Wednesday, September 28, 2011

I have a friend!!!

Oh WOW!!!  Yesterday I came out of the Sports Barn and checked my phone....a friend called me and said "let's do lunch!".  I was so happy!  I hurried home, showered and we met at Panera...an awesome place for lunch.  YEA!!! 

On a sadder and (stupider) note, I was to go to the Newcomers Coffee today which I thought was at 10:30.....not!  It was at 10:00, so that just messed up my day...I would have been 30 minutes late and decided that I wouldn't show my "stupider" side....ha ha. So now, I just have the dentist to look forward to ...NOT!

This past weekend, we kept pretty busy.  A new section came out in the newspaper...the best of the best.  Well, some of the places I knew that were in the flyer and they were good, so that lent some credibility to "the best".  So, we decided to go out for Chinese Friday night.  The best in Chattanooga....ugh.  It was so gross.....the walls were dirty, the food was very bizarre!  Pat had a seafood soup that actually had a baby octopus in it.  He didn't eat it but still.....ewww.  I ate about 5 bites and Pat finished and we left. Not one of the best!

Saturday, we got up, to the barn and then hit the yard.  We had loaded the car with mulch on our way home from working out so we were ready to get to work.   Yard work...the yard does look better.  Anyway enough of that...we got cleaned up and then went to Georgia (just over the border) to the Georgia Winery.  They use muscatines here for their "grapes".  We toured the winery and of course had samples.  We went to Costco and met someone that had really wanted to buy our house but we beat them to it.  Pat knew him from TVA and Huntsville.  They were transferred up here about the same time.  They are our age and seem to be pretty nice, so we will probably get together with them some time.  Home and grilled steaks out and baked potato....we ran out of propane when we were almost done so....finished in the oven.

Sunday I had ordered some curtains and they had come so we put up rods and then I got to work steaming the wrinkles out.  Eight panels of suede like material floor to ceiling....it took me 4 hours!   Pat did more yard work and we got some pine straw mulch for the back yard trees and evergreens.

Now as for 1/2 and 1/2....it is half sweet tea and half unsweet tea!!!  LOL

Living Sweetly in the South

Miss Jan

Sunday, September 25, 2011

A Meat and Three

Every once in a while I will attempt to post about some "southern sayings" that I have encountered.  Maybe they aren't necessarily "southern only" but they are new to me since we have moved south.  One such saying is "A Meat and Three".  I mentioned this in an earlier post but now feel the need to expand on it.

Last year when we moved, the driver of the truck asked me where's the best place to get a meat and three.  I thought he was speaking a foreign language and had no clue what he was after other than food. Now I get it!

Now I have come across it several times.  It is on the menu a lot down here.  In Midwestern terms, aka Kansas/Jane's Place, it is good old fashioned home cooking - most of the time.   Sometimes it is real southern like fried okra, corn relish, flat green beans, and pimento spread. 

Sometimes it is served family style and other times it just shows up on your plate with a roll and 1/2 and  1/2  (I will tell you about southern 1/2 and 1/2 later.).

Hope y'all get it now as I do!

Living Sweetly in the South,

Miss Jan

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Furniture and Atlanta

Wow!  Sorry for so long since my last post!  Time has been just flying.  I can't believe that my baby will be 23 this weekend!  Happy early birthday, Katie, and that it will be officially fall. 

Last weekend seems like SO long ago.  Pat got home a little early and we drove 5 hours into North Carolina toward Hickory.  We stayed just shy of Hickory.  Driving the mountains in the dark was very stressful, not to mention the rock slide being cleared in the other lane.  They has closed a lane, redirected traffic and moved barricades under flashing lights and semi's going 35 miles an hour uphill and then trying to maintain 45 going down.  Yuck.  We definitely said that we would do the mountains the next day in the daylight.  Well, we did buy a leather sofa (brown - John Wayne looking) and two recliners that don't look like recliners in fabric.  They should be here before Christmas...yea!  However, Hickory is billed as the furniture capital of the U.S. and probably at one time...it was.  They have signs that advertise 20 miles of furniture stores and outlets. Not so much anymore.  Lots of closed shops. We did see some of the factories and saw lots of piles of sawdust, but the economy has really taken its' toll on them.  We went to one location probably the size of Oak Park Mall in Kansas City with smaller shops that represent all manufacturers in it.  You could buy off the floor samples, order, or really look for bargains in the basement.  There is a reason that they are bargain basement items....so far out that you would have to have had a special room designed around some of these pieces. Anyway, glad we went - no wondering about it anymore.

Yesterday, was Newcomers group.  We met in the morning to carpool to Atlanta (Marietta).  There were about 18 of us that went.   Atlanta is SO big.  We did some shopping on the square and then to lunch (of course) at Gabriel's.  The owner is a cousin of Paula Deen.  I had these illusions of a really neat old restaurant....  We had to order the night before as sometimes the wait is too long because it gets so crowded if you want to order off the menu or you just take a meat and three.  They make certain meats and then you order 3 side items.  Staple items in the south are pimento cheese and flat beans (very flat large green beans with not much taste).  I ordered the trio salad ( chicken salad -it's the south, pasta salad, and fruit salad) off the menu.  The restaurant is new and cold, crowded, and noisy.  My food was ready made in the to go refrigerator so it had been sitting there a while in a plastic tray.  A lot of us agreed, it is a place we would not go back to but glad we could say we had been there.  We left and went to a Huge Whole Foods Market.  They arranged a tour of the store for us and it was really fun.  The gal took us around and shared information and samples...we would be walking along and then to make a point, she would grab something off the shelf - open it up and then let us all try it.    We got home about 5pm.

The group is really fun.  It is great to meet new people and see new places, go out for lunch, coffees, and book club.  I think I told you that I was reading the October book, The Hunger Games.  It was really good and a real fast read....youth book that is a trio.  I read the whole series.  It is a sci-fi/social commentary book.   Now I am on to the November book, The Paris Wife.  I think it is about Ernest Hemingway's wife.

While I was in the store, Pat sent me a message that one of his contacts at Burns and Mac was going to be in town and wanted to meet with us and take us out to dinner.  We went to 212 Market Street.  (Again, not a lot of chains in the Chattanooga area - a lot of chefs just open their own store)  It was really pretty good. We told him we had never been there and that our company was usually our guinea pigs to get to try new places.  Of course we caught up on lots of news about Wolf Creek since he and Pat worked together there as well, and we talked about someday going to work for B/M but not right now.  Still opportunities in the NE but I said....who can afford to live there.

Living Sweetly in the South,

Miss Jan

Friday, September 16, 2011

Lions and Tigers and Bears....oh my

643 Deer Valley Drive




Well, you can say that fall is beginning to arrive in Tennessee!  When John and Janet were here we saw a mouse in our garage.....I screamed!  And then, the other day, we had a snake on our back patio......just thinking about it gives me the willies! Pat killed it and threw it over the fence.  It was a little one, but according to what I have read, in Tennessee snakes hatch in late summer......YUCK!  This one was black with bright green rings around it.  I can't seem to find a picture of it. Pat thought it was probably a corn or black snake.  Either way, I am very anxious about the yard right now!  Geckos were bad enough!

Wednesday I went to the Newcomers luncheon that I was telling you about.  It was there annual kick off meeting and fashion show.  Coldwater Creek put on the fashion and there was fajita bar set up for lunch.  The fashions looked a little bit better than CC had last year.  Even the manager, who I sat with, said so!  I joined the group.  Like I said earlier, they have activities every week.  I am signed up to go to Atlanta shopping with them next week.  They are going to some antique/shopping area in Marietta and then on to lunch at a restaurant owned by Paula Deen's relative or something like that...I will let you know more later.

I bought curtains for the back corner (kitchen, dinette, hearth) of the house and we tried them last night...they are going back today!  I will keep looking. I bought dark brown suede-like grommet top - not long enough.

Today I am down 15 pounds!!!! YEA!  It is work but it will be worth it.  I went shopping the other day and have changed clothes sizes, but didn't buy anything yet.  I will need to before too long.  YEA!

We leave for North Carolina tonight.  I hope it is worth it!

I have found two sites that I want to share with you all.  One is on facebook, called Crock Pot Girls.  It is a page that has gone viral!  It has some good tips and recipes on it.  The other page that I have become addicted to is  www.pinterest.com .  It is like having a favorites web site instead of just a favorites column on  the side of your computer.  It is fun to look at categories and see what others have posted and "repin" the ones you like to your boards and to see who likes what you have "pinned on your boards". 

The yard is looking greener and we have been watering so I hope we get some more grass.

Reading the paper yesterday and this is the funny for the day.... "He was shot in the head and then killed!"  Not he was fatally shot in the head, or the gun shot would resulted in his death or any number of other ways to say it....Pat said....the people here are down right mean to shoot someone first in the head and then kill them....that is just mean....Talk about showing your ugly side!

That is all for now.

Living Sweetly in the South,

Miss Jan-

Monday, September 12, 2011

Sometimes I feel like I am "a few strawberries short of a picnic"!

Well, I had my follow up visit to the opthamologist and we think the procedure did help my vision.  Now, I only wear one contact and don't reach for my readers near as much as I used to.  That visit was on Thursday right before P.E.O.  Are you tired of hearing about P.E.O. yet....too bad...!!!

I waited for a new gal who lives just up the mountain from me a little ways and off we went.  Her name is Karen; so I knew I would like her right away!  Anyway, she was being initiated that day.  We were to go..have brunch, meeting and short program.  We had the business meeting, a short program on P.E.O. etiquette and then home.  Karen has lived here about 7 years from California and told me about some other neat places. 

Friday - you guessed it...I got in the car and went to try out these new places.  I went over to the GA/TN line and went to an outlet store for bedding and curtains from JC Penney and Macy's that was advertised in the paper.  They did have a huge selection just not anything I wanted.  Left there and went to a placed that I had seen advertised on tv and the Sports Barn that morning for furniture.  It was okay..again..just not what I wanted.  Went from there to Southeastern Salvage.  It is a really neat store that you really have to go to every now and then because they get new shipments in all the time.  They have a lot of home decor, furniture, mirrors. baskets and such.  Saw a really neat pie safe looking piece but didn't buy it. They show you their items and then they show you where else you could buy it for a lot more money....Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn etc.

From there since I was across the street from Sam's I filled up the car and then went to pick up dry cleaning and then to the "wonderful" bakery Karen had told me about.  Well,  not quite what I expected and in a remote location that I woul have never tried unless someone had told me about it.  They only had dinner rolls and sweet breads for their breads but had a lot of pastries.  I bought what the clerk told me about that they were famous for....cheese wafers and this little cookie looking thing with icing on top as well as two petite fours.    The cheese wafers were the best...but not as good as mine or others that I have had...(showing my ugly side), the cookie things were just that....things...not sure what to make of them - they had some type of spice, grain or something in them that seemed "meaty".  Karen told me the petite fours were the best so I asked them..do you have any ....yes,  "stupid"  they are in the case in front of you.  It literally was not what I was expecting.  They were what the words mean...small cakes.  It was like someone took a sheet cake and cut it into squares..about 3 by 3 pieces and then put a sugar glaze (not a frosting) over it and put a little flour on top.  Live and learn and I won't try those again.  They do have great looking cakes and pies and something to think about for the holidays.  Home after all that.  Pat was home shortly after a meeting with the CEO of TVA!  I worry about him sometimes.  He was told to do a project that they don't have the money for.....Let's see if you want to do a project at your house you can't afford do you do it or not???  One of his co workers in Alabama did that and overspent the budget by $20M and then was let go....  Guess the CEO has a "slush fund" of his own.....damn the torpedos....full steam ahead.

Friday night we ate a quick bite at Chili's and then to a lawn and garden center on "So you want a lush beautiful lawn" .  It was a good talk and we learned a lot.  Sooooo...Saturday...yard work day!  We bought some bushes as two of ours had died and some pansies.  Pansies here bloom all winter or they are supposed to ....we will see. 

Saturday PM we went to the matinee of "The Help".  Very good.  Slow beginning and not as good as the book..never is.  It so reminded me of our mammy when I was little in the scene when they get off the bus.  And mom too!  Playing bridge and pay about $5.00 a day...going rate!  Grabbed a pizza and brought it home with a salad and wine.  Hot tub and bed.  It is getting chilly here in the evenings....low 60's but mid 80's in the day!

Sunday more yard work.  We watched a show on that channel I told you about earlier...EPIX about some dutsch people learning italian.  Two sayings for you....what does "jolly cola" mean???  In the show it was just a coke in a bottle.  And what does "a few strawberries short of a  picnic" mean.....ha ha.

This week I am going to a newcommers group luncheon and fashion show.  It is for newcommers but there are a lot of women who have been in it for years.  They have something every Wednesday. First Wednesday is book club.  I am reading "The Hunger Wars" for it.  Next is luncheon, then activity- they are going to Atlanta- I want to go next week.  Then coffee.  They play bridge and a lot of them are P.E.O.'s.

Made plane reservations to go to KC for the Junior League Show!!! YEA.  I am so excited.  We are going in October to visit Katie in Philly. This weekend we are going to High Point, NC to the furniture outlets.  It is about a 5 hour drive so we will go Friday night, spend the night and come home Saturday night I think. 
That is all for now..

Living Sweetly in the South (or trying to),

Miss Jan

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Tropical Storm Lee and Out of town Guests!

Well, let me start out by saying that we survived the Tropical Storm and two extended power outages.  After having no rain since July 6, we have had two days of solid rain....almost 10 inches!  We needed it so bad.  The soil here is not so great (very rocky, hence - Rocky Top Tennessee) so the tree roots don't grow very deep.  Once the soil is saturated and then the wind blows at all...down come the power lines. 

Laser eye surgery was fine.  I could have driven myself home - they didn't even check to see if I was getting in a car with someone...anyway.  They put a ton of drops in my eyes and then flashed some lights in and heard some buzzes.  I think my close up vision is better, so that is good.

We had some super company over the weekend.  John, Janet, Kona and Madison came to visit.  They arrived late Friday night.  It is a long drive.  We had grilled chicken wraps, cole slaw, and french fries for dinner.  Went for a dip in our hot tub and to bed. 

Saturday we all got up, dressed, and headed for Lynchburg, TN.  The home of the oldest federally registered distillery in the U.S.  We had lunch at Miss Mary Bobo's, a boarding house.  It is family style southern food and is a lot of fun.  They served: Fried Chicken, Meatloaf, red skinned potatoes, green beans, tomato/pepper relish, fried okra, corn bread, and their famous Jack Daniel baked apples.  For dessert we had a chocolate cake topped with whipped cream flavored with more Jack Daniels.  After lunch, we were ready for a walk so we went to the tour.  It was so crowded!  Even though we had been both of these places with some friends earlier, we learn something different every time we go.  Here is a picture of John and Janet with "Jack on the Rocks".



We came home and ate Croque Madame's for supper as we didn't need anything big.  Pat and I had these in France when we were there and absolutely loved them.  You take french bread, slice, butter and toast under the broiler on a cookie sheet.  Take out and turn over.  Add ham, cheese (we had a choice of Colby/jack, Havarti, Swiss, sharp cheddar and pepper jack).  Put back in oven to melt cheese and warm up. Take out add a fried egg on top.  We served it with mixed fruit salad.  Loved it!  If you don't add the egg, it is Croque Monsieur!

Sunday up and out to a place Rachel Ray made famous on her $40 a day trip here to Aretha Frankenstein's.  It is a hole in the wall in the middle of a north shore neighborhood in a house and serves breakfast, lunch, and beer!  We went there for brunch.  It was a lot of food!  The wait was quite long, but worth it.  They only seat about 40 folks at a time.

We took off from there and went to Lookout Mountain.  We were in luck at the National Park - they were doing a civil war demonstration.  I loved it!  Not sure how much everyone else did....until we came home and I showed them that our great great grandfather most likely had been here fighting with Sherman (Union) at the time....don't say it too loud around here...the war is still being fought!  As evidenced by the fact only confederate soldiers were in the reenactment.....see picture.



Confederate Soldiers


Pat and Jan on Lookout Mountain!

I love it!  Went from there with good intentions to go to "See Rock City" but Tropical Storm Lee reared it's ugly head.  We got rained out and decided to sit at Starbucks with coffee and watch it rain!
Home for dinner...out at the Blue Water.  We had always had great luck there, but not this time...it was not a place that we are looking forward to going back to after this experience.  We will find someplace else.  More Hot tub and bed.  The dogs were great even though it was raining.  A little mud inside but no messes!

Monday we got up and more rain!  Took a while to decide what to do...most of the places here are outside things to do.  This is a very outside kinda place.  We went to lunch at Taco Mamacitas - very good then to Costco, (John wanted to see what we had different here....Closed) and then on a driving tour, home to let dogs out, short nap and then we went to the movie, "The Debt".  It was very deep and not at all what I expected.  We all agreed - Good!

Home for dinner of what was supposed to be shishkabobs....NOT....Rain!!!  So we made stir fry! 

Clason's left on Tuesday morning with not power at our house....quick showers by candlelight.  Long drive but glad they came. Hope they come back.

Yesterday we didn't get power back until almost noon.  Just in time for the "show".  Cleaned in the afternoon.  Pat and I had left overs and went to bed....tired!  More power outages!


John and Janet waving good bye from Track 29.....Chattanooga Choo!
Today all is okay so far...they just called....Miss Jan...this is a reminder about your follow up visit ...

This is getting too long....

Until next time...
Living Sweetly in the South!

Miss Jan