I'm Baaaack!

Y'all - first of all, I am alive. I'm sure some of you were wondering. Last week was probably the number one most chaotic week of my current professional career. I assure you I've had more chaotic weeks working in sports and also politics, but as far as my current profession, last week takes the cake...so far. I had a customer in town and about a million things going on each day and in the evenings and by the time I finally did get home each night, I literally washed my face, crawled into bed, turned on the hockey game and fell asleep. It was crazy busy and I'm so, so glad it's over; although this week has started out hectic as well but I promise to try my best and get some blogging done for you all. 

Other than work, there's not much else to write about in regards to last week. The highlight of the week was Monday night when we had our women's Bible study at my friend Leah's house. So, I'll fast forward to Friday. I had every intention of leaving work around 4:30 p.m. and finally made it out the door about 20 minutes after 5:00 p.m. It was typical and not surprising based on the week I was having. 

My plan for Friday was to go to the second Food Truck Friday and to get there early so I wouldn't have to stand in line forever like I did last month. This month instead of having the event at the Lumberyard off of Meridian Street, the even was held downtown at Fountain Circle by City Hall. I got there around 5:40 and already people were lined up at all of the trucks. I wanted to try the Rollin' Lobstah truck and have a Lobster Roll and of course, it was the longest line. I decided to go ahead and stand in line because this might be the shortest I would ever see the line for this food truck. 

I stood in line for about an hour before making it to the window. The people behind me were pretty cool and I chatted with them from time to time. The girl in front of me was a self-entitled twenty-something and when she reached the window, her friend came out of nowhere and was going to place an order as well. I tapped the friend on the shoulder and told her the line was way back the other way and she proceeded to tell me she wasn't ordering anything and then did. It was at this point I hoped she would spill her food all over the white jeans she was wearing. I shared this thought out loud with the girl who had been behind me in line and she said she was about to say the same thing. Apparently I'm not the only one who doesn't care for self entitled high maintenance twenty somethings. 

I finally got my food which was good, but not worth the hour wait and $11 that I paid for it. I ate it while sitting in my car because I was very hungry and wanted to eat it before I got home and had a dog begging at my feet. The rest of the night was spent watching TV and doing laundry and even cleaning the bathroom. I was exhausted after such a stressful week and was just glad to be home with nothing in particular to do. It was a rather nice start to a very busy weekend. 

Mother's Day Weekend 2014

It was a busy weekend for me and I'm sure it was for most of you too. Mother's Day tends to be busy for a lot of folks.

Friday afternoon I met Jackie for dinner at I Love Sushi. It had actually been a few months since I had been there and so I was glad she picked it as our meeting place. After dinner, she headed to Nashville to stay the night with her sister, and I went to Publix. I went to the one on Whitesburg and picked up what I needed to complete Mother's Day lunch.

Saturday morning I got up about 6:00 a.m. and immediately began cooking. I had broken the green beans the night before; so. I put those on to cook as well as the chicken and then baked a cake. Long story short, I spent the whole day cooking, doing laundry, getting some cleaning done and then, because it didn't rain I had to mow the grass as well. All week long, the weather folks had said it was going to be a torrential downpour on Saturday and it didn't rain a drop. I had been looking forward to a rainy Saturday, but it was not meant to be.

Sunday after church, I took all the food over to my parents house and fed the family for Mother's Day. We had chicken casserole, green beans, corn, salad, and chocolate cake. We just had crescent rolls because I didn't make homemade rolls. I actually had a new recipe I wanted to try but ran out of time.

When lunch was over, I took my grandmother home and then took The Pip and I home and then fell asleep on the couch. It was later in the day that I normally get home on Sundays and I forgot to set an alarm on my clock so by the time I woke, it was past time for evening worship. That's how it goes sometimes I guess. I was pretty tuckered out, and so was Pippa because she didn't move a muscle.

It was a good, productive, busy weekend. I am thankful I was able to spend some time with the family and with my mamma. Hope all you moms had a great Mother's Day and were able to spend it with the ones you love.

My Mailbox Project

A couple of weeks ago when I got home from the gym, I do as I always do and went to check the mail. I am not even remotely kidding when I say that I opened the door to the mailbox and it literally toppled over. Now, my mailbox has always been a little wobbly, but not so wobbly that I felt it might topple over.

My first thought was that our crazy mailman had hit it and when I asked my neighbor Jeff if he had seen anyone hit it, he said no, but that it was probably the crazy mailman. Great minds think alike I suppose. Thankfully Jeff had a cinder block and I was able to rig the mailbox up via cinder block so I could still receive mail until I had time to fix it up properly.

A couple of days later, when the weekend rolled around, I got to work on the mailbox project. I had looked at possibly getting a new mailbox, but mailboxes are not cheap, y'all. So, instead, I bought some spray paint and decided to give my mailbox a makeover before sticking it back in the ground.

I got the mailbox (all but the flag) painted up and dried and then put it in the ground with some Quick Crete so that maybe it would be a little more stable than it was before. I got it painted and in the ground just in time too because it started raining the next day.

This past Friday, I finished up the mailbox project by painting the flag a bright red and if you ask my, the mailbox looks about as good as it every has since I moved in. I still have some numbers to put on it and I guess I need to do tat sometime soon, but for now it's just plain and looks nice I think.

A Year Later, There are New Beginnings

It's been a year since The Tide went on to dog heaven. A whole year. It is so hard to believe that she has been gone that long. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about her and miss her. She was a good dog, y'all! The best really. I think she will always be the number one dog in my heart and I will always miss her.

I've thought a lot about her the past couple of days, relived the moment she collapsed, thought about how she cried out when I left her alone in the bedroom, thought about having to make the decision to put her down. There were a lot of similarities about this weekend in 2014 and the same weekend one year ago. One year ago on Saturday I saw Iron Man 3 at the movie theater. This year, I went to see Captain America. Last year on Sunday I had lunch at Casa Blanca; this year on Sunday, I did the same. I think the only real difference in the same weekend in two different years is that last year it was raining like mad and this year the weather was beautiful - like a new beginning.

I thought today, THE day, would be incredibly sad. It wasn't. I was too busy at work and church to dwell on it, which was a blessing and so there wasn't really time to dwell on the sadness of one year ago. There was, however, happiness to overshadow the sadness. The first bit of happiness was that my cousin Ashley gave birth to a beautiful and big baby boy. He was born at 12:27 a.m. - life to replace and overshadow death.

The second happy thing that happened today was that the newest friendly neighborhood Publix opened in Huntsville. This one is less than four miles from my house and sits across from the hospital at the new Twickenham Square development. I was so excited when I heard they were building a Publix there and so, of course, I had to visit on opening day.

Y'all, it was a madhouse. They built a parking garage across from it so it makes it seem like a big city grocery store. The parking garage was packed and there were people everywhere. I seriously didn't expect that many people to be there. I walked the perimeter of the store and picked up the three things I needed and left as quick as possible. I didn't even get a chance to register for all the giveaways! I'll give it another go in a week or so after all the excitement settles down and maybe it won't be as insane as it was today.

So, what could have been a terribly sad day was blessed with new beginnings. A new baby cousin and a new neighborhood grocery store - happiness to overshadow the sadness this day holds. I say happiness trumps sadness any day of the week and I'm glad this day had a silver lining.

Mowing and a Trip to the Movies and a Birthday

Other than our dreadful softball loss, the rest of the weekend went rather well I think. Friday afternoon after work I went home, changed clothes and immediately began the yard work. I knew if I sat down for even one minute I might not get up again; and so I just got after it so I wouldn't be tempted to lie on the couch all afternoon. 

The lawnmower was a wee bit finicky which was not surprising in the least. I have bad luck with lawnmowers it seems and so I just kind of expect to have problems each time I'm ready to mow. This time around, the problem was that after the lawnmower started it would shut off after running for all of five seconds. You may (or may not recall) that I had this same problem last year and my cousin Chris was able to get the mower working again. Then a month or so later I had the same problem and I had someone else look at it and that time it appeared to be bad gas (no pun intended) that was causing the mower not to run after more than five seconds. This time... I have no idea. 

I got busy picking up dog poo and other things while I left my mowing frustrations subside and then got the strange idea to run with the mower after it got started so I could get five seconds of mowing in instead of no seconds. After running with the mower three or four times (and still having it stop after about five seconds) it miraculously worked better on the fifth go and as long as I ran with the mower it would keep running. I'm sure it was an interesting sight. Finally, thank goodness, after it got warmed up, it worked without my having to run behind it and I was able to mow like a normal person. I was done with all the yard work by 7:00 and even finished my little project I mentioned last week. I need to take a photo of it so I can let you all see how it turned out. 

Saturday morning I got up early and did a little cleaning and laundry and then went to the 9:45 a.m. showing of Captain America. This movie has been out for weeks, but I haven't had an opportunity to go see it until last Saturday. For a while I thought I was going to be the only one in the theater, but then a pre-teen boy and his mom came in and sat a couple of rows behind me and then a pre-teen boy and his dad came in and sat a couple of rows behind me as well, and then a pre-teen boy and his grandma came in and literally sat right in front of me. I was just as thrilled as you can imagine. Apparently Captain America is the movie for pre-teen boys. Thankfully the grandma group didn't sit in the seat directly in front of me, but the two to the left of the one in front of me and so I was still able to prop my feet up from time to time. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It was very, very good. However I got a little perturbed at grandma on more than one occasion because not only was she was a talker, but she was a LOUD talker. I shushed her on more than one occasion. 

After the movie, I went to Publix for my weekly shopping trip and then back home to watch some TV and do some more of those chores that don't ever seem to go away. Saturday evening, I went over to my parents' house to celebrate my brother's birthday. He turned 34 on Saturday. My dad cooked a dinner of Fettuccine Alfredo with shrimp and fish and also made some sweet potato pies which my brother wanted instead of cake. (I know, he's weird.) The Pip came to the party too and learned a new trick of how to lie down. I've been practicing with her ever since and she is doing pretty good. 

When the party was drawing to an end, I took my grandmother home and then took myself home. I needed to put sheets on the bed and finish up some things around the house before calling it a night. It was another good weekend; but, as always, just not long enough. 

Routed

So, there were various activities that took place over the weekend, but today I shall tell you about our latest softball adventure. As you may recall, Jackie and I are playing softball on Sunday nights with some of our friends from church. Lately most of our games have gotten rained out, so there hasn't been much to blog about. Last night, however, we were finally able to play.

At lunch on Sunday afternoon, Jackie and I were talking about all the guys who were out of town or injured and started getting a little nervous that we might not have enough people to play. So, a group text was sent out and that didn't make anyone feel any better. We ended up with 11 people, four guys and seven girls and most of the girls are playing for the first time.

In addition to the fact that we were playing with a slim roster, we were also a little rusty. Thanks to all the rain outs, we are averaging one game a month. So, it's not like we are in the habit of playing and we don't really have practices since only a few people ever come when a practice is organized.

On top of the slim roster and the rustiness, we were also playing the best team in the league which didn't help the mentality of some of us (me, for one).

I think it probably goes without saying that the cards were stacked against us. The other team batted first and scored 18 runs in the first inning. We scored two. I'll spare you the rest of the details, but we ended up losing by a lot. So much, in fact, that I don't even know the score and they called the game with 20 minutes left to play (we play for an hour) which really made us less than happy because they could have at least humored us and let us get some batting practice in.

It was a lesson in humility, that is for sure. I did have a lot of fun, and I kept reminding everyone that we were just doing this for fun, remember? We don't have any more games until June 8 - weird, I know  - and so, we've decided that a scrimmage game is in order before our next game and we are hoping to get something scheduled for the 31st of May or 1st of June so that we might be better prepared for our next game.

It sucks to lose, I'm not gonna lie, but I'm still grateful to be having such a fun time with my friends and getting in some physical activity to boot. Here's to the Mayfair Misfits finishing out the season with nothing but Ws!

Happy May Day!

It's May first, y'all and I don't know about you, but for me, 2014 is passing by super quickly. Today was not only the first day of May, but also the first Thursday of May and that meant the opening of the Greene Street Market downtown.

In case you are not familiar with Greene Street Market, it takes place every Thursday night May-October on Greene Street across from the Church of the Nativity. There are all kinds of delicious fruits and veggies for sale. There are also a wide variety of homemade cheeses, breads, etc. and there are even vendors that have homemade soaps, art, and gourds.

I wanted to stop by after the gym and so I did just that. When I went to Food Truck Friday with Paul and Leah a couple of weeks ago, Leah brought her Piper and Leaf Mason Jar to get some tea and it was so good. I knew that Piper and Leaf was going to be at Greene Street and so I stopped by and got a Mason Jar of my own. You can bring it back for a half price refill at whatever location they are set up. I got the Front Porch tea, which is what Leah had that Friday night and it hit the spot. It was so, so good.

I had the intention of picking up something for dinner while I was there but since I was by myself I felt kind of strange meandering around and staring at all the tables. For some reason I feel a lot more comfortable with a friend by my side at these sorts of things. So, I didn't want to tarry to long for fear someone might think I am a stalker or something. Perhaps one day I will go by myself and not feel like a stalker.

I did manage to buy half a gallon of strawberries. I love strawberries and yes, locally grown strawberries are more expensive than ones you can pick up at the grocery store; but, the taste is 1,000 times better and sweeter and really worth the extra cost if you ask me.

So, from now until October the Greene Street Market will be open downtown, and I encourage you to stop by and take in what will definitely be a fun evening and supporting local farmers and companies. It's a win-win for everyone!