Nashville

Two weekends ago the Hubs and I took a quick trip to Nashville for his birthday. I mentioned wanting to take a weekend trip for his birthday (on me of course) since we don’t get to do any fun vacations out of town until we go to New Zealand and Australia in October. All but one day of my alloted vacation time has been spoken for through the end of the year, so we had to chose somewhere relatively close that we could drive to after work on Friday. That meant places like Nashville, Memphis, Kansas City or Chicago. He nixed Memphis and KC instantly, and wanted to see a concert in one of the other two cities that were still up in the air. So when I saw that Band of Horses were going to be playing at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, it was settled.

Turns out we picked quite the weekend to go—hotel prices were all sorts of jacked up (thank goodness for hotel rewards points!). After doing some research, I found out that the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon and Half was that weekend (and the starting line just so happen to be a block from the hotel we ended up staying at), along with a Jimmy Buffet concert downtown the same night as our show. Talk about a busy weekend to go down. Oh, and a rainy weekend—it seriously rained almost the whole weekend.

Friday night we went downtown and were originally going to meet up with a couple of my friends that happen to be in Nashville that same weekend for a wedding, but after several cab company fails, they weren’t able to make it downtown. So the Hubs and I just walked along the strips there and went in to a few of the honky tonk bars. I’m normally not much for bar hopping, but I actually had a fun time that night. We started at the Full Moon Saloon, moved to the Whiskey Bent Saloon and ended the night at The Second Fiddle. Each bar had their own band playing a variety of country and classic rock. People watching was great at the last two places.

Saturday morning we drove an hour and half south to Lynchburg to visit the Jack Daniel’s Distillery. I think this was a highlight of the trip for both of us. Lynchburg only has roughly 300 people living there and it felt like the town was basically surviving off tourism from the distillery. It’s a cute, little town though. And the few people we talked to were very nice and seemed welcoming. We signed up for the tasting tour at the distillery and had just over and hour to kill so we walked across a footbridge that connects the distillery to the town square to explore a bit. The town square had a few places to eat, a Harley Davidson, a huge JD gift shop and a few other shops.

The distillery tour was actually pretty interesting. It was like taking the tour at the Budweiser Brewery, but better. It wasn’t as rushed, we got to learn more history behind the company and name, and of course how the whiskey is made. We even got to smell the whiskey at different stages (the sour mash stage isn’t the best thing to smell when you’re recovering from going out the night before), see the cave spring water source used to make the whiskey, barrel houses, and then taste different whiskeys at the end. We actually tasted the whiskey and went over each of the three’s color, smell and flavor profiles like you would with wine. I had never even though to do that with whiskey, so that was neat.

Pictures weren’t allowed inside any of the buildings, but check out these black trees around the distillery. Apparently there’s a type of mold that clings to some of the trees, plants and buildings. It didn’t seem to harm anything from the outside, but it was odd to see black bushes with green leaves and flowers.

We headed back to Nashville early afternoon and had a dry spot between rain/storm systems so we made a pit stop in Centennial Park by our hotel to see the Parthenon. It’s a replica of the one in Greece—it was pretty sweet. And huge.

Saturday night we hailed a cab downtown, and holy cow it was busy. Between the Band of Horses concert, the Jimmy Buffet concert and another free concert/festival going on in the middle of Broadway, there were tons and tons of people. We headed straight for the Ryman Auditorium so we could take a look around before the show. It’s such a neat venue. We ended up having an obstructed view thanks to a support pillar, which we were upset about because there wasn’t a note about the obstructed views when we bought the tickets. Oh well…we were still able to see enough of the show.

After the show is when our night got interesting… To make a long story short: being outside + downpour rain/storm (complete with thunder and lightning) + all bars were to their max capacity + started walking out of downtown after not being able to get a cab for over an hour. Even though I had an umbrella and Tim had his rain jacket on, we were soaked. We were eventually picked up by a cab just a few blocks out of downtown, and it had stopped raining at that point. We were originally planning on going to a bar or two in the Vanderbilt area, but after that whole fiasco we just went back to the hotel. Bummer.

We ended the weekend on a high note with great food at Fido (though the amount of time we waited in line to order was a bit ridiculous), which is where we stopped for brunch before leaving town Sunday. We would love to go back with some friends, but perhaps on a less busy weekend. Any takers? Chelsea? :)

—m.

Dining Room Rug: Take 3.5

We’ve had quite the journey with rugs in this house. Since moving in, we have now gone through three (I think it’s three anyway) rugs in just the dining room alone. I just don’t have very good luck with them.

Rug #1
The first one was a temporary hand-me-down the Hubs got from his mom right after he moved into the house three years ago. I don’t even have a picture of it, but it it was ugly—black or brown with this awful floral pattern. I wasn’t sad to see that one go.

Rug #2
Then six months later Tim surprised me with a rug I had been eyeing from Pottery Barn. I came back from visiting my family in Nebraska for a weekend and there was a new rug under the table (along with a demo’d basement.) It was great! The rug is actually much lighter in person than what the picture shows.

And then I thought Nellie was old enough to roam the house freely, and came home from work one day to find an entire corner of it had been chewed up and was basically missing. So that brought us to…

Rug #3
I didn’t waste much time after rug #2 was chewed up to pick out a new one. I wanted to keep with a similar, neutral rug since the one in the living room had the color and pattern. So last summer, I was wasting time and stopped into Pottery Barn and once again found a rug I liked. Bigger bonus that it was on sale! I actually ended up liking this one even more than the previous one.

So for the past 9 or 10 months, this is what the dining room has looked like with that rug (the walls did get painted sometime in there.)

Fast forward to today after muddy feet and paws and the cat throwing up hairballs on that beloved rug, this is what it looked like: (it’s a bit hard to see in the picture, but in person, the stains stood out.)

It needed to go, and it’s once again time to replace the dining room rug. I’m more frustrated with this one than before because I had asked the people at Pottery Barn about cleaning it and how easy it was to care for. I feel like I got let down. The rug would stain almost immediately after something had touched it, resulting in a discoloration. And perhaps it was the products I used to try and clean it. Either way, I felt like it did not stand up to the quality of the Pottery Barn brand and that the sales people had led me on (or just didn’t know their stuff.)

So this time around, I’ve decided that I’m going to invest in an indoor-outdoor rug, and actually already have one picked out from Dash and Albert.

I don’t want to give up on my yearning of having a light colored rug in the dining room, so when I read this about the rug: “Regular vacuuming and the occasional gentle shake should keep your rug in shipshape condition. All polypropylene area rugs are hoseable, scrubbable, and bleachable.” I was sold. Not to mention, I LOVE the diamond pattern.

Bleach the spot where the cat has just hawked up a hair ball? No problem! Hose it off after someone or the dog tracks in mud? Sounds great!

But since we still need to buy a new guest bed and a headboard, the dining room will just look like this for now:

Whomp. Whomp. The .5 in the title is because a fourth rug hasn’t been purchased. Get it? Yeah….

But actually I don’t mind it so much. It’s easy to sweep under and one less thing to vacuum. Maybe if I like this no rug thing enough, I may not end up getting another one at all.

—m.

Keeping My 2013 Goals

Since May is only a couple of weeks away, I thought I would reflect on how I’m doing with my 2013 goals. My first thoughts is that I’m doing pretty darn good with them. I wanted to create smaller, more meaningful goals that I knew would be within reach while pushing me as well. 

So here’s how I’m doing—

1. Buy fresh flowers more often. I must give myself a nice pat on the back with this one because I’m actually doing this! I decided that I would buy a fresh set of flowers once a month, and I have to admit that I like having them in the house. Depending on what the store has available, I’ll either put the flowers in one vase or create a couple smaller arrangements and have a few vases placed around the house. I will admit that I didn’t buy any in February, but that’s because it was the Hub’s responsibility with Valentine’s Day. He did good and brought me a hydrangea plant :)

2. Tell people Happy Birthday/Congratulations/etc in person, over the phone, or with a card rather than by social media. This particular one I have been trying to follow, but there are times where I feel I could be better about it. I will normally text the person first, rather than say something on Facebook, but even then there are times where I still feel like that’s impersonal. So perhaps I will start calling these people. I know I’m going to turn into one of those people that’s always sending out late cards, so I should probably work on that too.

3. Take a photography class and learn how to use our DSLR camera. I have not been able to cross this one off my list, however, I have been looking at different area classes that are available now that the weather is starting to become nicer. I actually have a few options picked out, so now it’s just a matter of fitting it into my schedule and booking the classes.

And finally…

4. Run my upcoming half marathon closer to the 2 Hour mark. This one I was able to cross off my list with a big ol’ smile. I finished my most recent half marathon in 1:58:12. It wasn’t exactly as easy as the first one I ran, but I still got my goal! I took a week off from running to help my legs recover, but now I’m back at it. Last week I decided to sign up for another mini-triathlon this summer. I had a good time doing my first one last summer, so I picked a harder one for this summer and have to move right into training for it. I even purchased my own pair of cycling shoes and gloves! Maybe then I’ll take some time off from training and running races. Ha! Who am I kidding…

So overall, I think I’m doing pretty good keeping my goals. Maybe I’ll just have to set some that are a bit harder for next year.

—m.

Hook-n-Hang ‘Em

So even though we are still without a bed in the guest bedroom, that hasn’t stopped me from making a couple other tweaks to the room. Before we even got rid of the bed, Tim had hung the other shelf for me on the wall to the left of the one window. I’m still adding and rearranging art work between the two shelves trying to find the best way to display them all. So for the past few weeks, this is what that wall has looked like:

Then one day last week I got an itch to add some hooks in the room to hang scarves, bags, or whatever a guest may need to hang. I found these hooks at Anthropology and fell in love with the shape of them, but me being a cheap person, wasn’t willing to pay $12 for just one hook. So I took a trip to Home Depot and after a bit of back and forth between a few styles, I decided on these hooks for $3 each.

At first I thought about putting the hooks under the window that was to right side of the bed, but without a bed in the room right now, it was hard to judge where to place them. So the only other place in the room where hooks could work is under the shelf, and what do you know, I ended up loving them there.

The size of these are perfect for what I was wanting, and after comparing specs, the Anthropology ones were taller, so I’m not sure if those would have worked in the end. Makes me feel better about not splurging on them. The hooks aren’t screwed into any studs, so I won’t be able to hang anything with substantial weight from them, but scarves and an empty purse or two are just fine. I figure I can remove any of the items if a guest is staying to make the hooks available for them.

I have the scarves I wear most often hanging right now, but those could easily change as the season does. I love the added color in the bare room. We’re expecting my sister at the end of next month, so a bed will be back soon enough. I also like the thought of hanging the next day’s outfit up on the hooks so I don’t have to dig through my closet or a drawer for a piece of clothing. Anything to get me moving a bit more quickly in the morning is always a plus in my book.

—m.

Half Marathon #2: Sub 2 Hour Club

I ran the GO! St. Louis Half Marathon this past weekend, and joined the “Sub 2 Hour” club. I finished with a time of 1:58:12—13 minutes faster than my first half marathon last fall. My goal was to finish within 2 hours, so I was pleased to finish two minutes better. I ended up placing 137th out of roughly 900 ladies in my division (F25-29), and finisher 1782 out of 7835 half marathon runners.

But holy cow, I am so much more sore after this half marathon than I was with my first one, which makes sense because there were so many more hills with this one. My knees hurt after the last one, and this time it’s my quads. I’ve heard that the GO! race was on the more difficult side, and I can certainly vouch for that. The Holy Hill part of the race wasn’t fun, but that’s not what got me—it was the last hill between mile 11 and 12 that did.

Overall it was a challenging, but fun race to do. And despite the hills, I did like this course much better than Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon last fall. The scenery was much better to look at, and there wasn’t a turn every other block. I also felt like there were more people out on the streets cheering on the runners—rather than in front yards staring and complaining that they couldn’t get out of their driveway to make it to church on time.

Having three other friends also running the same race made it more enjoyable, though we finish at three different times. I’m glad I brought another shirt to change into because it got warm extremely quickly that morning. I certainly wasn’t expecting it. Oh, and my face got sunburnt. Pretty sweet, right?

I haven’t decided if I will do this one again next spring or not. I haven’t been able to do the half marathon I’ve really been wanting to run for the last couple of years due to schedule conflicts, and I won’t be able to again this fall, but hopefully the one following. I may give the Rock ‘n’ Roll another chance, or maybe I’ll go do one in a different city. Now that would be fun…

—m.