Tennessee y'all

Jason and I celebrated 16 years by heading to Gatlinburg, TN.  On the way we stopped for lunch at a tea shop, which turned out to be much more frou-frou than Google Maps let on.

It was delicious, though.

Was I thrilled to finally arrive in our brand-new, 2400-square-foot luxury cabin rental for a week of relaxation with my boo, get all our supplies stocked away, and heat up a very fine frozen dinner while pouring a glass of wine?

Yes.  Yes I was.

We spent the Actual Night at Dolly Parton's Staaaaaaampede!

The pre-show: Mountain Ruckus, a great bluegrass band name if ever there was one.

The emcee for the evening's entertainment/competition.  

We were on the South side [that's the blue team].  We had to choose sides when we bought the tickets.  Jason's a southerner, born and bred, but I'm a Yankee, so I was very stressed about which side we should choose.  Jason settled on South since that was the home team.  We didn't want to end up on the wrong side of any civil animosity.  

In between cheering our side and jeering at the Yankees, we tucked into our roast chicken dinner and watched stunts like this guy riding a pair of horses around, over, and through fire.

The riders also changed out of their team colors in between races for a little peaceable equestrian square dancing.

Another night we spent at Ole Red, a restaurant/concert venue with, inexplicably, a tractor stuck upside-down to the ceiling.

Because....Tennessee?

We had no shortage of fun in our own house, though.  We spent Sunday watching football at our very own private sports bar with everything cozy.

Some days we just stayed inside and watched the snow fall.

The last day we gathered our courage, bundled up thick, and headed downtown to walk the strip.  Such an endeavor required first tanking up at Crockett's Breakfast Camp.

These were the most amazing pancakes ever.  I started by ordered a stack of three.  The waiter said, "Have you seen them?"  I said, "OK, two."  I more or less got a birthday cake without the icing.

s

Sooooo good 

After a while we took refuge from the cold in Ripley's Aquarium, which turned out to be far classier than anything with the Ripley's name has a right to be.

Very cool shark tunnel.

Horrible, nightmarish creatures...some sort of Japanese crabs.  They were the size of golden retrievers.  Without the furry appeal, though.  Definitely makes you rethink ever swimming in the ocean.

Good job, Nelson!  Shame on you, Peter Penguin.

After our fill of sharks and stingrays and jellyfish and penguins, we spent the afternoon tasting moonshine.

Who knew a) there were so many flavors, or b) that they could taste so good?

I love this guy.

I hand it to you, Gatlinburg.  You do moonshine well.  And ceiling tractors.  And penguins.  And bluegrass and luxury cabins and dancing horses.  I tip my cowboy hat and click my new boots to you.  

What's saving my life right now

Modern Mrs. Darcy has such a brilliant Groundhog Day tradition to post about what's saving our lives right now.


I didn't know how to feel when my calendar told me that January was almost over.  My first thought was Yay...until I remembered that next comes February, which is worse, followed by March, which is just as bad.

It is, however, always close to 80 degrees in the chicken house where Jed is working these days.  His employers hired him to take care of things on his own while they were out of town last weekend.

Honorable mentions this year go to my ginormous tea stash of various kinds that I got for Christmas; afternoon quiet time in my room after school; and hiring a cleaning service.  I'd probably lose my mind without any one of these.

But the winner for what's saving my life right now is both idiotically simple and groan-inducingly difficult.


Getting out of the house.

I regularly fantasize about being stuck on a deserted island.  I always kind of wonder why Robinson Crusoe was so desperate to get off.  If there was a hermit club, I would join it.  Except I wouldn't.  And there wouldn't be one anyway...

My favorite place in the world is in my room under a fuzzy blanket.  So when life is stressful (as it is), I tend to dig in my heels under that fuzziness.  But through herculean effort, I actually left the house three times this week, not counting church, errands, or kids' activities--and two of those times represent patterns that will continue for the coming weeks.

Our church is doing Christianity Explored on Tuesday nights, over a meal, and I'm on the clean-up team.  So far it's been far more laughing than sweating.

Wednesday night my dear friend planned a girlfriends' night out to dinner, which was so lovely and refreshing and lots of fun and laughs.

And on Thursday afternoon I started my career as a library volunteer.  My shift is once a week, and, this time at least, I enjoyed a good long walk to and fro (and even had my act together enough to have a pot of hot soup waiting for me when I got home).  Being my first time, I got a tour of the library, much of which I knew from my extensive time spent there, but also including the very exciting behind-the-scenes and behind-the-desk tour.  Then I got to shelve a rack of books and learned how to check in returned books.  It was all nerdy and thrilling and slow-paced and I'm looking forward to next week.

Two years ago I posted about how sunrise runs were saving my life.  It could well be that the things we think will kill us (running at dawn; leaving the house, ever) are the things we realize are saving our life.