December 19th, 2015

Friedrich Nietzsche: "Love is blind; Friendship closes its eyes."

Yet another busy week but we're taking some time out to spend time with our good friends from Tulsa.  They came out today to visit and do some shooting.  Yea!!!!  

I know, it's not Friday night, rather Saturday but we are hanging out in Winslow and we get to shoot guns so it's a big day for us Winslownians!

In other news, I am going to be published in an upcoming Chicken Soup for the Soul book, My Very Good, Very Bad Dog!  Monday, Damon and I are going out to celebrate the good news!!  The book will be released 2/9/16!

Good times, good friends, and good news!

December 11th, 2015

F. Scott Fitzgerald: "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired."

Another busy week and it's not over yet!  We have yet to finish our Christmas shopping so after work we had to pick up a few things.  I absolutely despise being out and about this time of year (especially the mall and any Wal-Mart) because traffic is a nightmare, people get down right nasty, and the stores are crazy crowded.  

I usually get my shopping done by October, some years, I've been done as early as the first of September.  Shopping early saves money and you get to avoid all the crazy people fighting over sales. Unfortunately, we have been so freaking busy the last month or two that I've fallen down on the job.

At any rate, we are now just about done, one more quick shopping trip next week and we will finally be done!!!!

Happy Friday Friends!

December 4th, 2015

Rita Rudner: "I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult."

Another busy week and I am glad it's over, well at least my work and volunteering duties are over for the week!!  Yea me!!!  

That being said, it's Friday Night in Winslow and I am late in getting our Christmas card picture put together.  So, we got all gussied up and attempting to take pictures with the (furry faced) children.......  But first, Sadie Mae wanted to play!

And Molly Brown couldn't be left out.......

And Strider, well he just wanted to sleep....

  But Damon managed to sneak a good shot of me and Strider boy!

It's been a busy day wrangling the puppies but they loved every minute of it and so did we!  Good end to a crazy busy week!

Happy Friday to all!

Thanksgiving 2015

Henry David Thoreau: "I am grateful for what I am and have.  My Thanksgiving is perpetual."

Super blessed, enough said.

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a goodnight!

November 20th, 2015

Paula Cole: "I think it's important to find the little things in everyday life that make you happy."

Super busy week; getting ready for my week off of work, a little Christmas shopping, little house work, etc., glad it's Friday!!!  I have been looking forward to my time off and it's finally here!

I'm kicking off my vacation with putting up the tree tonight!  That might sound like work but I love all things Christmas so to me, it's a perfect way to start my vacation!

  

Happy Friday, I hope everyone gets to spend time with their loved ones and as always, be thankful for the things you have!

November 13th, 2015

Pamela Voorhees: "You see, Jason was my son, and today is his birthday."

What a beautiful Friday Night in Winslow, enjoying the sunset on the porch with music and wine!

I definitely needed this tonight!  Normally, I don't pay any attention to "Friday the 13th" and I'm not normally superstitious.  But, I will tell you, today was a day from hell. 

Everything is all good though, it was just one thing right after the other today and it didn't seem like it would ever let up.

Wine in hand and hanging with my hubby makes it all better!

Happy Friday.....The 13th!

October 18th, 2015

Franka Potente: "To give somebody your time is the biggest gift you can give."

It's not Friday and it's not Winslow, we went to Tulsa to celebrate my Father-in-Law and Sister-in-Law's birthdays.  We had perfect weather for a cookout at Brushy Creek near Keystone Dam.

We had lots of fun spending time with our families and celebrating birthdays!  We love you all!

Happy Birthday Dad and Sis!

November 6th, 2015

Marcus Samuelsson: "Spices, of course, are essential."

It's another Friday Night in Winslow and we decided to do some organizing.  You should know by now that we love to cook and experiment in the kitchen.  We decided to do some rearranging of our kitchen cabinets to put our spices somewhere a little more accessible because we use them so much.  

We didn't realize just how many spices we had but when you lay them all out, I guess it's a lot!!

 

Excessive?  I don't think so, there are so many great spices out there and it's really fun to experiment with them!

Anyway, we got all our spices put away, after a glass or two of wine, we put on some music and started making dinner.

What's on the menu, you ask?  Chicken pot pie!!  They turned out great if I do say so myself!

Happy Friday!

October 30th, 2015

Lucille Ball: "Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a redhead."

It's been a few years since I dressed up for Halloween but this year I felt inspired.  Luckily, I work someplace that appreciates dressing up, we even had a costume contest and I won!

That's right, the one and only Lucille Ball!  It was a lot of fun dressing up though I think I was high all day because of the fumes from the Halloween hair spray.  So I got home and kicked off my heels and we finished up our Saw movie marathon.

Afterwards, Damon had to help me pick the twenty-seven bobby-pins out of my hair.  It was tricky because they all got sprayed orange and matched my hair.  The combination of the color spray and hair spray kept my hair in tact even after we removed the pins. The instructions on the can said to comb out as much of the color as possible to ensure it all coming out after washing.  So, I did my best to get a comb through it.......

  
Guess I could have gone as Einstein or maybe a psych patient or a woman who'd just been electrocuted?  Good times!!  

Happy Halloween!

Winefest Weekend (October 10th, 2015)

Charles Dickens: "Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine."

So it's been a really long time since I've shared our Friday nights in Winslow with you, but rather than go back and pick up where I left off, I'm just going to start new with something a little more recent.  Granted, it's not about a Friday Night in Winslow, but rather a wonderful weekend spent with great friends in Arkansas Wine Country!  That's right, Altus Arkansas, and it just so happened to be the weekend of the Wiederkehr Family Winery's Winefest!

First we met up with our very good friends form Tulsa at a really nice little RV park and set up our tents for camping that night.  We chatted with them for a bit while we finished unloading the cars and setting up our campsite.  

Then we all headed off to have some lunch at, what I think is the only restaurant in Altus, Owl's Roost Cafe.  It was a very small place and the service was a little slow but the burgers were excellent.  We always try to go to someplace local when we are on trips, versus the big chain restaurants, so I'm glad we were able to find this place for lunch.

After lunch, we stopped off for a wine tasting at the Post Family Winery.  Really nice place and lots of wine options, but it was admittedly disappointing that they only give you a little dab of five different wines, of your choosing, from their wine list.  It's not a big enough taste to make an informed decision, in my opinion, plus I really wanted to try all the wines before buying any.  Luckily, Damon and I had been there before so we had an idea of what we already knew we liked and that allowed us to try a few new ones. 

Next up, we headed over to the Winefest, which took place at Wiederkehr Wine Cellars.  They offered wine tastings there too.  They offered three different samples of their wines, and the place is really cool looking!  The winery tour was lacking a bit from what I remember the last time we went, but to be fair, we did catch the absolute last tour of the day.  We also went on a tram ride through their extensive vineyards. Thank goodness the tickets for the ride were only a dollar, because the vineyards, for the most part, looked dead or like they'd already been harvested some time ago.

We all spent most of the rest of the day there browsing the various vendor stalls that had setup for the Winefest, and we ran out of time to visit the other wineries in the area, so we headed back to the campsite.  Our tents were already up and ready to go so we (I mean the men), started us a fire to make our hot dogs for dinner.

We had a great time, hanging out with friends, talking by the fire, and of course, drinking wine.  It wouldn't be a trip to wine country if we didn't have some wine!

Some people may think it's odd to go camping in October, but that's about the start of when Damon and I will actually go camping.  We don't do snakes and I do not, under any circumstances, do any type of biting or stinging bug so we pretty much just say no to camping in the summer months.

For those of you who know us, you've probably heard some stories of our camping trips, one of which included sleeting throughout the night and us freezing our butts off until we opened up a handy emergency blanket.

We didn't need an emergency blanket on this trip because the weather was absolutely perfect!! It did get a bit cool later in the evening but once we got in the tent and under our bankeys, we were nice and warm.........or maybe we just had too much to drink and forgot how cold we were...... No, I'm sure we were warm!

Great trip and I can't wait until we can camp again, hoping to get at least one more trip in before the end of the year!

Until our next adventure.......or maybe just a quite night in little ol Winslow, who knows!

September 5th, 2015

Theodore Roosevelt: "It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things."

So it's not Friday Night in Winslow but rather a Saturday in Marble Falls, AR.  If your wondering where the bleep is that, I don't blame you!  It's located on highway 7, between Jasper and Harrison. Home of the old amusement park, Dogpatch U.S.A which is being revived.  The park opened in 1968 and was based on the comic strip, Li'l Abner.  From what I gather, they are not trying to restore it into an amusement park but they are trying to clean it up and save the old buildings!

They were having an event, Pirate Invasion, though I don't really get where the theme came from there were quite a few folks that got involved and dressed up.  Their FB page talked about explosive demonstrations, a parade, music, vendors, and more.  I located a flyer when we arrived that boasted of much more than that but it was a two day event and there was no schedule of events.  I'm a planner so it really sucked to not know when things were happening.  They desperately need an organizing fanatic (such as myself), to help them in their marketing and planning.  The site didn't give enough information to find your way there, let alone know when the events were.  In fact, their FB page told you the wrong place to enter and park!!  

At any rate, we arrived in enough time to see the "parade" which consisted of about a dozen ladies and gents dressed as wenches and pirates and they walked 20 feet or so into the "square".

After that, they gather around and played some music.  We walked around and checked out the vendors and then explored the park a bit. It was cool to see the old place and made me wish that somebody had gotten to saving it sooner.  I know people that have been there back in the day, including Damon.  I wish I could have seen it in all it's glory.  Anyway, really cool that someone is trying to save it!

Afterwards, we stopped off for a cold beer and some air conditioning (it was unbelievably humid that day), then headed back to the hotel to kick back and relax.  We stayed in Harrison because it was the closest we could find someplace to stay to Dogpatch.  We had dinner at a nice little Italian place called Roma Italian Restaurant and it was really good, didn't look like much on the outside but we were pleasantly surprised.

Before heading home, we realized how close we were to where some of Damon's family was many, many years ago.  We found the cemetery where they were buried and visited on the way back home.

Until our next adventure.......or maybe just a quite night in little ol Winslow, who knows!