What a great Valentine excursion! We started our day at Honeysuckle in Franklin, TN. I was pleased with this meal and would love to go back again sometime. It was a lovely experience.
If you look closely at the photo you will see my wise guy trying to shoot me a bird. He loves to foul fowl up my pics when he can just to mess with me. Always look closely and you will see “birds” or gaping shirt holes with belly buttons staring at you. Those are two of his favorites. My guess is he comes from a line of women who loved to take pics that probably got on his nerves. He might have mentioned that but I’ll never say it aloud. So now he’s married to one of those photo types. He’s never been one that liked to be bossed around by a woman, LOL. Bless his heart! And he’s had plenty and now he has me. I can boss the best of ’em with my sly ways, heh heh heh, birds, or belly buttons, ignores, or whatever tactics these men use these days to try and not be manipulated and bossed around by us women. God may have made us the weaker sex physically, but we all know who runs the show. How did I get off on that? Oh yeah, stray birds fowling up my photos.
Their bar area was pretty, but we were there for brunch. My first excitement came when I saw the juice list. I never order juice because of the sugar but I was going to. Here’s the juice list. You’ll see what I mean!
When I excitedly placed my order, I was told the juicer was broken! So that joy was nixed. On to the next joy. I had already had a lot of coffee so I got some type of juice with sparkling wine. I think it was grapefruit but not sure. It kinda tasted like a Paloma. It was light and just perfect. George got the Bloody Mary.
I don’t like Bloody Mary’s but I wish I did! Still I can judge them eh? My criteria for a good Bloody Mary is one that has bacon and shrimp! LOL. Speaking of bacon. I am in the mood for some good crispy bacon along with eggs, biscuits and molasses. We have all that! And one day this week when it snows, I shall fix it for breakfast.
So at Honeysuckle, George ordered the Oysters Vanderbilt. I let him have them. They were cooked. But there were only 4 I think and he loves them so and I don’t so much so I didn’t partake.
I had the eggs Benedict which was called the Southern Benedict. It was EGGselent! LOL
It was on top of biscuits which were homemade tasting so it was really good.
George got the breakfast burger.
Afterwards, I wanted to stop at Gabe’s as I’d never been there before. I think I’ve heard bloggers talk about shopping there.
They were actually having a sidewalk sale and it was 26 degrees at the time! I did not stick around long. But I did look.
Then we went to the most favorite wine shop! We love The Bottle Shop in Franklin, TN. It’s close to Whole Foods and so when we shop at one, we go to both.
Look at this bottle of vodka. I have no idea if it is good or not. No we didn’t buy it. But wouldn’t that make a nice Christmas present for someone that loves the sea? lol Look at the price though for a seemingly small amount. I notice there was only one there. Not a big inventory of them, but probably there for a gift item.
We love their Spanish and French wines there. We have had this one before and I had not seen it anywhere again. We either had it in a restaurant or we bought it from here. I had taken a pic and had it in my photos for a long time, in hopes to see it again. I decided I liked “gamay”!
From Wikipedia: Gamay is a purple-colored grape variety used to make red wines, most notably grown in Beaujolais and in the Loire Valley around Tours. Its full name is Gamay …and it’s very similar to Pinot Noir which is a good sipping wine.
So we brought this one home!
Did not buy this one, but of course since it had to do with weather, I had to take a pic!
Cards seen in the gift shop part of the wine store, which is always fun to look through.
Then on to Whole Foods. We bought a few things and had a cooler – not that we needed it but since we had some frozen items we went ahead and iced it all down.
Didn’t buy this one but took the pic for you all! And we didn’t buy this red grouper, but we did buy swordfish filets. The grouper would have been good though, but the swordfish filets were already ready for cooking.
We grabbed a late afternoon beer at Drake’s. And shopped at TJ Maxx. I bought a few things. Pics later! And then headed on to our destination for dinner. We ate at the Wild Ginger! It doesn’t look impressive here, it looks like a doctor’s office or something, LOL. They need to liven up their curbside appeal from this angel anyway, but it’s a dark and dreary day anyway!
We exchanged our cards and had a fun time eating wonderful cuisine!
The scallops were amazing. They were on a bed of avocado slices. The roe on top was excellent and the greens were great! I’m not a big onion fan but I slipped those aside. This was our appetizer.
My salmon was excellent as well. The flavors were great with pineapple salsa on one side and a squash puree mixed with spinach I believe (not sure about that part), and bok choy which was really good! I love it!
George had a chicken dish which came with several sauces.
And of course we had the Creme Brûlée….
And I had to show you those special spoons! What a great dessert spoon!
Then we came home and as I was about to get up to go to bed I got a text from a coworker, asking if I would go in and do payroll tomorrow! Whew! Well, that was 8:38 last night. I guess someone finally realized the forecast and so my wish to go in and get it done was finally honored, but it was very close call. At 9 p.m. my phone shuts down on Do Not Disturb. It does not come back up until 5 a.m. I wouldn’t have seen it til this morning and I would have slept late and it would not have given me time to close – I’m still not certain as it is that I will have enough time as it takes two days to process or at least 10 to 12 hours.
So I’m glad he texted when he did. We had a conf call with an exec who blessed the early closing of payroll and so now I’m about to go in and try to get it closed. The only problem is that managers across the US have had to go in this morning and work on their time edits. I’ve got to try and get two days worth of processing into one. I’m leaving around 4 or 5 this afternoon to get home before the storm hits. I’ll be looking at radar. I will get as far as I can. But I’m not going to get stuck there. So it will be what it will be.
It would have been nice if my original request had been honored and we could have prepared ahead of time. As it stands right now it will be iffy if I can finish on time. So wish me luck. I really needed to be there around 6 or so this morning but if everyone is working on time edits it slows the process down. But the payroll needs to be accurate. So all I can do is try to get it done. But I’m not putting my life in danger, so I’ll get as far as I can and we’ll have to decide from there. Had we originally gone with my plan, we’d have been able to go in this morning and start closing from the get go as the edits would have been done by end of day Friday or Sat. But we were not allowed to prepare for it as my request to prep ahead was denied. So here we go not really knowing how the day will turn out.
I just do not like to procrastinate when things are important. I like to plan ahead and then it doesn’t create an emergency for all involved or put the whole payroll in danger. But not everyone shares my enthusiasm! ha. So we’ll see what happens! LOL
George lovingly tucked me in last night and said “I’m sorry you have to work tomorrow, and on our Valentine’s Day at that”. But at least we had our outing yesterday. We have a special meal of surf and turf tonight so I will be here for that! But he was so kind about it and genuinely concerned. I told him, “I have no words”, speaking of the situation which is a phrase often used when you are too ______ (fill in the blanks) to speak. We both busted out laughing as we both knew that not to be the case of me having no words, as I had plenty of words! And I said “OK I do have words!” At least the evening ended in humor, but yes as you may have imagined, I was a little miffed at 8:38 last night. But what we do for others. God says to love one another. I’m trying here! But I want our employees to get paid and that is the bottom line. I want to be the best Payroll Manager I can be. And next time this happens, I’ll have a different plan. That is all she wrote!
Ya’ll have a great Valentine’s I’m on the way out the door here! In sweat pants and a sweat shirt and no make up of course! Let’s go kick butt before the storm hits. I’ll let you know tomorrow how it went, Lord Willing!
It makes my day when I hear from you…