Talking About it Tuesday ~ Galentine's Day/February 17, 2026

Happy Tuesday friends!

 I know yesterday was Monday, but I didn't want to talk about Valentine's Day as the theme of the weekend since I wasn't with a guy or my kids.  This is one my boundaries where I can't spend too much time reading about these things. I was not on social media much at all over the weekend.  I am happy and I hope one day I will have this, so in the meantime, my Tuesday talk is all about Galentine's Day, celebrating friends!

I hosted a Galentine's party at my house Friday night and had bought this heart pasta at Aldi.

It was fun to decorate for Galentine's! Behind my table, is a string of old Valentine cards from my childhood.  They are from my parents, grandparents and even one from my brother.

I assembled a mixture of strawberry chex mix, a candy mix of popcorn, cookies and pretzels, and then I added a bag of red/white M&M's.  It was such a good mixture.  I ate so much of this over the weekend.

I also made red velvet M&M brownies and used my heart cutter with them.

Here are other pictures of some house decor...

I made sourdough foccacia bread, which turned out so good.  This is my favorite variety of sourdough.

I ordered a fun set of Galentine games (all paper games so we didn't have to leave the table :)) & we all started a little bit on creating ideas for a vision/bingo board for 2026.  In the background of these things was a great Galentine's playlist I created with the help of their imput on Spotify.

Kendra gave us each a gift, which was so cute and thoughtful. It was a fun night!

Hello Monday ~ February 9, 2026

 Well, my Hello Monday is now a Hello Tuesday!  Better late than never, but here is a re-cap of my weekend.  Hope you all have a great day and thanks for reading!

After visiting my daughter, I proceeded to drive to North Carolina for the weekend.  I saw some dustings of snow on the mountains.  It was a pretty drive and thankfully, the roads were clear.

The first stop was meeting up with one of my best friends who drove over from Charlotte.  We started with dinner...appetizer was these macaroni and cheese balls!  Oh my!

That was followed with a burger topped with cheese, bacon and onions on lettuce with a side of grilled veggies.

We also enjoyed their specialty cocktail drink.

After a full and delicious meal, we walked on the treadmill at the hotel for an hour and it was good to catch up while walking!

The next morning, we went to Biscuit Head, a great place to eat breakfast in Asheville. I had fruit, scrambled eggs, maple bacon and of course tried the biscuit.

We did a little shopping.

Of course, found frozen yogurt!

We picked up a friend from the airport and went back to the same burger place.  I had more burgers last week than I think I had all year in 2025!  This time, I got the burger with gouda on lettuce with a side of onion rings.

Downtown Waynesville, NC is a darling place!

This was the AirBNB where I stayed the next 2 nights.

Enchiladas were a delicious dinner cooked at the cabin.

It was great to catch up with this old friend we've known for the last 20 years.

I had a pretty drive home.  Western NC is one my favorite areas of the country.

And being at a Buc-ees before 11am is wonderful so I can enjoy an egg brisket taco.  So good.

It was great to spend time with friends over the weekend!

Happy Tuesday!

Talking About it Tuesdays ~ 2016 Trends

 Good morning friends!  Have you seen the social media viral trend of posting photos from 2016?  I am sharing some photos from my 2016 year!

In 2016, I was still living in Bogota, Colombia South America.  I was in the states for Christmas and New Years though.

This is Brook and one of her best friends, Catherine, on NYE.  This summer, Brook will be maid of honor in her wedding!  And, we went to their house this past year on NYE too! Her mom is a dear friend of mine.

These 2 friends are still dear to me and we watched the season premiere of The Bachelor together.

Upon our return to Bogota, we prepared for Isabella's fiesta de quince....her 15th birthday celebration. It was one of our best nights!

Remember me going to see my Colombian friends, who now live in Australia, in Dallas in December? Here they are with Isabella 10 years ago!

My girls :)

This girl loved being the only American in her Colombian school!

We took a family vacation to Cartagena.  This was such a milestone for us to travel within the country for a vacation instead of a work event.  In our 3rd year of living there, we finally felt comfortable with our Spanish to do this and we loved it.

This was Mother's Day 2016...Edwin, Isabella, me and Brook.

This is Clara, our beloved Spanish teacher.  I love this woman and miss her so much.

Summer of 2016, I flew back to the states and went to my last Huey Lewis concert.

I love this picture of my girls! This was at one of our favorite places.

We took a team retreat to Villa de Leyva, a beautiful town a few hours from Bogota.

I miss the bread, juices, soups and hot chocolate from Colombia.

In the fall of 2016, Brook and I traveled to NYC and met my parents there for a few days.  Isabella was in school and Brook had returned to homeschool, so she was able to travel with me.

Later that fall, we began saying our goodbyes to dear friends in Bogota.  I met these 3 girls in Colombia during my first visit in 2009 & we reunited when we moved there in 2014.  I still keep in touch with them via social media & love them.

This is group picture of some dear friends on a farewell dinner with us. Edwin and Clara were with us this night.

This is my dear friend, Sarah, who I was able to see last summer when she was visiting Kentucky.

And of course, my dear Edwin.  

Brook and I on our way moving back to the U.S.A.!

One of the first things I did was meet my new and first great-nephew!  He is 9 now!

There were so many things to buy moving back to the states, but one of our first purchases was a car! We still own this car.

I am not sure why this is such a trend, but it was interesting to look back at 2016 at a glance!

Hope you have a great day!