a world you want to live in

I’ve been struggling with how to put into words what I feel right now. I’m not writing about adventures today, or fixer uppers, but instead, I need to get out something that’s weighing heavily on me lately.

From most points, life looks really good for Mark and I right now. We have good jobs, and we love what we do. We have a beautiful old house in a beautiful old neighborhood, a house that we got to fix up this year. We have a fenced in yard for Boone to run around in, one with plenty of squirrels for Baxter to terrorize. Just this year, we’ve traveled to London and Paris, Disneyland, road tripped to Big Bend, Austin, San Antonio, and across the southeast, and recently spent two weeks in Alaska. Everything is perfect.

But.

There’s always a but, isn’t there?

But I struggle with balancing the good things in my life with what I see happening in our world right now.

Many of you understand these struggles, because you’re struggling with it too.

I spent nearly a week last November crying intermittently. Like many Americans, I was frightened for what would happen when our new president took office in January. I was worried because the things he said while campaigning – the hateful, misogynistic, racist things – might become policy.

Then reason took hold. Maybe it won’t be so bad, I thought. Maybe he’ll surround himself with people that can temper him, that can help him learn to govern. Maybe he can be reasoned with and come to understand that the bombastic things he says and tweets aren’t helping to make our country great.

But.

It hasn’t worked out that way, at least not in my eyes. I watch the news and every day grow more horrified at what is happening. Jeff Sessions, a racist, being charged with defending civil liberties as attorney general. The attempted repeal of the ACA, a policy that has helped and protected so many Americans. One that nearly everyone has benefited from, whether they realize it or not. The Russia investigations. ISIS. North Korea.

And this week: DACA. A policy that has likely impacted people I know personally, students that sit in my classroom everyday. Kids that were brought here at a young age and raised to believe in the American dream.

But what is the American dream, now? What does it mean? Are they empty words?

I’m struggling with this.

I’ve been teaching political culture in my American Government classes over the last week or so. What it means, how it develops. What are those truths that we hold to be self evident? Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That all men are created equal, regardless of race, color, creed, or gender.

But in today’s world, are these empty words? Does everyone truly believe that all men (and women) are created equal?

I hesitate to say yes.

I’ve talked about what happened in Charlottesville with my students. I get so many different reactions when I talk about equality, about opportunities, about what “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” really means.

I know what I think it means. I think it means that everyone – regardless of race, color, creed, gender, national origin, immigration status – has the opportunity to pursue the American dream.

BUT.

Not everyone feels that way. Our president talks about making America great again. About bringing back manufacturing, saving coal, building pipelines, and building a wall to keep the riffraff out of our country. I challenge him: what about those things makes a country great?

We’re a country of immigrants, of dreamers, of hard workers. There are so many things about this country to love. So many things to try to protect. But how do we protect them when it seems like they are being assaulted anew every day, and from the highest office in the land? How do we fix what’s being broken every single day?

I try to take care of myself. I go to the gym, I cook, I drink a glass of wine, I eat chocolate, I read books and magazines, I like to take long walks (better if they’re with the dogs), I’m learning to golf. I take bubble baths. I play records. I write on this blog from time to time. I dream. I pray.

But I worry, too. I watch the news in the morning or read the paper, and what I see frightens me. The acute fear I felt last November, when I cried for a week, has deepened into an anxiety that twists around in my stomach. I worry each morning about the tweets and the press briefings and the hatred that swirls around. I worry about the divisions in our country. I worry that I’m starting not to recognize this place that we call home.

People say everything happens for a reason (I really hate this cliche, BUT…). I’m struggling to find the reason here. Surely there’s a plan for this. There is some reason why our country is being tried in this way. There has to be. This is the thought that I hold onto now – that in the end, we will come out stronger or better for this trial.

It doesn’t help the anxiety much. I wonder what I personally can do (haven’t figured that out yet). I write to senators, I support causes, I try to teach my children well. I try to love them even when they make me mad. It’s hard sometimes. But I have this hope, over all of the anxiety, that maybe my little efforts today will resonate, and things will be better tomorrow.

I’m sure many people won’t have read this far. But if you did, thank you. I usually try to avoid pouring my heart out on the internets, especially about something so political. This has been weighing so heavily on my heart for so long now, I just felt I needed to get the words out. So, thanks for reading, if you’re still there. I’m sending you some love, from out here in Texas.

a moveable feast

paris had been at the top of my travel list for…i don’t even know how long. and going to paris on our honeymoon? a romantic francophile girl’s dream come true.

i honestly don’t know where to start with paris. we packed so much into five days. it was a beautiful trip; i couldn’t have asked for a better introduction – i say introduction, because i have a feeling we will go back many more times. i really just want to hit some of the biggest highlights, even though it seems like everything was a highlight.

food: everything was delicious. we ate breakfast in our hotel most days, which americans think of as a continental breakfast, but this was so much more than that. i ate pain au chocolat and had delicious coffees every day that week. the cafes that are everywhere are wonderful too – we ended up popping into those for a coffee or chocolat chaud to warm up whenever we could. they’re usually crowded and loud and are exactly what i think of when i think of paris.

we had wonderful meals, too. we were both starving after our red-eye, and popped into a cafe near our hotel on our first day, where i had the most wonderful croque monsieur. another wonderful meal was moules marinieres (mussels) served with frites and delicious crusty bread. the wine was perfect, i can’t even describe the cheese, and i think i ate my weight in macarons. speaking of, we took a baking class where a pastry chef taught us to make macarons. it was so fun and i came home with a new skill.

museums: obviously paris has a lot of museums. we opted to buy a museum pass, which got us admission to most of the bigger museums for a flat fee (we did the six day pass). we hit up all the major museums, including the louvre. am i the only person in the world underwhelmed by the mona lisa? if you ever see me in person, get me to tell you all about our adventure at the louvre. i did enjoy seeing venus and winged victory, and i think i enjoyed looking at the intricate ceilings and floors in the museum more than the paintings.

we also hit up musee de l’orangerie, which houses four sets of monet’s water lilies, painted specifically for the curved room where they are hung. i could have sat and looked at them all day long. this was definitely my favorite museum.

mark enjoyed the musee d’orsay, which has more modern art than the louvre. i liked seeing the degas, monet, and renoir paintings, while mark liked the rodin sculptures. speaking of rodin, we attempted to go to the musee de rodin, but it was closed on new year’s day.

other attractions: we did the typical tourist-in-paris things: notre dame, arc de triomphe, tour eiffel, etc. on our first day, after our red-eye flight, we walked up to montmartre from our first hotel and climbed up to sacre-coeur. i thought it was magnificent and absolutely beautiful, prettier than notre dame. i also particularly enjoyed walking through the winding streets of montmartre as well.

we climbed to the top of the arc de triomphe one night, and watched the city lit up below us, and the light show from the tour eiffel, until we couldn’t stand to be in the cold any longer.

i did love seeing the tour eiffel; it was a culmination of teenage katie’s dreaming. i think i took like four hundred pictures of it from various angles. i loved how you could be walking down a street, round a corner, and see it peeking out above the buildings. on our last night in paris, we were able to have dinner at le jules verne, which is located on the first “floor” of the tour eiffel. it was exquisite, certainly a bucket list level dining experience that i’ll likely never have again. the food was phenomenal, as was the wine and the chocolates they served for dessert.

one evening, we went to the moulin rouge for a show. i had joked with mark that i wanted to go to the moulin rouge (inspired by my love for the nicole kidman movie, as well as toulouse-lautrec’s paintings), so he made it happen. we had so much fun! we had a table and a bottle of champagne, and let loose at the burlesque show. they sing in french, so mark had no idea what was happening (and i struggled a bit), but they end with the traditional can can, which was so fun.

hemingway-themed: those of you that know me well, know that i love ernest hemingway. one of my favorite books (a moveable feast) was his story of living in paris as a young man. mark and i made it a point to find a few of the places he frequented in paris: harry’s new york bar, where i had a great french 75 followed by a french coke (which is way better than american coke). we also visited cafe de flore, a favorite writing spot of hemingway’s, and shakespeare & company, a bookstore owned by another expat, where hemingway hung out with james joyce and f. scott fitzgerald. it’s a lovely, cozy little store packed to busting with books – just the kind of place i like to hang out.

overall, our trip to paris was wonderful. i still have so many things i would like to do in the city and surrounding (namely, a trip to giverny), so i really can’t wait to go back. i’m so enamored by the winding streets and beautiful buildings and wonderful food and wine – it’s a city to fall in love with, for sure.

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there’s nowhere else like london

i have a list of places to go that is as long as my arm, but there were two at the top of my list prior to our honeymoon: paris and london. mark had, of course, been to both of those cities before, but it did not bother him to go back.

i’m going to share a few of the highlights from our honeymoon, starting with london. a couple of notes: we took a red-eye flight from DFW airport to charles de gaulle in paris, stayed there one night, then took the eurostar to london. that worked out best for our plans, rather than flying into one city and out of another. we also used a travel agency to book most of our hotels, transportation, and entertainment, which is quite different from what we normally do when traveling (because i am most certainly not a travel agent).

our train arrived in london well before we could check into the hotel, so we left our luggage at the station and started walking to the british museum. it was super crowded, so we did not stay very long, but we did walk through the egyptian wing, which was cool.

afterwards, we wandered through london and talked about moving there because of trump (mark said no), and checked into our hotel. we had tickets to see matilda on the west end that evening, so we changed clothes and walked around the theatre district (and got lost because we are millenials and can’t operate without our cellular data).

matilda was wonderful! it had been our second choice in new york several times, and i can’t believe we waited so long to see it. it was one of my favorite books/movies when i was young, and the musical adaptation was so wonderful.

the next day, we went to the churchill war rooms, an underground bunker where winston churchill essentially staged world war II. it was fascinating and looked at all aspects of churchill’s life, not just his time as PM during WW2.

Afterwards, we walked to buckingham palace to meet the queen, but alas, she wasn’t home. we then caught a cab to the tower of london. first of all, london cabs are adorable and we should have cabs like that here in america. secondly, our cabbie found out we were american and wanted to tell us how he bet on trump winning the election and made a bunch of money. lesson learned: don’t tell cabbies you’re american.

the tower of london was really cool, but very, very crowded. we didn’t get to see the crown jewels as the line was two hours long, but we enjoyed seeing where anne boleyn was beheaded, and the guards marching around, and the arms and armour exhibit. (side note: henry VIII was REALLY fat).

that evening, we had tickets to see a play at shakespeare’s globe theatre. we had dinner (fish and chips and cider again, because how often are you in london?), then went to the theatre to have a drink in their bar.

the play was in the smaller theatre, set up in an in-the-round style with limited seating. the lighting was all done with candles, and the set dressing was so beautiful. we saw a play called “all the angels” about the initial performance of handel’s messiah. it was an incredible show.

we left early the next morning to go back to paris, but i left london with an even bigger list of things i want to do next time.

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fixer upper friday: kitchen reno

one of the things that drew me to our house when we initially looked at it was the kitchen. it had a fantastic layout and tons of cabinets with some really great features. i hadn’t felt that in any other house; in fact, i wanted to demo most of the other kitchens and start over from scratch.

the main thing i wanted to change about the kitchen were the countertops. they were black granite tile, and we really did not like them, for various reasons. i really wanted solid surface, and i wanted something white.

we had the cabinets repainted, and changed out the handles and knobs on the cabinets and drawers.

we debated for several days about putting in a farmhouse sink, and ultimately decides to get a stainless steel under-mounted sink (mainly because the farm sinks were just so expensive).

the countertops were a bigger decision. we looked at granite, and couldn’t find anything that was white enough. we thought about marble, but it was so expensive, and it’s hard to care for. we finally chose a white man-made quartz with grey veining that is gorgeous, and has the marble look that i wanted.

we also replaced all of the appliances. the old owner took the refrigerator prior to closing, and one of the ovens didn’t work, so we upgraded to all new, stainless steel maytag appliances. we also purchased a new faucet for the sink.

the other major change we made in the kitchen was putting up a new backsplash. we chose a gray italian granite subway tile that i think works really well with the white cabinets and countertops and the gray paint we put throughout the rest of the house.

we did replace the old window over the sink with a new one when we replaced the rest of the windows in the house (they are called prairie view and i love them), and put a new light fixture in above the window.

overall, the kitchen has a much cleaner look and it’s so much brighter now. it flows so well and i’m able to have all of my cooking utensils right where i need them. i also finally got the convection oven that i’ve been wanting for such a long time.

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fixer upper friday: austin stone

those of you that know me, know that i love the show fixer upper, and joanna gaines can do no wrong. over the past months i have tried in vain to convince mark to let me incorporate some joanna-style touches in our house (namely, shiplap) to no avail. however, there is one element that mark agreed to quickly: a new fireplace.

there were some problems with the old fireplace. first, it wasn’t completely up to current codes, and the subfloor underneath was rotting (see previous post), so it was going to have to be ripped out anyway. also, it was so ugly. it might have been pretty at one time, but the prior owners had put a pickling treatment on the wood facing that really didn’t look very nice. see photo evidence below.

old fireplace

to that end, i knew the fireplace had to change. enter the joanna gaines style: one element that she often incorporates in houses is a stone fireplace. since we live in texas, it felt totally appropriate to design a fireplace with the stacked austin stone that is so common here, as it is sourced from the white limestone quarries outside of austin, texas.

jim the contractor totally got the vision. his mason sourced the stone for us, and he found a rough cedar mantle and vintage corbels to complete the fireplace. the new one is a thing of beauty.

the fireplace is going to be so beautiful once the walls and wainscoting are painted (note the wainscoting was also pickled) and the floors have been refinished.

we are moving right along with the house. mark and i picked the countertops for the kitchen this week and those should be installed sometime in the next few weeks. there is still painting to be done, the floors need to be refinished, and other cosmetic things need to be fixed. we are on track to have the contractor done by the first week of may so we can move!

fixer upper friday: of subfloors and half walls

a lot has happened at the house on hamvasy this week. our contractor has now been in the house for two weeks, and we have seen so much progress. last week, i shared photos of the hole that was in our floor. that has been fixed, new subfloor was installed and new red oak was laid to match the original floors. all of the floors have been sanded down in preparation for refinishing. 

the house initially had a really ugly half wall and white, wrought iron arch in the entryway. it was very old fashioned, and outside of the questionable taste level, the subfloor underneath needed to be replaced as the wall was leaning. We made the decision to remove it and replace it with a column. it’s amazing how much more open the house feels without it. see before and after photos below. 

colors have been chosen, paint has been purchased and plastic is being put down upstairs to get ready to start painting. next week, the stone mason comes to reface the fireplace- this may be the biggest transformation in the house. i had assurances from jim the contractor that it would be finished next week, so i will share the before and after then.

settling down

one of my year-28 to-do’s was to keep up with this blog a little more. well…that didn’t quite happen. shortly after our trip to new york city last may, i moved halfway across the country from atlanta, georgia, to tyler, texas. talk about a big change! i spent the summer getting adjusted to texas alone as mark was still in dc for his fellowship.

 

in august of last year, i made the decision to quit my insurance job and upended my career, totally changing gears and beginning a teaching job at kilgore college in kilgore, texas. to continue the life-changing year, mark and i were married on october 22, 2016.

 

the past year has been one of the most eventful, hectic, and altering that i have ever experienced. i have spent the months adjusting to texas and new rhythms of life. they say that when you get married you “settle down,” but to my experience so far – we haven’t really settled. life is just as busy, if not more so, than it was before we got married.

 

however, as i do feel a little more settled in my new career, i’m going to pick back up with this blogging thing. i want to update on our wedding (six months later! ha!) and our honeymoon, our two recent trips to california and southwest texas, and our newest adventure, buying a house! we also have some trips planned for the year – because we wouldn’t be katie-and-mark if we didn’t travel.

 

i’m going to start with the house, because i am going to start a series over the coming weeks that i’m calling “fixer upper friday.” so (fingers crossed) i will be updating on the progress of our new old house each friday.

 

so here it is, our little house on hamvasy. we’ve got some work to do – painting, cleaning up the yard, changing some things to fit our tastes a little more, but we love her already. the house was built in 1946, has about 3,100 square feet, and a huge yard that the dogs already love.

 

when we were house shopping, we knew which neighborhood we preferred to be in, so we focused our search there. we looked at a lot of houses, and finally came to this one. we had driven by it so many times and dismissed it because we both wanted a one-level house. finally our realtor convinced us to look at the house. we liked it on our first walk through, and the more i thought about it afterwards, the more i fell in love. we were completely sold on our second walk through.

 

i have some big plans for the house. it was a little dated inside, with peach and green paint and some weird finishes on some of the walls. there was also a super ugly, grandma-ish iron archway between the entryway and the dining room, which i knew had to go. the fireplace was not my tastes either, and the kitchen countertops were tile, so we agreed that we would put in solid surface counters.

 

our contractors have already started work on the house, including tearing up the floor in the front room of the house to replace the subfloor. They also removed the facings on the fireplace. the house has a completely different look already. below is a photo of the floor ripped out – can you see the potential yet?

 

 

next week, i hope to have a lot more to share about the house! until then, enjoy our boys, who were very excited to explore the empty house and yard last weekend.

new york is always a good idea

several months ago, mark asked if i would be interested in a return trip to new york city. we went last winter for my birthday, and as i have a goal of going to every major league baseball park, it seemed we needed to go back to catch a baseball game. memorial day weekend, being a three day weekend for both of us, seemed like the perfect opportunity to make the trip.

i flew in late on friday before memorial day and arrived in the city pretty late. mark took the train up from DC and we met at the hotel. we hadn’t planned much for the weekend, so we spent some time friday night discussing our options for the weekend.

on saturday morning, we ventured out early to find breakfast. being a big fan of yelp, i checked out some places around our hotel and discovered a bagel shop (ess-a-bagel) a block or so away. we started there and it proved to be extremely popular. there was a line to even get inside, and everything looked so good. i had an everything bagel with cream cheese, lox, onions, capers, and tomatoes…and you can’t forget the coffee. perfect start to our trip!

bagel sandwich at ess-a-bagel

our next stop was chelsea market. i had read a lot about it in the weeks leading up to our trip, and thought it might be worth checking out. there were tons of little shops (including a vintage flea market and awesome bookstore) that we explored for a few hours. we then walked around that area of manhattan for a while before heading back up to times square.

a word about times square. it’s super cheesy and touristy, but we always have to make a stop there to get tickets for broadway shows. now, i’m not an expert on new york by any means, but we have purchased tickets in advance for broadways shows and we have visited the TKTS booth in times square and purchased half price tickets day of, and we have always had wonderful luck purchasing TKTS tickets. i definitely recommend it. however, you have to stop in the mess that is times square.

we got there a little too early to purchase tickets for an evening show, so we made our way over to guy’s american kitchen, or as i like to call it, flavor town. it’s just off times square and is owned by my favorite food network celebrity, guy fieri (does anyone besides me and sarah anne watch diners, drive ins, and dives? or has anyone seen the awesome SNL weekend updates featuring bobby moynihan as guy fieri? brilliant).

visiting flavor town (guy’s american kitchen)

anyway, we stopped at guy’s and had some FULL THROTTLE mojitos and pretzel crusted chicken tenders. i totally forgot to take a picture of those because i was so enraptured by the amazingly tacky decor of guy’s american kitchen. y’all, there were multiple taxidermied animal heads on the wall, and a giant american flag, and the pint glasses had guy’s face on them. it was just so much to take in.

after guy’s, we went back over to the TKTS booth and waited in line for our show. i didn’t have one that i really wanted to see, but “she loves me” and “an american in paris” were at the top of my list. we lucked into some great seats for “she loves me” and happily headed back to our hotel.

on our way back, we stopped in st. patrick’s cathedral to have a look around. it’s incredibly beautiful, though it was also very crowded. there was a wedding about to start at the time we were there, and it made me think how awkward it would be to have a bunch of tourists armed with cameras there observing your wedding…

we walked the rest of the way back to our hotel and changed for dinner. I grabbed some last minute reservations on open table at a nearby restaurant called the smith, so we headed that way for dinner. it’s a gorgeous restaurant with an eclectic menu and an excellent cocktail list. i started with a honeydew margarita, which was as delicious as it sounds. not as tart as a normal margarita, and much smoother. we ordered the mac & cheese as an appetizer – i highly recommend it. it was perfectly prepared, with a crispy breadcrumb crust on top and melty, stringy cheese coating the macaroni.

dinner at the smith

for our main dishes, mark ordered the paella and i had the mussels, which were served in a steaming dutch oven. both were incredible dishes and neither of us could finish them. the portions here were huge! we could have gotten away with splitting an entree. we were both too stuffed for dessert, so we started making our way to studio 54 for “she loves me.”

mussels & paella at the smith

the show was wonderful. in case you don’t know, the movie “you’ve got mail” is based on the movie “the shop around the corner” which is based on “she loves me.” jane krakowski (30 rock), zachary levi (chuck), and laura benanti (nashville) star in it. it was an excellent production and i’m so happy we were able to see it.

brooklyn bridge

on sunday, we decided to take the east river ferry to brooklyn, then walk across the brooklyn bridge back to manhattan. the ferry ride was great – though it was hot, there was  a nice breeze and the views of manhattan were wonderful. once we got off in brooklyn, we walked around the brooklyn bridge park for a little while, had some ice cream, and then embarked on the walk back to manhattan. the bridge was crowded, but we were able to stop and get a few pictures of the skyline as we walked.

walking the brooklyn bridge

once back in manhattan, we ventured down to wall street with the idea of getting a picture with the bull. unfortunately, there were too many tourists crowded around, but we did find a statue of george washington at the original capital building.

after wall street, we took an uber back up to the flatiron district to eataly. this was one of my favorite stops on our last trip to new york, and since we both wanted pizza, we decided to go back. we again ate at the pizza/pasta restaurant inside eataly, and had two wonderful pizzas and excellent glasses of wine.

the best pizza & wine at eataly

after eataly, we made our way out to flushing, queens, to citi field, where we watched the mets take on the dodgers. i’m not a fan of either team (go braves!) but it is always a pleasure to watch clayton kershaw pitch (except when he pitches against the braves). citi field was a neat experience and it’s definitely a great feeling watching a team with such a devoted fan base. plus – there was good beer.

boo mets

citi field

monday was a little rainy, so we decided to head to the upper west side and check out the museum of natural history. our time was limited, so we prioritized seeing teddy roosevelt (because TR is the coolest) and the dinosaurs. i wish we had more time to spend there, and there were less screaming children, but it was still a neat museum.

dark chocolate peanut butter cookie from levain bakery

after the museum, we walked a few blocks to levain bakery to get the world’s greatest cookies. mark and i each got two, then walked back over to central park, where we sat in strawberry fields by the “imagine” memorial and listened to a guy play beatles songs on the guitar while we ate our cookies. it was a perfect ending to our weekend in new york city.

playing catch up

it’s been a while since i visited my little corner of the internet with an update. i’ve had a few adventures since my last post about san francisco, so i’ll just bullet point and get through everything!

i’ll start out with our roommate reunion in florida. at the end of october, sarah anne and i traveled to tampa, florida to visit sarah purkey. we had a great weekend, full of all kinds of fun adventures. our trip started with a dinner at bartaco in tampa on friday night. on saturday, we drove up to crystal river and took a three hour tour on the bay, where we got to snorkel in three sisters spring and swim with manatees. saturday night, we had dinner at bern’s steakhouse, which is one of the best steakhouses in the US. what an experience. we all had a phenomenal steak, as well as a couple of great bottles of wine. we followed up with a kitchen tour and ended our dinner in the dessert room, where we sampled a few of their most famous desserts.

snorkeling at three sisters springs

on sunday, we made the trip to orlando to visit universal studios. although i’ve been to disney several times, i’ve never been to universal. our main goal was to visit the wizarding world of harry potter – we chose to see diagon alley instead of hogsmeade. it was so cool! we had a great time exploring every nook and cranny of diagon alley, and even got to try butterbeer and have lunch at the leaky cauldron. definitely a really cool experience.

diagon alley!

mark and i spent thanksgiving with both of our families in blue ridge, georgia. we had a cabin in the woods and spent a long weekend relaxing and watching football and doing some wedding planning. mark and i also had our engagement photos taken at a park in blairsville.

thanksgiving weekend with the dogs

after spending christmas in tennessee, i flew up to washington, dc to visit mark over the long weekend at new year’s. we had a great trip; we visited a lot of the smithsonian museums (air & space, natural history, american history), walked around the national mall and to the white house. we also visited the spy museum, which is a must-do in dc. they had a huge exhibit about the villians of james bond, which was super cool. we also spent several hours in the newseum, which focused on the effect of the news media in cultural and political events. it definitely took several hours to get through everything, but was very interactive and fun.

post secret exhibit at the national postal museum in dc

we had a couple of other really cool experiences in dc. on new year’s day, we had dinner at a vietnamese restaurant in georgetown, then went to see “bright star” at the kennedy center. steve martin wrote the book, and it was an engaging show set in appalachia following world war two. i highly recommend it! we also saw star wars on imax at the air and space museum – which is the only way to see star wars.

hall of states at the kennedy center

january was pretty low key for me. mark came to visit at the end of the month, just before my birthday, and we spend the afternoon in athens visiting friends and a couple of our favorite places (cali n titos and walker’s). we finished the evening with a trip to see the atlanta gladiators hockey game.

my mom came to visit on the weekend of our birthdays. we picked up my wedding dress on friday afternoon, then did some shopping. on saturday, we had dinner at holeman & finch, where we had their famous cheeseburgers. following dinner, we had cocktails and proof & provision, then we saw beauty and the beast at the fabulous fox theatre.

i’m 28 now! last year, i put together some short-term goals i wanted to accomplish, but i don’t think i did very well with those. i’m not going to do that this year – i know i have a lot of big life changes coming this year, and i want to focus on enjoying this season of life rather than worried about arbitrary accomplishments.

i do promise i will do better this year about keeping up with this blog! i have some fun things planned, including another trip to new york in may, philadelphia and dc in july, a move to texas in august, and, the biggest thing of all, mark and i are getting married in october! it’s going to be an exciting year for sure.

if you’re going to san francisco…

every time i think about san francisco, i think about that old song “…be sure to wear some flowers in your hair…”

well, i didn’t wear any flowers, but i went to san francisco, and it was perfect.

over labor day weekend, mark attended a conference, and i got to tag along with him. first of all, let me tell you, it was a looong flight from atlanta. luckily, delta has tvs at every seat now, so i watched about four and a half hours of scandal on my flight out there, which was great (i was deep into season 4 at the time and i’m kind of obsessed).

anywho, i landed late on thursday evening, and braved public transit to get to union square, where i met mark and a couple of friends. we immediately went to a lovely little italian restaurant a few blocks away, and since i hadn’t eaten in about 12 hours, i scarfed down some pasta, drank some wine, and was ready for bed.

friday dawned a little chilly, but without a cloud in the sky, apparently a rarity in san francisco. i had heard a lot of good things about a place in the mission district called tartine, so i just had to check it out. my friend allison’s husband brian accompanied me to the mission and we found tartine a couple of blocks away from the bart line. they have pastries and all kinds of goodies for breakfast, and there is always a huge line. we waited about half an hour before we got inside, and all i could think about was how delicious everything looked. i wish i had a picture, but i forgot my camera (shocker, i know!). i ordered a pain au chocolate and a morning bun – a cinnamon roll with candied orange that was heavenly. i’m still thinking about it!

after tartine, i met mark back at our hotel in union square, and we ventured down to pier 33, where we caught the ferry to alcatraz. this was at the top of my san francisco to-do list, so i was extremely excited. alcatraz is just a short ferry ride away from the embarcadero, and there were some beautiful views of the city as we crossed the water. alcatraz itself is really just a rock with a fort on it – and pretty intimidating as you come up to it. you disembark at the only dock on alcatraz, and then listen to a few rules before you’re released to visit the island. mark and i walked up the hill (it’s pretty steep) to the main entrance to the old prison, and entered in the room where the prisoners showered.

approaching alcatraz

the coolest thing about alcatraz is the audio tour. they have four prisoners and four guards that narrate the tour, so you get both perspectives of the prison. the tour guides you around the main floor of the prison, and you see cells, the dining hall, the exercise yard, the visitation area, and, of course, isolation. there are a few cells that you are allowed to enter, so of course we did that. they also have a display of the “escape from alcatraz” – you know that old movie with clint eastwood? that was real, and you can actually see where the prisoners dug through the wall and how they climbed up the service corridor.

in supermax lockup

another unexpected thing about alcatraz is how pretty it is. part of it may have been the day we were there – it was so sunny and breezy, but not cold at all. however, there are gardens and flowers growing all around, and alcatraz is a bird sanctuary as well. i thoroughly enjoyed the experience of visiting alcatraz and recommend it to anyone visiting the area.

after alcatraz, we made our way back to our hotel and met up with allison and brian for dinner. i scouted out a place on yelp – Brenda’s French Soul Food – that was within walking distance of our hotel. y’all, i never expected to find southern food in california that was good, but this was GOOD. i had the fried catfish – like a good little southern girl i love fried catfish – and we finished with the chocolate beignets. yum!

on saturday, i didn’t have much of a plan. i had heard about the farmer’s market at the ferry building, so i walked down there on saturday morning to explore. i didn’t buy anything, but i did find some nitro cold brew that was to die for, so i sipped that and wandered around. i came across biscuit bender, which of course sells biscuits, so i had to partake. turns out the owner had lived in atlanta for a while and we knew a lot of the same places. i had a maple bacon biscuit and a fried angel biscuit – deep fried and dusted in powdered sugar – and munched on those as i continued to wander the market.

mark met up with me at the market, and after he had a quick lunch, we decided to walk down the embarcadero toward pier 39. it’s quite a walk from the ferry building, but it was again beautiful weather, and we just chatted and walked. pier 39 reminds me a bit of pigeon forge or the boardwalks along the beach – it’s where all the touristy shops are. we watched the sea lions for a while, and bought some salt water taffy, and wandered around, then decided to walk further down to in n out burger. mark introduced me to in n out in arizona, and i knew i had to have it again in california. it was just as good as i remembered and so worth the long wait!

on saturday night, i ventured back to pier 39 with allison and brian, then i went for dinner at a fantastic little pizza place near the hotel. it was true italian style pizza, and oh-so-good!

city lights books

mark and i had a lot of plans for sunday. we decided first to walk through chinatown – an interesting area- to city lights bookstore. I have wanted to visit city lights for a long time – it’s an independent bookstore and publisher and was very influential in publishing a lot of the beat writers. they also published “howl” by allen ginsburg, which led to the famous obscenity trial in the 1950’s. mark was nice enough to let me wander around the store for a few minutes and i purchased my own copy of howl – still in print at the bookstore.

after city lights, mark and i walked just down the block and had breakfast at a lovely little french bistro. after breakfast, we walked back down to pier 39, where we picked up two bikes from blazing saddles bike rentals and took off towards the golden gate bridge. it was an absolutely beautiful day, and i was thrilled we didn’t have to contend with clouds or fog.

we biked toward the bridge – it’s a few miles – and stopped a couple of times for photo ops. our first stop was at the palace of fine arts, which was built for the world’s fair. we looked around there, then hopped back on our bikes and rode over to the little beach close to the golden gate bridge.

the golden gate bridge

the bike ride across the bridge was awesome! I highly recommend doing this if you’re ever out in the bay area. we stopped once we got across the bridge for a break, and then got back on our bikes and rode a few more miles into sausalito. the ride itself was beautiful, sticking close by the water and offering views of the mountains and the bay. once in sausalito, we parked our bikes and walked around, then settled down at a seafood restaurant by the marina for a moscow mule and a late lunch.

After our late lunch, we decided to take the ferry back to san francisco. the sun was starting to set as we rode the ferry back, so we decided to drop the bikes off and start to wind down our night. we walked to ghirardelli square so we could fulfill another item on my to-do list. we bought a few slabs of chocolate, then placed our orders for hot chocolate – it was a little cool by then and we needed to warm up. i ordered the salted caramel hot cocoa, and mark had the decadent drinking chocolate. it was delicious!

ghirardelli square

to cap off our night, our uber driver took us down lombard street, where we had some amazing views of the city and got to experience the curviest street! on monday, we nixed our initial plan to go to wine country as we thought we wouldn’t have enough time to do it justice. instead, we caught an uber up to haight-ashbury, which was also on my list (summer of love and all that). we had breakfast at a creperie, then walked down haight street and checked out a few of the shops. we then picked up some cold brew coffee and wandered through golden gate park.

after the park, we took an uber over to the walt disney family museum, located in the presidio. they were having a special exhibit of disney & dali – a look into how disney’s early animation was influenced by the surrealist movement in general and dali specifically. the two even worked together on a movie, though it never came to fruition.

the walt disney family museum

after the special exhibit, we made our way through the museum. it’s definitely a must-see if you love disney like i do. it’s an in-depth look into walt disney’s personal history, from childhood all the way through his death. there are excellent and very thorough exhibits detailing his animation, his company, his family, and the disney parks. the museum itself is also really beautiful – one of the best features is a panoramic window with incredible views of the golden gate bridge.

we were running on limited time at this point, so we took an uber over to at&t park so i could mark another baseball field off my list. we didn’t get to see a game, but i got a picture anyway, so i think it counts.

at&t park

our final stops in san francisco involved drinks and food. just a couple of blocks from the park is 21st amendment brewery, which is one of my favorite breweries. we stopped in and did a tasting, then had a couple of additional beers and some onion rings while watching a football game. after the brewery, we went back to the mission district to have a burrito…though i ended up with tacos instead (i’m more of a taco kind of gal). after the burrito/taco experience, we headed to the airport and i had a red-eye flight back to atlanta.

san francisco was a wonderful trip, and i can’t wait to go back one day! there’s so much to explore (and to eat) that i feel like we barely scratched the surface.