Less Hustle More Coffee

The Eating has been GOOD the last couple of days – not that it’s NOT when we are home, but you know how much I love to eat out. It was always a treat growing up and we’d go out a lot back then any time we went to church which was every time the door was open. When George and I first married we didn’t go out as much unless we met our families. It was a money thing. I had to get used to staying home a lot, no shopping and all that. But through the years, with promotions, and paying off things we began to eat out more and more especially for all the special occasions (if we didn’t have one, we’d invent one) and when meeting friends. We love to eat out and try new things and get inspirations for things to fix at home. 2020 has NOT been the year for experimental cuisine spots, but it has been a year of COMFORT FOOD. We had a $25 gift card to use up at Cracker Barrel. And I was so proud of our Cracker Barrel here. Not only was the landscaping lovely but they added a temporary outside seating area so they could accomodate more people (not lose money) during the social distancing requirements.

We had good conversation about our work and about politics and the election and the coronavirus. I mean what else would we talk about. There is one more subject I suppose, but we left that one under the table, LOL.

Well, GEEZ, what do you do when Blackberry Cobbler is in season? Ya go for it. Oh my a bowl of heaven right there. It was little. It was good. Not sorry.

The gift shop was enticing at Cracker Barrel as always. And look….it’s a Christmas SLOTH.

Of course you know this corner speaks to me with our little wildlife yard. Speaking of….I saw the SKUNK last night.

We smelled him the night before when he permeated all the way to the highway to our house. But last night I saw him out with the deer in our backyard. Neither were considering each other a threat. I’ve seen deer and skunk together before. Might have been in the cartoon Disney movie, with Bambi LOL. But I believe I saw them hanging out in a state park in the Land Between the Lakes area. Saw the deer first then the skunk. I remember thinking it was like a zoo area with a pet skunk and was running to it and my grandfather said “un uh nope nope – that’s not a pet”. Oops! It was at a visitor center and in a fenced but open area, so I had thought it must be a pet. I’m glad he saved me from my curiosity and subsequent hotel tomato bath during our travels.

So last night I met my friend Christy at Smiley Thai coming from work. They had THE BEST Halloween decor ever!! This was a lot of fun.

I ordered the noodle PHO last night with Chicken and also had ordered Sushi. I took this pic after I’d eaten most of the chicken. The noodles were a bit hard to eat with my spoon but I managed to eat a lot with my chopsticks. I still couldn’t eat all the noodles and bean sprouts. But it was good for a rainy night as the cold front began to come through.

We enjoyed chatting and vowed to go get our toes done next week. Yay! Someone to go with! I miss my Kate and our pedicure outings. And I’m happy to have a friend that will go.

We downloaded the same book to do for a Bible Study. Hers is on line. Mine is audio. It’s a Max Lucado book. Anyway, I’m half way thru between these guys:

*Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire – by Jen Hatmaker (Like I need to read this one, LOL!) In this book she is basically giving you permission to be YOU and not worry about it. I knew I liked her when she said she argued with her publicist over which curse words they would allow to remain in the chapters (she is a religious speaker/writer, lol). Not that I like cursing, but if we are all being honest here – we all know that even elder’s wives say the S word – a LOT. Even I cursed when spilling the communion in the car before taking it to a shut in. It happens. I don’t like it, but I’m honest and I’ll ocassionally say S***, H***, or D*** to make a point. But I do not want to hear the GD word. That is a no no. Unfortunately though, this author has found a lot of criticism in her industry for not only her words but some of her beliefs. She is going through a divorce and her publisher dropped her like a hot potato for embracing some new open minded thoughts. I get it, or should I say I’m used to that. I think we all have to study to show ourselves approved and create our salvation through Jesus and with God and His plan. It’s our own responsibility to work this out so I’m no judge of that. But I draw strength from her character and spirit. And as a writer of a blog and of my own words, I can relate that when you say what you feel and what you know to be true and get called on the carpet for speaking the truth as if you were a devil served up on hot pancake. My motto is fix the problems people, don’t get mad at the writer for telling the truth. If you were ugly yesterday or caused a problem and didn’t want people to know it – then don’t be ugly, irresponsible, or causing problems and don’t be mad if it gets mentioned. Work on your issues and don’t attack the writer. Anyway I could go on but I won’t. I can relate to this writer’s spirit. And I believe I read somewhere that she will say everything you were afraid to. LOL. That’s me too! Don’t test me!

*Escape from the Ordinary – by Julie Bradley (Like I need that one either). This book is a couple who retire and sail and their adventures, some of which are pretty scary.

So once I finish with one of these I’ll start the Max Lucado book.

Anyway, it’s Friday and I’m so elated. This week has been a fast one. I’m working on quarter end and stuck on the Quarterly Reconciliation Sheet. It’s off about $1700 in the social security taxes. Neither me nor my boss have been able to find the answer for where it’s off yet. So she is having me go through every employee and do some calculations to see if it can be found. This will take forever, but here we go. As for the rest of the month, now I’ll be behind. Once I get information from others I can start doing some unemployment returns for the Transport side. And then when we get this reconciliation sheet balanced and I get info from others I can do the returns. So while I was ahead, this is the part that always gets behind but a lot if it is out of my control. I guess that is what worries me a lot about January is that I could get more of it done if I got the information earlier in the month. But likely it’ll all come to me when I’m gone and I won’t even get an opportunity to do the month on time. If the opportunity is not there then it’s hard to meet the goal. The train that couldn’t. It’s Engine was missing and so was the conductor. LOL LOL LOL

I better quit before I become a “Jen” and get dropped like a hot tater for my truth telling. As someone once told me The Truth is Hard. Yeah it is. Especially when put in black and white. But again, don’t attack the writer! Please. I just do the best I can with the world I’m given! I don’t get to write all the rules. I just write what happens. Or doesn’t happen.

So off to get this Friday done and put on the headphones I guess and listen to something as I try to find the missing $1700 some odd dollars and cents.

Ya’ll have a good weekend. Not a lot planned but laundry, cleaning, early voting, and maybe take a look to see if I can throw another movie together. Might record some more footage. Might need to do some more learning! lol But here is a good message for the day!