Summer Bucket List for Wilmington

Everyone keeps telling me that the best time to live in Wilmington is in the summer.  And with school done and a month before I leave on my summer assignment to Colorado, it seems like a great time to mark some things off my Wilmington Bucket List (a list I made my second day living in town because I was so sad about leaving NYC and needed something to look forward to in Wilmington).  Here are just a few of the things on my list I think I'm going to try to accomplish sometime over the next month. 

1) Learn to surf (or maybe the first step should be find someone to teach me how to surf)
2) Find a place to live
3) Finish the aprons that I started making six month ago but never finished (oops!!!! and oops again!!!!)
4) Go to the creepy zoo on Carolina Beach (Once you see a picture of the building, you will totally understand)
5) Go to a concert at Airlie Gardens (Anyone else want to go?)
6) Go to the Downtown Sundown Concert Series right in downtown Wilmington
7) Find a place to go Shag Dancing in Wilmington (for anyone reading this who's not from the south, it's not as bad as it sounds...promise.  It's pretty similar to Swing Dancing.)
8) Finally become a member of my church.
9) Spend a weekend with my dear friend, Melanie, when she visits Wilmington
10) Eat at Double Happiness (I've tried to go twice over the past year and every time I've shown up, there's a sign on the door saying they are on vacation to China or just decided not to open that day.  I'm more than intrigued at this point.)
11) Go to bluegrass night at Satellite
12) Sail (I've tried to go out sailing twice so far this year and every time the weather has been less than accommodating)
13) Get back into running (I'm a literal fair weather fan of running, as in, I only run in the spring in summer when the weather is fair.)

and last but not least...

14) Research and put together an EPIC Bucket List for my summer assignment out in Fort Collins, CO.

I think that should keep me busy in any downtime I may have.  And what better way to spend free time over the next month than marking off some Year of Do activities.

Celebrating the Little Brother's Wedding (aka- the adventures of a cupcake ninja)

Meet my little brother and one of my best friends, Sean. 

The two of us goofing off on a 8 mile hike in Newfoundland

He's 25, close to six feet tall, and not so little, but with two years him, and more embarrassing stories than I could possibly share on this blog, I feel like I've earned the right to call him my "Little Bro,"  or as he likes to be called when I'm asking him to do a favor "Lone Wolf."  (He is literally one of the most servant hearted people you have ever met, but only if you agree to call him Lone Wolf during the duration of the favor.)

But, as he has recently started signing his emails, "The Lone Wolf is not so lone anymore."  Just a few days ago, I made the trek to Belhaven, NC, for the Lone Wolf to, "Get Him Married He Do."  (Another saying he has adopted over the last few months.) 

I'm not sure there is anything better for the Year of Do than to go all out celebrating your little brother getting married.  And so, go all out we did...

The view was amazing,

The view from our family's house on the Pungo River where they got married.

 

the bride was beautiful,

 

 

Me and my new sister-in-law minutes before she walked down the aisle

 

there were tons of friends and family to celebrate with us,

Sean's two best friends I've known since they were three years old

 

and to say the food was good would be a gross understatement.

 

Okay, to be totally honest, I may be a little biased about the food.  Sean and Julia were a little bit heartbroken when they found out the baker didn't do Funfetti cupcakes for weddings.  So, it was the big sister and seven boxes of cupcake mix to the rescue.  It couldn't have been that hard right?  (I really need to stop saying that.)

 

Actually, I have been dying to try my hand at cupcake decorating and this seemed like as good a time as any.  And anything I had trouble figuring out, Google, Pinterest, and Youtube helped to fill in the gaps.

 

So the day before the wedding, I got to work baking...and baking...and baking.

 

This was only about 26 of 150 cupcakes we baked that day.  I'm pretty sure every usable surface out of reach of the dog was used for cupcake goodness. 

 

And then we frosted.  My first mistake in this process was thinking my Target brand hand held mixer was up to the task of mixing up enough frosting for 150 cupcakes.  Around batch 5 of butter cream frosting the mixer died a rather slow and noisy death and we had to resort to the backup mixer (thank goodness for backup mixers or this girl would not be able to lift her arms above her shoulders.)

 

Expertly piping frosting with the help of Martha Stewart, Youtube, and Pinterest.

 

Pretty frosted Cupcakes

 

Next came the hint of blue sprinkles to match their wedding colors.

Last, but not least, we topped them off with white chocolate hearts and monograms, and tied purple ribbon around the bottom to coordinate with the wedding colors. 

 

And for my first ever foray into wedding cupcakes, I was pretty impressed with how they turned out. 

Building A Kitchen Table: Part 2

It's been almost a month since I last wrote about the kitchen table I had great plans to build.  35 days to be exact.  I promise, I haven't given up or forgotten about it, but with the semester winding down for my students and lots of traveling, there has been little time left over for table making (or laundry, or cooking, or grocery shopping for that matter). 

But that all changed yesterday.  The table building is officially underway!  (In my mind there is lots of cheering and applauding by the many people reading that statement.) 

Do I have any idea what I'm doing?  Nope.  My grandad owns his own construction company and I grew up with the men in my family saying things like, "Why would we pay someone to build a garage when we can do it ourselves?"  My earliest memory in the house I grew up in was my dad tearing down one of the walls to, "open things up."  However, if there is such a thing as a construction gene, it most certainly skipped over me.  Around the age of 7, I attempted to make my own foot stool because I figured it would be cool to build something.  I thought it was the best made foot stool in the entire world until a few years ago when I was cleaning out my old closet at my parents house and ran across it.  If any of you watch The Office, you may remember the end table Michael Scott once tried to make that almost resembled paint stirrers duct taped together.  My beloved footstool looked pretty similar to that. 

But this table is going to be different.  Why you ask?  Because this time I have an acute awareness of the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing (something my 7 year old self was lacking), and the help of someone who not only owns a hammer, but knows how to use it. 

Meet Ash...

Ash's previous construction successes include a pergola, a dog house (complete with it's own porch), and not one, but two tables that look nothing like what I built when I was 7.

 

To be honest, I was really surprised how easily it has come together so far.  In just a few hours, we got all of the pieces for the top put together using something called a "pocket screw."  I'm still unsure exactly what that is, but I know you use things that look like this...

 

 

To make holes that look like this....

 

 

And somehow screws go into said holes in a way that pulls the two pieces of wood together so they are flush on top, with the only visible screw holes tucked inconspicuously underneath the table.  (See...I am learning something!)

 

But mostly, I just stuck to using tools I was already pretty familiar with...

 

Sigh...now that...that I know how to use

 

And I let Ash do the heavy lifting...

 

Does anyone else think this looks dangerous? 



 

Although, towards the end I rallied up the nerve to try my hand at something a little more adventurous.  It is the Year of Do after all.

 

Look at me...being all confident...using a drill...

 

So far, this hasn't been nearly as complicated as I thought it would be, and the more I see this table coming together, the more excited I get.

 

I'll post more pictures of the progress soon, but for now, I'm going to leave you sitting in anticipation.

 

Sewing: Not For The Faint of Heart

There I laid, sprawled out on the floor, gazing up at the gold and glass chandelier dangling from the dining room ceiling.  My first thought was, "That really is a hideous chandelier."  I had thought that ever since my roommate and I had moved into that house, but now, looking up at it from the floor, in the dim light of a rainy day, it seemed to take on a whole new level of heinousness. 

And then it hit me, the reason I was sprawled out on the floor in the first place, contemplating the ugly monstrosity hanging from my ceiling.  Just seconds before, I had diligently been working to finish the last two aprons that were supposed to be finished in time to be Christmas presents, trying to embrace the Year of Do spirit and take advantage of a few spare minutes.  I was feeling pretty good about finally finishing this project that had been hanging over my head since November and thinking to myself how the Year of Do really has made me a more productive person. 

Lost in a state of contentment and concentration, I didn't even notice the fact that my finger was getting dangerously close to the needle on my sewing machine.  I'll spare you the details of what happened next.  Suffice it to say, as a kid, I would routinely pass out at the sight of blood and needles.  As I laid on my dining room floor, I suddenly became aware of the fact that I had yet to outgrow that trait. 

My view when I woke up

 

I was able to snap this picture after I regained consciousness and the bleeding from my finger began to slow, and immediately sent it to  few good friends.  After they were adequately assured that I really was fine after passing out, we laughed at how this is pretty typical of the chaos/clumsiness that is often my life. 

 

Sometimes in the Year of Do, you sit back and marvel at how much you are able to accomplish, and other times, you find yourself laying on your dining room floor, texting pictures of your ceiling to your best friends.  We'll call this one a good story, but ultimately a Year of Do failure. 



 

The Year of Road Trips?

Whew...the last month has been a bit of a crazy one if you can't tell by my lack of blogging.  There was the Women's Retreat is Belhaven, NC, a trip back to Greenville to work on my taxes, the Leaders Retreat (literally in the middle of no where), and the Wilmington to Charlotte to Greenville, SC to Charlotte to Wilmington Easter extravaganza weekend.  In the last month, I have yet to actually be in town for a weekend.  Maybe the Year of Do should officially undergo a name change to the Year of Road Trip. 

So, with my first free weekend in ages, the options were endless.  Wednesday night, I literally couldn't sleep thinking about everything I could do that I haven't been able to in the last month.  I could actually do all of my laundry (not just wash the things that were absolutely necessary, leaving the rest in a heaping pile on the floor).  I could wander around downtown Wilmington, checking out the Azalea festival with all of its vendors and bands.  The Avette Brothers were playing a concert this weekend.  That could be a fun option.  I could actually go to my church.  I'm pretty sure they are starting to think I have either disappeared or found a new church home.  I could actually start building this kitchen table.  Oh goodness...this poor table that I got so excited to start, yet has sat sad and abandoned for the past month.

So what did I end up doing?  I traveled.  I know...I know...You're thinking, "I thought that's exactly what you didn't want to do!"  But when a good friends call spur of the moment on a Friday afternoon and say they have a beach house at Oak Island for the weekend, there really isn't any other appropriate answer other than, "Sure...why not!"

And honestly, I think it was exactly what I needed.  A weekend with no cell phone service, no internet access, where I could nap and read as much as I wanted, only to be interrupted by walks on the beach, snuggling puppies, the smell of cooking bacon, and hysterical conversations.  I love when the Year of Do and times of rest collide into one great, unexpected weekend. 

 

 

Cinnamon Rolls as a Cure for Insomnia

Well here's a change for you.  Normally I am up at 6 am, can't sleep, and decide to catch up on blog posts.  This morning, it's 6 am, and I'm already caught up on blog posts. 

Hmm...how to use these extra few hours for the Year of Do...

Step 1: Convince yourself if you try hard enough, you really can go back to sleep.  1 sheep...2 sheep...3 sheep.......this isn't working.

Step 2: Catch up on your social media stalking.  You can do that without even getting out of bed, while still holding onto some hope that you may eventually drift off to sleep.  Facebook... Twitter.... Instagram... nope... still awake.

Step 3: Catch up on your plan to read through the bible in a year.  I'm about a few months behind at this point.  A few more of these 6 am mornings though and I could be caught up soon.

Step 4: Resolve yourself to the inevitable fate that you aren't going back to sleep anytime soon.  But staff meeting is in just a few hours and you love surprising your staff team with the unexpected.  Sooo...6:30 am cinnamon roll baking it is. 

Yummm

Most of the team, post cinnamon rolls and all decked out in stripes for staff meeting

To Travel Or Not To Travel, That Is The Question

Sometimes all of this "doing" is exhausting.  Once I'm actually in the middle of doing whatever task I've set out to do, I love it.  But there is always this moment right before where I think to myself, "Wouldn't it just be easier if you didn't.  That couch looks so comfortable with it's fluffy blanket and cushy pillows." 

This weekend was a great example of that.  It was Easter weekend and here were the options.  1) Drive to Charlotte (for the sixth time this year) for the weekend to see my family.  2) Attend the wedding of a college roommate in Greenville, SC.  Or 3) Stay at home in Wilmington and catch up on some much needed sleep while at the same time proving to friends in town that I do in fact live here, something they are inevitably starting to doubt.

Thursday night, everything in me wanted to claim my rightful place on the couch for the weekend and catch up on Downton Abby.  We are in the middle of our busy season on campus right now and the number of free nights and weekends are few and far between.  Can you guess which of my three options I ended up taking?



Your leaning towards option 3 aren't you....



Now your starting to doubt yourself...maybe option 1....



Well, it is the Year of Do.  Why pick one when you can do all three...right?!?!

I packed up my car Friday afternoon and made the four hour trek to Charlotte just in time to meet my parents for dinner at my favorite BBQ restaurant in town, Mac's BBQ.  It's supposed to resemble a biker bar, but everytime I've taken my parents, my dad points out that the closest thing to a motorcycle in the parking lot is a row of brightly colored Vespa scooters.  Maybe it's not as biker friendly as they advertise, but no one can argue that they serve the best beef brisket in town. 

Saturday morning found my mom and I dress shopping with my soon to be sister-in-law for the perfect rehearsal dinner dress.  One of the biggest items on my bucket list for the year was to celebrate my little brother getting married.  That's not one of those things you can put off until next year.  You really only get one opportunity to celebrate well something like that and I don't want to miss it.  It was such a sweet time being able to just celebrate as the women in our family.  I wouldn't have wanted to miss that for the world. 

The VanScott women, elated over the fact that we found the perfect rehearsal dinner dress.  I'm going to keep you waiting in suspense for a few more weeks to see what it looks like.

 

We finished dress shopping just in time for me to stop by the hotel, speed change into a more wedding appropriate outfit (I'm not sure they would have approved the jeans and hoodie I was sporting at South Park Mall), and take off on phase 2 of the weekend, the wedding of a college roommate. 

 

Jen and I lived together during my senior year of college, and not only was I thrilled to get to see her get married, but it was also a chance to catch up with college friends I hadn't seen in years. 

 

I just love these women. 

 

And it really was such a fun night.  We danced, and laughed as we remembered ridiculous things we had done in college, and caught up on what had happened since (jobs and weddings and babies).  I laughed harder that night than I have in a really long time.  The kind of laughing where your abs hurt and you really do have a hard time catching your breath.

 

Sunday morning found me back in Charlotte, celebrating Easter with my family, and by that afternoon I was on the road, back to Wilmington.

 

As I was driving home that afternoon, I kept thinking how there really is something to this whole Year of Do thing.  It would have been so easy to sleep and sit on the couch all weekend, and it would have been well deserved after a few really busy weeks.  But instead, I went shopping with my sister-in-law, ate at a favorite restaurant, spent time with my family, celebrated a dear friend getting married, caught up with friends I hadn't seen in years, and saw my brother's new life in his new town.  I may have been asleep by 9:30 on Sunday night, but it was worth it.