Weak

We spent Sunday, June 22, trying to dry out from the flash floods of Saturday. It drives me crazy when a 20% chance of rain turns into a monsoon. Jett and Dash came over for to play for a little while Sunday since they were rained out at Grey's party the day before.
We went to eat dinner at the Dairy Queen and a few flies had flown in the open door. They kept landing on the menu above the counter as we placed our orders. Devin told me that he didn't think he would be able to eat there after watching the flies land on all the pictures of food on the menu. He said he was too grossed out. It's a weak stomach that can get sick over seeing flies land on pictures of food.

We dried out the canopies that got wet at Mildred's. The 94* heat drained all our energy. To be honest, we don't start our days with a whole lot of energy.
Brookelynn had a two hour cheer practice on Monday, June 23. I cooked dinner while she went to practice. Brookelynn got a new bike last week. She spent a little time riding it this evening too. By the time she got home from cheer, we all ate and cleaned up our mess, the day was ending.
Oh yeah...I have had my new computer for a couple of weeks and I have already had the blue screen of death pop up. You know the one that I'm talking about:

How can this be. I have not even had time to overload, download or upload anything harmful. I rebooted and "so far, so good". I must be really hard on electronic devices.
Stroker and I had dinner alone on Tuesday, June 24. Brookelynn had taken off shopping with Darlene and Devin was on his PS3. It's good for the two of us to have dinner alone every once in a while.
Brookelynn went to spend the night with Darlene on Wednesday, June 25. Matasia was going to be there too. Brooke gets bored in the summer and starts wanting to visit with everybody. We visited Mildred for a few minutes after church before heading home this evening.
Got a text from Brooke on Thursday, June 26. She wants to spend another night with her Aunt Darlene. This time, it will be Brooke, Matasia, Jett and Dash spending the night. Darlene must be feeling spunky to take on that many all on the same night.
Friday, June 27 was the day of Cletus teeth cleaning appointment. I took him to the animal hospital at 8:00. By the time that we waited our turn, got called into room #3, waited on the doctor and consulted with the doctor, it was after 9 am.

Dr. Baker took Cletus on back to do blood work to ensure that he was healthy enough for anesthesia. I was already concerned because Cletus weighed 10.9 pounds today. He used to weigh 19 pounds; he has lost half his body weight this past year.
I received a call from the doctor around 10 am that Cletus was too anemic to have anesthesia today. He is concerned that he won't wake back up because his red blood cell count should be at 8,000 and it is currently 3,900.  That's probably why he has low energy and feels weak here lately.

After a conversation of our options, we determined that an iron injection and antibiotics today was the best plan. I am to take him back in a week to try the teeth cleaning visit again. It was noon by the time that I got Cletus back home. I stopped at Burger King on the way home to get him a cheeseburger because he was a good boy at the doctors today. I snuck in his first dose of antibiotic too.
Today, Saturday, June 28 was sunshine one minute, rain the next. Brooke and I went to visit my neice Kaitlyn at the hospital for about an hour around lunch time. While we were there, the rain poured. Another hour later, the sun was out. Back and Forth all day. Kaitlyn is recovering from a double kidney infection. She has been stuck in a hospital bed for the past three days. I could tell that she had her fill of that. I sure hope she gets to come home in the next day or two.
Stroker, Brookelynn and I went to Lowes today to buy some wood and stuff to work on projects around the house. As soon as we got back home, Stroker went to work on his project in the trailer, Brooke on hers and me on mine. Meanwhile, Devin practiced his ollie on his skateboard. He is not the  "project" type.

Times Have Changed

I had lunch at Moogie's with my friend Amy on Monday, June 15. Moogie's has the best BBQ in town. Brookelynn had cheer practicing (conditioning) at TTU from 6:30 - 7:30. They ran stairs for an hour. They took two breaks, but only to do push ups and set ups she said.
I got up before the crack of dawn on Tuesday, June 17. I met Amy at Planet Fitness for an early morning workout. I hated the waking up part, but the workout was not too bad. She wants me to go again on Thursday, but I don't know if I can drag myself back. I met up with Maleigha for lunch at Sparta Sonic. Just like old times, we each ordered a ham-n-cheese, fries and a medium Dr. Pepper. Back in the day, it would have cost somewhere around $3.50.  Fast forward twenty years, and it cost us $17.20.
I miss 1992. Back in the day, we would not have the handy little electronic gadget to display our total incorrectly either.

The day went very well until 7 pm when our dryer went out.  Speaking of old times, we might have to get a clothes line to dry these wet clothes.
Wednesday, June 18, we delivered our old mattress that we sold to the lady that bought it. We spent the rest of the evening hanging around the house. We ordered Papa Johns and waited an hour for it to be delivered.
Stroker cooked on the grill on Thursday, June 19. I made potato salad and baked beans. After dinner we went to Lowe's and bought paint for Brooke's room. She is always wanting to change things (wonder where she gets that from).
I told her this was the last "paint job" for her room. She is going with "Beach Sparkle" this time.

It doesn't seem like long ago that we went with the polka-dots.

Friday, June 20 seemed like a tiring day because we had so much to get done. Brookelynn finally landed some volunteer work at the Child Development Lab at Tennessee Tech. She spent a few hours helping there. She said that she enjoyed her time there, but had hoped to be with the toddlers and babies  instead of the four year olds. Brooke also had to get everything removed from her walls to get ready for the new paint.  That alone could take days. She has her walls covered. She worked hard at it and kept it all organized as she took everything down. We spent Friday evening moving all of her furniture out of the bedroom and trying not to junk up the rest of the house in the process.

Saturday, June 21 held several activities...

• Paradise 9th birthday party
  
• Storm came threw and blew over one of our canopies and broke it. :-(
• Grey's 1st birthday party
  
  
  
• More Rain
• Brookelynn's room got painted (with a sparkly accent wall).
• Moved all of Brooke's furniture back into her room.
• 
  

We really could use some rest tomorrow, but there will be no time for that. We have a full agenda to get done tomorrow.

Father's Day Five

1. Went to church and heard a great "Father's Day" sermon. All the men received screw drivers.
2. Devin drove us to PaPa's for lunch and family time. 
   
3. Devin drove MaMa to the graveyard to put flowers on her dads grave.
4. We went to Mildreds so Stroker could pick up his Lemon Ice Box pie tha that Nan made him.
5. Went to Sonic for milkshakes at 8:30 at night when we should have been getting ready for bed. Stroker, Brooke, me, Mildred, Paradise, Christopher, Krystal and Libby enjoyed it though.

A Good Night's Sleep

I'm not a very crafty person, but after getting a deco-mesh wreath for Christmas that cost $65, I decided to try to make an Independence Day version on my own.  I started the craft around 6 pm on Monday, June 9, and finished around 8 pm. Two hours is way to long for me to spend on a project. I was bored and wanted to quit after the first half hour, but I stuck with it. Here is my finished creation.

Yep, i'm feeling pretty good about it. 

I must admit, it was two in one.  My first...and my last.

Oh wait!...Guess what else, we even had a home cooked meal that night. Go me!

Brookelynn went to spend the night with Paradise that night.

On Tuesday, June 10, I picked Brooke up from her Granny's and we went to see The Fault in Our Stars.  Darlene met us there and Stroker came along too...even though it is a chick flick.

We ate too much popcorn and candy and slurped our cokes dry. I blew my nose once and received the "evil eye" from Brooke. I tried to keep my sniffles to a minimum after that.

We had stormy weather that day too. Here lately, we have had a lot of rain and storms.

I went for a one hour massage on Wednesday, June 11, and it was wonderful. It started to storm about 30 minutes into the massage and I could hear the rain and thunder over the fake stream on the CD. Perfect timing thunderstorm...perfect timing.

It did leave my back sore, but it was so worth it. We also went to church and I closed the day with catching up some blog posts.

Brookelynn joined me at work on Thursday, June 12. She's a good worker. We have been trying to locate "volunteer" jobs for her this summer, but her age keeps her from everything. If only these people realized that she is 12 going on 20. Stoker and I got a new mattress that evening. It is heavenly. No more squeaky box springs to wake us up every time we turn over. 

It rained all day on Friday the 13th. Brooke had a friend that was supposed to pick her up to go swimming, but it rained them out. 

My brother and his family went camping at the lake.  What were they thinking? Who goes camping by the lake on FRIDAY the 13th? There was also a full moon to add to the creepiness of it all. I text my brother and told him that if they seen any sign of a white hockey mask to just keep running and don't look back. Yikes!

Brookelynn cleaned out her room on Saturday, June 14. She does this periodically. She will gradually start dragging it all back in over the next couple of months. She thinks she wants to get rid of stuff, but then she wants it back. so indecisive.

We also went shopping for Father's Day gifts. We bought my dad a pecan pie from Honey Baked Ham. Daddy is always hard to buy for. We bought Stroker new seat covers for his truck. I bought myself a new printer. I'm don't claim to be a "dad", but I really needed a printer and they were on sale this week.

I like how compact it is. I didn't want another printer that took up half the desk.

New Computer

This weekend has left me with sore muscles and a tired body. Although there was a 50% chance of rain yesterday, the sun shone all day. We used the opportunity to set up each inflatable one by one and clean them. Hours later, our mission was complete. Our bodies were drained and our shirts were soaked with sweat, but it felt good to know we had the work behind us.
At 6:00 yesterday, we got a text that Brookelynn was back in town from her eight day beach adventure. She was tired, homesick and hungry. Our first stop was Taco Bell. She hung right by our side the rest of the evening. I think she even thought about sleeping in our bed, but we had to draw the line somewhere. Don't get me wrong, we had missed her like crazy too.  It feels so good to have us all back home from our adventures this week.
Today, after church, we joined some friends for lunch at Outback and then went to White County to visit my mom for a couple of hours. Stroker and Brookelynn also made a trip to Algood to visit Mildred for a while, but I had an appointment at 4:30 to meet someone at Dogwood Park about a rental. I finally got my new computer set up this evening. I love it.
 It feels so good to get away from that net book that I have been working from. Here is a view of my new computer.

So what is Normal Anyway?

We had another great breakfast at the B & B on Wednesday, June 4. It began with a raspberry turnover and ended with waffles and bacon. We said goodbye to the Bed and Breakfast.

We made the three and a half hour trip back home on Wednesday and we were beat when we got back. We had packed in a lot of walking, climbing and new experiences over the last couple of days. I did however, drum up the energy to sit down and order a new computer. I've been needing to take the plunge for a few months now. I can't wait until it arrives. :)
On Thursday, June 5, we tried to get back to normal. We had plenty of stuff to do around the house since we had been gone for 3 days, we were missing Brookelynn like crazy, and we were still tired from our travels. So "normal" was still a couple of days away.
My new computer arrived on Friday, June 6. Too bad we had a busy evening scheduled, so I didn't get to unpack it that day.

We spent Saturday, June 7 outside ALL day setting up bounce houses, cleaning bounce houses, folding them and putting them away. I had sweat dripping off of me and I HATE sweat.

It felt good to get all that accomplished though. We were definitely ready for bed that night.

11th Anniversary

I cooked chicken casserole, corn and potatoes for lunch after church on Sunday, June 1. We got all packed up and ready for our trip. Brooke sent us a text message Sunday night that she wanted us to "come by and pick her up at the beach when we went to the Biltmore". We explained that she was another five hours away from the Biltmore...it's just not that easy. I knew she would miss us, but I didn't know it would be this soon.

On Monday, June 2, we got up and hit the road at 6 am headed east for Asheville NC.  I admit, it felt odd to make such a drive without either of the kids. When we arrived in Asheville, we went straight to the Biltmore Estate. After all, that was our main tourist attraction for the trip.  We walked the grounds, strolled through the gardens and toured the house. We opted for the audio tour. I am glad that we did. It told stories of each room as we walked through. It was eerie  how  I felt deja-vu in a couple of the rooms. Although there was no photography allowed inside the house, I can't figure out how or where I would seen the rooms before.
As we exited the house, we were so hungry because we hadn't ate all day. We drove in without stopping for breakfast and we had been at the house for over half the day. We decided to eat at the Biltmore Cafe just to the left of exiting the house. I got the turkey sandwich and chips, Stroker got a hot dog. Our bill was $27. At the time we didn't even care because we were just that hungry. We stopped by the winery and boutique stores on the way out and while we were there, we decided to purchase next day tickets to take the Architect Tour of the Biltmore.
We arrived at the Bed & Breakfast around 5 pm. The house was so pretty and welcoming. Turns out that we were the only guests scheduled to be in the house that night. We were shown our rooms and we unpacked while the lady downstairs sat out drinks and or-devours for us for the evening. I was feeling a bit like the Vanderbilts' myself at that point. When we came back down, we sat on the front porch, sipped on Coca-Cola's and had a fancy cheese and ham cracker. (It was awesome!) There was enough or-devours inside to feed a family dinner, but we didn't want to eat it all because we would appear to be pigs.
We decided to try a Jamaican restaurant down the street called "9 Mile" for dinner. The food was good, but not the "Kola". They use a local company that needs to work on their recipe a little more.
We took a stroll down the street to look at all the historic houses. (It was so romantic) We ended our anniversary sitting in the living room of the big, empty Bed & Breakfast nibbling on cupcakes and cookies that the hostess left out for us before she left for the day. It was so nice.

On Tuesday, June 3. We woke up to a delicious breakfast. It was served in courses from crepes, then fruit, but the best part was the omelette. Wish I had a photo of that to share. 

Here were are on our second day, just before the architect tour. We tried to dress comfortable for that. The ticket clerk asked us if we "were comfortable with 250+ stairs" before she sold us the tickets.

 There was a car club displaying their vintage cars the second morning we visited.

  A view from the observation balcony. This is when we were on the "Architect Tour"

Fun fact: All of the stone carvings and statues, including this gargoyle butt-crack, were hand carved in place as the construction went up. 

 Fun Fact: This is still the original roof.

The history here gives me chills. I definitely recommend  the trip.

We ate all local bistro's and cafe's. It was all "farm to fork" Very fresh and very good.

We had lunch at a place called "Moose Cafe" and dinner at a Caribbean/Mexican restaurant called "Salsa"

We had a lot of laughs on the "Lazoom" bus which was a tour of Asheville mixed with a comedy show.

 This is the "genie" that got on the bus with us briefly during the tour.

We were the only guests at the B&B again tonight.

We were in the little round room usptairs. Turns out, this is the room Sandra Bullock stayed in while she filmed the movie "28 Days" .

Our room had the cutest little reading nook. 

This anniversary get away was so overdue. I'm so glad we came.