Changes

I loaded up my momma and took her to get her hair done on Monday, November 7, 2016. She was overdue for some attention.  It took hours because she got a haircut and a perm. She was sooo tired by the time she got out of the salon. We stopped on the way home for food and got her settled back in so she could rest. Her hair is a cut and curly and ready for the holidays.

Stroker went to the churches "mens meeting" at Golden Corral for dinner. I had dinner with my little momma.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016 was the dreaded election day. All this Dem vs Rep; Conservative vs Liberal junk has everybody confused. Stop voting on labels and start voting on qualifications. I agree and disagree with certain beliefs in both parties, so I guess that makes me a Republicrat.

Re·pub·li·crat

rəˈpəbləˌkrat/

noun

1. a person whose political philosophy is a blend of policies and principles from both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Most people are determined for a republican to be in the White House because we want change. The only problem is that two Democrats were the candidates. Am I the only person that has seen

THIS interview where Trump states that he identifies as a democrat?  If I wear a label that says "skinny", will people see me 50 lbs lighter? Just wondering.

On Wednesday, November 9, 2016, America woke up to the biggest shock ever. No one really expected Trump to win. What do we do now? Well, I'll tell you what a lot of people did. They made racial remarks, insulted ethnic groups and bullied fellow Americans. I was so upset when I picked Brooke up from school and she told me stories of how kids were telling a hispanic kid to show his green card and chanting "build that wall" as they walked down the hallway. Online, I read other hurtful stories about how a lady walked up to an Arabic woman, yanked off her hijab and told her "those aren't allowed anymore".
In the midst of Making America Great Again, we have condoned these types of actions and our youth feels that it is okay to treat others this way. Sadness.
{climbing off my soapbox}                      Went to church....and prayed.
Oh... one thing I didn't expect on Wednesday...stocks rose.
{Moving on}
I savored the goodness of my brocoli and cheddar soup in my bread bowl at Panera on Thursday, November 10, 2016.

It was sooo good, I could have eaten 2 of them. Unfortunately, we had to get back on the road and head on into Nashville, so one was my limit.  We arrived at CHRISTMAS VILLAGE around 5pm. We had to park kind of far off because the place was already packed when we got there.  It took us around 3.5 hours to journey through all  of the buildings, but we finally got through every booth.

  I cannot get over how quickly 2016 came and went. Here I am Christmas shopping...and I feel like it should still be Springtime.  I sure am not up for all these Christmas shopping crowds.
We went to Gainesboro Friday evening, November 11, 2016 and then we went to dinner at Longhorns. They actually cooked the steak thorough enough for Stroker. That's a big deal.

Week 1 in November

What better way to begin November than with a dentist appointment (yeah right). That was how Tuesday, November 1, 2016 began for me. It was just a cleaning and check up, but it was first thing Tuesday morning. I also got moms car tags renewed, had lunch with Maleigha, had Mixto face treatment which is also called fractional resurfacing for my sun damage and picked up Brooke from school. That's a productive first day of November.

On Wednesday, November 2, 2016 my face looked terribly sunburnt.  Most people would have stayed inside, but I went on with my daily routine. We put the dunk tank in winter storage and had dinner at Shear Delights.

We voted on the incoming president on Thursday, November 3, 2016.

I haven't mentioned it much here on my blog, but the race this year has been complete chaos. Somehow the two people that no one wants to be president ended up as the two nominees. It's like we are creating our own reality show to watch ourselves crumble. 

Friday morning, November 4, 2016 We went to the Rose-garden and Ella joined us. That is the best little restaurant. Especially if you get there before they run out of the special of the day. The menu starts getting slim by 6:30.
Since Saturday, November 5th is so close to Brooke's birthday, we went ahead and got her new iPhone 7+ that she has done nothing but talk about for months. I cannot believe how ridiculous phones have become over the years. And no way are you gonna get a great deal on one now. They add $37 a month to your bill for two full years. Not to mention we lost a $25 monthly upgrade credit that we were getting until today. I've done the math...that extra $62 per month that we have to pay winds up being $1488 that we wind up paying for this phone.  Gee-zoo that is crazy. Yet we did it.

Ella spent the night again and we went by to tell B happy birthday.
We celebrated Brookes birthday after church on Sunday, November 6, 2016. We went to Red Robin and the Sephora store in Mt. Juliet. She seemed very pleased (and she should). She even got a gift from the universe this year. How awesome is that? Daylight savings time began today she she had a 25 hour birthday.

No Slowing Down

Friday, October 14, 2016 was Jerry and Robbie Hayes' 40th anniversary.  Byrd invited us to attend their surprise anniversary party. So we went and had an awesome time. 40 years...that is a lifetime.
We visited dad and mom both on Saturday, October 15, 2016. We had some deliveries too. My niece Tiffany is building a new house, so daddy took us by to see where it was. Phyllis came too. She gets around quite well with a walker these days.
Our church property received some dozer work on Saturday, but with the lack of rain, we were not allowed to burn any brush.

We were back in church Sunday, October 16, 2016 followed by three deliveries all within 5 miles of us. We had deliveries made and still made it to lunch at Cheddar's to meet Sterl, Deb, Lee and Judy.
Afterwords, we went home for a nap.  Easy Sunday.
I felt pretty good on Monday, October 16, 2016, so we took Kimba to Cane Creek for a walk.

Must have worn me out because our next outing was church on Wednesday, October 19, 2016.
On Thursday, October 20, 2016 I went to visit mom and Devin went with me. It rained a little for the first time in October.

We were headed for a drought, and still are. When we got home from moms, Devin let me cut his hair for the first time in a year.  It was a hot mess.

Devin and Brooke had a dentist appointment on Friday, October 21, 2016 but Devin never showed up. He thought it was funny, but I chewed him out.
Stroker and I went to the WCHS bbq dinner later that evening. Kurt and Beverly sat next to us for a while and then a guy named Tinker and his wife sat across from us for the rest of the evening. We had a good time, but didn't win anything.
We knew Saturday, October 22, 2016  was going to be a hectic day before we even started. We had eight stops to make and they were in two different counties. In Monterey that evening we informed residents of a gas line that they were surprised to know that they had  running to their house.  That's us, always making discoveries.  And that's God, always protecting us from disaster.

We got up and headed to church on Sunday, October 23, 2016 and then went to Cheddar's for lunch. I had a hair appointment Sunday evening. Brooke went with Mary and Ella to Amazing Acres.
On Wednesday, October 26, 2016, we moved the TV to an alternate wall and put in a fireplace. We didn't make it to church. We went to Sparta to pick up the dunk tank for a late season rental. The warm weather is really holding out this year.
On Thursday, October 27, 2016, we went to Cumberland Auto and had dinner at Cracker Barrell with Lee and Judy. We stopped and took our picture by the Mystery Machine.

We made a trip to Monterey on Friday, October 28, 2016 to get a head start on a super busy weekend. We had two new outlets installed in Brooke's room.
We got up Saturday, October 29th and sat out on a sold out day. Thanks God.
We did stop by moms for a minute. She was rooting for the Vols.

Sunday, October 30th  was kind of a repeat after church.  We went to Livingston, Doyle and Alpine and Monterey.
The final day of October...Monday, October, 31, 2016. What a relief. I even dressed up this year. Kate's costume beat mine though.

It was around 70 degrees all throughout trunk or treat. I decorated the car around 4pm because trunk-or-treat started at 5pm.  I bet we had over 300 trick or treaters come through.

Brooke went to a costume party.

St Louis...the Ghost Town

On my last post, I left out the cool zombie apocalypse part.

One of the cool, yet a little creepy parts of our trip was that it is not baseball season.

Navigating through downtown was a breeze. The streets were empty, there was no lines to wait in for anything and we had the opportunity to get a good close look at everything we wanted to see.

On a creepier note. It felt like the zombie apocalypse after dark. The bars, taverns and restaurants were all lit up, with the tv's playing and tables sitting empty. 

The stadium lights were on as if a game were in full swing, and yet there was not a soul in sight.

The streets were loud with music, but no one was around.

Like I said. Kinda Creepy...kinda cool!

I can only imagine all the hype during baseball season though.

 

Fall Break St. Louis Trip

Since Hurricane Mathew took over the coast line this fall break, we decided on a getaway a little more inland.

St. Louis was our destination for this trip. I have wanted to see and experience the St. Louis Arch for a while now, and oh how perfect our room view was. I spent quite a bit of time just admiring it from our hotel window.

When we went to dinner on Sunday evening, October 9, we ran smack into the Hillary Clinton convoy on their way to the debate.

After all of the commotion, we ventured on to our dinner destination...Sugarfire.

We can't visit St. Louis without tasting some St. Louis barbeque.

We stopped by the City Garden to check out some of the cool and random sculptures.

Seeing this Head Sculpture was actually on my "things to see" list.

That is two of the apples of my eyes staring back at me.

I caught a shot of Brooke holding up the arch that night.

The next morning, once we got Brooke out of the bed, we ventured out for a closer look of the arch.

We rode to the top in a tiny capsule for five from the south side of the arch until we stopped 630 feet above the ground.

The Mississippi river is on the east side of the arch.

 You can actually see the shadow of the arch in this view of the west side.

After hanging out and getting photos of the views, we rode back down the north side of the arch so that we can say we have traveled all the way from one side to the other.

Hard to believe you can actually travel to the top.

We toured Anheuser Busch brewery and seen several of the Clydesdale's. The tour wasn't that cool for us, but we did get a free Dr. Pepper at the ende

This is the brewing building, but I'm sure they had a cooler name for it on the tour...I wasn't really paying attention.

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We headed straight to the St. Louis Zoo after the Anheiser Busch tour.

This zoo was great. All of the animals were awake and active. Most zoo's have animals that you have to play "where's waldo" at every exhibit just to find a sleeping animal. Not this one. 

They were up and engaged. Not to mention, the layout was perfect. There were mostly deep culverts between visitors and the animals instead of 30 foot fences like there are at other zoo's. It felt like the animals could have walked up to us with the design of the exhibits.

Brooke actually took all of those photos in the collage above. 

Still can't get over everything being so active. I'm used to the zoo's where it is like a game of "Where's Waldo" only to find a tiny glimpse of a sleeping animal in the back corner of the enclosure.

I'm sure the other visitors were entertained by our excitement.

Next, we headed over to the Boat House for dinner by the water.

The jewel box was another stop on my "things to see" list.  I wanted to take a look at this glass green house at Forrest Park, but we only got to view it from the outside because it was closed at the time.

 To the Delmar Loop for an apple crisp dessert at Fitz's

We had to stop for some Strange Donuts while in St. Louis.

I got Campfire (like a s'mores), Brooke got dirt with worns (Chocolate with crushed Oreo's and gummy worms) and Stroker got the Maple Bacon.

Take a look at my campfire doughnut with graham cracker coating...

My marshmallow was even toasted !

A St. Louis icon is the "toasted ravioli", so we tried those when we went to the Hill. 

The hill is where the Italians live and have mastered the authentic toasted ravioli.

One thing we didn't get around to trying is the butter cake, another St, Louis icon. 

All in all, I think we got in quite a bit of site seeing and site tasting during our visit.
This was such a fun trip. The only thing that coulda made it better was if Devin came along.
I miss the days that he didn't have to be an adult, and have a job, and refuse to take a day off.
Makes me want to travel more with Brooke even more...before the day comes that she is all grown up.

October Adventures

I got a new battery for the Honda on Saturday, October 1, 2016. Just in time for cooler weather.
Heather and I went to Granville Scarecrow Festival. We had so much fun walking around Granville. We even sat down by the river and relaxed for a while.

It was a nice sunny day for a festival.

When we got back to Cookeville, Stroker and I went to dinner at Outback. Since Michigan had a big win, we wore our Michigan attire.

On Sunday, October 2, 2016 we started our day at church, just like every Sunday.  Except this Sunday, Jim Gaw played this song for me.  It is my favorite.

Afterwords, Brooke helped us with deliveries. We also found time to install the new washer.

I went for another micro-dermabrasion on Monday, October 3, 2016. Brooke had an ortho appointment and I visited mom for a while. We went to dinner at O'Charley's and Mary spent the night since schools are on fall break.

Mary and Ella spent the night on Tuesday, October 4, 2016. Stroker grilled pork chops for dinner.
I went to Tupperware Bingo for about an hour.

We had a fellowship meal at church on Wednesday, October 5, 2016. Made mac-n-cheese and spaghetti to take.
Another stray dog showed up on Thursday, October 6, 2016. Someone placed it inside our fence. Brookelynn begged to keep it, but Stroker called the police to come pick it up.

I took Strokers truck to get the tires rotated on Friday, October 7, 2016.Brooke and her friends met up at Fear Farm for a night of fun and zombies. It was Jennifer Dukes wedding day, so I headed over to Rosewood to witness the ceremony. I visited with her brother, mom and seen people that I have not seen in years.  She looked very happy.

 I took her my usual wedding basket.

Saturday, October 8, 2016 was full of traveling. Gainesboro, Dodson's Branch, Livingston, Sparta and Cookeville.  We certainly kept the roads hot that day.
It was my day to bring breakfast at church on Sunday, October 9, 2016. After church we hopped in the car and headed out for a few days in St. Louis.