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Happy birthday, Emily! My fab little trio down here in NC planned a girls’ night Downtown at The Little Dipper after work to celebrate. Fondue, cheesecake, and Honey Dew Me Martinis were the theme of the night. We all needed this 🙂

(Taken with Instagram)

With the exception of cozy sweaters and rich, satisfying beverages, I’ve never been one to get excited for the fall. Northern Virginia tends to skip fall and spring… it goes from the extreme of summer to the extreme of winter, rains a bunch in between, then starts over. Thus, I’ve always been an (early) summer girl! Fall is simply a gray, wet forecast of the winter to come…

But the summer here in NC has been incredibly hot, muggy, and wet. Most of August has been rainy and sadly lacking on the beach front. We had a gorgeous spring and fall however! No extremes, and just a reasonable amount of rain to mix things up. Simply gorgeous – with lots of time outside.

Thus, for the first time in ages, I am looking forward to autumn for more than those pumpkin spice lattes. I can’t wait for long days eating and drinking beachfront with friends at Daddy Mac’s, lighting the firepit in the backyard, and taking evening strolls through the Cottages to glimpse the geese on the pond. 🙂 August is almost over!

“The other night while picking up groceries, Brendan decided to pick up flowers as well. He said it would be nice to wake up to them. It’s strange because I don’t like flowers, while most do. There is something morbid about them to me – that at the height of their beauty, they are actually dying. Which is funny because the Japanese actually think that mortality in itself is beautiful. The thought that something (to borrow a famous movie quote) will never be as lovely as it is today, in the present. That concept of fleeting beauty is beautiful in itself.

It reminded me of this other quote which could be applied to many other things in life besides flowers: if you only have two pennies left in this world, buy bread with one, and a flower with the other. Everything has something to offer.

And yes, he was right. They were a lovely sight this morning!”

~erlnyc

Hi kittens!

Yesterday was Chuck’s and my big Date Day (hmm, why does Date Night sound so much better?) We started out with massages at Mayfaire, but then I surprised him with tickets to the “Heart of Downtown” walking tour of Wilmington’s best restaurants, with Culinary Adventures.

One of the last times we were in Wilmington together, Chuck ran up to a tour and got the lady’s card. He kept talking about how we needed to go, but we never followed up and it didn’t actually happen. So, I stole the card off his nightstand and booked it myself. (I tend to be the one who takes a little more initiative on these things 😉 Plus, Chuck is not easy to “shop” for – it’s difficult to find things he’s excited about that I can actually get for him. This was perfect!)

So, despite walking around in the heat, we had a great time learning about the area restaurants, getting little tidbits of Wilmington history, and tasting delicious noms ranging from gourmet French, to low country Southern, to all-American breakfast, to cupcakes (yay!), to a variety of fine wines. We met chefs and even got a few cooking tips.

At first I was worried the tour would include a lot of the restaurants we’d already been to (which wouldn’t have been awful – they’re all great!), but luckily we visited quite a few I’d never even heard of. We actually started at a very nondescript-looking deli on a corner, which turned out to be one of my favorite stops. Each sandwich is inspired from a different port city (like Wilmington) from around the world, which I thought was a very fun concept and made for some unique and tasty sandwiches.

Anyway, for foodies like us, it was a perfect thing to do together, and something a little different. We got home and Chuck whipped up some homemade mozzarella sticks – guess he got the culinary bug for real now…!

Otherwise, the rest of the weekend has just been really rainy – so we’ve been watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Chuck is appalled that I’ve never seen it. I’m actually surprised by how much I like it…I’m not much of a fantasy person typically 🙂

(Taken with Instagram)