Sunday

Sunday is always my cleaning day, but this Sunday was especially bad since we had been out of town the two previous weekends. (I’m not even going to pretend like I could clean during the week.) So yesterday I made a day out of it and cleaned like guests were coming over. I mopped (moving furniture and getting the baseboards), dusted the corners and behind the furniture, washed the dog bowls, disinfected trashcans…it was awesome. I opened the windows and enjoyed the fresh air. I also enjoyed beers while cleaning. This made it a most satisfying day.

Asheville

We took a min-vacation and met Grant and Jennifer in Asheville NC last weekend. We rented the most amazing house—the decorations alone made the stay worthwhile.

Shell Cat

Porcelain Pets

Most of the weekend was spent eating. Friday night was Jennifer’s spaghetti. It was wonderful—I’m adjusting my own recipe now. She also brought salad from her favorite pizza place in Charleston and it may have looked ordinary, but it certainly did not taste ordinary.

Saturday morning was our turn and we made crème brulée french toast with bacon. Usually Keith and I go with turkey bacon, but we decided to splurge and ended up getting a slab of thick-cut real bacon. I don’t want to talk about the amount of grease it produced, but it was directly proportional to it’s flavor. The french toast was not-too-shabby either, but we were just getting started.

Saturday afternoon was mexican and then it was on to the pièce de résistance—Zambra’s. We had dinner there and after an initially frustrating get-in-the-door experience, everything was incredible. Pomegranate pork spring rolls, gnocci with bittersweet chocolate, lamb taco, veal cheeks (Keith was adventurous and I am GLAD), sesamae seared scallops, sheepshead and chips…it was endless. Topped off by a chocolate torte with sea salt, we waddled out of there. (What I gained in weight, I lost in my wallet.)

Stuffed and Happy

Bruch was mexican-inspired and I don’t know exactly what I had, but there were eggs and it was spicy and I was happy. Jennifer’s parents met us and we had a wonderful time.

We managed to do a couple of things that didn’t involve food. The weather wasn’t very cooperative and I’m afraid Jennifer and Grant felt like they were in the tundra after leaving Charleston. We drove through the Blue Ridge Parkway—I love the changing of the leaves. I don’t know how anyone can’t be happy looking at that.

This looks sweet, but we're really just freezing

We also wandered around downtown and found that Asheville is a nice town…natural…but nice. I’ll go back at some point. Especially since I still need to go to the Biltmore Dairy Barn.

Phases of Blog Insanity

Let me start by saying, I have never been that into weddings. I didn’t plan mine when I was a little girl. I did not ask about the details of my friends’ weddings when they were getting married. And I certainly did not know that there is a wedding subculture that lurks just below the surface of normal society whose sole purpose is to talk about every last detail involved in getting married. And look. Now I’ve joined it.

Phase 1: Besieged
It started out simply enough—googling ‘wedding ideas’, finding a couple of sites, clicking on the recommended sites of those sites, clicking on the recommended sites of those sites…then one day I realized I had 40 Favorites in my Wedding folder.

Phase 2: Systematize
I realized that I could not continue down this path, so I created sub-folders (Blogs, Ideas, Resources) that would help me manage my newly-found addiction. When I found an invitation suite that I loved the look of, it went into Ideas. When I found a vendor that looked useful, it went into Resources. And when I found a Blog that updated frequently and featured weddings that I liked, it went into Blogs.

Phase 3: Obsess
The amount of information that you can find on wedding blogs is astounding. The Real Weddings features quickly became my favorite and I felt like I was getting so much inspiration from them. They update them so frequently. And they are all so pretty. I was checking the sites several times a day. I was a crazy person.

Phase 4: Forgo
Then I took a week vacation to the beach. With no computers. And no blogs. And guess what? I survived. I didn’t miss them. Everything was still okay.

Phase 5: Awareness
When I came back to civilization and had my blogs again, I realized: These are completely unrealistic portrayals of planning a wedding. On my budget. With what I like. And that’s when I didn’t need the blogs anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I still read them. But I know that I don’t have $100,000 (like, 1/10 of that) and I don’t have crafty skills, and I don’t have services to trade with vendors. And that is 100% okay with me.