Pardon Me While I Bask

It's a funny old life, says Doctor Who.

I've always felt a bit -- behind in life. Taking the best part of a decade to finish your bachelor's degree will do that I suppose. And Doug? Damn! This guy...

I can't even... 

Everything he's done for me. Everything he still does for me. Everything he's postponed, sacrificed, suffered, and endured. This guy has earned a little luxury.

Form of, WATER!!

(If you get that joke, I love you.)

In classic Doug and Misty fashion, we worked out a week in Florida on the cheap. Specifically, we spent six nights camping on St. George Island.

Home sweet campsite

Florida was completely awesome, but this post isn't about that. See, a crazy thing happened, like, the minute we got home. Well, I guess not completely crazy. We were planning to buy a car this summer. We weren't planning to buy a car, today.

Mostly, we never dreamed we'd find...

Why, that's a grown-up car!

Meet our (cough) Mercedez-Benz E320. Doug hasn't quit grinning since we left the showroom. He's talked about wanting a Benz for about as long as I can remember. I'm so tickled for him.

(Well, I'm a little tickled for me too. World championship haggling trophy? You bet.)

Spare a thought for our '96 Chevy Beretta, which has served us admirably for nearly 10 years. Tomorrow it will go on to the great salvage yard in the sky, which is to say, the chop shop down the block. *Tear*

P.S. I promise this whole summer of blogging won't be so, "Wooo! Check us out!" Just, probably the next couple of weeks. Then it's back to plain old cooking.

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Off to the SEC

Doug has been like a kid waiting for Santa the last 2 weeks.

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It was my damn birthday

But Doug's the one who scored. A work promotion AND these: tickets to the SEC Championship tournament.

He can't stop grinning, & neither can I.

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On the road again

So the shopping at Atlantic Station was pretty uninspired -- at least for a full-figured lady like myself. I kinda like the area though. A heady brew of hipster douchebaggery & Southern charm.
Our shopping amounted to a couple of strikeouts at shoe stores. That was it. I learned a good safety tip though. Don't shoe shop right after a Long Beach lunch. The bending over to try stuff on? Hazardous.

Back to the suburbs, now, for more familiar retail therapists. Bare Minerals store? Look out.

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The aftermath

Yum, yum!

Doug just threw down a Californians/sports joke that's far too long to relate here. Suffice it to say we're havin a ball so far.

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The pizza has landed

Carne asada on whole grain crust. Not what you'd call a pizza on Chicago's north side, but...

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Don't forget the...

...Long Beach iced tea!

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First stop: CPK

That's short for California Pizza Kitchen. This is their Mediterranean plate. Greek salad = happy Misty.

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Live blogging our Atlanta adventure

We decided to do some city exploring today.

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Downs and ups

It was tough to admit.

Doug lacked to have fainted when I copped to him.

I never thought I'd feel this way.

I -- um -- well -- I miss Bowling Green.

Only on Saturday morning, I swear! Specifically, I miss my old farmer's market. Something awful. My weekly jaunt to the hospital parking lot brought me such joy. I saw classmates and teachers from WKU -- even bought stuff from a few of them! I built relationships with local farmers. I even got to listen to a family bluegrass band from time to time. I looked forward to the market. Couldn't wait for Saturdays. Felt a little lost when fall arrived and I got stuck with Kroger.

It's not like that here. I have a choice between two markets and both leave something to be desired.

If I want better selection, I go to Marietta. It's my worst nightmare. Instead of being spread across a spacious parking lot, it's crammed into a single block of a single street. It's worse than Walmart at Christmastime.

Y'all know how I feel about crowds.

Smyrna is a nicer experience. Baptist church parking lot, same vendors every week -- it has a lot of the qualities I loved about Bowling Green. But it's teeny. Two stalls of vegetables. Two. Also, you have to be there before 9:30 a.m. if you're gonna get eggs. Ugh.

Also... well I don't know this for sure, but I have a suspicion I'm not seeing actual producers. I hear tell one of the biggest farmer's markets in the world is in the city. And that most suburban vendors go there first, then set up stalls elsewhere to resell. I know that's the story in Marietta. And it seems to be the case in Smyrna too.

This is not what I got into the farmer's market scene for. One of the problems with reselling is the markup. Back in Kentucky, I used to laugh at the suckers paying outrageous money for Chilean produce at Kroger. Not around here. Half the time the vegetables are more expensive than the grocery store. I have to poke and pick to find actual producers selling their own stuff.

So I miss Bowling Green...

Until later that day, when I realized I had ten stores to visit in search of new work clothes. TEN! As opposed to the showstopping two stores to check out in Bowling Green. You give and you take, right? More to come on my buying binge, over at AKoP.

How was your weekend?

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Spin the wheel, cuz I don't...

If you know how to finish that joke you are old school.

It's my way of saying I'm amazed I let this blog go for 10 days. No excuse really. Doug and I went out to dinner with college buds Alex and Lori last Saturday. Back in the day, we used to mooch their HBO to watch the Sopranos. It should go without saying we all did some ridiculous drinking together.

Ain't they cute?

I was gonna write up a real review, with details and pictures and all. But we all got to talking and sipping on mojitos, and once again that 3-D person thing kicked in. Seems I'm only a faithful blogger when I have no life. Heheh...

So we ate at a place called Eclipse di Luna, a Spanish tapas place on Miami Circle in the city. We shared all kinds of deliciousness: lamb, calimari, and these crazy good seafood and chicken puff pastry things.

Kinda has a Miami vibe, no?

Like proper carnivores, Doug, Alex and I were most impressed by the carne asada and the ribs. OMG the ribs. Spicy, juicy, and melt-in-your-mouth tender. Lori's not much of a red meat eater, but thank goodness for that! She and I shared a yummy sliced tomato layered with mozzarella and basil, which both boys turned up their noses at. There were cheese plates and prosciutto slices and some kind of shrimp dish. And those mojitos. To. Die. For. And I don't even like rum that much.

So yeah, that was last weekend. Tomorrow we're having a mini-roadtrip to visit even more fabulous college pals. I'm going to give myself a stern talking to while we're in the car, so I don't forget to take pictures and notes for a lovely post next week.

That said, I really do have a valid reason for not blogging these last few days. I've been busy with something else. It's a good something else. I'm just not quite ready to go public with it yet. Stay tuned...

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Seriously, atmosphere?

All sympathy to the good people from the Midwest and East Coast. I know you've got it worse than we do. I lived in that Illinois deep-freeze long enough. But there's a reason I don't live there anymore, and here it is.

Brr. Makes me cold just looking at it.

Okaaaay. I'm in Georgia y'all. The proper, deep, Confederate, South.

 Do these steps say "safe" to you?

And it looks like the front of a holiday card.

Okay, I guess the trees look sort of pretty. Maybe.

How far am I gonna have to go to escape this mess forever?

I can barely see my house under there.

I hear Venus is nice this time of year...

I swear I haven't gone through any wardrobes recently.

 

And these poor pines have shrunk a good foot.

Guess there ain't nothing to do but hole up inside and wait for spring.

Come on spring!

Simple and priceless

I made an effort on my birthday to do as little as possible. I played around on the internet, watched an SVU marathon (I know, but we all got our demons), and basically just sat around. Didn't even bother to battle the bed-head. So it took me a minute to pull myself together for the unexpected knock at my door.

It was the FedEx guy, bringing me this:

Pop quiz: How many of these items have I had since college?

Aww yeah! I wasn't expecting delivery until next week. Somehow, even though this house is considerably bigger than our tiny place in Kentucky, I've had hell putting away and organizing all our stuff. Apart from some decorate-y things, my kitchen is finally DONE.

Doug was a little late getting home from work, which, not gonna lie, made me nervous. What with the continuing lousy weather, and last week's unpleasantness, every minute past 5:15 fed my angst. I shouldn't have worried. He had a quick stop to make.

Question #2: Can you spot what's wrong with this picture?

Then, even though he had been at work all day, he plopped right down and put the baker's rack together. I'm so spoiled. The total chaos on my kitchen counters called to me, so I broke my vow of laziness and got to organizing.

I'm a little obsessed with spices.

The space! The glorious workspace! Also, curious about that black cord hanging down under the cabinets? It leads here:

Yep, that's a clip-on snake lamp!

I am a master of improvised lighting. Ugly? Yes. But I can live with ugly. I couldn't live with my stovetop being so dark. Just worried that one of these days Doug's gonna want his desk lamp back.

Feel free to leave quiz guesses in the comments. I'll spill the beans later this week.

This I could have done without...

 

 

 

Sigh...

Now it's a home!

I finally went to the neighborhood grocery yesterday. After a week of eating fast food and frozen pizza, I totally snapped. Even though the kitchen is still in chaos, and the thought of cooking in there is giving me angst, I couldn't take it another day. I needed some vegetables, y'all!

And fruit. Gas station raisins couldn't cut it anymore.

Aside: I take crappy pictures. What the hell is white balance? Did I leave enough background? To flash or not to flash?

 

Same photo, with flash. Washed out, no? I don't know...

The thing is, my photo-impairedness has never been an issue before. Doug takes fantastic pictures, so for important events we put the camera in his hand. But even I'm not so pushy and narcissistic that I'd make him do the images for my blog. So I'm muddling through. Practice makes perfect and all that, right? That said, if anyone can recommend a book, you'll have my gratitude.

Also, just in case you thought I was exaggerating about that total chaos thing, here's another area of countertop.

And this is the "tidy" section!

There's an island of garbage right out in the middle of the floor. About four boxes crammed full of crumpled newspapers. I can't bear to make it public. We're searching for a baker's rack to supplement our storage. Once that's in place, maybe I'll relax a little.

It's astonishing, really. Somehow, I made all this crap fit in my last kitchen. Maybe I was unconsciously bending space-time? And if so, how come I've suddenly lost that ability?

Oh, and that veggie photo looks totally staged, because it kind of is. Since I'm gearing up for a proper dinner, I took the time to place and organize all my spice bottles. The fruit and veggies are pretty much right where they landed out of their grocery bags, and they looked so pretty I just had to get them on film -- er, memory card.

Now, they've got to go because I'll be needing that workspace. I think Doug's recliner is unoccupied...