Nat Your Average Story: Always Colorful....Certainly Memorable

Here we are again - I feel like there are definitely days where I cannot for the life of me come up with a way to start these posts off. Some days the words just roll right out of my head and onto the "page" but other days, it takes some times. I still haven't figured out what the title of this post will be either. Writer's block? Maybe. Then again, perhaps I spent too much time in the sun this weekend and my brain is fried.... I'll let you choose....

Tuesday evening clouds over the mountains....

Seriously - I didn't know sunsets could be so crazy amazing!

As I sit here, I cannot for the life of me ever remember what I did last Monday night...which gives a lot of credence to the theory that the sun fried my brain this weekend! I feel certain there was some level of baseball game watching involved but I know I didn't leave the game on because the Nationals weren't doing so well and it was stressing me out. I'm not a "fair weather" fan...because let's be honest; if you only cheer when things are going good, can you really call yourself a fan - you can't...but it is more fun when your team is winning! Monday was obviously a really lazy day; the lack of pictures probably means not too much happened worth documenting.

Tuesday night though; we spent a good portion of Tuesday night at my/our friend Jennie's now house, helping her get her kitchen organized. All this moving and unpacking and putting away makes me really miss all my "things" that are packed away and miss having my own space. I've started the process of looking into buying a house - hopefully the process won't be too lengthy but so far, it isn't exactly speedy. All good things in time, right?

You couldn't recreate these colors if you tried - amazing!

Oh me - what can I say? I'm a wee bit crazy!

So - Wednesday night y'all - good times! Danielle and I...weeks ago...bought tickets to a Bridesmaids Quote-Along Champagne showing at the Alamo and since the tickets said to wear your ugliest bridesmaids dress, we kind of took it as a challenge and bought some really classy numbers from a local consignment shop. If we were going, we were going to go all in - 100%! My dress was some kind of royal blue, half Grecian-inspired, half spaghetti strap nightmare but Danielle's really took the cake - because it was a pink, poufy sleeved 80's horror and it was brilliant! It was made even more brilliant when we found a headband that matched it perfectly! We changed into our hideous bridesmaid outfits at the office and our boss oh so kindly told us we both looked lovely - even though we assured him we were supposed to look completely nuts. What can I say, I work for a nice guy!

We were the ONLY people that dressed up. The only people.

We didn't care - we rocked our looks & had fun!

I don't know if the event wasn't really marketed well or what but NO one at the Alamo seemed to have any clue why we were dressed the way we were!!! One of the guys working the theater even asked if we were celebrating a bachelorette party! There was a group of women celebrating a bachelorette party and they did have on dresses...but not actually ugly bridesmaid dresses. I guess no one read the tickets....booooo! In addition to the champagne in glasses we got to keep (they were cheap plastic, lucky us!!!) there was supposed to be a Wilson Phillips sing-along at the end of the movie but that didn't happen. I feel like someone fell down on their job in planning this, but regardless of all that - the movie was still hilarious and we had fun - even if we did get some funny looks!

The classiest champagne glasses ever....

A Throwback Thursday for me - even in 2008 I knew I was a Nats fan. ;)

Friday was a really chill day - that seems to be the theme for this week, huh? Maybe that should make it into the title somehow? We'll see, I'm still going. I got off work at 3:30 on Friday (awesome!) and spent Friday night just relaxing at the house; my Dad grilled some chicken and my parents finally finished the third season of House of Cards! Now we all just have to wait until February to see how that story will continue to unfold...

Saturday though - I spent Saturday (or a good portion of it) in DC with my friend Rachel. We met up at the Metro and headed into DC to explore the National Gallery and basically just wander around - and the weather predicted cloudiness and walking to eat in Captiol Hill we were pretty glad for those clouds because it was HUMID! However, once we finished lunch and headed back to the Mall, the clouds had decided to take a hike and the sun was shining full force; it was even blazing in the Metro, the only time it was cool was when a train soared into the station and brought a blast of stale air through with it! Whoosh!

Seriously - they aren't lying about it being Good Stuff!

A Monet - of course!

The Voyage of Life - such beautiful paintings & my pictures don't even begin to do them justice.

I do love a good rotunda!

It is next to impossible to see, but there was a rainbow in my rear view mirror on the way back from DC on Saturday...

The weather on Saturday was supposed to be somewhat hit or miss because the remnants of the Tropical Storm from Texas were making their way through the state; the rain held off for most of my drive home...although I did encounter a nice downpour about twenty minutes from the house. I didn't let it bother me too much since I had my radio tuned to the Nationals game and Scherzer was right in the middle of pitching a no-hitter! I mean, amazing! I will be honest and say that once I got home, I was pretty useless... I was glued to the TV until the Nationals game went off - I had to see Scherzer get his Hershey's syrup victory celebration - and after supper, well I'll be honest and tell you I don't think I even made it to 10:15. I'm telling you - the sun...it fried me!

A deer grazing right outside the house - before a huge thunderstorm blew through...

I had some friends who tried to persuade me to become a Pirates fan - I may have sent a little smack talk via text message. I know, so unnecessary...but I just couldn't help it! :)

Someone taking a Sunday morning nap!

I have SO many pictures from Sunday afternoon - good grief! After having a quick lunch at McAlister's, we took off on an adventure to Orkney Springs, VA which is about an hour from the house. It's the sight of a mineral springs found centuries ago (okay...maybe two centuries ago...) and of course, a resort sprung up around the springs because they were believed to have healing properties. The huge (I'm serious - it's GIGANTIC) main building of the resort is called the Virginia House and served as an infirmary during the Civil War...so I'm sure it's haunted from here to kingdom come. That's neither here nor there I suppose, because it's a beautiful building but I'd not be persuaded to stay in it...not because of the probable haunting(s) though...

The Virginia House

It's 96,000 square feet - you can't even see half of the house in this picture...

One of the streams that feed into the Springs.

The waters are mineral rich - as in - IRON. Everything was a rusty red & the water even smelled metallic!

Why wouldn't I stay at the Virginia House? Well - that's quite simple really. There is NO AIR CONDITIONING! Y'all...it was 85 on Sunday but it with the humidity that has been hanging around this past weekend it felt like 93 in the shade. Let me tell you, air conditioning is important to me. Opening a window doesn't really help when the air that is circulating is HOT. So, there's my stance on all that.

The compound/resort is now a retreat center owned by the Episcopalian Diocese of Virginia and there were people checking in right and left for all kinds of summer camps. Summer camps that involved hot sweaty activities and staying in rooms with NO air conditioning. Y'all - I can't let that go. Gross. The whole place is referred to now as Shrine Mont and there is an outdoor chapel called the Shrine of the Transfiguration and it's quite beautiful. We enjoyed wandering around and taking it all in but based on what I saw, I think most of the healing mineral springs have receded back underground and the only relief you are going to get in the liquid form...well that's from the swimming pool on the grounds.

A butterfly on some Lambs Ear - which I only learned the name of yesterday.

The Shrine of the Transfiguration

Trying to be cute even though I was sweating like a champ & my shorts were sticking together...oh well...

So pretty.

Another small struggle at Orkney Springs was that there was no cell phone service! I needed that cell phone service so I could get text message updates about the Nationals game, don't you see? They were on fire this weekend and made franchise history on Sunday when they scored nine runs in the first inning; y'all...they retired the Pirates starting pitcher before the first inning even ended! Bryce Harper also scored his 24th home run, so basically the bats were on fire and I was loving it! We were able to listen to the first inning in the car before the radio station fuzzed out and I'm fairly certain my parents thought I was losing my mind...hopping around and squealing like a spazz. What can I say? I'm loving it.

A sweep - you gotta love that!

Ice Cream...from Smiley's Kustard. Maybe it was custard....

Bryce Mountain

We rounded out Sunday evening by just relaxing at home. Jeff and Ginger have both been battling a summer cold; I felt like I was on an afternoon road trip with Snotty and Coughy on Sunday...but they rallied and enjoyed that afternoon between sneezes. We did get to watch (for a time at least) two deer come across the golf course and right into our backyard...but then Watson spied them and started barking like we were all about to be brutally killed - so of course the deer fled. Silly dog! Sunday evening; which was also Summer Solstice, ended in a blaze of color and I suppose that about sums up this week. Nothing earth shattering...but always colorful and certainly memorable.