Nanook of Tennessee

That would be me the last few days. This morning I bundled up with long johns, sweat pants, and Ken's sweat pants on top of those to face temps in the teens and snow-dusted ice on the roads. Without wind it was actually tolerable, though even the dogs were cautious on the roads. This morning we've cancelled the early service at church, but soon I'll be on the road (hopefully melting now that the sun is up) for the second service. We'll see who decides to brave the weather!

Temps are supposed to warm up about twenty degrees in the next few days, bringing us back to balmy and unseasonable temperatures near 60. When winter comes, can spring be far behind? These days, who knows!

a rose by any other name...

Well, yes, I did receive roses from my beloved for Valentine's Day. Turns out that according to my zodiac sign, roses are just the ticket! But so are anemonaes, which I adore, and black-eyed Susans, which are not in season. Who knew? Turns out every now and then the zodiac thing gets it right.

Like with dog breeds. Some years ago I read something about preferred breeds according to one's sign. Although my sun is in Taurus, my moon (the ruler of emotions) is in Scorpio. Turns out that Scorpios like Shelties (which I had for 30+ years), and Samoyeds, a breed I love but don't think I could handle with all the shedding (Shelties are bad enough!).

For now, however, I'll be happy to receive whatever flowers my honey wants to bring me (and we both agree that carnations are out of the question). Thanks, sweetie!

road report!

We’re back from Savannah, and feeling a little road-weary! Although we weren’t there long (arrived Friday night, left Sunday morning), we managed to pack in a fair amount.

Friday night we had dinner at Ashley and Travis’, joined by Junior and his girlfriend, whom we were meeting for the first time. We played cards after dinner before retiring for the night, with an early call the next morning. We had a minor adventure in the morning when the car wouldn’t start, the battery drained by a cooler that we’d kept plugged in overnight, but Travis came to give us a jump, and we progressed with our day.

After breakfast I joined Ashley for the morning to lend a second hand with a church program. We were behind the scenes kitchen helpers for an “Apples of Gold” small group of young married women who meet with older mentors to learn how to cook and share issues of faith and marriage. We worked our butts off, helping to prepare ingredients for cooking, prepare dishes, get food in and out of the oven, set tables (the theme was a formal brunch), serve, and then clean up, including washing 15 place settings of glassware, china, and flatware by hand!
We returned home and joined the guys, who had been at a shooting competition, and eventually headed downtown to peruse the shops and have some dinner. We found a Scottish pub (which was most fun for me, I’m sure) for an early happy hour, and after dinner walked along the riverfront and ducked into a few of those shops. The only purchase of the night was some pralines for our dog-sitters, from a candy shop that makes their stuff right on the premises. How nice it is not to be eating sugar and thus spare temptation! Check out the peanut brittle, loaded bear claws and pralines!
After our post-dinner stroll we went to a place called “Savannah Smiles,” where dueling pianos will take requests from the audience and tease and cajole the crowd with their antics, always encouraging us to sing along or compete to see which side of the room could chime in the loudest on cue. Fun.

Now it’s back to the grind, and especially to tax preparation. Oh me, oh my!

on the road ... again!

Sorry to be MIA this last week. This morning we're off to Savannah for the weekend to see the kids. We'll be back Sunday night, but might be able to report in while we're gone. In the meantime, I've missed everyone, and appreciate your efforts to be in touch. Means a lot!
xoxo

woohoo! snow!

And it's about time! We woke to snow this morning, one whole, whopping inch of it, and this transplanted Yankee is reveling in it. Juliet had fun on our walk sticking her nose into the snow and flicking it into the air as we tracked the first prints through the snow on the road. Well, okay, a couple of deer and at least one rabbit beat us to it, but we were the first walkers of the day. I had to make an early run to Kroger for creamer for my coffee, and the roads were quite slick. It's now warmed up a bit and it's probably safer to travel, but for the moment we're tucked in and tending to our various tasks. This is probably the last we'll see of the white stuff, so I'm going to do a lot of window gazing today! Not a bad way to spend a Friday!