It really seems like December just flew by and I'm sure that's not uncommon, since it always seems like we wait all year for Christmas then before we know it, we blink and it's gone. But December was busy for us because we had quite a few parties to go to and we had our trip to Pennsylvania to prepare for. I also have family here and family in North Carolina so when you're trying to split the holidays up among everyone, it gets really busy and overwhelming.
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There’s no excuse for me not posting in a month except I was lazy and unmotivated. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. Instead, I’ll move forward and make up for July’s monthly love post as well as throw some August in there.
And without further adieu, here’s everything that I loved in July.
Most importantly was weekends spent with friends. July 4th we had a few drinks and blew stuff up in a friends driveway. The following weekend was a pool party to celebrate another friends birthday. And it culminated the weekend of the 18th with a trip to Myrtle Beach to celebrate another friends birthday. We spent the weekend playing games, drinking some beers, hanging out on the beach, shopping and eating. A LOT! One of our friends has a lovely little house in a smaller, less touristy area north of Myrtle Beach and the great thing was that it wasn’t that crowded and the town was small and tiny enough to not even have a McDonald’s, just a bunch of sleepy little tourist shops and food joints and a gas station or so. All in all, it was lovely weekend spent with friends and fun in the sun and I had such a great time!
We culminated that weekend at Rioz, a Brazilian churrascarria (steakhouse). We had been looking forward to this for weeks and had pretty much specifically planned this trip around this place. It is basically all you can eat meat. I’ll say it again – ALL YOU CAN EAT MEAT! You sit down and they give you a coaster – one side is red and the other is green. You flip it to green to have them continue bringing you meat and when you need a break, flip it to red. The servers bring the meat on skewers to your table and cut off pieces and you just keep taking them until you can’t eat anymore. I’m talking filet mignon, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, chicken, lamb, flank steak, ribs, pork sausage, chicken wrapped bacon – just uber-deliciousness. And they have a phenomenal salad bar (but who wants salad?) with fresh shrimp, cheese, sushi, pasta. They also give you plantains and mashed potatoes with cheese and polenta. But again – who has room for any of that when it’s all you can eat MEAT! And it’s good cuts of meat and they are cooked succulently and flavored perfectly. Not to mention the grilled pineapple sprinkled with cinnamon that they cut off warm at the table and the drink and dessert carts they roll to your table. I had a caipiranha, which is basically just lime juice, sugar and a shitload of rum. And for dessert, a ginormous piece of cheesecake that was absolutely freaking delicious! And we both got all of that and got out of there for about $100 ($35 per person + extra for dessert and drinks). Seriously, if you are EVER in Myrtle Beach, you must go there. Just not this coming up weekend because we’ll be going back for Steve’s birthday!
On the food front again, there’s this Fruit Salsa that I posted earlier in the month. This was an experimentation that I picked up off the Internet because I needed a quick and easy dip type thing for one of the parties and I wanted to do something “different” than most people did. Thankfully, it was a success and it’s versatile enough for me to interchange fruits as they go in and out of season. I definitely think next time, I will cut the recipe in half because we had so much more left than we needed. I ended up leaving it at our host’s house and he pretty much said he was eating it ALL WEEK!
As far as entertainment goes, I can’t talk about July without mentioning Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Like I said to everyone else, I don’t care that the critics didn’t like it. I don’t care that the story was pretty much disjointed and nonsensical. I don’t even care that Megan Fox needs to keep her douchebaggy piehole shut and serve the exact purpose that she got famous for: eye candy. I just care that shits blows up and there are giant robots and awesome cars and giant robots and oh, did I mention? GIANT ROBOTS. GIANT ROBOTS THAT CURB STOMP EACH OTHER. Seriously, that’s all I have to say about that.
Finally, there’s an album I fell in LOVE with and am still playing it over and over through this month. Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss has got to be one of the most hauntingly beautiful albums I’ve ever heard. Even now, when I hear one of it’s song on my iPod shuffle, I kick it off random just to listen to the whole album again. It’s a weird combination, with Plant of Zepplin fame and Krauss’ root primarily in country and bluegrass but it works phenomenally. I’d throw the name of some of my favorite songs out there but I’d end up giving you the entire list so it’s prudent for you to check it out yourself and then thank me as you find yourself humming the tunes over and over again even when you’re away from the music.
And that’s pretty much it! July had some great times and August had some even better ones. And even though this is late, it’s still nice looking back on the little things I enjoyed!
June was a very chaotic month for me. Yet somehow, in the midst of the chaos, I still managed to find quite a few things to love and some of these things helped me get through the month without having even the smallest form of nervous breakdowns, despite wanting to.
Without further ado, here’s the things I loved the most for the month of June.
Hands down, the best event for me, was a visit to my hometown of Siler City, North Carolina to visit my grandparents, my dad, my sisters and other family members. The weekend we went was their 50th anniversary and while the trip was not without drama (truthfully a visit with my family can’t really occur without a bit of the dramatics), we had a very nice time overall. We took my grandparents out to breakfast at their favorite restaurant on Saturday morning with my eight year old cousin, T, in tow. It was just them, T and Steve and I, at this restaurant owned by a distant member of the family once or twice removed or something like that. Regardless, the food was delicious, down home Southern cooking just the way I like it and the tea was cold and sweet the way we like it as well. Afterwards, we visited with my great-aunt and uncle (my grandmother’s sister and husband) who own a welding & crane company, have a small short track racing team and a fleet of old school (and one new school) Corvettes in their garage, which is actually bigger than Steve’s shop at work. The rest of the day we spent with my dad, my grandpa and my cousin, and my brother and sisters, fishing and riding four wheelers out at an aunt’s pond, eating Sir Pizza for dinner (which is hands down one of my favorite pizzas ever!) and hanging out around a fire at my dad’s place out in the country. On Sunday, we took my brother to buy some “professional” clothes for grown-up interviews and then went out to lunch together at the local seafood restaurant that I remember so clearly from when I was young. Overall, it was a low-key weekend with its ups and downs but sometimes, it’s nice to come back to a simpler place and enjoy the easy things in life where we don’t spend a lot of money and just enjoy being around each other. Siler City has changed so much over the years and unfortunately, is going more down hill than I like to see but there are still remnants of the small town USA that I remembered so much about it and part of me loves the nostalgia of just going home and being with family. And seeing beautiful sights like these always helps too!
My entertainment world has been rather busy this month.
On June 1st, Conan O’Brien took over The Tonight Show and this was a long anticipated event for me. I had nothing against Jay Leno, he was just a bit dry for my taste. I love Conan and sometimes found myself staying up way too late to catch him on the Late Show. Now, I can catch him at 11;30 and the show has yet to disappoint me. The monologues, the skits (I particularly loved when he visit local stores in his new neighborhood and took over the tram ride at the studios), even the guests. It’s definitely now my cup of tea and I’m glad they picked him to step into Jay’s shoes (I always thought he deserved it anyway – he’s up there with Jon Stewart for me).
Also on TV this month, True Blood returned and some of you might remember, I featured this show in my very first monthly love post and it gets a second mention here because my obsession has not waned, it has only grown stronger. I have read the first two books in the series and we are now on the second season and it only gets better. I find Sookie to be a much more enjoyable human female role model and heroine than the other vampire books (I’m looking at you, Twilight!) and even the side characters in the series are so wonderfully and richly developed that they make almost all the storylines enjoyable (I find Lafayette to be one of the best characters on TV right now and am so glad they brought him back this season instead of having him meet the same fate as his literary equivalent). This is one of those shows that I gladly look forward to Sunday nights for so I can sit down with some dinner and my blanket and a full uninterrupted hour of vampires and shapeshifters and sex and blood and humor and hot, hot, hot men (Bill, Eric, Jason … need I say more?)
The hands down best movie of the month was The Hangover. You could just see the thought process behind it – let’s take four randomly different guys, bring them all together in Vegas for a bachelor party and give them the greatest night of their lives but the worst hangover ever. So simple but so very complicated as they spend the entire weekend looking for the groom, whom they have somehow lost (and that was actually one of the more enjoyable moments of the film because I thought that where and how he was lost was going to turn out to be so outlandishly unbelievable that it ruined the movie but in reality, it was so very simple and believable that I thought it tied everything together nicely). But seriously, there’s tigers and hookers and gambling and drinking and chickens and a baby and Mike Tyson. And Bradley Cooper. And Andy, from The Office. And Zack Galfinakis (I don’t know if that’s how he spells his name and don’t care – he’s hysterical in this film). And did I mention Bradley Cooper? A very HOT Bradley Cooper! Overall, this was one of those funny, hysterical, quotable movies that will be added to the repertoire and the DVD shelf from now until forever.
And finally, there’s Bejeweled 2, which I’ve played numerous time before but somehow got really, really addicted to this month. I play it on Facebook as Bejewled Blitz and I swear, that one’s going to give me a heart attack because you have one minute to get the highest score possible and the stress of it all makes me insane sometimes. I also downloaded the app onto my iPod Touch and have spent numerous nights in bed playing it while I wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep. I took it with me to the doctor’s office and played it in the waiting room and to North Carolina. I’ve had to force myself to stop playing. But it’s so awesome so can you really blame me?
So those were my pleasures for the month of June which were perfectly wonderful because they helped me get through a fairly rough month. Here’s hoping July is a bit quieter!
We’re finally home! We rolled in this morning around 9:30 am and have spent the rest of the day vegging and napping, preparing for our return back to work.
What was supposed to be a ten hour trip ended up taking eighteen hours. Not counting the three hours we stopped and slept at a rest stop, that’s a total of fifteen hours drive time.
Longest trip ever!
Now it’s time for December and Christmas! Oh Lord, help me please.
So this might be rather short as I’m posting from my Blackberry and the thought of typing a long entry on this tiny keyboard makes my fingers hurt.
We are currently sitting in traffic just outside of Alexandria, VA where all the beltways merge into I-95 South. We left PA at 2:30 this afternoon. It is now 8:30pm. We have gone 150 miles is 5.5 hours, people! We are technically supposed to be somewhere near the VA/NC state line. Instead we are stuck at the VA/DC line about four fucking hours behind. To say I’m a little short of perturbed is probably an understatement.
So to cheer myself up, I’m going to do a November Love post, an idea I stole from G (I will so totally link her when I’m not in the car) that basically talks about things I loved this month. Just as a little reminder that there’s still some good in my life.
1. Thanksgiving trip to PA – I always love going back home to visit friends and family.
2. Election Day – oh, what a great and exciting time that was, especially just seeing everyone come out to vote.
3. True Blood – lordy, I should’ve listened to ya’ll sooner. We watched the entire season in four days and I can’t wait for more.
4. Wawa – I’ve said it before and will say it again; it’s heaven on earth and I must’ve went six or seven times while home.
That’s it for now. Of course, November had it’s low points too (bronchitis, personal stuff happening with Steve and I, being super busy at work) but overall, it wasn’t too bad of month.
It’s a shame I’ll be ending it in the car instead of at home in my bed.
(Note: in the twenty minutes it’s taken me to post this, we’ve moved five miles! Yay for holiday travel)
