Thanks to everyone for your well wishes for Wayne and Nessie. Both are feeling much better today. Neither one is back to 100% yet but we are definitely on the right track. Nessie has even gained an ounce so that is a good sign! She was going backwards for a while there so that wasn't good. She is up to 1 pound and 2 ounces now!

While we were in Atlanta last weekend we went for a morning walk on the Emory campus. I love that campus! It was nice to go to school and work every morning and love the area I was in. It is such a beautiful campus. If you live in/near Atlanta and have never been to it you should go for a walk there sometime!

The brand new School of Public Health building is almost finished! They still have the old building where I went so this is an addition. Quite the addition, eh? All of the buildings that have been built there in the last 10-15 years or so are LEED certified and the campus is all about recycling and sustainability - YAY!!!


That is the old building in the background in the picture below. Now there is a fancy walkway connecting the two!



Then we saw the new sculpture of Dooly (the school mascot) that was dedicated in 2008. Why yes, our mascot is a skeleton! Unique!!

The building architecture is stunning. This is the School of Theology library.




There are lots of beautiful courtyards.



Petey took a dip in the fountain in front of the new medical building to cool off!

9 Weeks

Miss Nessie is 9 weeks today! Unfortunately, she does not feel much like celebrating. She has been REALLY sick for the past couple of days. She went and had a vet visit yesterday so now she is on all kinds of medications and hating us. She is definitely feeling better today but is still puny. I feel so sorry for her - and she looks like hell!! :(

It's a good thing I have all of this animal and people medical experience. Nessie is having to get fluids so it's nice that I can do those at home. Yesterday at the vet they weren't able to get blood from her because she is so small. It just so happens that small veins is my area of expertise. So, luckily I was able to draw it myself for them to run some tests on. I hope she does not need more because this little girl does NOT like being restrained!

THEN, yesterday Mr. Man was running downtown. He saw the Chief of Police and started messing with him. Just then he felt a "pop" in his calf muscle and was instantly crippled. So, he got a ride in the cruiser back to the gym where I was. Sports injuries are NOT my area of expertise so off to the urgent care center we went. Luckily, he didn't rupture anything but he can't really walk so he has been laid up on the couch with ice on his elevated leg. He has an appt. with an orthopedist on Thursday just to be sure but I think he is just going to have to stay off of it for a while. For those of you who know my husband, getting him to be still for any length of time is no small feat.

Well, here are some cute pictures of my 2 patients. Nessie LOVES Wayne!!! :)



This picture is hilarious!

Super Garden!

When we were at my dad's this last time he took us down the street because he wanted to show us his friend's garden. He said it was amazing and that he had over 2000 tomato plants. I was like, uh....sure dad. So we went on a field trip. Tony's garden was AMAZING and I think 2000 tomato plants is a bit of an understatement. I couldn't believe the operation this guy was running! I wish I had gotten a picture of all of the fruit trees he has. I have never seen so many fruit trees! Here's a small sampling of the garden though.



It works out great for them though because my dad brings all the horse manure from his farm, Tony uses it in the garden and then my dad gets all kinds of fresh veggies!

Super Kitchen!

Wow. We went to go visit my dad the other day to see the new kitchen. Holy cow does it look INCREDIBLE!!!!! I could not believe what they had done to this little country kitchen. Here's what it started out looking like. These pictures are from several years ago.



A month ago it looked like this.



Now it looks like this!

Not too shabby, eh?

Cute!!

I know you all are getting tired of seeing pictures of this cute kitten but I just can't help it! We have probably snapped hundreds of photos of her because it is almost impossible to get her to be still enough for a picture!

This up coming weekend we are off to Atlanta and me, Wayne, Nessie and Petey will all be staying at my mom's house. Wow. My mom is probably going to be sorry that she agreed to this! She is really excited about getting to see Nessie though. I don't blame her - she is just too darn cute!!


Oh, and we did do something kind of productive last week. We went and helped paint the new shed at one of our community gardens. We started early but it was still REALLY hot out there!!!! This was just the primer coat.

Sometimes.......

.......your day just does not go as planned, ya know? Every morning I ask Wayne what he has planned for the day. Everyday he tells me "nothing" or "I don't know". This is the complete opposite of me. I have a plan most everyday! I have a schedule of things that need to be done day-to-day or else things won't get done and I can't stand having things pile up so I like to be able to spread out my work so I do a little bit everyday.

Yesterday, I asked Wayne (per usual) what his plans were. He shocked me by saying he was going to work on getting the shed cleaned out and do some pottery. He had already swept the downstairs and the front porch!!! So - yay!!!!

Instead, he got sidetracked (as he usually does) and started working on the yard, which of course, isn't a bad sidetrack at all! He mowed and trimmed and weedwacked all day. The yard looks great but he was out in the heat until about 1 so he came in looking really tired and kind of flushed. I told him to just take it easy for a while and go take a cool shower. So he did.

I was really surprised when he was out of the shower in about 2 minutes. I thought - well, he just wanted to rinse off, right? Then he comes in and tells me that he needs to go to Home Depot. I was like "ummm.....what happened?". He said that he leaned over to do something with Nessie and put a little pressure on the spigot in the shower and the darn thing totally broke off! So, of course, water was going everywhere and he had to shut off the shower. He asked me if I wanted new fixtures for the shower so I said sure! Might as well upgrade, right?

So, off he went to Home Depot. My bathroom originally looked like this.



In about 20 minutes it looked like this.



Thank goodness Wayne can do all of this stuff though!!! In a couple of hours he was all finished and we had a brand new set of fixtures in the shower that worked!


Yay for handyman husbands!!!!!!

Birthday!

Last week we had the pleasure of being invited to a good friend's birthday party. Thursday was Polina's birthday and her husband, Pat, threw her a little impromptu party at their restaurant. We tend to frequent the Blue Ridge Brewery a lot so we didn't mind showing up for a party!!

We had such a great time and the whole crowd was really wonderful. Many of you who know me won't even believe that I actually wore a dress even! Yes mom, you read that correctly. It was a small party - perfect size!






Pat and Polina (and Andy there on the side). Aren't Pat and Polina so cute???


Me and the mister after a few glasses of champagne!


Good food. Good friends. Good time!

Life in the country

I would like to introduce you to Blue Ridge's most famous residents. This is Ralph and Patricia.

Ralph's previous lady friend was unfortunately run over. So, some kind residents promptly went to the feed store to get Ralph a new chick. He loves her! They mainly live in front of the Blue Ridge Brewery but you can see them other places around town.



Here is another one of our residents that we got a picture of the other morning in our yard.



And what blog these days wouldn't be complete without a new picture of Nessie? She has hit the 7 week mark which I think means terrible twos! She is so full of energy and she is just hilarious to watch. The other cats are much more tolerant of her these days and Petey just loves her. Here she is with her big brothers and sister. This is the only way to get her to hold still.


Here is Nessie all curled up with her big sister.

Barefoot Potter again...

Yep, it's me again...the barefoot potter aka Warlock, aka Knit Witch's slave boy. Well the Knit Witch is REALLY busy with her school projects (both teaching and attending) so I will do what I can to back her up! No I won't post about kilts or knitted man thongs (although they are fun).

This past weekend we had family in for the weekend. My son Brogan, his main squeeze Karen and our BRAND NEW GRAND DAUGHTER were here! We met Lola Riley Meadows for the first time and I must say she is BEEEEYUTIFUL! Lola is now 4 months old and is such a happy little lady! Brogan and Karen "done good".


Little Lola


Grandma Knit Witch


Grandpa Barefoot Potter

Brittany's son Nathan and Tiana were here with us too. I think they really enjoyed little Lola as much as anyone!


Nathan and Lola


Tiana, Lola and Nathan


and we MUST have a cute kitty picture! Nap time in the mountains!

It was so nice having family here for the weekend. We are truly blessed to have the life we have!




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