British Pub Theme Party with Dear Friends and the Work Week Ahead

We had a great time with our friends Don and Lisa in Franklin, TN yesterday. I will say that Lisa outdid herself. Everyone did. I just made brownies. We called them British brownies. They gave me a break as I’m the only one not retired and worked all week even though it was at home. We all know that George does the cooking anyway right? So he fixed some Scotch eggs. And is George shooting the bird above my head? If you notice he finds a way somehow to do this in all our pics!

We were welcomed with British signs!

Let the fun times begin. A day of eating, a few cocktails, catching up with good friends, exchanging Christmas, and relaxing fireside. We usually make a day of it and we ate 2 meals. We started with appetizers and scotch eggs, had Toad in the hole for lunch and fish and chips for an early dinner before we headed home.

Don made a gin drink above which I declined as I’m not a big juniper taste gin fan and then he made us Red Dragon cocktails. I loved this one.

These two are such special people in our lives. They are the ones that text you just because they are thinking of you. They text you every Friday to see if you made it through the week, lol. They send you a pic of their fun times out and say they wish we were with them. They carve out a weekend day to spend time with you and make it special. We unload our hearts and experiences and talk about our kids. Thank you Don and Lisa for being in our lives. I hope we can do this for many more years, even as we move and retirements change everything. I treasure this time and I hope it can continue even if we are miles away, we can take vacays together!

George wore his Beatles shirt and we listened to the Beatles all day!

Toad in the hole. Sausages in pancake batter.

Then served with onion gravy which was out of this world.

As Lisa said “Don’t tell your doctor about ANY of this today!” 

But we did have smashed green peas! ;-)

The fireplace was cozy.  Then we opened gifts (not all shown, but Lisa gave me a spa day gift – candles, pampering paraphernalia, body wash, hair band and pony tail holders, chocolates, and so forth. So sweet. 

I picked this one for Don. He will love it!

We did a British quiz while drinking coffee before we drove home. Below is some British decor Lisa had sat out.

Fun with icicles from outside!

The sun going down in the neighborhood. And a very COLD seat.

Our dinner was fish and chips. Were any of us really hungry? NO! But we ate it anyway. In case you wondered, I switched to water the last half of the day and the ice water is so good in Lisa’s pewter cups!

What great fun it was. It went by so fast. Don and Lisa’s street was icy. Our street was icy, but the main roads were fine and even most of the secondary roads too. We slid quite a bit on Don and Lisa’s. George had to get me out of the car in their driveway because every time I tried to get up out of the car my feet would slide out from under me. lol. We enjoyed George’s car’s heated seats on the way home as we were having extremely cold temps. I think it got down to 7 or something like that last night. 

Our church slimmed down the services and moved the time and cancelled Sunday school. So we just decided to skip today and do our worship from home. We are getting out though after noon and getting Mom’s mail and groceries. We will get a few of our own so I have something for lunch next week.

I’m actually looking forward to going to work tomorrow. It’s going to be quite different than a normal Monday. I have a lot of printing to do and have to write the rates and info on the PTO forms I print out. I’ve already looked up the info but just have to print and write the info on there. I have a lot of returns to print and file and some receipts to print and give to my boss. It’s going to be a busy week as I attempt to finish up the last few returns, and I am awaiting Transport’s information also to close those out.

Mom’s eye appt is rescheduled for the first week of Feb and I’m so glad because I need the “in office” time this week to work on quarter end and then I can start year end w-2 reporting. Oh and it’s also Month end again when I close payroll Tuesday.

Rain is coming next week – all week but temps will be above freezing. I have a big day planned for Jan 27th. I’m filming my journey to 300 subscribers video, and also trying to finish out the month strong by finishing some 2023 projects, doing my winter into spring bucket list, and putting out some pink and reds in the decor for Valentine’s Day, then in another month I’ll make it all springy! 

Being home more has really given me more balance and helped my psyche. I’m so glad we have been off the merry go round for a bit. I’m going to be glad to get back in the normal routine as I don’t like having to cancel, reschedule, and shuffle, and not know how to plan your day. But God timed everything and solved my anxiety about the change in routine. (Resolving worries as if work or Mom or someone will be mad at me if I don’t do something by a certain time or show my face at work when the roads are bad. I’ve had a couple of very bad experiences over the weather situation in my past. So the snow brings that trauma back. But I made it through without ANYONE yelling at me. Matter of fact they were actually nice and surprised I made it in the one day I did.)

So I gotta go. We are heading out to the grocery and to see Mom. Take care and have a good week. Guess what! The next video is the snow week and a few video clips from the British Pub party! ;-) I’m looking forward to work on it this week.