What We Did

Hey, Y'all,
Well, I know you may have thought I would never get back to you, but here I am, reporting on my friend, Dot's, visit. She arrived on last Friday around six p.m. and we headed on back here to my home. Carol took me to pick her up and then Daryl met us here at my home. We had a good hot supper of tomato basil soup which had been simmering in my crock pot most of the day, followed by a chocolate eclair dessert made with chocolate graham crackers, layered with a jello pudding mixed with cool whip and layers of chocolate fudge cake frosting. Yum!

After Carol and Daryl departed for home, we sat up and talked til about eleven p.m., and then I showed her her room and took her on a tour of the house (that didn't take long, ha). The next morning, after breakfast and sitting and talking awhile, we got ready and left about 12:30 to go to lunch before attending the live production of "Annie" at the Artisan Theater in Hurst. We had lunch at a restaurant not far from the Artisan, called Italianni's and it was delicious!

Then we went on to see "Annie" and it was wonderful! We laughed and really enjoyed the outing. Soon after we came in and were seated at the beginning of the show, a little girl of about four years came in, dressed like Annie, with the red dress and red curly hair (a wig, I am sure), with her mom and little sibling, and sat down in the section across from us. Every program has a slip of paper to be filled out for the person to have a chance to win a pair of tickets to an upcoming performance. At intermission, the owners of the theater come out and speak to the audience, and then have a drawing for several tickets to be given to some of the audience members. Well, they put the slips of paper in a huge drum, and then a child turns the drum and another one pulls out the slip of paper. Out of her seat, comes the little four year old Annie, to pull out the winning slips. She was absolutely adorable.
I took a picture of her in the section where she was sitting.

There were also a bunch of little girls sitting in another section who were all wearing pink. I don't know the significance of the pink, but apparently the group were all together and they enjoyed it all.

After the production was over and we went outside, it was getting dark, and I thought, "UH-OH! Bad, bad, bad", because I have trouble seeing at night, and Dot has cataracts on her eyes, and I had only been that way once and at that time had barely missed meeting my maker by being in the wrong lane. Neither of us could see the street signs, and just had to trust my instincts as to where to turn left to get onto my familiar street of Central. I told Dot to start praying, and the Lord was certainly with us and I found the right intersection to turn.

We got home and I felt like kissing the ground, ha. That night, I prepared the sausage/egg casserole to take with us the next morning to church for breakfast, and the next morning, I popped it into the oven and it cooked while we got ready to go to Sunday School and church. After church, we went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch, (which I had never been to before, but I had googled the location so I knew where to find it). We spent about 2 hours there, just sitting and talking and enjoying the ambiance. Sunday evening, Carol and Daryl came by the house and picked us up to take us to the Christmas music that was performed by the Countryside Bible Church Choir, and it was beautiful; we were so glad to have the opportunity to hear it.

I wanted to take Dot to the Antique Store and Coco's Tea Room where Carol quite often took me when Dub and I would come out this way to visit, so I did that on Monday, and we spent quite a while looking at the antiques in the stalls there, and I bought a big piece of furniture to go into my dining room in a big space not yet occupied. It is a 1940's white solid maple kitchen hutch, and a couple of my grandson's are going to get it home for me when they can. After we got through going around inside the antique part of the store, we went to have lunch at the little tearoom in one section of the store, called "Coco's" (see pictures). We had a darling waitress and busboy, who posed for us.

After we finished eating (about an hour and a half of eating and talking - much more talking than eating), we left and went to Andrew and Julia's home, which is fairly near the store, and spent some time with Julia, and the two little girls they have. We had a great time with the three of them. The two little ones had just awakened from their afternoon naps and were ready to play.

We headed on home then and spent the rest of the day just talking and watching some tevee, and doing some computering. On Tuesday, Dot said she wanted to take me to breakfast, so I said "Okay" and we went to LePeep's and had a good breakfast. We had done some searching on the internet for some places that sell turquoise jewelry for men, because she wanted to find some for her husband, Rick. So, we set out to look. The first place had gone out of business, and we never could find the second place, so we gave up and decided to come back to the house and look on the internet and order from it. So we did. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and I showed her some games on facebook and we played those.

On Wednesday, I took Dot to another of those places that Carol always took me when we came to visit, and that is the Container Store, where they have all kinds of containers to "put stuff in" and it is just so much fun to look at all that stuff. For a person who loves to "organize", it is a hoot! So after we had breakfast at home, by nearly noon we were ready to go. (Dot is not a morning person, so there were no early morning excursions from here). I had never been to the Container Store, but I knew where it was and how to get there. It is just one street over from the busiest street in Southlake, where it is located. I turned into the parking area and parked, and we went into the store and spent about an hour and a half just looking and choosing a few items we wanted. We went through the checkout and on out to the car. I saw there was a lot of traffic coming in and out of the street where we came in, so I decided to see if I could find a way out onto the busy Southlake avenue so we could turn left easily. I did, and we got back to the main road I wanted to be on and back we went toward home.

When we got to the Glade road where I like to do some shopping, I suggested we turn onto it and have some lunch. We went to a place I hadn't been to before, called "Freddy's Steakburgers". We went in and ordered, and sat down to wait. We noticed that a couple of the guys working there were sneezing, and we wondered if we dared eat the food. (You know you don't want your food sneezed on unless you are the one doing the sneezing, and even then that is not desirable, ha). But I must say, the burgers were delicious, so I guess they must have been sneezefree. ha ha.

Wednesday evening, we had some young people from the Countryside Bible Church come to my home and sing some carols for our enjoyment. I told them that usually that is done for little old ladies and little old men, and I just realized that I must be in that classification finally. Ha ha. Anyway, we all got a good laugh from that one, and they said they were going to the Pastor's home after they left us, so that must not be true that you have to be a very elderly person to have that honor and privilege. We sang with them, and had a lot of fun with them. They brought me a gift box of candy, yum!

Thursday morning, we got up and had a leisurely breakfast, and we had already arranged for an airport shuttle to pick up Dot shortly after 10:30, so about 10:45, here it came down the street, and she was ready. We said our goodbyes and the van departed, taking my good friend with it and she called me when she got home with the news that it was a good flight and she got home safely. It was a great visit, dear friend, and I will see you again one of these days. I love you, Dot.

Last night, Carol came by and picked me up, and we went to a ladies' tea at the church. It was beautiful. All the tables were decorated for Christmas, with real china and candles, and we had about eight long tables filled with goodies for us to eat, along with all kinds of teas and coffee to drink. There was music for entertainment as we ate and chatted with one another. We had an inspirational speaker that followed the fellowship of tea and goodies. It was a lovely time. I am so glad I got to attend it with Carol.

That is about it for right now, folks. I was busy yesterday after Dot left. I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, stripped beds and then remade with clean sheets, and last night when I came home from the church I did not stay up a long time, and was in bed by 10:30 or so. I actually got about six hours of sleep straight through last night. Up this morning by five to gather up the trash and carry it out to the curb for pickup. It looks like it is breakfast time, and I reckon I will have mine soon.

Pictures:
1. Dot and I at Italianni's
2. At Annie (yeah, I know it is not a flattering picture of me with my mouth open, but the lady who took it for us, caught me ready to say something, and well... I can laugh at myself)
3. Across the way from us at Annie (see little girl in Annie outfit in middle of second row of seats)
4. Little girls in pink at Annie
5. Lunch at Coco's tea room
6. Waitress at tea room
7. Waitress and busboy
8. At LePeep's
9. Nativity scene at Carol and Daryl's home (utter simplicity of backlit cutouts is refreshing when one sees all the lights at other homes)
10.-13 Carolers at my home in living room.

This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for now. Much love to each of you, my friends and family. More later. Bye for now.