Another Rainy Day in Nashville

Hello everyone--I hope you all have sufficiently recovered from your holiday weekend.  And I hope it was a great Thanksgiving all-around.  Mine was excellent, although most of the family was scattered to the four winds this year.  Still, it was nice to be home.

One thing that really stood out was Tim's deep-fried turkey.  Oh, the oven-roasted one was excellent, as expected, but oh holy hell, the deep-fried one was nothing short of amazing.  And I still haven't grown tired of the leftovers yet.  In fact, just last night, I had a toasted turkey-and-Havarti sandie for dinner. And it was damn good, too. 

This past weekend, we also celebrated the anniversary of Cyndi's 39th birthday, which was a pretty good time--another houseful of people came over on Sunday, so the weekend was chock full of entertaining.  But that's not all we did--on Friday, it was all about lying on the couch watching football all day while the womenfolk went shopping (I think they left the house at 2:30 am and didn't get back until the early afternoon, the minivan full to the top of Christmas gifts).  On Saturday, Cyndi booted Tim and I out of the house (after bringing all the holiday decor down from the attic), and while she worked on the inside of the house, we went to Home Depot to pick up more lights, gutter clips, spare bulbs, and extension cords, and then came back and decorated the outside. 

I did the net lights on all of the low-lying bushes and shrubs, while Tim was up on the ladder and the roof hanging the icicle lights.  I ran out of gas early in the afternoon, and passed out for a couple of hours while he finished the stuff on the second floor trim.  We still got almost all of it done before it got dark, and the house looks damn good at night--not the least bit Griswaldy.  Cyndi also decorated the front porch, and we have a low-wattage spotlight on it, so it looks extremely festive.  If it ever stops raining, I'll take a picture and post it up.

So yeah, it was a pretty full weekend. 

Yesterday, I went out and did a bit of shopping, but I didn't get much done at all--it was one of 'those' days that happen every so often, and I felt cold and tired all day long, so I ended up sleeping on the couch bundled up in my wool socks, fleece jacket, my beanie hat, all wrapped up under a fleece blanket, with the cat curled up on my chest.  I must've snoozed for about three hours like that, and I'm sure I was quite a sight to see. 

Once Tim came home, we puttered around the house for a bit, and I fell asleep again waiting for the football game to start.  Clearly, I've still got a ways to go before my recovery is complete, but the doctors can't yell at me for not getting enough rest.  I woke up though--it was only about a 45-minute nap then, and stayed up and watched that god-awful Monday night game.  Before going to bed, however, I stayed up an extra hour talking to my gal Cheryl back in Vegas--we hadn't chatted in what seems like forever, so we had plenty of catching up to do.  I remember hanging the phone up at midnight, and then that's it.  I crashed hard for another eight hours.

But this morning, once I crawled out of bed, I came downstairs and got a lot of stuff done.  I've got a few cups of coffee in me, and I also did a bit of online Christmas shopping.  My cyber Monday fell on Tuesday, I guess.  Love me some Amazon Prime though.  And saving the 9+% sales tax they charge here in Tennessee is a satisfying personal eff-yoo to The Man.

Anyhow, once I get showered and such, I'm packing a bag and heading out again.  I'm going to meet Amy for lunch over at PF Chang's, then I'm gonna do a little browsing at a couple of stores over there in Cool Springs.  After that, I'm driving over to west Nashville to babysit the puglets for the afternoon until Amy and Scottie get home.  I'm gonna stay the night at their place, and then in the morning, we're loading my truck with their old furniture (if it stops raining).  They got some new stuff, yet their old furniture is some of the most comfortable ever, and nobody wants them to get rid of it, even though they don't have the space for it and it doesn't match their new sectional.  So I'm taking it up to Mamasan's house and she's going to put it down in her converted den (it used to be a garage, but the previous owners changed it over--now it's a huge spare room).

While there, we're going to make another double-batch of peanut butter balls in preparation for the family festivities.  I'll spend Wednesday night up at her place, and then on Thursday I'll make my way back down to civilization, because I have to go to the clinic at Vanderbilt that day and get stabbed again.  Once all that is done, I'll make my way back down here to the Hill and relax for a day before Cyndi gets home and the silliness of the weekend starts up again.

So I'm keeping myself busy.  Also, just in case y'all were wondering, I've been looking around a bit for some sort of part-time job to replenish the bank account.  I'm not hurting yet financially, and I have enough on hand that I don't have to worry about it too much until the end of February or so (not counting, of course, the medical bills), so I've been poking around for a little part-time gig.  I know that there is still absolutely no way I can work a 40-hour week, even if it were a desk-bound office job.  I just don't have the strength or endurance to do it--I'm only good for a few hours at a time before I need to lay down and recharge my weakened batteries.  Still, nothing really noteworthy has popped up, but I keep looking.  On the plus side, all I really have to worry about is my truck payment and insurance, and I'm down to only seven more payments before I own the ol' girl outright.  So, like I said, I don't have to sweat the money so badly--my family has been extremely generous in making sure that I don't have to take much out of my own pocket so I can just focus on getting better.  For that I feel truly lucky and blessed.

Anyhow, that's the latest from the rain-soaked hills of Tennessee.  I'll be taking my camera and laptop on the road with me, just in case the weather clears or anything of interest happens.  I'll try and come up with some interesting reading for ya later in the week, too.

Mikey