i love...

moleskines. i know so predictable. yawn. i'm so 2006, it kills me sometimes. but just the way a g2 feels when doing line drawings in a moleskine is... so right.

but regardless of my cliches... this. i love this.

i think i just found mandy a birthday gift to get me, folks.

would you do a moleskine if you knew people would look at it?

Things I've discovered about living in Georgia (a list)

Pros

1. better shopping 
2. the availability of peach wine
3. restaurants serve any day of the week, any time
4. closer to the world of coke
5. easier to tell someone where i live (yeah, central wasn't known, imagine that) -- and if they still don't know, i just lie and say i live in atl (well, it is a suburb, technically speaking)
6. peachtree tv. i have yet to understand why turner broadcasting created what seems to be an additional TBS, but more office and family guy reruns are ok with me. 
7. Trader Joes, baby!
8. amaaaaazing restaurants. 
9. I live 14 seconds away from publix

Cons

1. athens is a run-down town, for the most part... downtown is ok, outside downtown--not so much
2. charter cable is about to be the death of me
3. no grocery ads in the mail 
4. it's either blazing hot or always cloudy. this has been true of every time I've been to athens (yes, different seasons)
5. various music festivals seem cool at first, but really there's no parking downtown when that happens
6. UGA is the #1 party school and boy are there a lot of snobs in athens

So there's my breakdown. take it or leave it.

Note: Going to discuss options for food reviews on the blog. searched athens and best food on google and got several "years old" responses on chowhound. Will be continuing the search for good food. 

Life moves fast, and I'm trying to catch up!

Sorry about the lack of posts. You can halfway blame it on Charter--our internet is terrible. Mostly, you can blame it on us moving and me job hunting and going back and forth and back and forth and back between Clemson and Charleston.

So what am I doing these days? Wedding stuff, of course. (Good grief, that takes some time.) And thinking hard about life--what exactly is it that I want to get out of life? What am I looking to be, career-wise? What about that oh-so-important-question, when do we settle down for real? I know, all these answers aren't going to miraculously appear at the blink of an eye. It's so easy to want that reassurance of what the future holds when you are making a major change in your life, too!

I'm so lucky that Chad and I have been so close for, well, years--in fact, we've known each other for 8 as of next month. And I'm grateful for this chance for us to officially live together before we tie the knot--it means we get to go home to what is truly a home we already both know after I become the Mrs. It makes it a whole heck of a lot easier to stake our claim for which side of the bed we want, what sodas we keep in the house, and all kinds of other inane stuff that makes living actually, well, living!

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is what we've been doing. I know, boring. But stay tuned for our next installment, hopefully entitled "What it takes to get a real job in Athens."

Holy crap!

Well, in about 20 minutes I'm packing the car to head back to Charleston for some wedding stuff, but... I'm here right now! We are all moved in aside from some minor stuff left in my apartment... but there are a major lack of shelves here. We need some bookshelves, stat! Also, don't look in our guest room closets... you just don't want to know! Really!

But, aside from that... we're here! It's exciting, moving in, getting everything just so. And I LOVE our kitchen, its twice as big as my old one in Clemson! Woo!

I'm going to post pictures once we finish painting everything and when I have a chance to get back here. For right now, chad and I are long distance... for a week and a half if everything goes right.

Well, time to tie up some loose ends before I go!

Good golly gosh!

T-minus two days until we unlock the doors to our new home! Specifically, a wonderful townhome end unit in a cute complex in Athens, GA.

We have been busy getting things ready for moving, including collecting our various assortment of hand-me-down furniture. See, we have plans, baby! 

I know this LOOKS like a lot of stuff, but it really isn't yet. The couch is a little different--ours will have a white slipcover and look mostly like that, but bigger. I'm still working on assembling the pillows, and already have numbers 2, 3, 4 and 6. Number 10 may be replaced by a chair we already have, upholstered in a fabric of similar color, and numbers 7 and 14 are going to wait a little while. Numbers 5, 9, 12 and 13 will come to us from the fantasticness that is IKEA, much like numbers 2 and 4 already have, and number 1 I will be looking for--those are online only from target and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay excessive shipping for a freaking pillow. Plus I only need pillow covers, I already have some pillows.

Beekeeping

So the other day my mom and dad found some of my grandfather Joe Taylor's beekeeping equipment- his hat, gloves, and books for apiculture. Since this I've been talking to my parents some about my grandfather's beekeeping, including a story my dad told me about moving hives with Joe and having bees cover his arms, and I've been getting interested in apiculture as a hobby. I don't know if I'll really be able to pursue beekeeping as a hobby for a few years but I am reading about it and I hope I can someday.

Why keep bees? I have learned a few good answers to that question from my reading. Obviously the number one benefit is honey! Commercial apiculture uses a centrifuge to separate the honey from the comb- small beekeepers often don't separate the two (which is more traditional). Honey still in the comb (seen to the left) is called comb honey. The other big benefit is the pollination of neighboring flowers and plants. I think the biggest reason my granddad kept bees was to pollinate his extensive garden. Lastly, I think it would also be fun and interesting to work with and learn about bees. Bees are fascinating; for example, the queen bee releases different pheromones at different times that signal to the worker bees (her sisters) what to be doing during the course of the seasons.

I know there are restrictions on my ability to start a new hobby right now, namely money and time, but I think it is very interesting and I hope one day when we have a nice vegetable and herb garden I can keep bees to pollinate our plants and provide honey.

Foodies-in-training

I have a special talent: I can eat anything and tell you elements of flavors in it. I'm not trying to be braggy, but I'm making this point because I have told myself before, I don't need a recipe. I don't need instructions. I know how to figure it out. I know flavor and texture.

And then, just today, I bought this:

This isn't the exact issue, but I am sure that if you love to cook, you know Cook's Illustrated. Why have I waited so long?! I've bought other magazines, cookbooks, read online... NOTHING is as amazing as the instructions and why they work--it sounds so simple, but it's the most fantastic thing I've read in a long time. Chad is also excited about it! All the food in this issue sounded soooo delicious. 

And that, my friends, is the true beginning of my education of cooking. Hopefully some will rub off on Chad! (Just kidding, love.)