Things I’m Loving Lately + A Very Special Visit

Good morning. Yes, I'm back in my bedroom. Uh today I'm going to do my favorites. I do have one that's beauty related and eventually I'm going to talk about my makeup favorites in another video, but most of them are kitchen and one of them was an experience, a couple of television shows that I enjoyed and I want to announce my winners of my last giveaway. And the first one I'm going to talk about is the one that is beauty related. Later I'm going to be talking about a trip that I took. My root touch-up wasn't until a few days after I got back on my trip and a couple of weeks ago I put up the results of my 48-week update on my hair regrowth. So, my roots were rather long and for the past 10 years I've been using these. They're two different items from Color Wow. I've had these for 10 years and I have the blonde and the dark blonde and I always just had to kind of touch up right here and there. I don't have to touch up right now cuz I the color is relatively new. But, that's what I've always used. But, everywhere I had outgrow about about that much. And I remember Melissa 55 talking about how she really liked the gray away instant root cover-up. It was wonderful. When I washed my hair, I went down. I just followed the directions. I shook it really well. So, I didn't want to get it on my face or have it drip. So, I just took a washcloth and put it on my face and did down the sides and the and the parts and at the top because if I wore my hair back, my roots would show. Now, in the back I don't really have all that much gray hair. From here back, mine is mostly around face, but this was a winner. It stayed from the time I washed my hair until after I got home and I washed it again. So this This is by Everpro, I think is what it is. And I got the dark blonde. And it is wonderful. The next items are really kitchen items and I started to film this in the kitchen and I just got extremely sad. I I am not going to cry on video. I can't do that. Uh but there are things that are Some things are harder than others and I just felt so out of place in the kitchen. I have [snorts] incredibly sad times since it hasn't been 2 months yet since Jim passed away. But I can't help but think of all the good things. That's what I think of. And when I think of him, I smile. You'll have some photos I'll put in of the items I'm talking about. So the salt and pepper shakers, these are You plug me in and you recharge them and you just press the button and salt and pepper go everywhere. I feel so special when I use them. I bought a pair last October and I had it by my stove and then I liked it so much I was bringing it back and forth to the table. I thought, "Well, heck, I'm going to get a pair for my salt and pepper shaker for my table." And I've probably only recharged them both one time. I used a white sea salt. I used a pink Himalayan salt. I put that in my grinder and you can adjust how coarse you want it. And then I have Morton table salt. I Jim said, "How many salts do you have?" And I said, "Well, I think I want something from every one of them. So I just use them in different ways." But I love my salt and pepper shakers. I think I've purchased eight of them. Last Christmas I bought several as of gifts and they all have enjoyed them. So that's a favorite. I think anything that makes you feel special is worth it. I'm going to talk about something that I spoke about in February, but it has really helped me a lot. It is a four-cup mini blender. I was having a hard time making sure I had enough protein cuz I had never done smoothies before, and I don't have problems eating vegetables, but I do getting in fruit and protein, and I did especially from February on. It was It was rough. So, I got this, and I loved it, and it comes in in two parts, and it has this. I want to talk to you about what is so special about it. What I do, I put 8 oz of water. I use protein powder, and it's not important what kind of protein powder that I mean, just whatever you feel good about. I put fruit. I put a little vinegar. Sometimes I put a little lemon in it. But, uh Oh, I put uh I made cubes of prune juice. Every time somebody would come over for quite some time, I would send them home with ba- with bags of groceries because Jim and I really did eat very differently, and there were so many things I bought just for him. Well, it got down to the big thing of prune juice. He I like to eat prunes. He liked prune juice, and it wasn't open, but nobody wanted it. So, I filled up regular ice cube trays and froze them and made 80 ice cubes. And every day when I put one of the 80 ice cubes in here with my drink, and I put five other ice cubes with it, it's just pretty special. I don't think I'll do it again. They don't really freeze super hard, and it's always messy putting your hand down in there. But, I've used it up cuz I'm not a wasteful person at all. I don't like to see anything go to waste. But, I used it up, and I'm sure it made makes my drinks better. And I use chia seeds. So what I was doing, I'd fill it up I'd fill it up to this area with water, put in my chia seeds early in the morning before long before I was going to drink it. I just let the chia seeds soak. And then I'd come back and I put this in, add my powders, put the lid on, mix it up. Well, with this, you have to be pretty it is strategic where you place the lid. So in order to get it right, and I don't know if you'll see it or not, I put black marks. So all I have to do to get it just right is line up the black marks. And then this you have to just go on those like that. Well, it wouldn't work. You press the button on the top. You can't You're not supposed to press more than 30 seconds. It didn't budge. It didn't budge. And I had grown to rely on this so much. I thought I'm ordering another one. I thought I don't know what happened to it. Probably something I did. Anyway, I stopped what I was doing and went in and ordered another one from Amazon. So I started taking it apart. And when I got to the bottom, I looked and there were like chia seeds in there. I did not take into account that those chia seeds would get in here because they most of them floated. So I cleaned it, threw everything away and started all over again. And I got a pick and cleaned it and washed it and it has worked fine ever since. But I do have and a backup in case it ever quits working again. I usually drink this around 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning. That's the first thing I have. And I think I get around 50 g of protein, which is good for me. And I think I'll go ahead and continue that. And the thing I really like about it is I don't have to I just drink from here. I use this as my cup. And I've also made chicken salad, I've made ham salad. I've used it a lot. I love it enough that after I got it working, I didn't go back into Amazon and ask him to hold the the delivery, just cancel it because I don't want to do without it. And here was my next purchase right after I started doing the smoothies. I decided I wanted better water. And I know there are all kinds of different water filtering systems, but I wanted something that I knew I would do. I've used the Brita in the past. And I got a 10-cup Brita to set myself up not to fail. There's certain things I have to do. I have to make sure I have everything I need in order that I will continue doing what I want to do. And after I got the Brita and decided I liked it, it really did improve the taste of my water, and I'm a big water drinker. I went ahead and I ordered, I think it was six of them. I'll I'll put a picture here. Yeah, six of them. And that's for a year. Supposedly they last 2 months. And I even made my own ice. This is the water that I drink every day. This is my very first original Yeti cup, and I bought the handle that you can remove. But this is what I use on a day-to-day basis, and I've never gotten tired of it. And when I go anywhere, I take this one, and I don't even know the name of it, the brand. But it screws on, it has a straw. And I do drink out of a straw, always have. But when I drink out of a straw, I don't purse my lips, I kind of like smile. But anyway, what I like about this when I go somewhere, I can just carry it like this, and if it falls over, it doesn't spill, and I've cleaned up enough spilled water. But on a on the daily, I don't use this one. How I do my eyes, and I've done this [clears throat] for years, this is the inside of an old Yeti type cup that's plastic broke. I put this in the freezer, I fill it up, and this is what I start the day with. I put the ice in my red cup, and then I bought some of these stainless steel cups from Amazon, and I will fill them up in different amounts. Sometimes I'll make several of them that are just this large, and then I empty these into a gallon bag in my freezer. And so, whenever that it does melt in the summer, it never melts all the way, but I want extra I want a lot of ice. I do like a really cold drink. And I am not afraid at all of plastic with cold items. That doesn't bother me a bit. Plastic and hot items, that may be a different story. But, I knew I wanted to have my water in glass, and so I found this glass pitcher, and I really like it. It's an eight-cup pitcher. After my water has gone through my Brita, I go ahead and I fill up my pitcher, and then I fill up my coffee maker with water. So, it's a good habit for me, and it's working. The last item is totally random. It's aprons. And I had a need for aprons, and I was going to make some, and I looked on Amazon, and I found these, and they were two for $7, and I was very pleased with them. I wash them, I don't dry them in the dryer. They're kind of semi waterproof, but I love the big pockets, and I've been really happy with them. I really have. It's adjustable. Of course, once you get it adjusted, you don't have to adjust it again, and it's so handy when you're even like when you're cleaning the house and they had the I love the big pockets when you find something you just put it in there. I've been really really pleased with these and I mean $3.50 and I've had my aprons almost a year and when they do fall apart, I'll have patterns to make some. Something that I want to know and if any of you I'm going to put a picture in here. I think it's called the Chef Preserve for I wanted to use it for cold items. I don't know if it's good or not. So, I want your opinion. I'd rather I I trust you more than I trust some of the other reviews on it. So, if you have it let me know. If you've tried it and it wasn't good, would you let me know? It's a wait. You can also they have it also you can use it on glass containers, but you need to buy the glass containers. But, it's my understanding the bags are reusable. And before I talk about my trip, I'm going to tell you there's two shows that I've watched and that I really enjoyed and they were both from novels written in the 18 1800s. I'm not One of them was The Count of Monte Cristo and it's on PBS or I think you can get it on Amazon, but you probably have to pay extra. Yeah, I'm kind of over that kind of stuff, but PBS I get because I donate, you know, to our local PBS. And the other one was on It was Sanditon. s a n d i t o n and I think it's a Jane Austen. I think it was her last novel and I really enjoyed it. I I try to watch like one episode every night. I enjoyed both of them. I'm kind of drawn to period dramas. Um I I watched I don't know if I ever I've watched North and South and I enjoyed that also. I think February was the last time I mentioned television favorites. Well, here's my favorite experience. Shortly after within a week of when Jim passed, Melissa asked Melissa from the channel Melissa55. She has been a friend of mine for well over 10 years. I consider her a very close friend. I would not have known her had it not been for YouTube. But we had met before. I'd been to her home before, met Doug and enjoyed Doug and anyway, she said, "We would love it if you would come and spend some time with us. We can pick you up at the airport." She mentioned a couple that were close to her. Melissa does live in Tennessee. Well, flights aren't good. I mean, I would have had to go to Michigan probably or Chicago and anyway, I live in southern Illinois. It's so southern I can get to Kentucky in 20 minutes. That's how southern it is. But I really appreciated the offer and I told her that I would think about it and I was telling my daughter Gretchen that what Melissa wanted to do and she said, "Well, you know, Joe and I," it's my son-in-law, "we could take you there." And I said, "Oh, that's that's a lot." She And she said something about, "Well, we've been wanting to have a weekend trip." And I said, "Well, check with Joe and see what looks good." And Joe's our head football coach, varsity football coach, and he had one weekend between that time and when football season started that was open. So, I checked with Melissa and it was the last day of July, the first two days of August, and that was fine with her. We did a road trip. It's under 300 miles from my home to Melissa's and I rode in the back seat. I felt like a princess. I don't know the last time I'd ridden in the backseat of a car. We stopped in Madisonville, Kentucky and had a delicious breakfast at a place I think it was called Main Street Diner. It was packed and I had an omelette and and everything was really really good. But the the ride with Joe and Gretchen and here's their picture. I'll show you. That's my daughter and my son-in-law. It It was wonderful. Now, I'm not being partial. I'm really not when I say this, but Melissa is as beautiful as any movie star. And I told Gretchen and Joe, I said, I she is almost to the day 18 months younger than me. I said, but if she told you she was 50, you would believe her. Cuz that's Gretchen's going to be 49. Anyway, when we got there, of course they went in and met them and really felt comfortable. Doug was there and Oliver. And they had a nice little visit and then on they went to Chattanooga. And it was exactly like I knew it would be. It was so chill, so comfortable. Melissa and Doug are wonderful hosts and I I had been down in my knee. I had had a little bit of health issues. And I wasn't walking well. I almost thought about not going, but I thought, well, you know, I won't walk well at home either. And I went upstairs one time every day and I had to take one step at a time. I don't think we were planned on going anywhere anyway. We were just friends, just talking to one another. Sharing life and our stories and our feelings and what's important and what's not important anymore. We did sit on her beautiful patio. Melissa's home is beautiful. It's older than mine. Mine was built in 1891 and hers was older is older than mine, but she has she and Doug redid it to the Victorian era when which the house was built. And I'll put that link in the comments section. The I'll pin the comment and also in the show more of my video because her home is spectacular. But it's not as spectacular as she and Doug. The last time I was there I met her daughter and two of her granddaughters. I had The only one I had met is her oldest granddaughter. And this time her son's four children walked over, sat around the kitchen, and we just had a great visit and it was wonderful spending time with young people. They were uh probably all like between 12 and 19 and uh they were beautiful children. We did not film any. I didn't take a picture. Melissa did one and we did one take. She did a selfie and I'll put it in right here. We I was sitting in Doug's chair and we were drinking water and drinking coffee and just visiting. Jim passed the end of May and I had worn makeup one time since then and if I don't know why, but I just wasn't interested in wearing makeup. And I didn't wear any makeup going to Melissa's. But on Saturday morning when I got up, I put on some makeup. And so I have a little makeup on in that picture. And I'm back to wearing makeup again. Not every day, but in the past I would not have gone anywhere without makeup on. Melissa's a wonderful cook. She cooks gluten-free and I definitely limit gluten, so it all works. And on Saturday Doug had done ribs that took 24 hours to prepare. He did the sous vide method and you know, they were melt-in-your-mouth. But it just the community I felt the whole time I was there. Melissa was right. It was exactly what I needed. We just simply enjoyed being together. And something I found interesting, I slept better both nights at Melissa and Doug's than I have in months. And I slept until 7:00 and a lot of times I get up at 3:00 in the morning, 3:30 in the morning. I was concerned. I thought I'll probably, you know, get up really early, but she was prepared for that. I knew exactly where everything was and what to do and where to go, but I I couldn't believe it when I opened up my eyes and it was light out cuz I hadn't been up with daylight in I don't know how long. I could go on and on, but I am going to stop, but it was such a lovely trip. I enjoyed the ride down. I enjoyed the ride home. If it wouldn't be for all the mountains and the curves, uh I could have driven it myself, but I did not feel comfortable taking off and I mean, I've been to Chattanooga and been to Melissa's area before and there's uh it's pretty hilly. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Doug, and thank you, Oliver, for uh sharing your home with me. I'm hoping to start uploading twice a month. I'm My goal is to always have my Sunday video the last Sunday of the month and I'm looking at trying to have one the second Sunday of the month or third, you know, if sometimes there's five Sundays. But uh just check my channel. If you're not subscribed, you don't need to subscribe. You can just go to Mary Ellen after 60 and you can see if I've uploaded a video. I do try to put it on Instagram if I'm uploading one like on a Saturday, but I just put in a picture and I I'm not good at Instagram, but I'm I'm trying. So, now I want to announce the winners of my last giveaway. And what the gift is is both of my winners will receive a $100 e-gift card to wherever they want if I can figure out how to get it. There's certain places I can do very easily and some of them are hard. But either an e-gift card or a I can do deposit to a PayPal or Venmo. And autumn was a magic word that needed to be used in the sentence because autumn is my favorite season and uh it's within reach and I'm excited about that. The first winner is Terry Sanchez 5205. Congratulations, Terry. And my second winner is [snorts] Nina M 8060. Congratulations, Nina. If you're the winner, make sure you leave a comment below and I will let you know how to contact me that so you can tell me what you'd like. It is all good. God is good all the time. He has helped me. Your prayers have helped and I appreciate you more than you will ever know and I will see you in my next video. Take care. 48 My Oh my gosh. My 48 Well, my hair growth and except for the eyes. I let No, I didn't. But this way I think I get If I can't find it, I should