Speaking of the weather… it has been ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!  70-80 degree days, 50-60 degree nights… the girls are spending most of their time outside barking at bugs, or napping in the sun.  I’ve been spending time outside reading (I have read about a dozen magazines this week!)… or enjoying the weather while watching the girls go crazy!

Last Monday I went on my “date” that wasn’t with Russ… but with 2 great friends (Louis and Darren) that we have recently met.  I had been telling them all about Haruno Sushi in Springfield, and we finally decided it was time to make the trip to do group sushi.  We ate too much, had a lot of fun… and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  I felt bad for Russ… I was out with 2 very handsome men (mind you, I think Russ is very hot… so don’t worry about that!) enjoying one of Russ’s favorite meals.  Poor Russ!

On Thursday, to make it up to him, I planned a “secret” dinner/date night.  Our romantic evening started at HyVee in Springfield to pick up some liquor we had ordered (it still hadn’t come in), and while I was waiting on Russ to get there, I decided to turn HyVee into a “field trip”.  I saw a lot of things that I like, that I’ve not been able to find at other local stores, so I see a “shopping trip” in my future.  After we were done there, we went to Longhorn Steakhouse and had a very enjoyable meal… then went to the Hollywood Theaters in downtown Springfield to see “The Vow”.  I’m not going to say the movie was good… nor bad.  It just needed more… there were a lot of, “Huh?” type moments with the movie.  Oh well.

Friday was boring… Russ works from home on Friday, so while he was home working I took the girls to get baths at Ruff Cuts in Monett (Kelly has groomed Kady since she was a tiny puppy, and Minna and Dallis since we rescued them… to the point they drag us in the door.  I love Kelly as a groomer… she knows that it’s difficult for me to deal with the girls on my own, so I call her when I’m a few minutes from her shop and she is literally standing at the curb when I get there.  She unloads the girls, grabs the bag with their clean leashes and harnesses and bids me farewell (I’m usually on my way to Walmart).  Not many groomers would do that for me… which is why I adore Kelly!

Saturday we met Louis and Darren at another local spot we love… Richard’s Hawgwild BBQ in Aurora.  We spent a lot of time eating (again, “pigging” out… haha!) and chatting, then made a field trip to Starbucks (at the local Price-Cutter grocery store) and after we were done with that we went home.  Our evening was spent watching programs we had DVR’ed and just being bums.

And, Sunday, as usual… laundry, relaxing, watching TV and getting Russ headed back to Arkansas for his work week.

Next week stay tuned for my lunch out, date night #2 with Russ and anything else I manage to do!

First off was the horrible weather we had here LATE Tuesday (2/28) night.  The 10pm weather news had warned us that it could get… interesting… but I never expected it to get quite THAT interesting.  I finished watching the news, did some stuff around the house (cleaned up the kitchen, etc.) and decided to get my shower out of the way before the lightning started.  I checked the weather app on my phone, and it showed the storm about 30 miles away… so I thought, “Eh, I’ve got time”.  As I was stepping into the shower, I heard thunder.  I quickly got the shower overwith (I normally take 30 minute showers… I managed to set a record at 10 minutes), and when I got out the wind was blowing SO hard it caused me to become concerned.  We live in a modular home, but the 150 year old farmhouse I grew up in is just across the yard… so I quickly tossed on sweats and a shirt, grabbed my purse and the dogs, and headed across the yard.  The wind was blowing so hard (according to the weather alert radio, that had gone off a few moments before I left the house, the winds were 80mph straight-line winds, and the warning was for a town about 10 minutes away) that it was almost impossible for me to move against the wind. I finally got to the farmhouse, got the door open and then had to put all of my weight against it to get it to close.  As I was sitting in the kitchen (I can’t get into the basement, but the kitchen is made out of stone and was the original part of the house), I could feel the floor vibrating; NEVER have I felt the floor vibrate in the house… and we’ve had some horrible storms rip through here in the 30 years we’ve lived on the property.  The storm FINALLY subsided, and I opened up the door to find stuff all over the yard.  We have part of someone’s metal barn (I’m assuming… several pieces of used metal sheeting are laying in our field), cargo trailers we own were shoved all over the yard like they were Hot Wheels cars, tons of limbs down, etc.  Friends that live about 60 miles northeast of here posted on Facebook (during the storm) that she and the kids/cats were in the bathroom, and hubby was on the porch watching the storm… the next day, they posted a picture of the trampoline, which had apparently flew over to the neighbors house and was completely destroyed (but, other than that, everyone/thing is fine).  Wednesday morning I turned on the TV to find that a tornado had done some horrific damage to the Branson area (as well as other twisters doing damage in Cassville and Buffalo).  I spent Wednesday morning cleaning stuff up before I went out to lunch with my friend Louis.

My weekly trip to Springfield on Thursday ended up getting canceled while I was driving to Springfield (the doctor canceled the appointment because of an emergency), so I turned around and went back home to figure out what to fix for dinner.  The “quick and easy” choice was Tilapia, rice and asparagus.

Friday night we had plans to go to Joplin for a drag (you know, guys in dresses!) show.  Before we left we had our friend Darren (who was mentioned last week) join us for dinner (which was pork chops with an apple balsamic reduction, garlic-butter noodles and pan fried broccoli).  We packed up a “TV dinner” for Darren’s beloved, Louis… who is the manager of the bar where the drag show was happening.  In the middle of cooking dinner, I got a text message from my dear friend Angie… which explained that the person she was supposed to ride with to the drag show had backed out, and she wanted to know if she could ride with us (of course!).  So we got a late start… but we managed to get to the bar about 15 minutes before the show started.  We all had an absolutely marvelous time, we (our group… including Russ) tipped the performers quite well, and we saw a drag queen on roller skates (who got major tips from our group)… all I can say is that I was fascinated by the fact that this queen was able to skate through the bar without hurting anyone, and then some of the moves we got to see were absolutely amazing!  We’re definitely planning a “group trip” back to the bar… taking more folks with us, since it was such a great show!  We stayed for a little while after the drag show was over (it was dance night), and there was a woman there celebrating her birthday with a huge group of friends (her mom was in the group)… and mom was loving the attention she was getting from all of the gay boys in the bar (they were treating her like a princess… I’m guessing she was probably in her 70s or 80s).  It was cute to see the fuss they were making over her.  We were all tired (the show didn’t start until 10:30… it was over about midnight), so we left the bar and headed home around 12:30am.  About 5 minutes after leaving, Russ’s phone rang… it was his brother (which caused me to panic… figuring something was wrong with someone in the family), but he just wanted to chat.  Whew!

We got back to Mt. Vernon, and as we were driving through town we saw that Angie’s uncle was at work (he owns the local donut shop).  She didn’t want to stop, so we dropped her off at her house and made a beeline back to the donut shop (at 1:15 in the morning).  He saw us pull in and when we walked in (keep in mind, he’s still closed… but I’ve known a huge portion of their family for the better part of 20 years) he said, “Bad news… I only have the cake donuts done!”.  It was okay… we got a few maple glazed, a few with sprinkles and a few “old fashioned” type, so we were happy, and they were still warm, so we got to smell them all the way home.  They made a yummy breakfast. 

Saturday we slept in (the girls got us up around 10) and putzed around the house until early afternoon, when we decided we wanted something for lunch… so we headed to a local Memphis-Style BBQ joint (Richard’s Hawgwild BBQ in Aurora, MO).  They have a great buffet (a better value than ordering off the menu, in my opinion), so we enjoyed our BBQ lunch/dinner and then decided to take off on a road trip.  We drove from Aurora to Marionville to Chesapeake to the boonies near Chesapeake (Russ wanted to know where the owner of the donut shop lived… which is in the middle of nowhere) between Chesapeake and Billings, near McKinley).  We then went back to Chesapeake and I showed him where the mother of my friend Brian lives, but as we were getting close to her house we had to stop for a large group of deer to decide to get out of the road (they were in absolutely no hurry) and ran up the hill next to his mom’s house (which is a wooded area).  We went from there to Halltown, then back to Mt. Vernon (had to make a bathroom stop), then I decided to show him where “Cherry Mansion” was (thanks to our photographer friend Steve for the directions… he had recently photographed the barn, as the house is gone, and told me how to get there)… from there we went to Miller, then back to Mt. Vernon, then out past Baptist Hill/Big Spring, to Stotts City (he got to see where the mother-in-law of the donut maker lived, along with the storefront of my friend Vicky), and then back home to the thriving metropolis of Hoberg.  We got home just as the sun was completely set.  Our evening was spent playing on the Xbox (Boogie Bunnies caused us to scream “MOVE”  “OTHER SIDE”  “GO!” “GET OUT OF MY WAY” at each other several times… but we had fun.

And Sunday was a quiet day at home… I decided to do some experimentation in the kitchen for lunch, so we ended up having what I’m going to call “Pepperoni Balls” (biscuits flattened out, with a chunk of string cheese, a couple of pieces of pepperoni… then dipped in a garlic/butter/parmesan mix, baked and then dipped in spaghetti sauce for eating) and some tortilla pizzas (with pepperoni on them, purely because I was too lazy to use anything else on them).  Russ was in HEAVEN (he’s a huge pepperoni lover).  We watched some DVR’d “Judge Judy” episodes (and we both sat there saying, “You’ve got to be kidding?” a few times) and then he packed up his stuff and headed back to the house in Arkansas for his work-week.

That’s all for our “relaxing” weekend… more news next week, which will include my “date” that I’m going on (and it’s not with Russ… stay tuned for all the details!) and whatever else I manage to do this next week!

Take Care!
Cheryl