Lucky Leo

Who wouldn't like their Valentine's Day horoscope to begin with the following words:

"Your charm is bubbling out of you like vintage champagne today..."

Cheers to love, friendship and happiness!

85

A bit late, but the happiest birthday to literally the greatest woman I know, perhaps the greatest on the planet.

This is one of my favorite pictures of my grandparents.  It was their honeymoon sendoff, and it looks like a Norman Rockwell painting.  I adore it.

Everyone loves their grandmother, but it speaks volumes when others love her just as much as her family does.

Happy Birthday, Mimi!

Washington DC International Food and Wine Festival 2013

Would you turn down a free tickets to the local wine festival?  Yeah, me neither.

After becoming buddies with Ryan, Megan and Marc's wedding planner, over their wedding weekend, he took down my email and said he'd send me info on events he helps put on.  Well, lo and behold, an email came in from him last week about a Food and Wine festival at the Ronald Reagan Building here in DC, and that there email contained a 100% off coupon code for special guests like me.  Amazing.

So after work, I biked on down Pennsylvania Avenue to meet a few girlfriends for the Second Annual. Sommelier Showdown event.

Honestly, I have no idea how these Sommeliers did it.  They were given nine glasses of red wines and piece of paper that listed different types (whether or not there were nine listed or more than nine was a question that I don't think was ever answered).  While being timed, they tasted each wine and had to match it to it's type on the page.  First one to get all nine correct won.

Now I am not even close to a wine snob, but I had heard previously that Leah Cheston from Ris was very good.  And to whoever told me that before: thank you for the wonderful conversation starter during their tasting. She's the brunette, second from the end on the left.  Well, she took home the win!  I heard a few of them later say that there were four wines made from the same grapes all from Northern California, and so that made it pretty difficult.  Um...yeah.  I'm telling you, no clue how she ever got them all paired up.


The spread at this event was amazing.  Oysters on the half shell, clams on the half shell.  Three types of macaroni and cheese (with mushrooms, with lobster and something else.  I stopped looking when I saw with lobster).  Three types of risotto (with winter vegetables, with duck and red wine, with truffles).  Tons of cheeses and baguettes.

And then there was all that great wine.

I didn't take photos of too many of the wines really, but I got a couple.

Here's Maggie trying one of my favorite wines of the night.  Bottle pictured below.

Maggie and Megan noshing on some of that aforementioned Mac N' Cheese.

And here's the whole team.

Lots of comments on my outfit last night, to which of course I told everyone that I felt like Blair Waldorf.  Really needed to do more with my hair, but alas, no time.

Also just found out Blair and Dan get together in Season 6 ("Dair")?!?!  What?!?!  On a related note, I really need to get to the end of this show so I can stop talking about it.  Really not a cool topic for a 28 year old lady to be discussing at a classy DC wine event.  Seriously.

Stovetop Popcorn

Perhaps the perfect addition to my many movie-nights-in during the Winter season, as I check off, one-by-one, AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, is homemade, stovetop popcorn.

No joke, it's fun, easy and tastes so much better than microwave popcorn (you know that gross filmy residue that is left on the roof of your mouth?  Yeah....not from this kind.  But the kernels still get stuck in your teeth, so I hope you have floss).

As we always do, start by gathering all your ingredients.

Heat 2 tbsp. of vegetable oil and three corn kernels in a sauce pan over medium high heat covered.  Then wait...but not very long.

They three kernels will start to pop.

 Remove the pan from the heat and add the rest of the kernels and just swoosh the pan around until the kernels lay evenly on the bottom.  While the pan is still off the heat, but the kernels are in, count to 30 seconds (this heats up all the kernels to approximately the same temperature).  Then put the pan back on the heat and watch them go!

This time I added salt and pepper, a little bit of garlic powder and parmesan cheese to mine.

Not even making up excuses here, but wasn't watching Desperate Housewives, so no clue why that's on the screen...

I've tried a few other savory types, but I can't wait to make a sweet style stove top popcorn.  Think white chocolate and...so many options!

Yum!!


I took these pictures after Christmas but before New Year's, so the decor is still up and new gifts are being used!!

Simplicity and the South

“I yearn for the simple life in the South, before cell phones, computers,” Williams says. “I miss the sound of the dinner bell that rang before everyone gathered for a family meal." - Holly Williams, daughter of Hank Williams, Jr., from February/March 2013 issue of Garden and Gun

I often times think that I would have been much happier in life back in the "old days."

I like the way people used to treat and communicate with other people. Discussions take hours (no google to tell us the answer to everything).  People just pop by your home for coffee or dinner -- yes, uninvited visits for dinner make my heart sing.  You get walked home after a date and kissed on the cheek.

There are those who cannot go a minute without their phone.  Maybe they are constantly checking and updated ______ (insert Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc).  Perhaps it's non-stop texting.  It could be that they just listen to music while walking, biking, commuting, working, anything-ing.

Yeah...that is not me.

I remember watching an Olympic snowboarding event on TV in 2010, when I saw Shaun White put in ear buds right before he went down the half-pipe and, honestly, I just couldn't believe it.

The friend I was watching with is one of those people who walks everywhere with music playing and was shocked that I was shocked. "Yeah, of COURSE he listens to music."  Huh?!

That same year, my younger (high-school aged) cousins were showing me their new hoodie sweatshirts with earbuds in the drawstrings.  What?!

People are even tweeting from OUTER SPACE?!?

My idea of relaxation and time off is when I don't look at my cell phone once.  When checking email is out of the question. Where you're just glad to be wherever you are and whoever you are with.  It's uncomplicated.  Simple.

Now I know those aren't uniquely Southern qualities, but I tend to think of this simplistic lifestyle as being just that.

Virginia will always be "home" and it's a damn fine place to love.

These picture were taken while visiting a friend and his family in Southwest Virginia for the weekend.

Their family planted these trees when they were saplings.  They are just beautiful.  What you can't see behind them is an old brick building with an American flag painted on it.  Seriously -- I can't even make up this kind of awesome.

One view from the family's porch.



And while I do love the mountains, part of me will always need to be near the water.

Virginia may be home.  But Camp is where I summer.

30 Day Challenges

If you aren't familiar with TED Talks, hop to it!  They are so awesome.  Instead of spending wasting time watching Gossip Girl (GG) -- err, wait I do that too -- you could spend your time listening to experts in variety of fields teach you something you may not have known existed, occurred or perhaps know a little about but can learn so much more.

One of my favorites is this particular talk about trying something new for 30 days.  I call these 30 day challenges (competitive much?), and I've decided to try to do one a quarter for the next 18 months.  Just like the calendar on my desk tracking my runs, I added another calendar up tracking my progress on my 30-day challenge.  I am really liking this system.

First 30 day challenge is...tracking spending/following budget.

I've been trying to save more actively (again, one day I'd like to buy my own place!), and I think I've finally come up with a good system that incorporates short and long term goals.  But it only works if I track what I spend and where I spend it, so...let the first challenge begin!

Too Soon for Swimsuits?

Yeah...I didn't think so either.

February is upon us and it is important to note that this is my least. favorite. month. of. all.  The days start getting longer (and lighter) which is a great thing, except it's still freezing.  And you are all excited for spring and want nothing more than for it to arrive, but no.  You have to get through an entire month more before you can even begin to think about flowers and green grass and sun bathing and sailing and cherry pie and fresh produce and gin and tonics and crabs and, well... now we're fully into summer... 

Oh well.  At least February is the shortest month.

So in light of the fact that I didn't and won't go anywhere warm this winter (I've been spoiled in years past with trips to the British Virgin Islands, Nevis and Puerto Rico, to name a few) and that the worst month of 2013 is upon us, I would like to share an adorable one piece I spotted recently. 

It's from Urban Outfitters and it's pretty awesome. 

I've been searching for a killer one piece for a couple of years now and I'm pretty sure that if this came in navy, the search would have ended.

Have a good weekend!  Dream of warm, beautiful places...