Thanksgiving...or Bust!

Why is the week before a holiday such a draggggggg?

This time next week I will be:
A. Sleeping in
B. Watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
C. Eating so many carbs I am already regretting it now

BRING IT ON! Today at work we're having a potlock...I've already spotted 2 HUGE crockpots full of mac and cheese, and another full of mashed potatoes. I'm going to exude so much self discipline it's probably going to annoy Heather and Michael (my work besties--why always give me a hard time about counting calories!!)

It's worth it though..Mexico in a few months! And yesterday a wonderful thing happened...my friend Jennavieve (that still works at Apex) HIT TRIP! So we will get to play together in Mexico--for FREE! Love it! I am so excited and proud of her! She went on trip before as a recruiter but this year, she made it as an account manager! Woohoo!

Tonight I'm having a date night with my friend Liz--I'm looking forward to some girl time with her! We're going to try this new restaurant in Town Brookhaven called "Shucks"...oysters! Yum!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far...finish this week strong, because next week is going to be a slow week....I'm not sure why they are even making us come into work Monday and Tuesday?!

Cold Front

Well we made it to WEDNESDAY! Which is reason enough for me to celebrate...

Can we please talk about how COLD it is here in Atlanta? I was talking to one of my vendors in PA and she said they were just a few degrees colder than us!! Although, she got snow earlier this week...if I'm gonna have cold, I might as well have SNOW?! Amiright? :)

So my window in my bedroom doesn't close all the way. My landlord's reaction when I called to request a maintenance appointment? "Sarah, these buildings are 88 years old. My recommendation is to ducktape around the windows where you feel a draft coming in." Um, WHAT? Man needs to understand I can't live this way!! And our power bill is going to skyrocket! So annoying. Then, this morning, my roommate closed her door...then couldn't open it. Like the knob got stock and it won't even turn now. Our place is falling apart. And my measley little tool kit isn't going to be able to fix these things. So, I'm sure you're wondering, but I most certainly did duck tape my window last night because I knew this cold air was coming....and, I thought it worked but then again I may have just convinced myself it worked so I could sleep better. I probably wouldn't have made it through the night if it weren't for the electric blanket Harleigh and I cuddled up into!

I am going to try to go to Zumba tonight at the Brookhaven gym, but traffic gets so backed up IDK if I will make it to the 7pm class.... And if there's anything I know about the Brookhaven location, you can't get any freakin' cardio equipment until like 7:30. You honestly have to stand around and wait for someone to wrap up their workout. Every. Single. Time. I usually go to Urban Active's old location if I wanna do any cardio or weights bc there tend to be less people and/or more machines open.

Does anyone have any recipes they want to share that are a) healthy and b) made in a crockpot? It is certainly time to start putting that thing to work!

Weekend Recap

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I have been struggling all day at work today...I hope that it's just exhaustion from such a great couple of days and not any sort of sickness creeping up on me. :x

Friday night, my new work friend Michael and I totally fan girled out. Haha. Our friend Rachael's boyfriend is super cool and in a band...and a GOOD band at that! (Check them out) They played at Vinyl which is a great venue to get up close to whatever band you are going to see. They played a FANTASTIC show and we took this fab pic afterwards:

Aren't we presh?

Saturday (due to my over consumption on Friday) I was pretty worthless. Steve and I watched football all day (like any other Saturday, I guess) and then we had SUPPER CLUB! How perfect that a day I am in dire need of some home cooking, we have supper club. Lucky me! :) In case I haven't mentioned it before, Steve and I are in a supper club where every second Saturday of the month, some friends hosts dinner for the rest of the group. Last month Steve and I hosted, and we did an Oktoberfest theme. We made Bavarian pretzels with mustard and beer cheese dips, as well as some delicious bratwurst that Steve made. I hate to brag (no, not really--I love to brag on him) but Steve is a wonderful cook--everyone loved our meal! This week, Scott and Beth hosted and their theme was Chilistravaganza. Let me just say that I WILL be making Beth's version of white chicken chili very soon. It was by far my favorite of the selection. They also had a turkey southwest style chili and your traditional beef chili. They even...served it in bread bowls. No, no...I didn't partake. Steve is keeping me accountable on this low-carb diet. But how cool is that? Bread bowls with different kinds of chili? I was loving it. We all hung out and watched the Alabama game with full bellies, but you better believe we had dessert at half-time. Peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream was the PERFECT finisher. (I pretended that Beth baked all of the carbs out of that--it was delicious!) Next month our supper club is going out for dinner...plans TBD, but I am already looking forward to it!

Sunday morning I hung out with the crawlers at church (I missed them last week!) and then went to the 11:00 am service. It was a really good message--Steve and I had some good conversation following the message. I think we all have those things that we justify in our minds, thinking "I just want to do this and even though it may not be the "right thing" to someone else, it's okay by me"...as long as no one gets hurt. It's human, but it was good to hear Andy call us out on this so we can be more aware and recognize that decisions we make effect not only us, but the people around us, and the people that love us.

After church, Steve and I met his parents at Houston's where I thoroughly enjoyed their veggie burger...seriously, have ya'll ever had it? It's delicious. After we ate, we headed to the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center...HOLY COW! That place is cool! I know it's surprising considering the amount of time I spend at concerts, but I had never been to Cobb Energy until last night. It's a very cool venue. The reason we were there was to see the fabulous...

The show was wonderful. Even Steve enjoyed it. He said "it's just one of those things you gotta see, right?" haha that was his way of saying it was good. He liked this part:

I think my favorite part was at the end when they were wearing the outfits covered in Swarovski crystals...BEAUTIFUL! It was a wonderful show that really put me in the Christmas spirit! When is an acceptable time to start decorating? I feel like I have this dilemma every year!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. Today I have been totally exhausted and I feel like I've been coughing a lot, so I'm going to go home and get some rest! Gotta get back in the gym tomorrow!

Take the time...

I'm baaaaaaack. (Be honest, you're a little surprised.)

Last night my sweet friend Maddie came over and we caught up and watched the CMAs and it was so wonderful! I love catching up with friends I haven't seen in a while :)

Can we talk about how SKINNY Tim McGraw and Miranda Lambert have gotten? I gotta catch up! Holy cow..they've wittled away! And Carrie's legs...always flawless.

PS I barely made it through zumba Tuesday night...this is why I HAVE to go. New routines, lost my coordination skills and all sorts of behind...haha. But it was fun, a good work out, and you never regret that! There was a new squats routine to that Lorde song--LOVED it! "gold teeth, grey goose, trippin' in the bathroom..." cmon it's catchy.

While not an update of much substance, let's take it easy...I'm slowing myself back into the habit. :)

And just because this made my day, some love from a customer:

Happy Tuesday, loves! xo

She LIVES!

So I am looking forward to getting back into my groove of blogging. This new job took so much energy...I just can't even imagine blogging at the end of the day. With that being said, I've neglected to give myself much "me" time lately because other things just kept coming up and I wanted to see my friends and sometimes you just get caught up in life, ya know? But I know that I love writing and just making myself slow down.

This job is basically non-stop from 9-6pm. I will not look at my phone ONCE--which is definitely a change of pace, but I love it. Days fly by and at night I am either POOPED or I am so excited to spend time with my friends/Steve. It won't always be this way (I keep hearing that in December this place slows down a lot) but for now it's definitely been keeping me busy.

It's ALSO been keeping me out of the gym. I know, I know. No excuses. And---NO MORE. I am getting back into my morning routine because a) I always love it when I do and b) because this girl is going to Mexico in March and refuses to look....well, like I do now. Let's just leave it at that. :)

So, be prepared to hold me accountable. You'll see more blog posts -- meaning I'm giving myself me time. And you'll hear about my workout regimen and the lack of calories I'll be consuming from now on. (Hopefully this doesn't lead to hangry posts, but I can't make any promises! haha)

Missed ya much!

Wine Tour in North GA

Phew. Thank goodness for having today off, because this weekend was full of wonderfulness all around. I am so thankful for this morning and the opportunity to reflect on the weekend.

Friday was my last day at Apex, so after work we grabbed some drinks at the Tin Lizzy's nearby. It was fun to spend that time with those folks. I am certain that Apex was in God's plan for me all along. It was the job I needed to get me in Atlanta and out of the suburbs, it was my very first professional job, and it brought me some of the greatest friends (and boyfriend!) a girl could ask for. I am so thankful for the time I had at Apex, but it's time to follow this path and see where it goes!

For Steve and I's one year anniversary back in July, Steve gave me a weekend up in North Georgia touring the wineries. After some recommendations from friends, I picked decided that we go to the top three: Frogtown, Montaluce, and Wolf Mountain. So, we got up early and had breakfast at Cracker Barrel; Don't judge! haha. The hashbrown casserole was just what we needed before consuming so many wines! We zoomed up 400 and made it to our first winery, Frogtown, right around 11am.

We seemed to have this place to ourselves, which was very obvious in the grand entry way. We approached the big beautiful wooden bar, and we waited for one couple to finish their tasting. The sommelier served us our white/red mixed flight soon after our arrival, but it was apparent she was the only one working at that point. She was very knowledgeable about the vineyard and spoke of the winemaker as if they were friends--which I loved. It was the vineyard with the most awards and had an overall humble experience. The views were amazing and the weather was perfect to sit out on the porch and drink a glass of the favorite of the flight. Steve's was the Chard and mine, of course, was a red blend called "Applause FSO" (and yes, we brought home a bottle!). Overall, we enjoyed sitting out on the porch and taking in the views. It was a good first stop to ease us into our wine tour.

Our next stop was Wolf Mountain where I fell in love.

Although the front of the building seems small, once you step inside the building seems so much larger. From the moment we stepped in the door, there were people ready to help us. We walked through the dining area to go downstairs to the cellars. We walked up to the bar where there were about 8 gentlemen ready to serve us our flight. We went for the reserve flight since we were sharing and I feel like we made the right choice. They offered a lot of bubbles, which is fun but not my normal taste. They had a syrah brut which I thought was really interesting--and tasty! My favorite, hands down, was the Howling Red. Holy delicious. (Brought a bottle of that home as well!) It is a great blend of syrah and cab; a great full-bodied glass for steak night! We never had to wait for our next pour, as the guy was very attentive...even with college football on! The tasting room was big and had several tables around for people to linger and eat the bar fare. It was very inviting and the huge windows allowed us to take in the views--sans the rain. Unfortunately when we got to Wolf Mountain, the skies started to open up so we drank our wine while rain pounded at the windows. This didn't shake us, since there was ample wine and the most delicious tomato basil mozzarella spread I've ever tasted. And, as I mentioned before, they had a few TVs with the college football games on...we were content. :)

Once there was a break in the rain, Steve and I headed over to Montaluce--our final stop on the tour!

The cellars at this vineyard are downright gorgeous. It looks like freakin' France, for goodness sake. A little hoity-toity for me, but I can appreciate the beauty of the estate. The facility was as beautiful inside as it was outside, with wine bottle lit up behind the granite bar. They, too, offered an attentive staff that got us set up for our flight right away. There wasn't a lot of education provided beyond the simplest explanation of the wines. I wasn't exactly pushing for more details as not many of the wines blew my hair back. Out of the chosen flight, I did enjoy the "Super Georgian" but not enough to take home a bottle. They had these amazing manchego and prosciutto fritters Steve and I devoured. We did enjoy sitting in the dining area by the huge windows overlooking the vineyards. It was pretty quiet for a Saturday, but I think they stopped seating people in the dining area in preparation for a wedding..meaning, we had the room to ourselves for a precious 15 minutes. It was definitely a pretty venue and would be good for entertaining a group of girlfriends, but overall my favorite was Wolf Mountain.

There are so many smaller vineyards that we didn't get to this weekend, so I look forward to going back either with Steve or some fellow winos. After our tour of the wineries, we checked in at the cute B+B and started to get ready to head to dinner on the Dahlonega square.

We had reservations at the Corkscrew Cafe which was amazing. We sat out back where there was live music and a cozy porch area. The food was excellent. I had the chicken with the warm spinach salad--oh man, I hope to have that salad again. So delicious. Steve loved his rainbow trout but not his caeser salad--I definitely had the better salad. :) If you're ever in Dahlonega for dinner, please please please stop here for a bite. The service was great, the owner came out to greet us (calling himself the "highest paid dishwasher") and the food was awesome.

To wrap up the weekend, Steve and I went to the Grace Potter/Allman Brothers show last night at Verizon and it literally made my life. Not only am I mildly obsessed with Grace Potter and pray for an OUNCE of her talent, but the Allman Brothers--holy crap. I've been listening to the Allman Brothers all my life! For these two bands to play such an amazing show...it was the perfect ending to a wonderful weekend.

So blessed with such an amazing boyfriend I get to experience all of these things with! :)
#braggingonmyboo #imspoiledrotten