Staycationing... Free and Cheap things to do in Memphis

I've been seeing lots of blog post on staycationing or vacationing in/near your town.  Living in the Memphis metro gives us loads of opportunities for free and cheap stuff to do this summer.  Memphis is full of museums, sightseeing, parks, events.  There is plenty to do if you know where to look for it.

Museums
Some of the museums in Memphis have a free or discount days so that you can enjoy their exhibits.
The Pink Palace Museum
free on Tuesdays from 1pm-5pm
The Art Museum of the University of Memphis
free admission, open Monday-Saturday 9am-5pm except on university holidays and between temporary exhibits.
The Dixon Gallery and Gardens
free on Saturdays from 10am-Noon
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Pay what you can on Wednesdays. It can be a penny and up.
Civil Rights Museum
free admission on Mondays after 3pm for Tennessee residents
The Fire Museum
two for one admission on Tuesdays. Also has a family pack for up to 5 members for 20.00 with additional members being just 4.00 each.
The Stax Museum
free on Tuesdays 1pm-5pm for Shelby county residents. Unfortunately I can't take advantage of this as I live 1/2 mile from the Shelby county line.  Still going to put it on this list though.

Other Attractions
Here's a list of places that have free or discount days/events.  Some are museum-like but I don't know if I would call them a museum.
Center for Southern Folklore
The Memphis Zoo
free on Tuesdays from 2pm to close for Tennessee residents
South Main District Trolley Night
Beale Street
Even though Beale is like a huge night club after dark, during the day it's fairly family friendly.  You can walk down have a chance to see the Beale Street Flippers, search for familiar celebrities not so familiar celebrities on the Beale street music note walk of fame, see various street performers and, of course, listen to music.
Mud Island
The museum admission is not free. However, it is free to walk across and tour the riverwalk.  The riverwalk is a scale model of the Mississippi river.
The Levitt Shell
Free concerts on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Check the website for concert times and information.
The Agricenter
sometimes has free or cheap events

Parks
Memphis has 167 parks so I couldn't possibly list them all. A couple popular ones are Overton Park and Audubon Park (which is also the location of the Memphis Botanic Gardens...not free but it's admission is only 5.00 for adults).
There is also Shelby Farms  a huge urban park.
Meeman-Shelby State Park
T.O. Fuller State Park


Nearby Places
Here are some places that are within a couple hour drive of Memphis
Fort Pillow State Park  (about an hour and a half drive)
Arkabutla Lake  (just under an hour drive)
Sardis Lake (just over an hour drive)
Hatchie Wildlife Refuge (hour to hour and a half drive)
there are several other rivers and lakes near Memphis as well.  Just do a quick search and you'll find them.

Wordless Wednesday

Two of my favorite things going on in May.

For more Wordless Wednesday's go HERE

Craftin'

In lew of actually doing something productive(such as cleaning/organizing my home) on my time off of classes, I've been finding other things to do. For example, I sent off a dishcloth I knitted for a dishcloth swap I participated in. A couple days late but it's on its way to California now.  Doing this swap got me to thinking...I really like to do swaps, I'm a fairly crafty person (I try anyway), I have crafty friends/family who have crafty friends/family.  So I created a Facebook group in order to facilitate future swaps (hopefully).  Here's the link in case you, my dear readers (trying to ignore the echo), want to sign up and try it: Crafty Swaps . Just click on join group and send me a message and I'll approve ya.  I really want this to take off.  My past experience is that it is really hard getting something like this started and even harder to keep it going.
 I want to do simple swaps: dishcloths, quilt blocks, scarves, etc..; nothing that would take more then a couple hours to put together and be small enough that shipping is cheap.    It's nice to get something besides junk mail and bills in the mailbox.  I probably would set up monthly themes: Christmas ornaments in November, Fall colors for October, Winter colors for December, Valentines for January, Flowers for February, Rain/water for March, Gardening/Mothers for April, Fathers/Grad/Wedding for May, Summer for June, Back to School for July, Animals/Pets for August, Random for September.  Every month has a theme that would work for the following month because if we did say Christmas in December then you would get the swap at the end of the month in time for it to be put away. So this way if you get a Christmas themed swap at the end of November you can enjoy it for the month of December and so on for each month.  I would also either have that months swap being a knit/crochet item...or do two different swaps a month and members could choose one or both of them.  I know some people knit/crochet but don't sew or vice versa.  That will work itself out as people join the group.

I Feel Like Such a Failure

I really do, my posted grades so far look like this A, D, A, B+...with a possible A- and B(?) soon to be posted. That D that is just screaming at me is in General Chemistry I.  Yep I failed, again.  It's a bit better then last semester, but it's still not a passing grade.  I need at least a C- to pass, to move on...I failed to do that.  Why am I struggling so much?  I know it's partly(mostly) my fault.  There were some online homework sets that I didn't do that may of been enough to bring me to passing.  I didn't do them because I kept missing the deadlines.  The professor would open one on, say, Wednesday afternoon at 1pm.  Then close it on Monday at 8am.  The next one would be open on a Friday at 8am and close the next Friday at 2pm.  There was no, (shoot what word am I thinking of), no set schedule of when homework would be assigned and when it would be due.  Sometimes he didn't tell us until the day it was due that he had opened it up.  One homework set was opened and due within a couple hours of it being opened.  So I missed nearly half of the assignments because of that. I would go to the website to check and find out I had missed the cutoff by minutes.
Will I try again? Yes, I cannot let that grade set on my record.  I've read of med students who took Gen Chem 4 or 5 times and still got accepted, but I'm not sure I'll be that fortunate.  I've got so much not going for me.  Sometimes I feel like I picked too big a mountain to climb.  Just finishing my bachelor's and giving up that dream sometimes looks good.  I will feel like shit if I do that (to put it bluntly).  I'll have to live my life knowing I failed.  I'll live the rest of my life feeling like I failed not only myself, but my husband, my children, my family, my coworkers, my friends.  Also those future patients who I dreamed of making their lives easier, healthier, better.  At this point I think Atlas has less weight on his shoulders then I do.

So Nervous

Today is finals day for American History and Accounting.  I've been studying on and off for the past few weeks. I'm terrified.  What happens if I forget everything once I sit down to take the exams?  Will I be okay if I don't do so hot?  Monday I have Gen Chem I and Intro to Dietetics, Tuesday the last Statistics test.  I made an A- in Chemistry lab.  I want to pull a C for lecture so I can finally move on.  I'll have an A in Statistics after Tuesday (I love self-led classes).  I'm hoping for a B but will be glad for a C in Dietetics.  I think I'll have at least a B in History and again hoping for a B but glad for a C in Accounting.   Not the best grades, I know.  However as I'm taking harder and harder classes as long as I've honestly tried I'm happy with B's (C's still not okay, but I'll live with them).
My test anxiety is mild compared to other people.  Everyone gets anxious because the final test is, normally, such a big part of your grade.  My chemistry final is worth 160 points out of a total 500 points, that's 32% of my total grade.  That can make or break you. It's sorta comprehensive as well.  The professor said it was going to have chapters 9 and 10 and some from the earlier chapters as well.  I'm thinking it's mostly going to be 9 and 10 with some extras thrown in to fill up the points necessary.  So I'm studying chapters 1-10 with extra attention to the areas that I've had difficulties with (gas laws and the energy problems mostly).  Accounting should be okay as long as I remember how bonds are done and get assets, liabilities, cash flows all straight.  I took a mock final last night and wasn't too impressed with myself.  History is easy, I've been learning American History since kindergarten.  It doesn't change much so I'll look over my notes here in a few minutes and I'm confident I'll do fine.  Dietetics is, well different.  I have a feeling most of her questions are going to be over the American Dietetic Society.  So I'll make sure I know their mission and goals and everything and go over the power points she did in class.
I was told by a former co-worker last night that I came up in conversation the other day.  Everyone is talking about how well I'm doing.  I adore my ex co-workers and do hope I live up to the hype.  I've been getting told by quite a few people that so and so mentioned how proud they were of me and how smart I am.  I don't feel smart most of the time.  I'm so worried that I'm going to disappoint a ton of people.  This doesn't help my stress/anxiety levels any.  I'm glad that people think well of me, I hope I can surpass their expectations. It's a struggle at times (most of the time actually).  I get frustrated, my house gets messy, I forget things (appointments, bills, keys, kids' homework). I feel like I'm expected to do everything and do it exceptionally well. I'm not perfect, I'm human.  I try my best and cross my fingers and pray to whichever deity ( god, goddess, God, Flying Spaghetti Monster) will listen.

Is it Friday Yet?

This is what I woke up to this morning...

     No electricity, so no coffee. Look out the front door (no glasses so seeing items faraway wasn't so good) and see what in my morning fuddled mind looked like a big piece of plywood.  I mentioned I hadn't had coffee, right.  I take a few steps and realize that's not just some plywood that got blew around by the storm last night. It's a tree down. I walk to the end of the driveway and see this great big tree down, covering the end of the driveway and most of the street.  Well hell, how in the world am I going to fix this.  Hubby is on an out-of-town job.  I have no idea how to use a chainsaw and I'm pretty sure at a few minutes to 6am most of my neighbors are either asleep or on their way to work.

    Luckily my neighbor's son got home from his third shift job as I was standing there contemplating on how I was going to get this 100ft(that's my guess, may be bigger or smaller I didn't get out the ruler) tree out of the road.  He walks over with an ax.  Well that's something but it's quickly figured out that an ax is just not efficient when dealing with a tree of this size.  His words were "I didn't realize it had so many limbs." He hadn't used a chainsaw either but was willing to try.  Braver then me, I'm scared I'll cut my foot off or something.  I was nearly thirty before I would use a weed-eater for the same reason.  I'm only thirty-two, so yeah it takes me a while to be comfortable with big power tools.  

   Anyway, he fires up the chainsaw and between me, him and eventually my oldest son; we get the mess off the road in about an hour.  Still have a big 'ol tree laying down in my front yard, but Hubby will help take care of it when he gets home.  Something like this has got to happen when he's out-of-town.  He said that he may be gone next week too...guess I need to learn to use the chainsaw.  I'm tempted to cut all the trees down that are near my house.  There's been some many news reports around here about trees falling into homes and people barely escaping, or in the sadder cases not making it out at all.  I saw one house on my home today that, to my eye, looked nearly split in two by this huge tree on it.  I hope whoever lives there is okay.

15 Years Ago

A young bride waited nervously for her big day

Holding her grandfather's strong capable hand she walks down the aisle

Then she looks into the eyes of the man proclaiming to love and cherish her the rest of their days.

Surrounded by family and friends...

who watch lovingly as the young couple began their journey.