Field Notes 7/18/25

Friends! What a whirlwind the past two weeks have been! I celebrated my 50th birthday with one of my dear friends. She invited me out to dinner on my birthday and we went to 71 South in SoKno (otherwise known as South Knoxville). It was a delight. The restaurant is in the Baker Creek section of Knoxville and the restaurant is in an old church. There are lots of little shops in the building to explore. We had a leisurely dinner topped off with tiramisu for dessert. I haven’t had tiramisu in ages (literally since I lived up north about 4 years ago). It was a nice, low key way to spend my birthday. I even dressed up!

The rest of my birthday week was spent getting ready for my birthday party. I decided to patch the walls and paint the kitchen. I got everything done except one wall that needed a major repair. I am still working on patching it and will get it done, painted, and things hung back up on the walls in the next 2 weeks. I have another deadline looming that requires me to get. it. done. I also patched the dining room wall where the people broke in a year ago. We replaced the door with a sliding glass door last fall and I have needed to repair the wall. My biggest decision was what color to paint it. I couldn’t decide. Then when my brother and I were at Home Depot a couple of weeks ago picking out kitchen paint color, I picked up a couple of paint chip samples. I ended up with (what I thought was) a beautiful golden, mustard color. I bought a gallon of it but when I tested a patch on the wall, it turned out to be too dark and too brown. I called Home Depot to ask if I could bring it in to be lightened and they said yes! They ended up adding 2 ounces of white to it and it turned out to be the perfect shade! I am calling it my custom color. It is so dreamy and golden. When I got everything put back in place it just really makes that wall pop like I hoped it would.

Anyway. My brother and nephews ended up coming up the day before my birthday party and helped me finish mowing, weedwhacking, power washing the house, and then hanging things back up. I took down one of the porch swings and moved the wooden one to the front porch. It gives me so much more room on the back deck, which I really appreciate. I also had let the fields grow up to see what was growing. It turns out it was just grass and weeds. I was hoping there would be some native wildflowers but they are few and far between. So I started mowing all the fields. That is one thing the nephews helped me finish was mowing a lot of the fields and doing some good trim work with the weedeater. While they were working on that, my brother and I finished power washing the ends of the house. I needed a ladder to get to the top parts and needed someone to help hold the ladder. We tag teamed it and then one of my nephews jumped in to help!

As for the actual party, it was nice. It rained right before so we didn’t get to play any games. Mostly we sat around under the carport and chatted. I had 20 people here to help me celebrate my big birthday! My heart was so full of joy. Daisy even made an appearance with her family. Anna Lee was all in her face to begin with and Daisy wouldn’t ‘talk’ to me. She is living her best life. Why would she want to return here?! HAHA. I think once she realized she was not being left here, she came around and started saying hi.

I did a grazing table for food. I enjoyed putting it together. It gave me a couple of hours to myself to just be and to be creative. I really appreciated that time. I did a time lapse video of me setting up the table but ended up not getting any other pictures of the whole day! But that’s okay. I was surrounded with friends and family and was trying to live in the moment and celebrate our big day. I wanted to spend more time with each and every person but ended up not getting to do that. It was a regret that I have about not having a sit down meal so we could all be together and get to know one another. I think the party went really well, don’t get me wrong. It was exactly as I imagined it. I think I will get a croquet set so next time we can have a good, healthy match going. But it got me to thinking that I would like to host some sit down meals here with smaller groups so I can get to know people and really spend quality time together. That’s going on my to-do list: start planning some dinner parties. Let me know if you’d like an invite.

I need to back up a minute. In between my actual birthday and my party was an event at Heartsong Resort in Pigeon Forge. Elyse, from Destination TN Valley, asked to me to be a part of an event she was hosting there. We discussed it and I knew that I wanted to be involved with the event. It took on several iterations, as these things do, until it finally ended up being me hosting a cooking workshop where I taught a room full of adults how to make that Blueberry Caprese Salad I shared with you last week. Then the chefs from the lodge walked them through how to make a couple of things, while I walked around making sure everyone understood the assignment (they did! They did such an amazing job!). I really enjoyed the whole event and even got to bring some herbs home with me to plant in my front flower beds, which is in progress. I really need to get the rest in the ground this weekend. I will give you an update next week to let you know how they’re doing.

I was out delivering groceries on Wednesday and happened to be in the next county over (I live super close to two different counties so it’s not unheard of to deliver to 3 counties in one day!). Anyway, I was in the county where I take Anna Lee to trail run. I saw a sign that said there might be heavy traffic and I was wondering why. Turns out it’s county fair week in Anderson County! I finished my deliveries and stopped by. I love a good, small county fair! I hadn’t been to one since I left NY. I go to the big one in Knoxville every year but I miss those small town ones. This one did not disappoint. It was the right size for me to see all the entries for the different categories (photography, wood working, produce, etc. etc). Then I wondered over to the animal barn. Those poor animals out in this heat. I felt bad for them but I did enjoy seeing the rabbits, chickens, and goats. My heart is so happy being surrounded with so much agriculture, especially since it seems that our farmland is being gobbled up for housing developments at an alarming rate here in Knox County. Anyway, I ended up eating some street tacos for dinner and even sat with some strangers for dinner. Then I had Mayfield’s ice cream (butter pecan, if you know you know) for dessert. I took lots of pictures and then was home by about 7:30PM. It was the perfect end to the day!

Oh! before I forget, I had my brother help me hang up the command station, aka my huge chalkboard in the office. I am going to start using the office more for my paperwork and computer work space. I really need to focus and am using time blocking to see if that helps. And focusing on one task at a time. No jumping between tasks. Stay focused on the one task until it’s complete, mark it off the list, and then move on to the next one. So far it really seems to help. Do you have any tips for getting tasks completed?

Going back to the fields being mowed. I can really start to see a vision taking shape with how the land can really start working for me now. I can see gardens and flowers being grown. Chickens running around. And maybe even some goats eventually! I can even see a little farm stand right next to the driveway where people can stop and purchase bouquets of flowers, farm fresh eggs, and anything else I can think of! It will take a lot of work, but I like having goals and working towards those goals. The front of the house is really starting to take shape with very little money invested by me. I do need to grab some ferns to hang up (very southern) and some more mulch for once I get the herbs in the ground. I also have plans to move a hydrangea that has never bloomed to the front of the house where it will have a better chance. I need to transplant some other plants from the front flower bed to other spots around the yard. All of this doesn’t cost much, if anything at all. I’ve also started going through my things in storage and pulling out things that I can use to decorate with. I am finally landing in one place and starting to put down roots. I’ve missed that. I’m even drafting my goals and how I am going to accomplish those goals over the next year. I am only looking at one tiny snippet of time at one time. No big grand plans yet. Those will come once I have accomplished some of these smaller goals that can be built up on.

I think we’ll end here for this week. If you get a chance, tune into WATE Living East TN this morning at 10AM to see me put together a breakfast charcuterie board. And then keep your eyes here for more details of all the things that I am working on! There are some fun surprises coming your way soon.

‘til next time
-k
xoxo