Hello, 2011!

5…4….3….2….1….

Should old acquaintance be forgot and ne’er brought to mind…?

(Um, no?  I should hope not.  I must say I never quite understood how such a sad song became the way we kick off each New Year.)

We rang in 2011 with good friends and a good meal.  The Meyers hosted our little gang for a potluck dinner.  As we ate, we all discussed how happy we were to be in a cozy home with good friends instead of corralled on a cold New York City street with strangers and porta-potties. At midnight, we gathered round to count down for the big drop.  Happy 2011! 

Oh, Play Me Some Mountain Music

I always thought I was a beach girl until Matt started taking me to the mountains. Now it seems my loyalties are divided. Sun and surf, versus leaves and crisp air… how’s a girl to choose? (Fortunately, one of the best things about living in NC is that I don’t have to – 4 hours to the beach, an hour and a half to the mountains. Road trip central.)

We had a bunch of friends come up with us to the mountain house this weekend – Jason, Minez, Jamie and Zac and Jacob and Akanksha. Friday night, Jamie and I threw together a feast for the masses including the most amazing marinated chicken – a recipe I stole from the Arnolds after they debuted it at their tailgate – followed by delicious handcrafted mojitos by Jacob. We passed the evening circled up playing Kings around the huge circular table made by Pa with its trademark lazy susan. Bet Pa never foresaw that as being one its many uses! (Hi Nanta + Pa!) (They don’t really have internet access, do they?)

Saturday, after brunch cooked by my hubby, we headed off to one of our favorite spots – a tucked away riverbed with ginormous boulders that gradually ascends to a small waterfall and a flat creekbed. Perfect for picnics… or maybe just sitting and pondering life if you had, sayyy, just eaten 2 lbs of Neese’s country sausage and couldn’t fathom the idea of eating again for eons. The hike isn’t too strenuous, but the boulders provide challenges the whole way – sometimes forcing you to jump, leap, grab someone’s hand, crawl or even pull-up. (When it came time to do a pull up on a rock, us smart females found another path up the side of the creek bed.)

After the hike, the girls attempted a shopping trip to the outlets – although in what was probably an act of intervention from the wallet gods – we were so worn out from the hike, that by the time we got to the 3rd store, we were lazily picking up clothes and going "ehh… don’t feel like trying it on." We rejoined the boys, who had been watching college football (Yea USC!) and headed out to Canyons, a local favorite for dinner.

Canyons is known for it’s amazing sunset views (which did not disappoint – see below) and, on fairly regular occasions, a good live music venue. Tonight we were treated to the musical styling of the winner of Irish Idol, who was apparently kicking off his American tour in the high country.

Isn’t it weird how people with accents when they talk have almost no trace of accent when they sing? That has always boggled my mind.

Anyways, as it was, our group simply was a little too worn out, and a little not drunk enough to appreciate the musical styling of this fine gent… we were all feeling a bit more Simon than Paula. We left a few songs in, got ice cream and shuffled home early.

We wrapped up Sunday with a leisurely walk around Bass Lake, and packed up the house – probably for the season. Every time we’re up there, Matt and I swear we’re going to go up more often but weekends seem to fill up as quickly as they show up. It’s hard to get away from it all when you keep scheduling it all! I think it was a much needed and well timed break for all of us – everyone getting a little burnt out on work and routines (or starting a new one on Monday, yay Akanksha!) but the "break" of the holidays still feeling far enough away. I know for me it came at a good time, and there’s few things that restore my soul more than sitting around a table (or crawling up a rock ledge, as the case may be) with people I love.

Happiest of Hours

Mozelle’s. 6:30.  Wine.

The text came at noon and I spent the rest of the afternoon in anticipation. 

I was there 20 minutes early, but luckily Anne was there already – as was an opened bottle of Pinot Noir.

Once our crowd grew bigger than the small tables indoor would hold, we switched to outside tables.  I already love Mozelle’s for their delicious incredible seasonal yummy food, I love them for their 1/2 price wine Mondays and $4 glass Thursdays, but I fell even deeper in love on Monday for the snuggly bright green fleece blankets on each chair outside. 

Southern hospitality?  You doin’ it right, Mozelle’s.

These are my happy hours: delicious food (Anne and I shared a fried goat cheese salad, and the table shared artichoke dip), great wine (thanks to Sonoma, I now appreciate why people always say red wine is for cooler weather… it just is) and most important, some of my most favorite people ever crowded around a table, talking and laughing. 

Rebuilding Year

Fall weekends in Winston mean one thing: TAILGATES!

Tailgating combines many of my favorite things: good friends, heaps of delicious food and beverages and being outside in the sunshine (at least through most of October!)  I love my alma mater, and I am so happy that Matt and I live in our “college town.”  I am proud to be a Demon Deacon!

Now actually watching those sporting events…well…  On one hand, I did sit through a massive downpour last game to watch us have our 11th straight victory over Duke.  But, I also wasn’t disappointed yesterday when my friend Anne texted me after the first quarter to ask if I wanted to meet back at the car (yay for re-entry this year!) and we ended up staying out the rest of the whole game chatting.  Besides, it’s a rebuilding year this year… I can miss a few games, right?

We had a great turn out for tailgating yesterday… one of those rare weekends when most of the guys didn’t have to work!  Those are few and far between, so we try to take advantage of them when they happen! 

Happy Wife, Happy Life

Happy Wedding Day, Kate + Charlie!

I adore this couple and I couldn’t be more honored to have been there on the day when they start their journey together as husband and wife.  They have such a cute “how we met” story, too.  Charlie is the best friend of Kate’s brother-in-law, Locke. So Kate and Charlie met at Anne and Locke’s wedding and have been dating ever since.  We became friends with Anne and Locke when they returned here for residency (they were both Wake undergrads, and Anne was a sorority sister… so now they are back on home turf in Winston-Salem) and met K+C through them.  Their wedding was held in Charlottesville, which happens to be my 2nd favorite city in the South.  (After Winston, of course.)  It was beautiful, fun and joyous – exactly as the start to a happy life together should be.  Congratulations, ya’ll!

Me + My Better Half

Girlfriends Jamie and Anne (sister of the bride, too)

Anne and Locke

Where Are They Now?

I made a bit of a last minute decision and bought a flight to go home to Pittsford for my ten year high school reunion.

Ten years!  It doesn’t seem possible.  Imagine a decade from now…. 2020.  Doesn’t that seem like eons from now?  Like, we’ll have flying cars and self-cleaning houses (oooh!) in the oh so futuristic ten years from now, right?  Ten years goes fast.

The reunion was so much fun – it was an odd mixture of people who came, I guess since it was in the middle of summer, and a fairly small representation of my class.  Maybe forty people?  I think we graduated with about 250.  It was kind of nice that nobody seemed to have their entire high school posse represented so we all just sort of floated around and visited with each other.  Or maybe it was just after ten years, no one remembered or cared who belonged to what clique anymore.   No one seems that different from ten years ago, but everyone seems to be doing good things with their lives.

I only took one picture the entire time, and it was in the cab on the way there.  This is my best friend, Krissy, and I.  We met in eighth grade, in a class called Enrichment.  I don’t remember what we were supposed to actually do during Enrichment, but if passing notes was the point, then we were top of the class.  We originally bonded over our musical preferences.  While everyone else was listening to either Pearl Jam, Dr. Dre or Dave Matthews Band, we had both (separately) discovered a love for the oldies station.  We had certain songs we’d call each other when we heard them on the radio: Little Red Riding Hood and Snoopy vs. The Red Baron stand out in my mind.

In other words, we were pretty dorky.  But we managed to turn out okay. 

10 years ago: Spring Break in Myrtle Beach, April 2000.  My sister, Katie, and friends Jamie, (me), Krissy and Tamara.  And a waiter who wanted to immortalize himself in this shot too.  I don’t think we’ve changed too much in ten years, except that no one parts their hair in the middle in the anymore.  So late 90s. 

I feel like the advent of Facebook (and the ease of keeping in touch over instant messenger, email, texting, cell phone/no long distance) has made reunions a little bit anticlimactic.  I’ve kept in good touch with my closest friends from high school through these mediums, but I also have the ability to spy on almost anyone I’m slightly curious about from high school or other past stages of life via Facebook.  There were very few people who I saw at the reunion who I didn’t have some semblance of what was going on in their life already.  In fact, I found myself in conversations mentioning something about someone’s life and realizing I only knew that because I had seen it as a Facebook status.  Since it happened back to me, I think that’s okay.  For example, congratulating someone on a baby they just had when you probably haven’t had an actual conversation with them since sometime around graduation day?  Thanks to Facebook. I obviously love the connections that internet/technology allow me to make and keep, but it certainly ruins the “where are they now” moments that reunions are supposed to have.  I know exactly where they are; their Foursquare check in just told me. 

What was the last reunion you had?  Did you attend? 

Winos Do Wine Country: Day 3

The only thing better than spending an entire day touring Sonoma vineyards… is doing it twice in a row.

Thursday dawned, and we were awake (again) to see it.  Although I think we slept in til seven this time.  By the time DJ, our driver, had backed the Suburban up the long, windy driveway we were ready and waiting for our second day of tours to start. 

Breakfast of Champions

We started off at Benzinger, which included a tram tour.  Personally, I had a bit of a rough day – criss-crossing the rough terrain of northern California in the back of an SUV left me car sick for the first time in my entire life!  When we pulled up to Benzinger, the only thing I wanted to drink was a Sprite out of the vending machine.  Unfortunately, the car sickness stuck with me through the next 3 places so I can’t tell you much about the wine, just about the vineyards.

Benzinger was awesome, and definitely a place to go if you ever go out to Sonoma.  The tram tour was educational without being boring.  We got a tour of the grounds, and they explained their biodynamic garden philosophies which were really incredible – it’s obvious they’ve put a lot effort and money into making their vineyards a sustainable place and I think their success speaks to the idea that you reap what you sow  And they sow some yummy grapes.  While I didn’t try any that day, fortunately I found a bottle of Benzinger Chardonnay at my local Total Wine when I got back and it was every bit as yummy as my friends had promised.

Various of Views of Benzinger

I’ve always bought wines based on the label (and the price), but understanding where wine comes from and how it grows, and how things like soil, or climate or lifespan affect the grape and thus the wine appeals to me in the same way that understanding where food comes from and how it grows. I don’t fancy myself ever becoming a wine snob (although I do catch myself swirling and sniffing on a regular basis now….) but I like understanding things, and knowing why I like what I like and why I don’t what I don’t.  I like understanding what maloactic fermentation is, and that a peachy fume blanc doesn’t really have peach in it.

After Benzinger, we went on to Chateau St Jean which was one of my least favorites of the day – it was more your typical chateau-y looking vineyard.  Then our driver asked us if we would be okay going to a really unique place that was a reds only… and I was ready to take a breather (since I’m not a reds only kinda gal), so we went on to Kaz.  Kaz was an experience.  According to the red drinkers, it was not the best wine they had all week, but the experience was totally unique, in that the wine came straight out of a barrel into your glass or bottle. 

After Kaz, we went on to a place called Family Vineyards.  Pam and I had actually taken this off our list, because it looked like it was just a house on the road that represented five or six vineyards  – and no actual vineyards there.  I ended up being very glad our driver had put it back on the list.  First of all, our pourer Stephanie was hilarious… she entertained us to no end.    I had made a spontaneous recovery from my car sickness and was ready to taste again.  Lucky me, because Family Vineyards ended up being home of the Sparkling. I love me some sparkly stuff, ya’ll.  Since we were the only ones there, Stephanie tailored the tasting to us – mixing and matching from what she had on hand, diverting from the actual tasting menu – I had three white sand three sparkling, while some of the other girls had more reds, roses and just a few sparklings.  I had two sparklings there I had never had – a raspberry flavored Framboise and an almond flavored Almonide.  I bought them both to bring home, they were that good . Stephanie also had us do a few “experiments” – drinking a Zin, eating a piece of dark chocolate and trying the Zin again to see how it tasted, and then repeating that with a Late Harvest.  Listen, any place that’s going to combine chocolate in its tasting experience gets two pinkies up from this girl.

After Stephanie declared that she was all out of experiments, we headed down the street to Kunde.  I liked Kunde, but like Chateau St Jean, it felt more commercialized and our pourer gave us the hard sell on the wine club.  This was the first place out of anywhere we went to where we felt like were being “sold” to (and consequently, we didn’t end up buying anything…)

All of us at Kunde

After Kunde, our driver sat in the parking lot deliberating something… then pulled out his cell phone and made a quick call.  “Ok, we’re in” he said, explaining that the next place we were visiting was rather picky about large groups and often turned down drivers with groups.  When we got to VJB Cellars, I couldn’t help but feeling like The Godfather himself had waved us into his home.  VJB was owned by a sweet little Italian gentleman who regaled us with stories of Italy, wine and “the familia.”  Even though I’m not a huge fan of reds, I drank every single taste he poured… I’m not sure if it was out of respect or fear!  I ended up buying his Primitivo to bring home to Matt.  We stayed there until the sun set and until our lovely host, Vittorio, had run out of stories.

Dinner on Thursday night was shrimp and salmon on the grill by Emily, fried goat cheese salad by me and molten lava cakes by Jenny.  We did not hurt for calories that evening, let’s just say that.  We had a bottle of Prosecco from VJB Cellars to go along with our dinner. 

We sat around the table, reminiscing about stories from the ten years we’ve known each other, finishing each other’s sentences and laughing in anticipation as someone would begin rehashing a story we had heard before.   There’s no better way to end a day than laughing so hard your stomach hurts and Prosecco nearly comes out your nose (ow) with your best friends. 

Thank you, Sonoma, for another beautiful day. 

Equinox

Today is, officially, the first day of spring. Thankfully, Mother Nature happily obliged. The sun is shining, the grass is green, the sky is blue and the construction hammers in my neighborhood are going double-time. I feel like doing something crazy to welcome spring. Maybe I’ll pack up my turtlenecks!

Yesterday I was walking through Wake Forest’s quad to take something to the post office. It’s a weird thing, to walk around my old campus. I still expectantly look around, as if at any minute I might see a familiar face – a roommate, a sorority sister, a classmate. The people are strangers to me now (and look absurdly young, I might mention) but the scene was exactly the same as any First Sunny Friday I could recall: people spilling out of the balconies in Poteat, Frisbees being tossed on the quad, girls in big sunglasses, jean skirts and sorority jerseys laying on blankets with the false premise of trying to do some reading. For a moment it made me nostalgic – I longed to go back to a place and time when most all of my favorite people lived within a 1-mile radius and our worries centered around crafting the perfect Away Message, but as I headed on to my lovely home, my eager puppy dog and my handsome hubby my sense of contentment with this time and place returned, and all that remained was a grateful feeling for the experiences and where they have taken me.

We had some friends over last night for the first official cookout of the warm weather season. I love so many things about this time of year, but one of my favorites is group cookouts. We had our friends Anne + Locke and Kate + Charlie over, after Matt and Locke finished up an afternoon on the nearby links. It felt so luxurious to be able to sit outside on the deck with just a light cardigan on, enjoying good food, wine and company. I will refrain from discussing the ensuing Catchphrase games, but suffice it to say, the girls will redeem themselves next time.

Speaking of gratitude, I didn’t get my Thankful Thursday posts up two weeks in a row… and it’s not because I’m not thankful! I called my sister, the English teacher, to ask her if she could come up with any synonyms for thankful that started with S so I could do a spin-off for Saturday. Nothing we came up with seemed to have the right ring to it.

Here’s what we had come up with: Satisfied Saturday. Serene Saturday. Sincere Saturday. Sagacious Saturday. Surreptitious Saturday. (Which does not mean thankful by any stretch of the imagination, but I liked the way it rolled off my tongue and I tried to convince her that Saturday was usurping Thursday’s role, and therefore the name fit.) Serendipitous Saturday. Seriously So Blessed Saturday. (I really lobbied hard for that one, but since Katie didn’t get the reference, I figured most others wouldn’t either.)

We couldn’t come up with anything. Anyone have a good suggestion? (Suggestive Saturday? Hmmm.)

Regardless, I am thankful, it is Saturday and here is a list. Enjoy.

• The sun, the warm weather, the just-in-time arrival of Spring.
• The arrival into this world of sweet Madelyn Jane, and the health of her momma Katie
• Finalized plans for Winocation – my trip to Wine Country with my college girlfriends. Less than 2 weeks til departure!
• Waking up to no alarm today
• My hard-working hubby, who not only had to wake up to an alarm, but had to go to work after said alarm went off. Boo.
• My Aunt Jennifer, who is celebrating a birthday today. She deserves to have a day as beautiful and lovely as she is.
• The opportunity to do a public speaking gig this week to a phenomenal group of people
• Heather and her HTML capabilities and her excitement and willingness to try and figure out my blog-puzzle
• Running. I have missed it, and it feels good to be back doing something I love.
• And on that note, health. 3 months now. Countdown restarted, and I intend to break my 3 year record this time.
• OH and on that note, my doctor. He called me to follow up on a question I had left his nurse, and took a good ten minutes to talk to me about some questions I had, and even sent me some abstracts that have yet to be published. Anyone who thinks the health care system is broken should remember that a system can be broken, but the people within the system can do a pretty good job at holding the pieces together. (I include my hubby in this – I think going to work in an emergency room every day is the epitome of seeing the broken system, but he just puts his head down and works hard to do what he’s there to do.)
• And on the note of the research abstracts… Jess! I am so thankful for her great experiences in her career, her recently published journal article that I totally did not understand the topic of but I am proud of anyways, passing her comp exams AND her plans for post-doc stuff. Watch out world, this girl is going to be doing big stuff in cancer research. Go Nurse Jessie K!
• My Aunt B’s new blog which is about 75% food/organics/health and 25% musings and observations, and makes me adore her even more than I already do. Go ahead and read it: http://www.swymathecove.com/
• Randomly catching “Only Want to Be With You” (by Hootie) on the radio on my way home from work yesterday. That song instantly transports me back to dating Matt, to one of my favorite dates – a Hootie/BTE concert in Raleigh, and to our wedding day. It’s the song that always reminds me of what an awesome and wonderful thing it is to love and be loved.
• Target’s wine selection. Surprised to find it is pretty darn good.
• A coaching session I had on Friday – it never fails that anytime I coach this one woman (which is about once a month), I learn from her more than I think she learns from me. Or at the very least, it’s mutual. I swear the things that come out of my mouth when I’m coaching her are exactly the things I need to be remembering or paying attention to myself. God’s timing is perfect, ya’ll.
• Blueberry crumb bars from Smitten Kitchen. Butter, sugar, berries. Yum. (Thanks, Heath!)
• My mom and her always available, never bored of me, listening ears.
• My Buddy boy. He had a good week. Won’t say more or I’ll jinx it.
• That I could probably keep on typing this list the rest of the afternoon, but a homemade frappe and some book editing on the book porch await me instead.

And I will leave you with this, my usual gratuitous doggy pic, and the hopes that Spring has found you where ever you may be reading this from.

Pitiful is the new cute.

Crafty

Last night I had a bunch of my girl friends over for a craft night. I credit my long-held love of crafting to my mom, who kept me and my sister happily entertained with a glue gun, some fabric scraps and a whole bag of sequins and buttons. I remember walking around Jo-Ann Fabric with my mom to pick out fabric for our Halloween costumes, and being enthralled with the rows and rows of different bolts of fabrics and the endless possibilities for their uses. My forays into crafts have been varied in their success and duration. There was even a brief phrase in high school where I was making my own clothes. I’ll ask my mom to kindly burn any photographic evidence of the famous blue fleece pants. (My sister, who back then was a cooler-than-thou Abercrombie wearing, best lunch table sitting 7th grader, still shudders at this memory.)

All that being said, my love for and intentions to complete most projects are often greater than my actual follow through and my success. Despite that, I’ve kept a folder of various magazine tear outs and have been bookmarking blogs for years of things I want to get my hands messy with, and just waited for “the right time” to do them.

You’re inspired aren’t you? Admit it. Fabric will do that to you.

I’ve often thought knitting on a metro commute, or losing track of the hours with nothing more than a glue stick and a foam board made me a little bit, well, frumpy. Uncool. Older than my years. A good friend of mine in college was keen on saying I was “a 30-year-old trapped in a 22-year-old body” and he was right. (Umm, back then, 30 sounded really old.) So it was with a little bit of hesitation that I sent an email to a handful of girl friends inviting them over for a night of glue guns, fabric and learning our way around pinking shears.

I made sure to mention there would be wine.

I was delighted to find that my crafty streak was shared by many of my friends, although it shouldn’t totally surprise me. Many of the girls I have become close to here in Winston, in my “married person life”, share my love of creating things and nurturing our nests – cooking, blogging, photography, getting disproportionately excited about Pottery Barn sale items… you get the idea. Seems we are still in the 30somethings at heart, but now our bodies are catching up.

Our craft night was so much fun, and other ideas were tossed around for future projects and activities. I find, with as many bookmarked ideas as I have accumulated over the last ten years or so, that I rarely take the time for myself to do these kinds of things that are fun and relaxing to me, but completely “unproductive.” When it comes down to it, a typical Thursday night with Matt at work I probably would have spent catching up on the laundry or filing the bills or making a grocery list. To carve out the time and invite other people held me accountable to the completion of a project, not just the intention, and was a great way to spend time with some of my favorite people.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, we made fabric covered Easter eggs. I got the idea from it from this blog. It was super simple and I wanted to start off with a project that didn’t involve any sewing or anything intimidating. It took an egg or two before we each got our wrapping methods down, and there were some glue-gun burnt fingers along the way (hope you are recovering, Anne!) but all in all, it was a great success.

More crafts to come? I hope so.

Italian Theme Night: Bruschetta, Cupcakes and Guitar Hero.

Whoever came up with the idea of potlucks, I’d like to officially nominate them for party hall of fame awards. (Pretty sure it’d be right up there with parties involving foam, that one where you have to go hand cuffed to your date, and my cowboys & ballerina themed birthday party. Where some of the cowboys dressed up as ballerinas.) I DIGRESS.

A few days ago, we realized it was going to be one of those rare stars-colliding weekend where all the boys had the same Saturday night off. (Although, sadly, Locke had to go in at 5 am… but he was a trooper and made it out anyways!) Someone suggested a potluck – Italian themed – and in a matter of hours, we all had our designated dishes decided.

Hosting a dinner party and cooking just one-sixth of the food served? YES PLEASE.

Who’s cooking in my kitchen? Not me!

We were all a little nervous the impending snowstorm was going to keep our shindig from happening, but everyone braved the storm with either trusty SUVs or Chicago/Utah driving instincts and while the ground froze over, the party heated up.

Everyone’s food was delicious, and the cabin fever we’d all been experiencing turned otherwise benign games like Scattergories and Cranium into shouts, shrieks and slander. Just your typical board game experience, right? From board games, we moved on to Guitar Hero, which quickly became divisive as spouses went up against each other.

Not sure whether that is the look of a surprised winner or chagrined loser. You decide.

It’s funny how sometimes the most impromptu, informal plans can become the most fun nights. It makes me very thankful that we have friends who will brave snowstorms and show up with fettuccine at a moment’s notice. It doesn’t get any better than that right?

Unless, of course, I could actually beat those friends at Guitar Hero.

(PS, the requisite photos of all the food are on MegEats. Go here for some drool-worthy pics.)