66. Play with a dog

I love dogs. Not all of them, I confess, but a large majority. One day I WILL have a place with a yard where I WILL then get a dog. I WILL. I'm determined. I've already picked out a name if it's a boy. Baxter.

But for now....I must settle for playing with dogs when I get the opportunity.

And yesterday was a really great opportunity. At Barrel Oak Winery (see previous post) there were lots and lots of dogs - labs, retrievers, pugs, golden doodles, dachshunds, and the list goes on. It was so fun to see folks chilling outside with their dogs and be able to meet people as you pet their dog. Dogs really are the ultimate ice breaker.

So, BOW was having a pet adoption group there this weekend to spread the word and give people the opportunity to visit with some puppies that are available for adoption.

Our group was really hoping that Karen and her boyfriend Taylor were going to end up taking a puppy home, but they weren't 100% ready for it. (Granted, it's tough to have a dog in an apartment in the city, but they were mighty close to being convinced.)

Karen and Taylor obviously smitten with the puppy we hoped they were taking home:

So our group of 2 guys and 7 girls spent over an hour playing with, cradling, and petting some stinkin adorable (no really, one of these guys had some issues and was smelling up the place a couple of times....but was still adorable) german shepherd mix puppies.

So the black puppy's name was Mary Lou and her brother is Sam Huff -- here's Charlie holding Sam:

Sweetest puppies ever. So chill and calm amidst a crowd of people. Needless to say, we enjoyed it immensely. Here's hoping these two 8 week olds find good homes!

35. Go wine tasting at a vineyard/winery

Virginia has so many winery and vineyard options and I'm a bit surprised it's taken me three and a half years to make it out to one. My roommate is probably Barrel Oak's number one fan and has to be a VIP customer - she has asked me several times to go with her, but I haven't ever been able to go, but have been determined to do so. This weekend I finally made it out to Barrel Oak Winery with Kerry and a fun group of folks to celebrate Karen's birthday.

Here's the birthday girl taking it all in during our wine tasting -- amazing view of the beautiful Virginia countryside from this winery's property. So, for those you who aren't familiar, basically at most of these wineries you can do a wine tasting where you get a couple of swallows of each of the wines that they make and sell, served to you by a knowledgeable employee who tells you a little bit about them.

At Barrel Oak, the staff is totally unpretentious, very laid back, and really friendly. No hoity-toity wine snobs that I could find. They also are extremely dog friendly at Barrel Oak....their initials are BOW after all. But more on that in a different post.

After our wine tasting, we parked it at one of their picnic benches and enjoyed bread, cheese, and preserves that Karen's boyfriend brought along for the birthday celebration, along with some Barrel Oak wine...and a very delicious pomegranate.

It was a pretty perfect day - blue skies, temperature near 70 degrees, beautiful vineyard all around us. We enjoyed ourselves and it was a great way to cross another item off my list.

I didn't take pictures in the evening, but we spent a little time around one of the fire pits after the sun went down and I chatted it up with a cub scout who was telling me how to perfectly roast a marshmallow. He was not a fan of catching marshmallows on fire. Hmph. To each his own.

Family and dog friendly, laid-back setting, great staff, and picturesque views, not to mention some really tasty wine --- Barrel Oak comes highly recommended from this first time visitor.

Cheers!

27. Cook my way through Paula Deen’s cookbook, “The Lady and Sons Cookbook”

I hate bananas.

I cannot recall a time when I ever liked them. I used to have an aversion to all fruits (about the same time in my life when I would eat directly out of the sugar bowl...) but I've grown to like lots of them, just not bananas.

If I am served a dish with bananas in it, I can eat it, I just really don't enjoy it. And I feel like bananas have this overwhelmingly strong scent and taste, so it's not like you can eat something with bananas in it and not really taste them. Blech.

I sometimes wonder what bananas were like before the fall and if I would have liked them more. And if so would it be the actual banana that is better or myself that has a right attitude toward the banana. Ok, back to lighthearted blogging:

So, since I am cooking my way through this cookbook, and there are recipes with bananas, I have a bit of a predicament.

Enter my savvy thinking. I was asked to make a dessert for an event happening tomorrow evening but is one that I am not attending. PERFECT opportunity to make a banana dish since I won't have to eat it.

Therefore, today I made Banana Cream Pie. I also used an app on my Droid called Retro Camera to take these photos for a hip, artistic, i-wanna-be-cool effect.

So the "cream" part of the banana cream pie basically requires you to make homemade pudding on the stove. I did so, then set it aside to cool:

Then came the slicing of the bananas. I always think about how practical of a fruit the banana is. Comes in its own easy-to-remove packaging, is easy to eat, and is highly nutritious. Too bad it's disgusting and has one of the worst textures of any food I've ever encountered.

Anyway, back to the slicing:

But I mean really, the smushiness is too much.

See how thrilled I was at this point?
So then you layer the fruit and the cream in the pie crust like so:
And that's pretty much it. Stick it in the fridge and you're done. Although it's basically like banana pudding in a pie crust. Seems like it's going to be pretty messy to serve up. Sorry, people I don't know that will be eating my dessert and who I possibly will know in the near future since you all go to my church. Hope this doesn't make things awkward.

Well, that's about it except for two more quick things. When fixing this in my kitchen today I noticed out the window that our neighbors have a gutter pipe that opens at the top....for all that groundwater that just defies gravity I guess:

And if you would like to be terrified, check out this picture I took attempting to show my disgust for bananas. It turned out more like a terrifying demon-possessed face from one of the many horror movies being advertised on TV these days.

Ready? Don't say I didn't warn you....





Ahhhhh!

58. Type 60 wpm

Bam. 65 still isn't all that impressive, but, still. I did better 60.

What's your typing speed?






p.s. I did the same paragraph test (about baseball) 4 times and got up to 81 wpm with 4 errors. This might become a new game to me.

40. Meet Molly Bramhall

I met Cindy soon after moving to Augusta in 4th grade. Even though we were in different homerooms, we became fast friends despite our differences: The first time Cindy came to my house for a sleepover, she spent most of the time reading books.....I had my doubts then that our friendship would survive. Plus she could sleep in til 1pm while I would be wide awake by no later than 10am, so awkwardness was more than expected.

Despite these early bumps in the road, Cindy and I remained friends and I love that I can still call her a friend today.

Here we are with our friend Steve at Christmas one year in college making cookies:


I was in her wedding shortly after graduating college:


and now we only see each other about once a year if we're lucky.

So when she told us she was pregnant about 2 years ago, I was so excited -- couldn't wait to see Cindy pregnant and as a mom.

So we threw her a baby shower:

what's that? She doesn't look pregnant? I know, right? And she was over 7 months at this point....(by the way Chandler is the other part of our threesome pictured here and above)


Cindy's baby Molly was born last June and I didn't meet her until I was home this weekend. Molly is so great and she warmed up to me pretty quickly, which Cindy said was a rare thing. I think Molly is pretty smart, though, so I can understand why she'd want to hang out with me.

Meet Miss Molly:
She wasn't so sure about the picture taking until I showed her the image of herself right after, then she struck a model pose:


And tried to play coy with the camera when I asked her to take a picture with me:



But we had a great time and it was great to catch up with Cindy -- who is expecting baby Bramhall number 2!

Can't wait to see how Molly continues to grow up! So glad I got to meet her this weekend.

76. Go to homecoming at my high school & 77. Go to a local high school football game

Go Wildcats!

While at home this past weekend I attended the homecoming football game at my high school. For most schools around the country, this is no big deal, but at my high school, having a football team and therefore a homecoming football game is a very big deal.

I graduated in a class of 40 people from a small Christian school. Growing up our main fall sport was boys soccer. We had cheerleaders, pep rallies, bus trips, and the popular captains of the team - it just all revolved around soccer.

This year is the first year my school has had a varsity football team so it was a little strange to walk up to the "soccer" field and see football goalposts. Or is it fieldgoals? Or is it fieldposts?

Goalposts.

Sorry, momentary lapse of intelligence there.

In any case, going to this homecoming game helped me cross two things off my list - I had never been back for homecoming so it was good to walk around the "old stomping grounds" but I think it might be a while before I hit it up again. Unless of course I decide to postpone our reunion until next fall, which is looking more and more likely.....


Did I mention the name of the school changed since I went there? I graduated from Westminster Preparatory School and attended 4th-6th grade at Westminster Day School. Now it's all just called Westminster Schools of Augusta....it was odd to hear the cheerleaders yelling "W-S-A!"

WPS sounds much better, in my opinion. I wonder if as an alumna I have any amount of influence over changing it back....

39. Get a Droid

Droid Does.

This phone is amazing. I finally have a phone that does more than just make calls and send texts.

I got the Droid 2 by Motorola and I am loving it.

And the best part is, I bought into my parents' family plan so I now pay them every month. With the cost of the phone plus the price of the monthly phone, web, and text service on their plan, I am spending LESS on this 2-year contract than if I had gotten a free phone on my old plan and just kept my phone and text plans -- no web.

LOVING IT.