Labor Day Lists and Relaxing

We are truly enjoying our long weekend, just relaxing, making lists, crossing things off, or not! We went to get two new tires for my vehicle and it was a good thing because one was getting pretty bad. So that is done. While the tires were put on, we went to Zaxby’s and ate lunch. We had the “Zensation Salad” which was about as awesome of a salad you could get.

After that we did a fairly good size trip to Walmart. I bought a lamp for my office so I can switch to “soft light”. And I wanted a new vacuum and got a cheapy for 57 that has attachments. George put it together for me and it worked so well that I had to empty the canister 4 times. And the canister is almost as big as pricier vacuums but that is how much was in our carpets that was just not getting picked up by the old vacuums. No wonder we have had sinus issues. I’m happy to have a vacuum again. While at Walmart we also did our grocery shopping.

Well, I love fixing chicken like this. Last time I used grape seed oil. It works better for higher heat cooking than olive oil. Not that we had an issue, but something to consider as I’d rather not have to worry about it. But the hot chicken turned out ok. Seems like the chicken was better last time but this was fine. I really think that I didn’t like the flavor of the cayenne pepper we had. Perhaps it was old. It wasn’t the flavor I wanted but I will say it was pretty close. However, no where close to the “fried Hattie B’s” we love. But, it was pretty good. I always use aluminum foil as it makes a mess. Easy though. Just pat dry the chicken, baste with a little oil and put your rubs on there including the bottom and also under the pocket of skin to seal in some flavor.

So George has been drying herbs this weekend in the Air Fryer. He is loving this thing. I knew he would. Instead of having these sit for weeks/months in a dry sack in the sun room, he can just dehydrate it in the air fryer and bottle it for our winter use. So he did rosemary yesterday and today he is doing tarragon. Makes the kitchen smell wonderful.

I was happy that my popcorn arrived. Surprised I’ve not been able to use it yet. I think we have been too well fed to be hungry enough to have snacks in between.

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So we of course love to do a brewery or a tap room – on a holiday weekend or an occasional other weekend if we are out and about on excursions. We didn’t want to go too far from home and wanted to avoid Nashville if we could but we decided it would be fun to go and have a brewsky while playing a game to pick our anniversary dinner selection. So we went to Homegrown Taproom in Donelson, TN. This is about 15-20 min from us.

We ordered the bacon/Parmesan popcorn and a flight. I’m branching out into some IPA’s a bit. However, I prefer a mix of kolsch, pilsner, IPA and perhaps adventure into a dark beer if it’s not too stoutish or strong. Sometimes a dark beer has a taste of a lighter beer it’s just darker in color. I liked the HopLanta. I’ve seen it around lately. I did not care for the Passionfruit Kolsch, but I had to try it. I have found citrusy beers to be hit or miss – like them a lot of the time but then not always.

I made a game out of index cards – “skip a turn crossing off” and “take two turns” and “add one in to the list” and “add one back onto the list that was crossed off and your partner cannot cross it off on their next turn” and “say something you like about your partner” and “what is your favorite memory with your spouse” and “what about your spouse makes you smile” (George said when I howl with the dogs it makes him smile) and “if you had to eat fast food on Anniversary what fast food place” and “describe the ambiance of one of the places you really want to go on the list” (in other words, make your case) and “throw in a suggestion for place to go for a cocktail before our dinner”. Things like that. It was fun. We looked things up on my phone at times so we could check out the restaurants, the menu, what it looked like, and the location. You drew a card before crossing one off the list. We took turns and eventually came to our conclusion. And I’m keeping it a secret until the day after. So stay tuned for where we go on Anniversary evening. Still a couple of weeks or so away. We made our reservations while there. We are in. We had 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices and a “Miss Congeniality” choice, lol in case we could not get reservations. So we still didn’t know for sure which one until we made reservations. But we are in! And very excited.

George made lamb in the regular oven, and then also made some little round potatoes and vidalia onion in the air fryer. Those onions are so good that way. They caramelized.

A neighbor dropped by and brought us a bottle of wine. That was so sweet. We enjoyed her visit and after that we ate and then watched the beginnings of a Nicolas Cage movie, Gone in 60 Seconds. I fell asleep in the middle so we stopped it.

So we have conquered a few things on our list this weekend.

1. Relaxed
2. Caught up on my You Tube Shows
3. Tires are done
4. Office Lamp is bought
5. Grocery done.
6. Hot chicken was made.
7. Updated the calendars (compared and shared with George)
8. Decided and made reservations for anniversary dinner
9. Picked the yard sale date
10. Swapped the fall dress clothes b/w closets (just the lighter stuff for now and the heavy winter stuff is 2nd round; all the whites are swapped, and the grey came out, lol)
11. New round hair brush ordered
12. Date confirmed with the Crotchety Gourmet group for our night out this month.
13. Went to a brewery/tap room for the holiday weekend
14. Did my Isagenix Order and made some decisions around the business and what my intentions are.
15. Changing the sheets in our room
16. Doing laundry
17. Cleanse kit packed for tomorrow
18. Daily IsaPacks ready for the work week for each day (vitamins, ionix stress formula, isasnack, e+shot, and a drink mix of either my greens, fruits, or hydrate – one of three flavors of those)
19. Swapped my apple watch band out for the tan one instead of white with fall coming on.

We still have the rest of the day today and here is what is left on the list. We’ll see how much gets done. This is not in order of importance.

1. Fall decor out for the house
2. Crackers and tuna for work (just need to remember to put in my bag)
3. Come up with some healthy meal ideas to fix during the work nights
4. Look into the dessert I need to make for our Spain themed night
5. Find the Spring Form pan (is that what you call it?) that George says we have one of.
6. Wash the car
7. Clean the windows on the inside of the car
8. Car mats – pressure wash
9. Bubble Water for work
10. Schedule day to go pick out my eye glasses
11. wash the dog blankets
12. Find the yard sale stickers
13. Start marking the yard sale items (don’t wait!)
14. Order a birthday gift
15. Order a Shower gift
16. List some Christmas gift ideas and find some websites to shop from
17. Iron clothes for next week
18. Begin putting my calendar events in my phone
19. Netflix – find movies I like for the list
20. Audible – use my credits
21. Do Bible study
22. Check out 90210
23. See when Sister wives schedule comes back on
24. Watch Kate plus Date (maybe)
25. Reorg a few things in my office
26. Set some new goals, find my new purpose lol
27. Magazine project
28. Look at Mac Computers and see which one I need
29. Begin planning Thanksgiving (taking the drone if we are allowed to use it!)
30. Reorg the hall closet
31. Reserve our rooms for Hot Springs
32. Look at Changing the blog look
33. Clean out emails and set a reminder b/c I forget to look at email
34. Find out where my Etsy orders are – do I need to be worried?
35. Decide where to eat after our meeting in Hendersonville next week
36. Fall/Winter Bucket List

And that completes my blog entry for today. I will be attempting to do some things on this list. And I think my new “focus” has actually been found —–> Getting things done from this list!