Tag: Brewery

Family Day: Nashville Zoo, Hot Chicken, and Yee Haw Brewery

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized6 Comments

We had a fabulous time at the Zoo with Little Roo! George might have been teaching him the “pull my finger” trick. lol. You know it’ll happen! We loved getting to spend the day with him. And I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed the zoo. It has improved over the years.

It was going to be a late lunch and so I had been craving a soft serve ice cream cone for over a week. So it was mine to be had.

So I apologize for not having the official name of this particular type of gorilla monkey. And I’m too sleepy/lazy/busy to look it up right now. But walking into this zone has you thinking “what’s happening?”. The noise can be described as “exciting, a party atmosphere, inviting, intriguing and captivating”.

Here, I will post a video I took. Listen to this! It’s no sound like I’ve ever head before. It was intriguing and even a bit confusing. There were so many sounds at once. Can you imagine being in the wild and being around this? It’s only 16 seconds. There were short sounds and long sounds. lol

Why yes there IS a Roo with me! And he is cuter than your Roo! But we still enjoyed and loved your Roos.

I cannot believe that we got to walk among the Kangaroo’s. My heart leapt with excitement. They allowed us to pet them but only from behind on their back. Not on their heads. They can bite and scratch but apparently if you don’t bother them from the front, they are good as they let children go in and pet them. We could only stay on the path though.

This one was cleaning her pouch.

We met Molly (George’s cousin) and her two grandchildren at the zoo. They had zoo passes.

This one was being lazy.

Can you find the red bird? I didn’t have time to zoom in. I was afraid he would leave me. But a red bird flew in beside us. A few times yesterday. Usually there are two. This one lingered as I walked by.

Molly told us we had to go see the monkeys in the restroom. I just thought it was art or a statue or something. But no, there ARE REALLy Monkeys in the bathroom.

I love the bamboo forest. River Roo fell asleep during the bamboo forest as his Mom sang to him quietly. She is a good Mom.

I loved the flamingos too! And the landscaping at the zoo was so nice.

It was a great day to go to the zoo. The rain threatened and it sprinkled but never actually came a downpour. So it all worked.

Katy and George rode the zip line. This is only 9 seconds.

Then on to HattieB’s for Nashville Hot Chicken. Notice Little Roo has on his zoo shirt?

My sides were potato salad and grits with bacon. All carbs of course, lol.

It rained only a tad bit while we were driving to Yee Haw Brewery. The kids requested Hattie B’s and the Brewery where Susan and Kevin (George’s sister and husband) joined us.

Lighting was not good from my angle. But here I got to hold him for a long long time. And you know what he did? He flirted with a table of girls next to us. He caught their attention and grinned and smiled at them! They could not finish their conversation because they just had to stop and smile back and have a conversation with him. lol

When he got too sleepy but would not go to sleep, we gave him to his Mom. She tried but he wouldn’t go to sleep there. He cried all the way to dropping us off at the house (they have George’s car for the week). There is nothing you can do for them when you are driving. They have to be in the car seat. Bless his heart he was so tired. So I guess he went home and got a long nap.

And I went home and laid down and snoozed. I was tired myself.

And now it is Monday morning and I’m really wanting a day off in a big way. I’m laughing because I just had two days off and another one coming Thursday. But I’m really needing a quiet day at home where I’m not doing anything but cleaning, organizing, and just relaxing. I got a partial one Saturday morning. And I’m right back where I started though Thursday night. We have been home just long enough to mess up. The laundry built back up again, the kitchen needs attention, dishwasher needs rebooting, the floors are messed up again and need vacuuming. And we have many chores and to do lists left unchecked. It’s so aggravating to hardly ever be home. So much I need to do and want to do and all I can do is put it on a list and park it there and watch it sit there from day to day. So one day at a time. Maybe things will calm down soon. George said it won’t, but we’ll see.

So anyway, today I have to go back to the urgent care center. The place is healing now and has made good progress. It’s still “oozing” — sorry, TMI, but it is. But it is not as red and irritated and is closing up and healing. This has been nightmare timing. I’m so over it.

Ok, so I’m going to get off of here and get ready for work. We are having steaks tonight. I’m so excited. I’ll pop in whenever I can this week. I have to go into work early tomorrow and likely as well on Wednesday as I leave to go get Mom after work and it’s best if I go down there early because traffic is a nightmare getting there that time of day. So that means it will be probably Thursday morning IF I get the opportunity then. We’ll see. I’ll be back when life allows me to.

Fall Peak Weekend, Presidential Winner, Baby Shower, and a Big Night Out

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized6 Comments

What an absolute joy of a weekend. The temps were perfect. I could not stop taking pics. So many years the beauty has not been as vivid and just dried up, but this year we had more color and I had more time to enjoy and bask in its beauty. Above was the scene while ironing. Always love looking into the woods while ironing.

The kitchen view of course had color.

The sun room was gorgeous! And the doors were kept open to the sunroom since the temps were mild.

A Winner has been “CHOSEN”?

While posting pics I saw that Biden had been called has the winner of the presidential election. I posted a statement in Facebook that it wasn’t my candidate but that regardless I had BIG BIG expectations from Mr. Biden to protect our rights as citizens and not let our country go to pot, as it already has and that he has some big tasks ahead to reverse it. I really just want to live in a safe place, have appropriate rights as a person, and for everyone to love one another. Even though he is not my candidate, I will hope and pray for him and will still expect for my rights as a US Citizen to be met and to not have any further hardships as a country. He has a lot on his shoulders and I hope he is up to it. Of course as soon as I posted it – my friends started commenting and attacking one another on the post. And telling me not to get ahead of myself. I stayed out of it. Even when you say something nice and have good intentions people attack it on Facebook. I’ve come so close to just deleting the entire account a few times. But it holds so many memories and photos on there, that I hate to. Plus I don’t want to lose contact with friends.

I was told it wasn’t over yet. It’s not. They are still counting. Yes anything can happen. Still, I can post what I want. I don’t know who to trust and who to believe but I remember what it was like in HR and you did an investigation and the mud slinging started and anything and everything started coming out – true or speculated. So glad I don’t have to deal with that stuff anymore and this reminds me of those days. I just try to ignore it because you don’t really know what is fact or fiction as I sit in my little house in Mount Juliet.

So I’ve not looked at the news this morning. But as of now, as far as I know, Mr. Biden, “Tag, Your It” and we will see what you can do in those shoes. I expect much of you as I would any leader! I will still expect the same from you as I did Trump. I was not a fan of Trump’s arrogance and tweets, but he seemed the best candidate in my opinion that matched where I wanted the country to be. I think those traits really hurt him in the presidency. I’m not sure any candidate can adequately run our country to tell the truth. Our country is mainly changing because of the people in it and their attitudes and corruption. So if anyone can solve those issues and keep us our rights, more power to you literally! I will pray that the Lord moves through you!

Katy’s Virtual Baby Shower

Saturday morning we had time to leisurely work on household projects, laundry, some planning, and getting ready for the week ahead. We were in Gallatin, TN by 1:00 p.m. for Katy’s virtual shower.

My SIL Susan had some little snacks sitting out.

What great fun!

We then hung out for a while after saying our good bye’s virtually and we headed to Madison to the new Yahoo Brewery there. We had plans to celebrate Susan’s birthday.

Everyone nearly was outside. And why not – lots of spread out tables and seating and the weather beautiful and deer grazing nearby.

George, Kevin, and Susan. And I did my best to get a selfie with ALL of us. I’m not good at that.

Afterwards we went to have a nice meal at Lincoya restaurant in Hendersonville. We shared a poutine dish which was OUT OF THIS WORLD!

Poutine is fries, gravy, cheese curds, and onion straws. It also had bits of roast beef in there. They had so many nice things on the menu that it was hard to decide. So when Susan said she was getting a burger I let me eyes wander over to that side of the menu. And I liked what I saw and could get my salad too! And as it turned out. I think it was the best burger around, possibly the best one I’ve ever had. I was hungry and it was snarfed down in a hurry! No fries. We already had them under the poutine! I needed the salad!

We sat by a most unusual clock. Susan said it was previously owned by Conway Twitty. The restaurant we ate at used to be Mallard’s. I will want to go back here. I really liked it.

We came home and slept well and then had a big day Sunday at home. Once again the leaves falling got my attention as we had some wind gusts mid-day. This is looking out my office window.

More of the sun room. I told ya I couldn’t quit taking pics.

Big Day of Shopping Online

George and I gave Alexa a lot of ingredients for our shopping list for Thanksgiving. We will go ahead and get what we need for the meal this week. George secured the Smoked Turkey from Aldi. And I sat down and began ordering things. George’s, Momma’s, Aunt Martha’s, some for Katy. George will have to help me with the men, and he always does. But we are in good shape.

Christmas plans are also coming together sortof. So I am feeling good about our weekend progress. I stripped the guest bedroom sheets and washed them so I will shift some focus onto the cleaning – as there are things that need to be dusted and cobwebs in the corners and such. I did get our blue linoleum floors mopped yesterday – except the part where Maisy was sleeping. LOL With each mop stroke, I dreamed of my new flooring – coming soon!

And now I need to go get a second cup of coffee and get to work. Oh, I painted my nails which needed it. It won’t last but 3 days. I need to get a top coat I guess. I just cut them all short as my attempt to grow them is not working right now. I really miss getting them done but I am wanting to use that money toward my monthly subscriptions I have – in support of my hobbies. So when I look at my nails I remember how much I love making the imovies. However, I did not have time to work on the current one in progress due to the HOLIDAY HOOPLA and events we have had planned but I keep making some more footage so we’ll have a lot to do going forward.

I am trying to remember to video more as life happens. But not very good at that in public yet. I also have noticed my iphone getting slow. I deleted a lot of old video footage from it Saturday while we were traveling in the car and that helped. The goal is to keep getting better on every level. I am going to start working on my 2021 plans soon. Looking forward to that. In the mean time we stay focused on the holidays to try and make it special for everyone as it’s different this year.

Here’s my 2021 goals so far! LOL. Don’t worry it’ll be filled up soon. January is Grandbaby Month and February is Flooring and Hibernation Month. That is all I have so far. Ok off to more coffee! See ya mid week or as I have something to say!

Photo by Tirachard Kumtanom on Pexels.com

Retirement Ahead, Anniversary Outings, and Today’s To Do’s

On By BackporchwriterIn Food, Nashville, Restaurants4 Comments

Ahhhh, it’s been two days of no blogging but it feels like a half of a century!

Friday we went to our financial meeting in Hendersonville. I always enjoy going to these as I learn so much and it’s interesting to me. Financial subjects have always intrigued me but also has intimidated me as the terms and the concepts can get away from you really fast. I always had an interest in everything financial – just like I do science, but both topics took a back seat to everything else in life. George began doing our finances as he asked to do so when we got to together. We have come a long way since then. And we are set to retire in just 4 years now, Lord willing.

The pic above is our coming back from our meeting, but after our dinner at Casa Vieja in Hendersonville. Was a really nice evening as a cool breeze and fall weather has begun, so we sat very comfortably out on their patio.

It was nice going home and realizing that we had 2 days off.

Saturday, The dogs had to be at their groomer at 8:00 a.m. And George and I dropped them off and went to the store for a few things for the crab boil we are having tonight. Fun to see fall coming together.

We went the back way to check out another store close to us and found something interesting and disgusting. I guess whatever was in the trash at the Thai restaurant was totally calling in the vultures. Interesting isn’t it?

There were SO many more than this. Like 3 times more. You should have seen them take flight when we came through. I’ve added a video here of the vultures but may come back and take it out because it doesn’t appear to be working too well. In case it doesn’t work and I forget……..If you see it – then we are lucky. If you don’t – you know that WordPress failed at being able to show it. This feature has been iffy in the past if you don’t put it on YouTube or Vimeo. Right now as I’m in draft mode, it looks black and says “loading”. So no guarantees.

When we got home yesterday from the store, I worked in the house some, fixed us egg sandwiches for breakfast, started laundry – mainly my normal routine. I did catch up watching a lot of the YouTubes I watch throughout the day here and there – mainly while eating – lol since I am sitting anyway.

We did a bit of meal planning for the week.

One of my favorite things is to dip food into Catalina Dressing. I tried to pick one that wasn’t too sugary and had the best oils in it. I’m sure it’s not the healthiest of dressing choices but it’s better than most. I enjoyed this snack and it made a perfect lunch yesterday.

We picked the dogs up from their trim. They came home and snoozed to recover from the excitement of getting baths and poked and prodded. We hear Roger is not fond of getting his paws done. With no teeth, when he tries to bite, he only gums you. lol. Bless him.

Miss Maisy
Mr. Roger

They look sharp after their trims. I really like Maisy with her butterfly ears but we get them trimmed back as they grow pretty fast. She looks like a boy til it grows back. But we know that she is our dainty little Maisy so no gender confusion there! lol

We have kept the sunroom open! Not many times in the year that can happen as no heat/no air makes for a very hot or cold room.

Later on we headed over to HomeGrown Tap Room. Wow it’s been a long time. Hardly anyone there. Everyone wearing masks when moving around, waitresses and waiters wearing masks, and hand sanitizer on every table. I wasn’t as impressed with the beer selections. None of my favorites were there but they did have an IPA I liked.

We didn’t really NEED food, but we had bacon pop corn. NOT your healthy pop corn here. We sure knocked it down.

We discussed Christmas plans a little bit. That is always fun. We used to budget as we had a lot to buy for. There is not as many to buy for these days so we nixed the budgeting.

Later we headed over to our dinner reservations at Hermitage Steakhouse. We were unsure how they would handle the salad bar, or if there would even be one. No one was allowed to do their own. There was one lady, wearing a mask that completed all the salad bar entries. Their salad bar keeps people coming. Well as does their steaks. I don’t think I’ve EVER had a better steak!

We swapped our anniversary cards at the table. A side perk to this is that every time, we end up getting a free dessert. It’s always fun to see if we do each year. This year was an excellent one.

I am not sure how this menu turned out so pink. I guess it was the glow of the light through the wine bottle. But look at these choices of desserts. I mean how could one decide?

It’s torture to pick from those as ALL were my favorites. George, not a big dessert person, usually lets me pick. I picked…..drum rolllllllllll……………….

Our waitress was cute and sweet. She was learning. She had never uncorked a wine bottle and George showed her how. She blocked her managers view so she wouldn’t be thought less of I guess. And when we ordered dessert, she was really pushing the chocolate cake. I ordered Bananas foster and she said “I’ve only made this once”. So I know she had hoped we ordered something else, but she did great. I wasn’t going to take a pic as I didn’t want her to feel “watched”. But George encouraged it. I missed the big flambay though by the time I actually hit the button to take the pic. You can see a little of it.

The restaurant is so nice and elegant with white table cloths. And a log cabin interior. I took pics after the people in the seats next to us left.

So you can imagine how stuffed we were? I realized later while looking at other tables, they had forgotten to bring us bread, but I was so glad they did. After all we ate yesterday and also this meal of salad, and loaded baked potato, a steak and then bananas foster which had an entire banana and 3 scoops of ice cream as well as sugar and other ingredients. Oh my gosh! But we left nada! NOTHING!

We were absolutely miserable by the time we left the restaurant and remained so through the night. We were going to watch a show but for me a food coma had set in. I went to bed. I had to eat a Rolaid at 1:30 a.m. and drink water. Wow, it was so good though. Every bit of it.

We are trying not to eat anything today until our crab boil. I think I may mix up one of my cleanse drinks. LOL

So today’s agenda:

  • Devo
  • Laundry
  • Change sheets
  • Iron
  • Work in my office which includes below
  • Carpet places research
  • Cleaning the office
  • Prepping for next Video
  • Uploading footage I did yesterday
  • Working on some projects
  • Planning
  • Telling Alexa the grocery items needed for my upcoming dishes.

So, I am cooking a couple of times next week. White chicken chili and BBQ meatloaf. So I may need a few things. I’ll have to make sure we have what I need.

I am excited to get on with our day. Hoping to get started on the next video, but I have to do a few things. One I already figured out. I figured out the subscribe button. It now displays all the way thru my videos at the bottom right hand corner. So now you can easily do this while on YouTube. But you do have to have an account. It is FREE.

The other thing is I have to redo the Intro and Outro. The audio in my current intro is not working. So I’ll have to silence the video on the intro where I introduce myself and George and the fur babes – as the audio is on the video itself. I will silent the video and then add a voice over. That will solve that. But I also want to add a quick little branding start up – I’m not even sure what you call it. They call it an intro but it’s just part of an intro. I can’t explain it but hoping I get to work on that today as well.

I better get started if I want to accomplish everything today. At least I feel great other than being overly stuffed and very WHALE like! lol

What on earth are YOU doing today? I love to hear your stories! Leave me a mini blog post in the comments below, ha! Love it.