Without Further Ado

Cool weather. Monday night football on tv. Cats snoring on the bed. Good writing atmosphere, right? Without further ado, here are my Ten Things of Thankful for this week:

1. There was a lot of rain last week. It's been really dry around here, so the rain was welcome EXCEPT when a big storm blew up one morning at school, and I had to lower the shades on the windows so the nugs couldn't see the lightning. Good news is none of them really noticed the thunder that followed, which perhaps will let you know what the noise level was like INSIDE the room....

2. My husband and I took Thursday, Friday, and Monday off for a mini vacay, and we began it with a visit to Silver Dollar City on Thursday, between rain showers. If you have a season pass and go to a certain number of their festivals, you qualify for a pewter Christmas ornament that you can pick up during Ozark Mountain Christmas. We had to make it to the fall festival rain or shine! While we were there, I devoured, and I do mean DEVOURED a small loaf of cinnamon bread that was utterly amazing. I'm calling it research, because I plan to try to recreate this delicacy, but my husband said I was just a piggy, and yes, I did share with him, but no, it was NOT a 50/50 share, because RESEARCH.

3. On Friday, we drove to Little Rock in (you guessed it) THE RAIN. It's a beautiful drive from Branson to Little Rock WHEN IT'S NOT RAINING. The highway winds through the Ozark Mountains and the Boston Mountains and has fun attractions like runaway truck ramps along it. Our brakes did not fail us, but the anti-skid device on the car kicked in once and scared the bejeebers out of me. We found an awesome little diner in Clinton, Arkansas, where I thought they were serving me pineapple and gherkins with my french toast but found out they were actually something called a luna grape, and we also made it through Damascus, Arkansas, without getting caught in a speed trap, which SOMEONE in my family **cough cough Emma cough cough** cannot say. 

I ask you, do these look like pickles or grapes?

4. We went straight to my son and daughter in law's house, narrowly avoiding a severe thunderstorm and getting to the house before the next wave hit. We got to visit for a bit and see (barely) our two grandcats (they're skittish, even though I brought them presents) before checking into our Airbnb and then meeting the two of them for dinner and an evening at our Airbnb.

His white coat was hanging by the door and
I couldn't resist!

5. While we were visiting after dinner, my son was poking around the house we were staying in, peeking in closets, opening drawers, tapping on the fish tank, and picking up and analyzing each item on the book shelf in the living room. The last thing he picked up was a round box that had a plaque on it and engraved with someon'e name. The lid was loose, so he opened it and looked inside, pulled out a plastic bag, and said, "Why would someone keep sand in this?" Guess what? NOT sand. Cremains. He hastily put it back (AFTER the rest of us yelled at him to do so), but it certainly was the most interesting thing I've ever seen in an Airbnb.

6. The wind changed direction and became pretty fierce, and small branches were even falling out of the trees when my son and DIL left, and shortly after that, we heard a boom outside and the power went out. It was definitely the sound of a transformer blowing, but none of the other houses on the cul-de-sac lost their power, which was odd. It was fairly heavily wooded behind the house, and we couldn't tell if any of the homes back there were affected or not. I sent a message to our Airbnb host to let her know, then texted my son to find out the name of the power company so I could report it. We were using the flashlights on our phones, but my battery was on 20% and my husband's on 50%, and my son told us there were flashlights in the nightstand in the bedroom, so I'm thankful after all that he snooped around the house!

7. Our host got back to us and kept sending me the updates about the power as she received them (estimated repair by 10 pm, then 12 pm, then no promises after they passed that time). We both slept fitfully, my husband mostly because he couldn't use his CPAP, and me, because (a) I was pretty sure my son had conjured up some kind of spirits from opening the box of cremains, (b) I was worried about the aquarium in the living room and wondering when I would have to find a straw and blow into their water so they wouldn't die, and (c) my husband couldn't use his CPAP. At 4:30, my husband heard voices in the backyard, saw men with headlamps, hoped they were with the power company, and then all the lights in the house came on - yay! Oh, and the fish coughed a bit but were otherwise fine....

8. I had this big plan to take the trail up Pinnacle Mountain on the west side of Little Rock, but apparently it's more of a climb than I am capable of doing (so says my family and they're probably right), so we took an easier hike on a trail that didn't require you to be part mountain goat, but it would have helped. It was about a 3 mile loop (truly a loop and not an up-and-back, as I've made that mistake before and my husband has never let me forget it). Neither my husband nor I fell down, and my son and DIL didn't get so far ahead of us as to lose us, although they may have wanted to. It was really pretty with perfect weather (meaning no rain OR wind).

The doctors.

My dad would say Indians bent this
tree which may or may not be true.

Caught a little golden hour light

Beautyberries. ps Get the "Picture This" app
for identifying plants. So handy!

9. My husband and I squeezed in a little thrift shopping throughout the trip, not really finding anything, although I did find more than one treasure that he wouldn't let me buy.

Caption this yourself

Mama Mama is a Llama

10. My daughter was in Fayetteville for homecoming (different part of Arkansas from where we were) and left her cat at our house with our three so Calvin wouldn't be lonely. I don't know what went on while all of us were gone, but after she left this morning to go back to Kansas City, our three cats have slept pretty much non-stop, and she reported that Calvin has done the same once she got him back home. At least we ended with the same number of cats we started with!

I hope you got rain if you needed it or had beautiful weather when you wanted it. I hope you saw people you love and ate too much food because you could. I hope you spend some time becoming one with nature or one with a comfy chair, whichever best suits you, maybe even both. I hope if you haven't counted your thankfuls lately that you do so starting today.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter