GRATITUDES + BREAKTHROUGHS // JANUARY 23, 2018

Gratitudes

It felt like last week was a long one, anyone else? Here are some of my favorites…

I am finally, officially over the sickness. I can breathe and my ears don’t feel clogged. Super grateful for that.

I officially picked up my library card for Loudoun County. #nerdalert I have been meaning to grab one but just never committed the time too. So on Thursday I ran by, grabbed my card, one book and placed another on hold to pick up this week. I want to read one book for pleasure and one business book. I love a good historical fiction book so I went with America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie then I placed It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love And War by Lyndsey Addario. I learned something new too, apparently you can rent a backpack at the library that allows you to get into all of the National Parks for free. I’m so pumped to start checking out more of Virginia’s trail system… fo’ free!

I made crockpot chili and it’s edible. That’s a huge win for me!

Saturday night I met up with friends to grab a drink at King Street Oyster Bar in Middleburg. It was packed! We ended up hanging by the bar for a cocktail and one raw bar platter – we kept our oysters from east coast. After that we hopped over to Julien’s Cafe for dinner and red wine. I realized while we were out I hadn’t been out to dinner on a Saturday night in months. It was nice being out with friends and not at a wedding! Yay for the off-season!

I also made a stop at Mt. Defiance Cidery & Distillery for a flight. I loved their traditional farmhouse style hard cider and their rosé which was blended with petit verdot! I also made a pitstop at Quattro Goomba’s brewery for a few glasses of Resistance is Fruitile – Fruit Wheat Ale and Divinity – India Pale Ale. Both were great but I think I still favored the IPA.

Sunday I slept in and snuggled the pups on the couch before I ran out to meet some girl friends at 868 Estate Vineyard. Shenandoah Valley wineries have been on my list for a while so I was excited to give their tasting list a shot. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it here before but, I really hate Chardonnay (oaky buttery whites make my skin crawl) and Merlot, and to my surprise that is what the majority of their tasting list was, so a bummer for me. I will say though I did enjoy their Sauvignon Blanc dry Riesling and ended up grabbing a bottle to split of their Meritage blend (Merlot, Cab Sav and Cab Franc). The girls and I ventured over to Magnolia’s at the Mill in Purcellville for dinner. I highly recommend their brick oven pizzas; mine was so good!

Cement the Deal, a throw back to the original Fifty Shades of Gray Collection. Isn’t the new movie coming out soon? This is a light gray creme polish that I’ve definitely talked about before. While I wear this all year the last few days have been warm for January but everything around me feels this color: the ground, the trees and even the sky. This has been discontinued, but you can snag it still on ebay!

Breakthroughs

This winter I’ve been ignoring the mice living in my house. You see the cat used to really control their population and every once in a while surprise me with an “offering.” I never really had to worry about them being in the kitchen (which is absolutely disgusting). I’ve been finding evidence here and there that they’ve been helping themselves to my food as well as the pups, but I was still blissfully ignoring them until Wednesday. I was sitting on the larger couch when out of the corner of my eye I saw a little brown something hop over the armrest of my leather couch. Gross. I sat there and tried to convince myself to get up, position myself on all fours, click on my phone flashlight and take a look…before I could I saw a tiny brown streak like lightning go underneath of the couch that I was sitting on. Nope, nope. Right then and there I knew I had a problem I needed to take care of. This weekend friends let me borrow traps and it’s been working but I want to make sure I keep them from coming back without having traps laid out all over the bottom floor of the house. Has anyone tried those wall plug-ins that emit some kind of frequency, I heard those might help with my current war on mice. Also I’m thinking next time I probably shouldn’t ignore the fact that I live in a 1900s farmhouse that has holes everywhere for mice.

As always, thanks for reading. xoxo