When I (Finally) Return to Vancouver

I have a laundry list of places I'd like to go eat!  Now Southern food is great, don't get me wrong, but it's almost too great!  I love greasy food (carbs!) but I have the world's most sensitive stomach so a lot of foods tend to make me feel very sick down here.  This means that I've been cooking a lot at home and can afford to eat out a lot when we make it back home to Vancouver!  These are the restaurants I dream of:

1) Earl's: Chicken, Brie, and Apple sandwich...with half fries (love) and half salad (to avoid feeling overly guilty).  And swap out garlic mayo for regular mayo and no fig jam.  

2) Romer's x2: first time would be for a quinoa burger with no tomato and no goat cheese.  Add an order of fries with the bacon mayo (to prove I'm not a vegetarian...not that there's anything wrong with that but BACON!).  The second time would be for a Man's Man burger with no tomato - I can comfortably finish about 2/3 of this but it is so good that it's worth it.  And, of course, fries with bacon mayo.

3) Rain or Shine: the best salted caramel ice cream.  And homemade waffle cones.  I could eat this everyday.

4) Novo: Burrata pizza - pizza with no garlicky tomato sauce is a dream come true.  Add fresh basil and fresh mozzarella and I am so there!  This also was where our wedding rehearsal dinner was so it holds as a special place in my heart!

5) Secret Garden x2: I need (okay, would really like to) to go for high tea here because it's one of my favourite experiences.  And they also have pretty good egg salad croissant sandwiches so you can bet I'll be doing a take out of that at some point!

6) Lee's Donuts: best donut in the city is the honey glazed.  When I used to go for early morning runs, they would be warm and would be just the best!

7) Campagnolo: the fried chickpeas to start. They have an amazing simple spaghetti with tomato sauce but I would get the gnocchi with beef shank.  The menu here changes a lot so we hadn't been for awhile.  I hope they don't change anything before we get home!  They also do a family style dinner with bigger parties and that was super fun when we did it in the past!  You get to try everything that you wouldn't normally order (if you're like me!).

8) Cartem's Donuts:  the bee sting donut.  It's honey dipped with Parmesan and pepper on top.  I thought I would hate it but I love it.  PJ thinks I'm weird.  Their original donut is still very good!

9) De Dutch: for some reason (probably my over-sensitive tummy), I don't enjoy going out breakfast.  It feels too greasy to me.  I eat porridge every morning at home but going out for brunch is never one of my favourites.  I also enjoy the heavy things (pancakes!) so that contributes to feeling sick.  Except.  I LOVE Dutch pannekoekens.  And they never make me feel sick.  So now, what I want the experience of brunch, I like to go here!  And man do I miss it! 

10) Hy's: does it really matter what I get as long as cheese bread accompanies it?  😊. Okay, this probably shouldn't be on this list but I do really love their cheese bread.

 

A (Literal) Light at the End of the Tunnel

This may not come as a surprise to everyone but I haven't exactly been thrilled about our move to South Carolina.  It felt rushed and I wasn't ready to leave home.  

PJ traveled a lot during our first few weeks here and I was pretty lonely.  I haven't made any friends - but don't feel bad for me because I'm not very social in general - let alone when you take me out of my comfort.  I'm a pretty solidary person in general.  I have my small group of good girlfriends that I love and I am so happy with living my life like that (something about I'd rather have 4 quarters than 100 pennies would fit in right about here).  And it's a different down here - the people are so kind but it's a totally different culture.  Mostly in the subtleties.  So I haven't made a lot (any?) of friends and I am okay with that.  This could also be a self preservation thing where I know we're leaving here pretty soon and I hate goodbyes!  Nonetheless, it was tough being alone here with PJ traveling so much.  I loved living on my own in my single girl days.  I relished coming home to an empty apartment and doing exactly as I pleased.  But since meeting PJ, I hate him being gone.  Even when it's me and him at home, it feels like I am alone (in a really good way!!!) - as though I'm so comfortable with him that he feels kind of like an extension of me and therefore I'm kind of alone in my solitude.  Does that make sense?  I hope so!  But when you remove him from my new notion of solitude, it feels like I am missing something.  Whenever he has to go on a trip, I romanticize it and think that I'll do a deep clean of the apartment, go to yoga, cook, take a nice long bath, read, catch up on TV, etc.  This never happens.  I normally do about three of those things (and a deep clean of the apartment is never what I end up doing...whoops...road to hell, good intentions, you know what I mean).  The bottom line is that I hate having him gone.  And the three things I get done from my list of things to do?  Same stuff I do when he's here.  I know he hates to leave me.  And I appreciate all hard work and sacrifices that he's making for our little two-person family.  But it was still hard having him gone.

And the weather.  I was sold a 'warm weather' deal on this move.  I love warm weather (especially because our apartment has air conditioning so my sleep wouldn't have been hindered from outside being too warm)!  I love sitting outside in the heat and reading.  It has not been warm!  In fact, it has been freezing!!!  A couple of days in February were -10 degrees (-17 when you factor in the wind chill).  And my beloved rainy Vancouver?  It has been beautiful.  Uncharacteristically warm.  Seriously, if one more person tells me about the cherry blossoms 'already' blooming, I might scream (okay, probably cry!).

I miss home a lot.  I miss my family (my new McNugget family and my old family too!), I miss road trips to Seattle to see my cute aunty Marilyn, I miss my friends, I hate not being there to help Alli plan her wedding, I miss my running friends (so much.  So, so, so much.), I miss the good healthy Vancouver food, I miss Maggie, I miss people talking in Celsius and kilometres (and putting -re on the end of words instead of -er), I miss being in the same time zone as mostly everyone.

That's not to say I haven't had some good experiences down here!  I never would've gone to Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Charlotte, Charleston, or New Orleans if we weren't here.  It's just the first two months were difficult.  More so than I anticipated.  I was sad and the weather matched.  

At the beginning of March, I thought something must be changing.  It went from freezing to beautiful.  It was a weekday so I was working.  But it gave me hope!  And it made me look longingly at the hammocks at our communal pool. There was a sign that I might get to use those hammocks!!  Today, I did!  It was wonderful, I hung out for three hours in 26 degree weather in March!  I went to yoga!  And I got to come home to a nice cool apartment where my PJ was diligently working (with a hockey game in the background).  So things are looking up!  Myrtle Beach is finally delivering on her warm weather promise.  And I couldn't be more happy!

PJ also got me (us) an Adirondack chair this morning and helped me put it together.  It is now sitting on our little deck.  And after I got home from yoga, I contiued reading my book out there on it.  And this was my view:

Not too bad!

PJ's Valentine's Day Present

PJ's Gamecocks shirt didn't fit him and they were sold out when we went to exchange it at Target.  So it looked like his Valentine's Day gift would be a Target gift card (just what he wanted!). 

But today we found this:

Wait for it...

I know you're proud Judy!  

Sea Captain

One of my favourite restaurants to go to in Myrtle Beach is the Sea Captain's House.   Mostly for the hushpuppies.  But it's pretty good even without those.

PJ and I went a few weeks ago for dinner.  It's in an older building that feels like a house - there are couches and fireplaces everywhere.  It really does feel like you're intruding in someone's home!  If I were retired, I could hang out there for hours in the afternoon after eating lunch (Bryan - you might consider doing that when you visit!).  The decor is charming and comfortable.  And it's right on the water. 

A woman that works at Canfor used to work at the Sea Captain's House so I ask her all my questions (PJ did not know she used to work there so he thought I was just asking her random questions about the restaurant!).  It turns out that you can get an order of hushpuppies to go!  I was feeling particularly homesick one day (it comes and goes) and was saying to PJ that I had a craving for the steakhouse we went to in Charleston.  He offered to drive there for dinner.  On a Monday.  I am such a lucky girl but I wasn't actually wanting to go (it's a two hour drive...each way!).  I suggested that we get an order of hushpuppies from Sea Captain's to go instead.  That seemed like a much more reasonable request.  I hadn't had them since we were last here in November.  It was $3 for 12 hushpuppies.  And boy, were they delicious!

So I asked PJ if we could go back for a meal on Friday and he was game.  I even called it a date night and he didn't protest!  They give you hushpuppies for free when you eat there instead of bread.  We gobbled them up.  Then the waitress asked if we wanted more and I quickly agreed.  By the time we were done, I felt a little sick.  I think I had about nine hushpuppies - deep fried corn bread is good! 

 

(Photo is from last November but you get the gist of what hushpuppies are - this time they didn't last long enough for a photo!)

We ordered dinner and I got the chicken - it had a lemon butter sauce.  Because of my hushpuppy indulgence, I only got veggies on the side.  Of course, because of where we're living, it came with two chicken breasts!  I ate one and took the other home with me.  

I had the worst belly ache for the rest of the weekend!  That's what nine hushpuppies will do to you.  But it was worth it!  I have had hushpuppies elsewhere (Peckinpah in Vancouver) and they are nowhere near as good.  We have to make the most of our time down here!  So the sore tummy was worth it.

What. The. Heck.

I have shingles.  Again.  On my eye.  Again.  It's rather annoying!  

I felt a tingle around my eye last Tuesday (Tuesday!!!) and went home early to see if taking my normal cold sore medicine would help.  It did a bit but I still went to the doctor down here on Wednesday just to be sure.  I waited for 2.5 hours before seeing the doctor and she prescribed the same shingles medication that I had back home.  We picked up the medicine which would've cost $300 if we did not have insurance.  I don't know how people without insurance get by down here.  I also went to the eye doctor the following day to make sure it wasn't actually in my eye.  It is not.  This time was different than last October when I got it for the first time - I didn't feel as run down or sore as I did then.  So things aren't too bad but I've been trying to rest a lot.  

I would like to say that is totally responsible for my lack of posts but it isn't 100% the reason (although it has contirubtued).  I'll try and get caught up! 

Tuesdays

I hate Tuesdays!  Anyone else feel the same?  In my (very) humble opinion, it is the worst day of the week and this is why:

Sunday: weekend day.  Enough said.

Monday: you're coming down off the weekend high so life is a little more bearable.

Wednesday: halfway there and it'll be the weekend!

Thursday: practically Friday.

Friday: at 5pm, you're free!

Saturday: weekend!  And when you go to sleep?  You'll wake up with it still being the weekend (that is why Saturday is the best day).

Tuesday?  Nothing good (except The Mindy Project...that is the only redeeming part of Tuesday).  The previous weekend already feels so far in the past and the next weekend feels like it's so far away that you'll never make it.  I hate Tuesdays.  Whenever something bad happens to me and I realize that it's happened on a Tuesday, it reinforces my (totally justified) hatred of Tuesday.  Nothing good ever happens on Tuesday!  (Watch my actual birthday to have fallen on a Tuesday... How foolish I will feel...nope, I checked, it was a Friday.  Wait... Watch PJ have been born on a Tuesday...nope, it was a Wednesday - now you're all checking what day of the week you were born on so you can make me feel guilty, right?).  Whenever I hear Juicy by Notirious B.I.G. and he sings 'birthdays was the worst days', I take out 'birthdays' and replace it with 'Tuesdays' in my head.  Tuesdays was the worst days.  

Anyway!  Since being in Myrtle Beach, I have joined a yoga studio very close to our apartment (door-to-door is about a 3 minute walk).  My first yoga studio in Vancouver was called Sanga Yoga and boy, oh boy, did I love it!  When I met my favourite teacher there, Jacqui, she told me I looked like a 'Julie' because I looked kind (compliments will get you everywhere!).  It was a small studio in Dunbar that was pretty grungy - it was very hippie and I felt pretty at home (my inner hippie came out!).  They always had something to think about during class - something to mull over.  Sometimes it was hokey but sometimes it was something I needed to hear so I beared the hokey to get to the 'profound'.  They closed and I was pretty bummed out.  My good friend, Carey, started working at YYoga and gave me some free passes to try it out.  I have to say I was pretty intimidated to go from a hippie, grungy studio to a fancy-pants studio like YYoga where all the women wore lululemon [who am I kidding?  I am one of them ... In my defence, lulu makes (made?) some very smart clothing where you would think 'huh, I never would've thought of that detail but it may have changed my life for the better (cuffins.  Cuffins made morning runs in the winter infinitely better)].  And it was super different - YYoga was very spa-like and mainstream.  There was no 'ohm' at the end of class.  And there wasn't really a 'message' from the class which I missed.  I didn't really have a problem with the switch - it was nice to go to such beautiful studios and it felt a bit more 'me' (what can I say?  I like creature comforts!  But there was much more a sense of community at Sanga).  The yoga studio here is nicer and not as grungy as Sanga because it's in a new building - the furnishings are shabby and it's nowhere near as nice YYoga!  They also advertise for some weird things... Having your aura read (no thanks!), ear acupuncture (again, not for me!), kirtan and gong meditation (wait...what?!) - all things that make me go 'huh?!  I'm only here for the stretching!'.  They have a boutique and bring in homemade food from local people that they sell.  I would say it's pretty hippy!  But I found a teacher that I like so I try to make it out to her class.  Hot flow, regular flow, and...story time yoga on Tuesday!  

Story time yoga sounds a bit funny.  But I love it.  It is a 'restorative' yoga so it's me and a bunch of old people.  Poses last a long time.  10 minutes each?  Possibly more.  Time gets away from me in that class.  The poses are different too - they never hurt and you use a ton of props to you're not pushing yourself (okay, I always fail on not pushing myself).  And my favourite teacher, Pam, reads us a story.  It is so nice.  I wear comfy clothes - a big soft sweater and my compression socks plus yoga gear (it is so slow that I realized I was too cold in just a tank top after the first class).  I almost fell asleep today.  So much so that I couldn't figure out where I was for a few moments when I came to for the next pose.  It feels like a big nap time.  And it gives me something to think about.  Sometimes, it is too hippy for my taste but sometimes it is just what I need to hear.  Pam finished class today by saying something to the effect of 'you can't control other people, you can only control your reaction to them and it is best to choose to react with compassion' - something I have heard many times before but something I really needed to hear today.  So I take the hokey to get the things I need a gentle reminder about.

And, dare I say, story time yoga makes Tuesdays slightly more bearable.  It is the second best part of the day (Mindy is always #1).

(Adding to my Terrible Tuesday justification: I sliced my finger while cutting carrots, I had some chicken explode in the microwave, I got some glass stuck in my foot, and I set off the smoke alarm.  *shakes fist at sky* TUESDAY!!!!!!)

Valentine's Day in Chapel Hill

This Valentine's Day was the best!  Well, every Valentine's Day with PJ is the best but this one was exceptionally great.  

In Vancouver, we would normally go out for Valentine's Dinner to the Fish House in Stanley Park.  This was due to PJ not making dinner reservations very far in advance on our first Valentine's Day (the planner in me shudders - I booked his birthday dinner months in advance!) and the Fish House was one of the few places left with availability (I had wondered why we went out for dinner was so late!).  That, coupled with the fact that he could make reservations online, made the Fish House our go-to Valentine's Day dinner spot.  Well, seeing as our annual trip to the Fish House came a little early this year (with 40 of our nearest and dearests - get it?!  I'm talking about our wedding!) and it would've been a long commute, we did something a little different.

I really wanted to get out of town and go to a big city.  We really liked the Raleigh/Durham area when we were there for the Canucks game so that settled it.  PJ found an amazing hotel and I had been counting down the days until we could leave!  

I woke up in the morning and got to work on bringing a bit of Vancouver to PJ.  You know what that means - Dutch baby time!  Judy gave me the recipe (I guess I can get the family secrets now that I'm family!) and while it wasn't as good as the ones she normally makes, I was pretty happy with my first attempt:

(Bryan, you should really try this next time - it is a giant Yorkshire pudding.  It's what dreams are made of, I promise).

Now for his gift.  PJ has really liked a college football team since we've been down here: The South Carolina Gamecocks.  It upsets me to even write it out.  He giggles like a little boy when he talks about them or says 'Go Cocks!!!!' (I am so sorry on his behalf).  And I think the word 'obsessed' comes to mind when I think about the people down here and their Gamecocks (I'm sorry again).  The former controller at the office just has a license plate that says 'COCKS' on it - I think PJ's respect for him grew about tenfold when I pointed that out.  I also couldn't figure out why an older gentleman at the office had 'Sandstorm' as his ringtone...until someone told me it's the song that the Gamecocks played while they ran onto the field.  When we were in Charleston, PJ forgot to bring a hat (convenient) and needed to buy on so as not to get a sunburn.  He got a Gamecocks hat.  Again, I am sorry.  He was pretty happy with it.

So for my gift, I decided I would get him a Gamecocks shirt.  He wanted one every time we were at the store.  I figured my gift was mainly giving my 'blessing' to wear said shirt.  A few days before Valentine's Day, he asked me if I got his gift from Target - that is the kind of high-end establishment that sells Gamecocks memorabilia (side note: I remember him telling me on our first date that he found Italian clothes and shoes were a better quality and he was buying more of them - I thought he was too fancy for me... I no longer think that!).  Unfortunately, the shirt was too tight so he couldn't wear it right away (not on purpose, I am not that smart!).

After PJ had his breakfast and opened his present, we headed off on the road!  So you know what that entails: a podcast (him) and a nap (me).  We ate breakfast late so we didn't go to Five Guys for lunch.  We got to Durham and headed to Nordstrom to go to their Bistro.  It tasted just like the Seattle bistro that I often go to with my aunt; I am loving anything that reminds me of home.  We shopped around for a bit (the Microsoft store still does not have a band for me!) and headed to the hotel.

Wow.  That hotel.  Just wow.  It may have been the nicest place that I ever stayed.  It is called the Carolina inn and is owned by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (not my photo - mine didn't turn out as well!).

The inside was wonderful.  So tastefully decorated (with a lot of UNC blue - once I found out what that was, the colour scheme made a lot more sense!).  It was just incredibly comfortable and welcoming.  Our room was so cute - I could've lived there.  Everything was in dark wood and it had a beautiful armoir.  I found a picture online of what it sort of looked like (minus the armoire):

Up to this point, I haven't mentioned that it was cold.  It was FREEZING.  I didn't want to leave again but PJ had made dinner reservations so off we went!  But not before taking a peek at the room service menu!

We went to a cute little restaurant in Mebane (a suburb) - it was about 25 minutes from the hotel.  I got a carrot and ginger soup to start while PJ got a chef's salad - the soup heated me up!  For dinner, PJ got the shrimp and grits (the grits were much better than past ones I tried) and I got the beef tenderloin. It was very nice!  But... I had my heart set on something from the room service menu for dessert... And things worked in my favour!  It was windy!!!  With gusts up to 55 mph!  Those gusts knocked the power out before we finished and they had to close the restaurant!  So back to the hotel we went (encountering some fallen branches along the way!).

I had gotten some new pajamas that I was so excited to bust out: pink flannel with yellow ducks!  (They also say 'I love my PJ('s)' on the inner waistband - appropriate, right?).

There was nothing nicer than getting in from the blustering cold, changing into new flannels, and watching a movie/reading a book in bed. 

Except.  It got better.  The room service menu had cookies and milk!!!  We had to get that (I love cookies and milk...even if milk before bed tends to give me funny dreams!).  We also got a banana crunch cake with almond ice cream.  It was so good that we didn't even manage a picture before it was gone!

The cookies (mostly) made it for a photo!  Two lemon ones and a chocolate chip toffee - yum!!!  (You can see the remnants of the banana cake on pj's lap).  

The next morning I needed a Starbucks.  I guilted PJ into going with me which doesn't sound like that big of a deal but... -9 but felt like -17 with the windchill.  And he didn't have a coat... And I made us walk 10 minutes in the wrong direction before he realized.  Whoops.  I told him he could stay at the hotel when we walked past but he was a trooper.  He got a chai tea latte to warm himself up while I got my caramel macchiato (side note - I don't need to ask for extra caramel down here.  America: 1; Canada: 542).

We got back to the hotel, packed, and headed back to the mall.  This time was for PJ so he could get some Cheesecake Factory!  

We headed back to MB after lunch.  It was a pretty great weekend.  But most of the ones we get to spend together are!  It was a pretty memorable first Valentine's Day as the newest McKnight's!  Next year?  Fish House!