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| Walking on the Elkmont, Alabama Trail |
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| Owen and Esther wearing Grandpa Hats to the Playground |
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| Owen Climbing at the Playground |
Saturday. 6. Today is our grandson Quinn’s 5th birthday. Jeremy called and talked to us with Quinn. Quinn was talkative and happy that it’s his birthday. He had been to his piano lesson and had a stack of birthday presents on the dining table next to him. They also had plans to go outside to play and to go to a cafe for a piece of celebration cake. Next week is the planned birthday party with friends. We got the report from Andrea and Jeremy about Quinn loving his birthday gifts. She posted pictures of him playing with his new magnetic squares and other shapes.
Sunday. 7. Worship today at Capshaw church in Harvest. One more Sunday after this and then a few days to our trip to England. I met an immigrant at church named Vickie. I got a few bits of information from her. She was there with her 2 children: Ryan, 11 and Naomi 9. Darrell and I enjoyed our time of singing and learning. Darrell and I had our delicious breakfast before church and came home for lunch. We made hamburgers. Then we went to Elkmont, about a 20 minute drive to one of our favorite walking paths. It’s so much nicer on a 75 degree day like today and the shade from the leaves is fabulous! We cooked dinner at home too. I did a couple loads of laundry and I texted Erin to see how her weekend is going while Eric’s out of town. I checked in with her about coming at 6 am on Monday morning for the day with the kids. Eric is driving back from Michigan, starting today and will take most of the day on Monday.
Monday. 8. Today I got up at 5am and I was ready by 5:30am to go to sit with Owen and Esther. Erin leaves for work at 6:30. Darrell got up from sleeping and I decided that I could stay here and do our morning exercises together and then get to Erin before she left for work. I sent her a text. We enjoyed our morning exercise routine with the doors open into our living room and bringing in the fresh, cool morning air. I left with my bag packed with my breakfast to cook before the kids wake up around 7- 7:30. I arrived to say good morning to Erin and wave goodbye to her as she heads to her work on the arsenal as an interior designer. Eric is driving back today. I have a quiet breakfast and the kids wake up one by one. They are happy and playful from the minute they are up. It’s a joy to share time with them. We play, get them dressed, and have some muffins and milk for their breakfast. Around 9:30 we load into our truck and go over to get Grandpa and head to their favorite playground in Athens. We stay at the playground for more than an hour. They get loads of running around, meeting new friends there and having a snack time. We take grandpa back to our house. Darrell and I fix our lunch of tacos and black beans. Esther has some beans and cheese while sitting at the table with us. After lunch, we load the kids up so that I can get them back to their house for afternoon nap. I arrive in about 15 minutes and Eric is there. Yay! He’s several hours ahead of what I expected! He gets big hugs from his kids and helps to get the car seats out of my truck and into his car. I say goodbye and get to come back home. I’m pretty tired and I don’t mind that I had a short day. Lol. Darrell and I take naps. Then Darrell takes off for a haircut and grocery shopping. Around dinnertime I suggest that we walk to the taco stand. We walk over to find out that it’s closed today. We walk back to our house as we have done this a couple of time while in this neighborhood. I have a dinner idea to make some skillet cooked chicken breast with italian spices and top it onto a salad. Darrell likes this idea too. We have a delicious salad with a Wasa cracker on the side for crunch and for adding to our fiber counts for our diet macros. On this afternoon I got my paints out and decided to find something on Youtube that I can actually do with my skill levels. I found a bookmark watercolor class. It’s a picture of purple flowers. By evening I had my beautiful bookmarks made except for the ribbon that I will buy and put on to finish them. I love my creation, and I have four sweet gifts for giving to my friends.
Tuesday. 9. We slept in today to 6:30. It felt so nice to get up when we were ready. We did our more difficult ab routine workout that we do weekly. We were ready to have our repeated breakfast that seems to be a dieting success for us. It’s very delicious and the macros are right on target for our goals. After breakfast we are reading and then sharing articles with each other. Darrell has been reading articles from Veg Out Magazine that we both really enjoy. I read Bill Murphy’s daily article and 7 other things worth knowing. One of my articles was about a man in an ice cream suit sitting at the top of a Colorado mountain giving out ice cream to hikers! It was quite entertaining and I read the entire article with delight and hope that this ice cream man would keep showing up in his suit at different peaks! Today we have two Bible classes: a 10am at the church building in Harvest and a 1pm online with our English friends in Tunbridge Wells. After our 10am class on Acts 13, friend Jackie was asking about our vehicle and where we were leaving it for our time out of the country. I told her that we usually leave it at a son’s house, but this time we will leave it at the airport. She then offered to store it at her place and with agreement from her husband Bubba. We certainly took her up on that! Wow. I sent her our travel details and got that arranged with a whole lot of thank-yous! We will likely try to get to the taco truck today or another day this week. We met up with Samuel at the taco truck. Darrell and I had left overs to take back home. In the evening we took a walk at Swan Creek walkway in Athens. Ran into our friend Rebecca for the 2nd time this week. We shared our ‘protein’ discoveries and experiences of our diet changes with her. It’s like breaking a code to understand the counterintuitive way we have been eating plenty and improving our health respectively. We are still surprised at our results, after a year of eating more protein, less saturated fat and more fiber and tracking,
Wednesday. 10. Morning routines: exercise; breakfast; time for reading and talking. 9am I have a 1 hour EPT phone call with my NY friend Steve. During my EPT reunion a couple weeks ago, I drew a free session with Steve. I’ve been a colleague with him since the 1990’s! While on the phone with him, he lets me know that he will give me time for a session anytime that I want! I don’t have to draw a give-away! Lol. Darrell goes to meet Eric and the kids at a playground for a couple hours. We have our Mexican left-overs for lunch and they taste about as great as they did yesterday! In the evening we have Bible class at Capshaw church in Harvest.
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| View of the Tennessee River at Scottsboro, Alabama |
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| Driving Up The Mountain to Mentone, Alabama |
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| Meeting at Wildflower Cafe in Mentone, Alabama |
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| Porch at Wildflower Cafe. Mentone, Alabama |
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| Signs at Wildflower Cafe, Mentone |
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| My Lunch at Wildflower Cafe: Black beans, potatoes, portabella mushroom, stirfry veggies, chicken breast |
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| Laura's Chicken Salad on Greens with Fruit |
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| Darrell's Shrimp and Grits with Alabama Sausage |
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| Hot Tea and Custard Pie |
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| Darrell's Peanut Butter Pie |
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| Laura's Hummingbird Cake |
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| Friends at Little Canyon Falls at DeSoto State Park, Alabama |
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| Overlook at Little Canyon Scenic Drive |
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Quinn's Birthday Cake and Bluey Toys on His 5th in Brazil.
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Thursday. 11. One of the days I have been waiting for! Leaving about 9am to drive to Mentone, Alabama to meet my best friend Laura for 11 am lunch at award winning Wildflower Cafe. We got back to our house at about 5pm. We had a sunny day and beautiful drive to Mentone. We met Laura who also arrived from her Tennessee home about 2 hours away. We got our place in line and then enjoyed the quirky Wildflower Cafe with catching up on each other’s lives. After lunch and dessert, we set out for the Little River Canyon Visitor Center. Once there we got directions for the most scenic drive of the Canyon of 11 miles. Darrell drove us all together through the windy roads with canyon overlook stops. There was water in the largest falls, but not much. The canyon was visible on some stops and on other stops it was a canopy of trees with leaves. We took about an hour to do the tour and get Laura back to her car at the visitor’s center. We said our goodbyes and got on the road for the 2 hour return trip.
Friday. 12. Lovely morning together. We did our difficult 40 minute workout and it feels so good to be able to do it and to get it completed. Darrell made pancakes today that will last us for 3 days. They were delicious! Eric decided to bring Owen and Esther over around 9:30. Owen wasn’t feeling well and threw up as soon as he got into the house. Eric took him back home and Esther stayed with us for the next 1 ½ hours. Eric left her car seat so I could bring her back home. After that I met my friend Melanie for lunch. We spent time catching up and sharing our faith and family news together. We planned a couple of more get togethers because we have known each other about 30 years and we really enjoy each other’s company. I did a little shopping and came back to the house. Later, I cooked dinner for us. We took an evening walk. I also cooked some pork tenderloin and sliced it up for our final week of breakfasts.
Nomad Notes:
Quinn’s 5th birthday reminds me of the year 2020. He was born in Vancouver, Washington, next to Portland, Oregon. The pandemic was in full swing and wearing facemasks was a big deal of which side of belief you carried for many of the political conversations taking place at that time. There was a wide range between the 50 states and their unique ways of dealing with the spread of covid and trying to understand more about it. All the while dealing with the healthcare systems and also with the general public, public places, and the federal mandates and controls vying with the local powers and the compliance or non-compliance of people. All of this seemed to show up in whether or not you were willing to mask your face, where you would wear your mask or your disagreement and refusal in these matters. My early Nomad Diary began 5 years ago. After Quinn was born in Washington state, we traveled there to see our first grandchild. It was sweet. The pandemic and the political interposement of ‘hands off’ and ‘keep your distance’ policies had changed all of our pre-determined expectations with our closest relationships. We respected Jeremy and Andrea’s personal choices to follow distancing procedures. This was the fall of 2020. The pandemic discussions and political ordinances were going on in various ways through the end of June 2022. We didn’t know in 2020 how long this would last and all the turns it would take. We were quite relieved in 2022 when there was a letting go of the restrictions in England because that’s when we arrived there to spend the next 4 months.
Getting our calendar filled in and discussing our stay options and how long we are wanting to be where we unpack our bags. We drove by a house west of Athens on a river that we rented for a week in November. We saw that it is on a very steep grade that we couldn’t tell when choosing it. After thinking about this house, we decided to cancel our reservation and look for one that is closer to the airport in Huntsville and is on a flatter property. We ended up looking separately at a lot of houses, mostly on airbnb. We selected some of our favorites. I told Darrell that I would like to stay up to a month in this house as soon as we get back from our month-long cruise. If he really needs to move, then I can do that too, but we have some great benefits to stay still for about a month at this time. We ended up finding a house in Harvest and renting it.
On Sunday a housesit in Ithaca, New York showed up.
We talked about this one and decided to apply for it. We went to Ithaca once for a couple of nights on a road trip. We were astounded by the area and went to at least 10 huge waterfalls. We were very impressed. This house sit has 4 applicants already. Darrell got our application turned in. Then the app closed off any more applicants for this sit. Now we wait to see if we get an interview for a possible stay.
Favorite tv shows this month: The Repair Shop. Escape to the Country. Dry Bar Comedy.Ugly House to Lovely House.
DDP Yoga daily workout routines: It’s been 13 years since we began doing DDP yoga together first thing, after getting up in the morning. We began doing the easiest routine ‘energy’ 3 times per week. It was difficult back then, but I needed it. Darrell was wanting an exercise routine too. Around 10 weeks into doing the routines, Darrell could touch his toes for the first time in years! We kept getting better and better at the routines. We added in more difficult and longer routines. There were less than 10 routines to choose from on the dvd’s that we had purchased. We worked up to doing a routine every other morning. By year 3 I remember that I was feeling better with these routines than without them. Sometime through the years we worked up to 6 days a week and now we do every day. We vary the intensity of our workouts. The routines that were difficult for us are enjoyable and achieveable now. We do the easiest and shortest routine about every 4th day. We carry our yoga mats with us in our suitcases.
Time in Prayer: I am reminded daily to pray. And even though I have a practice of praying daily and even multiple times per day, there are times that I forget to pray first. There are times that I forget to thank God for prayers answered. These times when I forget, teach me to go back again and to remember. I remember to ask God, to know and affirm that God knows and is involved and cares. I remember to share with God and to think, to hope for, and to thank through life difficulties and through the easy times.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Phil 4:6
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Mt 6:6
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:16
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you 1 Thes 5:16-18
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