Good afternoon! How are you all doing?

Glad you stopped by for a chat and thanks to my sister-in-law’s gift of some new teas, I can offer you some different varieties.

She even brought them in a very cute little basket that Little Miss had fun rearranging yesterday. She plopped my jar of honey right in the middle of the teas.

I have never tried the cold tea brews before so I am excited to do that later this week.

The Boy has already tried the pumpkin spice one and has loved it.

Yesterday was my birthday and The Husband took me to a very fancy restaurant in our area that he’s been saying he wanted to take me to for a long time.

Every time we would drive by it on our way to cities southeast of us, he would say, “I’m going to take you there for our anniversary one day.”

Well, he didn’t for our anniversary, which was totally fine with me, but he did for my birthday, and it absolutely lived up to the hype.

We sat out on the patio overlooking a creek and a tiki torch, as well as the walking trails. The weather was absolutely perfect, even if the trees had not changed as fast as the ones near us are changing.

The food was much fancier than what we would normally eat and absolutely incredible. I’ve never tasted steak like that. It was like butter in my mouth it was so tender. I mean, it tasted like steak not butter, but I think you get what I mean.

I gave my daughter a sample when I got home and she said she had no idea what I meant by the butter comment and sort of looked annoyed at me, but for me it was amazing.

The Husband had chicken marsala.

We both had potatoes with a fancy name, which the waitress explained was simply mashed red potatoes with the skin on. Ha! Fancy name or not, the potatoes were insanely good.

It was very relaxing to sit there and look out over the small creek that runs on the property. They have a botanical garden somewhere but we didn’t find it. They also have a garden on the property where they grow food for the restaurant. So, it is essentially farm to table.

The restaurant is also an inn and it’s a gem in the middle of nowhere really. It’s not in a bigger city near us — it’s a little bit away from a small “city” near us but there really isn’t anything else around it.  I will say I felt a little out of place there, since I would say most of the clientele is in a different financial bracket than my me and my husband. I ignored those feelings, though, and made up stories in my head about the people around us as I waited for our food.

I decided the man sitting behind my husband, who did look a bit tired and unshaven, though well dressed, was a businessman who hadn’t yet told his wife that things were falling apart. He was also a closet gambler and alcoholic.

The young waiter who looked about 16 but was probably older, was a rich kid made to work there after his family kicked him out because he was an entitled brat who felt he didn’t have to do anything to contribute to his family, alone society. (Of course I didn’t really think this about the kid, despite the weird side eye he gave me on the way by — these are just stories I made up!)

Then there was the group of friends all in their 50s or 60s who were sitting in chairs along the creek, sipping their various alcoholic drinks.

I definitely knew they could be the basis of a murder mystery and tried to choose which one might get knocked off first. I chose the one man in white shorts and blue polo holding his cocktail, looking annoyed as everyone else pulled chairs up to sit next to him. I also imagined he used the word “insufferable” a lot in every day conversation, especially when referring to some of the women around him.

Most of the men and women in the group were wearing blue tops and white pants. I don’t know if that is a rich person thing or just a style choice. Either way, they all looked lovely and like they were having a good, yet slightly annoying time. By “slightly annoying” I mean none of them were really smiling much. They seemed somewhat annoyed at each other. Gosh, looking back, maybe they had come from a funeral or something. Like the funeral of their murdered friend….

Okay, yes, I need to stop reading and watching so many murder mysteries.

The man behind us was in the middle of an interview for a job at State Farm with a guy who made a lot of dad jokes, so I don’t think he needed a made up story. He just needed an escape. I didn’t hear the first comment, but I did hear when the older man said, “Because we’re always there. Get it? Like State Farm is there…”

There was some nervous laughter that trickled around the table and then the sales pitch to join the team started after that.

After dinner, we headed to where all birthday girls around here go — Walmart. Ha! Actually, The Husband ran in to grab some bottled water my parents. We made a quick stop after that and picked up a treat for the kids.

At home I watched a couple episodes of Supernatural with The Boy, but don’t know if I will do that again. I enjoyed them to a point, but they were also quite disturbing in parts.

It was hard to see Jared Padalecki as anyone but Dean on Gilmore Girls and it was confusing that his name was Sam in this show, but his brother was Dean. I kept getting confused.

Speaking of The Boy — he got his driver’s permit yesterday and we were so happy for him. He was a little nervous about the test but it turned out to be much easier than he thought. Though he has waited a bit to get his permit, he has been driving grandpa’s tractors and truck around his property for a couple of years now, so he knows what he is doing.

Right after he passed the test my dad actually took him driving around some backroads for a couple of hours.

We are definitely having fall weather and fall vibes in our  neck of the woods right now. The trees are changing fast and falling down on the ground. It seems like we got our color much quicker than I thought we would and I am trying to enjoy it as much as I can before our trees are bare.

When even more of the trees have changed we plan to go leaf peeping and admire the views.

I hope to post some photos for all of you of the leaves on here but I am having an issue with WordPress,, who says my storage is almost full and they want me to pay even more than what I do so I can add more storage.

I’m rejected the idea of paying more by backing up some old posts, deleting them from this blog, and moving them to a backup blog. These are posts from seven or eight years ago, not recent ones.

I’ve also been combining photos on collages I’ve made in Canva to help cut down on how much storage space I am using.

Another blogger friend of mine, Mama’s Empty Nest, has been struggling with this for months now. She’s also been struggling with a lot more as her husband had to undergo an emergency surgery and her daughter was admitted to the hospital after going into labor way too early. I don’t know if she has mentioned this on her blog yet, but the baby did not make it and I just ask that you pray for that family right now. This would have been her daughter’s second child, as she has an older daughter. The little girl is around the same age as Little Miss and was really looking forward to a sibling. Just please pray for their healing and comfort at this time.

Luckily, Mr. Empty Nest is doing fairly well after his surgery, but I just can’t imagine how hard it was for him and his wife with him recovering and their daughter suffering as she lost her little one in the hospital.

I would say that I am ending my post with some sadness, but there is also joy in the story. This little one has gone back to Jesus where her family will meet her again one day and her grandpa is getting healthier by the day and will be able to spend more time with her older sister. There is some joy in the midst of heartache, thankfully.

This upcoming week isn’t yet a busy one for us, but we will see how that goes.

Do you have anything interesting planned for next week?

Did you do anything interesting last week?

Let me know in the comments. I’d love to know.