Grits in the City - discounts and faves
Hope you enjoy all these as much as I do!
I found this old post sitting in my drafts the other day – and it was pretty appropriate for last night and all the wake ups that came with it. Sharing now as it still rings true regardless of the age of your little one…
The pace of New York City is pretty much two speeds – on or off. When you’re fully connected into the pulse of the city, the fast pace can be energizing. It’s go, go, go – from wake up until that moment where your head meets the pillow. It’s the reason why locals can easily keep up with their tourist guests without blinking an eye, happily traipsing across boroughs and not tire.
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There are some places in the city that feel like old friends. Where I find myself walking there without even thinking about addresses and where there’s not even a need to take a peek at their menu. This is definitely the case for Cafe Lalo. [Read more…]
It’s funny how having a son has made me think more about things a touch retro that I’ve always loved that I want him to know about too. Like how important I’ve decided the art of cursive is. I absolutely love it, and it makes me sad he may never be taught how to do it in school. Or how it pains me that he will never know the era of handwritten letters, an art that seems to have all but disappeared. With all of us so inseparable from our phones, I’ll admit I sometimes have thought this about watches – until now!
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I’d always wanted to check out the James Beard House. A friend of ours photographs there often and I’d heard so many great things about their dinners. We ended up getting seats to attend their February 1st dinner with Tory McPhail celebrating Miss Ella of New Orleans’ Commander’s Palace. We’ve been saying a trip to eat our way through New Orleans has to happen at some point, so we figured this was New Orleans coming to us!
I never thought I wanted to live in a big city. Come to think of it, I never gave much thought to where I’d even want to live after college. Not that it wasn’t important, but because I never thought of just how many options. My senior year of college I was much more focused on types of jobs than cities. Anything other than Southern cities like Nashville, Birmingham and Atlanta never even crossed my mind.
My unexpected journey has been pretty amazing. Along the way, I’ve had the chance to live in Madrid, Miami, Washington DC and New York City. Not bad for a girl who never planned on leaving the south, right? I always knew though that as much as I love it, living in Manhattan wasn’t something I wanted to do once we started a family. Enter Q!
Valentine’s Day has always been a secondary holiday for T and I. Our first date six years ago was several days after Valentine’s, so that’s always been more important to us. We even celebrated it on the early side this year, taking advantage of his mom being in town to watch little Q. More to come on that in a separate post! In fact, like last year, I again found myself spending the time around the holiday at a watch event for The Bachelor – with last night’s involving some BBQ and the show at Brother Jimmy’s.
As I feel like will be the theme throughout the course of the year, today had me thinking though about the holiday in a different light. This morning when I fed Q it was so dark I could barely make out his little face. I didn’t get to see him yesterday, with him already being asleep by the time I made my way home last night. This morning I was thinking about love – how over the course of life, we learn about so many types of love. And I thought about how happy it makes me that he will be surrounded and know much love and understand the meaning of that word on this day, and on every day.
As I was sitting on today’s delayed train, I began going through my email and I came across one from Dr. Jimmy Abraham who I was lucky enough to be a Roadrunner (Mississippi State University student recruiter) under. He has a way of sending notes that make you think about the right thing at just the right time. He shared this story he’d also shared probably 18 years ago in our class. It made me smile. I hope that some day Q has the perspective of “Little Chad” in this story. [Read more…]
I can’t believe I’m here. How are we already at the end of January? Back in October, I thought Q’s due date would never arrive. Similarly I think I spent most days feeling like the end of these days would never arrive as well, but it snuck up on me somehow. Days turned to weeks… weeks turned to months, and here we are. And I have to admit, I am not ready. I know some moms reach the point where they are, but I’m not sure I ever could fully be.
I’ve spent most days these past several months figuring out a balance. Some days, I’ve been greedy and kept him home and to myself. I’ve been working to introduce him to music – both a mix of our favorites and children’s songs. Sometimes that was by my playing playlists on Spotify and other times by me serenading him. I think I thought my karaoke days were over once I had a child, but I was mistaken. Little did I know I would be giving concerts day after day for an enthralled audience of one. Unlike my karaoke outings where you never knew what to expect from an audience, I almost always know how to make Q smile. Can’t complain there. We met up with my new mom group mommies for mommy and me yoga and for music class, both of which I think were as much for Q as they were for me. [Read more…]
I’d been curious about Black Barn for quite some time. Bordering Madison Square Park, I always noticed it during the day off to the corner. It just had that look like it would be our style. You know how sometimes you can tell that from the facade of an establishment? It totally had that in it’s favor without my even looking up reviews or menus online. T let me choose a bottle of wine and I went with a dry white from Stellenbosch, South Africa. Made me think of my wonderful trip to the region back in 2012. [Read more…]
I’m taking a bit of a different approach and I’m making three overarching themes my “resolutions” for the year. Most of what I really want to accomplish this year lines up with these three, so I’m hoping to draw some inspiration from them throughout these next 365 days. [Read more…]