Power Outage Update

As you read this we are at day 6 without power. We've been staying snug and warm at Stephanie's and Nicky's while our house is a chilly 40 degrees. We're making the best of it. But please pray for Steph and Nicky. I'm pretty sure they could use that right about now!! Only kidding, they are being good sports--actually better than that. They are going over and above to make sure we're welcome! 

We don't know when this is going to be over. Nashville Electric has crews from 5 states helping around the clock--although they were a little slow to get that help. There are still 110,000 people without electricity--including us. All of our friends have had power for a couple of days now. Surely it will be soon for us. 

Even though the temperature got to 34 yesterday, it's taking a huge dip tonight and heading back towards zero. We have all of our faucets running, so hopefully we'll be okay. No telling about the pool--everything is frozen including the pool surface. 

My poor fish in our pond--I'm afraid they're done for. In Nashville, we only need to have an 18" depth for fish to survive the winter, but I'm pretty sure with these near zero temps, it's frozen to the bottom. Makes me kind of sad as we had a nice little school of different sizes. We even had quite a few babies that made it this year. 

I thought I would show you a few more pictures. 

The pictures don't do it justice. This is our front yard. The trees are covered in ice. It's really beautiful--all sparkly in the sunshine.

This is one of the roads near us on the way to Steph's:

They just cleared enough for one car to get through. It's like going through a frozen tunnel. 

And this one is so pretty--I pulled this from Facebook:

The Nashville skyline from across the Cumberland river.

I guess that's it for now.

It's Always Somethin'!

For once, we didn't have any snafus with traveling out to LA for Jordan and Robbie's wedding. Well, except I was sick and missed just about everything except the wedding. It was beautiful. Everything was perfect--exactly how Jordan envisioned it. 

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Robert (Robbie) Loakes. 

I was supposed to be with them during the "getting ready" part of the day, but since I had been sick, I was determined to keep my distance. Jordan and Robbie are on their 2 week honeymoon in New Zealand and I certainly don't want her to get sick during that!

We had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant. The food was delicious. 

Now, on for the "snafu"! Of course we knew about the terrible weather happening in Nashville. Frigid temperatures and so much ice! We lost power at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning. As of today (Wednesday--day 4) we are still out. We've moved in with Stephanie and Nicky for the time being. 

Butch has been over to the house to break up the ice in the pool. We have no idea how all that is going to fare. We are concerned about the whole "works" system. We'll see. 

Lots of big limbs down, but not whole trees for us and nothing has hit the house.

The thermostat inside is holding at 40 even though it's currently 23 outside despite much lower overnight temps. 

It's always somethin'!

I'm not sure when I'll be back to blogging regularly. My heart just isn't in it right now. 

Scrapbook Saturday

December Daily round 3!

It was Nancy's turn to host book club in November. She made my grandpa's soup. She's been making it since the 1980's--far more often than I do, so I wanted to tell that story and include the recipe. I made it on this Saturday in December and that's how it became the story for Day 6.

Mindy's birthday. We went to Karrington Rowe for brunch. I did a little hand-stitching.

I made this title block during the prep classes in October.

Story 9--wrapping and the Sarah Brightman concert at the Ryman.

Days 10 & 11.

For Day 12--our poker dinner at Richland--I made a shaker on the left. My sewing skills are improving.

Day 12.

Day 13 & 14. I made this string of star embellishments on the sewing machine. 

You can see how it swings--pretty cute. Also, I stamped those little tags.

Okay, enough for this Scrapbook Saturday. Probably two more to go. 

Friday Funnies

Ten Things Thursday

It's the time of year to curl up with a good book in front of the fireplace with a cup of tea or hot chocolate. Here are some fun pictures to daydream about:

A Beach Library sounds like a good idea, but how do you keep them protected from the weather? It looks like they might have some sort of roll down screen. 

This is pretty, but not quite my cup of tea. It seems a little too cluttered for my taste.

Love floor to ceiling book shelves.

This would be a fun centerpiece for book club. Don't need the drift wood--unless the theme was beach books. This was some sort of book exchange.

Here are the invitations:

I use books in ALL of my elaborate centerpieces. You can't beat a stack of books with something sitting on top for interest.

Okay, I don't understand this one. I love to see the top books of the year to see how many I've read. Not only have I not read a single one of these, I haven't even heard of any of them!

This is a stunning use of "under the stairs" space. But do those stairs actually lead anywhere? Looks a little spooky to me.

This looks like a cozy little cottage. It looks like there's only room for one person!

What are your favorite book spots?

Words of Wisdom Wednesday

Travel Tuesday

For Christmas, Mindy and Justin "gave" Butch and I a trip to Charlotte, Tennessee. Well, we did it this past Saturday. 

Charlotte is about 45 minutes from Nashville. We did a little geo-caching and then went to "Sweet Charlotte's" for lunch. It was an old-time diner with all of the old-fashioned candies and soda you would have seen in the 1940's & 1950's. 

Lunch was really good--I ordered the chicken bites, but they made a mistake and gave me the hugest plate of really big chicken tenders! They were really good, but way too much! Butch had the bratwurst, Mindy got the chili and Justin had a cheeseburger. 

After lunch we browsed the shop and got cookies to have in the car. Mindy and Justin paid for everything. Oh, and they bought me a pack of Teabury gum. I haven't had that in years! The whole day was so much fun. We don't often have this much time together. It was perfect!