Christmas + Soltice

I can't believe there's only a few days until Christmas. Especially with this unseasonably warm weather, it just feels a little weird!

Probably one of my favorite Christmas gifts (Well, I thought it was a Christmas gift and then Paul says it's just a happy) so far are my new-to-me soup spoons. I found them on Etsy and have loved having them to eat with for soups and chili.

 We've gone to some fantastic Christmas parties over the last few weeks, including dinner at Walker's. Paul got the filet and I got the Redfish Anna. So good! The paper slips on the right are "Arden-ism" or sayings that our friend Arden says all the time. We had fun going around the table saying them out loud. 

 I was over at MG's the other day and I told Daphne that I wanted a picture of her. This is all I could get. What a weirdo!

 Speaking of weirdos, our cat loves the outdoors. So, I decided to go ahead and buy her a cat harness and leash (yes, there is such a thing). She's finally getting used to it.

 I'm really happy with how our front door turned out this year. This is the first year I've had my own door that was really worth decorating. 

 Every year, my family always gets together with the Woolverton's for Solstice. This year, we had it at our house! 

 (Can you tell I'm playing with my new iPhone fisheye lens?)

MG and Ryan made creme brûlée. It was so good.

 Chris, in addition to our dessert, drove into the foot long Rice Krispy Treat Paul and I gave him for Christmas...

Merry Christmas!

Time is Flying!

Time is flying. I can't believe it's already the middle of December!

We got our house decorated for Christmas and I'm in love with our Ball jars.

 Paul and I both said when we moved into the house that we couldn't wait to have a Christmas tree. The cat is interested in sitting under it, but we haven't had any casualties yet (except for some chewing on a few bags... oops!).

 It's hard to believe, but we've passed the one year mark on our marriage! We ceremoniously took out the top layer of our cake from the freezer and found that it hadn't been wrapped or anything for an entire year. #fail It honestly wasn't good, but I ended up sharing tiramisu from Amerigo that night, so I can't complain.

 It's been so pretty outside lately, especially on campus. Only three more days until I'm done with work for the year!

I have gotten to have a few fun days at work, especially with finals week. Campus does a lot of fun things to keep kids active and taking breaks from studying, like bringing dogs to campus to pet. This is one of them that loved nothing more than dressing up as Santa and having his picture taken with students.

 One day I came home to find that Paul had converted one of our ornaments into a wrecking ball. Well played. She's still on our tree.

 Our dinners have been really random lately - always last minute trying to figure out what to make, but have been surprisingly good. I'm really glad for our Sam's membership, because buying meat in bulk and freezing it has been a lifesaver.

I had to show a picture of our dinner last night, which was so fantastic. We love nothing more than a good salmon night. Fresh Market had salmon for $6.99/lb and we knew we had to pick some up. It was heaven.

Here's to a happy Sunday and me finishing my Christmas shopping today!

Food Pics… What's New?

Sometimes I feel like all I post is food photos. But, hey, what's new?

Jackson has had a bunch of great new restaurants open lately, so it's been really exciting to try them out. One of them is The Manship, which is inside the new Belhaven building. Our friend is the pastry chef there, so we were invited to try out the entire menu on a soft opening night. The restaurant specializes in wood fired cuisine from Italy to Lebanon. 

 We tried hummus (our favorite), wood fired pizza, salmon, brussel sprouts with pancetta, parmesan frittes, pancetta mac & cheese, tiramisu, and chocolate mousse cake. 

 Incredible menu. We also have to try a new Italian place downtown and Iron Horse Grill is about to open.

While we love eating out, we've been trying to be intentional about eating in and controlling our portions. We've made some really good recipes lately:

 Mexican Black Bean Pizza. Recipe: here. (We did everything minus any meat)

 Slow Cooker Quinoa Chicken Chili. Recipe: here. I was telling this to Ashley the other day, but I have in my mind if I can make just one slow cooker meal a week, it's a lot of pressure off me. It's done when I get home and usually makes a lot. We loved this recipe.

 Pioneer Woman's BBQ Comfort Meatballs. Recipe: here. (We did it with ground turkey.)

Yesterday I went over to MG's house and it's always fun to see her dogs. I love that Dupree always takes over the big dog bed. Daphne doesn't know what's going on.

 This week our coffee table we ordered finally came in. I'm really digging it. Now we only lack our headboard we ordered!

One thing I haven't been so happy about design wise is the colors of Christmas ornaments. Why does everything have to be royal blue, purple, pink, or glittery? So, I saw this DIY article and thought, "I can do this." I grabbed all I needed at the craft store (for only $14 - paint included) and went to town. I'm really happy with these and the colors are just what I wanted.

Hope you are having a great weekend! We head to Memphis Monday for Justin Timberlake. Too excited!

Where Does the Time Go?

Sometimes I don't feel like I get a break. We're so busy all the time!

But, I'm so excited that it's fall. I love the cooler weather and all the changing leaves.

 A few weeks ago I finished up a pottery class I've been taking through Millsaps' community enrichment series. At the last class, we fired our pottery and sat around and had a party until the items were ready.

 The type of firing we did was raku firing, which means once the pottery comes out of the kiln (like below), the glaze still has no color. You throw the pottery into something that will smoke (a trash can with wood chips, pine straw, or newspaper) and the smoke is what gives it its color. Very cool! I'm going to photograph my pieces and I'll post soon!

 We've had a lot of construction going on at our house. Our landlords are taking care of some deferred maintenance (mostly fixing some areas of rotting wood and repainting the whole exterior of the house) and we agreed to fix some old boards on the deck that had seen better days. Thanks to MG and Ryan, we got it done in no time! They were a huge help.

 We also got a new door leading on to the kitchen from the deck, which doesn't seem that exciting, but it makes such an impact on the room. If you can't tell, this is a door that has blind built into the window. We have been wanting this since the day we moved into the house. We had investigated inserts and all kinds of things, but never pulled the trigger. The guys had to replace the door frame because of rotting wood outside and when the new frame went in, the old door didn't fit. We told them that if they had one with this type of window in stock, we'd pay the difference. Luckily, they did. 

 This brings in so much light, but we can close the blinds off when we go to bed. The cat has been enjoying it too.

Of course, I couldn't have a post without posting a photo of her. She's decided the recliner is her chair...

Hope you have a great rest of the week!

Lately

It's been a crazy couple of weeks around here! I've been working pretty non-stop and have just gotten a break. Luckily, I was able to take some comp time and have tomorrow off!

So what have we been up to? A lot, really...

We met up with Paul's parents and took our nephews around to play at Wellsfest...

 Tried on crazy wigs at Target (because, why wouldn't you?)...

 Had my first pumpkin spice latte, like every other American...

Got the cat a new fort...

 Enjoyed some time at the fair. I even got chocolate covered bacon on a stick. It was pretty decent...

 Worked on some projects in a community enrichment pottery class I am taking through Millsaps. We had to make a slab pottery piece with inspiration from something. Mine is from inspiration from our DC trip - the National Museum of the American Indian...

 I told Paul that I was open to a recliner, as long as it was pretty. We found this beauty at GLO, a furniture studio in Fondren. Hubba bubba...

 Paul wasn't convinced at first that he liked it, but the cat has decided it's her new favorite spot.

 But, I think it's safe to say it's been well received.

Hope you guys have had a great week!

DC

It's so weird to think that this time last week we were in DC! We had such a great time and got to spend a lot of time with my best friend, Sital, and her boyfriend, Kiger. I didn't want it to end!

We were lucky enough to stay at her company's apartment, not but a block from her. It's the closest we've ever been able to stay to her (in the past, she and the company both were in different apartments blocks away) and it was so nice to text and meet her at the corner for dinner.

 This is the view from her roof. The big buildings to the right are all of the Securities and Exchange Commission buildings. You can see the capital building peeking out right past it. If I had kept panning to the right, you'd have seen the Washington Monument.

 Saturday morning, we headed out to one of our favorite places in the city, Eastern Market. We had brunch at a great place that brought us out a skillet full of cinnamon rolls. Incredible.

 We had lots of great food throughout the trip. After going to the International Spy Museum that day, we headed over to Shake Shack. Paul had a peanut butter shake and I had a chocolate. I just had to see what they tasted like together.

 That night we had a four hour wait for our dinner at a hole in the wall (but really great) ramen/dumpling place. So, we hopped around on H Street while we waited. We went and played bocce ball at one place and then headed to a bar with an indoor put put course. All of the holes were themed after monuments. It was pretty cool. After a bit, we got the text that they were ready for us (mind you, it was about 11 p.m. at this point).

 Tokki Underground is really small - only seats about 25 at most. We were ready for some food!

 We tried a couple of different dumplings and a bowl of ramen.

The next day, we found out just how much we love kayaking.

 Right at the iconic Key Bridge in Georgetown (ahead in this photo), you can rent single or tandem kayaks, paddle boards, and canoes. We loved it!

 How many people get to say they've kayaked the Potomac? We rented tandem kayaks with Sital and Kiger and paddled down stream past Roosevelt Island and were able to see Watergate, Kennedy Center, and the Lincoln Memorial. Very cool!

That afternoon, Paul and I visited Arlington National Cemetery.

 I still can't get over how many headstones there are.

 This is the view from Arlington House overlooking the river (from Virginia back towards DC). That road right there is leading to the Lincoln Memorial.

 We also visited Medgar Evers grave. We think the rocks and flowers left are from this summer when there was a ceremony for the 50th anniversary of his death.

 Back at home, we were getting pictures like this of the cat. What a nut!

 Sunday night, we had an awesome dinner on the roof of Sital's building. (That's the Washington Monument and Union Station in the background) The whole weekend, the weather was fantastic with highs in the upper 70s and lows in the 50s. It was the perfect time to be outside.

 We grilled chicken, corn, asparagus, squash, peppers, and onions. Sital made this incredible cucumber, olive, tomato salad that I need the recipe for!

When we were cabbing back to our apartment one night, we drove by the new NPR headquarters and realized it was only a few blocks from out apartment. We signed up and got to tour the building on Monday. That day was someone crazy because we woke up that morning to hear about the DC Navy Yard shootings a few miles from our apartment.

 Paul in one of the recording studios.

 Here's part of the newsroom. I couldn't take pictures of it, but in another part of this newsroom, there was a large round table that becomes home base during breaking news. There were people sitting around on phones, watching TVs and waiting for more details from the shooting.

Our final thing we squeezed in before our flight for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

 This guy look familiar?

 Let me just say, I would NOT want to mess with this guy.

 They also had a great room filled with gems. I though this necklace was beautiful!

We finally made it home on a flight that night. For the first few days, it was weird being back. I had problems at first with vertigo (which I've never had before). I kept having this feeling like I was still on the subway and it was moving!

This week, we also had one of my favorite event of the year, Symphony at Sunset. It's on the grounds of the Cedars, where we had our reception. There's not a square inch of space left on the grounds when people spread out. This year they played British tunes and I loved their medley of Harry Potter songs and songs by the Beatles.

We're now getting some much needed rain and I'm happy to stay in for the day!