Carolyn Creative

Since Kevin and I don’t know where we’re going in the Triad, we’ve decided to make our way through “the best” stuff, according to the News-Record and YES weekly.  And hopefully find other groovy gems along the way.

This Saturday, we were celebrating Kevin’s official job offer from Polo (and impending discount which will probably lead to a decreasing bank account) so we checked out Skippy’s in downtown Winston Salem for their legendary hot dogs.  My husband is a man of simple food needs.  Sandwiches, hot dogs, and tacos.  These things make him happy.

The dogs were solid.  Let me share most magical thing about Skippy’s — the pretzel roll.  It provides the perfect buttery and slightly sweet complement to the dog.  Expectations met, we were delighted and pleased.  We even returned for extra pretzels for the ride home, but they were sold out!  Until next time, delish pretzel heaven …

Note: We learned that Skippy was actually a chubby three-legged dog who is no longer with us.  I can relate because I used to have a hamster named Scoopy, also no longer with us.

We’re here!  We made it! We successfully transplanted ourselves to our Sunset Hills rental in Greensboro!  We’re … exhausted.

Although it is a relief to know that our belongings are now where they belong, there were a few surprises in our new home.  Let’s just say the landlady has a different idea of, ahem, clean.  Coming from me, who self-admittedly occasionally channels Pig Pen from Peanuts, that’s saying a lot!  She also left us a few presents.  Some furniture she thought might be helpful, dozens of lawn chotchkes, and my personal favorite — twenty plastic tropical birds pausing in mid-flight in the kitchen.  In case we don’t make it to Disney World, now we have the Tikki Room in our own home!

But snarkiness aside, we love the house and the neighborhood!  I’m trying to practice patience, taking on small projects at a time.  I’m pleased as punch that I have a little office now.  We have an ice-maker for the first time!  I’m sure that in no time, it will feel like home …

Miles isn't really pumped about painting.

Here is a new post from my Happiness Guru girlcrush, Gretchen Rubin, on Eight Ways to Tell Whether You’re Being Boring.  Some tips are pretty obvious; others, a bit more subtle.  Personally, I think drool is an excellent indicator of less than lively conversation.

That's fascinating. Wow.

When we found out I was pregnant, my thoughtful and thrifty sister quickly sent me an updated copy of Baby Bargains.  For those of you unfamiliar with this tome, it is a thorough and helpful review of all the baby products on the market.  And I mean all of them.  It can be a bit overwhelming for someone new to the baby world, perhaps, ahem, someone like me who was confused when the nurse guiding the hospital at the hospital kept referring to “coaches.”  I was really worried I didn’t have one until my husband pointed out that he, actually, would be the coach.  Back to Baby Bargains.

“Just start with one chapter,” my sister told me.  ”Like strollers.”

But the stroller chapter is fifty pages!  Ay yi yi.  Recently, NYT writer Lynn Hall’s wrote an interesting article in Salon about increasing stroller hostility in Brooklyn. Man!  I can’t even pick out a stroller and now I have to worry about anti-stroller sentiment? Hopefully, the Queen City will be a friendlier place when the baby and I hit the streets in our sweet ride …

We had to escape.  My handsome husband and I had been cooped up in our condo for too long.  Hunched over computers, finishing each other’s sentences, worrying how we were going to handle the guest hosts for the month of December after Regis’s hip surgery.  I mean, Kelly is cute and all, but doesn’t everybody watch for Regis?  That guy is hilarious.

Every day of fun should begin with Chic-Fil-A minis.

We planned an adventure.  First stop: Dish it Out Pottery.  Accompanied by the smooth grooves of some eighties jams, Kevin and I nourished our artistic spirits in the sweet pottery studio in Eastover.  His object masterpiece?  A shark soap holder he affectionately named Chompy.  I painted a psychodelic turtle.  We enjoyed quite a bit of attention from the ladies working there, especially after the toddler and his mother left.  That kid wasn’t really serious about his craft.  You could tell.

He's not like the other turtles.

For lunch, we dined at a new gem in NoDa — the Crepe Cellar.  Since my priority was my banana and nutella crepe for dessert, I went light with French Onion Soup, while Kevin got down on the special — an Italian sausage and goat cheese crepe.  It was delicious and reminded me of Crepes on Cole in the Upper Haight.  Also that I’m not really sure how to properly eat crepes.

Next, we launched Mazda onto 1-77 North for a journey into the wild.  And by wild, I mean the Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville.  Sure, it’s supposed to be for kids.  Sure, we’re thirty-something.  But doesn’t everybody need to hang out with the animals every now and then?

I knew there was a drive-thru section and a feeding/petting zoo.  What I didn’t get was these concepts were one and the same at the Ranch.  At the ticket shed a woman handed Kevin and I two buckets of feed and pointed our car to an entrance, where an ostrich and a few goats were waiting with anticipation.

This is your dance space, this is my dance space.

Now.  I don’t know if it was a slow day at the Lazy 5 Ranch or what.  But these guys were all over us.  I am still slightly traumatized by the eager ostrich who stuck his head through my window, plunged his beak into the feed bowl on my lap, sending kibble all over my maternity jeans and in every possible crevice in the car. Or who can forget the llamas whose technique included standing in the middle of the road with vacant stares until we handed over the snacks.  We did enjoy the company of a rather peaceful giraffe with surprising neck mobility.  And who can say no to the pigs, who trotted alongside the car with tails wagging like little terriers.

All in all, it was a delightful day.  Good to unplug.  We returned home safely with our elegant objects d’arte, memories of animals in our hearts, but relief that the llamas were far, far away.

On my last trip to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and darling neicelets, I got the opportunity to listen to Jacque Cousteu’s son, Jean Michel, lecture on the current state of the oceans at the Baltimore Speaker Series.  It was very interesting.  We left the discussion inspired, and with tiny crushes on Jean-Michel, who was kind of a charmer.

Hungry?

During my last yoga teacher training, someone was always mentioning a new thing that we shouldn’t eat because we were destroying the world and after a while, it can get quite confusing.  Wait, we are eating salmon now, or not?  Jean-Michel brought up a very helpful tool for seafood eaters.  If you are unsure how to be a responsible consumer of seafood, you can check in with the Monterey Aquarium Seafood Watch and they have a helpful guide where you can look up your fave fish and get the scoop: “What to buy and why.”  Go fish!

On Friday night, Kevin and I went to the McColl Center to celebrate a decade of art and nurturing artists.  For those of you who don’t know the story, the McColl Center was built on the site of an abandoned church in uptown Charlotte.  In 1985, the church caught fire and stood abandoned for ten years until Bank of America bought it in 1995 and turned it into an artist’s colony.  There were crazy thunderstorms on Friday night; inside the stone building it felt a little medieval.  It was a little crowded and I was grateful I brought my own water bottle but wished I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The exhibit proudly showed off some of the accomplishments of their artists and we ventured upstairs to view the small studios of the artists in residency.  That was really interesting!  We saw their materials, works-in-progress and items and photos from which they draw inspiration.  It felt like stepping into somebody’s head.  Well, we were invited to step in, after all.

I’ve been thinking how nice it would be if everybody had a little corner of the world to be creative.  And you don’t have to be a sculptor, photographer, painter, or writer.  What if you had your own nook to make a scrapbook of panda pictures?  Or play solitaire on a big computer with no disturbance?  Maybe you could practice playing pool or magic tricks.  What would you do in your own private creative nook?

I am obsessed with Mad Men on AMC.  Not only for the scrupulous attention to details in the recreation of an advertising agency in the sixties, the not-so-shabby appearance of Jon Hamm’s Don Draper, or the visual treat of the fantastic shifts and coats worn by the show’s leading ladies.  As a copywriter, I love the scenes where the writers and artists brainstorm strategies to sell the latest products — from lipstick to Madison Square Garden.  It’s a creative way to look at history.  Apparently, I’m not alone — it just picked up an Emmy for best drama and is something white people like.

Last Sunday was a bloody one!  If you haven’t watched yet, let’s just say that the tractor from the new John Deere account and the copious glasses of champagne at Joan’s farewell party made for a surprising turn of events.  Eeek!

And if you haven’t visited the AMC site yet, there’s a fun application where you can make yourself a Mad Men character.  Check me out on the right!  (Sure, I’m not strictly business casual, but I couldn’t resist the purple polka dots.  I don’t mean to brag, but Don Draper appears to be eyeing my girdled figure.)

My friend, Fred Stutzman, recently developed a program which temporarily blocks a user’s access to the internet.  It’s called “Freedom,” and he developed it for people who can’t pause their web searching in order to focus on their work.  A user basically decides how much time he or she would like without the internet and presto, no more surfing.  So far, he’s offering the program for free, or donations only, and he estimates the number of downloaders as 10, 000.  (His wife, Chelcy, points out that being free is okay and all, but it doesn’t really support her hip hop lifestyle.)

When I read about it, I thought two things: a). Fred is way smarter than us and b). those people who can’t stop internet-ing have problems!  It’s funny that he named his application, “Freedom,” as if the idea of breaking ties with the internet is more liberating than the limitless information the web provides.

However, this week I’ve started taking my computer to Charlotte’s main library in order to leave the apartment and focus on my work.  When I set myself up in the cozy corner of the “Quiet Zone,” a window popped up on my computer, asking if I wanted to partake in the library’s complimentary wi-fi.  Dang!  On one hand, I was delighted.  On the other hand, being cut off from the internet for a few hours actually means I can get work done.  As a compromise, I try to dedicate fixed periods of time to writing (45 minutes) and then allow myself some browsing (10 minutes) as a reward.

Although we can’t imagine living without the internet now, it’s interesting that what once was an outlet and connection is now a major distraction.  Is our internet surfing a extension of the jumpiness of our brains?  Or have our attentions spans shrunk due to our constant access of information?  Are we out of control?

I just discovered this blog: 1000 Awesome Things.  I love it!  And I’d like to add:

#1001 When you walk out of a yoga class and you feel like you’re floating in a peace bubble.

and

#1002 When they give out free samples of Aunt Anne’s pretzels at the mall.