Wednesday, March 27, 2013

BEACHY

I don't know about all of you, but I have been SO CRABBY this week because of the dang weather. I mean, there was snow on my car when I drove to work on Tuesday. I feel like I haven't been good and warm since September. When will it ever, ever, ever NOT be winter?

Whenever I think I cannot take the weather another minute longer, I pull out my phone and look at this little countdown app. My whole family plus Matthew and I are taking another beach trip this summer. If I HAVE to turn 30, I will only do it basking in the sun, with a margarita in hand, surrounded by my people. In fact, that sounds so good that I would turn 30 tomorrow.

Monday, March 25, 2013

BLESSED

Boy, does time fly when you're having fun. I haven't done a mass photo drop since I got this phone, but I suppose I should!

To celebrate Matthew's birthday, we both took a vacation day and drove to Burgess Falls, about 90 minutes from Nashville. We hiked (and I am using that word VERY loosely - I was in jeans and sandals) and ate a little picnic lunch on the trail. The Falls were so pretty and the weather was PERFECT. Afterward, we visited a winery that we kept seeing signs for. We tasted everything they had and ended up taking home a few bottles.


That very evening, I had plans for a little 9 to 5 reunion to see the theater's next production, which starred/featured a few of our 9 to 5ers. It was so fun to see everyone and catch up!


The next day, we went to a St. Patrick's Day festival in East Nashville. Between the food trucks and more of that amazing weather, it was a lovely afternoon. Green earrings should be enough to keep you from getting pinched, but APPARENTLY that depends on who is doing the pinching:


On actual St. Patrick's Day, we forwent green beer and decided to make a pesto pizza. Eat your heart out: this thing was DELICIOUS. Pesto, roasted grape tomatoes, arugula and oh yes: goat cheese. Looooots of goat cheese. I didn't know whether to eat it, or lay down on it and die:


You'll notice a theme here: the man can cook. When he's around, my contributions top out at keeping wine glasses full, chopping a vegetable or stirring a pot. Meanwhile, he's gone and made a meal so good I could cry. In this particular case, he marinated a pork loin in some of the blackberry wine we brought home from our day trip to the winery, then topped it with a blackberry wine reduction sauce. Don't miss that little buttered baguette on the side! Doesn't this look like something you'd get at a restaurant?


Someone is a big hockey fan, so we went to a Predators game last week. I'll happily wear a Preds shirt because I've already seen him in an Auburn shirt and it's not even football season! Win, win. And speaking of winning, I must be a good luck charm because they finally won!


After a long Friday, this is all I wanted to do. Can you guess which purchase was for me and which was for him? No, I am not above bribery.


On Saturday, I had a date with the other man in my life. I was his guest at a very sweet wedding of a friend of his I've met a few times. We had so much fun. Can you tell?


Monday, March 18, 2013

HAPPY

While I was in Beersheba Springs with my bunko friends, my friend Regina told me she had someone she wanted to set me up with. I told her to bring it on. A few days later, I was nervously sat at the bar at Merchant’s waiting on this guy:



Meet Matthew.



Our first two weeks of getting to know one another was a little interesting, retrospectively, as I was SO reluctant to let walls down. 33 days later, I think going to Merchant’s was the best decision I have ever made. It’s actually pretty funny: I was sitting at the bar, waiting for him to get there. After he was officially a whopping 4 minutes late, I was aggravated and texted him. Turns out, he had been outside waiting on ME to get there the whole time: I came in the side entrance; he was waiting at the front door. I guess you could say that we were looking for each other in different places, but good news everyone: I found him.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

FULL

My grandmother would be so proud of me lately. She would have turned 83 on Saturday.

A few weekends ago when I was visiting my sister, she and I made pasta bolognese. To be fair, she made the bolognese but I helped with the pasta, using my grandmother's pasta press. We made the dough then flattened it a few times before cutting it into noodles. The noodles were boiled up then topped with bolognese sauce and parmesan cheese, of course!





The other fun thing I did recently was use this sieve to make mashed potatoes. She used to pride herself on having NO LUMPS in her potatoes! As the one who loves mashed potatoes more than the entire rest of the family combined, I inherited this after she passed away. It actually belonged to her mother first, then she owned it, now it's mine.




Also mine? The cute guy attached to those potato-mashing hands. Swoon.

Wednesday, March 06, 2013

SERENE

In a move either subconsciously indicative of how ready I am for spring/summer, or to consciously treat myself to something shiny after a long week, or (the most likely case) BOTH, I picked up a pair of these earrings last Friday at a Stella & Dot show at a friend's home:



They are called Serenity Stone Drops. Do they put off calming, serene vibes to those who wear them? Here's hoping. March is coming in like a lion!

Saturday, March 02, 2013

BEYONCÉD

The day after the show ended, a big project began that consumed more of my time and energy in February than I care to willingly admit. If you are keeping score at home, then you recall that my show ended February 2. Can you remember what was on February 3?

That would be Beyonce at the Super Bowl, putting on the best show I'd seen in years, including the eleven I just did myself.

Immediately following the game, she announced her worldwide tour. I scrolled and scrolled through the US dates until I saw it: a stop in Nashville. This is the point where I began breathing into a paper bag.

I started assessing my options and pulled together a quick plan: get as many tickets as I could, whenever I could, at whatever price I could. The end.

Here's the deal: I've never seen her in concert. I have always known that when the opportunity presented itself, it would be a bucket list thing to get as great of a seat as possible. Knowing the demand for the show would be crazy, I also started calling in favors. My coworkers know a lot of people, and I was waiting for the day to ask them to start calling some of those people. This was that day!

The tickets went on sale over a two week spread: a little more than half the shows one week, and the second batch of shows (including her Nashville stop) the following week. To get a feel for what I'd be up against, I attempted to get on Ticketmaster for some of the first batch of shows the week before Nashville went on sale. The presales started on her web site, then a Mastercard presage another day, then a Live Nation presale another day followed by the general public on sale date. The first day, her website crashed. The rest of the presales via Ticketmaster seemed to sell out in minutes. I knew I would be in the same boat. It was frustrating. I did my homework and realized that there was only one other show in the second "batch" of shows that was in the same time zone as Nashville, so I was hopeful to avoid crashing websites and the like.

I had my sister and other friends on Ticketmaster for each presale to try to help me get tickets. It was a madhouse. One day I had a pair, but then my internet at work went out. True story. Another day, I had a pair on the Ticketmaster mobile app, but I didn't realize if you closed the app (AKA read a text message) you lost your tickets. So, by the time all four of the presales had come and gone, I had ZERO tickets in my name. Womp womp.

But hope was not lost. A coworker connected me with a friend who works at Live Nation, who sent one little e-mail to the West Coast office and helped me get an amazing seat. Simultaneously, my boss's husband was able to get me another pair of great seats, and in a matter of days I went from having no Beyonce tickets to having three Beyonce tickets!

So, I can now officially and proudly announce that I AM GOING TO SEE BEYONCE! After all that work and effort, I AM SO EXCITED! I'd better start brushing up on that new choreography she whipped out at the halftime show!

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