Day 334 Mexican Train dominos game app

Today was a busy day. Lots of catching up on chores. So I downloaded a new app for playing Mexican Train dominos. It is fun to play and maybe I can hone my skills.

Day 333 Mexican Train Dominos

After spending the day shopping with my sisters and mom, we headed back to the house. Mom taught us Mexican Train dominos. It is the game all the senior citizens love. It was a fun game. We had a blast playing it.

Day 332 Celebration of Lights

Tonight the city of Knoxville had their Celebration of Lights. It is when they light their Christmas tree and turn on all the lights downtown. My Mother, sister and I went. We went down a little too late and had to watch the fireworks from the car but the lights were beautiful. It was extremely crowded and the lines to get the free hot chocolate and to toast marshmallows were extremely long. We had fun though.

Day 331 Pumpkin Cake

Today is Thanksgiving. I only had part of my family here. My sweet daughter could not be here but my son and his family came. The dessert my daughter-in-law, Keri brought was a pumpkin cake. It was the first time she had made it and it was delicious! I had never tried pumpkin cake but I am a big fan of the one she made.

We also went to see our tree at The Fantasy of Trees.

This picture is my niece, Jen and her daughter, Reagan.

It is a great picture of the tree.

Day 330 Altered a crochet pattern

I was crocheting a sweater for a young woman I think of as my other daughter. I did not like the way the ribbing was done. I tried it the way the pattern was written but I did not like the way it looked so I made my own ribbing. It turned out so cute.

Day 329 Sitting next to the Chancellor

Today at my Exempt Council meeting, our guest speaker was the Chancellor of the University. I was sitting there before the meeting started talking to a friend when someone sat down beside me. I turned around to say hello and it was our guest speaker- The Chancellor. Quite a shock for me. We exchanged a few words of greeting and then the meeting started. I have never been that close to him. He was interesting.

Day 328 Friend sick

Today I found out a dear friend's husband is very sick. This is the first time I have had a friend's spouse this ill. It is scary.

Day 327 Free tickets

Today was day one of handing out free tickets to the Fantasy Tree. We got 21 free and I am enjoying sharing them with friends and family. Some of them have never been so I am giving them a first.

Day 326 Fantasy of Tree decorating

The day arrived. It was time to put all of our hard work on our tree. Taylor joined my sister Marian and me and we set off to decorate our tree. I dropped them off with all our stuff and went to park the car. The place was well organized but the trees were close together. I felt bad for the lady next to us. She was all alone. It took us three hours. I cannot imagine how long it took that poor woman. I think our tree turned out pretty. We had a couple of people comment on our homemade ornaments. Here are pictures.

Day 325 Grocery shopping

Today is the Friday before thanksgiving. I needed to do my grocery shopping. I was going after work and dreading it. Then I thought why not go at lunch. So I did. It went really fast. I stopped by the house and threw the cold stuff in the frig and back to work. It would have taken forever if I had done it after work. Thanksgiving shopping during lunch is the way to go.

Day 324 Opening mail

Today I opened mail at work. Doesn't sound like a big deal but since we handle all the invoices for the entire athletic department, it is a big deal. We have a challenging time coming up next month. One of our employees is going on family medical leave for twelve weeks. That means someone has to pick up her jobs. We have switched things around and I volunteered myself to open mail and code the invoices so they can be entered into our financial system for payment. Both are new chores for me and they will be challenging.

Day 323 Changing directions

Tonight at my fiber art meeting we were playing with colored pencils on fabric. I really did not like where my piece was going. It looked terrible. So I flipped my piece over and started again in a totally different direction. That direction was so much better. I have discovered I prefer abstract over realism.

Day 322 Driving in the snow

Today my first was driving my sweet Cheyenne (yes I named my car, another first) in the snow. Granted there wasn't much snow but it was her first time in it. I love my car. Have I told you that? This is the first time I have loved a car. She is so much fun to drive.

Day 321 Grilled cheese and soup

Today was supposed to be my monthly office lunch. We started out with 9 people at 10 and by 11:15 we had dropped to four. We changed restaurants but the four of us still went. We hit one of my favorite places, Jason's Deli. It was the one my son helped open. I always get turkey on a croissant. Today I noticed a new item on the menu (at least I had never noticed it) grilled cheese and tomato soup. I swapped out chicken noodle for the tomato. It was delicious. It really pays to try something new.

Day 320 Sew a dress

Today I sewed a dress for the angel topper that will sit atop my Fantasy of Trees tree. I made the dress up. No pattern. It was not perfect, but it will work.

Day 317 Day of problems

Today was all about putting out fires. Each fire presented a new first because I had to decide how to handle each problem. Many of them required me to learn something new. Learning something new always makes your mind sharper. I hope I never stop learning and never stop wanting to learn.

Day 319 Curved piecing

Today was day two of my quilt class. We learned curved piecing today. I learned a lot and was pleased with how much I got done.

Day 318 Quilt class

I took a quilt class today. I won't tell you the teacher's name because I am not going to be kind. I love her patterns and she is an extremely talented designer. But......I have never heard a person talk about how many famous people they knows more. I promise she mentioned over fifteen people. She knows: The Beatles, Arlo Guthrie, Colby Bryant, Steve Wozniak, a sheik, Walt Disney, Richard Branson, Johnny Depp, Michael York and the list goes on and on and on. She attended cooking school, writes romance novels on top of having an IQ two points shy of Einstein. I promise the woman did not shut up all day. I have loaded my IPad with lots of music so I can put ear phones on tomorrow and shut her out. What a day.

Day 316 Lots of first

Today I had three first. First early in the morning the CFO of my work called and ask me to come up for a meeting. Second I was invited by the same CFO to a celebration of our yearly audit. That was interesting. It was me and six men. They were all about pro football. I don't follow pro football. I left after having one beer, which was another first. I had an unknown beer. It was good. Lol.  My last first was seeing the play "4000 Miles". I had clue what this play was about so I almost didn't go. Glad I did. It was really good.

Day 315 Carolina Ale House

Tonight I tried the Carolina Ale House restaurant. I had dinner with my niece and nephew and their sweet baby Reagan. It was my first time meeting her in person. She is every bit as cute in person as she is in person. We had a great time. It is so fun spending time with them. Such a wonderful young family.

Day 314 Tree topper

I am in panic mode here trying to get everything made for the Fantasy of Trees tree. Tonight I started working on the topper. It is going to be a rag doll angel. Tonight I put her face on. I found a package of iron on faces at Joann's. It took two faces before one stuck, but she has one now.

Day 313 dinner with friend

Tonight a friend, who I had not seen in a while, asked if we could get together and talk. Since I am still trying to not eat out, I packed a sandwich and some hummus and went over to her house to visit. It was fun to catch up and I enjoyed my little picnic.

Day 312 No eating out

I have gone a full week without eating out. I decided I was going to try to eat at home more. It is better for me and cheaper. It has been challenging but I am proud that I have gone all this time without eating out.

Day 311 Refuse medicine

Last week when I went to the doctor, she prescribed a medicine for me. The pharmacy did not immediately have the medicine but it arrived today. When I went by to get my monthly medicine for my thyroid, I refused to pick it up. I had looked up the medicine online and I thought it was a waste of money.

Day 310 New job responsibility

My boss surprised me today with a new job responsibility. Without my knowledge he had gotten me approved to sign travel documents. I had no idea he was working on that. It was a nice surprise.

Day 309 PA

I went to see a physician assistant today. First for me. I really liked her and she was as every bit as knowledgeable as my doctor.

I am going to go ahead and publish these. Taylor has reached a point in her life where she needed to take a break from the firsts. It is hard to do a first each day but it is harder on young people I think. There lives are harder due to work stresses and life. As you get older life becomes simpler in many ways. You settle into life.

Day 308 Health scare and Election Day

I had a little health scare today. It is probably nothing according to the doctor but she is running a few test to make sure.

I've (Taylor) voted before but I don't believe I've ever voted on Election Day. And I stupidly waited until an hour before the polls closed. I stood in line for 45 minutes! But I voted :)

Day 307 Talk up a book and taking a stand

I love to read. I enjoyed it growing up but I feel in love when I read "Gone with the Wind". I have read a lot since then. I mean a lot. There was a time at work when my job was not super busy and I would read at work. I could finish a book a day. Today when I went into the library to return two books and pick up one. I told the librarian that I highly recommended "Leaving Time" by Jodi Picoult. I don't know what possessed me to do it. She had not read it. I hope she does. It is amazing.

Last night was the start of me taking a stand for myself in a situation I've not beena fan of for a bit. It ended tonight with still being stuck doing something I don't enjoy but having a new outlook on it. So sometimes being nicely told to suck it up and deal is the best thing for you. 

Day 306 House of Cards and gun range

Today I started watching the Netflix show "House of Cards". I have always been fascinated by political shows. "West Wing" was one of my favorite shows. This one stars Kevin Spacey. His character is a real bastard. Makes you wonder if Washington is really like that?

Today josh wanted to go to a new gun range he had heard about that is located in Woodbury. The adventure started off with a much longer than anticipated trip to Walmart and then driving the wrong way to Woodbury. The wrong way ended up leading us on a 1 hour trip through streets nobody would ever want to go down. I told josh that if I didn't know him I would have thought he was taking me somewhere to kill me and hide my body. (Yes morbid thoughts. But you didn't see these roads!) anyway he had about 30 minutes of shooting before it turned too dark to see and we had to head home. 

Day 305 Quilt in book and mentoring

Today was very special. There was a reception for all the quilters who made quilts for the Medal of Honor recipients. I went so I could thank Kit, the woman who organized the whole thing. I was surprised when she gave us gifts. We got pictures of the quilts we made plus a book. The book was specially made for us. It has pictures of a the quilts and who they went to. It is spectacular. I am so honored to be in there three times. Here are pictures of the three quilts I worked on.

Today I officially became a mentor to our new drive thru director. I passed my title on and now I'm just here to help coach him on what to look for and how to evaluate the data. I'm pretty excited about this phase :) I've never really me toured anyone in my work setting based on my experience. 

Day 304 Forgotten first and jacket

I know I had a first today but I waited too long to blog about it and now I have forgotten what it was. That is a first. I always remember. If it comes to me, I will change this. But for now my first is that I forgot my first.

Have you noticed a trend where all of my posts tend to deal with work? I think I've asked that before, but that's where my life revolves around. At least that's true the last 2 months. 

Today is not a very exciting first but we got new jackets in for our outside drive thru team. I fell in love so I decided to order my own and I even got my name out on it :)