Update and What Did You Miss?

Hello!  Did you miss me?  Did you even notice that I was away?

For the past two weeks + we have been traveling.  We went to California to spend Thanksgiving with Denton’s family and then we spent some time exploring a new to us state.  California is a vast and alien place to this Virginia girl.  Have you been to California?  It is a stunningly beautiful place, but it’s so, so different from anything I’ve ever seen before.

I have a lot of things I want to share with you over the next little bit, so don’t be alarmed at how many post titles with start with the word California.

We are all utterly exhausted, but it’s back to the normal grind tomorrow.  I DO NOT recommend taking a red eye from the west coast to the east coast and then driving for two and a half hours.  It was one of the most draining experiences I’ve had, but all four of us handled it very well in my opinion.  It still absolutely astounds me that you can be on one side of the United States, get on a plane and be almost 2,700 miles away in under six hours.  Crazy town, people.

I’ll fill you in on all of the beautiful, disturbing, and awesomeness starting tomorrow when my brain is hopefully working again.  In the meantime, here are some of the things I actually got posted while we were away.

Here you’ll find all of my Instagram post’s:

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Bucket list….. Check…….. In-N-Out Burger 🍔 Yum

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Ventura Pier

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It’s still so bizarre to see mountains at the ocean.

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Here are some of the quotes you may have missed:

Here are all of the lovely houses I found for us!

335 S Main St, Chatham, VA 24531

327 Bradenton Knl, Fletcher, NC 28732

705 A Ave, Vinton, IA 52349

7 Cantitoe Ln, Cherry Hills Village, CO 80113

222 Simmons St, Cambridge City, IN 47327

Here are some of my recipes:

And here is everything else:

FREE Forto Coffee Shot

I hope you had a great week!

Update and What Did You Miss?

Every year I schedule all of our yearly physical’s at around the same time.  Liv and I go together, and Denton and Hayden go together.  But they are all the same week.  That’s one of the tasks that we crossed off of our to-do list this past week.

Since the kids are both 18 now (WHAT!) everyone gets their own private room, that way if there is anything they want to talk about privately, they can.  This amuses my children to no end.

Everything was tracking along swimmingly, and our Nurse Practitioner asked how I did with needles.  Fine, I said.  I used to give blood regularly, I’ve had two kids, etc., etc.  Send in the nurse.  Who came in, poked at my arm for a few minutes, tied off my upper arm with the stretchy tourniquet and stabbed me with the needle.  All this time we are chatting away.

After a few minutes she is frowning down at my arm and hasn’t changed the vial yet, so I casually asked if everything was going according to plan.  She frowned some more and said, yes, but it’s taking longer than I would like.  And begins to bend the needle.  At least that’s what it felt like to me.  After another few minutes of bending needles I began to see flashing lights and deep space.  She said, Honey are you okay?  Never better, I responded. The black, blank space receded and the flashing lights stopped.  She slid the needle out and asked me something else and …….

I promptly fainted.

At least she said that I fainted.  I was in the middle of a sentence –  when –  I looked down and this woman I met five minutes ago has my ankle, trying to drag it into the air, for what reason I have no idea.  So I asked her, Why are you holding my ankle in the air, and why do my teeth hurt?  This whole time she is shouting, Julie!, in between trying to yank my ankle back into the air and pressing her thumb into the bend of my arm.

I thought she was going to cry.  I just wanted to know what was actually going on because we were literally just having a casual conversation when she started acting very, very strangely in my opinion.  The NP comes into the room and they decide that I have to lie down on the table and someone brings me a Dr. Pepper.  Then my nurse informs me that I am getting a GIANT red X in my chart.   I said that didn’t sound like a good thing, and she informed me that, NO, it wasn’t.  That means that from now on I have to lie down on the table to have my blood drawn, because I AM A FAINTER – according to her.

I still wasn’t believing that it actually happened.  Because here is the kicker – I have never fainted in my life.  Never, not once.  I’ve been knocked out once, very briefly for a few seconds, when I cracked my arm falling off the monkey bars as a child, but I’ve never fainted.

So.  Something new to add to the list of things that happen as Tracie gets older.  If the person drawing my blood is going to twist and bend the needle around for at least five minutes, I am probably going to hit to the floor.  If you need another laugh today at my expense, you should check out the story about the time that I could have gone to jail over my teeth.  Obviously, older Tracie can’t handle Novocaine, either.  Or maybe I never could.

Here’s what you may have missed this past week:

Quote of the Day: President Ronald Reagan

Quote of the Week: Princess Diana

Delicious and Simple Meatloaf

*Expired* FREE Friday Download from Kroger 11.09.18

Adoptable Love. Trenton, NJ

Roger 1

Book Haul! October 2018

What’s for Supper? Weekly Meal Plan 11.05.18

And here are all of the lovely houses I found for us!

$39,000 | Chase, MI

$8,799,000 | Austin, TX

$67,900 | Dayton, OH

$54,000 | Connersville, IN

$95,000 | South Boston, VA

616 N Main St, South Boston, VA 24592

$97,000 | Au Sable Forks, NY

$96,000 | Philadelphia, PA

$60,000 | Eufaula, AL

$97,000 | Au Sable Forks, NY

I hope you had a great week and didn’t faint at the Doctor’s office!  See you tomorrow.

Update and What Did You Miss?

Nothing exciting happened this week, like people breaking their teeth, or any other body parts.  Which is a blessing in my opinion and I’ll take it.  I like it when our days are quiet and smooth.  I cannot believe that it’s already November.  Christmas will be here before we can blink.  I want to put up my Christmas tree now, so that I can actually enjoy it, before it’s time to take everything down on Old Christmas.  It always seems so rushed to wait until after Thanksgiving to get out everything I want to put up and display.  I have six Christmas trees from tiny to ginormous and three nativities at last count.

I have to say, I disagree with all of the – wait until after Thanksgiving people – over when to decorate for Christmas.    It may stem from Denton’s years in the Marines and living so far from most of our family.  For ten years we’ve had Christmas with my family at Thanksgiving and at least one year we actually did have Christmas in July with Denton’s; you learn to celebrate when time allows.  And, my decorations only enhance how thankful I am every year that we have our families around us to celebrate.  When you do put up your Christmas tree and take it down?  Curious minds want to know.

In other random news, it’s my favorite time of the year – time for us to fall back! – and it did, last night.  I am going to enjoy it while it lasts.  I love feeling like I gained an hour each fall, but I am going to absolutely hate it come spring time and we theoretically lose an hour by springing forward.  As much as I love “gaining” that hour, I agree with Darfow, a sweet, sweet Korean War vet I know who says we should just split the difference and leave it alone from now on.  He calls me every week and it makes my day to have a conversation with him.  He is a giant of man, with a heart that is even bigger than he is, and he reminds me so much of my Papaws’.  They were both very different men, but so much the same because of their love for all of us.

I posted the picture above on my Instagram yesterday.  I love Instagram.  It’s beautiful, its quick to scan each day, and there is zero drama.  Unlike that other social media site we all love to hate. Or is that just me?  Anywho, that tree lives at the house next door to our local library.  So, I call it the Library tree.  I look forward every single year to this magnificent tree showing off its gorgeous foliage.  Even if you hate Fall, you have to admit it’s worth it just to see this sight every year, right?

Here’s what you may have missed this past week:

Sunday Quote: Isaiah 43:2

Quote of the Week: Margaret Bonanno

Fried Potatoes

*Expired* FREE Friday Download from Kroger. 11.02.18

FREE: Amazon First Reads Book for November 2018

FREE: The Laundress Laundry Care Sample

What I’m Reading Right Now 10.31.18

The 100

What’s for Supper? Weekly Meal Plan 10.29.18

And here are all of the lovely houses I found for us!

$75,000 | Society Hill, SC

$7,500,000 | Raymond, ME

$98,500 | Texarkana, TX

$90,000 | Mayesville, SC

$149,500 | Atchison, KS

$16,500 | Higginsville, MO

$95,000 | Waynesboro, PA

I hope you had a great week and didn’t break any teeth or other body parts!  See you tomorrow.

Update and What Did You Miss?

On Friday I stopped by the “trash store” as Liv calls our Goodwill Outlet.  It was very quiet and calm that day.  I had an interesting conversation with two ladies and one of their daughters.  Usually everyone is avoiding eye contact unless it’s to stare you down, hahaha.  I did find some jewels on this trip.  Books!  The book finds were great.  I haven’t worked up the courage to ask what happens to the poor rejects that no one buys.  I can guess where they end up though and it breaks my heart.

On Saturday I had another interesting conversation with a very elderly man in the Dollar Tree.  We happened to be passing one another in the candy aisle; I smiled and said hello to him.  He looked startled for a minute and then asked me if I had seen any of those white and red striped soft mints.  We spent a few minutes looking about, but we didn’t find what he was specifically looking for.  He very sheepishly said he wanted them because he was trying to quit smoking, that he had quit about 8 years ago, but he had foolishly (his word) started up again.

He was so sweet and he brightened my day.  He also made me long to go sit at my Mamaw’s kitchen table.  Any of my Mamaw’s – my Mamaw Miller, Mamaw on the Mountain or my Mamaw Sylvia’s kitchen table.  I’m so, so glad that I have those memories with all of them.  This last trip home we were all sitting at my Mama’s kitchen table and my brother was telling one of his hilarious stories and I knew to store all of those feelings up until the next time we get to go home.  I’m so glad that our kids will have those memories of sitting around the kitchen table too.

Now I’m going to go clean off my dining room table – that’s my kitchen table – because you can’t see mine at the moment and I’d like to be able to sit at it and make memories with my family.

Here’s what you may have missed this past week:

Sunday Quote: 1 Peter 4:8

Quote of the Week: Drew Carey

*Expired* FREE Friday Download from Kroger. 10.26.18

Adoptable Love. Honolulu, HI

Leileinoa (Noa) 1

* Last Chance * FREE: Amazon First Reads Book for October 2018

FREE: Redbox Movie Rental on October 28, 2018

http://blog.redbox.com/back-to-movies/take-the-pledge/

Books: Top 20 Best Books of the Year…So Far

 Educated: A Memoir Tara Westover

Amazon Magazine Deals: $0.99 for 4 Month Subscriptions

Country Living

What’s for Supper? Weekly Meal Plan 10.22.18

FREE: Derma E Hydrating Day Cream Sample

And here are all of the lovely houses I found for us!

$74,900 | Clarinda, IA

323 S 18th St, Clarinda, IA 51632$1,700,000 | Cape Charles, VA

111 Creekside Ln, Cape Charles, VA 23310

$59,000 | Oxford, AL

300 Main St, Oxford, AL 36203

$75,000 | Cold Brook, NY

4446 Norway St, Cold Brook, NY 13324

$77,500 | Clinton, MO

112 E Clinton St, Clinton, MO 64735

$62,000 | Americus, GA

1216 S Lee St, Americus, GA 31709

$30,000 | High Point, NC

2058 Brentwood St, High Point, NC 27263

I hope you had a great week!  See you tomorrow.

Update and What Did You Miss?

Last week as I was crunching happily on my favorite wasabi peas, I realized that something didn’t feel right.  It didn’t hurt; it just didn’t feel right.  Later that night, as I was flossing my teeth, I knew that something was seriously wrong.  Still didn’t hurt, but my gum was sore and my molar felt wrong.  By the weekend I knew that I had damaged my molar by EATING.  After the tragedy of Denton’s cracked tooth last year, which I never did tell you about, I knew not to wait any longer.

Quick recap of last year:  Denton, who has NEVER had a cavity, cracked one his molar’s – all the way through the root – by eating, we don’t know what.  Thus ensued many, many trips to the dentist, oral surgeon, dentist, dentist, dentist and dentist.  He ended up having to have his tooth pulled and a bridge installed after a long bout with infection, pain, pain, and more pain.  Not fun.

First thing Monday I called our dentist who worked me in during their lunch.  I didn’t crack my tooth, I broke it off.  Yay.  Dr. B and Dr. R assured me that they would fix me right up, but not to be surprised if I end up with a crown later on, because this tooth had already been filled on THREE sides already.  Gahh.  I actually broke off the good part of my actual tooth.  Anywho, I am all fixed now.  For the moment.

What fun things did you do last week?

Here’s what you may have missed:

Quote of the Week: Chinese proverb

Easy Velvety Spaghetti

Sunday Quote: Jeremiah 29:11

All the Things I NO Longer Need ~ 10.14.18

FREE: Sample of Folgers 1850 Coffee

What’s for Supper? Weekly Meal Plan 10.15.18

Clean and Organize the….. Unknown Kitchen Drawer

What I’m Reading Right Now 10.17.18

* Expired* FREE Friday Download from Kroger. 10.19.18

Adoptable Love. Charleston, WV

Sunday Quote: Luke 1:37

And here are all of the lovely houses I found for us!

$34,900 | Victoria, VA

$4,195,000 | Portland, OR

$234,900 | Canton, OH

$99,000 | Elizabeth City, NC

$139,000 | Springfield, IL

$95,000 | Gouverneur, NY

$92,500 | Wilmington, OH

$99,500 | McComb, MS

 

 

Instagram Goodness. 08.19.18

Are you on Instagram?  I would love to see you over there.  I love it!  Here’s my link:  https://www.instagram.com/somewhatawry/

Here’s what I’ve been posting, just in case you’re interested.  🙂

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Leftovers make the best lunches. #leftovers #thebest #lunch

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Quick Tip: Hotel Soap

Denton and I returned my niece and nephew to my brother this past Friday after a two-week stay with us – two weeks for the nephew and 1 week for the niece since she was at camp the first week – does anyone else have this compulsion to be exact with your words or is it just me?

We took the opportunity to spend the night in a lovely hotel in a gorgeous little town about an hour and a half from where I grew up.  Do you ever do that?  Spend vacation time in a place very near you, but not near enough that you actually explore it?  We normally don’t, but have decided that we are definitely going to start.  I’m already planning out next trip.  That’s another story altogether.

What I wanted to talk about today is hotel soap.  The small soaps that they provide for you in your hotel that are designed for your overnight stay.  That are always left over, because who uses the entire thing in one night?  There are a couple of reasons that I bring this up.  Firstly, I can NOT throw them away.  I am the girl who takes the sliver of soap that’s left in my shower and sticks it to the new bar so that it doesn’t get wasted.  It drives Denton bonkers, but I just can’t do it.  I have a problem.  I know it, Denton knows it and now you know it.  And I’m okay with that.

Second, do you know how many hotel rooms there are in the world?  When I asked Siri, this is the article from 2012 that she sent me to.  Taking that into consideration, you know that the number of hotels has grown exponentially.  The article estimated that in 2012 there were 17.5 MILLION guest rooms around the world.  That is a lot of little soaps, people.

All of that is to say that I never leave them, or throw them away.  I always bring them home with me.  But, that can be problematic.  I never remember until I’m in the hotel that I plan to do this, so what do you do with a small, wet, soapy thing?  I don’t want it in my makeup bag, or thrown in with my clothes.  This trip I had an epiphany.  The bag they provide you with for your ice machine bucket is the perfect carrier for wet, tiny soaps.  Or the plastic sleeve that’s going to be tossed from the coffee cup next to the Keurig. 

Or the sleeve from the water glasses.  Even the fancy hotel we stayed in when we went to Washington D.C. to buy my Honda Pilot had plastic over their glass water goblets in the bathroom.  I understand that they want you to know that those things are sterile, but seriously.  And yes, I drive hundreds of miles to purchase my new to me cars.  You can read all about how I forced sweetly asked Denton to drive two states over to buy Hayden’s car a few years ago.

Barring all of those options – hahaha – I believe that I’ll go slip a normal Ziploc baggie into our luggage so I’ll have it for next time.

In case you’ve stuck around through all of my squirrel moments this time, here is an interesting article that I found while I was trying to discover how many hotels exist in our world.  I can’t emphasize enough that individuals change the world.  One tiny bar of hotel soap at a time.  It’s disheartening to look around at everything that’s wrong with our little planet.  I tell Hayden and Olivia all the time, you can’t fix ALL of the world’s problems, but if you can do one thing, do it, because that could be the catalyst to actually change the world.  You never know what people are dealing with in their lives, so smile at everyone and be kind.  That’s my two cents for the day.

So.  Are you kooky like me and bring your hotel soap home with you or do you leave them at the hotel to be trashed?  Actually, don’t tell me.  My frugal self may not be able to take it if you guys are normal people and just leave them.

Killin’ It as a Gardener ~ Sarcasm Intended

If you are like me and you can kill just about anything that grows in the ground, then this post is going to interest you.

The year after we bought our house, a bunch of my family came to visit.  While they were here my Mama and my Aunt Mary Jane asked if they could divide some of my flowers and take them home.  Of course, that was fine by me.  They are always giving me starts from theirs and this way, if I kill mine, ahem, I know where I can get more to murder.

Side story:  Denton spent his teenage years in a beautiful little town called Mount Dora, Florida.  If you’ve never been there you should go, it’s awesome.  Every year when we visited his Mama and Daddy, I insisted on going to the Daytona Flea Market.  They have a lovely nursery there.  And every.single.year, I would buy a Meyer Lemon tree.  Because I managed to KILL the one from the previous year.

Each year the same sweet little guy would help me to pick out my new victim to take home and torture to death.  Now, this guy did not remember me each year because I’m sure he would see thousands upon thousands of people each year buying Meyer Lemon trees.  But, I remembered him because he was absolutely filled with knowledge about all the plants and trees they have there. 

The last year that Denton’s mom and dad lived in that area we stopped on our way out of town for me to buy my last Meyer Lemon.  As he was checking out my items, I casually asked him for tips on how to keep this one alive.  Something in my tone alerted him that this wasn’t the first lemon tree I’ve had.  He stopped ringing up my plants and asked how many lemon trees did I have.  When I told him that I had had a bunch of them, but they all keep dying, he looked like he wanted to cry.  I actually thought he would take my new tree away from me for a minute.  He seriously loved his job.

That story was to tell you that if you are a plant murderer like me, you are going to want to invest in some of these Bearded Iris’s.  They are one of the hardiest plants I’ve ever encountered.  And they are beautiful!

Back to my original story – my Mama and Aunt Mary Jane were dividing up my plants, and I decided that some of these Bearded Iris’s would look good at the base of this tree.  When they left that morning it was chaos as always when a bunch of us are together, and I just laid these down next to the tree to plant later.  You can see where this is going, right?

I completely forgot about them.  There they were, just laying on the ground at the base of the tree.  With Denton mowing the grass around them.  They grew.  Completely out in the open, with NO dirt over them.  They grew and they bloomed.  I can’t believe that our vicious squirrels didn’t eat them.  They eat everything.  Maybe they are poisonous to squirrels?

I left them alone when I saw that they were thriving all by themselves, because, hello, they obviously know what they are doing and they most definitely do NOT need my help. 

After all these years, they have multiplied and grown and they bloom every single spring.  I just sit back and enjoy them, because I know that if I try to divide them, I’ll probably kill them all.

They can take over that entire part of the yard if it’s up to me because they deserve it!

You should definitely get yourself some Bearded Iris’s!  Put them into the ground and walk away and they will reward you with beauty every spring.