The sun, the sand, and a whole lot of good times

--This will be a long blog…be prepared—
Last Thursday afternoon, KW and I were chompin’ at the bits. In fact, Krystle barreled herself at my car as I drove up to pick her up. To say we were ready to get out of Chiefland and Trenton for the weekend would be an understatement.
Blue Bessie (my car) seemed to drive herself up to the panhandle. “She” knows the way very well. Since 2007, I have been going up there at least 3 times a year. Carrabelle has become one of my favorite places to visit. It’s slow pace, it has beautiful beaches, and you couldn’t find sweeter more interesting people. If any of you that read my blog haven’t been through that area, you’re really missing out.
Anyways, as I may have previously mentioned, KW and I had been set to go in March but plans changed. So, we’d decided to push it off until the end of April. The Riverfront Festival was going to be that weekend, so it worked out nicely.
Before we left, I sent KW the Rules for the weekend. I will give y’all a shortened version.

Rules for girl’s weekend

1. This weekend will be full of laughing, having fun, walking on the beach, exploring the towns, shopping, and eating plenty of good food (God help my waistline…bring on the moo-moos!)
2. We will take time to relax and possibly sleep late, if there are no waterfalls behind our wall at 7 a.m.
3. We won’t think about the future (i.e. work, moving, college, etc)…we’ll just live in the here and now this weekend.
4. I will not lose my underwear at the inn…again.

The 2 a.m. rules

1. There will be no butt dialing our mom’s at 2 a.m.
2. There will be no swimming in our underwear…again.
3. And there will be no texting guys to ask them to come and cuddle (shameful, plum shameful).
But other than that…have a great time! (props to whoever caught that this line was from “The Shag” movie)
**rules are subject to change**

The Franklin Inn, where we always stay

So, we drove into town on Thursday night. I came awful close to crawling out of my car and kissing the ground once we got there. Three full days of fun. When we got into our room, we found that the visitor before us had went fishing and put his catches of the day in our refrigerator,…the fish weren’t there, but their odor remained. Quite a stinky find at 8 p.m., I can tell you.
Our first night there, we just drove around town and visited the beach. The next day, we ran around and met with some of our friends in town before trucking off to Port St. Joe. It was really nice seeing everyone. Now, we’d never been to Port St. Joe, so we wanted to do some exploring. We ate at this little place, Joe Mama’s pizza.

The name is funny, but doesn’t do the place justice. The pizza was delicious! If ever you are in the area, try it, you will definitely enjoy it. KW and I had decided that we were going to try to eat at different places this weekend. And I vowed to myself to blog about them and try to drum up some business for them, if ever any of my blog followers should be in the area. All the places that we did eat at (which I will mention them below) were great…but I would like to put here that I was a bit nauseous all weekend…not due to the food, maybe it was because of all of the riding.
After lunch, we went into all the little stores and shopped around. Port St. Joe is a neat little town worth visiting.

Then we went back to Carrabelle and walked on the beach, before meeting my friend Nina for dinner. We ate at Marker 30. I don’t have a picture of this place, but the food was good….well, truth be known, I could only stomach a grilled cheese at that point, so maybe I’m not the one you should ask. BUT we did find out where to pay at. After making ourselves look a bit dumb, we found that you actually step into the kitchen area to pay. Who’d have thunk it?

The Riverfront Festival's sand sculpture

On Saturday, we went to the Riverfront festival early that morning, then, we rode around Apalachicola and St. George Island. Both towns are beautiful. We ate lunch at Tamara’s Café in Apalach. Then, that night we had dinner at “Chef Eddie’s Magnolia Café.”

I, the foodie that I’m becoming, would like to talk about this for a minute. The food was EXCELLENT. The salad was really good, with Chef Eddie’s special dressing. I had the pork loin with raspberry sauce drizzled over it. To. Die. For. Krystle had the chicken picatta with shrimp. There was so much food on the plate. To be honest, I don’t think I even touched the side dish…I couldn’t get over the meat. It was wonderful. I would like to say here that even though I LOVE Carrabelle, love the beach, and love everything about the area, I do not eat seafood…in any form. I’ve tried to eat shrimp before, and I wound up spitting it out after it bobbled down my throat. I just can’t stomach it. Lol. Go figure. BUT, I have heard that the seafood dishes at many of the places in Carrabelle, St. George Island, and Apalachicola are wonderful. Saturday night, we decided to go to Willie’s and listen to the band. I really enjoyed them. I believe the band’s name was “One of Many.” We met a couple of new people that were a blast to hang out with. I would just like to know though…how many people are named Michael/Mike in the town of Carrabelle? Lol. Something to ponder…

Sunday morning, we woke up far too early…again. We drove over to Apalach to take some more pictures (which will follow). We ate at Carolines and had the best pancakes ever (this may be due to the fact that this was the first meal that I had where I didn’t get nauseous directly after). Who would’ve thought to put white chocolate chips on them? Yummm…

I love taking pictures of the beautiful churches in Apalachicola.

And the boats

The St. George Island Lighthouse

It was hard to leave Carrabelle. Every time I leave, it makes me depressed for a few days. I always miss the people that we meet, the beautiful atmosphere, and the carefree attitudes that we have while we’re there. When we came home we had some big decisions to make, so that carefree attitude had to end…
But we did have a blast. And we ARE going back, as soon as we can :)

To finish this off…I better put the things I learned this weekend:

1. Not every jiffy store carries ginger ale. However, I have mapped out every one that does.
2. Some people believe themselves to be the next big philosopher after they’ve been drinking for a little while.
3. Apparently, according to a new friend, Acid is the only drug that’s not detectable by a drug test (wish you could’ve seen my face when she told me this). :)
4. The cleaning lady/front desk lady at the Franklin Inn is so sweet. And she needs a raise for having to clean out our nasty refrigerator.
5. Never to let KW “help” me measure the hem for her dress :) hooch :-P Love ya!..speaking of dresses…
6. Pillowcase dresses + wind= problem.
7. When you go into a restaurant, and don’t find anything that you want to eat, it’s fine to just walk out…lol

What I’ve been up to….

Ok, so y’all know how I love a vacation, right?? Well, I am FINALLY going to be able to go on vacation again next weekend. Yep, just as soon as the clock strikes 5 p.m. next Thursday afternoon, me and K-dubb are headin’ for the panhandle.

We had planned to go in the middle of March, but because one of our friends decided she needed to push her baby shower back a week, we had to push our vacation back to the 4^th weekend in April. Actually, this worked out good, because they’re having the Riverfront Festival. Yay :-)

This year has been crap, for lack of a better term. Sure, I have a lot to be thankful for, and I’m not overlooking that fact at all. It could’ve been a lot worse and through everything, we’ve gotten through, and God has been good to us. My mom has done very well so far during treatments (one more to go! Yay!), but truthfully, my stomach has been in knots since November. I’ve had other personal drama and I’ve had to make a lot of big decisions lately (some still pending). Do I go back to school? Do I try to just get into a career? What do I want to do when I grow up (lol)? Is it the right time to move out? It’s just been a lot on my plate. So, to say I’m DESPERATELY seeking some rest and relaxation on this trip would be an understatement. Plus, it’ll be really nice to be able to hang out with Krystle. It seems like we’ve been running around like crazy people here recently and haven’t had much time to hang out.

Because the anticipation of this trip has been killing me lately, I’ve tapped into my creative juices and have gotten inspired to sew again. In fact, I’ve been sewing up a storm lately.

--I realize I look like fido’s butt in these pictures. I’d been running around all day. And if I looked agitated/surprised in the pictures, it’s because my sister doesn’t believe in “One, two, three.” You’ll be standing there, adjusting the dress, and you see a flash. No warning…just snap….will add “teach Rheba how to take a picture” on my list of things to do--.

So…I’m not sure about this dress. I loved the fabric (it’s polka dots…I love me some polka dots!), but I actually made this dress to test the pattern out, before I made my Easter dress. I learned that I needed to take up about two inches off the sides. It was way too big through the stomach and hips. Plus, I didn’t really like the idea of a yoke after I made it. It just didn’t go together really smoothly. And maybe it’s just me…but it kind of ended up looking like a moo-moo. And….I don’t want to look like our crazy white van lady here in Trenton.

Here is my Easter dress. I used the same dress pattern, but completely reworked the top of the dress. I decided to do a few more pleats and put a band and straps instead of the yoke. I really liked this one. The bottom band is white eyelet material. Why did I choose navy and white, you ask? To match the Dooney purse I got for Christmas…lol. Super cute, it’s navy and white with sailboats all over it :)

I worried a little about this dress. I tend to like prints, bold colors, etc. I just didn’t want my butt to look like a billboard for the garden club. I actually liked the way this turned out. It’s fun, comfy, and colorful.

The zebra-stripe bug has bit me. I love it. So, I made this skirt by just using a straight a-line skirt that I already had, and used it as a pattern. I made a headband to match it.

I loved this fabric.

I was super excited about this dress. I thought that I was going to wear this while walking on the beach or something. In saying that, I will admit here that I made a mistake. I didn’t pre-wash this material. Big mistake. While I made it bigger on purpose, thinking that it would shrink…I didn’t take into consideration that the length of it would shrink. I have what is known as a G.B….Ghetto booty. The dress is super short (at least to me). So, I’m going to go over to the fabric store tonight and get some more red fabric to add a border to the bottom. I still really like it. I just have to alter it a bit :)

I can’t wait for vaction!!!

Is it ever ok to verbally abuse the Subway staff??

Seriously…I eat Subway practically every day for lunch. I order the same exact thing every day. I just call and say “Hey this is Aleta, I wanted to place my order.” That takes care of it….

HOWEVER, there is one worker there that it NEVER fails, anytime he answers my call, I’ll get there in like 10-15 minutes and he’s “forgotten to do it.” Seriously? How hard is it? WRITE IT DOWN. Now, believe you me, I understand when it’s busy. But it infuriates me to no end when I walk in there and there are 2 people in line, the place is fairly empty and he’s “forgotten.” It just ticks me off.

I will say that I’ve become a bit of a princess here lately (as painful as it is to admit). Typically when the above happens, there is annoyed sighing, eye rolling, and foot tapping (an maybe a death glare or two given) involved on my part. So maybe he does it to teach me a lesson of some sort (rolling my eyes as I write this). It would be in his best interest not to teach me too many lessons, lest I call the owner or just find somewhere else to eat.

Lately I have been trying to make the effort to exercise in the afternoons. I have also been trying to diet. Trying is the key word here. (I might add here that trying to follow the routine of your favorite author that has a personal trainer might not be such a good idea. A few weeks ago there was an incident that involved me, KW, BJ’s restaurant, and legs that would not bend). Here is something that I’ve figured out though…

Exercise makes me angry.

While endorphins are supposed to make people happy, I’m beginning to think they have the opposite effect on me. I don’t know if it’s just the events that take place while I’m outside exercising or what…but it is not good.

Scene 1:

I’m going on my 2- mile walk one afternoon. My phone rings. I answer it. It’s the State of Florida Insurance…they want to know if I’ll be a part of a special program. I tell them I’m not interested and that they really should talk to my mother, seeing as how I am on my mom’s insurance. I don’t want to have anything to do with making decisions that might affect my mom’s insurance bill. 5 minutes of arguing occur as I stand on the side of the road nearly shouting into my phone like a crazy person. Finally, the insurance people give up and call my mom. Argh….

Scene 2:

I am walking yet another afternoon when I notice a speeding black car coming at me. Not only does he dust me, but he drives like a bat out of hell down our 25 mph road. The car stops as I am waving my fist in the air at them. They turn around and dust me again. THEN, the jerks speed off down a side road, only to return minutes later, flying through the stop sign about taking out my uncle’s fence. As they roll past me again, I get their license plate number and call the sheriff’s office. Needless to say, I haven’t seen the hooligans back.

Scene 3:

After walking, doing crunches, doing squash the marshmallows (my name for it), push-ups, leg lifts, etc….I put on my jeans this morning. Can I tell a bit of difference? No. In fact, my butt looks bigger. Is this some kind of cruel irony? Is this God’s way of testing my patience? I might be getting “more firm,” but there sure isn’t less of me yet.