Less Hustle More Coffee

The day after Christmas, more snow began falling. It was not forecasted ahead of time and when it was it was an advisory – maybe a dusting to an inch, might cause a few little problems – no big deal. Riiiiggghhhhtttt! It was almost as bad as the first one. However, the main roads quickly recovered. Our driveway and neighborhood roads did not.

By 4:00 p.m. Katy and Cody decided that we could make it to go see the Christmas lights at a farm a few miles away. It’s a drive thru place where you can pay $20 a car load. I had no idea that on the 26th of December I’d be seeing a camel that night. lol. I mean a camel is a pretty big deal for a middle Tennessean on just your average day.

I think the adults were more excited than the kids. I crack up at this video I took. I wish I’d kept recording. Listen to all the adults on top of the music. Everyone was saying “look River”. I loved it.

The Grinch was there and so was Frosty and so was Santa. Here I believe he was looking at Santa. Cody was driving and had a 4X4 and we had met him at the top of our driveway so he got us around our neighborhood.

Afterwards we went to Smiley Thai. It is a very popular place in our neighborhood. We went to a store next door while we waited. In there, they had these trees below. I took a picture because I was thinking how easy they would be to make. They are so cute. It might be something we could do as a Thanksgiving weekend craft project. Look at me trying to plan more things. lol

Christmas trees like this can be expensive in the stores. But this looked pretty easy to make? It’s a metal cone (Christmas tree shape) frame. With fancy ribbons wrapped around and secured.

When our table was ready we headed over to the restaurant and had a final “last meal” with Katy, Cody, River before they left out the next morning at 5:30 a.m.

We had lots of sushi and then a meal. I took half of my meal to work the next day.

The yellow curry is sooooo good on a cold winter night. The flavor goes beyond just chicken noodle. It’s so comforting. Also there were potato chunks in it and it was served very hot in temperature so it was really good.

Here’s a short clip of Little Roo….WAIT for the SLURP. Cracked me up. He makes the sign for “more”. He slurps in the noodles! So cute.

So Yesterday morning. I could not get up my driveway. I already posted about it I think as I blogged after trying. The view above is on the street level after I finally got OUT of the driveway once the sun came up and temps melt enough of my driveway to get out.

George had not had any trouble. Likely his tires are better than mine and it might have been cold enough when he left for the snow to be more crunchy and more traction but was more slippery when I left as temps were right at freezing. I just couldn’t make it go up. I called my boss and she couldn’t get out of her neighborhood either. I made the conference call we have on Tuesday’s and did my blog entry while waiting for it to melt. I didn’t have a computer with me and there’s not much I can do from home without planning rigidly for it and bringing a number of things home first.

I finally got to work about 10:30 and then stayed until after 5:30.

So I got a call from doggie daycare and Dexter had a scratch under his eye from another dog’s paw, they think. They just wanted to let us know he was ok but that they didn’t think he needed a vet. He was fine. He did seem fine. It’s a little swollen under his eye and we’ll have to watch it. No blood and can hardly see a scrape. I’ll keep a watch on it.

So at 5:30 ish when I went to leave, almost everyone was gone and there were NO lights on in the parking lot. My heart began to beat heavily. I had just seen someone in a black hoodie walking our halls upstairs already that had no business up there. I was hoping he didn’t see me but he did. I was already holding my breath as I locked up and headed out.

This is what all the movies and unfortunately the news stations report on the next morning. I remember that video on work violence once and how it talked about the fact that often it happens when someone is working over.

It’s every situation you vow not to put yourself in to reduce all vulnerable situations. You can’t even check your surroundings in the dark parking lot with NO lights on at all. There were 18 wheeler trucks, long rows of bushes, and my car was parked right beside some truck.

I couldn’t see the hand in front of my face. I searched the building and saw no one. Finally I checked one more office and someone was still there working and was about to leave. So me and that person walked out together. We were both shocked at how dark the night was.

I’m appreciative to him for walking me out. It was very scary. Even our phones flash light apps did not light up in the vast darkness. It was so odd and eery. Last night was the darkest night I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe there was no moon? I’m not sure why the lights were out. I vowed never ever to work past 5 again! I’ll be out of there by 4:45 regardless if payroll needs finishing or not. There is usually someone there til 5. I wouldn’t have been so scared if there were parking lot lights, but even that is not ideal.

I got payroll done! Yay! And I’m going in later this morning, leaving here in a few. There’s a freezing fog advisory out for the area I am going to and I have to cross over a long bridge over a lake. So I want to go in the daylight. But I’ll not work past 5, lol! The sun is coming up now so I’ll leave after I finish this blog entry.

George fixed Kentucky HOT BROWN’s last night. He gets creative with the turkey left overs. It has turkey, a cheese sauce made with adagio cheese, bacon, and tomato on an open face slice of toast. Oh my what flavors. The tomato juice on top of the cheese and bacon, yum!

So should I be concerned that I hear a helicopter circling above and hear sirens? Geez. Well, headed to work. Everyone have a great day. Eventually I’ll have to go to blogging about every other day I think to make room for videos. I need to get started but sadly there won’t be one for this Saturday either. I’ve had to stop and work in Christmasing and finally time. I have done some filming/vlogging so there’s footage to share, I just have given Blogmas the front seat this month.

My views on the blog have doubled and tripled by giving the BLOG full attention. But I miss doing the videos so I am going to have to share the time.

I look forward to the weekend to be able to go through office notes I’ve made for the last two to three months. I need to continue to organizing them. I’m working on NEW YEAR Goals, changes to the blog, vlogging goals, bucket lists for next year, shopping lists, things I want to do in the house. I just want to organize all those thoughts on paper so I can bring them to fruition. So that’s what I’ll be doing this weekend as well as putting up Christmas, putting up gifts, and redecorating the house, and also planning for our upcoming Northern 55 meal with the Irelands.

I’ll probably vlog some of my New Year’s weekend and will be posting that. I think everything will be about three weeks behind real time and that is fine – most channels do that so they have time for editing and filming the next one.

Well, gotta go get on the road. Much to do. I likely will not blog tomorrow and maybe not until the weekend so I can finish reading my book by year end and mark it off the bucket list. So probably my next post will be the Year in Review post a few days down the road. Have a happy “week after Christmas”.