A Few Random Things

I keep meaning to do a Thursday 13 post to catch up on a few random things, but that hasn’t happened.  So, here’s a random catch-up post. 

Our hyacinths have bloomed!  I planted them a few years ago, and I don’t always have the best luck with bulbs, so it always makes me very happy to see them bloom.

The daffodils have also bloomed.  We didn’t plant these, but there are tons of them.  Fortunately, whoever did plant them has much better luck than I do with bulbs.

I love it when everything starts blooming!  We’re not beyond the possibility of more cold weather, or even snow, yet, but it definitely feels like we’re getting closer to enjoying warm weather every day.  We’ve even had a few days of perfect hammock weather.  I absolutely love spending part of a gorgeous day reading in the hammock.

Last weekend, Nick and I did a paint-and-sip event in Greenville, SC.  We have wanted to do one for a long time, but the timing has never worked out.  Lately, we’ve been trying to plan our weekends ahead of time, so we were finally able to find one with a painting we liked and get reservations for it.  It was so much fun! 

I’m not sure how much it varies from state to state based on liquor laws, but at this one, you bring your own beverage (I’m not positive, but I think it had to be beer or wine, not hard liquor), and the venue provides cups and napkins.   The event we did was adults (18 and over) only, and anyone drinking had to be 21.  Most people brought beer and/or wine in a cooler.  We opted for non-alcoholic drinks.  I love the mango sweet tea from Quick Trip, and we don’t have one near us, so I always get that whenever we’re near a Quick Trip.  You can also bring snacks, but I don’t see how you would have time for snacks.  I also kept getting paint all over my hands, so it would have been a pain to try and eat like that.

It's assigned seating (you’re supposed to let them know how many people are in your group when you make your reservation).  The easels, canvas, brushes, and paint are all set up, with a nametag and a picture of what the painting is supposed to look like.

Then they guide you through the whole thing.  This was a couple’s picture, so each person painted one half of it on their canvas, and they’d tell you when you needed to line certain parts of it up. 

You had to mix some of the colors, but they walked you through how to do that.  Then you had to dry the painting with a hairdryer before you put the leaves on the tree.

I’m almost as messy when I paint as I am when I cook!  It’s a good thing we didn’t bring snacks because I probably would have gotten paint on them. 

Here’s our finished painting hanging on our living room wall. 

I think it’s safe to say that neither one of us has a future as an artist!  But we’re both fairly happy with how our painting turned out, and it was a lot of fun.  We definitely want to do another one sometime.

We opted to go to Greenville in time for an early dinner and ate at Pita House.  The food is amazing!  I had the kibbi and grape leaves plate, and a pistachio baklava.  Everything was so good!  It’s right across the street from the main campus of Greenville Technical College, which is where I went for my Associate’s Degree, so it’s always a little nostalgic to go there. 

Lastly, I finally updated my Blogger profile and profile picture.  We were dressed up for something a few weeks ago, and I remembered to take a picture, so I used that one.  The last one was from 2007 when I had short hair and sometimes wore contacts instead of glasses.  I decided it was time for an update since I have longer hair, haven’t worn contacts since 2008, and am definitely not thirty-something anymore. 

So what have you been up to lately?  Does it look like spring for you yet?  

Thursday 13: Hot, Fun, and Productive

1.    I just want to start off by saying thank you to everyone for your awesome comments on my post about growing up as a JW and leaving the cult.  I appreciate all of your kind words, and you’ve made me feel good about having written it.

2.    I finished with a fairly large project at work.  The deadline got moved up it, so I ended up working late a couple of days, but it’s finished now, and it went well.  The coworker I worked with was very kind and very adamant about making sure my name went on the finished product.  They said I’d worked really hard and deserved credit.  It’s always nice to get good feedback at work.

3.    My sister, Gabby, and her girlfriend, Amy, came to visit.  They arrived Saturday just before lunch and stayed until late Sunday afternoon.

4.    Amy got some good pictures of the cats while they were here.  Here’s one she took of Frankie.

5.    We had a great time.  Gabby and Nick get along well, and Nick and I both get along well with Amy.  Gabby recently referred to me as the founder and CEO of the We Love Amy Club.  She’s not wrong.

6.    We went to an awesome local restaurant for lunch on Saturday.  Gabby had been before and loves it, but this was Amy’s first time eating there.  She says it’s one of her favorites now.  We grilled out for dinner Saturday night and stayed up late talking and playing trivia games.

7.    Gabby and Amy both went out to give the chickens snacks with me.  They didn’t realize that some of the chickens are free-range and thought there had been a chicken escape when they pulled up in the driveway and were greeted by chickens.   Fortunately, no free-range chickens were captured, and Gabby and Amy enjoyed feeding all of the chickens their snacks.

8.    It seems like sometimes, with a long weekend, we end up feeling like we’ve wasted it by not doing anything productive, or we vastly overestimate how much we can do with the extra day, and it feels like the weekend wasn’t at all fun or restful.  This time, though, we actually hit a good balance.  We had a lot of fun visiting with Gabby and Amy on Saturday and Sunday.  We spent Sunday evening reading instead of our usual, getting ready for the week.  On Monday, we went to the gym in the afternoon and spent more time than we usually do, went out for an early dinner, went to the grocery store, and spent some time getting ahead on things for the week.  It was a nice balance. 

9.    Mortimer spent most of the weekend chilling out.  Amy took this picture of him.  He was completely zonked out in this position.  It doesn’t look very comfortable to me, but he was happy.

10. It has been HOT this week.  We’re back in the high 80s and low 90s, with high humidity. 

11. The air conditioning was out at work on Tuesday.  By 10:30, it was 85 degrees in the building, and efforts to fix the air conditioning thus far hadn’t worked.  Since we hadn’t even hit our high temperature yet (and it was hotter in the building than it was outside), my boss sent us all home to work from home for the rest of the day. 

12. It’s supposed to cool down to the mid-70s over the weekend, which everyone is very much looking forward to.

13. The immortal tomatoes (also known as cherry tomatoes) are back.  It has been years since we’ve planted any of these, and we never planted them where they’re currently growing.  Yet, every year, they come back, so I’ve taken to calling them the immortal tomatoes.  

So, how has your week been? 

Rain, Roof Woes, and Ready for the Weekend

It has been raining off and on here since Tuesday afternoon; even when the rain stops it has still been gray and cloudy. This is not my kind of weather. It feels like the clouds and gray skies are literally sucking the life and will out of me. I love the sunshine. Sunny days give me energy and make me feel alive. I feel sort of like the solar butterfly light in our front yard; I must have sunshine in order to function.

The other downside to all of the rain we’ve had is that we’ve found out our roof isn’t entirely fixed. The main leak appears to be fixed; that area has been dry this week, but one of the smaller leaks still isn’t fixed. I called the roofing company and they’ll be coming back out to look at it as soon as it stops raining, possibly tomorrow, depending on the weather. The chance of rain seems to go up every time I check tomorrow’s forecast, though, so I’m not so sure they’ll be able to come look at it tomorrow. On a positive note, they returned my phone call quickly, and are trying to come look at as soon as possible; they can’t stop the rain any more than I can. That would be one totally awesome superpower though!

On another (and even more) positive note, it’s the weekend! Everyone definitely seems ready for the workweek to end. I think it’s the rain making the weekly drudgery even worse for everyone. There just seems to be a general sense of relief this morning as everyone is ready for the weekend to get started. Here’s hoping the chance of rain will decrease, and that everyone has a wonderful weekend.