Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Met A Blogging Friend, and Busy, Busy, Busy........

This picture was taken Thursday, June 8 of me and one of my blogging friends, MomTeacherFriend. She is from Lansing, Michigan and was in Jonesboro, Arkansas visiting with friends. She and her son and daughter made the drive by themselves, and her hubby stayed home doing some projects in their house. You can read about it HERE, in her blog. She drove the 7 or 8 miles from Jonesboro to Bay, where I live, picked me up, and treated me to lunch at a nice Italian restaurant in Jonesboro, then we went back to her friend's house for a while to watch her kids play in the kiddie pool. It was nice and shady in Miss Sue's backyard, as you can see from the pic. Unless you're a new visitor here, you'll know that's me on the left, and MomTeacherFriend on the right. Yes, she did share her real name with me, and NO, I didn't call her MomTeacherFriend for the whole time we visited. She chooses not to use any of their real names online, and I respect that. I have heard some of the horror stories, with identity theft and all that. As for me, heck, who'd want to steal my identity? I'm not too happy with it sometimes, but I'm stuck with it. I probably couldn't give my identity away, LOL. I had a really nice time meeting MomTeacherFriend, and I think she enjoyed her first trip to Arkansas and the South. She is travelling back to Michigan today, and I wish her a safe journey home.It seems like I have been chasing my tail for the last 2 weeks, I have been so busy. One thing I did enjoy was riding around again last Friday night with Jessica, her boyfriend, Jason and Lamar. It was a blast, I tell you. We listened to CD's and the radio and just took off with no particular destination in mind. We left about 7 pm and drove off into the sunset, literally. And as the sun was setting in the West, a full moon was rising in the East. We drove into the Ozark Mountains as the sun was setting, and then that bright full moon rose over the misty mountains and valleys.........It was magic, I tell you.......Magic. We had the windows down and the scents of wild honeysuckle drifting in now and then...........Dew on newly burned wheat fields.........The smells of freshly plowed ground...........Hay freshly cut and baled.............And the occasional cow pasture with fresh...........Uh, use your imagination, here. We alternated choosing the music, and I'll never forget, we were barrelling along on one of those steep, curvy, narrow mountain roads, when suddenly we approached an overlook. We stopped to absorb the atmosphere of the mountain night. The moon was shining over a misty valley........Whippoorwills were calling from the forest............Fireflies were flickering.......It was a perfect, romantic scene........Except that "Get Low", a RAP song was blaring from the radio at a deafening level! Until I "asked Jessica nicely" to turn it off, please. THEN it was a perfect, romantic scene. We were so far out in the sticks we only saw 2 distant yard lights, and I don't remember seeing any cell towers, and you really have to be out in the boonies not to see a cell phone tower these days. There was a sheer drop off the side of the mountain at the overlook, no guard rails or fence, nothing but air and treetops. Jessica and Jason played "Scare Mama To Death By Standing Too Close To The Edge Of The Sheer Drop Into The Bottomless Ravine", which afforded them heaps of amusement, and nearly caused me to go into cardiac arrest. Of course, a lot of their amusement and energy was spurred on by ingesting copious amounts of sugar and caffiene-laden sodas and energy drinks, and Tootsie Rolls and Gummi Bears, among other wholesome, nutritious snacks. Can you say, WIRED, folks? Vibrating in place, even! When you're that hyper, almost anything is funny. Yes, anything...... Including but not limited to cemeteries and roadkill. It wasn't pretty, folks. Amusing, Yes.......Pretty, No.

Lest I leave anyone with the wrong impression, let me say unequivocably, I HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFE. I. had. a. ball. Give me a cold soda, a snack or 3, some good music, the windows down and good company, put it on wheels and roll it down the road, and this old gal's one tic
kled Mama. Give me a choice between riding around for the evening or a diamond ring, and riding around will win every time. Hands down, no pun intended.
Cecil and Sue came up for lunch and games Monday. We had sandwiches for lunch, then played Trouble afterwards. I cooked some speckled butterbeans for supper, along with some fresh homegrown green beans and I smoked some country-style ribs and sliced some fresh garden cucumbers. If I do say so myself, those hickory-smoked ribs were delicious, and the fresh green beans and cucumbers, courtesy of a good friend and neighbor, really hit the spot. I am so enjoying the fresh garden veggies, and I can't wait until the homegrown tomatoes start coming in. I have yellow squash and cabbage, too, from the same neighbor. We're gonna feast for dinner tomorrow. I'm making smoked chicken along with some of the fresh veggies. Yum......I can hardly wait.
Well, I think I will post this and call it a night. I will try post more often this week. BooMama was threatening to send out an APB on me earlier, so I'll try to post frequently enough to avoid that. Wishing everyone a good week. :-)

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I for one missed you and wondered what happened, but it sounds like a good excuse, so I'll let it slide. :-) That must be kind of cool to meet a fellow blogger. I hope I get that opportunity sometime. Glad to see you back, Diane, and I'm happy you had such a good time.

Diane@Diane's Place said...

It's nice to know I was missed, Mike. :-)
I suppose you're headed to work. Be careful not to get too hot, and take care of yourself. Have a good day, Mike. :-)

Lisa said...

I was wondering where you were too! I checked on ya a couple of times.

Your ride sounds like so much fun. I, too, would pick that over jewelry.

How cool to meet a blogger friend! I've belonged to a message board for a couple of years, and met a couple of girls from it. It's so much fun!

Susie said...

Glad you're enjoying summer! My husband and I used to enjoy cruisin' on warm nights, but now that is against the law in most towns here in CA.
I've never met a fellow blogger, but have connected with several in long "get to know you" e-mails telling the behind the scenes info :-)
So glad you're back as I always enjoy your posts....

Diane Viere said...

Your post should be required reading for anyone who doesn't know how to have fun.......in life!

Glad you're back--just know--we miss you when you're off having the time of your life....without us!

:) Diane

Dick said...

Good to have you back. I have always enjoyed car rides. I suppose that is one of the reasons I like RVing so well. My new little car is a lot of fun to ride around in anytime, especially if the weather is good enough to have the top down.

Barb said...

How fun to get to meet a blog friend. And every time I read one of your posts, I get hungry! Stop it! I'm headed for the cheetos right now! (The BEST part of summer is when the tomatoes come in.)

Brenda said...

How cool that you got to meet a fellow blogger! I'm looking forward to that myself.

I love the way you describe it all. Reminds me of home, except that you didn't mention mosquitoes. ;)

Homegrown dermaters are the BEST!

Meow (aka Connie) said...

Hi Diane ... I haven't been around much lately, either. Glad all is well with you. Take care, Meow

Naturegirl said...

Wow that was some post so newsy!!Fireflies I am still waiting to see them! How nice that you met a blogger friend in person! I hope that I have the privilege to meet one of mine some day! Perhaps in Paris or Germany or Ireland oh there are so many!! Just think we found one another just with the click of our PC key!Thank you for being a regular visitor to my site and caring about my furry friends that I post about!

momteacherfriend said...

We really enjoyed our time...people in the south know how to cook and have fun. It was an awesome trip. I truely enjoyed our visit. It is nice to know that people are really who they write about, REAL. And for those of you wondering she really can cluck like a chicken and bark like a dog. Pretty impressive... I hope to meet many more blogging friends over the years. Thanks Diane for taking the time.

By the way, we made it home safe and hubby had a few suprises for me as well. (HUGE SMILE)

"The Glenifer" said...

Your ride in the country sounds like just the kind of thing we like doing. And ribs! Yum! That's something I need to learn to cook. Is that on your recipe blog? I'm going to go check. If not, consider this a request. :)

-Jenn

P.S. I'd love to meet you sometime when I'm in Arkansas!

boomama said...

I'd rather go riding around than have a diamond ring, too. Jewelry, for me, has very little sentimental value...but those times in the car - well, those are some fun memory-makin' moments. Glad you had such a good time with your family AND with a fellow blogger - but we've got to get you posting more than once a week. :-) It's just not near enough.

Anonymous said...

hiya Aunt Diane,
im glad you had a great time riding around with j.j. its been a humdinger up here i tell that with ron the cable guy i love him but my god sometimes he drives me nuts just like i do him,i cant wait to see you again,im at moms house for a few days me and luci and jons with brandon,i hope to see you all and i hope that you had a nice time at our house and i hope that you will be able to come up again really soon... love you always tami dean dean

"The Glenifer" said...

:) Good Morning Diane. Just wanted to give thumbs up on your new picture. Likey!

Thanks for the secret to your ribs. I read it to Glen since he's the king of the grill, and he's going to give it a try this weekend.

-Jenn

Anonymous said...

meeting blogging friends?! everyone's doing that these days! i wanna!!

Andre said...

Tell me about it! I'm jealous that you guys actually had a change to hook up. Besides menacing emails from people who wanna beat me up because of something I put on my blog, I don't have that much of an extension with the Internet world. But, you guys had a chance to actually meet. How cool is that?!

RennyBA said...

It's great to see blogging connecting people! Thanks for your link on my blog - here is my post about the same:
http://rennybasblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/blogging-connecting-people.html