Babymoon

We knew the deadline of having our second child was soon approaching and we HAD to - for reasons of sanity, relationship-stability, and deservedness - take a vacation...that is without Mason. So about a month ago we decided it was finally time to take the plunge. Now we both had been away from Mason independently, but never both of us at the same time for multiple nights. Granted, he was a tricky sleeper and had been since birth. We were never comfortable leaving him with instructions to a caregiver like "keep a banana by the bedside table because since we weaned him, he wakes up in the middle of the night for a snack and it puts him right back to sleep," or "expect that he will wake up in the middle of the night crying and you will have to bring him to bed with you...don't worry, co-sleeping is easy, just watch out for his feet because he likes to kick your face first thing in the morning."
Since we had already bypassed the optimal time for flying anywhere, we were stuck with driving. Because Asheville is such a great place to live, it's hard to really find anywhere nearby that is a destination we would actually want to travel to. In addition, we wanted to be able to do something and not just sit in a cabin in the woods with nothing to do but talk to each other. No, we wanted to go somewhere that was appropriately adult and we wouldn't be saying to each other "I wish Mason could see this!" the whole time. So...cities. Charlotte lacks soul, Nashville is too country, DC is too far, and we've been to Charleston/Savannah a couple of times, so that left us with Atlanta.
Our good friend, Jess, was ecstatic to watch Mason for the weekend and play mom. We snuck out of town after dropping him off at school on Friday and she picked him up (he probably didn't even know the difference since he LOVES seeing her so much - "mommie and daddy who?") and stayed at our house for the weekend.
We decided to really treat ourselves and found an adorable B&B near Piedmont Park - the Shellmont Inn. Michael wanted to take his bike to go on a long ride through the city and I was happy to walk around the park in the afternoons. We had some shopping we both wanted to do, since both of us have a little bit of "city" in us (that's basically all we did in Paris), and had restaurant recommendations to keep us well-fed. We didn't really want to do any museums or site-seeing. Again, the point of the trip was doing things that we couldn't do with Mason. My one requirement was that I wanted to get up on Sunday morning and read the NY Times and other than that...not much.
After getting into town and getting oriented by our wonderful hosts, we set off for our dinner venue for the night...Holeman & Finch, which also happened to be recently voted the best restaurant in Atlanta. I will go ahead and say it right now, it is one of the top 5 of best meals we've ever had together.
The restaurant is a small public house set up where most of the tables are shared with other diners. The dishes are small taster plates, which allow for a lot of different options to create a meal. Upon arrival Michael ordered some house special cocktail, which he said tasted so good he didn't even know what was in it. For me they whipped some some little mocktail, which was amazing for being non-alcoholic. The waiters were very hip and nerdy and fellow diners were driving up in Lexus, BMWs, and Porsches.
We started off with their house-made ("ground, stuffed, cured, fermented & tied") salamis - Lomo, Boar Hungarian, and Blackberry Farm Trefoil cheese tray, which came with honey, house-made mustard, and pickled muscadine jam. After saying, "oh wow" one too many times, we moved on to the Split Cedar Mizuna salad that had more of their house-made cocoa salami in it, and then Roasted Serenbe Farms Okra with smoked Georgia peppers. At this point we both thought we had died and gone to heaven. We never knew okra could taste that amazing, but it did and we savored every single bite.
Next up was my personal challenge to try a dish off their "Parts" menu. Being pregnant, I figured really adventurous parts like Beef Heart, Rabbit Livers, Veal Brains, Beef Cheek and Schnitzeled Lamb Fries (I don't even want to know what that meant) were probably not a good idea. But I thought I could get away with trying the Gratin of Marrow with parsley salad and country bread. Oh yes, folks, I ate what the waiter delicately referred to as "meat butter" - a bone sliced in half and baked with a gratin top so that the jelly marrow insides were warmed and could be spread on bread. And I ate every bite. I can't say that I would eat it again, but I can at least check it off my life list of body parts to try. Michael, to his credit, tried a bite, but dug into his Border Springs Lamb Shoulder with sauteed mustard greens and pickled radish instead.
Still feeling like we didn't have quite enough, we also ordered the Skillet Mussels with bacon, jalapeno, rye whiskey, and crisp pain au levain. At that point we actually passed out in complete and utter foodie bliss. I'm sure they neighboring tables grew tired of our "oohhhs," and "mmmmms", and "oh my god, you have to try this" comments over and over and over again. Each dish was utterly amazing. We finished off with the Fried Georgia Peach Pie and vanilla ice cream, which was good, but not as good as the okra or mussels. All in all, we were blown away and laughed at ourselves for taking a vacation where our major purpose was to eat good food.
The next day we did some heavy shopping, stopped for afternoon tea at the Ritz (yum! again) and then met up with my friend Rachel for dinner and went to a place called Flip Burger Boutique - another culinary target...think burgers haute couture. The burgers were smaller than usual, but adventurous - Rachel had a Korean BBQ Burger, I had a Ossobucco Burger and Michael had the Chorizo burger, which he seemed to inhale without letting us try a bite. We were more impressed with the creative sides - fried bread and butter pickles with buttermilk ranch, vodka battered onion rings with beer honey mustard, and parmesan zucchini fries with gremolata mayo. And I, although stuffed to the gills, gulped down the Nutella and burnt marshmallow milkshake for dessert (though wish I could've tried their fois gras one, too). Another good night of good food.
On Sunday morning, I hunted for a while for the NYTimes and luckily found one at a coffee shop that someone had left behind. We drank coffee and read it front to back without ever being bothered (though we did wake up at 7:30 both days out of habit) and it was divine. After some more shopping we were definitely ready to be home. We didn't need a week or two away, but two nights was just right. Jess made sure to send texts and videos all weekend to chart his progress (see Michael's video post about our budding drummer) and their varied activities. I think he ended up doing more in a weekend with her than he ever does with us. But the saying is true...absence does make the heart grow fonder (and the belly grow bigger).

Adventures in Sewing

As almost all of you know, I got a sewing machine for my birthday because my husband was determined that I needed a hobby - citing that I spend way too much time on Facebook, eBay, craigslist, and Facebook. I've never really had a hobby, actually. I like art and used to be very good at it in elementary school, then thrived in chorus and drafting, but never continued any of those things after high school (except for choir, which now I'm involved in the Asheville Choral Society - though am on sabbatical this year). My hobby for the two years has been reading everything about and rearing a baby, but even that doesn't get the creative juices flowing and, arguably, it's not for me. Hobbies are about doing something for yourself and channeling your creativity, right?
Well, Michael decided (and I acceded) that sewing would be a good outlet (no doubt my obsession with Project Runway had something to do with it). I did dream of making my own clothes because, in most cases, I'm not a traditional size and having to get things tailored to fit/look right. Since getting pregnant, I've continued to be frustrated that all maternity clothes are ugly and I never can find exactly what I want that fits how I want, which makes my wardrobe pretty pathetic and overly black.
So....after receiving the sewing machine and looking at it for a good month and a half (and reading the manual cover to cover, of course), I finally dove in. (OK, so it took daily prodding and a forced trip to a fabric store to get things started). The truth of it was, I was very intimidated about what I would have to/be expected to produce now that I had the tools I needed. Overcoming this hurdle was the first step. But finally, about two weeks ago, I cut that fabric - a fabulous black/white abstract hounds tooth pattern that I thought would be forgiving.
I think the cutting part was the most intimidating. I took it upon myself to customize the pattern for my needs. I couldn't find any maternity patterns, so I found a "plus" sized 10-12-14-16-18 one that I thought would work if I let a little bit out in the boobs and belly areas. I also decided that it would be fun to change the hemline a little - making it longer and curved up at the seams instead of straight across. Midway through I also thought I'd play with on-seam pockets, but that was a disaster.
After cutting and getting the bodice put together, I quickly realized I had been too conservative in the boob area (lengthwise, not width wise) and the seam would end about 3 inches shy of an empire waist. OK, so I had to add a 3 inch filler piece, but luckily the patterned fabric hides it pretty well (and luckily I kind of matched the front section to the same pattern, so it flows). Next problem I ran up against was the circumference of the bodice was about 3 inches bigger than the circumference of the bottom half of the top, making attaching them together by folding in fabric so the side seams matched.
The next problem was with the machine itself. The needle broke twice before I figured out that the bobbin was locking up because when I had run out of and changed the upper thread, it was different than the bobbin thread. (My first week of nightly sewing obsession stalled while I overcame my intimidation by this technological setback). I couldn't believe how fickle it was, but once I re-threaded the bobbin with the same thread as the spool the problem was solved. There were other small adjustments I made because I was lazy and didn't really have to follow the directions...namely scapping the elastic waist band (it fits perfectly) and doing a straight stitch on the bottom hem instead of an overcasting stitch.
All in all, it's finished, it's not pretty if you a professional, but it won't fall apart and I did it all by myself. I made plenty of mistakes and will hopefully not make them again (note to self: do NOT adapt a regular pattern to a maternity pattern). Then again, I may just stick with "easy" things like children's clothes and slip covers for two of our lounge chairs from now on.