Chattanooga Fun with Friends + Updates

Good morning. I’m able to blog this morning due to the time change and not having to be at church until 10! It’s quite nice to be able to do so.

Chattanooga With Friends

We have been to Chattanooga this week with our friends. We left Wednesday in the rain. I drove. George complied. If it’s raining or I have anxiety about traffic, then it’s best if I drive as I feel like, and actually do have some control. So I drove. It was a pleasant drive the way we went. We left going east on I-40 and dropped down to Chattanooga on Hwy 111, which also was 4 lane. Traffic was minimal on both and even though we drove consistently through moderate rain, it was a pleasant drive.

We met friends for lunch upon arrival at 1885 Restaurant, 3913 St Elmo Ave, Chattanooga. Wonderful lunch and loved the food and great time catching up with friends. We moved on to a Tap House nearby to get a beer while waiting for check in time at our Hotel.

We were most impressed by the 1920’s style hotel The Read House, 107 W MLK Blvd, Chattanooga. Just Wow. Video coming on this. I cannot wait to share, but I’ll have to. The video will air on 11/15. Upon check in and in a festive mood, we said “yes” to the option to upgrade our room for $30 a night and two champagne tickets at the bar, and a view of downtown Chattanooga. The hotel is also known to be haunted at some reports, but for the most part, NOT. Apparently a man killed his wife in room 311. Supposedly she still walks the area. We were on the 10th (top) floor. I was a little nervous about that because if the fire alarm goes off it’s a long walk down the stairs, and possibly no escape if we were not timely and there was a real fire. I tried not to think of that, but after we’d said yes, I didn’t counter with “but could you put us on a lower floor” because I knew George would want the higher view so I put my anxiety to bed, literally I took it to bed both nights and had to put it out of my mind, lol. I prayed no fire alarms would go off. And we truly enjoyed the view. I loved getting up with coffee and watching the people work in the building next to us. Many were on phones and watching videos on their computers. lol. One guy though worked from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. both days we were there. :-O

For dinner we went to an oyster place for a drink and oysters. I did not like oysters and they didn’t have other options at the time we were there other than nuts and bread, so that is what I had, much to my dismay. But it kept me from getting hungry so it was what it was. But they all enjoyed the oysters. The place was called Easy Bistro.

There were numerous places that we went in the three days (two nights) we were there. We went to the rooftop restaurant and bar, Paloma Bar de Tapas, at the Weston. This place had an amazing view. You cannot tell from the picture though.

Here’s a couple of pics. We watched the sunset and then saw the lights from the city as we chatted away in Chatt Town, lol. The weather began clearing. We had been dressed appropriately for a chilly rain, so all was good.

This crew, as always, loves to have a good time and so basically we just found various areas to chat, sip drinks, and munch and graze. On to the next one for the evening.

I was most impressed with breakfast the next morning as we visited Innside Restaurant, and it felt like the 1960’s or 1970’s in decor, but we were blessed with the best diner breakfast ever.

The owner, was behind me on the right, almost cut off, but he was nice and humorous. We asked him if he would take a pic and he took a pic of himself, lol. The food was awesome and I’d love to also eat lunch there sometime. This was great! And the prices were excellent compared to the rest of the world.

After breakfast we went to see Don and Lisa’s build site, of their beautiful dream house atop of a mountain there, with an incredible view. We have all sat around trying to find an appropriate name for the house. I kept thinking of a beautiful view in Italian, Bella Vista or something like that. But I think that is a common name and this is a very special place. She showed us our guest room. I said “guest room?” just let us “rent a room” and move in, lol. It’s gorgeous. And I’m so happy for them. It’s beautiful inside too as it’s coming along. I didn’t snap pics of the inside but did capture these above. There’s lots of arches and lots of porches, lots of bedrooms, and a pool and hot tub. The kitchen and fireplace are gorgeous. You can wash dishes with a view. All rooms have big windows. I love it. They are still working on the inside. But it’s going to be lovely! It was very windy and cold up there on the mountain top! It’s always 10 degrees cooler there than whatever Chattanooga’s temps were.

Next we went to Lisa’s Mom’s house and talked to Lisa’s Mom. We enjoyed a mug of hot tea with lemon and a few laughs and then headed back into the evening for a brewery stop at OddStory and then onto dinner. Both days went really fast. There were quite a few laughs at OddStory, as we thought of names for Don and Lisa’s house and then after discovering that Dillon’s cane was made by HoneyBull, a few jokes came off that. From then on the rest of the weekend we lovingly and jokingly referred to Dillon as HoneyBull. He laughed so hard. Dillon is in between George and I. He is a kind soul and we love being around him. We love this family of ours. We have declared that we truly are family because we have all been friends for a very long time. Over 30 years. Watched each other’s kids grow up.

Our dinner was at STIR, on the grounds of the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

Lisa took our pic everywhere. It was fun. Lots of memories we will have at each place we visited. What a fun little trip we had. It all flew by so quickly.

The next morning we checked out of our beautiful room and headed to Jasper, TN to Top of the Rock.

The dogs enjoyed their stay in boarding. We did not pay extra for the doggie dessert but they gave them one anyway and we appreciated that.

Other News

*November is here and kicks into another level of getting ready for Christmas, getting ready for Vlogmas on the YouTube. I have so much to edit and have to quit vlogging for the regular videos until the first of the year because of the already claimed space for Nov and Dec.

Video Schedule:

Saturday 11/8 – Random Footage in Retirement (just captured moments of various things over a two week period.)

Saturday 11/15 – Chattanooga trip

Saturday 11/22 – Should be our Costco Haul. I say “should be” b/c we have not gone yet, but hope to this week. I’m filming that as what should be a short video b/c I will not have a lot of time to edit it. I will be getting the first two Vlogmas episodes ready as they have to be filmed and edited before we leave for Texas. The first one is already filmed for Vlogmas. I’m working on filming the 2nd day of Vlogmas now.

Saturday 11/29 – This will be a short video explaining the December Vlogmas schedule upcoming and a chatty “little vlog”. Again, it won’t be long because I won’t have editing time, but it’ll be about 10-12 minute most likely.

In December, I’ll be posting Vlogmas from Dec 1 through Dec 15. My goal was half the month. After Dec 15, I won’t be posting again until Jan 3. This will give me time to focus on last minute Christmas stuff, baking, seeing family, and not having to worry much about YouTube. Most creators do this, so I’m hoping to enjoy a break as well. In order to pull all this off though, I’ll be very busy from now til then as we have a lot to do Christmas shopping, wrapping, decorating, etc while filming and editing Vlogmas, but we’ll be taking you through it with us.

The new Mac arrived.

YAY. It arrived while we were gone. My neighbor, David, rescued it for us. Was not supposed to deliver until sometime this week. I’m still on the old Mac right now. And I’m not setting up the new one until later today or tomorrow. The plan was for Monday but I might start on it today so I can let it run and do all its transferring and maintenance and such. I need to get diving into my edits but we will do what we can when we can do it.

Today is busy for us. We have church at 10, Publix run for dessert for life group which is at 12, at our minister and his wife’s house. That is usually over around 2:30 or 3:00 and then we will be on to pick up Mom’s groceries. Then we will come home and I’ll try to set up the Mac computer then. It should be straight forward I hope from a video I watched. But these things scare me as I know they can take longer than they should. Then our BIL Kevin arrives this evening to stay overnight in advance of his flight in the morning.

Tomorrow continues the crazy busy days. I have a lot lot lot going on for tomorrow with the change of the month, some calls I need to make for us, some calls I need to make for Mom, pay some bills of hers, do her financial analysis. I have to make some appointments and finish planning out the week. Mom wants to go pick out a gas fireplace and have it installed and also needs some more pants as hers are not fitting anymore. She has lost some weight and also her pants are too long. So we have to work in Belk’s or wherever she would like to go. I’ve found around here that Belk has pants that fit the best. And they are good quality as well. I might buy a navy pair myself. So I also have a lot to do here with Mac set up, filming, editing, and all the things. But I won’t be vlogging a regular weekly vlog as there’s no time to edit and no time on the schedule to put it so that will save some time. I’ll just be doing vlogmas which is us getting ready for Christmas.

Ok well, I’ve blogged enough this morning. I wanted the memories of this trip to remember. And then I wanted to let everyone know what’s going on around here. Hopefully I can blog some since I’m not vlogging as much as long as I can get everything on my plate done.

World Bible School

I do have to say there’s someone that sent me a message asking why I didn’t want to be their study helper anymore. I was quite confused. I think that at some point the lessons drop the study helper. I’ve seen it once they go past the initial courses. At some point it becomes self-guided. But one student has asked why I don’t want to be his/her study helper anymore. I just grade whatever tests show up in my dashboard. I don’t have control over it unless there is some side portal I have to search for that I am not seeing. This person has advanced beyond what it will let me comment on but he/she kept saying if I didn’t want to be their study helper just to tell them. lol. I’m amused at the conversation as for some reason the person has convinced themselves that it’s all me and I don’t want to do it. I referred to the help desk so they could explain to the person about the self-guided nature of the courses he/she was taking and they asked if I was logging in and seeing tests. LOL. Yes, of course I’m logging in and grading all the tests that are there. Maybe the administrator is new and doesn’t know of the self-guided test? SMH.

I told them to a certain point I can grade and then the lessons are self guided but if they want to allow me to grade them I will. I’ve told everyone if the test shows up in my portal I’ll certainly respond. If it doesn’t I can’t. Simply put. I keep getting messages from the student. I don’t know how many times I can repeat myself, but I keep the patience and keep repeating myself. “It’s auto guided after a certain point. I don’t have control over it and if they want to allow me to grade it they can put it in my dashboard and I’ll grade it.” I have repeated that so many times. I’m about blue in the face. I don’t know how to say the same thing over and over but just to say the same thing over and over so I do THAT only to be told again, “if you don’t want to do it just tell me” kind of a thing. I’m asking God at this point to make this mess go away and somehow enlighten them all so they will know it’s not me and leave me alone about it. Oh. My. Gosh! At 4 this morning, here comes another message from the student inquiring again about it.

ALSO…..

Also I thought I’d be asked to do the 8:45 Ministry Fair for WBS this morning but I’d not heard a word. I was going to do it if asked 5 or more days prior to the event. I kept thinking I’d be asked to show up for that this morning. But the invite or the request never came. I had been asked last year so assumed I would also be asked this year. I also had decided if the request came under 5 days before the event I would say no, b/c our day was really shaping up to be busy with company coming and all the errands we had to do in Lebanon today, and I didn’t want to be in separate cars. But again the invite never came. So I guess I’m not needed. It’s a relief actually as I did not want to do it. I didn’t really like how last year went (maybe they didn’t either). I was excited about WBS last year at the ministry fair and just went on and on about how good it was and trying to engage others, but I was told I didn’t talk enough about the postal (lessons by mail) side of it. Well there are reasons I didn’t. 1) Not many people do postal. I’ve asked repeatedly and was told not much ever take the lessons or return them 2) Most people I talked to were interested in postal but on line version. 3) I really don’t know anything about the postal side and so there’s not much I can say about it. 4) We talk about our own experiences and that is what I did. 5) Just recently I was told again that hardly no one does postal.

I had told George months ago I wasn’t sure I wanted to do the ministry fair again, because as excited as I was about it, I told George that I was chastised for not mentioning postal when really what you want to hear is “I’m so glad you are excited about WBS”. I like to please people but felt so heartbroken at being chastised TWICE. I’m an introvert anyway but I like to talk about what I’m excited about. I know that the devil tries to attack when you are doing something good so that was my take on it. I must have done something right. So, regardless of the reason, whether it was me or them or I just wasn’t needed, I wasn’t asked back. And I was glad. I didn’t want to go do it anyway after how I felt after last years. I’d much rather just do WBS and not have to be a sales person and then get critiqued on my performance. That’s not my gig. My working days are over, lol. So I was happy this morning not to have to get up and go early and then be worried I’d not say things perfectly. So it was a huge relief. I knew I’d have gone if I was asked within a week of the event as I’d been saying no to God if they’d have asked. But if it was last minute I would have said no, due to the timing. I prayed that I wouldn’t be asked to do it this year and thanking God, I didn’t have to.

Ya’ll have a great November. We will see you next week.