georgia on my mind

Posted by Stacey on Friday Oct 24, 2008 Under Family, outdoors

Tim and I drove up to see Mom and Dad the weekend of the 24th. The ‘real’ objective was to bury the cat in the “Ewing Pet Cemetery” (which is next to the indian burial ground their house was built upon) but it turned into a pretty sweet side trip where Tim was able to spend 24 hours hiking/camping on the Appalachian Trail while I spent time with the parentals and their zoo.

Saturday, we dropped T off on the trail up at Unicoi Gap and then we drove over to visit Mercier Orchards in nearby Blue Ridge. It was a really cool place. We picked up a ton of apples and even picked up some sweet potatoes… yum! And good lord, you COULD SMELL the fried apple pies from the freakin’ parking lot! We didn’t get any but it was SO tempting. I LOVE the byline on their site: “Nothing says Mercier like a Fried Apple Pie.” haha

We ate lunch at a shi shi restaurant called Repaz on Main. It was okay, but the portions were a little small, even by bistro standards. The interior was gorgeous though and I wish I could have stolen the painting from above the fireplace. It would’ve looked supa-sweet in our living room. The cool thing about the place, that I found out later (and was disappointed that they didn’t advertise very well), was that they buy almost all of their food locally- farm to table.

After lunch, we drove by the Blue Ridge Reservoir which was pretty cool.

Overall, the weekend, as usual, passed by far too quickly. Sunday afternoon, we picked up Tim at Dick’s Creek Gap (he walked 16 miles this trip), went home and ate a delicious rib dinner (complete with Mom’s potato salad and deviled eggs(!)), and afterwards laid the Shadout Meeps to rest. She got a good spot.

The drive home was (thankfully!) uneventful and Mort, Sarah, & Harriet were excited to see us. :)

Georgia Pictures:

Tim’s Hike:

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brotherly love…

Posted by Stacey on Wednesday Oct 22, 2008 Under Family

We had an awesome surprise on October 22nd! Tim’s brother Thomas dropped in for a visit!! He was down in Tampa on business and drove all the way up here to have dinner with us and hang. The only thing that could’ve made things better was if Kathy had been able to join him!

Unfortunately, in all the excitement, I forgot to take any pictures so the only proof that he was here, in person, at our house(!), is the very sweet note he left us:

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heroic effort – life saved

Posted by Stacey on Wednesday Sep 17, 2008 Under Family, heroes

My little brother was just awarded with a medal for saving someone’s life back in May!! We’re so proud of him! Way to go Jay!!! :D Too bad they didn’t give you guys a raise along with that! ;)

Medal:

Medal, letter, certificate, and pin:

You can see more pictures here on MY FLICKR PAGE.

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the wood + the harvin = woodharvin

Posted by Stacey on Wednesday Sep 10, 2008 Under Family, Food, Friends

OMG, do we ever *HEART* having company!!! W & C were up for the weekend for the UF/UM game AND to visit C’s mom AND they chose to stay with US!!! Me, Tim and the kitties!!! SWEET!

Momma Wood had surgery on Friday which BTW, was VERY successful and she’s doing SO well that she got to go home about a week early!! (Who’s the cylon now??! ::grin::) We are all so happy for her and the entire family! Man! it’s so freakin’ nice to have good news around here for once! :D

Before I sign off, something that you need to know about CWH- this chica breathes & exhales creativity 24-7! This trip she brought me this totally kicka** bento lunch box that she made!! My embarrassingly crappily lit photos do not even come close to doing it justice- but that’s okay, this “bento box” is SO cool that it will actually burn out your retinas if you stare at it directly for too longl!! :D

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clannus austinus…

Posted by Stacey on Wednesday Sep 10, 2008 Under Family, Food, Friends

Labor Day Weekend Tim & I went Tally for a day/night to visit Clannus Austinus and it was good.

Highlights include but are not limited to:

The requisite trip to Decent Pizza was made…

Damn Decent Pizza!

Tim and John consumed many Liberty Ales…

Liberty AleLiberty AleLiberty AleLiberty Ale

I finally got to visit 10,000 Villages (was always closed during prev. trips) w/Ally & Lydia…

10,000 villages

We were treated to brunch at the “Grouper” (heehee) bagel shop across the street from World Market…

Tim loves Grouper Bagelz!

A trip was made to the Florida Museum of History downtown…

Florida Museum of History

So sad to leave…

waaaaaah!!!

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visite avec ma famille y toute notre garde-manger

Posted by Stacey on Wednesday Sep 10, 2008 Under Family, Food

Back in early August, my ‘rents sent us a small freezer as an early Christmas prezzie! One VERY early Saturday morning, around 6:30am, I get a phone call from Mom, letting us know that there was a delivery truck on it’s way to our house and that they would be there at 7am! Holy Crap! 7am?? Saturday morning??! Ouch! Luckily we’d only just fallen asleep a few hours earlier! heh! :) Sure enough, just a little after 7am, we got a loud-a**ed “cop knock” on our front door. We ran downstairs, opened up, and the giaganticon freezer box was sitting right outside our front door.

The delivery guy was long gone, already out in the parking lot, revving the truck and subsequently burning rubber as he pulled a neutral drop & peeled out of our ‘hood. Oooh, I just bet ‘Virginia Slim’ across the street loved that!! mwuahahahaha! ::clapping hands together with evil glee:: >:)

Magic Chef

We cut the box away from the unit and it was so light, we were able to carry it right out to the porch without a dolly. I plugged it in and it fired up like a champ. Tim collapsed back on the couch for a quick 15 minute nap before he had to leave for his mountain bike riding date with Barry, while I put half of the things from our tiny fridge freezer out there- it was so exciting! (yeah, you know you’re getting old when appliances are exciting!) :)

A coupla weeks later, Jay & Lorraine came up from Ft. Meyers to stay with us. Saturday morning we got up at the a**crack of dawn, and drove up to Adel, Georgia where we met up with our parentals. Adel is comprised of nothing but a few gas stations and an old strip mall off I-75 that has sadly faded from the glorious King Frog Outlet Center that it once was in the late 70s/early 80s. We instead decided to all head 20 minutes north to Tifton- a smallish town absolutely teeming with southern culture- a shiny little bauble hidden between the folds of Valdosta & Macon. ;D

Tifton Georgia - Southern Gem The FRIENDLY City

Jay & Lorraine generously treated all of us to lunch at a restaurant in the “Friendly City” and I don’t know about anyone else, but Tim and I had an awesome time and were both sad that our time with the ‘rents was so short. Before we parted ways, Mom & Dad unloaded about FOUR GABILLION pounds of fresh, frozen, and canned veggies, canned jams & jellies, dozens and dozens of fresh eggs, and baked goods from their jeep into our wagon. All was from their garden and ab. amazing. I’m still kicking myself for not taking a picture of the back of our station wagon, loaded down with fresh veggie booty. It was quite a sight to see. :)

Jay, Lorraine, Tim & I kicked around Tifton for a little while longer before heading home. We stopped at the interstate Famous Adcock Pecans store- who hasn’t seen the billboards on I-75 for the last hundred forevers??! We couldn’t resist!

Adcock Pecans

It was cleaner and bigger inside than I’d imagined it would be. They had TONS of jellies & sauces and their pecans were pretty cheap. I bought a big 2lb bag for less than five bucks (to take home and put in the freezer! haha). Tim got a jar of powdered, just-add-water, peanut butter to try out for his hiking trips (yeah, it looks just as skeevey as it sounds…). He hasn’t tried it yet, BTW. Next stop was a store downtown that we thought carried camping clothing but it turned out to be an old fashioned department store with creepy locals giving us outsiders the stink-eye. We headed home after that and Jay and Lorraine continued on home to Ft. Meyers from there.

CORN muthaf!ckas! CORN!! FULL!!

Several weeks after that (yesterday actually), Tim & I received a box of baby roasting potatoes (the last of the taters out of their garden) along with three adorable baby butternut squash from their garden. Our pantry & freezer now runneth over thanks to Mom & Dad and all their garden laboring and we seriously can’t thank them enough.

few of the many

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le mort…

Posted by Stacey on Wednesday Aug 20, 2008 Under Animals, Family, Life

Well, we dropped the boy off this morning for an abdominal ultrasound. The vet thought she felt a lumpy tumor in there last week and thought it would be a good idea to do this, espec. in light of his recent digestive issues. The specialist from UF did the scan and found that some of the loops in his small intestine are hardened. It could be cancer or it could be irritable bowel disease. Also, one of his kidneys is larger than the other, indicating a possible kidney infection (even though he’s not presenting outward signs of one).

Our vet had several options. We could do exploratory surgery and get a definitive diagnosis of cancer or IBD to the tune of $700-900 bucks. If it was cancer then he could do chemo at UF for a couple thousand more dollars. The problem (besides the primary issue of us just simply not having the cashola) is that he’s 17, going on 18, and has a heart murmur which makes anesthesia tricky. So those two issues combined with our brokedness pretty much nixes the surgery/chemo-if-necessary route.

She told us that if it is IBD, we would treat it by steroids and if it was cancer, steriods would keep the growth at bay for a time. So we’re going the steroids route. It’s a real bummer to see him so thin- he’s lost 3lbs since May and is down to 6lbs now (keep in mind, this is a cat who has been 14.7 lbs pretty much his entire life up until the last year). I gave him a bath Tuesday night and he looked so much like Pris in the tub- he’s that small now. :\

The good news is that when Pris was on steroids, they bought her two extra years near the end. So maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll buy us just a little extra time with the big guy not so big guy. :)

He’s so happy to be home tonight. It’s kinda sad, they missed a few spots on his belly when they shaved him so he looks a little funny. We started him on the steroids earlier this eve along with antibiotics to clear up the possible infection. Man, it’s hard to believe that it’s been 17 years since Tim rescued him from Molnar in Ft. Pierce!

Morty, our shaved belly kitty.  he did give them hell in the vet's office today during his ultrasound. that's my boy! haha

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the “shadout meeps”

Posted by Stacey on Friday Aug 1, 2008 Under Animals, Family

PRIS = squeedunk, beebs, beebers, peeps, peeper, cheetah, sweetie-beetie, “p,” poops, pooper, sweetie, baby-girl, pretty girl, beautiful girl, sweetie, little one, swiss miss, the swiss miss pris, miss thang, “p-p,” kitty-witty, french fry, princess p, squirrel-girl, sweetie-pie, my baby, squee, cheetah-girl, cheetah-wheelie, schupeup, schupeupty-peupty, schupeupty-peupty-pents, prissy, miss priss, AND the shadout meeps.

the shadout meeps

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christmas 1973…

Posted by Stacey on Thursday Jul 17, 2008 Under Family, Life

This is my most favoritest video clip ever and I could watch it over and over again forever…

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anniversarius…

Posted by Stacey on Friday Jun 13, 2008 Under Family, Friends, Life

Well, it will be 18 years for us this year and yesterday marked the 9th year of the “government sanctioned” portion of our union. Has it really been that long since we had that awesome party with our best friends and family??! Well, NEXT year is #10 for us and that means we will ALL party once again like it’s… yep… 1999… ;)

http://xkcd.com/162

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