High 5 For Friday

It’s SO hard to narrow down my top 5 favorites from this week! Looking back through the pictures* I’ve taken on my cell phone, I’m reminded of how blessed I am. May I never forget that.

1. Family. Spending time with my little cousins is priceless and even if they’re sometimes annoying, I love them to pieces! Autumn is such a sweetheart and is always so loving towards me. Every time I say bye to her, she squeezes me, kisses my cheek, and says, “you’re in my heart, Mere Mere.”

2. Spending time in the Word. Early mornings with coffee and my Bible are my favorites!

3. Exploring The Golden Belt area downtown and taking lots of pictures with Britt! (More to come on that later!)

4. Pad Thai and lunch with fun coworkers. We definitely had a case of the giggles yesterday and laughed throughout lunch.

5. My Valentine’s Day was truly great. My student cancelled class (I think he had a date!) so I went home to workout, eat leftovers, take a hot bath, and then watch Casablanca while chowing down on chocolates. Who needs flowers and a significant other? 😉 (although I do love flowers)

*as I was editing this post earlier and trying to upload pictures, I found out that I have exceeded the 3GB of space that WordPress allows for free blogs. Now I’m torn between buying more space on here, or buying a domain. My biggest problem is that I have NO idea what I would (re)name my blog/domain! HELP!

October in Review

Whew, can you believe it’s already November?! 

October was a difficult month in many ways: losing a family member, trying to balance work and somewhat of a social life, trying to find interesting things to blog about (I’m really slacking!), and learning to manage my finances even more so than before. Being an adult is hard work, y’all. Looking back through pictures from the month though, it seems like it was longer than I remember. I guess time slips away sometimes, and other times it slows down.

The end of October signals more upcoming holidays, celebrations, colder weather…  and I couldn’t be more excited for the months ahead. 

Here are pictures & posts from the past month!

– the month started off on a good foot (literally) with healthy eating, cute outfits, running, and reading encouraging words

running with Britt

girl’s night food 🙂 paninis and sweet potato fries

rainy day attire

Ephesians 1 reading for She Reads Truth

Reading in my car
((like my sweet pen?))

– The 2012 NC State Fair! (It was my first time in years, so of course I had to photograph everything! 😉 ) You can see most of my pictures in the post.

Pappy’s Old Fashioned Ginger Ale!

deep fried Reese’s

Deep fried PUMPKIN PIE

Ferris

– lunches al fresco 

Noodles & Co with Padre

Lilly’s!

– an emotional visitation and coping with the loss of my aunt

– one of the highlights of the month was seeing Milo Greene in concert!

Andrew and I after the show
(he’s one of five members of Milo Greene)

– Why don’t you go and Meet Lucius ((the band that opened for Milo Greene!)) 

– I officially was able to welcome an NC Fall to Durham, even if it did bring freezing cold temperatures in the morning! I sure do love Fall!

– spending quality time with my little cousins

Gabby’s first Duke football game!

G’s first Starbucks frapp!

– an honest post about how slow Sundays are for me… and how I feel on Sundays. 

– random Hey Guess What post

– two Friday Favorites posts sharing links, news stories, recipes & other random things. (here and here)

 – an afternoon in Central Park spent exploring, taking pictures, and eating lots of delicious sweets!

– a Halloween post

– post about Life and how it sneaks up sometimes

Starbucks: fail.

dinner of champs 🙂

the Burt’s Bee cow

Mischievous Max chewing on my brush

visited the new downtown Durham Cupcake Bar!

Froyo, enough said 🙂

– I bought moccasins!

I so wanted to buy these.

Instead, I got these and I looooove them!

– my parents celebrated their 25th Wedding Anniversary! 

25th Anniversary flowers

bro, me, cousin Ryan after our aunt’s funeral

Silly memory of me and my aunt on a family vacation back in the day!

I got to snap this photo early one morning

dark chocolate bar!

cookies in da oven

– Ashley & I began planning a trip to California over the New Year!!!

CALIFORNIA TRIP PLANNING with Ashley!!!

more CA planning on a Saturday night

the aftermath of a stressful lesson with my student

My moniker at Which Wich. Appropriate for this week, no? #Sandy

I like flowers. I like flowers in my room a lot.

snuggly puppy!

– What would you caption the photo below??? 

[I’ve always wanted to snap a photo of it and I finally did yesterday! It’s on the walkway at UNC to the hospitals and means “no pedestrians” but I don’t think that’s as funny as it could be]

*Insert witty caption here*

If you’re feeling adventurous, check out other months in review: July, August, September.

How was your October???

NC State Fair 2012

Fall means it’s time for the North Carolina State Fair!

I hadn’t been to the fair since high school, so this year was a big treat. I used to go every year as a kid, begging my parents to buy a bag of cotton candy, or a caramel apple with nuts. Pleading with them to let me play a cheesy fun game, and ride a sketchy cool ride. The State Fair meant I would spend all of my allowance in one place, hoping to find the best rides and games.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to appreciate the fair for other reasons, namely fried food & people watching. It’s true, those are the reasons I go. Judge away 😉

There couldn’t have been better weather on Saturday for the Fair… it was sunny and in the 70s, yet chilly enough to wear a light jacket. Of course the perfect weather and weekend day brought lots of people out, and the crowd was somewhat overwhelming at times.

Every year, there’s a record crowd at the State Fair, and this year was no different. Since October 11th, roughly 726,000 people had passed through the gates, and although total attendance was under 1 million, it was still a record crowd.

Since I’m a huge nerd, I really enjoy looking at all the exhibits. From decorated cakes to elementary kids’ paintings, from ribbon-winning rabbits to showcases of NC agriculture, I like it all! This year, my friend and I perused the exhibits, pet some animals, ate lots of food, and watched a pig race. We felt like kids and were totally fine with it!

I think the State Fair brings out the kid in all of us.

Three “New” Restaurants

Everyday I learn something new about Durham. Whether it’s a new statistic (like 20% of Durham residents are functionally illiterate), a new “business” (like Bull City Yoga!), or a new place to grab some food, I am always astounded at how I did not know about that fact/place before. In the past three weeks, I’ve tried three new (to me) places and I want to share them with you! 🙂

NANATACO with their $5 Margaritas everyday, is sure to draw a crowd… especially on Friday night! I went with Britt, and the line was literally out the door. Luckily though, by the time we ordered, we were able to snag a small table for two!

Menu: Lots to choose from! Basically you choose what you want (tacos, nachos, burrito, quesadilla, etc) then you choose the meat. One of their options for meat was duck! They offer veggie options too so don’t let that scare you away! A handful of chips is served with each meal, but next time I will definitely order some chips to go with whatever I order. There’s a small salsa bar with a few options, so it was nice to get free salsa to add to my tacos! I played it safe and got 3 chicken tacos, and the flavor was really good! They have sides of rice or beans, which is an easy, tasty addition to any meal.

Price: Everything was reasonably priced, in my cheap opinion. I got 3 tacos, some chips, and a water for under $10 on a Friday night out with a friend. Score.

Buffalo Chicken Enchiladas

I don’t know about you, but I like Mexican food…. tacos, enchiladas, stuffed peppers, black beans, etc. And I like my Mexican food hot! So when I came across this recipe, I knew I wanted to try it! But, I changed things up a bit because I’m unconventional like that 🙂

On Alcohol

Are you surprised to see those words coming from me? I figured it was time we had a little chit chat and I let you all know of my opinion of the stuff. Not that it’s going to affect anything between us, right?

Ok, so it starts way back when I was a little girl. Dad drank beer. He wouldn’t get drunk, but would drink a few cans on weekends, ya know, whatever. Then one day, he stopped. No more beer in the house, no more beers ordered at restaurants… he was done with it. So I wasn’t really around beer after the age of 6.

Skip on ahead to high school; when everyone is drinking. Yes, there would be parties every weekend at someone’s house and somehow or another, there was underage drinking going on. I know it happened at your high school too, I’m not dumb. And I wasn’t dumb enough to get caught at a high school party either. Yep, that’s right- I never went to one. The idea of going to someone’s house while their parents were out of town and their older cousin bought kegs of beer for teenagers just never appealed to me. Call me crazy. I never had alcohol until I was the legal age.

College is another story… I went to a small Christian school, where most people thought alcohol was of Satan. Just ask any of my classmates and they would probably agree. If you were caught drinking off-campus while you were a student, you’d get kicked out. On weekends late at night there was a gate-check and if security even suspected you had been drinking, you’d get kicked out. Any talk of the stuff was looked down upon. Rules are rules, and regardless of if you think they’re stupid or not, your butt better abide by them. Christians* aren’t supposed to drink. That’s what most people around me thought. I never thought that though, although that belief was kind of forced down on me.