Thursday, January 9, 2014

Days 121 and 122 - Happy 2014

Somehow it feels like I'm always falling behind on this - I think it's because I'm so so close to being home. Still, I started with a goal and I'm determined to finish; in the meantime - photo updates!

Photos from January 1st:
Being that it was the day after a very late night, we turned off our alarms and slept in pretty late.
I woke up to make french toast, and we went on a little driving tour around town before heading home to continue our House of Cards marathon and keep napping.
A relaxing day of good conversations with friends, writing postcards, and taking photos of the cat - somehow a perfect way to start the new year! (Isn't Aaron so cute?)

Pictures from January 2nd:
The German chocolate cake! I've started making them from scratch - last year I did cupcakes, this year I made a layered cake using this recipe and it turned out wonderfully! The cake was moister than most recipes I've found, and the frosting wasn't overly sweet like the stuff in a can (which admittedly I used to love so much that I would eat it instead of frosting the cake with it).
Alynn had to actually be productive, so Daisy and I took a trip out to Target and then stopped for lunch at Luella's (can you really travel through North Carolina without stopping for barbeque?). When asking around for recommendations, everyone first suggested the 12 Bones Smokehouse but would follow the name with "but they have a waiting list that's usually a few months long, so..." and go on to suggest Luella's as a second choice, conveniently located on the road we were taking from Alynn's house to downtown Asheville and back! I particularly enjoyed the brisket, and Daisy was enamored with the novelty of hushpuppies :) (photo by Daisy)
Driving through downtown (photo by Daisy). We went to the postoffice for stamps, then our next stop was in this incredible art gallery called ZaPow! (with the "!", and which we both failed to take a picture of/in). The work was decidedly modern, tending towards colorful, whimsical, steampunk, and anime/cartoonish styles - it was like Etsy had opened a retail store. We both found a lot of pieces that we loved, and the best part for us was that it all felt very reasonably priced. You could buy original pieces for a few hundred dollars but nearly every artist also had giclees and prints going for $10-$50, which the owner told us was intentional to reach more people who otherwise might not be able to afford to buy something they really enjoy.
After our stop at the art gallery we proceeded to wander around the downtown area, wandering in shps and taking photos. We found a giant iron?
Clearly we both needed a photo with this marvel!
Comic murals?
In our wanderings we also stopped in at a store called "Chocolate Fetish" where they had chocolate high heels that had been hand painted in some beautiful patterns, and we sampled the sipping chocolate that tasted like a melted chocolate bar mixed with cream - yum!
I believe Alynn's comment upon seeing this picture was "Why did you force this poor child statue to hold that?" ;)
Dancing in front of a performance hall

It was a whole bronze scene, out in the rain
These ladies were walking a little aluminum dog across the street from The Spice and Tea Exchange, where we happily spent at least 20 minutes smelling all of the spices/blends/teas/flavored sugars/flavored salts. (photo by Daisy)
  And just up the street from that was this cool cityscape surrounding a tree. You would think something like this would be around all of the trees but it was apparently just this one.
Near this tree was yet another cool independent bookstore (Malaprop's Bookstore Cafe) where Daisy was brave and bought a "blind date" book, wrapped up in paper with descriptive words written on the front. (photo by Daisy)
Another mural, as we drove home (photo by Daisy)
I saw these little mouse house doors on our first day in Asheville and I was determined to get a photo! Even if it was by asking Daisy to take one out of the window as I slowly drove by :)
We were both very impressed by this bike store and all the painted gears (photo by Daisy)
Stormy weather was brewing! (photo by Daisy)
Mmm...cake! We ended our day with Alynn's kale/spinach ravioli, some roasted veggies tossed in with a salad, and the beginning of a new series - Orange is the New Black. Look at me actually being caught up with pop culture things as they happen (a very rare event)! At one point we stopped to look outside and realized that it must have been snowing for quite a while - everything was covered in a white layer of snow. Happy 2014!

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