Better Than Sochi

I'm thinking we have better snow in East Tennessee right now than Sochi has.....

Still Bread...

Wow! Still milk and bread at the store this evening! 

Unfortunately plenty of snacks as well.

I NEVER buy snacks!!!  

The thoughts of a big snow

Moving in must have inspired me.    

I do always make sure I'm stocked up on my

popcorn!  It's my weakness.  But I do

only buy the 100 calorie. 

My great niece Bella came to watch some Olympics with me tonight.   We...ate....all the

Mayfield's French Onion Dip and chips and a ton of cookies......   oh no!

Chris cooked chicken 

pesto pasta for supper.

I'm so full I'm miserable....

Emi Sunshine

Guess who I got a photo with tonight while eating at Bert's?  (Which I look so ikky in.  Wasn't expecting to see the home grown talent!)

Not only did I get a picture but also a song.  A song she wrote....

I had a short note here a few weeks ago with a link to an interview and performance by Emi Sunshine.   The link is below if you missed the first post.

Emi Sunshine on WBIR

The Walking Dead mid season premiere ..

Chris and I watched the mid-season premiere of "The Walking Dead" at my niece's house in Athens.  Her husband Jason and the two babes were in bed by the time we got there.

I think the three of us were a bit disappointed.   There is only so much of watching a kid being a punk to his half dead dad before thinking "enough already. I get it."  

It's tough going through the teenage years even without living through a zombie apocalypse but geez.  His antics, however, were quite funny and typical and like any other kid back to the parent we go when the tough get going.  

Hmmmm...I bet Carl's manners will be much improved with Michonne around.....

Monroe County Lincoln Day Dinner 2014

Will add names at later date...

Good One Chelsea....

My niece Chelsea and I are watching "The Walking Dead" season two. She's never really watched too many.  Just on and off when I was introducing her mom to the world of zombies last summer.

Chelsea's question during a tense minute when they couldn't shoot guns for fear of bringing the Walkers down around them, "why don't they just have silencers on their guns???"

This Past Saturday

Chris went mountain biking with Jeremiah and Sarah Saturday while I had lunch at Bert's with Packy and April.  I'm thinking I got the better end of the stick.   Especially when the bike trail at Volzwagon was closed when they got there...

Packy is doing great with his chemo.  Although he said he is very tired.  Packy has three rounds but has a round for five days straight every three weeks.  The first round he stayed in the hospital during the week long treatment.   Packy said staying at the hospital was horrible and plans to drive back and forth each day next week for chemo.

I told Packy to be careful with that.  Sure the fatigue is all he feels now.  BUT I told him that he was a healthy man on that first round.  The round coming up?  Well he's starting that one fatigued and not healthy and the third will be started with an even more unhealthy body.

I said "Packy, you better stay in hospital if there is any indication of blood pressure problems or vomiting or diarrhea or fevers  You will not want to turn deathly ill at home and end up in some emergency room sick as a dog.  You'd have to wait forever for paperwork be completed and see a doctor,  all while you're sick."

Another one of my concerns is Packy driving himself back and forth to treatment.   He is going to grow only more and more fatigued.   Hard to travel fatigued.   He will also be taking nausea medicines so I don't know how those chemo drugs and nausea meds will affect his driving.   They may not. I dunno.  I do know I drove myself to Knoxville five days a week for several weeks for radiation.   The amount of fatigue I experienced was over whelming.  I should have had someone take me to help drive.   I became very drowsy driving home.  And that only grew worse as treatment continued. 

But Packy is doing remarkably well and I just pray treatment continues and stays as easily as can be expected.  We love Packy so very much.  He was Chris' s best man at our wedding.  Ohhhhh the stories they tell of childhoods.   I keep telling Packy to write a book!

I think Packy's major goal is to follow doctor's orders so he will heal fast enough to be on his boat by spring!

Not shot by Daryl....

This one wasn't cross bowed by Daryl Dixon.  Daryl wouldn't waste arrows and he knows you have to shoot zombies in the head....

What is family?

I often write and post photos of my family on here and Facebook.   With nieces and nephews I also have greats.  So I refer to Chelsea, Bella, Jack and Mallie Belle and Sarah and Carrie (Chris side) as great nieces and nephew.

Jamey, Jessie, Tanner, Amber and Colton are referred to as nieces and nephews.

I've had a couple people from not around here (not southern) ask why I said great nieces on some posts about Chelsea and Bella and on another post about great nephew Jack.

I explained their parents are my nieces/nephews so they are my nieces and nephew once removed.  Thus great niece or great nephew.  I'm their great aunt.

From left back: Great niece Chelsea, nephew Tanner, me, great niece Mallie Belle, nephew Jamey, niece Jessie. Front: great nephew Jack an great niece Bella

My great nieces Chelsea and Bella are my nephew Jamey's daughters.   

My great nephew Jack and great niece Mallie Belle are my niece Jessie's kids.

Another person last summer from several states away said "aren't all nieces great?" after a post on a couple of the greats.  I didn't think about it then but he probably didn't know what I was referring to either.

Seems up North or certain other places I've traveled or known people from identify family in different ways.  Ask them who is in their family and they mostly tell you that they have brother and or sisters,  parents and grandparents.   Just immediate family.  Maybe they do not have extended families as we do. Or just normally do not include them in general conversation.

In most of East TN, or at least Monroe Count and surrounding areas when asked about who's in our family we'll include the general immediate family.   But also aunts, uncles, great aunt and uncles, cousins and second cousins, sometimes third or fourth.  People in our area love family and want to claim as many relatives as can be thought of.

We also speak of families as either "his side of the family" or "her side of the family.

For example, I have around 30 first cousins on my mom's side of the family.  On my daddy's side I have around 20 first cousin.  (Notice something? I referred to them as first cousins. It's import to distinguish first,  second, third and so on when talking about your family.

Relatives that have died are still referred to in discussions about family.  And counted among the number of family members.

I have a cousin I usually say this about: "my second cousin on my daddy's side died of breast cancer when she was only 26."

It's funny to think about the ways family is called and looked upon so differently depending on where you are from.  I love that I'm from Monroe County,  Tennessee and I love claiming as many relatives as I can.

My niece Amber and her brother,  my nephew Colton. Niece Tressa and her two daughters, our great nieces not in photo.  

(These are Chris' s side of family.)