hi !!!!!!!!

Hey All!!

I'm alive! Husband and I were Up North for a week! I will tell you all about it on Wendesday because I am tired now and tomorrow I work!

Exclamation points!!! I guess I love them a lot today!

Last Day of Vacation

We woke up....I drove to Black Mountain to pick up brunch for the three of us at the Morning Glory Cafe. I got Dad's Famous Fish Tacos...I'm a sucker for good fish tacos. We ate on the deck, the mountain wind blew...and then Megs friend came to pick her up to take her off to Wellspring Camp were Meg will be the Field Staff Supervisor for the summer. It was her first day and she had a lot of work to do so we said our good byes....and then she left. Heavy Heart.

Lark and I putzed around the house for a bit and headed off to the airport. On the way we stopped and bought a bucket of fresh picked strawberries from the sweetest old man on the side of the road.


I could barely understand what he was saying between his southern drawl and the wet ball of chew in his lip....but Lark seemed to understand him and we left with a big bucket of sweet tender strawberries and headed into town for one last stop.

Mmmmm. I had been eyeing this place the entire trip but we never seemed to find the time to stop. I was determined to enjoy a treat before leaving...so we stopped in and I slipped in to bliss with a Coconut Cream Cupcake from The Sisters McMullen Cupcake Corner. Sweet Mother Of Pastry Heaven. Lark and I enjoyed our treats and drove peacefully to the airport. I hugged her goodbye...I grabbed my luggage...and with a full tummy and a fulfilled heart...I flew home to Chicago with cherished memories and time spent with some very special people in a very special place.

Day One of Vacation: A Summary

Hey all I am back!

I had an amazing time in Asheville, NC with one of my most Best and Dearest Friends, Meg. We had such a great time...living in her world is such a vacation from my reality, and here's why: she lives on campus as a Resident Director in her own little 2 BR 2 BTH apartment at Warren Wilson College, complete with deck and Brazilian hammock. WWC is the most beautiful and quaint college campus in the world, nestled in a valley of the Great Smokey Mountains...with a fully functioning organic farm. A cafeteria that serves cheap, organic (from the college farm and surrounding farms) food, as well as a little cafe called the Cow Pie that is 100% organic and VEGAN. Not that I am vegan or anything, but when I can, I eat that way because I love too! The dorms are spread out all over campus and many of them have different themes. The Wellness dorm is a place you can live if you want to be free of drugs and alcohol and commit to a lifestyle of wellness. The Eco Dorm is completely sustainable, solar powered, with composting, and their own organic garden out front. Etc Etc. I will post pics soon, I can't today because I left the "special cord" that does that sort of thing in Meg's living room.

Day 1:
I arrived in Asheville, NC. Meg picked me up all hopped up on coffee and Full Throttle energy drinks, smoking a cigarette. This day was her last day of school and she had been up since 4am (it was now 11am) working on a final project. She had gotten only 2 hours of sleep. We went to her last class EVER for her Outdoor Leadership major (she has a second major she is finishing up next semester in History). We had a great few hours in her Social Justice class doing initiatives for a presentation of a fellow classmate and engaging in thoughtful discussions. Not what I had expected on a vacation, but so wonderful and thought provoking. I miss those days from when I went to Prescott College, in Prescott, AZ for Adventure Education. There is something so familiar about that day that I didn't know I missed.
After, we mellowed out and chatted over Hawaiian Pizza before heading to Pisgah Brewery to meet up with some folks. Totally organic...totally amazing beer. Meg brings me a jug each Christmas. I emailed them about 6 months ago, asking if they could send me a case. They said that they didn't ship and that I'd have to wait until next Christmas when my friend could bring me more beer (crazy beer hippies). Luckily, I didn't have to wait that long. The crazy thing about this brewery is that it's only open to the public on Thursday nights. So, you go in, buy your jugs of beer to stock up for the week, listen to live music, and drink beer inside the very warehouse where they make the beer. They sell to surrounding bars...so I was able to enjoy a few more pints through out the next 5 days, thankfully.
Since school was out for summer, we had a lot of socializing to do and goodbyes to say. We went to Meg's friend, Emily's house and drank a few more pints, burned veggie burgers on the stove, and played Catchphrase for the next 4 hours. My throat was sore from screaming the answers (I get very into this game) and from laughing uncontrollably. Emily is interesting, to say the least. She is a dread-headed, gay, 20 year old woman. She had just completed a half-ironman triathlon,is a double major in Outdoor Leadership and Environmental Chemistry, does Ham radio with her dad and is certified in doing so...I had no idea you could be certified in that. In fact, in her home town of Lansing, MI, her house is the tallest point, because of their ham radio antenna. She can also do Morse Code. Once I found this out, I proceeded to make tapping noises with my beer bottle on the coffee table in "sequence" asking her translate for the next 15 minutes. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is drunk and happens to have a drunk friend over who is fluent in Morse code. She was the funniest and coolest person I had met in a really long time. (sounds nerdy-but is true)

The night ended with me sharing my latest Us Weekly with Meg and explaining to her who all the people are in the magazine as she is fairly removed from that sort of crap. We had a late night best friend chat and then passed out for the night.

A great first day.

Tearing up the Joint & Joints.

Last weekend Husband & I went to Devils Head Ski Resort in Wisconsin. We met up with some good friends from the past, Graham & his wife Meghan. Graham and Husband grew up skiing together on the local ski hills in IL and WI, earning their stripes trying new tricks, taking big jumps, and breaking bones through grade school and high school. Trevor remembers landing his first "heli" at Alpine Valley in WI while skiing with Graham. Then they went off to college and Trevor trekked his way out to Durango, CO where he honed his skills and Graham made sure to get out on the mountain as well, so as not to get rusty. Needless to say, their notorious dare-devil pasts flaired up when they slipped on their gear. Getting these two thirty-somthings out on the mountain together last weekend was...PURE. INSANITY. I am not even beginning to exagerrate when I say that they both were ripping up the joint....landing helis...taking huge jumps and landing them....sometimes with a thud and a moan...but actually pulling off some serious s**t! As a wife...I must say it was rather HOT watching my husband display some mad skills on those ski's. It was a weekend to remember...a great weekend spent outdoors in the snow with friends. Classic.

Below you will find a photo I took in the hotel room after a full day of body wrenching entertainment. Husband could not move from that position for the rest of the night and for the next few days he supplemented his diet with many milligrams of Advil. Please forgive the profane hand gestures....he was little cantankerous.

 

Weekend Warriors , ACTIVATE!

Husband and I decided, last minute, that we're going to head up into Wisconsin to Devil's Head for the weekend! In the last 24 hours we've had around 6 inches of snow and while I don't think WI has been hit as hard..they are expecting some fresh snow fall over the weekend. So we're packing up our dusty gear, dropping the dog off at the "grandparents" and heading Up North. I tried to take my skis into our local ski shop this morning to get a tune up...but they don't do it in house! So the resident ski doctor gave me some wax to do it myself...but if I'm not precise in the application, I could end up with skis so sticky that I could WALK up the "mountain". Sooooo....we'll see how it all turns out. Worst case scenario I bust out the rental gear. Whatever.

The rest of afternoon will include packing, Trader Joe's snack food run, more packing, a frolic in the snow with the Huskie and some mellow time on the couch. I will be back on Sunday night with the results of my weigh in for the week...and maybe some pics of our Weekend Warrior adventure. Hope you all have a great weekend....skiing, ice fishing, sun-bathing (you could be in FL reading this), or hibernating!

I leave you with a yoga quote (that, to be honest, I don't completely understand. So maybe you could give me your interpritation of it. Please, enlighten me).....

"When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." - Khalil Gibran