Chatbug Karen

It has been a week since I posted here! I’ll show you why.

I have been sewing! Do you see who snuck into this picture? LOL

I even put a zipper in this bag.

You can see other things I have been working on at Winding Threads.

Yay! Val is back to posting questions for Four Foods on Friday. Here are this week’s questions.

1. What color is your refrigerator?

Almond. Thank you for not asking what color my stove is. That color works better than diet pills to keep me out of the kitchen.

2. What kind of toaster do you have? Ours broke and we have never replaced it.

3. Do you use a tablecloth? When – always, when eating, etc.

I use placemats but we rarely sit at the table now that the kids are grown and moved out of the house.

4. Do you use paper or cloth napkins?

paper

While visiting Nashville Tennessee last weekend, we walked along Music Row in the downtown area. We walked beside the famous Ryman Auditorium and wished we could see inside but it was too late in the day and they were closed for tours. We continued our walk to the Country Music Hall of Fame which was also closed. You must get an early start if you want to visit the sights in Nashville. That is unless you want to listen to music and be part of the night life. The Ernest Tubbs Record Shop is a quaint shop that made me feel as if I went back in time. They have a great selection of hard to find country albums and tons of local live performance recordings as well. The walls are covered with old photos of country music’s finest recording artists. I loved learning that Loretta Lynn sang in that shop. She had to stand on a box so the fans at the front of the store would stop shouting that they were unable to see her.

I have to tell you something that strikes me as being funny. My husband and brother in-law went to the mall three times this weekend. Yes, these men who normally whine and beg us not to have to accompany us gals to the mall went there by themselves not once, not twice but let me count the times. One, two, three times to the mall! I must say that there was a knife store there that kept sucking them in. They haven’t become total mall junkies yet!

I rarely go to the mall these days. The Internet makes it possible to order almost everything I normally shop for in the convenience of my own home. I use a wonderful savings site at http://www.couponchief.com that has coupon codes for so many of the shops I used to have to visit at the mall. I am not tempted by all the pretty things I would walk by at the mall when I use Coupon Chief instead. I simply find the shop I need and get the savings code. The link at Coupon Chief takes me directly to the store where I order what I need.

For example, let’s say that I need some lotion from Bath & Body Works. I check at Coupon Chief and get the Bath & Body Works coupons code to use when I check out at Bath & Body Works online. I can even buy my favorite lotion with Lancome coupons through Coupon Chief. I save so much time and most of all I save money by using Coupon Chief.

Shhh, don’t tell the guys that I don’t need to go to the mall.

Let me introduce you to my Granddog, Chandler. The kids decided they needed a furry baby and so they made a visit to their local Humane Society. Once they were approved and they purchased the necessary dog supplies, they were able to bring a much loved dog home to their apartment.

Chandler appears to be a Boston Terrier, Fox Terrier mix.

My daughter in-law has been working on teaching him to sit, lay down and roll over. He just about has it!

My son holding his new baby:

Today’s theme at Heads or Tails is “Decision.” Tell about a time when you had to make a “Decision.”

First of all, I cannot believe today is September 8th! This month is flying by as quickly as August did.

We took a mini vacation over the long Labor Day weekend and traveled to Nashville, Tennessee. That is where the decisions began. It is hard to make a decision when there are 6 adults who are just wanting to enjoy their time together. No one really cared what we did or where we went. LOL

We did manage to check out downtown Nashville and took an excursion on the 300 ft General Jackson paddle wheel riverboat.

General Jackson Showboat

paddles to power boat

Cumberland River

Mom as Minnie Pearl

Me and the Nashville skyline

dinner showroom

Tim Watson Fiddlin’ Around Show

What a week we have had! I am not going to complain because times are tough. Any jobs that come our way are a Godsend. That doesn’t make the work any less trying. It is time for a getaway!

We pondered over what we should do for a short getaway. Vegas vacations, a short cruise or a weekend at a campgrounds. What should we do? Where should we go? Well, we decided it was time to return to Nashville, Tennessee. Hmm, is that how you spell Tennessee? I always have to look that up.

So, tomorrow morning we hit the road for Nashville. I booked our hotel through one of those online sites so I hope it isn’t flea infested or a total dump. We usually have good luck and save so much money booking online. When we stayed in St. Louis two weekends ago, our hotel was only $50 per night. That hotel was beautiful and our room was fabulous.

We are meeting my sister and her husband for a weekend of visiting quilt shops, touring the Hermitage and whatever else tickles our fancy. We are open for any suggestions. See ya’ll next Tuesday!

I have no idea where my cousin finds these things but this is the latest picture she sent me.

Isn’t that wild! Can you imaging what the moving companies New York might say if assigned a move in at that house? I doubt they would be happy to move around all those angles.

Of course my curiosity was piqued and I had to find out what inspired the building of such an oddity.
What I discovered through a few searches was that Polish architect of the Crooked House, Szotynscy Zaleski, was inspired by the fairytale illustrations of Jan Marcin Szancer and the drawings of the Swedish artist and Sopot resident Per Dahlberg.

Built in 2004, the Crooked House is the most photographed building in Poland. The 4,000 square meter house is located in Rezydent shopping center in Sopot, Poland.

With all the ways we have to edit pictures, it might seem as though this photo could have been photo shopped. I was fortunate to find the following video as proof that this house is real!

If you are about to give up on passing those medical coding training courses or any other task at hand, think of Mike the headless chicken.

As the true story goes, Lloyd Olsen decided that a five and a half month old Wyandotte rooster would become that evenings dinner. He aimed his axe and took a whack. The rest of the story is history. Find out how Mike, the headless chicken, lived 18 months after having had his head separated from the rest of his body! It is possible to live a normal life, even if you have lost your mind.