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!

Friday Favorites ~ February 6, 2026

Good morning! The week held some warmer temperatures, but there is still quite a bit of white stuff on the ground at home.  The sun and weather today should help that a lot though. 

I was happy on Monday to finally be able to drive to my parents house and check on them after all the bad weather here.  I also went by my sister's house and it was good to see her again. I had dinner with she and my brother-in-law. On the way home, the moon was fabulous!  I love seeing the moon.

Speaking of the moon, did you hear about this:

Artemis 2 will be the first mission to carry humans toward the moon since NASA's Apollo program ended in 1972. 

Artemis 2 is the second scheduled flight of NASA's Artemis program and the first to fly astronauts aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. The mission will send four astronauts on a looping journey around the moon and back to Earth, testing the systems that will eventually return humans to the lunar surface.

The roughly 10-day mission is currently targeted for launch no earlier than March 2026, pending final testing and integration milestones. It had originally been slated for Feb. 8, but issues arose during the fueling tests.

I went back to work Tuesday.  Afterwards, I went to a middle school's basketball games and went to dinner afterwards with a friend.  It was fun to be able to say yes to an impromptu night and be with people after the week prior!

I took off Wednesday to see my oldest daughter. Once I arrived, we went to one of her favorite burger places.  I had a burger with bacon, guacamole, onions and pimento cheese on top of lettuce with sweet potato fries. This was a delicious meal!

I loved being able to be with her on the morning of her birthday! 

I spent the night before helping her decorate and spent 3 hours making these paper chains for her.  She had friends over the night of her birthday so she was decorating her house. I was able to help her with a few other house things along with a trip to Walmart for some food and things.  Is it really a trip to see your child if you don't take them grocery shopping, ha?  It was a quick visit, less than 24 hours with her, but always good.  

A hard part of the week is that a member of our church passed away unexpectedly and left behind his wife and 3 daughters.  It has hit our church community hard.  Life is short friends.  Love others well.  Live for Jesus. 

Currently Hodgepodging ~ February 4, 2026

The temperatures are above freezing finally!  What a great way to celebrate by participating in Hodgepodge and Currently with our 2 great hosts, Joyce and Amy!

1. The Winter Olympics kick off on Friday, February 6th...on a scale of 1-10 how excited are you? (1= eh and 10=watching every event all day every day). What's your favorite Winter Olympic sporting event? 

I love watching the opening ceremonies to the Olympics and seeing all the countries represented.  I know they are all competing, yet it seems like such a time of the world coming together too.

I enjoy watching the ski jumping because I am in awe of how people really do this.  Ice skating is also fun to watch!

2. In other sporting news, the Superbowl (American football's championship game) will be played on Sunday, February 8th. So tell us...what's your superpower?

Oh, I wish I could time travel (in the words of Huey Lewis, back in time), but I don't have that superpower.

3. Are you a romantic? 

Unfortunately, yes.  Although, because it has been about 5 years since anything romantic has happened towards me, I would say I am less and less of one.  I just want someone to be kind at this point, much less romantic.  

4. Blue cheese-yay or nay? How about feta? If you said yes to one or both, what's a dish you like that calls for one of these? 

Blue cheese, not so much.  I do like feta cheese on a salad!  One of my favorites is spinach leaves, pecans, strawberry halves and feta cheese.  Adding grilled chicken to this is great too!

5. What's more important-doing what you love or loving what you do? 

I think there has to be a balance.  Doing what you love gives you energy, but it can change and doesn't always pays the bills in regard to a job.  Loving what you do means gratitude for what is before you.  

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Tomorrow is my firstborn's 25th birthday!!  I love this girl so much and look forward to seeing her.

Loving

I am currently loving that it isn't January, ha!  I thought it was going to be okay, but mercy, I could have done without January 2026 for many reasons.  No thank you.  Here's to February being better.  Bye winter decor!

Baking/Cooking

Due to the cold weather and being at home so much, I have done some cooking lately:

Pork, veggies and sweet potato fries

Sourdough bread

Scrambled eggs with crumbled turkey sausage & cheese was for breakfast several days last week.

Chili

Watching/Reading

I finished these first 3 shows during the snow week and am in progress watching the other one.

Planning

I have been planning a few trips.  I have a blog trip, a trip to watch my daughter graduate, and an epic end of the summer trip that has been in the works for over a year!

Savoring

I have been savoring any night where I sleep all the way through more than 6 hours.  It rarely happens, so when it does, I am so thankful,

Hope you have a great Wednesday and thanks for reading!

 

Hello Monday ~ February 2, 2026

 Good morning my blog friends and officially happy February!  Let's hope due to the cold weather and snow/sleet mixture over a huge part of the country, that darn groundhog will NOT see his shadow today.

Today's blog is brought to you by the letter "C"!

Cold

Until today, it has been below freezing for 9 days straight, with the exception of one afternoon.  This is a portion of my street still on Sunday afternoon.

And this is my house 8 days later after the first sign of precipitation.

But it's never too cold for frozen yogurt!

Cinema

I didn't go to the cinema, but I did watch this movie Friday night. It is a modern day story of Ruth and Boaz.  I was in tears at the end.

Sunday night, I watched Nonnas.  This has been on my Netflix forever it seems and it was a heartwarming movie. Y'all know I love a movie based on a true story!

Cut

I have officially got to the end of my things to do list around the house when I began cutting my bangs Saturday morning.  They turned out okay!  This is me on Sunday when I ran into Jenn at a restaurant after church. You can't really see my bangs here though!

Chili

I made some chili for lunch on this cold weekend day. No beans were harmed.

Cry

Now to take a hard left turn, I had quite the cry session Saturday afternoon.  Yes, I did okay overall, but after 9 days of being completely alone with the exception of a few hours on 2 days, it all caught up with me.  The loneliness & grief was real.  I laid down in bed at 3 Saturday and didn't get up until Sunday morning. I think my reality is sometimes really hard between the financial situation I have been left with (or without I should say) and being the victim of an unwanted ending to a marriage. I miss having someone to do stuff with and who wants to spend time with me.  It sometimes feels like I am all alone when everyone else has someone.  I know that sounds pitiful.  I know the Lord is always with me.  The grief I experience is on so many levels.  That is what divorce does.  I could share so much, but I will leave this with a few things I read:

China

I did a little retail therapy to help and placed my first order from Shein! If anything works, I will post it here.  

Church/Community

I was so thankful my church was meeting Sunday.  If it wasn't, I was going somewhere.  Granted, the parking lot was an icy mess, but I made it there safely and it was so good to see humans I know.  I hadn't seen anyone since Thursday. After church, a huge group went out to eat and it was a delight.  I even ran into Jenn and Chris there!

Car

I went through the car wash to get the first layer of snow off my car.  Every time I drive down my road and driveway, I track more snow/dirt on my car, but I had to get my car a little clean. I was thankful to see the car wash open since it barely reached 32 degrees.

Concert

I spent my Sunday afternoon watching a Duran Duran concert on tv while I worked on blogs. I was a huge Duran Duran fan in Jr. High and thought I would marry Simon LeBon (the lead singer) some day, ha!  I am still a big fan of them and love their music. I finally saw them in concert a few times once I was an adult.

Creativity

Sunday night, I did a little water color while I watched tv.  This was a sweet gift from Joyce last fall and I picked it back over the weekend.

Conclusion

This concludes my "C" blog and thank you for reading!

Have a great Monday!