, and get to the hotel in time to do some blog work and even get a little knitting in. It worked out perfect. Of course I hate leaving my husband and the kitties for an extra day but I knew it would work out for the best. Less stress is my new motto.

Chattanooga Times Free Press photo
Larry Taylor, the Signal Mountain man who in June 1968 saved four U.S. soldiers surrounded by enemies in Vietnam, will head next week to Washington, D.C., to receive an award for valor at the White House.

My room is very nice with a great work station.

I brought this scarf/shawl with me to work on. The pattern is knit half and then start the decrease to form the other half sort of like a triangle. It’s fairly easy but I have to be careful to count the stitches. It is not one I can work on and not pay close attention.

My girl Allie, AKA Mama Cat, hung out with me on Saturday. It was a nice day to hang out on the deck and read.

Have a wonderful week

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Hello Monday, Scandinavian Vacation, First Stop Copenhagen

Hello friends, Happy Monday, Labor Day, and September. Sorry for the long silence on the blog. I have been traveling with my husband and nephew. We visited Northern Europe and just got back this past week. We visited five countries, well six if you count the Netherlands but we were only there during our brief stop in Amsterdam. Each country is so unique I will share them with you in separate posts. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Estonia. This is how it went down.

A little more than two weeks ago we left for a long trip to Northern Europe. Our first stop was Copenhagen Denmark. We have been planning this trip since before Covid was a thing. As you know any big trip like this requires so much planning and preparing. For some reason I think as women we get the brunt of this. Before leaving I planned for who would be at the house taking care of the babies and when everyone would be there. I made sure my mother in law was taken care of and would be checked on while we were gone. And that any supplies she needed would be gotten for her. I bought all of the necessary items we needed to take with us, although my husband did buy a few electronic gadgets we needed. Secretly he loves that.

I packed and packed and cleaned because I can’t leave my house dirty when people are going to be there. I caught up on everything at work and felt like I could be gone for a couple of weeks. And we were ready. Oh and my husband packed his suitcase.

We flew out of Knoxville to Atlanta and then to Amsterdam where we would take a shorter flight into Copenhagen. The flights over were very uneventful and all of our luggage made it through. Little did we know we wouldn’t be as lucky on the return flight.

I loved that the Amsterdam airport had this fresh flower market. The tulips were just beautiful.

Also lots of fresh meats and cheeses at the airport. That is not something we see a lot of in the U.S.

Look how tiny our room was. This was in Copenhagen at The Scandic Spectrum Hotel. Other than a small bathroom this was the size of the room. We were there for three days and fortunately didn’t spend a lot of time in the room.

I am always blown away by the amount of food that is on the breakfast bar at European hotels. There is so much that it is hard to choose from. Of course most Europeans make breakfast their biggest meal of the day. There is a lot of fresh meat and vegetables and this particular hotel had chocolate. You know I was all for that.

Our first day out we explored Copenhagen. I have to say I love this city. The people are so nice and friendly. They like to have fun and they enjoy being outdoors.

Kayaking in the canal. So much fun and activity going on. Bicycling is a very popular mode of transportation and who can blame them with gas being about $10.00 American. WOW!!! I also loved all the fresh flowers everywhere. And I loved that so many people wore dresses, short dresses, long dresses, flowy dresses. I loved them all.

See all the bicycles? There are dedicated bicycle lanes everywhere. And you better stay out of them because the cyclists will run you over. They have the same right of way as vehicles.

We saw the Little Mermaid Statue. Our tour guide explained that she has suffered a lot of wear and tear through the years. She has been the target of defacement throughout the years. How sad. But she has been restored each time. The Little Mermaid has been a major tourist attraction since its unveiling in 1913.

This building was near our hotel. Very unique.

We visited Glyptokeshaven. This park has some of the most unusual statues and the most beautiful flowers. It was a perfect day for it with temps in the mid 60’s F.

The next day we visited Christianborg Palace. The Palace has an 800 year-long history as Denmark’s seat of power in Central Copenhagen. This site houses the Danish Parliament, Prime Minister’s office and Denmark’s Supreme Court. The palace is also home to visiting Danish Monarchs.

We also visited Frederiksborg Castle. It was beautiful!!! There was even a moat all around the castle. It was built as a royal residence for King Christian IV of Denmark- Norway in the early 17th century.

I will have more about the other countries we visited in later posts. We started making our way back home last Monday. We flew out of Helsinki Finland which was our last stop on the trip. We left out at 3:15AM, It was a nightmare. Every flight was delayed and ultimately resulted in us missing our last flight which was out of Atlanta. Home is only three hours from Atlanta so we figured if worse came to worse we could just rent a car and drive back. But we were able to get on a later flight out of Atlanta. However it was delayed by about four hours. We finally got home after midnight on Tuesday morning. My luggage came through but Mark and Tyler’s luggage was left behind in Paris. Tyler got his the next day and Mark finally got his on Thursday.

I took off Tuesday and went back to work on Wednesday. Mark still has quite a bit of vacation time left. The rest of the week was spent catching up at work, buying groceries and doing the mountains of laundry we brought home. We had never had so much trouble traveling. Traveling is definitely not for the faint of heart especially international travel. But all in all it was a fantastic trip with so many memories and stories that will last a lifetime.

I am looking forward to catching up on many of my favorite blogs and my own. How have you been? What is going on in your part of the world?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!