It Only Hurts When I Blog

Greetings, Masters of the Bloggyverse!

Everyone throw in a white chip to 'ante up'.

I don't know why I 'OPENED' that way... Get it - Opened, Texas Holdem, that's card-talk. We don't play cards very often, but we have a blast when we do.

Our friends are great card players, so we stayed up pretty late again last night playing poker at the dining room table. It was great fun.

But I'm getting ahead of myself - I should tell you about the rest of our day first. We had our fantastic breakfast casserole, then piled in the car for a big adventure.

We did go to Mennonite country - in a community called 'Muddy Pond' near Monterey, TN heading toward the mountains. It's up on a plateau with farms all around.

It's not very big, but they have their own church, variety store, country store, leather and tack shop, and bakery.

The bakery is named something like the 'Bachen Haus' - the 'Baking House'. My waistline is happy that the bakery was closed on Mondays, PROBABLY because Monday is washing day (thinking back to our Amish country visit recently).

We stopped first at the variety store. Outside, it's a little homey jumble of farm tools, relics, antiques, and handmade furniture next to the owners house and garden.

Inside, we chatted with the owner while we looked at the hodge-podge of bulk spices, homemade goods like bread and fried apple pies, kitchen tools and knives, pots and pans, and all sorts of things. I bought some soup spoons ($3.99), a manicure kit ($3.99), and some stainless steel measuring spoons ($1.90). Oh... also a loaf of homemade wheat bread. ;-)

The nice lady also accommodated my request to buy some of her beet greens in the garden- I don't really care for beets, but I love beet greens (which you cook like spinach) and nobody sells just the greens around here. She went out to the garden and put a lot of greens in a grocery sack and charged me a dollar for them. Fantabulous!

We went to the country store next, which is a much larger and more 'organized' place, and also has a deli. We all bought sandwiches which we ate outside sitting on their porch in rocking chairs. It was just lovely. We also bought spices and I bought some honey and some sassafras tea concentrate - I haven't tried it yet but I'll let you know what I think of it.

We bought some cheeses and cold cuts to go too, which are just ridiculously priced around $3 per POUND. At any city store the same cold cuts would be at least $8 per pound.

Have you ever tasted 'Green Onion Cheese' or 'Bermuda Onion Cheese'? They are wonderful, lightly flavored cheddar cheeses that they get from Amish Country in Pennsylvania.

Charlie bought a new belt at the leather and tack shop, and I saw a ladies riding saddle that had PINK accents - it was adorable... (Yeah, guess I don't need a saddle right now, do I?)

The only thing that kind of shook our romantic view of the place was to see a UPS truck go by. That 'just ain't right'. ;-)

When we got back, we had 'rest time', did some shopping at the mall, and went out for dinner at 'Romano's Macaroni Grill'. I had LOBSTER RAVIOLI which was SOOOO wonderful I could faint for joy thinking about it. I may faint again when I step on the scale. ;-)

We played poker last night. I am NOT a good poker player (our friends are) but I won some hands. We played 5 card draw, 7 card stud, and Texas Holdem and used poker chips instead of pennies or other change.

Ok - insert brag here - I did win the biggest and final pot of the night. We played a version of poker that you had to have at least a pair of Jacks or higher to open and start the bidding, and if nobody had at least a triple - 3 of a kind or a straight nobody could win and the pot kept growing.

My masterful win was just because I was lucky enough to accumulate three 7's. (insert applause here)

Well gang, company is stirring so I'd better go get working on breakfast. We have breakfast casserole to warm up this morning, homemade wheat bread from Mennonite country, and fresh honey for our bread.

TTFN and have a nice Tuesday!

Update at 3:19pm... It's 91 degrees and blistering hot. Hot hot hot.

I had several phone calls this morning from various recruiters about more companies and more interviews! That is good news, because I would like to have some 'choices' if possible.

TTFN!