Yankee Belle

Snooze Button

2012-01-23T07:10:00.001-08:00

Oh I had the best of intentions for this morning. I had my gym bag packed, my breakfast ready to go and my alarm set for 5:00.

Except, turns out it was set for 5:00 pm. Not so helpful when the class you're trying to get to is 5:45 *am.* (And to be honest, 5 am is cutting it close, but I refuse to get up at an hour that starts with a 4. Even 4:59 is out of the question.

So when Buddy woke me up at 5:14 am, I knew my window of opportunity was closed. (But lest I get no workout in this morning, he decided a good neighborhood frolic was in order after his routine business, so I did get a quick little jog in. Thanks, Bud.)

I then spent the remaining extra 45 minutes I had, snuggled on the couch with my feet shoved under a warm doggy butt. It's the best feet warmer ever, ya'll.

We had a pretty low key weekend. We went home to Lincolnton on Friday for a basketball game at Matt's high school. Saturday and Sunday ended up being pretty normal, routine weekend days - some housecleaning, laundry and cooking. Matt, obviously inspired by my closet clean out last weekend, tackled his domain - the garage.

We always make fun of the neighbors who have so much crap packed in their garages they can't put their cars in there, and we were in danger of becoming those people based entirely on the amount of tailgating gear we've acquired.

Saturday night Matt and I cooked ourselves a steak house worthy dinner, complete with our favorite appetizer guacasalsa.

What, don't all steakhouses serve guac? Well they should.

It's hard to rationalize going out when you go to the grocery store and buy all this food for what one meal for one person would cost.

Although I guess there is the whole "someone else doing the dishes" perk.

(And for the record, we ended up putting back one steak. That is a whole lotta meat.)

Sunday night I made chicken and broccoli alfredo from scratch and it was absurdly easy. Who knew?

I also made my own laundry detergent. I think this makes me a hippie. It was also absurdly easy.

I also spent a good chunk of time packaging up all the stuff that I had put on eBay last weekend. I had so many things sell! I love the little noise my phone app makes to tell me I have a new bid. eBay has gotten so much easier to use since I started 10 years ago too - now you can even print and pay for your labels right from the eBay page and request carrier pick up to your house!

I feel kind of bad for my postal worker tomorrow though.

It was a wonderfully relaxing weekend and I was sad to see Sunday night come to an end. January weekends have been very low key - just what I needed after all the holidays, and before a busy February starts up again. January weekends have been my own little snooze buttons to get all caught up.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thankful Thursday

2012-01-19T14:13:00.001-08:00

I haven't done a Thankful Thursday in forever - way too long. Today's page from my page-a-day Happiness Project calendar was a great reminder... so here goes.

Today I am thankful for:

- my health
- my sister (who drove up here on Saturday JUST to see me. No other reason than that. Love.)
- one of my besties, Jessie K, moving to Charlotte!!!
- that my parents (and the kitties) are okay after a huge tree fell on their roof and shattered two skylights over their kitchen table. So thankful no one was sitting there eating their bowl of rice krispies when the glass shower rained down!! (Although I am trying to block out the thought of my Dad climbing up on a ladder in 72 mph winds to put a tarp over it. Again, thankful for safety.)
- in that light, that a year ago *right now-ish* one of my uncles had a traumatic injury when a tree branch fell on HIM while he was out cutting wood (yes, my family and trees apparently don't get along). It's a miracle he survived after passing out in the snow, it's a miracle he was found, it's a miracle he is walking and talking today. I am so thankful for his health, and that a year has passed between that scary time and now.
- that guy I married (he's the best, yall)
- sleeping in with no alarm clock
- Twitter friendship and especially the ones that turn into real-life friendships
- wonderful in laws
- library books
- having friends who I can talk to for hours on the phone, over coffee, during run, over IM... I am so blessed in the friendship department
- Boden clothes
- the bizarre mild winter we are having
- the security of having a job and knowing I can pay my bills
- snuggling with a sleepy Spuds
- a clean house that lasted more than one day
- salt bagels
- dance trance, Steph, and dance trance friends
- having positive upbeat coworkers (hi Susan and Heather!)
- homemade mac and cheese
- scarves
- a peaceful heart

What's on your list?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

To Don’t List

2012-01-16T18:56:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting revelation this weekend. But I’m not going to write about that first. First, I’m going to write about my weekend.

It was four days long. Four! Practically a vacation. I consider myself pretty fortunate to have a 3 day weekend every week now, although I give up a little bit during the week with the 10 hour days + commute time. (In other words, that “extra day” ends up being a catch up day.) But the addition of the extra day off for MLK day – plus our lack of any particular plans – made this weekend feel luxuriously long.

With the extra time off, I tackled a project that had been on my mind for awhile – the guest bedroom. I love decluttering and organizing projects, but I always get overwhelmed at the time they take because I’m a notoriously slow decision maker. There’s nothing worse than getting half way through it and having to stop with the entire content of your closet or attic or desk drawers spilled out on the floor.

Where I usually end up leaving it for another month or two. That always goes over well.

But this weekend, with 4 days off, I dove in! This closet has become a bit of a catch all – the place where I store my dresses and Matt’s suits, craft projects, things that I need to put on Craigslist or eBay and a whole host of other assorted things that just haven’t found a proper home. I just hate the feeling of owning too much stuff – I call it stuffocation.

I pulled EVERYTHING out of the closet first. Then I immediately texted Jamie (the queen of organization) that I was already panicking. She diligently sent me positive reinforcements throughout the rest of the project.

I tried to use the gauge “Do I love it? Or does it add value?” to decide whether or not to keep things. (I think I got this from the Zenhabits blog, but I read a lot of books and blogs on simplifying so I’m not totally sure.)

I quickly figured out my trouble zones:

1. “Potential” clutter: things that I might use “someday” or, notably, crafts that I am wanting to do or things I am holding on to because they would be good eBay items and I just haven’t had the time to get them up yet.

2. Sentimental clutter: things that I don’t regularly use anymore but they have sentimental meaning for me

The sentimental clutter I am getting better at. I read a tip one time to take a photo of the item (I think, again on Zenhabits?) and that has worked well for me. Good-bye, wedding shoes. You are dirty and don’t really even fit that well, but every time I see you I am transported back to my absolute favorite day of my life.

Ditto good-bye Spain boots. You also don’t fit very well and the leather is falling apart, but I put you on and I can picture cobblestone feet under my heels, walking to Fundicion with my friends for a night out in Sevilla.

It was a challenging task but I stuck with it. When all was said and done, my closet was actually not quite as empty as I had hoped – but it was a lot better then when I had started. I had a huge bag of clothes to go to Goodwill as well as a stash for Dress for Success. I forced myself to sit down and eBay the items I’d been holding on to – or put them into the Goodwill pile if I realized they weren’t worth my time. I created one small Tupperware to start collecting items for this summer’s yard sale (and in a moment of genius, priced them as they went in. You’re welcome, Future Meghan.)

It took me nearly all of Saturday, one large diet coke, the Glee cast Pandora station, maybe a small temper tantrum and a few hours of eBaying… and I was left with this.

I’ve got one item I’m stuck on…. I inherited this awesome Kodak camera from my Grandpa and it’s been sitting in the closet ever since I got it. It’s not in working condition, but I’d love a way to display it… anyone have any great ideas?

It felt good to tackle the closet, and I actually carried my energy into some other productive tasks this weekend. I tackled some binders that I have in our bonus room that were full of magazine articles. For years when I was personal training, I used to rip out workouts and recipes out of magazines and file them in 3 binders with clear plastic coverings. I haven’t touched them since I stopped personal training in 2008, but there they have sat – once again, a source of “potential clutter.” (“What if I return to personal training?” “What if I want a workout for myself?”) I didn’t get rid of all of them, but I managed to reduce 3 binders down into 1…. progress!

Then I was on a roll… I was a woman on a mission. I rolled up my sleeves and did something I’ve been putting off forever. I opened the binder where I’ve been filing Matt’s (deferred) loan statements. We went through them and figured out how much each one of them were and what our repayment plan will be come end of residency. It wasn’t a fun project by any means, but it was a huge source of mental clutter for me to know what we were facing in 6 months.

Before this starts sounding like an unhealthy amount of productivity, I’ll also note that I had a fairly equal amount of relaxing this weekend. I slept almost 10 hours on Friday to Saturday morning, and woke up to find my husband had already gone on a run…and stopped at Starbucks on his way home with a treat for me. Major brownie points.

I dragged my lazy bum out of bed to go meet Jamie at dance trance on Saturday morning, before tackling the closet project. I took a break from said project to have dinner with Matt and my sister, who had driven up from Charlotte to see me. We’ve decided 80 miles is too far away and she’s moving to Winston. Okay I decided that. She has yet to agree.

I took naps. I read a book. I made soup and ate soup. I caught up on my Google reader. I went to a coffee shop and blogged. I took walks. Short ones – it got cold. I slept in. We met Zac and Jamie and little baby Z for wings on Friday night.

It was an amazingly wonderful long weekend. It was relaxing, it was fun and it was productive. It felt like a vacation – the perfect unwinding from a whirlwind last few months of tailgates, travel and holiday fun.

So here was my revelation. I got a ton of things done this weekend that had been bouncing around in my head. And yet… it hit me, sometime around Monday night that I still had so many things I wanted to get done. Other closets I want to clean out. Projects I’ve pinned. Recipes I want to try. Blogs I want to write.

I was happy as a clam mid-project. I lost track of time and I enjoyed the process. But when it was over, instead of basking in the satisfied glory of a job well done, my mind was already racing on to the next thing. Kind of like my last blog – even my to do list is subject to the arrival fallacy. Once I realized this, I had an almost immediate switch. This little voice in my head went “Oh.” “Oh!” If getting so many things off my to do list this weekend didn’t make me feel as satisfied as I thought it would … maybe I should stop worrying about when I’m going to do on my to do list. Stop worrying about when I’ll get the blogs written that are bouncing around in my head. When I’ll ever have time to do all the beautiful crafts I see on Pinterest. When I’ll get to try all the recipes bookmarked in my cookbooks.

What if I just did what I felt like doing in that moment? I mean, other than the obvious have to do things – keeping my house running with food in the fridge and clean clothes in the drawers and bills paid and making sure the dust bunnies don’t become so big I can claim them as dependents on my tax records.

I’m always carrying around this thought that “I’ll feel so satisfied when I completed XYZ project.” This weekend – where I completed multiple XYZ projects and yet didn’t feel that sense of “relief” that I was done – was a smack in the head. I’ll still do projects. I’ll still cook delicious recipes I’ve bookmarked. I’ll still tackle that other guest room closet (one day.) But I’ll do them when the moment strikes me that it’s right to do them, instead of always trying to figure out when I can squeeze them in. And maybe, maybe I can focus more on the enjoyment of those moments and start letting go of the running project list in my head and the fallacy that I won’t be satisfied until I get them done.

Post Christmas Blues

2012-01-06T16:27:00.000-08:00

There’s no task I dread more than taking down the Christmas tree…

Not only is it a tedious task (and those little needles can be so sharp!), but it’s a definite indication that the holidays are in fact over. All that planning and prep, and woosh, it goes by so fast. I am definitely guilty of not always being good at being in the moment and counting down from one exciting event to the next. I’m guilty of what Gretchen Rubin in The Happiness Project calls “the arrival fallacy.” The idea that when an event you’ve been looking forward to arrives – Christmas, a vacation, a completion of a project, the end of residency – you will be happier than you are right now. Most of the time, she says, the anticipation is really the enjoyment and most of us are equally as happy (if not less, or somewhat disappointed by the anticlimactic arrival) once the event arrives.

I’ve been trying to keep this in mind as I’ve felt the post Christmas blues, and not let my mind race ahead to the next big thing (which, if you’re wondering, is a vacation in Palm Springs with my family and is 43 days away. Not that I’m counting. Okay, I’m totally counting.)

I tried to take this advice and be in the moment today as I took down the tree, unwrapped the garland, took down all our beautiful photo cards we had received and packed up each ornament back into it’s designated nook in my tupperware bins. I actually started to pay attention to the ornaments as I took them down – something I failed to do in the hustle and bustle of putting the tree up. Most of our ornaments aren’t random – they were either my own or Matt’s from childhood, or ones we’ve acquired together, or gifts we’ve been given. Here are a few of my favorites…

Given to me by a coworker at Wake

Given to me this year by Anne… I love the vintage look of it and of course, what it symbolizes.

Given to me by a grad school friend the year the Red Sox won the World Series (2004)

Given to us by Kate last year…symbolic of our tacky sweater Christmas parties

I have a bunch of these, given to me by my parents last year. We are a Wake Forest loving family!

I know it sounds kind of silly, but paying attention to each ornament as I took it down and remembering where it came from or who gave it to me made the process a little bit more enjoyable. Less chore like, more like a nostalgia-fest …. and I do love me some nostalgia. I can’t say that I carried that mindset perfectly into the next couple hours of de-Christmas-ing my house, but it’s definitely something I am trying to be more mindful of this year.

Less post-something-blues, and more right-here-right-now-contentment.

New Years Eve

2011-12-31T18:47:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012!

Nothing like ringing in the new year with an amazing meal, wonderful friends, chilled champagne…. and minute to win it games. Yea, you heard that right. I was a little skeptical when I first heard that we would be playing Minute to Win It games (maybe cos I am biased against the show because Guy Fieri drives me bonkers?)… but it turned out to be hilarious and fun. Caroline brought over the list of games as well as all the props we’d need – and we competed boys vs. girls in games like Face the Cookie, Defying Gravity, Dizzy Mummy and Extreme Hanky Panky.

If the idea of emptying an entire Kleenex box with one hand sounds easy…. try it. Go ahead.

Also, my husband apparently has incredibly dexterous facial muscles as he absolutely dominated Kate in the cookie game. Who knew?

Besides the few rounds of hilarity (of which I think the boys won?), we had an incredibly yummy dinner made by Kate and Charlie.

And we rang in the new year with sparklers…

Cheers to 2012!

Honky-Tonks and Bowl Games

2011-12-30T19:14:00.000-08:00

Nashville! We packed a lot in to our one day in Nashville. I had breakfast in the morning with my high school friend, Tamara and her boyfriend, Max. I haven’t seen Tamara since my wedding and had never met Max, so breakfast turned into wandering over to the coffee shop next door to linger a little longer…

Then I headed back to the hotel to pick up Matt, and we turned around and came back downtown… to eat again! We went to this place over near Vanderbilt’s called Jackson’s Bistro. It was so, so good. I wanted at least ten things on the menu, but since I had just come from breakfast a few hours earlier I stuck with a Caesar salad and tomato soup (which coincidentally, happen to be two my favorite foods anyways.) But before I could sign that meal off as being too healthy, Matt and I split what the restaurant is famous for – a cookie dough egg roll. It was as amazing as it sounds.

Now, thoroughly stuffed, we drove over to the Broadway area to see the infamous stretch of Honky-Tonks. The road was blocked off near the river for a pep rally for the game, and the streets were packed with Wake Forest and Mississippi State fans. Sadly, more Miss St fans than Wake fans…. my ears were already bleeding from the sound of cowbells which threatened to drown out the noise of the live bands playing in each of the bars. We wandered for a bit, then settled in to one bar with some live music that was a Shania Twain-Patsy Cline cross. (Side note: you don’t realize quite how much you appreciate the smoking ban in bars until you are someplace that does NOT have it. Ugh.) We tapped our heels to Any Man of Mine and I Go Walkin’ for a few rounds, then packed it up to head over to the stadium.

The stadium was surprisingly full – and the cow bells were once again in full effect.

There’s something different about being at a bowl game (or away game, for that matter) with your fellow fans. There’s a more intense camaraderie than there is even at a home game. (That feeling didn’t stop me from wanting to “accidentally” dump my $8 soda on to the fan sitting next to me who thought it was her explicit job to let the defense know it was time to TACKLE TACKLE TACKLE on every single play.)

We cheered and we cheered, but alas the Deacs didn’t go home victorious this game. It was a pretty close back and forth game, so it definitely wasn’t a complete embarrassment unlike some of other losses this year. Disappointing to lose but a fun experience nonetheless.

Go Deacs! And now…. time to wrap up this adventure and Go Home!

380 Miles to Music City

2011-12-29T20:46:00.000-08:00

380 miles to Music City. We arrived, got settled in to our hotel and headed in to downtown for dinner and the pre-game Wake Forest event at the Country Music Hall of Fame. There was, appropriately, music at every venue – at dinner and in multiple locations throughout the museum. My favorite thought was a group of 4 Wake Forest alum that had had in a sequestered little part of the museum, each one of them an aspiring singer-songwriter. (From my understanding, they weren’t a quartet – just 4 individual alums who lived in Nashville and were trying to break into the music scene.) Each of them took turns playing a few songs and they played a few together. After the event at the music hall of fame, we stopped off for some quick dessert and turned in for the night to get ready for a big day of cheering on the Deacons!

Christmas Vacation

2011-12-28T19:44:00.000-08:00

What a difference a year makes! Most significantly, I’ve been at my job a little longer this Christmas and could take more than one day off for Christmas so I could actually get to relax and enjoy the time with my family and friends. Actually this year, I only worked one day from December 23rd through January 2nd. It was blissful!

My first day off, Anne, Kate and I met downtown for lunch to break me into one of Winston’s finest traditions that I, amazingly after 9 years of living here, have not yet participated in.

Skippy’s Hot Dogs! Being the hot dog connoisseur that I am, I don’t know how I’ve lived my whole life without trying Skippy’s. Game changer. Watch out Zweigels, you’re on notice.

Fortunately, I had started the day off with this….

A little damage control for the week to come!

Saturday – Christmas Eve – my husband took off for work around noon for his second of six twelve hour shifts that he was saddled with over Christmas and my parents arrived about an hour later. (I don’t think he planned that, but it’s awfully suspicious….) Sister, brother and brother-in-law made their way up from Charlotte and we had dinner together, then went over to campus to look at the Christmas lights. I’ve never been on campus when there was literally NO ONE there and it was incredibly peaceful, although a tiny bit creepy.

Katie and Dylan posing in front of the dorm that they first met in, all those years ago. (Six? Seven?)

Wake Forest is now responsible for both the marriages in our family! Go Deacs!

Matt was able to get off work a little early (which NEVER happens) and we all went to bed with visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads. Or food comas from all the holiday food. Your choice.

Christmas morning dawned early (10 am) at our house… and the present opening chaos ensued.

The aftermath…

Quickly followed by lots of naps and another meal. Does every family’s Christmas involve a lot of napping and eating?

Unfortunately Matt had to switch over to night shifts that night, so we said good-bye to him at 7 pm…. and then hustled to get out of the house when he came home around 7 am so he could sleep. We went to brunch at Village Tavern, and then the rest of the Claffey clan hit the road to spend a few days down in Charlotte at Katie and Dylan’s house.

We both worked Tuesday, and then we hit the road on Wednesday to go down to Lincolnton to see Matt’s family.

We spent Wednesday in Lincolnton with the family, and Matt’s sister Micah, her boyfriend Derek and his two boys Alec and Cameron met us for dinner and a gift exchange later that night. We had a great time catching up with family, and spent some time next door visiting with Nanta and Pa to celebrate Nanta’s birthday too. Shamefully I did not take any pictures of our family time together, although I am also going to blame my sis-in-law because she just got a new fancy pants camera so I’ll pretend I was deferring to her to have the opportunity to be family photographer. (She didn’t either. We both failed.)

In fact, the only thing I took a picture of was the gift that Matt’s Nanta gave us….

Oh, Nanta.

We spent the night on Wednesday, woke up Thursday and said good-bye to our pupdog left in the care of his grandparents and hit the road for Nashville. And with that, our whirlwind 4 days with family came to an end! It still went quickly, but it definitely beat last year when Christmas was squeeze in to my one day off and I felt like we barely got time for a hug and some sticky buns before it was time to say good-byes!

The Reason for the Season

2011-12-15T17:35:00.000-08:00

Today, in the midst of all the Christmas errands and house cleaning I had planned on my day off, I got to spend a lovely relaxing morning catching up with a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile. As a bonus, I also got to catch up on the life of her sweet baby boy. I know I just said this a month ago (and again, I have nothing original to say) but the more friends I have who have become parents, the more acutely aware I have become of time passing since I now have something to measure it against. I knew it had been awhile since Lauren and I had caught up, but knowing Jeffery was almost 6 months and I had last seen him at 3 months was mind-boggling to me. But anyways, the point is not how long it’s been since I’d seen her but how wonderful it is to have a friend like that who you can just comfortably slip into conversation – even when life has changed so much – and just pick right back up where you left off and have easily spent an entire day in the little corner of a coffee shop chatting.

Okay, chatting and doting on this little guy. Can you stand it?

He is just the sweetest.

It was a peaceful moment in the midst of a busy month, but a perfect reminder of what December really is about: time for fellowship and reflection. And babies dressed in Santa shirts with red suspenders.

The Day After

2011-12-11T17:20:00.000-08:00

Christmas Party Photos, Round 2: The Phone Version.

4th Annual Tacky Sweater Christmas Party

2011-12-10T20:59:00.000-08:00

Come tacky, come merry, come hungry, come thirsty, come party…

Merry Christmas! Ghosts of Christmas Past: 2010. 2009. (Our first one, 2007, pre-dates the blog!)

Lovefeast 2.0

2011-12-04T16:15:00.000-08:00

What can I say about Lovefeast that I haven't already said?

Apparently, nothing. Literally when I sat down to write this post, I had some thoughts in my mind ... something about that moment when they hush the lights and each person holds a candle and passes their light from one to the next. I was trying to organize these thoughts when I had a sneaking suspicion I'd heard them somewhere before.

Oh that's right. On my blog, in 2009.

It looks like I have officially run out of anything original to say.

But, it bears repeating again... at least this snippet.

There’s a moment in the service when the lights go dim and the ushers arrive at the end of each aisle with a lit candle. Person to person, candle to the candle, the chapel becomes full of a warm, hushed glow in a matter of minutes. It gives me goose bump.

My mind always goes back to my favorite quote at this moment, by Marianne Williamson.

As we touch our candles from right to left, I always think of the end of my favorite quote from Marianne Williamson - “as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” I think about how our dark world would be so vividly light up if each one of us just shared a little bit more of their light with every they came into contact with.

Easy to remember in the warm glowing chapel as “Joy to the World” swirls around you. Difficult to remember in the day to day of life that involves work stress, cranky customer service reps, bad traffic, late fees, tense relationships and shouting heads on every major station.

Letting your light shine so that others might do the same – this is what Christ was born to do. Celebrating Christmas is a remembrance of the birth of the greatest life that walked among us, that made a point to gently touch touch his light to everyone he came in contact with.

“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” - John 12:46

All is calm, all is bright.

Rumor Has It

2011-12-03T16:34:00.000-08:00

... That I just performed in front of a bunch of strangers for the first time in over ten years to a song I'd practiced for merely a week?

Rumor is true.

Somehow our dance trance instructor talked us into performing two dances at the awards ceremony of the Mistletoe Run at the YMCA. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but about 5 minutes before we went on I thought I might throw up of performance anxiety. Luckily, it was kind of a random crowd milling about and the music started and I had no time to think about it anymore. It was fun, I got to support my dance trance instructor who I just love and my sweet friends Teri and Akanksha (dance trancers themselves) were in the audience cheering us on.

Oh, and let me just take a minute to give a nod to Teri, who set a personal best on the half after deciding to run it the night before, and Ak who ran a 5k at 27 weeks pregnant. Ya'll rock.

And now, a moment to wax poetic about DT: I hope our little performance inspired a few people out there to try Dance Trance. It
wouldn't be a huge stretch to say it's one of the best things I've done for myself this year. I actually did DT for 2 years when there
were instructors teaching it at Wake, but then they graduated and no one picked up the reins. I was thrilled when Stephanie started it up in January of this year, and I've gone almost every Tuesday since then. It's my happy place. I'm by no means the best dancer, but I love dancing. It challenges my mind in learning and memorizing new dances, but it's a mindless space once I learn them where muscle memory kicks in and I just move. I love running, because I get such a good thought space going on - I can brainstorm problems, I can think of new ideas, I can work through frustrations. But DT provides me the opposite - if I start thinking about my stressful work day, all of a sudden I'm tripping and losing my place. DT gives me an hour to turn
OFF my brain and just move.

It also helps that some of my best friends here do DT too - Jamie, Anne, Akanksha, Teri, Kathleen - so every Sunday or Tuesday I know I will get to see my friends (and that they will hold me accountable if I don’t show up!) It’s just been such an important part of my year and I haven't had any specific reason to write about it yet… so here we are.

Or I could just stop taking and share this. (Thanks Teri for recording us!)

Faux Ceramic Thanksgiving Gourds

2011-12-02T13:25:00.000-08:00

Since I’m on the topic of being crafty, I thought I’d blog about a project I did last year. Yes, last year. Am I the only person who keeps pictures in a folder called “To Be Blogged” and has things in there that are over a year old? (Sorry, deserted recipe blog…)

But, it’s actually relevant… because I crafted these last year but I didn’t get to use them until this year. And, bonus points, I did this before Pinterest even EXISTED. That means I actually used my own creative powers, instead of copying someone else’s! (Just kidding, I’m quite sure I probably saw this idea on someone else’s blog first.)

It started with seeing some ceramic vegetables on a Thanksgiving table – probably from Pottery Barn – and thinking to myself (yet again), “I can make those!”

And, hurrah, I did!

This time I was at Hobby Lobby after Thanksgiving, so I scored all these little foam gourds for just 50 cents each!

A little white spray paint….

And I had my faux-ceramic gourds!

These have been sitting the garage since last November and it has been driving Matt CRAZY. He has cleaned out and reorganized the garage at least four times since last year, and every time he asks me if he can throw them out because I hadn’t used them yet. I swear, if they didn’t make it on to this year’s Thanksgiving table I would have been in hot water for having them clutter up his garage shelves all year!

Fortunately, they fit right in with what I was envisioning for my Thanksgiving table this year.

I love my little gourds! And that’s not just the spray paint talking…

Pottery Barn Apothecary Jar Knock Off

2011-12-01T13:11:00.000-08:00

There are 61 pins in my “Crafty” board on Pinterest. And sometimes I have to forcibly restrain myself from pinning hundreds a day. I don’t craft nearly as much as I’d love to, but on those rare days when a project goes from pinspiration to real life I feel oh-so-satisified with myself.

(Especially when the project is so easy it’s practically criminal to even call it crafty.)

It started when I saw this in Hobby Lobby, on sale for $19.99. I was looking for ideas for my Thanksgiving table décor and had seen pictures on pinterest of various Apothecary jars filled with things like pinecones or other fall-paraphernalia. I pondered this for a second, but I was trying to do my Thanksgiving table on a budget and $20 seemed kind of silly… (Or worse, pay the $69 Pottery Barn version… eek!)

“I bet I can make that,” I thought.

That’s not an unusual thought for me at all. I think all the time. What is unusual… is that this time I actually followed up.

I already had a vase like the top half of that jar that probably came free with a flower delivery. I bought a candle holder $0.99 at Hobby Lobby and some glass glue.

A few drops of glue and voila….

I have an apothecary jar! I didn’t up using it on my Thanksgiving tablescape, but I ended up filling it up with dried beans for a general fall decoration.

A few days ago, when I was getting out my Christmas decorations, out with the beans and in went some mini Christmas balls.

O Tannenbaum

2011-11-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

This was the first year we’ve gotten a real live tree for Christmas. We went to a nearby farmer’s market to pick out our fir and choose the perfect tree for our house.

It felt kind of funny to be picking out a tree when it was nearly 60 degrees out! (Not that I’m complaining…)

Now the only problem is that this tree is quite a bit larger than the artificial tree we’ve always had, and our ornaments are looking a little spotty on it!

With the tree up and the smell of evergreen wafting through the house, it’s starting to feel like Christmas around here!

Thanksgiving: Round 2

2011-11-25T20:46:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving Round 2 was on Friday with my family who came from all corners of the country to be with us – Katie and Dylan up the road from Charlotte, my brother flying in from San Diego and my parents driving down from Rochester. We were sad that Matt’s parents were able to join us because his Dad had come down with a fever. (I’m hoping that it wasn’t the thought of my cooking that turned him ill!) It was a quick 24 hours with my family visiting, but I enjoyed every minute of it – sharing kitchen time with my parents, gathering around the table to eat and the intense round of catch phrase that followed. I was sad to wave them off so soon the next day, but grateful that I have a family that values each other so much they’ll go to the efforts they do to share a meal together.

Friendsgiving

2011-11-24T17:35:00.000-08:00

Going through residency together makes you feel like a family, so it was only fitting that we shared a Thanksgiving meal together as a family. Anne and Locke hosted, and everyone who was in town due to husband work schedules came with their hands full of dishes and their bellies ready to be full. One meal turned into card games turned into a second meal as the day stretched on. At one point, I walked outside to check on Buddy and I just sat there for a minute while the sounds of my friends in the kitchen washed over me – baby giggles, friends chatting and laughing, plates clinking, dogs prancing around – and I couldn’t help but whisper a quick prayer of gratitude for the friendships we’ve been blessed with in residency.

A Year Already?

2011-11-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

Our friend Crystal’s baby turned one this week! She was the first one of our friends here in Winston to have a baby, and I seriously can’t believe an entire year has passed.

Now that I have so many friends with children, I feel like I’m much more attuned to the passing of time than ever before. I’ve always heard people say that the older you get, the faster time goes and I’ve agreed with that – I feel like I’m constantly turning to a new month in my calendar at work or exclaiming to someone when I’m setting up their appointment “I can’t believe I’m already looking at {insert upcoming month} for new appointments!” It’s cliché, but everyone seems to agree. Anyways, the addition of kidlets to our group of friends has made this even more acute. They are constantly hitting new milestones, and I’m constantly feeling like the doting Auntie who wants to pinch their cheeks and exclaim “You’re getting so big already!”

Even better when those cheeks are covered in green cupcake frosting like this little guy’s were!

Happy Birthday sweet Ethan, and on the same note, I extend my marvel and praise towards Crystal and Tim at surviving their first year of parenthood with grace and a good sense of humor and an intact marriage. I’m quite certain it is no where near as easy as you guys make it look.

Donuts! And Running!

2011-11-14T18:54:00.000-08:00

Admittedly, not two things that usually go together…

And yet…

On the morning of Matt’s birthday was the Matt Gfeller Donut Run. I wasn’t exactly relishing the idea of eating a half-dozen Krispy Kremes mid-5k, but I’ve wanted to do this race since it’s inception 3 years ago because of the cause. Matt was in my sister’s class when she student taught here in Winston, and he died after having a traumatic brain injury after a helmet-to-helmet collision in his first varsity football game. The race was started by his friends in 2009 to honor him as well as to raise money for TBI research in a foundation named for Matt. I know my sister appreciated that I should be there to “represent” her – although I’m quite certain she would have fared better at the donut eating than I did. There were a ton of high schoolers who were running the race (which in my experience is really unusual for a 5k) and there was just a huge sense of community and fellowship at this race.

And donuts! Did I mention you had to eat donuts? Fortunately, I found out that you did not have to eat all six half dozen donuts if you didn’t care about your time counting to place in your age group. Since the only time that’s ever happened to me was when I was the *only* runner in my age group in a very small race once, I wasn’t too concerned.

The donut challenge was intense. After a mile and a half, the runners came up on the donuts…

(If I knew that blonde girl, I’d feel bad about posting this picture as she is clearly mid donut-chomp. But I don’t. So I don’t.)

The runners on their way back after eating all six donuts looked seriously miserable. I don’t know if anyone had difficulty keeping the donuts down, but I can tell you after eating just one I wasn’t feeling my best.

Despite my donut half way (and the celebratory champagne we had the night before to early celebrate Matt’s birthday), I couldn’t believe it when my RunKeeper told me at mile 2 that I was averaging a little over a 10 minute pace. I’m generally more of an 11 minute mile girl, and factoring in my pre-race and mid-race dietary choices, totally expected this to be one of my worst races.

But hey, maybe I’ve just discovered the secret to my 5k PR: hydrate with bubbly, refuel with donuts. Sounds like a great plan to me.

Cake Credit

2011-11-13T18:25:00.000-08:00

I wanted to give credit for the amazing cake that we had for Matt’s birthday that I posted about yesterday. My friend Abbie started making cakes and posting them on her blog awhile back. I was trying to think of a way to make Matt’s 30th birthday memorable and unique and it hit me – an Abbie cake! The only requests I had were that it be caramel cake – a favorite of Matt’s – and something Wake Forest related. She took the idea and ran with it, and I think I squealed a little with delight when I saw the cake.

When I tasted it though, I had nothing to say. Because my mouth remained stuffed with cake until my piece was gone. I also had a number of guests say things to me like “I’m not even a cake person and I loved it.” Go Abbie! She is so talented.

Thank you friend, for making Matt’s birthday memorable and special and coming up with a cake design that was so perfectly him!

Here’s Abbie’s Facebook page with pictures of all the cakes she has done & here’s her blog with stories of cakes, crafts, faith, foster parenthood, marriage & friendship.

Happy 30th, Husband!

2011-11-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

Happy 30th Birthday, Husband!

I asked Matt this morning how he felt to be turning the big 3-0 and he replied “I think it’s going to the best decade yet.”

Husband, I think you are so right. And I can’t wait to journey through this next decade with you. Happy Birthday to the man who is my best friend, who makes me laugh every single day, who is a patient Buddy daddy, a skilled physician, a loyal friend, a bad ass wakeboarder and capable of making the most absolutely perfect pizza crust every single time. I love you more than a blog post can convey, and I hope that 30 is every bit as awesome as you deserve.

11/11/11

2011-11-11T13:10:00.000-08:00

Did you make a wish on 11/11/11?

Today was two of my friends’ birthday – Akanksha and Susan! What a cool day to have a birthday.

Jamie, Zoey, Anne and I met Akanksha for lunch at Carving Board to celebrate her day.

And then we celebrated Matt’s LAST day in his 20s with wine, cheese and pizza. Pretty much the best things in life, right?

Rescued

2011-11-09T12:57:00.000-08:00

When we first got Buddy, 2.5 years ago, he was too nervous to even sit on the couch with us. Even today, I wouldn’t say he’s come a long way with his anxiety… there’s definitely more days that try our patience or make us wonder if we’re crazy for keeping this dog around.

But moments like this remind me that even if we can’t “fix” him, we sure do love him.

Before & After

2011-11-07T12:35:00.000-08:00

Before: I look like a goober taking a self-portrait with a phone.

After: I look like a goober taking a self-portrait with a phone with shorter and blonder hair. Yay!

Flashback

2011-11-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

Some things never change.

A weekend when these boys get together is not complete with a few rounds of Street Fighter, on the same PlayStation Matt has had since they were first roomies 11 years ago.

And complete with the same ridiculous trash talking.

8 Points

2011-11-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

I can’t think of one thing that would have made this weekend better.

Okay, wait.

That’s not totally true. I can think of 8 things that would have made this weekend better.

8 teensy, tiny little points would have made this weekend better.

But seriously, other than Wake Forest’s loss to Notre Dame, it was a perfect weekends. Three of Matt’s college roommates – Jason, Mark and Mike - came into town, along with Jason bringing his girlfriend Ting for us to meet the first time. Pam and Craig came down from Boston, Jenny came from Raleigh and my sister came up from Charlotte. Along with our usual tailgating crew and Winston friends, I think we had 20 some people come to pregame Friday night at our house and tailgate (for EIGHT hours!!) Saturday before the game. I just felt like every time I turned around that weekend there was a friend I wanted to hug and talk to and clink glasses with and cheer on our football team with. (Oh, Wake Forest. Oh, oh, oh, Wake Forest.)

Despite the loss, such a happy happy weekend.

Thankful Thursday

2011-11-03T17:57:00.000-07:00

Clean house
Snuggly pup
Blogs to write
Crisp wine
Stove cooked popcorn for dinner
New episode of Glee on DVR
Relaxing after a challenging but rewarding week of work

Thankful for this moment.

On a related note, on this particular episode of Glee, Britney asks the Irish exchange student Rory (who she thinks is a leprechaun) for an entire box of Lucky Charms marshmallows. When I was in high school, my best friend Krissy did exactly that – picked out all the marshmallows from a Lucky Charms box (my fave cereal) and gave them to me as a birthday present. I ate the entire thing on a flight to Puerto Rico and immediately gave myself a stomachache. But I still look back at that as one of the sweetest things a friend has done for me.

Lucky and thankful.

Wine & Cupcakes: A Brilliant Idea

2011-10-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

I love wine. That’s probably not a surprise.

I also love cupcakes. That is also probably not a surprise.

So an event that involved both wine and cupcakes? Not surprisingly, I loved it.

My friend Paul had tweeted me to tell me about this event and I signed up immediately. I was so excited about it, I almost forgot to check my calendar to see if I could go. (Luckily, I could.) And then I talked Teri into going with me. You can imagine it took a lot of convincing.

Or not.

It was such a cool event. Tammy Colson, aka Miss WineOH, runs a blog that reviews wines from all over as well as coordinates events such as the one we attended, where they do unique wine and food pairings.

I’m considering asking her if she needs an intern.

The event was held at City Beverage, where I had actually never been (!!), and it was a cozy, intimate group of 15 people. Tammy did an amazing job running the event and Spencer from City Beverage was super accommodating. I was so impressed, and Teri and I both had such a great time.

But you want to know what I ate and drank, right? Right.

Each of the wines was paired with a cupcake to match it. Light wines with light cupcakes, heavy wines with heavy cupcakes. The cupcakes came from a new bakery in Winston-Salem, Camino Bakery, and they were so creative and delicious. (And thankfully they were mini cupcakes, so you didn’t have a sugar coma if you tried them all! Which I most definitely did.)

Here’s the actual tasting list from the event, with the wines we had and the cupcakes that matched. My hands down favorite was the roasted garlic cake with smoked gouda icing matched with the 2009 Dante Pinot Noir.

I know. I am starting to love red wines. I don’t even know myself anymore!

And yes, a GARLIC cupcake. It was delicious – a little smoky and savory, but still a tiny bit sweet. Perfectly balanced by the wine, which to me was my favorite kind of red – jammy. I may have brought a souvenir home…

My second favorite cupcake was the saffron cupcake with cardamon icing, especially when I just tasted the cupcake without the icing. It reminded me of paella, but in cupcake form. That sounds gross doesn’t it? It wasn’t. I liked the wine it was paired with too – it was called Big Fire Rose and it was from Oregon. It definitely wasn’t like most Roses, and I could imagine eating it with a spicy hot meal on a chilly fall night. (Or with a saffron cupcake on a chilly fall night. That worked too.)

My favorite wine was the Pinot Noir, but my second favorite was the 2010 Valdesil Montevo Godello (a Spanish white) paired with a vanilla bean cupcake with strawberry balsamic icing. It wasn’t my favorite cupcake – nothing about the flavor really jumped out at me – but I loved the wine. I’m a sucker for anything from Spain, but I can’t say I’ve really had a lot of wine from there! But Tammy said this wine was a lot like a viognier, which I discovered I love at last year’s Salute festival.

This was such a fun twist on the usual wine-and-cheese pairing idea, and such a neat way to explore new flavors. Not to mention a great way to spend time with some old friends, new friends and friends who photograph their food too.

PS, you can read Teri’s version here with more pics and different wine preferences!

Float like a Butterfly, Run like a Bee…

2011-10-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

That’s how that saying goes, right?

No?

So explain to me what all these bees are doing running then….

Today was the Boos & Brews Halloween 5k. I’ve never run a race in costume before, but when my friend Teri tweeted me about it a few weeks ago I impulsively signed up.

Then I immediately started worrying over what kind of costume I could wear, much less run in. Inspiration struck when I was putting away laundry and noticed a bright yellow t-shirt next to my black running skirt. A few pieces of black duct tape, some striped knee socks, wings and an antennae headband and I was good to go! Bzz bzz!

I was excited to see so many other runners came out in costume – in fact, almost everyone running the race was dressed up!

Me, Anne and Teri in our cute costumes – Anne in 80s gear, me as a bumble bee and Teri as Tinkerbell.

I was most impressed when I saw this guy…. I couldn’t believe he was able to run in that!

I also couldn’t believe how fast Anne and I ended up running it – there was a huuuuuge hill in the middle of it, that I swear felt like it was never going to end. We had to walk part of it, so I was delighted when we came in around the corner to the finish and had run it about 2 minutes faster than my “average” time – even with the walk!

We had a blast – I’ll definitely do it again next year. I’ll have to start scheming what my costume will be – although apparently, having those wings on helped me fly through the race! Thanks to my friend Stephanie, who is also our Dance Trance instructor and a sponsor of the race, for many of these photos. She was also a great cheerleader – Anne and I heard her shouting for us as soon as the finish line was in sight!

After-Vacation Vacation

2011-10-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

You know how everyone says when you get home from vacation, you need a vacation?

It’s so true.

I was lucky enough to just have to go back to work for one day before it was my flex day, and I had a day off. I the morning running errands, including a long overdue car repair, and then afternoon cleaning up the house and catching up on laundry. (Although, I must give credit where credit is due – we had six loads of laundry to do and Matt did four on the day I went back to work so all I had to do was fold and put away. Love that man.) I ran around like a crazy person for 8 hours, and then?

I crashed.

But it was great to be able to put our home and lives back in order a little bit, so I could actually relax and enjoy the upcoming weekend instead of tackling the piles of laundry and housework then. So yes, a vacation after a vacation… it’s a MUST.

12 Across: Homeward Bound

2011-10-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

Our trip home was blessedly uneventful. It was a long 12 hour day, getting back to the East coast. Our flights out had had wi-fi and I sort of expected the flights home too as well, so I didn’t even have a book or good magazine.

When they didn’t, I resorted to a crossword puzzle book I had picked up on the way out there…

Of course, I got 54 across correct. I may have even sang a little song about it.

I completed 27 crosswords puzzles on my 2 flights back and read one copy of US Weekly. That was, after I got it back from Matt, who wanted to read the story about Ashton and Demi.

We had such a fun trip and it seemed liked it was over too soon – but I think that’s the mark of a great vacation, right?

Monday in Sonoma Valley

2011-10-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

Is there anything better than sitting outside on a unexpectedly warm Fall day, gazing out at lush green land, sipping wine and laughing and talking with your friends?

I’m going to argue no. After spending the most glorious 3 days in Sonoma with my college girlfriends last March, I was hell bent on getting back there if we were only going to be 50 miles away. Luckily for me, Anne took no convincing whatsoever and the boys somewhat begrudgingly agreed. (I think they were very content once we got into the swing of things.)

I mean, who wouldn’t be?

We used the same company that I had used with the winos for our drivers – Terrific Tours. I can’t say enough great things about them, especially DJ – who had driven us last year and I requested this year. He grew up in the area in a grape-growing family and is knowledgeable about the area and is on a first name basis at almost every vineyard we visited. But he also backs off and lets a group do their own thing once we get to each place. If you’re ever going to wine country, use them as your drivers! (And trust me, you want a driver.)

On our way out of the city, we were all exclaiming at the views of the Golden Gate Bridge and he asked if we wanted to take a quick pit stop for some photo ops. Of course!

We somehow packed 7 vineyards into our day. We started off at Cline Cellars, because…well, obviously! We’ve had a handful of Cline wines before at home, including one of Matt’s favorites Red Truck. I was glad that I knew I could get most of these wines at Total Wine when we got home, because I wanted to take them all – especially the Zinfandel.

(So, I’m wondering if fixing the broken “E” on the Cline sign is a photoshop do-able thing? I need to learn these skills.)

From Cline, we went across the street to their “sister vineyard,” Jacuzzi. Apparently a Cline married a Jacuzzi, bringing these 2 vineyards into one family. Kind of lamenting that it’s not one of our Clines that married said Jacuzzi. Jacuzzi had some really delicious Italian style wines, but our favorite was the “chocolate shot.” Their dessert wine poured into a chocolate shot – drink the wine, then immediately chew the chocolate. Heck yea. Anne fell in love with a red here called Barbera that she swore was the best red she’s ever had.

From Jacuzzi, we went to a vineyard called Anaba. Instead of the usual tasting room style, we were invited to go sit outside on the patio and she came out and poured one wine at a time and allowed us to sit and sip and talk. I think this was hands down everyone’s favorite place. These were some of my favorite wines we had all day too – I bought a white called Coriol just because I had never had anything like it and Matt picked out a red called Turbine, that was super jammy and delicious.

At these point, we were in need of some food to start soaking up the wine, so DJ took us into downtown Sonoma to a place called Sunflower Café. The long line told us everything we needed to know – and fortunately for our rumbling stomachs, it moved quickly. Per the recommendation of the girl at Anaba, we tried the goat cheese and pistachio stuffed peppers as an appetizer. Ah.maze.ing.

After lunch, we were ready to go again. DJ took us next to a place that was supposed to have some of the best Pinot Noirs in Sonoma Valley called Nicholson Ranch. This was probably my least favorite place of the day, possibly because it was the only place we went where the person doing the tastings was not very warm and really didn’t take a lot of time to tell us about any of the wines we were pouring other than pointing to the tasting notes on a piece of paper. We didn’t stay very long or take home any souvenirs.

From Nicholson, we went on to Robledo which was pretty much the exact opposite experience. The guy doing the tastings was one of the 7 sons of the owners, and not only did he tell us about each and every wine but kept us entertained with stories about how his Dad had started off in the late 60s learning to prune vines and saved every penny he made until he could open his own vineyard in the late 80s. We loved the story and we loved the wines – and Matt loved the hand made furniture in the tasting room (of course). We didn’t have room to put a table in our carry-on, so we settled for taking home a bottle of Los Braceros, a bold red blend.

After Robledo’s, we hit up two more smaller vineyards – Homewood winery and Meadowcroft. Homewood winery is literally a one man show – the owner does as much of the work himself as he can and so production is quite small. Their attitude was that wine making (and drinking) should be fun, as evidenced in the name of their signature wine – the Flying Wizzbanger. I can’t remember how the name came about, but the wine is good! We were definitely winding down by the time we got to Meadowcroft, but they had a great Chardonnay which surprised me as I’m not usually a fan of oaky, creamy Chards. It was the last one to join my collection of souvenirs to come home.

And by then, it was time for us to go home. It was getting late into the afternoon, and our driver said “bad things happen after 7 vineyards.” Can’t argue with that! Back to the city we went…

Waving good-bye to my favorite place on Earth…

Hoping that somehow 2012 holds a surprise trip for me, too…

The Rock

2011-10-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

I really didn’t know much about Alcatraz – I haven’t even seen the movie “The Rock” – but we had lots of people tell us that this was a must do on our trip to San Fran.

We set off on our tour as the sun was setting, providing us with some gorgeous views of the island, the bridge and the receding city line.

The tour was really interesting. It was a self-guided audio tour, and you heard the story of Alcatraz told from the perspective of inmates, employees and even families who lived on the island. Walking around the empty, ruined prison at night added a surreal, creepy vibe to the entire experience.

It was somewhat hard for me to reconcile the fact that this was a real place, and not just some movie set I was wandering around. I couldn’t get over how tiny the cells were and how because prisoners were sent to Alcatraz for bad behavior at other prisons, the only things they were guaranteed was food, shelter and medical attention. Everything else had to be earned.

It was maximum security, minimal comforts.

It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip – although I am thankful we were there for just a visit, and not to stay!

San Francisco Sunday

2011-10-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

Today we were determined to be a little more touristy, since we hadn’t really seen much of the city yesterday. (Although the view from our hotel room happy hour was lovely!)

After brunch (Eggs Benedict, again), Anne and I walked from our hotel down to the Ferry Building. When we got there, there was a crafts market / bazaar being set up outside.

There were 2 problems with our timing here:

1) We got there about 10:30, and it seemed like most of the places opened at 11.

2) We just had eaten breakfast, and though so many of the little artisan food vendors looked amazingly tempting – neither of us were hungry.

Not even for cheese. It was a bit of travesty, to be honest.

It was a perfectly gloomy morning to just wander so that’s what we did.

We ended up walking out to the end of a nearby pier, and sitting in chairs with the cloudy SF fog settling in around us and talked for about an hour. Turns out that no matter where Anne and I end up, talking is our favorite hobby.

(The problem with handing a stranger your camera is that you need to remember to return the settings to auto. Otherwise… you have blurry people and sharp backgrounds. Oops.)

After spending our morning down by the ferry, we reconvened with the boys to figure out the rest of our day. We decided to go back down to Fisherman’s Wharf and wander around there. I convinced everyone we should take the cable cars to get there, because riding off the side of the cable car is the most quintessential San Francisco thing you can do, right?

Sure. If you’re lucky enough to actually get a seat outside or ride on the edge. We got on about two stops from the start and everyone but Matt was crammed into the middle of the car. It was hot, noisy and rickety. The only view of the crazy steep hills I had were blocked by the gripper’s head.

But whatever, it was still kind of cool. And I still maintain that you kind of *have* to do it if you’re in SF.

Maybe next time we’ll wait in the real line and get on at the beginning. And either way, it got us to our destination!

Once we got to Fisherman’s Wharf, we made our way over to the sea lions. They were hilarious to watch. Locke referred to the one loner sea lion as the “”Buddy sea lion.” So very true.

Rather than walking back through the chaos of Pier 39, we wandered around the back. It was so pretty and peaceful there. I just love being near water – it’s so calming.

We were a little bit early for our scheduled Alcatrez tour by the time we made it down to the landing, so we went to a little restaurant across the street to wait for our tour to start.

After killing time, we were ready for our tour on doing time…

San Francisco Saturday

2011-10-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

The perk of not adjusting to our west coast time was that we were up and ready for breakfast long before any lines could start forming at some of the nearby yummy breakfast places. The doorman at our hotel suggested we try Café Presse, which was right down the street from our hotel.

It had the feel of a European coffee shop combined with a library – there was one entire wall lined with magazines and newspapers that solo breakfast eaters could pick up to flip through while they sipped their latte.

And the latte took awhile to sip.

The food was delicious too. I had Eggs Benedict – which is my favorite brunch. I actually ended up having it Sunday morning too at another nearby dinner and it was not as good. Much, much better here. The eggs were so perfectly poached.

My food photography amuses Anne.

We lingered at breakfast for awhile, chatting about our plans for the day and keeping our little mascot occupied for awhile.

Today the boys had to spend most of the day at their conference, so we occupied ourselves wandering around near our hotel and seeing the sights…

Okay I lied, we went to Anthropologie, Forever 21 and Sephora.

And we ate some more.

Crystal and I found this little Mexican place near the conference center called Tropisueno. It was a bit of a hole in the wall but Yelp said it was good and our rumbling tummies said it looked promising, so we tried it out. We were not disappointed. (And that says quite a lot, with Crystal being a born and bred Texan!)

After lunch, Anne and I had a little happy hour in our room while Crystal and Ethan napped.

In the late afternoon, we met up with the boys again to watch the Wake vs. Va Tech game. It wasn’t being played on TV but that didn’t stop our Deacon fans. They found a bar near our hotel with wifi and we watched the game on Locke’s laptop.

Now that was disappointing. Oh Deacons.

Saturday night was the big group dinner for Matt’s entire class and all the attendings who were out there for the conference. We ate at Alioto’s, which was one of the big restaurants down by Fisherman’s Wharf. It was honestly the meal I liked the least out of all the places we went to the entire weekend! Just like the night before (and probably due to waking up at 4 am PST), the girls crashed early and we took a cab back from dinner to call it a night.

Friday in San Francisco

2011-10-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

The only thing that makes waking up at 4 am slightly okay is when you're doing it to go on vacation. Matt and I were talking about how much fun it is to wake up early when you travel - it makes me feel like a little kid again. I can remember driving to Myrtle Beach, we'd get up super early to get in the car (probably 6 am) and drive until we go to Willamsport, PA before we'd stop for McDonald's breakfast.

We didn't stop for a McDonald's breakfast on the way, but I did beeline it to the Starbucks in the CLT airport before we took off.
Our travel there was thankfully eventful, including figuring out how to navigate the BART to get to the hotel.

Our hotel was lovely. I took a picture of it because I'm a nerd like that.

We were there for Matt to attend the annual emergency medicine doctor convention, ACEP. The list of lectures to fill his time was endless. I'm glad I didn't have to figure out which ones to go to. I just had to figure out how to fill *my* time when he was busy. Not hard when you're in a fun new city and you've got good friends (other resident spouses) with you.

After Matt got all settled in, we met up with our friends Tim and Crystal to go get some drinks and dinner. Their sweet little boy was so tired from jet lag, he passed out in the middle of a busy restaurant with lots of noise around him.

We picked out where to eat a lot of the weekend just using Yelp and narrowing it down by nearby distance and high ratings. Our pick for dinner was awesome - I guess 913 reviewers can't be wrong. It was called Fino and it was just this little Italian restaurant tucked away in the front of a boutique hotel. I always say I don't like Italian food but I think that's because I think of a) Olive Garden or b) just piles of pasta which is really boring to me. But this restaurant might have convinced me I could possibly like Italian food. I had gnocchi (which, I know, big pile of pasta) but it was just so fresh and flavorful. I literally savored every bite. And the people there were so phenomenally nice. Crystal had left Ethan's stroller in the lobby of the hotel and when it became clear he was going to fall asleep in his high chair, the waiter went and got it, carrying it above his head through the tight spaces, and tucked it away in the corner next to us. Even though it was a fancy restaurant, no one made it seem like a big deal that we were there with a baby. (Probably helps that he was sound asleep and a total angel, but STILL.) I guess I should write my own Yelp review, huh?

Anyways, dinner was delicious but I was as tired as Ethan after a late meal. Matt and Tim headed out on the town to meet their co-residents, but Ethan, Crystal and I called it a night so we'd have plenty of energy for our next day of SF adventures.

Deacon Fans, Get On Your Feet

2011-10-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

It’s been a very chilly week here in the Dash, so we lucked out that today ended up being another beautiful day for a football game. The game was at noon, so we got out there early for a breakfast tailgate.

I’d been looking for a reason to make these pecan cinnamon rolls for quite some time, and a breakfast tailgate seemed like the perfect excuse.

So easy and soooo good.

We paired them off with some champagne mimosas.

And what a game it was! I think every Deacon fan went into this game with low expectations since Florida State was ranked and we, well, definitely are not.

They played their little hearts out.

They kept a lead the entire time, but FSU was fighting for it…

We cheered our little hearts out – and even had our own little 4 seconds of fame when we flashed on to the brand new video screen!

And when you’re a Deacon fan, you know you can never really breathe a sigh of relief until the final buzzer sounds…

Deacons win!!!

Such a picture perfect football day.

After the game, we had a little get together at our house to break in the porch for the first time. It was a tad chilly after the sun set, but with the help of blankets, snuggies and the 9 lb heater that is Miss Zoey Grace, we stayed cozy.

I am sorry, but is that not the most adorable snuggle bug you have ever seen? I think so.

What a fun, fun day. Good friends, great football, delicious food. After everyone left, I realized it had been a 15 hour day of fun and I was as tired as that sweet little baby. I went to go find Buddy to get ready for bed and found someone else who was worn out from a long day! It’s tough work being a Deacon fan…

September-cap.

2011-10-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

September recap, as seen through my phone archives.

Note to self: I think I need to vary up my instagram filters.

Happy

2011-09-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

I had an "I'm old" moment today. I was purchasing my tickets to Sister Hazel online and thinking to myself "I can't believe they aren't sold out! This is such a big show for Ziggy’s - I would have thought Wake students would be buying them out!"

And then I realized: Sister Hazel had their biggest hit in 1997. I was 15, and riding around in cars, singing to the radio at the top of my lungs, and that kind of music sticks with you for life.

Wake seniors? They were born in 1990. They were 7. SEVEN.

Oh dear lord. I don't feel like that much time has passed since the late 90s...and yet... and yet.

Anyways, despite my senior moment, and despite the fact that the band itself is getting quite senior themselves...they ROCKED. Seriously, rocked. They sang every single song I would have hoped to hear.And the brand new Ziggy's was fabulous. And we celebrated cute Teri's birthday. And friends and favorite-concert-buddies Kate and Charlie joined us.. And they sang "This Kind of Love" which my friend Karl had sang at our wedding and makes me all squishy and happy inside when I hear it.

And it was such a happy night.

KatePlusEight for Dinner

2011-09-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

The only thing better than having great friends is having great friends who are amazing cooks. After leaving the McCurry's dinner last night, Matt turned to me and said "I think that was better than Mozelle's." Agreed. We are all a little sad that Kate starts her new job in 2 weeks, because we would be perfectly content to have her cook homemade macaroni and cheese for us pretty much every single night for the rest of our lives. So. freaking. good.

And for the first time in the history of ever, I took pictures of the PEOPLE and not the food.

And the company was just as good as the meal. Hats off to Kate for pulling off an amazing meal for 8. Well, technically 7, as Locke had to work. (Which I know, makes the title of my post a lie but KatePlusSeven didn't really work. And I guess technically it was KatePlusSix... so it's all LIES, anyways.)

Except for the part about the macaroni and cheese. That was the truth.

Katie Golf

2011-09-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

Katie Golf (noun): A version of golf which includes the following modifications:

- Players may tee off as many times as necessary to get the ball on the green. Or relatively close to it.

- Players may pick up their ball at any point at which they become dissatisfied with their current play, and drop it back on the green at a later point. As far as scoring, just pick up where you left off.

- Players may take as many practice swings as needed. (No, really, that was a practice swing.)

-Players should probably leave the greens after 9 holes.

-Players should refrain from creating airborne projectiles out of their clubs.

Sister and I played Katie Golf on Saturday. My Dad and Dylan played something else. I’m not sure what it was but it looked much more complicated and frustrated.

Running Mad

2011-09-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

I ran a 5k tonight! It was actually the worst race I’ve ever ran!

Well, wait, let me rephrase that. It was actually the best race I personally have ever run time-wise but the worst course I have ever run. And that’s saying a lot, because I once ran an extremely miserable run on the Concord motor speedway.

The race was part of Winston’s Rock the Block Fest and was at night. It was an out and back, and was on a sidewalk. A gravely, bumpy sidewalk with raised manhole covers. And cones down the middle to separate the “out” runners from the “back” runners. There was even one part where race volunteers were yelling at us to single-file. All 900 of us.

I’m sorry, but WHAT?

The good news is, I was so angry the whole time I was running that I ended up running my PR for a 5k. I never really set out to run my races at a certain time, because I’ve accepted that when it comes to running I’m pretty darn slow. In fact, in 10 years of running I’ve never run a 5k in under 35 minutes.

Until now. And that even includes tripping over a cone around mile 2.

So maybe I’ll have to rethink that slow kid title…

(And yes that is a glow in the dark shirt, thank you for asking.)

Girls Night Out: Expanding

2011-09-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

Lately the guest list at girls night out has been growing…..

We’ve even started inviting boys…

But fortunately, our new guests seem to prefer milk over wine. So no one’s complaining.

Jamie at 37 Weeks

2011-09-14T16:34:00.000-07:00

Back in May, my friend Jamie and I did a fun shoot to reveal via her blog that she was having a little girl. At that time, she was 20 weeks pregnant and we talked about doing another shoot when she was farther along and showing a little more. September seemed soooo far away in May.

Fast forward to week 37….

She’s looking slightly more pregnant these days. And, I know it’s a cliché to call an expectant mother glowing but I’m sorry… what else is there to say? She is.

Jamie posted her faves on her blog already, so I’ll refrain from getting carried away and posting tons and tons more here. It makes me so happy to know that I was able to capture this moment for her before her little one arrives. I already love this little girl as much as I love her momma!

Tailgate Season

2011-09-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

Oh, and also …there was a football game that same day!

And as a bonus, my wino Jenny drove from Raleigh to come tailgate with us. Then she had to go sit with all the NC State fans. But I was able to keep an eye on her with my zoom lens. (Not stalker-ish, at all.)

First tailgate of the season and first W for the Deacons. Everybody goes home happy.

Except the Wolfpack. Sorry, Pack.

Four Day Weekend

2011-09-05T10:09:00.000-07:00

So, so, so wonderfully long. I used Friday to be productive and do all the cleaning, laundry, etc stuff. I got to travel to Raleigh Saturday & Sunday to see my winos. And that left Monday to be guilt-free indulgent.

I blogged…

I crafted…

I dyed…

I cooked…

It was a pretty fantastic day.

Yes Please

2011-09-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

Bagels with best friends. Getting lost in conversation about books. Dragging out a good-bye in the parking lot. More Sunday mornings like this, please.

Birthday Toast

2011-09-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

Happy 30th birthday to my gorgeous, kind-hearted and funny best friend.

I started this post off writing a list of all the funny and happy memories I have of you over the last ten years of our friendship, but it got insanely long, incredibly sappy and frankly, there’s some things I don’t want to share with the interwebs. So I’ll just say this: Em, you bless everyone in your life with your huge heart, your infectious laugh and your incredible ability to be so present and tuned in to whoever you are spending time with. You’ve also now become the first wino to break in motherhood and you’re setting the bar high with how gracefully you’re handling all the challenges that come along with that. My birthday wish for you is that this new decade of life brings back to you all the love and joy you’ve given to others over the years in spades to you. I hope your house stays full of Claire-giggles, your husband continues to be your best friend and you know how much your friends adore you. Happy Birthday, darling.

(Thanks for the pictures, Jessie K. Hope you don’t mind I “borrowed” them.)

Witness History

2011-09-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

Last night was the first night of Wake Forest football. I keep seeing billboards around town with the slogan “Witness History” for this football season. However, I hear rumors that we’re expected to come in…oooh, say dead last in the ACC this year. Now, seeing as how this is my 11th year rooting for the Demon Deacons, I’ve learned that when it comes to Deacon sports you just have to keep the bar low, enjoy those surprising games when we pull out a W and expect a lot of heartbreaking losses in the final minutes.

Or, you can do what I do, and just accept that fact that you’re mostly there for the tailgates.

Anyways, my point is, I love the Deacs but I’m a realist about WF Football. Aren’t most of us? So I’m kind of wondering, who came up with this slogan? One would think that the implication would be that this is going to be a record-breaking season with a slogan like “Witness History” but whenever I see that slogan, I can’t help but think that maybe the kind of history we could witness this season isn’t exactly something we want to brag about on a billboard. We probably would have been better off borrowing the NY Lotto slogan this year – “Hey, You Never Know.”

Anyways, at the very least Wake Forest football season gives us a reason to get together every week with our friends and hope that maybe this might be the game where we don’t blow a lead in last few minutes.

(Spoiler alert: Last night was not that game. Oh, Deacons.)

September!

2011-09-01T18:59:00.000-07:00

Holy moly, I can’t believe it’s September. I think I say this every year, but this summer was so busy. I’m pretty sure we averaged about one weekend at home with no plans. Insanity.

I love summer, but I am just as partial to lovely fall. Especially after the heat of this summer, I am ready to usher in some crisp days, some football tailgates, dinners on our porch (soon to be finished, I hope!) and bust out my tall boots again.

Welcome, September. Although really, did you have to continue on with the 90 degree days?

I have been looking forward to this upcoming weekend since we made our work schedules back in March. I work a 4 day work week, with a rotating Thursday or Friday off. Not only do I have this Friday off, but thanks to Labor Day, I also have Monday off. And although I’m scooting off to Raleigh on Saturday night for a little wino time and 30th birthday party, most of my weekend is unscheduled.

I. Can’t. Wait.

Neither can this guy:

He was pretty pumped to see me get home from work today. But then again, he gets pretty pumped to see me when I walk back inside from taking the garbage out…

I do have quite a little task list that I’ve made myself, but as daunting as it looks, I have to admit that none of them are urgent. And really, I think about 2/3rds of them are blog related. The only one who knows/cares if most of these things get done is me.

I took this picture so I could leave that notebook at work and still have my to do list on my phone. Smart, huh? I could go one step further and actually use the phone app TeuxDeux but I’m still pretty low tech when it comes my lists.

And now, time to kick off this long weekend with some football and celebrating Locke’s birthday. Bring on the pink lemonade cake!

August-cap

2011-08-31T05:03:00.000-07:00

August, as seen through my phone archives.

Out of Towners

2011-08-28T19:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend, my mom, my aunt and my 2 cousins stopped in to see me after making a trip over to Asheville to look at a college for my youngest cousin.

I love having visitors. I love showing off my favorite corners of this little city I call home. My aunt is the biggest dog lover I know, and I just knew she was excited to spend time with Buddy and let’s face it – I love anyone who loves my dog. And I was pretty excited to spend some time with my cousins, Caedran and Savannah, who are 20 and 17. Most of our time together has been big family get-togethers, and since we’ve had more holidays in North Carolina over the last few years I haven’t really gotten to see them in awhile. They’re on the brink of being such grown-ups, and I was really looking forward to getting to hang out with them and talk to them and well, get to know them better as silly as that sounds.

And obviously, I love any excuse for my mom to come visit.

It was such a fun weekend, although a bit whirlwind. They arrived Saturday night, after spending the day in Asheville, and I took them out to dinner at Wen Hwa. I was a little challenged trying to figure out where to eat, because Caedran is a vegan and Savannah is a vegetarian. But I asked the Twitter and of course, friends Teri and Brian came through with great suggestions. Wen Hwa, which I still refer to as Xia’s, was perfect because it also meant we got to take the Budster. It was a picture perfect post-storm evening to sit on the patio.

My mom even enforced a no-phone rule at dinner. I did sneak a Foursquare check in though. Sorry, Mom!

On Sunday, I took them all to Whole Foods and I’m pretty sure little cousins were in heaven. We ate lunch and then shopped a little bit before I dragged them next door to Yoforia. (Okay, I didn’t really have to drag them other than that who ever really wants to leave WFs?)

After our food coma, I dropped them off at the mall for some back to school shopping – certainly a highlight of the trip when you live in rural upstate New York, and your nearest malls are 2+ hours away! My mom and I busied ourselves with some shopping ourselves, and afterwards we all popped into the Borders clearance sale. Do you know it’s somewhat dangerous to take 2 teachers to a bookstore that’s going out of business?

After we were at the ‘til you drop point’, it was time to regroup for more food. We wrapped up the night at Mellow Mushroom, which never, ever disappoints. Mom wasn’t as successful with her no-phone-zone here, but I’m pretty sure the cousins are just texting each other about how much they love hanging out with me, right?

I loved having my guests here, and getting to know my growing-up-quickly girls better. I swear I can still picture them as being the little baby dolls that they were to me when they were born and I can’t believe my little one is going to college. Now I can only hope she’ll go to college here in my lovely state of NC, so the family visits can continue!

Lazy

2011-08-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning, 7:30 am:

8:30 am:

9:45 am:

10:25 am:

It’s a tough life being a Spuds.

Comfort Food

2011-08-26T19:30:00.000-07:00

Today was probably the hardest day I have ever had at work. I wish I could tell you why, but there’s this pesky little thing called HIPAA that I must adhere to. Let’s just say…

Adrenaline crashes are rough.

But do you know what makes it all better? Walking in the door at 8:45 pm on a Friday night and finding your sweet husband, after working his own 10 hour day at work, has made his famous pizza.

And just like that, it’s all better.

Spur of the Moment Wine Tasting… Why Not?

2011-08-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not necessarily the most spontaneous person in the world (ahem, planning my days off to the hour including times spent driving between distances? Yeah, whatever the opposite of spontaneous is... I'm it.) So I was a little bit surprised & delighted with myself when sitting on my couch this morning, thinking of all the things on my to do list today, I decided "you know what? It's a beautiful Sunday, I want to be outside." I had a livingsocial coupon for a wine tasting at West Bend Vineyards, so I texted Anne to see if she wanted to go. I was equally as surprised when she was free, since Anne's pretty much the most scheduled out person I know so, must be the spontaneous gods were looking out for us today.

It was a perfect spent Sunday afternoon. It was a reason to drive out to an (extremely close!) vineyard I had never been to, a charming little place where the wine was delicious. It wasn't super busy in there, so the guy let us try a few things off the usual tasting menu and we rewarded his kindness by picking out a bottle to purchase. We spent the afternoon sitting in a rocking chair, talking about life, love, careers, husbands, dance trance, babies, dogs and wine. I'm quite certain there are very few things that make me happier than good conversation over good wine with good friends. It's like the trifecta of happiness.

A Very Good Day

2011-08-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

Today, I had a lovely day off from work.

I had one of the best outside runs I’ve had in ages.

I sold a bunch of books on CD back to Edward McKay and walked out with a new one. Then I went across the street and made out like a bandit at the Border’s 60% off sale.

Then I ate frozen yogurt for lunch.

Then I cleaned my house. I love a clean house.

Then I snuggled with Buddy. (In a really attractive outfit.)

Then I read some really amazing news on Facebook.

It was a really, really great day.

And I’m thankful for that.

Self-Help

2011-08-16T19:34:00.000-07:00

I was reading a book for work about stress, since lately I’ve been having almost as many stress management calls as weight loss calls (or the two go hand-in-hand). The section I was reading was about different types of thinking that cause stress for people. I nearly laughed out loud when I read this, because I think it describes me to a T. It’s somewhat annoying to come across something that hits home in a self-help book isn’t it?

Sooooo, book, are you saying the world is not fair and just? And my adamant foot-stomping approach to life that it should be is causing me stress? Huh.

Life coach, coach thyself.

PS, This actually is one of the best books I’ve read on stress. And I think legally I’m supposed to tell you that I was not paid to endorse this book. I’m not sure, but I figure CYA is the best approach in this case.

Heaven is a Place on Earth

2011-08-14T04:49:00.000-07:00

Visits to Cherokee Lake are easily one of my most anticipated weekends of the summer.

I love the peacefulness of waking up early, taking my coffee down to the dock and watching the sun come up over the water.

I love the excitement of packing up the boat, getting ready for a day on the water.

I love lake doggies.

And reluctant lake doggies..

And our newest addition, lake babies..

I love watching the boys getting higher and higher across the wake…

And feebly attempting to do so myself..

I love a long, relaxed weekends with friends…

And one very happy husband…

It’s pretty much the best weekend, ever.

Thank you, Fuhrs & Forseys, for inviting us back again!

Thankful Thursday: Anniversary Edition

2011-08-11T05:01:00.001-07:00

Today is our FOURTH anniversary! I can hardly believe that it has been four years. Since our wedding anniversary falls on a Thursday, what better way to honor it than with a TT post dedicated to my husband?

Please feel free to stop reading if the schmoopy gets to you.

Dearest Husband,

I am thankful that...

- you mow the lawn. I did it once and it took an extremely long time and was hot and not much fun. Thank you for sparing me from that, even and especially when I forget to tell you.
- you are unequivocally the hardest working person I know and yet at the same time, the least likely to complain about how hard you work.
- you learned to snowboard and you taught me to wakeboard.
- you respect your parents & your grandparents. And my parents and grandparents.
- you built me a bed.
- you always tell me honestly how an outfit looks.
- when I was unhappy at my job last year, you told me to quit complaining and do something about it. I needed that.
- you have an insatiable interest in new adventures and traveling. I am 100% certain we will never, ever be bored.
- you don't internalize your work, but you're never cynical or callous about the things you see every day and the patients you treat.
- you know how to shag dance.
- you are decisive. (Luckily you decided you wanted to marry me!)
- you drive on long trips and late at night, and don't give me too much crap about always falling asleep on road trips.
- you rarely get stressed, and even when you do, you never take it out on me.
- when I told you I wanted to write a book, you said "So write a book." You've been my cheerleader ever since, as well as encouraging me with my coaching practice.
- you love the Spuds as much as I do.
- you humored me by going with me to the Gary Chapman talk before our wedding. I don't think I ever told you how much that meant to me.
- you put your laundry in the hamper and your dishes in the sink.
- you love 90s rock music as much as I do - if not more.
- you value health and taking care of yourself. And to that end, you'll eat whatever I cook... even when I'm "experimenting."
- you wanted to grow old with me.
- you asked me to marry you.

****

I am in danger of letting this list go on and on... and though this is basically a "reasons why I love my husband" list, it really is a list of gratitude. I think gratitude and appreciation are a cornerstone of a solid marriage, and I know that every time I stop to take stock of what I am thankful for my husband and my marriage top that list. I am, simply put, blessed. I know that every day, but I am especially reminded of it today. Happy Anniversary, Matthew. I am thankful for us.

Reasons Why Today Will Be Better

2011-08-09T06:56:00.001-07:00

... Than yesterday. Not that yesterday was bad per se, but it was just sort of blah. So I decided that today would be better. Here's why:

1. I drove to work with curlers in my hair. This made me laugh at myself, and laughing is a good way to start your day.

2. I have a diet coke on my desk. This is another good way to start a day.

3. It's Tuesday, which means dance trance, which I love. Love! Jamie says it best: "Dance trance is our golf." True that.

4. My husband has the day off, which always makes me happy. Residents work too hard.

5. My wedding anniversary is in 2 days.

6. It was 70 degrees at 6:00 am instead of 107. When you have a rambunctious doggy to walk, that makes a difference.

7. In 4 days, I will be wake boarding. It's been over a year and I seriously cannot wait. Not to mention I get to spend 3 days with some of my favorite people.

8. I went grocery shopping yesterday and I have 3 pieces of fruit in my lunch.

I think that the evidence is conclusive. Today will be a better day. In fact, it already is.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

R&R

2011-08-07T16:53:00.000-07:00

Oh how I needed this weekend. It felt gloriously long (and it was - 3 days!) and relaxing and I was HOME. Here. In my very own zip code.

Don't get me wrong - all this travel and visiting and garage sales and weddings and baby showers - they have made for a fun and wonderful summer. And we are taking off again next weekend to the lake, and soon football tailgates will start and then it will be the holidays and then...

Okay, so right. Life is a little busy these days. I laughed out loud when I got this comment on Twitter because it felt way too true:

In 29 years of living with myself, I've learned I do best with intervals of rest and recovery built in, in whatever I’m doing – running, working, studying and now, apparently, my social life. This was my r&r weekend and it was soooo needed…. and appreciated.

Thursday night we went on a double-date with Anne and Locke to Riverburch and discussed important topics like how to make sure Matt and Locke get a job at the same hospital with the same vacation schedules. Very, very important.

Friday was errands and house-cleaning and dance trance and cuddling in bed with a schmoopy puppy dog and a hot cocoa and Big.

Saturday was sleeping in and running and a blog date with this lovely lady and tackling an overdue project of cleaning off my desk so it can actually (gasp!) be used.

Sunday was Y-ing and even more blogging (caught up?!) and Pinterest-ing and cooking dinner with my husband of almost-four-years (Thursday!).

It was a much needed weekend. I'm rested and relaxed and ready to run another lap.

Also? It was my high school bestie Krissy's birthday and Kate & Charlie's first anniversary. Happy and Congrats!

July-cap

2011-08-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

July, as seen through my phone archives.

Celebrating

2011-07-31T11:02:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Jacob & Michelle!

It always sort of amazes me when the schedule gods grant us one of those nights where almost everyone has the same night off. That just doesn't happen a lot when all your friends are residents.

Tonight we got together to celebrate Jacob and Michelle's victory lap of their 20's at Tate's.

I was driving and a teensy bit worn out from our garage sale extravaganza this morning, and sometimes when I'm tired I feel like I'm sitting back and watching things instead of actively participating. I felt that way tonight, but in a very content and peaceful way.

I love our friends and I'm so thankful that residency brought us all together, and that even more important, we have each other to get through residency with.

I love our city, and I'm so thankful that we've gotten to live here for 10 years and watch this city grow and change as downtown becomes somewhere you'd actually want to be.

See, now usually it's too much wine that makes me all "I wuv you guys" but tonight? Tonight it's a clear head and calm heart that's letting me look out at this life and feeling my gratitude.

And the best part?

No hangover when you get drunk on gratitude.

Confessions of a Yard Sale Addict

2011-07-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

It’s Yard Sale Day!

I've hosted my fair share of yard/garage sales. In fact, I think this is probably my 6th - but this was my favorite. Why, you ask? (You did ask, didn’t you?)

Location: Other than the house I had growing up which was in a neighborhood but on the corner of a busy street, this was the best location I've been in. Location is everything for garage sales. Jamie's neighborhood is known for weekend garage sales, and lots of people told us they spent their Saturdays mapping out routes to go from one Ardmore sale to the next. (Apparently, there's an app for this!)

Friends: I was with some of my best friends. Not only did this help us increase the amount of stuff we had to sell, but it made the morning so much more fun. We were amazingly organized too - Jamie had the great idea to use different colored stickers, and then we just kept a piece of paper out where we wrote down each person's sale under their name based on the colors. When someone asked if we would "go any lower," we'd look at the color and holler at the person - "Liz, 50 cents on this?" Usually without looking, the other person agreed. (We were also sharing the baby-sititng of Ethan, which just meant lots of passing around the cuteness. Look at that face!)

Mission: Because we were all pretty much on the same mission: get rid of our stuff. I think when you have a garage sale you have to decide ahead of time: is my goal to make some coin or is to empty my closets? (For the record, I think if you've got bigger stuff to sell and you don't want to budge on price, go with Craigslist. I had a few things I didn't want to waver on and though lots of people ask about them but no one took 'em home.) (I don’t have another garage sale pic, just another Ethan cuteness pic… so here you go.)

To that extent, we actually had a large pile of "FREE" stuff at the end of the driveway. I think this is a great way to lure kids and men to your sale, which gives the mommas more time to peruse without someone begging to move on. Just sayin'.

Weather: If you live in the South, you should probably think about hosting your garage sale in late May or early September to avoid having it be a million degrees out. Oh wait... HAHAHAHA.

Despite the heat, I think our sale was a success! I went to Jamie's with my car full of 2 suitcases of things, 3-4 boxes and a Tupperware tub. After the sale and goodwill drop off, I went home with just the Tupperware tub with a few "keepers" to try again on ebay or Craiglist.

And, enough money to buy the birthday boy & girl a drink tonight at Tate's! Not to mention... an empty closet. That is downright priceless.

Getting rid of stuff is cathartic. Getting a few dollars for getting rid of stuff is rewarding. Getting a few dollars for getting rid of stuff and spending the day laughing and chatting with your friends is downright fun.

The Drill

2011-07-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

If you must get 8 fillings replaced (yes I said, 8), then you should probably do it in a dentist's office that looks like this:

And has massaging chairs:

And 2 of your best friends work there and can come give you a hug. (Donna, you're excused... having a 4 week old is a good reason to not be there.)

But despite all those lovely amenities,

it's still a cavity drilling. or 8.

(Okay, I'm only getting 2 done at a time.)

(And for the record, I swear I take good care of my teeth. I have floss in every purse I own! I just, apparently, have terrible teeth. Sigh.)

Famous Last Words

2011-07-28T10:43:00.000-07:00

Famous last words: I was talking to my Mom on Sunday and said something about how I was looking forward to my "low key do nothing weekend."

Sorta forgot about the fact that I was supposed to be part of a 4-family garage sale this weekend. So there's that.

Spent my day off getting ready for it. I know garage sales are a ton of work, but I really love them. People say all the time they'd rather just take the stuff to Goodwill and donate it - which is what I do at the end of the sale - but I LOVE garage sales. You don't really make wads of cash at them - in fact, most of the things I sell end up selling for 50 cents or $1. But I just like seeing my stuff go home with someone who is excited about it. I guess it's because I'm not really an impulse shopper, so almost everything I own I picked out with the intention of loving or using... (or was given to me by someone I care about with that same intention), and it's sort of reassuring to feel like something I once enjoyed will now bring someone else that same enjoyment. I know, sort of silly.

But that's what makes spending your day off from work in a hot room (we hadn't had the a/c on in our spare guest room) pricing items for 50 cents totally worth it.

Christmas in July

2011-07-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

Ever since Matt started sketching out plans for our back porch reno, I started surfing Pinterest for the perfect patio couch. I fell in love with this style:

And I was super excited when I found one on a website that was marked down to about 1/2 of what I'd been seeing it for on other sites. Click, click, click and it was mine!

Until... UPS decided it wasn't. For nearly 10 days, they kept telling us it was lost. Lost! I was a little perplexed... I sort of assumed that it would be a rather large package and I was little confused as to how one might just "lose" a package that size. Bless my husband's heart, because he stayed on them for a week patiently but unwavering in his demand that they find it. He is Dale Carnegie meets Donald Trump when it comes to making things happen.

And lo and behold, 10 days later...they found it!

Easy to see how you could lose a package this size, right?

Sigh.

2011-07-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Watching my mom and sis turn north on US-52 while I head south made me sad.

I hate good-byes.

Cute As A Button Baby Shower

2011-07-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

Dearest Darling Baby 4C,

We so can't wait to meet you. And you, my dear, are lucky enough to have the sweetest and kindest momma in the world. We threw her a little party just to remind her of that and help her get ready for you.

Love,

All your Winston-Salem Aunties

Party Prep

2011-07-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

Seriously, how do you expect me to get anything done when this is happening?

But! Lots of shower prep work to be done today. Thank goodness my mom is back to help me. My mom is superwoman. We even managed to squeeze a little shopping in to our shower prep...

Katie and I love taking our Mom to Coldwater Creek and helping her pick out outfits, because I guess we both feel a little indebted for all those days when we dragged her into Abercrombie & Fitch or prom dress shopping and she had to stand there while we tried on 8 million things in the dressing room. (Or worse, broke down in tears because NOTHING FIT WAH WAH WAH.) But this time, something terrible happened in Coldwater Creek. I started texting my sister pictures of clothes that I WAS TRYING ON.

And even worse? She approved. (Although she said I need to belt it.)

I would like to believe that Coldwater Creek has just gotten hipper. Not whatever the opposite conclusion would be…

But look at this cute Chambray skirt! (The top is from there too.)

My mom is probably appalled because what was her "safe" zone for shopping is no more.

The weekend passed by in a blur of pink poufts and melted white chocolate and glue funning, but everything was ready to go for Sunday afternoon! I am quite certain I could not have done it without my momma there to help, and hopefully she had a teensy bit of fun hanging out with me as we went down my uber-OCD to do list (sorted by date, location and activity. I’m painful.)

We are ready to party with baby 4c!

Hanging with Mom

2011-07-17T16:01:00.000-07:00

It's been such a fun weekend with my momma here visiting. I bet she had no idea she would come to visit and I would put her to work. That'll teach her to visit! Hopefully she had as much fun as I did...

Hot glue gunning...

Cooking...

More cooking... this time for Matt & our 2 neighbors who are doing the deck construction...

She left this morning to go down to Charlotte to hang out with Katie. It's much easier to say good bye when I know she's only 90 minutes away and that she'll be back in a few days!

Teaser

2011-07-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

Construction happening at our house. Just a teaser of what’s going on…

Buddy’s Buzzcut

2011-07-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again! It's a million degrees outside and my little pup is uncomfortable...

So we let him take his clothes off and run around naked.

(I don't want to hear it, Yo-yo, he loves it.)

A Call to Arms

2011-07-14T18:28:00.000-07:00

I have wonderful friends. Just wonderful. When I realized that Jamie's baby shower was in less than a week and my to-do list was a mile long, I sent out a plea email:

"Please come make decorations. I will pay you in pizza and wine."

They came. They helped. They poufed.

We are (almost) ready for a baby shower.

Sunday Morning Stroll

2011-07-10T15:19:00.000-07:00

After all the walking we did on Saturday, I was somewhat amazed when the alarm went off that Jamie and I were actually mobile. I think I was expecting to be as sore as after a half marathon, considering we had basically done that. (Did I mention Jamie is nearly 7 months pregnant? I tried to keep my complaints in perspective, assuming any degree of tiredness or overheating I felt was tenfold for her. Troo-per. Trooper.) Anyways, we were up, and we had a few more things on our checklist. Mostly "sight-seeing" this morning, but of course that meant more walking.

We headed down to Battery Park, walking along Wall Street to get there. When I’m in this area, I always try to picture my then-28 year old Dad fitting into the hustle and bustle of Wall Street, as he did when he worked his first year for Merrill in the city. It just doesn't click - I'm picturing the man who now loves to go to bed at 7:30 pm (I know where I get it from) and comes home on his lunch break to eat a tuna sandwich and sit with the back door open to our patio to watch the hummingbird feeder. It amuses me to picture him on these busy New York streets (and my mom, back home in Jersey with baby Michael!) but it never fails to remind me when I'm here, that I know just a small part of my parents life and through very biased lenses. Which is what every child does, of course, and maybe is part of the reason why I write this blog… so my one-day kids can read about their then-29-year old mom and how she took an excessive amount of pictures of her dog? Hmm, or not…

Okaaay, back on topic... where we were?

Oh right, a random walk down wall street.

(Get it??)

Let's just fast forward to Battery Park. Statue of Liberty! I’ve never done one of those harbor tours where you get to seen Lady Lib up close, but even from afar she is pretty impressive. Makes you feel American just looking at her.

Jamie and I took our time switching out every lens on the camera to get the perfect shot of Miss America, and then we hopped on the subway for our next walking adventure.

In all my trips to NY, I had somehow never SEEN the Brooklyn Bridge. Ya'll, it's AMAZING. Seriously, just a marvel of architecture. The night before I had been trying to figure out where the pedestrian walkway to BB started so I ended up on the Wikipedia page and read the history about it, so I think I was even more taken aback having a little bit of background.

Jboo and I walked to the first structure, marveling and snapping shots along the way, and making sure we stayed in the "ogling tourist lane" and not the "frustrated bikers trying to get a workout/commute in" lane. Once we got to the first structure, we realized we were running out of time to get back before our flight and oh yea, it was a million degrees out, so we called a day and started the long warm trek back.

Just in case anyone was paying attention, yes that is the same outfit I wore Friday night. Now you know my secret for packing light.

Blessedly, our travel home was uneventful. Well, actually our gate changed FOUR times in 15 minutes, but I'm still calling that uneventful in comparison. It felt like a whirlwind weekend but I think Jamie, baby 4c and I managed to fit a lot in to our short trip.

See New York-y things: check (Lady Lib, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, WTC)
Eat delicious things: check (Sprinkles, Wafel Truck, Shake Shack)
Navigate subway system without getting lost: Check (thank you, NYC app)
Visit friends: check (most important part of our trip: "blog friend" becomes "real life friend" - thanks for your hosting us in your lovely city-home, K!)

Success.

Twelve Hours, Twelve Miles

2011-07-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

We....

Walked around the World Trade Center site, and into the beautiful hushed St Peter's Church. The last time I was here, there was just a big hole in the ground, so it was amazing to see the new growth. It's a comforting reminder of what it means to be American: you get knocked down by awful and unfair events, but you never stay down. And often you get back up and you're stronger and more beautiful when you started. Yay, America. Yay, New York. It really hit me how much this city had been through almost a decade ago (!!). I was holding back tears walking through the tribute at St Peter's, as the visual images really brought the event back to it's full magnitude for me.

Jamie and I walked outside into the bright sun and just sort of looked at each other and sort of did a little shake... like, wow. That really happened huh?

And then we...

Attempted to go to Battery Park, only the Subway that was intended to take us there wasn't running so we were waiting in line for a shuttle bus with a million other people in the blazing heat when I said "Hey! How about we go in Starbucks and get some water and reevaluate our plans?" This went over very well with my tough but still 26 week pregnant friend, so we did.

Our new plan was to take the subway to meet Kathryn at Rockefeller to go to top of the Rock. WHen we popped out of the subway, we....

Were in Times Square! Which made us laugh because when we were making our NYC plans Jamie and I kept saying to each other over and over again "But we definitely don't need to go to Times Square. We don't have ANY interest in going to Times Square." And here we were. And it was just as busy and crazy and touristy as we had both remembered, so we put our heads down and pushed through the crowds to find Kathryn. Before we knew it, we...

were staring out at the most amazing views of the city. Like my airplane post, seeing a world from this high up does weird things to my brain. I feel like part of a huge world and a tiny world all at once. I almost have to stop looking after awhile. We snapped lots of pictures up here. All 3 of us are nuts about our cameras, and having a playground of a vista like that was heaven to all of us. The tricky part was finding someone who would take one of the 3 of us.

After we managed to find someone, we...

refueled at the Wafel Truck. Matt called me at this point, and asked what we were up to. “Eating a waffle!” I exclaimed. “Eating a waffle?” he asked, a bit confused. (It was, after all, about 3:00 pm.) If only he had called an hour later, so I could tell him we…

were watching a roller disco in Central Park. (I have watched this video so many times on my phone and I can never quite decide who is my favorite person in this clip to watch.) Just so much unbridled happiness in this clip. Everyone who was there looked like they were pretty much having the best Saturday ever. From there, we…

wandered our way through Central Park, ending up in Bethesda Terrace. It had beautiful lighting and gorgeous architectural details. So, we took a few pictures. Just a few. I swear. It was getting close to evening and time for baby Q to wind down, so Jamie and I were on our own for a bit. We…

explored the Met for a bit (air-conditioning!) and then recharged our bodies with a little pre-dinner cupcake from Sprinkles. It was tiny. I swear. Jamie and I had just truly hit our sugar buzz, when Kathryn, our amazing tour guide / city hostess, came back to take us back to Soho for dinner. We…

ate at the quaintest little restaurant called Freeman’s. It was tucked down a little alleyway off the Bowery, and I never in a million years would have found it on my own but thank heavens Kathryn did because my life needed those shrimp and corn fritters. (Basically, fancy hush puppies. But that is not a complaint, not one bit.) My only complaint about this place was the emo, uber-casual waiter. “So, like, are we having any drinks tonight?” is not a way to win points for great service. (His service was actually fine, his attitude was just bizarro. And the food more than made up for his quirkiness. It is New York, right?) Dinner flew by in what felt like a matter of minutes while our conversation ran the gamut of everything from roasting chickens to New York real estate. (Both topics that make me a teensy bit squeamish feeling.) The check arrived, we headed out into the night and before we knew it, we were hugging our old/new (Jamie/me) friend good-bye as we got ready to go in different directions at the subway. Once we got back to our hotel room, I reported to Jamie that we…

walked close to twelve miles in the twelve hours we had been out. Twelve miles! We might have only had one had what amounted to barely more than one day in New York City, but I think we did a good job making the most of our time there. We had a few things left to see on Sunday, but we had packed in some classic NYC sights, some delicious food and some quality time with our friends. We…

went to NYC.

Friday Night in NYC

2011-07-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

Shake Shake was just a snack. An amazingly delish one at that - everything it had been built up to be, and I’m somewhat thankful I don’t live within walking distance of such greasy goodness. But still, just a snack. Just a precursor to the theme of the weekend which turned out to be: eat everything delicious in NYC. We tried really, really hard to achieve this.

For dinner Friday night, Mike and Kathryn took us to a pizza place in Soho called Keste. So good. I’m probably going to run out of synonyms for “good” by the time I’m doing blogging this weekend. Fresh ingredients, some kind of cheese that the waiter described as “life-changing” (agreed), prosciutto, basil, artichokes…

(I’m so sorry, Pontillos. Forgive me.)

Kathryn’s husband took this photo of us before dinner (although she did the settings, so I think technically she “took” the photo). I love it – it reminds me of something from a magazine. And you can tell which one of us lives in the city – the only one with proper footwear for a rainy day. Oops. And the one who owned enough umbrellas to pass them out to the clueless visitors. (Confession: I rarely check weather reports. I am often improperly dressed for the weather. Such a simple thing to amend and yet…)

Anyways. Our trip was off to a happy, cheese-filled, lovely evening start.

Getting There

2011-07-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

5:30 am: Alarm goes off. Oh, make it stop.

6:30 am: One last hug to Emily & Claire, and we're off to the airport.

6:40 am: We are on the way to the airport when:
Jamie: "Is this where I turn?"
Megs: :::stares hard out the window and realizes she's been chatting with winos in the backseat of the car every time Tim has dropped us off::: "I thiiiink... Yup! That was definitely it. Bye airport!"
Jamie: Should I turn around?
Megs: Nah, there will be another turn.

6:45 am: Jamie: "I'm turning around."
Megs: "That's a good idea."

7:10 am: We are through security, despite my pedometer having to go through twice and Jamie's request for a print out of her baby in the x-ray machine not receiving any laughs from TSA.

7:15 am: I have Starbucks now, so what oh what could go wrong?

7:16 am: Our flight is delayed, from an 8:10 take off to a 9:40. So there's that...

7:20 am: Jamie goes off to talk to another gate agent to find out why we're delayed when suddenly she turns around and points at our gate (where there's no agent), catches my eye and mouths "Go!" I go.

7:21 am: Our flight is announced cancelled. Jamie arrives at my side in front of the gate, as the entire rest of the flight gets in line behind us, angrily grumbling. I marvel at the luck that Jamie was at the right place, in the right time and got us in line. I mean, luck. Total luck. What could go wrong?

7:25 am: Our gate agent, Edward, has his brow furrowed as he searches flight. It doesn't look good. We banter with him, smile, bat eyelashes, etc... I mean, we both have read Dale Carnegie, ya know?

7:35 am: The 10:30 is full, the 12:30 is full - we're on stand by for both and confirmed on the 2:30. Our plan to tumble into NYC at 11 am and spend the whole day traipsing around the city is now in jeopardy. But there's still hope. 10:30 would get us in at 12... a little late lunch in the city and we'd be good to go. We thank Edward, and hand him off to the extremely grumpy girl behind us who "absolutely has to get there by 2pm." Gooooood luck, Edward.

7:45 am-10:30 am: If there's anyone who could make 3 hours in an airport disappear, it's me and Jboo. We've got a lot to catch up on, and suddenly it was time for our first stand by flight...

10:40 am: And then it wasn't... Our 10:30 flight become an 11:40. Of course it did. Of course it did. But! We were first and second on the stand by list and I was totally optimistic we would get on.

11:40 am: Until we didn't. Back to our original gate, to wait on stand-by flight #2. We settle in with still high hopes until I check the board... and we're now #12 and #13 on the stand by list.

11:41 am: Deflated, we make an oath to the universe we'll stop judging people on Facebook if we can somehow get on the next flight.

12:00 pm: "Passengers For-ceee and Cline to the ..." We were up before they finished the sentence, wondering WHAT on Earth it could be next. As soon as we saw Edward standing there with tickets in his hand, we were babbling. "Are we really on this flight? Really really? OMG, we love you, thank you." I don't think Edward came to work that day expecting to be hugged by two overzealous girls, but that's exactly what happened.

12:30 pm: Take-off. We. are. going. to. New. York.

12:31 pm: Thank you, Edward for making this: happen.

2:00 pm: Touch down in La Guardia, and we are off to find a taxi!

4:00 pm:

We are at Shake Shack. I've got to hug Kathryn for the first time in real life. I've loved on her sweet baby boy, and met her hubby. Our bags arrived, the taxi was easy, the forecast called for sun tomorrow... what could go wrong?

And for the rest of the weekend, nothing did.

Off We Go…

2011-07-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

Colby wants to know why we are here and what we are doing….

We are off to NYC, Coleman! But while we’re here, in Raleigh, do you mind if we hang out with your momma and baby sis?

Jamie and I are headed off to New York tomorrow for our always-talked-about, finally-happening trip. We plan to eat a lot, see a lot and… I get to meet my friend Kathryn and her sweet baby Q! (And her husband, Mike… not leave him out!). Since we’re flying out of Raleigh, Emily was gracious enough to let us stay at her house, which meant a chance to catch up with my bestie and her sweet 6-month old Claire. (And her husband, Tim… this seems to be a theme. Poor, poor blog-neglected men.) Of course, I didn’t take any pictures of beautiful Claire, but I do have this one pic of Coleman on our phone which proves we were here.

Now to bed, and we’re off…!

To A Happily Ever After…

2011-07-03T13:24:00.000-07:00

From crazy college theme parties…

To Chi O-ing...

To Posties Roomies...

To bridesmaids!

It is so fun to get to celebrate the wedding of someone you have known for so long and been through so much with. I can remember sitting on Sarah's bed in her single in Bostwick, our freshmen door, staying up late talking about the stress of college life such as boys, and sororities, and classes. (Probably in reverse order, nerds that we are.)

As a four-some - me, Anna, Britta, and Sarah - we've weathered sorority rush (twice), bad boyfriends and crazy break-ups, post exam drama, graduation, moving up and down the eastern seaboard, grad school, and post-grad life. We've had chats on dorm room twin beds, in the car on road trips to long chats on the phone. Sarah and I, having known each other for 11 years now, have talked about her stresses, her frustrations, her hopes, her wishes...

And today, I got to witness her joy. Her deserved to the very most joy, and her love for her now-husband and his sweet boys.
I'm so happy for you, friend. Happy Wedding Day, Sarah & Brian.

June-cap

2011-06-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

June, as seen through my phone picture archives.