Category: Random TLC

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Working For The Weekend?

Is it wrong that in my day-to-day, working full time, I feel like I only live for the weekends? By the time I get up, work until 5 every day, two evenings I go to boot camp after work, get dinner made for anywhere from 2-7 people, fulfill a couple of random cleaning tasks (a load of laundry, unload the dishwasher, vacuum) I feel I’ve just run myself into the ground. I’m exhausted. I can’t wait to get into bed so I can get up and start the same routine over the next day.

As Monday progresses into Friday, I swear my bed time gets earlier and my random cleaning tasks start to dwindle and I get less done. By Thursday night, I’m pretty much worthless and it’s easy for me to crawl in bed before it’s even dark out yet.

Then comes Friday! I always wake up with my feet moving before they even hit the ground. I’m ready to tackle the day and get through it as quickly as possible so I can get home, we can load the car, and head down to our lake condo getaway. We don’t do anything much different at the condo than we do at home. I still have similar tasks, but instead of sitting for 8 fun-filled hours in the office, I get to spend most of those hours at the pool or on the lake. We are in the habit of staying up later at the lake usually because we have friends or family from out of town staying with us, or we visit with our neighbors, so by the time we get home to start the work week over again I’m already starting off at a deficit.

I’m not sure when living for the weekend became the norm, but I yearn for the days of living life for each day. I miss catching up with my circle of friends, having meaningful conversations and lots of laughs. I miss not having the time to experience new things and meeting new people. You can’t fit it all in on the weekend. Or is it enough? When the job gets in the way of life and makes it more mundane, it’s time to re-think priorities.

Cheers to re-thinking! Comment below and let me know what you’ve had to re-think.

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Making Travel a Priority

I’ve been asked so many times, how can I afford to travel as frequently as I do?  It’s very easy–my husband and I have made travel a priority in our lives, budgets, etc.  You only live once and this is a way we prefer to live.

We actually have a running list of where we’d like to go, how long of a trip it should be, and then we work towards making it happen. Some places are great for a long weekend–if we can drive there in a few hours or fly there quickly–like Las Vegas or Memphis, anything concerning the beach and relaxation should be a 1 week trip, and anywhere that will involve a long flight or a lot of exploration–Europe or Greece–will be a 2 week trip.
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However, sometimes we have to sprinkle in unplanned trips which can set our list back a little. For instance, my British friends Matt and Emma will be on holiday in Mexico in October.  I originally met them in Mexico, so we’ve decided to vacation at the same resort as a reunion of sorts.  We weren’t planning to go to Mexico this year–we’ve been there so many times–but I can’t wait to see Matt and Emma!

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Grand Palladium Pool

How do we save for a trip?  Easy, we have one bank account set aside, just for trip money AND we put half of every paycheck in there.  Sounds like a lot , right? But we consider travel just as important as making the truck payment.  We cut all other extraneous costs down to a minimum, so unless it’s a necessity, extra money doesn’t get spent.  I never stop to buy a cup of coffee on my way in to work and I rarely eat lunch out.  I usually bring a lunch to work with me.  We use coupons to help keep the grocery bill down, and use our grocery shopper’s card to rack up our fuel points. We also work from a grocery list and don’t buy a bunch of stuff that’s not on it–this means very little junk food.  It also helps that my husband is a bargain shopper–we rarely buy new clothes unless they are on sale.  I’m not so good at catching clothes on sale, but I’m getting better at it. I love the beginning of summer when I get to stock up on sweaters for next year!  Any extra money we receive also ends up in this account–bonuses, gifts, etc.

Keep in mind, this isn’t our only savings.  We also have another account for saving for emergency or capital expenses.  This way, if a big expense comes up, like the time I slid off the road in black ice and needed all 4 tires replaced at the same time, we take it from that account NOT the vacation account.  And the first money that comes out of any pay is retirement/401K/mutual funds.  We are paying ourselves and our retirement before anything else so that hopefully when we are retired, we have enough money to travel to our hearts content!
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We will also bargain shop for the trip.  I will do frequent comparisons of prices through Apple Vacations, Funjet, and Cheap Caribbean.  Doing a search on Expedia will alert me to which airlines fly to our destination and what the flight schedules look like.  Based on those results, I will then price bundled trips through the airlines.  Typically, during these searches I can also determine if there are any sales on certain resorts or airlines which can also help us save money on the trip cost.  I love a good fill-the-rooms sale!

Overall, if you are planning your budget wisely and sticking to it (it does take diligence and discipline), it’s pretty easy to save for vacationing.

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Quick Cheers to Postcards From TLC

This post won’t be about anything travel related. It’s more of a quick cheers to progress and a thank you to all who have contributed.

Postcards From TLC has just hit some major milestones! Every year, I set new goals for my blog and then I check in on my progress a couple of times each month. So far, for 2018 I’ve already hit most (not all) of my goals, but it’s only August. It looks like I may have to raise the bar a bit higher and re-set some goals soon!

It may not seem like much to you, but I just gained my 1000th follower on FaceBook. If you are a blogger, you can relate to the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into promoting. But, if you are not a blogger, trust me, a lot of time and energy went in to getting those followers. Promoting a blog is quite important and social media is a top way of doing it. The number of followers you gain helps determine what advertising opportunities you may have and how successful you may be at monetizing your blog. While monetizing my blog has never been a top priority, it is nice to earn a little return on my efforts.

When I first started Postcards From TLC over a year ago (read my first post here), I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought it just might be a fun hobby to allow myself to share some of my writing. If you would have told me then that I would soon be sharing my posts with a thousand people I would have thought you were nuts. (In actuality, tallying numbers from all social media outlets we’re at the 3,000 mark.) This seems so unreal, but is a very rewarding feeling.

I remember how difficult it was to gain my first real follower who wasn’t my husband or one of my relatives–thank you so much Melanie Irish! You really gave me hope when you clicked that follow button. I also remember gaining number 1000 on FaceBook–thanks to Michelle DeHaven! I can track each person on each social media platform to see when you clicked on follow. All I can say is thank you to each and everyone of you for helping to turn my fun hobby into something more insightful than that! I’m so grateful to have the followers I have and I will strive to gain more. In retrospect, I will also reciprocate to other blogs as much as possible. I will follow, click your ads, buy your products, and in general attempt to support as many of you as possible. Feel free to share my posts where ever you access them, and maybe you’ll help me gain a few more too!

♥ Tracey L Clark

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Coral Reef Seafood Does It Again

So, after my blog went down for 20 days during my move to a self-hosted platform, I think we’re finally (I hope!) up and running on a normal basis again. Many, many thanks to Bluehost for getting my platforms straightened out and mostly consolidated. If you are planning to set up a blog site, definitely consider using Bluehost for your hosting platform. Their customer service is hands-down so helpful and I was amazed that they had my two sites fixed within 24 hours.

AND once again, I have to tout the seafood from Coral Reef Seafood at the Lake of the Ozarks. They did it again and I guess as long as I keep enjoying their seafood, you run the risk of seeing a blog post about them.

We had gone down to the Lake of the Ozarks Saturday afternoon for just a quick getaway and to tweak a couple of things with the condo. Actually, we stopped at Coral Reef BEFORE we even went to the condo. I had seen their Facebook post with pics of some of the new items they had just rolled out, and I wanted to stock up. Since I failed to take many pictures, you can actually see their pics HERE.

We loaded up (not in any particular order) on:

RED PEPPERS–stuffed with Cajun rice, Andouille sausage and shrimp. THESE WERE INCREDIBLE! Hubby grilled them for about 40 minutes on a medium heat. The rice had a good Cajun flavor going, but the best surprises were when I found chunks of the sausage and shrimp in the rice. I’m not even a big fan of Andouille, but the sausage they use almost melts in your mouth.

FAROE ISLAND FRESH SALMON–stuffed with real blue crab lump meat. OK, so for the longest time my favorite thing to get from CR has been Justin’s Stuffed Roughy, but I think this Faroe Island Salmon has just taken the cake crab leg. The sweet flavor of the Blue Crab meat was a perfect ingredient for this stuffing, and I always love salmon. It’s not like I won’t ever have the roughy again, but I really enjoyed this salmon.

CRAB STUFFED JALAPENOS–stuffed with cream cheese and crab meat AND wrapped in bacon. These are going to become a new item in our regular CR rotation. They were so easy to grill, and the cream cheese/crab filling was like no other I’ve had before. Blew the doors off what I would’ve gotten in a restaurant!

ROMA TOMATOES–stuffed with blackened Ahi tuna salad. These were so light, crisp and refreshing, we had them with breakfast. This was also a great way to go low carb with tuna salad.

LARGE WILD TEXAS SWEET PINK SHRIMP–this is a regular CR staple in our house. I usually pick up a pound of the raw, take them home, and steam them up to snack on throughout the weekend. BUT, they will steam and season them for you if you’d like. This is some of the best tasting shrimp I’ve ever eaten.

And they have lots of other seafood (and some non-seafood) that we’re working our way through trying. We’ve had the scallops (another fave), the crab legs (colossal!), red snapper, orange roughy (great on the grill), triggerfish (tastes similar to crab), Justin’s Salmon Cranberry dip, Justin’s Stuffed Roughy, and twice baked potatoes. They also carry lots of condiments like Tequila Lime Cocktail Sauce and Sriracha Aioli, seasonings, even steaks!

If you like seafood you should definitely go check them out. If you can’t visit them in person, you can still check out their goodies here or follow their facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/coralreefseafood/ or find them on twitter at https://www.twitter.com/coralreefseafo1/.

***General disclaimer: no human consumed all of the food listed above in one meal. While there may have been two or three items at one meal, the rest was split up between three days helping to preserve the healthfulness of seafood!

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Happy Birthday Postcards From TLC!

We made it! We have reached the 1-year anniversary of Postcards From TLC. What was once only a thought/dream/idea became reality when our first post was published on May 12, 2018.

I had been thinking for a while that I would love to get into blogging. It would be a fun project to work on in my spare time. Who knew that it would be much more time-consuming than my “spare time”? I’d estimate that most weeks, I put in close to what I work at my day job, around 35 hours. Granted, some weeks are less, and I can control that, but I always keep my goal of 3 posts per week in mind. (Although, due to some technical difficulties, I didn’t always hit that goal this year.)

I owe a ton of thanks to my financial advisor, Eric Niswonger. In one of our yearly meetings, chit-chatting over lunch, I had mentioned that I would love to set up a blog but had no idea how to do it. He gave me a few suggestions and the motivation to give it a shot and so far I’ve made it a whole year. He not only steered me in the right blogging direction, but he also takes really good care of my investments! If you want help with your investments, comment below and I’ll get you his contact info.

I’ve had an incredible time learning the technical stuff about how to set up a website, how to promote my blog, and well, the content is really the easiest, fun part. As someone who has always loved to write (even if it’s just a list) and majored in English, the writing is the fun part. Now, whether anyone else actually reads it or enjoys it–who knows? The point is, a blog can be totally self-serving. I can write posts and even if no one else reads them, I have an ongoing documentation of things I’ve done and places I’ve been. I just hope, that along the way, someone can glean one helpful tidbit, or moment of entertainment from it.

Going forward, I’m excited to see what year 2 brings! I’m hoping to continue cranking out my posts each week, tweaking the site a little bit more, and learning additional skills that will help me in my blogging future. I’m also looking forward to acquiring more, new content, which means hitting the road. Cheers to Postcards and I hope you continue following!

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A Novice Trip–Houston and Galveston, TX

One of the first trips I ever took solo was to Houston, TX. If I only knew then what I know now, I would have done it completely different. My friend Marcia was going to go with me to visit our college friend, Carol, who was living there after college and teaching school. It sounded like a fun trip!

I booked our airline tickets and reserved a hotel room near the airport. (Carol only had a small apartment and we didn’t want to impose on her the entire time we would be there.) When the time came for Marcia to reimburse me for her half of the costs, whattaya know, she had decided she really didn’t have the time to take off a day of work and go. She bailed on me while I was holding two airline tickets and a hotel room that wasn’t really even close to where Carol lived. I wasn’t going to eat the entire cost of the trip just because I would be flying alone. I was going!

I arrived in Houston and got checked into the hotel. After dropping my luggage in my room, I headed south to Carol’s address. I didn’t realize how long of a drive it would be from the airport to South Houston. Even though it was only about a 30 mile drive on interstate highways, there was also TRAFFIC from Rodeo to contend with along with a couple of toll highways.

After about 90 minutes of rental car acrobatics on the highways, I finally arrived at Carol’s apartment. We order a pizza and began catching up on what was going on in each other’s after-college world. At this point, Carol dropped a bit of a bomb shell by telling me she hadn’t yet been diagnosed, but considered herself to be an agoraphobic–she never left her apartment, except to go to work. Trying to be sympathetic, I told her to just let me know what she would be comfortable doing in the next 3 days while I would be visiting. Nothing, she was really comfortable doing nothing. I couldn’t imagine how difficult that made her life.

As that was sinking in–I was going to be on my own in a strange city for the next 3 days or sitting in Carol’s small apartment the entire time–Carol did agree to try to go out sightseeing with me the next day. Whew! I really wasn’t looking forward to hanging by myself in Houston!

The next morning, I went to Carol’s and picked her up. We headed to an area called the Kemah Boardwalk. We walked around the boardwalk for a while and went into some of the shops–I think it was the first time I had ever seen a Build-A-Bear Workshop (they were still a pretty new store back then)–and we found a spot to people watch for a while. We had a late lunch at Landry’s Seafood House, where I had the MOST INCREDIBLE Shrimp & Crab pasta that probably had at least a million calories in it. After wrapping up at Landry’s, we headed back to Carol’s. She said she was done being out for the day.

I, however, was not done. I really wanted her to go with me to the Gulf Greyhound Park to have a couple of beers and watch the greyhounds race. She was not up for it, but was kind enough to recruit one of her neighbors to go with me. (Oh geez! Since I did not know him from the man in the moon, I hoped he was not a real weirdo…) To this day, I don’t remember the guy’s name, but we had a good time at the race track. We had a couple of beers and I even taught him how to place bets on the races. We both came away with a little bit more money than we had when we got there.

The next day was a work day for Carol. My choices were to sit in my hotel room by myself, go hang out at Carol’s apartment for the day by myself, or make the drive further south to Galveston Island by myself. I opted for Galveston, which was really outside of my comfort zone at the time, but well worth it. It took just over an hour to make the drive. The weather was kind of gray and drizzley, but I was determined to make the most of it.

I quickly found a parking spot and began walking down Seawall Road. I walked halfway up the Pleasure Pier and I went into a number of little souvenir shops and did some shopping. I found some surfers on the beach that I ended up watching for a while, and I wound up walking into a Joe’s Crab Shack where I had a pretty awesome dinner of crab legs.

Since it was close to getting dark, I figured I’d better head back to my hotel. I had to be up early the next morning to catch my flight back home.

What a fun and liberating trip! I learned a few lessons along the way.  I learned that sometimes it’s ok to go places by myself or with a stranger instead of missing out on a new place/experience. I also learned that agoraphobia is a very debilitating disorder and I hope anyone who suspects they have it get the help they need. I learned that while it’s fun to eat out, maybe I should venture away from the chain restaurants when I’m in a new city. (I can eat at  Joe’s Crab Shack pretty much anywhere.) And finally, I learned to never cover for someone’s costs on a trip unless I really plan on covering their bookings. In hindsight, I can’t believe that I considered not going at all–it was worth all the lessons and memories!

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A High-Five To Myself

I have to high-five myself at this point. When I started this blogging gig, I knew there would be some “techy” things I would need to learn about. I don’t consider myself very “techy”, but apparently, I can Google instructions and follow them in order to make things work which has saved my butt on this blog.

As time has gone on, I’ve surprised myself along the way. Learning throughout this past year about graphics, widgets, headers, footers, HTML code,affiliate marketing, SEO, crawling bots, and so on was really beyond my reach. Or so I thought. BUT, I got most of it figured out and set up the way I wanted it on my blog. AND I can even carry on an intelligent conversation with my colleagues about, say, SEO and what it is.

Fast forward my learning to February, 2018. This is when I realized the way I had my blog set up was limiting. I couldn’t do certain things I wanted to do, I couldn’t use the theme that I really preferred (how the blog looks to you), and soon, I would have more traffic than it was set up to handle. stop-1013732_1280From what I could tell, I would need to move to a self-hosted platform.

And guess what? I did it!  You may have noticed recently, that my webpage looks different. Not drastically different, I still have the same logo and same pics used in my header. The coloring is still the same so I think it still has the same feel. But, I now have a side bar menu instead of dropdown at the top, a different layout and blah, blah, blah. Not to bore you with the details, let’s just say that I’ve re-vamped this blog literally from top to bottom and had to learn so much in order to do so. presentation-1454403_1280Thank you for your patience as I’ve transitioned over to the self-hosted platform. I’m still waiting for my domain name to be released, so you will see something besides “box5501.temp.domains…” in your address bar when on my blog.  Once the domain privacy on my previous platform releases my domain name, tlcpostcards.com, everything on my blog will be fully functional again and I will be able to proceed as usual and hopefully probably learn some more “techy” things. I hope this results in you have a better experience with my postings. Thank you for following!

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Jumping For the Sky

My bonus daughter, Carlie (she’s 10), suggested I publish a post based on our “trip” to SkyZone.  Here it is.
We decided to check out Sky Zone one week night before dinner.  Carlie, Rylan (who’s soon turning 13), Rylan’s friend and myself went. If you don’t know about SkyZone, it’s a franchised, indoor trampoline park.  Our town recently had one open, and while we’d been there before, tonight was the night I was going to get to jump too!
Upon arriving, you must sign a waiver that basically says if you get hurt, you can’t sue them. You then are assigned a jump group based on how long you are jumping and what time you plan to start.  (Thank goodness, we only went for an hour.) You are also issued these stylish SkySocks to wear while you are jumping. They are orange and have rubber grips on the bottoms so you don’t slip off certain pieces of equipment.


SkyZone has lots of options to try, most of which involve a trampoline.  There’s the Freestyle Jump Zone which is a large room of wall-to-wall trampolines. You can jump pretty much however you want, even into the walls, as long as you aren’t doing multiple flips. This was where I spent most of my time–it was pretty easy to just jump up and down.
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You can opt to play Ultimate Dodgeball (I did not) on the trampoline dodgeball court or you can Skyslam, which allows you to attempt dunking into a basketball hoop from a trampoline. The hoops are different heights, so all jumpers have a chance to make a dunk–even me–on the short hoop.
We all had fun with SkyJoust. Up to 4 can joust at a time, using cushy jousts while each contestant stands on a bosu ball on top of a pedestal. It’s hard enough to keep your balance while up there, but then the goal is to knock your opponents off their pedestal. Hard work! IMG_1620The Skyladder was pretty hard too, and I’ve determined it’s impossible for anyone to get to the top of it. Especially since no one can seem to get past the first rung…IMG_1606My favorite was the Warrior Course, which allowed you to go through a series of obstacles to test your speed, strength, and agility. You could race the person on the course next to you or simply go for your own personal best. I was doing pretty well on one of them, before my arms decided enough was enough. It was a great challenge requiring a lot of upper body strength. But we had a great time on the obstacle course.
Cozumel Sunset, Cozumel, MX

All in all, it was a really fun evening. It was a great family activity that could be done in a small window of time (I don’t recommend anyone my age going for more than 1 hour unless you are looking for a MAJOR workout) while getting some exercise as well.

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Not Using Your Vacation Time?

pexels-photo-256219.jpegRecently, I came across a news report that says Americans are not using their vacation time.  42% take no vacation time off at all, and a large number leave at least 5 days per year on the table. Furthermore, 46% of bosses take a pile of work on vacation with them. Why? Why would you leave vacation time behind or take a pile of work with you?


Of those surveyed for this report, here are the reasons why workers leave vacation time on the books:

  • Too much work piles up while they are on vacay
  • They believe no one else can do their job
  • They don’t have the funds to go anywhere
  • They don’t want to appear to be replaceable
  • They believe they are showing more loyalty and worth to their company and job

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Really? Work will be there every, single day.  It’s not going anywhere. Does it matter that some tasks may be delayed a bit? Probably not. Do you think you are THAT irreplaceable? Do you think your company would simply shut down if they had to let you go? No! Everyone is expendable, and in today’s world, a lot of businesses can find someone to learn your job and do it for probably less than they paid you. You are no more loyal or worthy to your company than your co-workers who use their earned time off to re-set and refresh.
Here are the reasons I believe it’s imperative to use up ALL of my vacation time:

  • To unwind from the stress of work
  • To re-charge from drab winter weather
  • To rebound from fatigue that results in diminished attentiveness
  • To replenish the energy reservoir
  • To experience new people and places, which refreshes the mind-set

pexels-photo-313690.jpegAnd I believe some of these reasons are even more valid than they appear. Where I live, winter means cold temperatures, shorter days (sometimes it’s already dark when I walk out of work), and sometimes blustery, snowy, icy days. These all can take a toll on the energy levels, so getting away to somewhere warm and sunny can really help alleviate that.
So what can you do to get the most of your vacation days and make it less stressful to take a week or two away?

  • plan in advance–commit and get your trip planned and booked
  • inform work as soon as you know what days you will be out
  • start organizing the job duties and prioritize those that have deadlines
  • be sure you have a co-worker (or two) who can be cross-trained to cover for you
  • communicate and delegate tasks that may not be finalized before you leave
  • line up who will be house-sitting, watching the kids, feeding the pets, etc. in advance
  • don’t wait until the last minute to pack, try packing a few items a day during the week before
  • set your “out of office” messages, unplug, AND
  • get to the airport, train station, port, bus station (or wherever you are departing from) in plenty of time so you can get the heck out of town and begin having a relaxing, fun time


Please don’t be one of the ranks who leaves their vacation days sitting on the table. Get out of the office and re-charge your batteries.  However, if you are going to have unused time off, please don’t hesitate to contact my employer and offer to donate them to TLC Postcards! Well, time for me to go pack a few items–I’m leaving soon for my mid-winter re-charge!

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Foxy Weekend

We’re headed into St. Louis, MO this weekend. We’re taking the kids, along with my parents, to see a show at the Fox Theatre. This will only be a day trip, but we plan on packing as much into it as possible.

We’ll hopefully get to St. Louis early enough to visit for a while at my parent’s house. They live about 20 minutes from the Fox and the restaurant we would like to lunch at. My goal is to get on the road in time to enjoy a leisurely lunch at Sweetie Pie’s Upper Crust. You may have heard of the place since they now have a reality show on the OWNnetwork. The show, “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s“,  focuses on the loud, loving, musical Montgomery family and their work to expand their collection of the soul food restaurants.

I’ve already researched the menu and am looking forward to ordering the Pork Steak – Smothered in Gravy dinner. It comes with 2 sides, which I already know will be green beans and macaroni and cheese. When it comes to any kind of soul food or diner type food, I always judge the time based on their green beans and mac and cheese. (I know, it’s a real official way to “judge”. I just believe if they can make the green beans taste good and have a good mac and cheese recipe, they can pretty much demand repeat business from me.  I know the rest will be good!) You can order their cookbook here:

After lunch, we should be able to walk over to the fabulous Fox Theatre and arrive in plenty of time to look around and take some pics of the décor before our matinee. If you really want a touch of history, you can take a tour of the Fox every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings for $7-$10/per person. We did this a couple of years ago and found the 90-minute tour to be very interesting. The kids particulary enjoyed the presentation of Big Mo, one of two Wurlitzer organs located in the theatre, which takes place on the Saturday tours.

We’re looking forward to seeing School of Rock–the Musical.

Entertainment Weekly calls it “an inspiring jolt of energy, joy and mad skillz!” I just hope it lives up to the expectations of my family.

We may or may not stick around after the show ends. We’ll probably be ready for dinner before heading back up the highway to home, so maybe it can be a kids choice dinner. Regardless, I’m looking forward to our time at the Fox in St. Louis and hoping we all create a fun memory of it.