Thinking Out Loud Thursday - November 16, 2017

Welcome to Thinking Out Loud Thursday!  I'm taking the day off work today just to get my life a little under control -- and that's what I'm thinking out loud about today.

So about a year ago we stopped our housecleaning service.  Yes, I'm insane.  Working full time, blogging and being a very active person leaves very little time for actual cleaning of one's house.  We did okay (not great) at keeping up the general cleaning, but the closets have gotten totally out of hand.

You see, I'm a stasher.  Company's coming so I grab everything in sight and hide it in the closet.  I was determined when we changed our summer clothes out for our winter ones that I would do a deep clean on our master closet.  I had no idea that a week later I would STILL be cleaning the darn closet!!  The whole thing has made me a bit crabby, but the job is almost over.  Thank heavens!!

The problem, I realized, is I'd set unrealistic expectations.  I would love for my closet to look like this ~

But in reality, my clothes are not all white, black and gray.  I have more than eight hanging shirts and Eric has more than four.  I've never been able to fold things into those neat rectangles.  My closet will never, ever, EVER look like the above picture.  And that's okay.  But being the perfectionist that I am, it just took me some time to get to "okay".

As I was peering into my closet, with all the color and imperfect folded clothes and shirts jammed together, I realized that my life was pretty good even though my closet isn't picture perfect.  It also made me think of all the other things that aren't picture perfect in my life, and that's okay too.

Never really thought cleaning the closet would cause me to have such an epiphany!  In this season of thanksgiving, I hope each of us can have epiphanies like this and take a little pressure off ourselves.  Things don't have to be perfect to still be good great.

Now I'm off to finish up that closet...

What's on your mind today?  Hope you link up below and share with us.

An InLinkz Link-up

Enjoy more Thoughts for Thursday at:

Home of Malones

East Coast Chic

Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop

This is How We Roll

Weekending - Two Movies and a Wine Expo

Hey there!  Here we are - another weekend in our rear view mirror.  We had a rather productive few days with a little bit of fun thrown in.

Friday night we attended the Fine Wine Holiday Expo at Moulin Events & Meeting space in St. Louis.  If you are in need of event space in the St. Louis area, this is definitely a place to check out.  I've used their space before for various functions and have never been disappointed.

As luck would have it, our friends Sharyn and Eric were attending the same event so we met up with them.  I have to say, I love events with a photo booth.  We entertained ourselves and ended up with some pretty memorable pics.

Their was a ton of wine samples to try, along with live entertainment.  We were able to sample some pretty tasty wines!

When we had our fill, we headed up to Vin de Set's bar to munch on a few appetizers.  The prime rib crepe was so wonderful!  It was a fun night with some fun friends.

Saturday morning Eric and I headed to the theater to catch Daddy's Home 2.  I have no idea why we missed the first installment of Daddy's Home, but number 2 was hilarious!  It's rating is PG-13 for suggestive material and some language, but it's not over the top.  Will Ferrell is his usual goofy self and Mark Wahlberg is just great to look at.  You don't have to have seen the first one to enjoy number 2, but I'm definitely putting the first one on my list of movies I want to rent.

Daddy's Home is available free if you have Amazon Prime.  Speaking of Amazon Prime, if you don't have it, now might be the perfect time to start a free 30-day trial.  Click HERE to sign up and start getting 2-day shipping for FREE!!  Hello Christmas shopping!

The rest of the day Eric and I spent trying to clean out our master closet.  Ugh!!  I wish I could say we were done, but the project continues.  I did have a Pinterest moment and cut swimming noodles and put them in my tall boots to make the legs stand up.  Ingenious!  At least that part of the closet organization is finished.

After church on Sunday I went to the theater again with a couple friends to see Bad Moms Christmas.  I have to say, I didn't like this one as much as the original.  It was funny, but a bit crude.  The foul language was over used and just became somewhat annoying to me.  It's rated R and I can see why.  

I also worked in a little crafting over the weekend.  Have you guys seen the Rae Dunn inspired ornaments?  I worked on a few and think they are adorable.  I'm selling them for $3.00 each on Etsy.  You can check out my listing HERE.   My plan is to personalize them with names and use them on my table for place cards and I might even add them to my presents in place of tags.  

Hope your weekend was wonderful.  I'm hoping to get the closet squared away soon or I might just donate all my clothes and start over.  Hope to see you back soon!

Five on Friday - November 10, 2017

Happy Friday!  This one really snuck up on me!  Seems like only yesterday we were in Louisville celebrating Eric's birthday.  Now here we are, a week later, getting ready for another weekend.  I'll take it!

My five today are pretty random.  Here they are ~

1.  Harry Potter Socks
Do you have a Harry Potter lover in your life?  If so, you might want to snag this set of 5 ankle socks.  I was all excited about the ones at Target, but now they are out of stock everywhere.  These from Amazon appear to be in stock and ready for you to purchase.  I'm thinking they would be great stocking stuffers or bust up the pack and give one each to five different people.  Check them out HERE.  Wouldn't they also be adorable in Harry Potter goody bags?!?




2.  TubShroom
Is your house full of girls with long shedding hair?  Are your drains always getting clogged?  Sounds like you might need the Tubshroom!  This one happens to have a chrome top, so it won't even look out of place in your tub.  As the package says, "Say goodbye to clogged drains forever".

3.  Daddy's Home 2

This movie looks hilarious to me!  It opens today and is on my list to see.  Fandango sums it up like this, "Stepfather Brad (Will Ferrell) and biological dad Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) have set aside their differences, and are content to work together to care for their children. However, their family get-together at Christmas is complicated by the arrival of Brad's fusty dad (John Lithgow) and Dusty's hell-raising pop (Mel Gibson). John Cena and Linda Cardellini co-star in this sequel to the 2015 sleeper-hit comedy Daddy's Home. Directed by Sean Anders."

4.  Digital Infrared Forehead & Ear Thermometer
Cold and flu seasons are fast approaching.  Are you ready?  I got my flu shot and am crossing my fingers we can keep all the bad bugs out of our house this year.  One item you might want to make sure you have handy is a thermometer.  I sure wish I would have had one of these around when Ian was little.  It would have been so much easier if I had had one of these press a button and wait one second models.  Need one for your house?  Click HERE to pick one up.


5.  Life Expectancy...

Have a great weekend everyone!  We are going to a wine event tonight that should be a good time and then we're taking it easy tomorrow.  I have our winter clothes ready to go in our closets and, based on the temperatures lately, think that should be fairly high on my priority list to get done.  Sunday I'm headed to see Bad Moms Christmas with a few neighbor friends.  See you next week!

Linking up with:

The Peaceful Posse

Amanda at Meet At The Barre

Erika at Little Bit of Everything

Simply Sweet Home
High Five for Friday
5 on Friday
The Blended Blog
This post contained affiliate links.  I may receive a small commission if you click on the link and purchase.  Thanks

Friday Favorites - November 10, 2017

Hello Friday Favorites fans!  Today (and for the next few weeks) we will be doing something a bit different around here.  As some of you may know, Jerri from Simply Sweet Home is expecting a baby any day now.  She is usually the one that pulls all of our weekly features together and we share one post.  For the next few weeks, each of us will be doing our own features.  Sooooo, make sure to visit all of us to see what the others are featuring.

As for me, I'm going to be picking three features each week instead of the usual one.  We'll be back to normal soon, but for now enjoy my three favorites from last week featured below.

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Thinking Out Loud Thursday - Louisville Day Three

Welcome to Thinking Out Loud Thursday!  This is the third and final installment of our recent trip to Louisville.  If you missed the other two days, you can find them HERE and HERE.

So Saturday was Eric's official birth day.  He turned the big 5-0!  This guy is so special and deserves a huge shout out for putting up with me and all my shenanigans!  He does more favors for me in a day than most people ask for in a year and does them all with a smile.  Well, most of them anyway.  :)

Saturday morning we got up and headed to Please and Thank You for a little breakfast.  This establishment is located in the NuLu area of Louisville and is as cute as can be.  

After breakfast, we roamed in and out of the adorable shops in the area and finished our drinks.  If you look around, you'll find some very fun artwork on the sides of the buildings.

When our parking meter had expired, we headed over to Louisville Slugger to check out their bat making.  I'm going to be honest here - it's one of those places I felt we really needed to visit since we were in Louisville and all, but was not super impressed.  I think the thing that turned me off was their lack of Cardinal memorabilia.  I know, not a very good reason to dislike the place but it just didn't do for me what I thought it would.  Eric, on the other hand, loved it!

We did the tour and visited the museum.  At the end of the tour, we all got a mini bat.  Mine will probably be on sale on Ebay soon if anyone is interested in it.

They did have a large selection of game used bats you could swing after you put on a pair of gloves.

And several life sized mannequins to pose next to. (Not a single Cardinal one though.)

Next we headed back to the hotel for lunch.  The famous Hot Brown was on the agenda, along with some derby pie.  The hot brown was originally created at The Brown Hotel, so we were excited to give one a try.  It's an open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon and smothered in Mornay sauce.  Pretty tasty!  The pie was pretty darn delicious too!

We really wanted to get out and enjoy the fall colors, so after lunch we visited Cave Hill Cemetery.  Two famous-to-us people were buried there and we wanted to get a glimpse of their final resting place - Colonel Sanders (you know, Kentucky Fried Chicken man) and Muhammad Ali.  We found Colonel Sanders with minimal effort, but closing time for the cemetery was approaching and I was getting freaked out that we would be locked in so we left before finding Ali. 

We wanted to spend a bit more time outside so our next destination was Cherokee Park.  The trees were positively magnificent!  

Soon we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.  We celebrated Eric's birthday dinner at The English Grill.  The place was a bit too fancy for picture taking, so you'll just have to take my word for it that the food was fabulous!

Happy 50th birthday Eric!  I hope we get to spend another 50 together!

Now it's your turn -- what are you thinking out loud about today?  Link up and share your thoughts.

An InLinkz Link-up

Enjoy more Thoughts for Thursday at:

Home of Malones

East Coast Chic

Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop

This is How We Roll

Taylor Made | Maker's Mark | Feast BBQ

If you saw my post from yesterday, you know Eric and I headed to Louisville on Thursday to celebrate Eric's birthday over the weekend.  On Friday we traveled about an hour and a half outside of Louisville for a tour of Taylor Made Farm.

Taylor Made is a 1,100 acre Thoroughbred paradise located in Nicholasville, Kentucky.  Here you can see many champion horses in the one and a half hour tour.  Our guide, Laura, and her assistant, Karly, did an excellent job showing us around the property and explaining the life of a horse on the farm.

This family friendly tour is a combination of walking and driving through their rolling hill property.  It takes you up close and personal to the operation and horses themselves.

Recognize this name?  Good ole' California Chrome won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 2014 (along with many other wins).  He happened to be travelling to Chili for some studding so we didn't get to see him in person, just where he lived.

They even let you give the horses a treat or two, which really ended up being a special treat for us!

Side note:  My dress is from Old Navy.  They are really bringing it this year!  Click HERE to get one for yourself.  They are also making a midi and shirt from the same pattern.

After a quick lunch at Taylor Made, we hopped back in the car and drove to Maker's Mark for their distillery tour.  It was about an hour's drive, but the scenery along the winding back roads was stunning because of the fall foliage.

As an added bonus now through December 3, Maker's Mark has a Chihuly exhibit that warrants a visit even if you don't want to do the bourbon tour.  His pieces are spectacular and I probably took 374834738 pictures of them.  Here's a few ~

Speaking of art, there's also a couple mosaic pieces by Tracy Pennington in the welcome center that should not be overlooked.

The bourbon tour was very fascinating and our tour guide, Lee, really knew his stuff.  He walked us through the entire process, explaining each step.  At the end you got to do a tasting.  Bourbon's not my thing, but the tour was still cool.

When the tour and tasting were complete, you had an opportunity to hand dip your very own bottle of Maker's Mark.  What a fun way to commemorate Eric's 50th birthday!

More than anything, I enjoyed the scenery.  The whole place is so picturesque!  Truth be told, I kind of got in trouble for holding up the tour by taking pictures.  Sorry tour group.  But it was just so beautiful!

When my memory card was almost full and the place was closing, we decided it was time to head back to Louisville.  We had an eating establishment we were headed to and our bellies were telling us it was time to give it a try.  The location - Feast BBQ, 909 E. Market Street, Louisville, KY.

Feast is a casual place with communal tables and wood benches.  The menu is displayed on the wall beside where you place your order then the food is brought to your table.  If you go, I HIGHLY recommend trying the Pork Cakes.  These fried babies sit on a pool of sorghum and are covered with green onions and creamy slaw.  We would drive back to Louisville just to eat these again - they were that good!

When we got back to The Brown, we celebrated Eric's last day in his 40's by sitting in the lobby, having a drink and listening to the piano.  It had been one fun day!