Fantastic Family Fun

You don't choose your family.  They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.

- Desmond Tutu

Week 13: F is for...

When I saw that the prompt for last week was 'F is for...' I knew I was in luck, because I knew I would be with my family for most of the week!  I never have any problems have fun when I'm around the people I love most in the world, so I knew finding 'F' pictures would be easy.

Friday the 13th was Kim's birthday, and my sister Kim's birthday is also on the 13th (in a different month), so you can imagine that we do not consider the 13th bad luck in our family! This past weekend was also reunion week for Kim's class at Duke, so it just made sense for us to gather in North Carolina for the weekend.  Kim's and Blake's flight came through Houston, so I was able to join them and sit with Kim and Morgan for the flight to NC.  It was Morgan's first flight, and what a champ she was!  She slept all the way through both flights, coming and going!  We landed on time Thursday evening, gathered our bags and assorted baby gadgets, and took a ride to the rental car place.  Kim and Blake got their first taste of minivan life (as adults, anyway) and I think Markee is ready to make that leap.  Kim is not quite there yet, but those of you with more than one child know how much sense those sliding doors and extra seats make!

I'll never forget our first minivan - we got a Plymouth Voyager the first or second year they were available.  It was blue, and it was the first new car I had ever owned, and the first one I bought myself.  I was thrilled to trade in my two-tone (brown over white) Mercury Monarch, which was not the least bit child-friendly.  Two more minivans followed - a Dodge Caravan and a Dodge Grand Caravan - until I switched to a Lincoln Navigator SUV.  I went from that behemoth (which is still running!) to a Toyota Prius, and I'm on my third edition of those.  Funny how you can track your life through your cars, isn't it?

Anyway, back to the weekend!  We got to Dave's house and were welcomed by him, the kids, and the smell of luscious pork tenderloin, balsamic Brussels sprouts, and sweet potatoes, which we were ready for.  They were delicious!  Markee was in California, so we made quick work of getting the kids off to bed and cleaning up the kitchen, then we visited for a while.  On Friday, Kim's birthday, I got Elliot and Gray ready and dropped E off at school and took Gray to T-ball so that Kim and Blake could sleep as long as Morgan would let them.  I have to tell you that watching young adults who clearly have little experience with two-year-olds try to teach them T-ball skills is hilarious.  But it was fun, and Gray expended some energy, so all good.  

We had thought we might make it to Durham with Gray and Morgan at some point on Friday, but that didn't happen.  Naps and meal schedules just didn't coincide that day!  But we took Kim for sushi for lunch, and then we all went out for dinner after Dave got home.  We ate at Leli's Diner in Wake Forest, which was an excellent little place with a huge menu (and equally huge portions!).  Gray and I had gone grocery shopping while we were out earlier and had gotten some yummy looking cupcakes and several flavors of ice cream, so we sang happy birthday to Kim and had dessert at home.  The kids (and adults) were exhausted by the time everyone was tucked in.  Markee got home late and was not feeling great, so we all said goodnight and called it a day.

Saturday was a gorgeous day, but Dave had to work, so the rest of us drove to Durham for a visit to Duke Gardens.  Of course, we were not the only ones who had that idea on a beautiful spring day of a Duke reunion weekend.  It took us almost as long to find a parking place and walk back to the Gardens as it did to get to Durham!  But it was so worth it!  The gardens were beautiful - loads of tulips of all colors, pansies, daffodils, ferns, and many more varieties of flowers.  The wisteria is in bloom, and the dogwoods are just coming out.  The azaleas were blazing!  We threw pennies in the fountain and the kids went gaga over the giant fish in the pond.  We saw ducks and turtles, too, but no frogs.  We got a snack and some Locopops at the Terrace Cafe and had a little picnic while we were there.  Kim's college friend Sara joined us in the garden, and then Kim, Blake, Morgan and Sara went to some of the reunion activities while Markee and I took the kids back home for a nap.  Later, we babysat for Morgan so that Kim and Blake could go to the class party, and Dave grilled some humongous steaks for us.

We went to Simply Crepes (I crave their Creme Brulee' Oatmeal - thanks, Jenny A!) for Sunday brunch, and Kim, Blake, and Morgan went back to Durham for more reunion fun.  Dave watched Elliot and Gray so that Markee and I could get pedicures, then we spent the afternoon just chilling and waiting for the impending storms to hit.  Thankfully, they waited until bedtime to arrive and had fizzled out by the time they hit here.  Greensboro was not so lucky!  We were able to enjoy my favorite meal of burgers on the grill with maybe a little more cupcakes and ice cream.  While I get to stay here all week, Kim and her family had an early morning flight home - thankfully, they made it home safely and on time.

I am so blessed to have kids who love each other and who enjoy spending time with each other and their families, and I'm even more blessed to have gotten to spend time with them.  Sure hope your family has fun together, too!

Jan

PS  Almost forgot to update the Book Report: currently, I'm reading Flora, by an author I used to love and whom I had forgotten, Gail Godwin.  I just finished The Alice Network, by Kate Quinn, The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy, The Mercer Girls, by Libbie Hawker, and The Lying Game, by Ruth Ware.  I really enjoyed The Alice Network and got a kick out of re-reading the Pimpernel - made me want to watch Anthony Andrews again.  I always love reading historical novels of things I never heard of, and The Mercer Girls was one of those.  Except I did know about Seven Brides for Seven Brothers!  Hated the ending of The Lying Game though...

Only in Paducah

Despite the forecast, live like it's spring!

                                                                                              - Lilly Pulitzer

Week 12: Spring

I had the best week last week!  I got to introduce three of my dearest friends to my wonderful hometown of Paducah, Kentucky.  The trip didn't end up being exactly what we had planned - you know how life gets in the way sometimes - but it was just perfect.  Our original plan was that two of my good Durham friends, Dana and Deanna, would meet my ex-Galveston, now Tennessee friend Mary Jo and me in Nashville, make the short drive to Paducah, and spend a few days exploring.  So, while we all flew to Nashville (except Mary Jo, who lives nearby), we didn't get there at the same time or leave at the same time, so we sort of did the town in shifts.  What that meant for me was I got to stay longer and see more hometown friends than I would have, so it was all good.

If you've never been to Paducah before, or if you've only driven through it or spent time there without knowing what to do, add it to your list of places to go when you have a few days to explore, relax, and enjoy all it has to offer.  Paducah is not a place most people just happen on, although four US Highways (60, 62, 68, and 45) and an interstate go right through it - you sort of have to want to be there.  And there are plenty of reasons that you might want to be!  You may not know that Paducah is a UNESCO Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art, thanks to the efforts of my friend and high school classmate, Mary Hammond, who works tirelessly to promote Paducah and all of its charm through her position as the Executive Director of the Paducah Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Paducah is also home to the National Quilt Museum (Quilt Week is coming up next week!!) and it brought artists of all kinds to town due to its forward-thinking Artist Relocation Program, which revitalized the Lower Town section of the city.  Situated at the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers, and less than 30 miles away from the Cumberland and Mississippi Rivers, Paducah is the consummate river town.  In the spring, summer, and fall, riverboats full of tourists dock at the foot of Broadway, and barges pushed by towboats travel up and down the rivers every day.  And you know that where there is river traffic, there are railroads.  I grew up listening to the sound of trains passing in the night, so it was almost comforting to hear the wail of the horn and the clackety-clack of the wheels in the middle of the night.

Because the city was formed due to its proximity to the rivers, you might deduce that flooding can be an issue.  Paducah had three major floods - two in the 1800s and the big one in 1937, when 90% of the town was under water.  After that debacle, a floodwall and earthen levee system were built around over 12 miles of the perimeter of the town.  The concrete wall (3 miles long) is 14 feet high and has twelve pump stations and 47 vehicular openings (which are closed with pressurized gates in case of the threat of flooding).  Tested as recently as 2011, when the river crested at 55.03 feet (the '37 flood was at 60 feet, but flood stage is 50 feet!), the floodwall has saved Paducah more than once.  Gates have already been closed once this year!

The wall was constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers between 1939 and 1949, and today, the downtown portion of the wall is covered in gorgeous murals depicting the history of Paducah.  This project is called Paducah Wall to Wall and was created by artist Robert Dafford and staff of Lafayette, Louisiana.  In addition to being beautiful, these painted panels tell the story of Paducah from its founding by William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame) to its heyday in the 50s when Paducah became the Atomic City.  It's a great way for visitors to get a feel for the city I proudly call home.

OK, so much for the commercial - Paducah really is a great place to visit and an even better place to grow up!  But back to the present.  Dana, Mary Jo, and I arrived in Paducah on Monday afternoon and checked in to our downtown boutique hotel, The 1857 Hotel.  Our room was on the front of the building, so we had a great view of Kentucky Avenue and the historic Market House Theatre.  We were really hungry, so we headed off to Tribeca for a quick bite of Mexican food, then we walked by the huge Carson Center for Performing Arts (holds 1800 people - not bad for a city of 25,000!) on our way to admire the floodwall murals and check out the riverfront.  We took the obligatory 'Port of Paducah' photos and I explained about the geography of Paducah and its rivers.  After we'd seen all of the murals, we walked down Broadway to 9th street and then headed back down Kentucky Avenue to our hotel.  Like many small towns, the combination of the interstate (I-24 goes right through Paducah, too) and the building of a mall out by the interstate was almost the death knell for our downtown.  While it is not yet the vibrant downtown full of shops, movie houses, businesses, and people that I grew up with, it is not dead by a long shot!  I love seeing new businesses opening up each time I return.

Next it was time for a driving tour, past the home and neighborhood where I grew up, with detours past my schools, church, and high spots like Noble Park and Hancock's Fabrics.  Dana and I have another friend in Durham who also grew up in Paducah, so we went by her old house, too.  Dana was driving, and I'm telling you that by the time she left, she could have given tours of the town!  As a real highlight, we went out to Barkley Regional Airport and actually saw a plane land!  Paducah is not big on air traffic, but if you want to go to Chicago, no problem!  Thankfully, it's only two hours to Nashville, and you can get most anywhere from there.  Our next stop was the Coke Plant, which is a fun Art Deco building just down the street from my childhood home.  It's been refurbished and re-purposed and is now home to a Mellow Mushroom, Dry Ground Brewing Company, Piper's Tea and Coffee, and more.  Mary Jo and I enjoyed a local brew and then we headed back downtown - it was almost dinner time, and Doe's was calling me.  Doe's Eat Place is right on the corner of 2nd and Broadway, and it serves legendary steaks, tamales, and chocolate cobbler, among other delicious things.  Now Mary Jo and Dana are Doe's fans, too.

Tuesday was our day for the National Quilt Museum, so we needed to start off fortified!  My friend Judy met us at Gold Rush for a hearty breakfast, and then we walked over to the museum, which was the initial reason for this trip.  As always, the museum exceeded expectations - I have never known anyone, male or female, who has been disappointed with their visit to the Quilt Museum.  In fact, "mind blown" is the typical response.  This is not your grama's quilt museum!!  If you like art of ANY KIND, do yourself a favor and visit this museum someday.  Just don't go during Quilt Week if you're not a quilter!  You can read Dana's thoughts about the museum and Paducah HERE.  Although it is mostly under wraps due to renovation, I wanted to show off our impressive City Hall, which was designed by the architect Edward Durell Stone, who designed the Kennedy Center, MOMA, Radio City Music Hall, and loads of other important buildings back in the 60s.  Thankfully, we were able to go inside and get a feel for things, even if we couldn't see the outside.

No one was hungry at lunch time, so we decided to go back to Hancock's while it was open.  Dana may have purchased a bit of fabric after being inspired at the museum.  Since we were practically there anyway, I took my friends across the river to Metropolis, home of Superman.  I think that seeing Metropolis and how depressed (and depressing) it is made me appreciate Paducah and its efforts even more.  Once back in Kentucky, we picked up Judy and took off for Parker's Drive In out in Lone Oak (a suburb of Paducah) for a little afternoon pick me up.  After that, we drove by my mom's last house, returned Judy to her house, and did a drive by of Whitehaven, the only interstate highway Welcome Center that is in what used to be a private home.  Next we were off to see my dear former next door neighbor, Mrs. Yaffe, who is in a nursing home now.  Dana and Mary Jo are good sports, and it was wonderful to see Mrs. Yaffe.  When we left, the nurses admonished us to hurry back to our hotel before the storm hit.  Storm?  Had we missed something?  Turns out we had - major tornado warnings, in fact.  So we moved the cars over to the porte cochere at the Carson Center (in case of hail) and then we hunkered down in the interior hallway of our hotel until the danger passed.  Thankfully, it passed just in time for our evening meal at Paducah's only farm to table restaurant, the Freight House.  One of my oldest and dearest friends, Mary met us along with Judy for this fabulous dinner.  Oh my, was it good!  We closed down the restaurant - it takes time to share three desserts...

Since Mary Jo was heading for home on Wednesday afternoon, we needed to squeeze in a few important bits, namely, lunch at Starnes Barbecue.  But I'm getting ahead of myself, as breakfast comes first.  We walked over to Kirchoff's Bakery and Et Cetera Coffeehouse for some breakfast foccacia and the necessary caffeine, and we may have lingered a bit, as our schedule was light today.  We wandered over to the Paducah School of Art and Design and looked around it, rode around a bit more, and then met Judy for our BBQ fix.  Aaaaahhh.  Now I can say I have been home!  We said goodbye to Mary Jo there, and Judy headed home, too.  Dana was ready for another trip to Hancock's, so I met another good friend, Rick, for a drink while Dana shopped.  Rick and I enjoyed watching the par 3 tourney at the Masters and caught up on each other's lives.  One of the things I appreciate most about going home is getting to see old friends and I especially appreciate that they make time for me.  Dana picked me up and we rode around a bit more before it was time to welcome Deanna and meet Mary and Judy for dinner at Cynthia's Ristorante.  First, Mary and Judy stopped by our hotel for a drink (yes, it has a fabulous bar!) and Deanna got there just in time to share a drink before we walked over to Cynthia's.  Believe it or not, I had never eaten at Cynthia's!  I can assure you that this won't be my only trip there - it was fabulous!  Again, we closed down the restaurant.  Another great day in the books.

Dana would be leaving us on Thursday afternoon, so I asked my friend Kim if he would have any time to take us on a tour around Lower Town.  He's a Paducah Ambassador and a fabulous storyteller, photographer, and lover of Paducah history, and best of all, he was free to show us around!  We opted for a light breakfast at Kirchoff's again, and then we picked up Kim at the auto repair shop - sometimes things just work out!  Dana drove, and Kim directed and narrated - Deanna and I just listened, looked, and learned.  Kim is a wealth of knowledge - I learned so much!  Before long, it was time for lunch, this time with Mary and Mary, who was back from her UNESCO meeting in Iowa City.  Judy had taken off for New York City, so we missed her and Mary Jo.  Kim joined us, and we all met at Artisan Kitchen, which was also a new place for me.  Score another big win!  Everyone's meal looked so good, and they had tea with mint!  We dropped Kim off to get his car, and then we had just enough time to stop by a little shop called Ephemera that I've been wanting to visit for years.  It was so cool - an art studio and shop, run by the delightful Kristen, who I learned is the daughter of Jack Reese, who was Chancellor of the University of Tennessee when I was there.  So fun!  Even better, my friend and classmate Dick was there with some of his friends, so we got to reconnect and see what they were working on.  And even more better - they invited Deanna and me to join them on a guided tour of the Quilt Museum the next morning!

We said goodbye to Dana and sent her off to Nashville, and then Deanna and I did the floodwall murals, the riverfront, and a walking tour of downtown.  This time, I used the Paducah Cell Phone Tour, which was very informative.  Again, I learned a few things.  Oh, and I also re-met one of my junior high teachers, who works at the Visitors Bureau with Mary.  Whenever I'm in Paducah and on my own, I always wonder if I'm seeing people that I used to know.  Then I started recognizing children of people I used to know.  Sadly, now it's probably grandchildren I would recognize!  Mom left here ten years ago, so it's been a long time since I've had family here, but it will always be home.  After walking around as much as we wanted to, it was time for the driving tour.  You may be seeing a pattern here!  We ended up having dinner at Flamingo Row, out near the mall.  Man, they still have some scrumptious burgers there!

On Friday, we started our day at Kirchoff's again (never had the same thing twice!) and then walked over to the Quilt Museum to meet with Dick and his friends.  Our guide, Robert, is also a Paducah Ambassador, and he did a wonderful job.  I will have to share what I learned with Dana and Mary Jo!  They had rotated a few of the quilts in the main gallery, and one of the side galleries had a new exhibit that the early crew would have liked better.  The new exhibit was quilts by Japanese artists, and they were fabulous!  After being inspired by the quilts, we wandered downtown a bit more until it was time for lunch, which we decided to enjoy at Shandie's, also downtown.  This time, I got my catfish fix.  Mmmm....  After lunch, we spent some time in the Market House Museum, learning more about Paducah.  Have I mentioned that my friends are really good sports?  If it was more history than they wanted, they didn't say so!  We opted to take a little break this afternoon and watch the Masters and maybe even have a bit of a nap. After all, we had to rest up for dinner!  Tonight, we met Mary, Mary, and their significant others, Jon and Paul, at Max's, where we had another great meal.  I had to laugh - in landlocked (but near the lakes) Paducah, I had had silver carp, scallops, catfish, and tuna this week, balanced out by my Doe's steak and Flamingo Row burger.  And it was all great!  After dinner, I realized that I had not taken Deanna to the Coke Plant, so off we went!  All too soon it was time to pack up and be ready to check out, because we had an early morning coming, and snow was in the forecast!

Sure enough, it snowed!  In April!  Yikes!  But it wasn't bad, although we did have to clean off the car.  We popped by Red's Donuts and grabbed some of those delicious balls of dough. (Did you know Paducah has a Krispy Kreme connection?)  Paducah is blessed with some really good doughnut shops!  Then we were off to WKCTC (West Kentucky Community and Technical College, aka Wicky Ticky) to meet up for our tour of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which is where my dad worked.  The plant, as it was known, was one of three places in the US that enriched uranium for bombs and later for nuclear reactors.  It was a highly secure place - I really only remember going there once the whole time Daddy worked there (which was from 1952 until 1985).  The Department of Energy offers tours there several times a year, now that it is no longer in operation and is, in fast, being demolished.  It is a HUGE complex - almost too big to fathom - and it is sad to see it in the shape it's in now, even though I understand why that is.  In its heyday, it used as much energy as the city of St. Louis or Washington DC used (in a day).  The tour was largely done in the bus - we got to go inside the communications building and we drove through one of the buildings where Daddy worked - but I'm so glad I went.  Thanks for humoring me, Deanna!

After the plant tour, it was time for Deanna's introduction to nirvana via hickory smoked pit barbecue, so back we went to Starnes.  Had we been in our car out at the plant, we would have dropped into Leigh's, which was Daddy's favorite, but it was too far to go back out there.  We had time to run by the PSAD so Deanna could see it and to drop by Ephemera again - and we saw Dick there, again, too! Oh, that reminds me - our quilt show guide, Robert, was on the plant tour, too, as were Char and her husband, who run the horse-drawn carriage business downtown.  They will be busy in these next few weeks, once the dogwoods actually bloom for the Dogwood Festival and of course for Quilt Week, which is next week.  One last trip to Kirchoff's for cookies for the road, and we were off to Nashville and our respective homes.

It was a spectacular week for me, as I love sharing Paducah with friends.  Let me know when you are ready to go and I'll be happy to show you around!  And I'm thinking Judy, Mary, Mary, and I could be Paducah food ambassadors.....that could be a real business, y'all!  And while it may sound like we did all there is to do in Paducah, I could write an even longer blog about the things we didn't do!  Paducah is full of surprises!

Jan

PS - You may want to plan now for the next full solar eclipse, which will be on 8 April 2024, visible in Paducah (again)!

Can't imagine life without...

Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.

                                                                 -Christian Lous Lange

Week 10 - Technology

I started the week in North Carolina, ending my visit with Dave and family, having a late lunch with Anne on my way home, spending one night in Georgia and one in Texas before I rolled home on Wednesday.  As always, it was fun to see family and friends in NC and along the way.  I had plenty of time to listen to more books, finishing The Heavens May Fall by Allen Eskens and The Jekyll Revelation by Robert Masello.  I enjoyed them both - the latter one was an interesting take on Robert Louis Stevenson and Jack the Ripper!

It was good to get back home to Rex and Crockett, and we got to spend a wonderful evening with my p2P friend Corene DeHaan and her husband, Terry on Friday.  The DeHaans have been vacationing in Galveston from their native Michigan, and while the weather hasn't been as great as it often is down here, it's sunny and not snowing!  The weekend was spend watching basketball (love this time of year!) and while I didn't like the outcome of most of the games I watched, I'm excited for the Big Dance!  Let's go Duke and Rocky Top!

This week's Day2Day theme got me thinking about all of the many things I'm grateful for due to technology.  Since I was listening to a book set in the mid-19th century, where electric lights were a novelty and traveling by 'coach' meant a horse and carriage, I was mindful of things I typically take for granted.  With fully electric homes that are heated and cooled, full of appliances that make our daily lives easier, we are blessed.  And after listening to The Great Alone, about life in the wild of Alaska, I was reminded to be grateful for indoor plumbing and clean running water.  Nothing like books about different places and times to make you thankful for life in the present.

While looking for quotes about technology, the one that I chose jumped out at me.  While it is so timely today, what with our collective addictions to cell phones and computers, it was written by a Norwegian historian and political scientist who died in 1938.  Definitely a smart man and worthy of the Nobel Prize he received in 1921 for his work on internationalism.  I know that I spend way too much time in front of screens, whether TV, computer, or tablet, but I am especially concerned about the amount of time young people do these days.  I've read some pretty frightening articles about the influence of smart phones on teenagers.  One of my good friends, Melanie Hempe, has developed a website designed to help families manage the effects of media on their children and families.  If this is something that concerns you, I encourage you to check out www.familiesmanagingmedia.com   Even if it's not something you think you are worried about, have a look - it's very enlightening!

The good news is that technology is available to us and there are resources that can help us manage things if the servant becomes the master!  And now I'm getting off the screen and going into the laundry room and then outside to walk and listen to my new book, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.  Have a fabulous week, and remember to be thankful for technology - and keep it in its place!

Jan

Good friends, good food, good fun!

“I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny, but we can have lots of good fun that is funny.” 
                                                                                                                                       Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

Week 8: Fun!

It's hard to complain about temperatures in the 70s and 80s during the third week of February, so I won't.  I'll just say it would have been really spectacular if the sun had been shining!  But like Dr. Seuss reminds us, you can have fun on the rainiest of days.  This past week was a really good one for me.  Last Monday, I was remembering my dad, as he would have been 96 that day.  Today, I'm remembering Rex's dad, who passed away on this day seventeen years ago.  They were both good men, men of the Greatest Generation, and men who imprinted their values on Rex and me in ways that still catch us by surprise sometimes.  We were lucky to have them as our dads, and I miss them both so much.  In honor of Daddy's birthday, I made his very favorite birthday cake, which was really cupcakes.  Blueberry, with maple pecan frosting.  Mmmm!  I love cooking, and while baking isn't my specialty, because I thought of Daddy while making them and while eating them, making these cupcakes was a fun activity worth a trip to the store for canned blueberries.  In case you're hungry, here are the recipes:

 

I had a lunch date with a friend at Olympia Grill (mmm - Avocado Greek Salad!!) on Tuesday, and while driving home along the seawall, I decided to get Crockett and bring him along for a walk on the beach instead of just walking around the neighborhood.  It wasn't a sunny day, and it was really windy at the beach, but it was fun to be out on the sand where we could hear the waves pounding the jetties.  We walked out on one jetty, and Crockett was a little bit spooked when he realized he was surrounded by water.  Thankfully he did not try to jump in!  He got really sandy, and so did my car!  Wednesday found me in Galveston again, enjoying lunch with my Tiki neighbors at Willie G's before I hopped on the Galveston ferry and headed for Bolivar peninsula and points east.  I was hoping to beat the heavy rains that were forecast since I was driving to Birmingham for the weekend.  I spent the night with friends in Abita Springs, LA (thanks, Linda and Rawlin!) and then had a relaxing trip through Mississippi and Alabama the next day.  I wandered around little Laurel, Mississippi and had a great burger and onion rings at the PDI (Phillip's Drive In), where it was both hot and sunny!  On my drive, it was clear spring has sprung - pear trees are in full bloom and leafy trees are greening up.  I hope we don't have a big freeze in March!

Once in Birmingham, I promptly fell asleep and woke up just in time for a Forever Connect meeting followed by a late Mexican dinner and a huge delicious margarita.  I knew, since a family text on the subject had awakened me that morning, that it was National Margarita Day, so of course we had to observe the solemn occasion.  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I shared my love and a little bit of knowledge about Forever Artisan and digital scrapbooking with the group of women attending Fran Smitherman's weekend retreat.  We had a great time, and another special thank you to Ann for driving me around all weekend in search of food and drink!  It was fun to meet more scrappers and say hi to old friends, too.  I had lunch with Caroline on Sunday before hitting the road for North Carolina.  I rolled in to Anne's house about 8:30 last night, and even at that hour, she had dinner ready when I got there.  I listened to The Great Alone on this trip and finished it Sunday afternoon.  I'm now listening to the hilarious book, The Ladies Room, by Carolyn Brown - it had me laughing out loud down the highway.

I'm writing tonight from Dave's home in Wake Forest, where I have gotten a good start on Happy hugs and fun with the kiddos.  So it was a FUN week (as most are!) and I'm looking forward to lots more fun and laughter this week.  Sure hope you find fun every day, too!

Alphabet Soup

"To the uneducated, A is just three sticks."  - A.A. Milne

This is the first 'alphabet soup' week of Day2Day themes, so of course it's A is for....  I rather enjoy looking for good representative photos for letters or colors and getting to take a lot of creative license as I do.  I'm happy to say that one 'A is for...' this week is ALMOST ALL DONE with my recent illness.  I still have a bit of a cough, but I finally felt human again and the flu is almost a memory.  Yay!

I had a great week - sure hope you did, too!  I did some house cleaning, working on the Christmas closet and getting three huge boxes of papers to be shredded ready for Rex to take to the Tiki free shred day on Saturday.  If only he had read the multiple messages I shared with him so that he would have gone to the right venue....I learned today that he thought it didn't happen (due to rain!) because he went to the wrong place.  Good thing I love him!!  And thankfully, I saw a billboard about another shred day coming up in Galveston in a couple of weeks, so I have time to gather even more boxes of 'tutts' to be shredded.  How do you handle your paper stuff?  I get most everything paperless these days, so it's crazy to me that I still have piles of paper to deal with.  Bonus was I got to look through old CM things, letters from my mom (and I found a book she had written for Kim and me about her life!), and the file box full of my precious childhood mementos.  Time to be doing some digitizing!

My friend Ann invited me to a 'Lip Sense' party at her house on Monday - cool product - and it was fun to meet some new peeps.  Ann is a fabulous cook - her homemade biscuits with ham and honey were heavenly!  I was invited to lunch with the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UT (Tennessee) on Tuesday, and I had a lovely time talking about my time at UTK with her and her assistant.  I was impressed that they drove down to Galveston (from Houston) to meet with me.  And no, they did not do a pressure-filled push for donations!  I had a fun little walk down memory lane and look forward to getting back to Knoxville for a tour of the campus.  Sounds like a lot has changed since I was last there.

By far the highlight of my week was my annual trek to the mountains of Colorado where I shared a little knowledge and a lot of love for Artisan at a p2P LIVE event at Southpaw Retreat.  This was my third year to train at this event, and it was fun to see 10 familiar friends and meet five new ones.  These women are quick studies - they made fantastic pages - and I even got some work done on the baby's first year calendar I'm making for Morgan (yikes - I'm already two months behind!!)  Southpaw proprietors Sheri and Bob always make me feel welcome and I ate so much that I am loathe to step on the scales just yet....  I hated to miss sharing a hot toddy with Bob, but it is still Dry January.  Thanks for your fabulous hospitality, y'all!  I am looking forward to February, but am glad to report that it's not been a problem to lay off the sauce.

Being at Southpaw meant I didn't get to watch the Duke v UVa game, which I guess was a good thing.  I was following along - sure wish the Devils had pulled that one out!  I was glad State finished strong, and UT did well, too!  It's another great ACC basketball season - I'm watching Duke play as I write.  There sure is a lot of talent on that team - it will be fun to see how well they mesh as the season goes on.  I also missed the Grammy's - hoping I'll be able to see some of the best clips later this week.  It was great to have a very social week and spend time with women I enjoy and admire.

Looking forward to the super blue blood moon and lunar eclipse this week and hoping the weather will cooperate!  Be sure to look skyward on Wednesday night!  I realized that one of the things that intrigued me about being in Denver was seeing snow on the ground and having it be a non-event.  Really put our two day non-stop news about a little bit of ice in perspective!  It is worth noting that it is not nearly as cold feeling when the humidity is low, even if the temperature is lower.  I took my big coat and never had on more than a sweater...

Make it a fabulous week!

Jan

Curiouser and Curiouser

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.  -- Walt Disney

I love that quote by Walt Disney, and it is a good reminder to me to make sure I remain curious and that I keep trying new things.  I think one of the reasons I have been so enamored with digital scrapbooking is because there are always new things to try, new techniques to learn, new looks to be inspired by, new kits and artwork to use, and of course, new pictures and stories to be documented.  I participated in a virtual digital crop this weekend, hosted by my former teammates, the fabulous pixels2Pages Pixies, and I completed 20 pages!  That was my goal, and even though I didn't get to spend nearly as much time cropping as I thought I might, I am pleased to have gotten those pages done.  Having a 'reason' to get back to my scrapping was fun, too, as my flu recovery had robbed me of the joy of doing things I normally enjoyed.  I'm happy to say I am almost back to normal and I'm glad to have that behind me!

I know that one of the 'new' things I love doing is traveling, and I'm excited to be heading to Colorado this week to do some digital scrapbook training in the Rockies.  I get to get out my Forever and pixels2Pages shirts and be temporarily unretired! Can't wait to see my friends in the mountains - this is my third year with them.

But back to last week, where we had winter and summer here in the space of a few days.  It got so cold here (19 degrees, which is really cold for the southeast Texas coast!) that we had to protect trees and pipes for three days!  So many people on Tiki had frozen (and burst) pipes that we had to go on water restriction one afternoon - yikes!  In Houston, home to MANY high overpasses and interstate bridges, the 1/10" of ice that we got wreaked havoc.  I know my northern friends laugh at we Southerners and our aversion to all manner of winter precipitation, but I'd like to point out that not many people are able to traverse iced over roads and bridges safely.  Imagine being 100 feet up in the air on a 6 lane interstate covered with a thin layer of ice.  No thank you.  I stayed home, and Crockett and I used the elevator to get downstairs instead of risking our necks on the iced over metal outdoor stairs.

The cold days were followed by two days of intense fog in the morning, which is what happens when warm air meets cold water.  Here on the bay, the fog can be surreal - I literally couldn't see the island across the channel from our house.  Once the sun came out, the fog burned off and we had lovely days - it was in the low 70s yesterday - the kind of 'winter' we expect down here.  We even got swarmed by mosquitos on our walk yesterday - seriously?  Shouldn't they have frozen to death?  Today is so beautiful - sunny and 68 - that I can't wait to get out for a walk!

I've even made progress on the Christmas removal project, but it's still not done....  The tree has been denuded (we usually put it away with the ornaments on it, but the addition of a crib to our Christmas closet made that impossible this year!) but I still have ornaments to put away and store.  Tiki is having a shredder here this weekend, so I'm madly going through boxes in the closet so that we can get rid of some of the paper that threatens to drown us.  Now to pray Rex remembers to take it all to the shredder while I'm away...

Before the holidays, I was in major declutter/renovation mode, and it's been hard to get back to it.  We have a tremendously huge closet upstairs that holds all of our Christmas stuff and then some.  It's the 'then some' that needs some dedicated work.  You know, the boxes that got stuffed in there when we moved here (7 years ago!!) and haven't seen the light of day since.  But then when you look at the stuff, you find reasons to not get rid of it, so you stuff it back in the box and put it back on the shelf.  NO!!  That is insanity!  So I am working myself into a 'throw it out/give it away/find a use for it' mode so that I can clear some space.

While I was decluttering, I was also getting some things done.  We had the concrete area down below our house covered with a non-slip epoxy like we have on our back deck.  The deck was supposed to be redone to (changing from brown to Tiki Turquoise!) but the weather didn't cooperate, so we are still waiting for that.  We replaced the black chain link fence with a higher white PVC 'picket' fence and I am so happy with the way that looks.  I've ordered a new mailbox - you'll have to wait for it - but it is not here yet.  Let's just say it will fit in great here on Tiki, home of many cool custom mailboxes.  As is often the case with home improvements, when you fix one or two things, other things choose that time to break.  Did I mention our heat went out again last week?   Twice.  While it was 19 degrees.  Our garage door, and outdoor outlet, and the light in our clothes closet went out while all of the fence/epoxy work was being done.  We are still waiting for the garage door to be fixed, which has made me very grateful for garage door openers that work.

So, enough about my fairly uneventful week - I have a walk to take, papers to sort, and ornaments to put away!  Here's hoping you have a curious week and that you take time to learn/do/go/try something/someplace new!

Jan

Content used in page above: Day2Day 2018 Predesigned Pages and themes.