More Nashville time

Friday January 26

When we visit we like to give Helen and Ben some couple time if possible. William loves to come for sleepovers. Since he is now in school (second grade) this can only be on weekends. So Friday afternoon we picked him up.

We had from Friday evening til Sunday evening. William likes to play games. Connect Four was the game of choice this time. And building the train tracks was the other. In stages it got better and better.

What he wanted at mealtimes was clear even before asking. We ask but we don’t really need to. He likes Manchego cheese on bread or toast. It’s from Spain. His favorite but any goat or sheep cheese will do. And he does like salads. Everything we like too.

Saturday it rained ... pretty much all day. Not so great for entertaining a seven year old. But at noon he was invited to a birthday party. I loved the invitation. Loved the idea of the theme and suggestion about the gifts.

So we were busy making a birthday card for his friend. He started by writing VIP (which I didn’t understand first), then arrows to first name and then last name. Totally his idea. No idea were it came from. More writing inside.

Sunday morning of course was church. Since their church starts at 9 am we had to wake him and hurry. He loves church so no complaints. Of course we have to stay for Sunday school, his favorite part. The weather was much better so Sunday afternoon James and William went for a nice walk around Long Hunter Lake. Helen came around 5 pm or so for an early supper and some chat and both left because William still had some homework to do.

Another chance to see them on Monday. Helen and Ben had invited us for lunch which was nice. Then there was one of those 5-minute jobs. She wanted the doors of the refrigerator/freezer to open on the other side. The way it was had bugged her for some time. We were happy to do it. It’s nice to be useful but it took longer than we had expected. Helen got William from school at 3 pm. He was patiently waiting while we continued. One screw! One screw we didn’t have the right tool for. When Ben came back with the tool he had on his truck we finished quickly. Helen was so very happy. It’s the small things in life ... And we got another hug from William before leaving.

Now we realized ... Rushhour! It seems that James is getting the hang of this Nashville traffic though. We made it without much problem in a round-about way. It can be very aggravating being stuck in long lines. It’s the small things in life ...

Since we arrived in Nashville I have been working on the February church newsletter every free minute I had. In the morning I had finished it and sent it off for proof to our rector and the wardens. In the evening it was time to get the mass emailing of the PDF going. With a slow internet it can take a couple of hours. Every month when that is accomplished I feel like celebrating with a glass of wine. Happy hour.

When I was stuck with the work on The Cloak newsletter I did some sewing. I had found two BOM (quilt Block of the Month) on the internet which intrigued me. I had some time to finish my first row for the German BOM. If you are interested you can see it on my “Love of Threads” blog. Sewing and working on Chrismons is my “therapy”.

And it was really time to get ready for our little trip. Of course most (summer) clothes had never been unpacked since we arrived here from Virginia.

Better have a good night’s sleep now so we don’t miss our flight in the morning.

Happy Birthday Helen

Monday January 22

Early alarm clock and early on the road. It’s always a long day driving.

Halfway. Tennessee welcome center. Love that quilt. Have to look at earlier photos whether they ever change it.

We were lucky with the weather though. Always above freezing and just some rain.

We went straight to their house because William wanted to see us, sweet boy.

Tuesday evening we were invited to have dinner with them. Helen had made a really great soup and salad.

Wednesday was THE day, but Helen was working and she and William had their usual things. We did go to pick William up from school though. It was a nice day and we could walk. When we went home we decided we didn’t really want to cook but try Amy’s Ethiopian Restaurant we had never been. It was nice. We were told we should use pieces of the rolls and our fingers but we quickly decided it wasn’t for us, that we really preferred forks and asked for them.

Thursday

James had arranged a meeting with our financial advisor at 10:30 am in Paducah KY. You need to count on a 2 1/2 hour drive but I also wanted to do other errands so we left at 7:30 am. Everything worked like a charm. James beat the Rushhour traffic in the morning by using some side roads. 

We had a little time before the meeting so we had a quick stop at Hobby Lobby to see whether they might have the right beads for the large version of the newest Chrismon I had just designed so I could finish writing the pattern. John is eager to get started working on the Chrismons for Grace Church. I dashed into the store and found exactly what I wanted, paid and dashed out

Still time left so another quick stop at Hancock Fabric. There was something I wanted to do in our “off-time’, had packed fabric for it but had already found out that the background fabric was too flimsy and only fit to be pitched. I knew exactly what I wanted, dashed in, found something on a sales table and something on a bolt, had it cut and paid and dashed out. The lady who cut it for me though was Gloria, a church friend I knew when we lived here, of course we had to talk about her and our children. Fun.

We arrived at our meeting with one minute to spare. Even drove past our old house in The Pines for a quick look. 

We had arranged to meet our good friends Barbara, Sara and John for lunch across the street (location John’s surgestion) and made it exactly to the minute. The meeting had been excellent. 

And lunch of course was great too. It was like we had just seen these friends yesterday. So much fun. A young mother moved her two children to a different table so we could put two together. And we met more “old friends” when we were there just by chance. 

We knew when we had to be on our way back again but managed a quick stop at Grace Church to say “hello” to my father in the Memorial Garden. It is now almost 15 years but I still miss him. He was such a great person and super “Vati”.

James again took some side roads to beat the Nashville traffic and we were very lucky.

At 6 pm we were supposed to be at the bowling place in Hermitage for Helen’s Birthday Party and we were. We were 6 and we played one game. James and I hardly ever play but we all had fun, even if our balls sometimes went into the gutter.

Afterwards we all went to Ben and Helen’s house where we had dinner. I had volunteered to prepare taco salad dinner which I had done the day before. Helen put meat sauce and cheese sauce into their respective crockpots and the “buffet” was ready in no time.

William “chilled” while we were doing that.

Ben had baked and decorated a birthday cookie. He had a great story about how that had gone.

VIDEO!

We all had a very nice evening together and I think the birthday girl was pleased.

Flower Power in Winter

You can find simple pleasures in lots of things. I have 5 glass containers going with amaryllis. Four are from last year and one is new. In addition I have a Christmas gift of the white pot with paper whites. The paper whites have three buds and each amaryllis has at least one bud coming up. Of course in the beginning there were none and everyday we would look and see whether there was something happening. It is a lot of fun. We both enjoy it.

The left orchid is making blossoms too. Purple. The right orchid is what I call my mother's because she used to have one like it which was always covered with flowers. So far I can see finally one developing (after a couple of years past the initial flowers). Yes, it's fun. You learn patience.

Monday was MLK day and day care was closed. Sarah arranged her shift accordingly and we helped out in the afternoon when she went to work. You have to look at this VIDEO!   (1:52) Three is a handful but they are fun.

Saturday January 20 - Richmond Forum tonight. Glenn Close give an excellent, interesting and funny speech. Q and A afterwards were good too.

James is trying to stop our mail. Of course since our politicians are making a mess and the budget did not get approved, he got this:

The funny part (or not so funny) is this ... I asked him to take a screen photo. I could hear it click but the photo was nowhere to be found. They usually end up on the desktop. He rebooted and saw it for a moment. When he clicked on it he got the message that he was not authorized to open it. And then it was gone. How about that?
So we took a photo with my camera.

Happy New Year 2018

Praying that the new year will be as good as the old one was. So many blessings. So many wonderful experiences. We wake up grateful every day! Wishing the same to all of you!

Since this is the first blog this year I want to share with you what I found when I looked at my blog stats at the end of the year:
Feeling blessed ............ 140,755 views since I started it March 2011
Love of Thread ............ 5,265 views since I started it December 2014
Witnessing with Chrismons ............ 73,432 views since I started it July 2013

That is A LOT OF VIEWS!!!

And now what happened so far this year? The big news is the weather. So sooooooo cold! And we even got some snow. We don't have to (since we are a 55+ community) but James felt like it. It did help tremendously because wherever people drove on it there was later ice which stayed the longest.

Hard to say how much snow we got because of swirling wind it was very uneven as you can see.

Trouble in happy-land. The two tiles which we had found previously broken and thought that they had been cracked in an earthquake ... frost. They were cracked again (the new ones). This is not even the worst photo. The door was jammed too.

We had to call an expert company to find out what was happening. It is a long story but we need some drilling and filling etc done. Sigh.

Something funny happened though. Since the expert told himself to other people he will not mind if I tell here ... and I did not take a photo ... which would have been very cute.

See how he is parked? When he went to get something out of his car, he dropped his camera which he had just used into the water drain next to his front wheel. He had to lift the round lid and we first tried to "fish" the camera with a rope and a coat hanger. Didn't work. So he just climbed down the 10 or 12 feet ladder to retrieve it. Luckily the camera is waterproof. When he came back up and peeked out of the manhole it would have been a cute photo.

January 7 of course is the Feast of the Epiphany, the appearance of the three wise men? The end of Christmas. The youth in our church always lead a wonderful service but because of the cold cold temps it was difficult to enjoy the outdoor part.

One by one we had to put our decorations away too. 

Time to make changes. Our step ladder was not high enough so friend/neighbor brought his and helped out.

The "Nashville" beaver found his new place. We both like it.

And something else to check off. I think I had reported that we were rearranging a bit our bedroom. Wardrobes made for the old deep televisions are not needed any longer. Keeping the flat screen TV in that opening seemed such a waste of space. We scooted it along the wall and James mounted the flat screen TV on the wall. This Saturday the old wardrobe got changed to be more practical. It now has shelves and I have space for some nicely folded tops, sweaters etc. It took Robert not very long at all. When you have the right tools ...

Of course there is babysitting ....

... and the monthly meetings of the lacemakers and quilt groups. And I am working on a new Chrismon design. Those things you can find behind the tabs on the top.

I am always happy if you leave a comment.