Still Christmas

If it is the week before Easter, why am I saying it is still Christmas?  Notice the flowers in bloom.  Previous owners of our home planted these along the property line.  That's pretty clever.

  This view is looking down into the back woods.   

These are along the driveway.

And the picture below is why I said it is still Christmas.  This magazine subscription was a present  (at my request) from our older daughter.  Every two months for the next three years, I will have this Christmas present in my mailbox!!!  I love it.

 

Consider how the lilies grow.  They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  Luke 12:27

Normal Friday

When you work full-time and have gone out of town 2 weekends in one month, it takes a while to catch back up and get back to "normal". Obviously I did not post last week but I have been reading all your blogs and did find a few minutes to comment on a few of them.

Here are a couple more clarifications to my last post. The McDonald's was located in downtown Asheville, NC - - across the street to the entrance to Biltmore Estates. Its decor was to reflect and honor that of the Biltmore Museum. It was one of the restaurants featured a year or two ago on the Travel Channel entitled something like Ten of the Most Unique McDonald's Restaurants. I can't remember them all but one was in Rome, Italy. Another was in a northern city where people went to the drive-through window on snowmobiles. What we liked the most about the Asheville McDonald's is it was the perfect meeting place for us and my sister since we were traveling to NC from TN and GA. Plus it was a good excuse for a hot fudge sundae!

Reflecting back on our tour of the Biltmore, I am so glad we had the opportunity to visit. It is truly worth your time and money if you are in the area. If you want to learn some more about it, you can visit this link on Wikipedia.

So today was not what one would consider exciting - - - - running errands which including "hitting some sales" at grocery stores. I needed some ingredients for a recipe I found on a crockpot website new to me. One thing I really like about this site is she has indexed her recipes alphabetically so you don't have to read every single entry to find a few you might like.

But back to the shopping - - - - I needed to find diced tomatoes with green chiles - - - so I'm looking and see Diced Tomatoes, Petite Diced Tomatoes, Diced Tomatoes with Italian Seasonings, etc. etc. but do not see diced tomatoes with green chiles. But I do see something that is on sale that I have on my shopping list. It is Rotel - - - - and duh to me - - guess what Rotel is? Or are you way ahead of me here? It is diced tomatoes with green chiles! I am going to use it in a recipe tomorrow and hope to update you on that before the weekend ends.

Right now though, I believe it might be the end of the day for me being awake! . . . . . talk to you tomorrow - -

When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. Proverbs 3:24

McDonald's

We had a great weekend - - - - met my sister here about lunchtime and had ice cream sundaes. Do you know which city we were in? The ceiling inside the restaurant looked like this.

There was a grand piano - - inside the McDonald's!

Notice that the keys are depressed with no one's fingers touching them. It is a computerized player piano.

Does this picture of the outside of the McDonald's help you know its location?

The restaurant is across the entrance from the place we went to visit.

This statue was outside the house we visited - - - the Biltmore in Asheville, NC! We had an excellent day of touring this magnificent home. The extravagant furnishings were beautiful to view but even more amazing was looking at the construction of this building during the last decade of the 1800's. The kitchen and laundry areas were fascinating, too. This place had the newest state of the art technology for that time including early refrigeration and even a laundry dryer. Our plans are to go back in the spring or summer so we can view the gardens. They alone are supposed to be worth the trip according to those who have visited before us. Our trip was a gift from season ticket holders.

Our overnight stay was at the Holiday Inn Asheville-Biltmore East. It was extremely reasonable for price and very comfortable with new pillow top mattresses. The decor had mountain-style furnishing - - rustic.

Supper was wonderful Outback. Their food is always an extraordinary treat! If possible, this meal was even better than others we have eaten because it was FREE! My sister had gift cards given to her when she listened to a presentation at Wyndham Resorts.

Our trip there was uneventful. I had used Mapquest - - but failed to print reverse directions - - - and the problem with that is there are two rockslides between here and there. Coming back, we missed the detour off of I-40 - - - but decided that we could take the scenic detours. The first was through beautiful Maggie Valley, NC. We were driving along through beautiful spring weather - - looking at a rainbow while admiring the snow on the mountain tops above us. In just a matter of a very, very few minutes, we were on top of the mountain, completely surrounded by a white environment. The roads were clear due to road treatment but the ground had snow coverings and all the trees were white with frozen fog/snow. It was not as much snow on the trees as frozen mist. We seemed to be inside a cloud. As my husband said, "It was surreal."

A few curvy roads later and we were back inside the sunshine viewing the beautiful forests. After being surrounded by gorgeous nature, it was a bit of a shock to view the gambling hotels in Cherokee, NC. Something just doesn't seem right about that in the middle of a beautiful forest but I guess the location is part of the appeal. The next leg of the journey was supposed to be on Newfound Gap through the Smokies with the end destination of Gatlinburg, TN so we could stop at some outlet shopping in Sevierville on the way home - - - - but the road was closed due to snowy roads on top of the mountains.

We ended up detouring yet again to Murphy, NC to Copperhill, TN - - - another detour due to the second rockslide - - south to Georgia and finally home to Cleveland. A trip without rock slides is only 3 hours - - - with the proper interstate detours, it is 4.25 hours. Our return trip was 6.5 hours!!! But we got home safely without going over the side of a snowy mountain! Quite an interesting adventure!

You will worship God on this mountain! Exodus 3:12b

Dramatic Weather

This is what it looked like at work on Tuesday morning.

All of it was melted by late afternoon.

And here's what it looked like in our yard early this afternoon!

And HE changeth the times and the seasons. Daniel 2:21a

Nacho Ordinary Sunday

Our younger daughter and her husband came over for lunch today. We had nacho salads. YUM! Instead of grated cheese, have you ever used the Rotel & Velveeta dip instead? It is soooooooo delicious!My salad probably looked more like this - - - piled high (no sour cream). The funny thing is a few years ago I never cared about something like this but now it is one of my favorite meals.

The reason they came over was to finish filing their taxes. My husband had their information loaded on our computer. It was all finished except for a couple of questions. Now it has been electronically submitted. Isn't technology wonderful?

And it will probably be next weekend before I write again. Have a great week!

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Mark 12:17

Polk County

Today we headed towards Polk County - - - in the direction many white water rafters go during warmer weather - - also the site of the 1996 Olympics. Our goal was not that far down the road today but rather only 15 minutes out of town. This is the inside of our destination.

Yes, this kayak is hanging from the ceiling because this place is popular with those who run the rapids.

The tables are varying styles from traditional booths to rustic wood-hewn benches and even a taller table with a tree trunk support.

Scenes from many years ago line the walls.

This is located near the Ocoee Dam #1 on the TVA waterway. That is where this restaurant gets its name. The food is excellent and if you are in the area, it is well worth a visit. The wrap sandwiches are very hearty. It is difficult to finish one if you have an average appetite. They serve 3 meals daily and also have plate specials with meat and vegetables.

Eating here was a nice treat for this weekend. It does seem odd that we are enjoying normal lives while those in other parts of the world are dealing with weather-related disasters.

. . . He made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city . . . 2 Kings 20:20b

L.A.

My husband and I went to L.A. last weekend. We drove there in six hours! Of course, I must be talking about Lower Alabama rather than a city in California. We went for a family reunion with his siblings and had a wonderful time visiting. Bill is the baby of the three but when you get to be in the fifth decade, everyone seems the same age!

The place we visited was Dothan, Alabama. We had not been there before and were quite impressed with the size of the city. His brother and wife have a lovely house in a quiet residential neighborhood. The layout is great with the master bedroom on one side of the house and our guest room on the other so everyone has their privacy at night. Now if you were staying in the guest room at our house, our snoring might disturb you!
Bill's sister traveled from above Phenix City with her sweet daughters who never seem to age. Another beautiful grown niece and a very young, charming niece were also with us part of the time.

The traveling time was about six hours but of course we made a couple of stops on the way. Getting out and stretching is so necessary when you have arthritis in some joints. The time passed by faster because we listened to an audio book. This one was long enough for both "legs" of the trip. It's a great story - - - if you can cope with one of the main characters whining a lot - - but she is one of the reasons there is such a complex plot. He and I are now listening to the sequel on the way to and from work. We try and predict what will happen next.

Last weekend was a wonderful visit with precious family and beautiful weather - - - if you don't count the rain for the first hour on the return trip. It was great to have a break from winter and be able to be outside most Saturday afternoon and Sunday.

For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." Matthew 12:50