take 1, take 2, take a few

T minus 2 hours til Thanksgiving break!!!

We were a little over eager to celebrate last night, so we treated ourselves to a delicious dinner at De Palma's. I consider myself quite the connoisseur of Athens restaurants, but it's one of the most popular and I'd never been before.

I know you're supposed to order pasta at Italian restaurants, but their chili-glaze salmon salad with artichokes sounded irresistible. My instincts were right, but Kaiti and Emma's baked penne looked pretty great too.

Afterwards we crossed the street to meet Jonathan, Taylor and Jake at Magnolia's where we sat and talked and reminisced. We talked about first kisses, spring breaks past and the days before we discovered hipstamatic pictures.

I hope you had a lovely evening too and survived the freezing cold! It was 28 degrees when I got up this morning, and crawling out of my cozy bed was quite a feat.

Happy almost weekend!

a taste for thursdays

So we’ve started a little love affair with Thursday evening excursions. I’ve never been one to stay up late on school nights, but this year none of my roommates have big Friday morning responsibilities. I have my Jane Austen class at 10 a.m., but I think of that more as a joy than an obligation ;)

With feelings of freedom on Thursdays, we’ve started meeting Jonathan and his roommates at Normal Bar, going out for Mexican and margaritas, trying out townie spots and that sort of thing.

After a delicious (and cheap!) small group dinner at Cali ‘n Titos last night, Kaiti, Sarah Beth and I decided to continue our new tradition. We invented our own drinks, inspired by Normal Bar’s citrus concoctions, and squeezed our share of grapefruit and lemonade. After sipping our creations and munching on Sarah Beth’s oatmeal cookie dough, we headed to Blue Sky .

When we realized cookie dough only whet our appetite for nighttime snacking, we moved to Transmet where we got the bartender to play Emily’s music over the speakers! They’re starting a weekend concert series, and if our not so subtle hint was successful, maybe we’ll watch the real her there sometime soon... at the least we found her a few new fans!

fall fever

Last night my roomies and I were in the mood for hipster bars, so after sampling pimento cheese and pepper jelly at Trappeze we settled ourselves down at Little Kings. The band was loud and whiney, but we quickly moved to the porch with a cup full of gummy bears and chatted til midnight. (Don’t you love it when bars serve snacks besides peanuts and cheezits?)

I’m not sure what spurred our indie bar excursion… maybe the chilly, grey weather? I’m LOVING the cool outside, but it does kind of make me want to paint my nails dark red and pull on some skinny jeans.

I hope you’re having a finally chilly Friday too! After work mine will include a cozy down comforter and a book. I’m finishing The Italian by Ann Radcliff for class, but I would read it just for pleasure any day. If you don’t mind a touch of terror and mystery, I highly recommend it.

remember when bedtime was 8:30?

I've been studying in the library ALL day today. I went in when it was light outside and left long after dark. But after spending my weekend doing nothing but fun things, I deserved it.

At least I had a very nice and no longer bearded Jonathan to drive me home and sit with me while I ate Barbs around 10 ;)

I'm too tired to write more, but here are some pictures from our Thursday evening excursion to Treppenhaus , a new German beer bar downtown.

Also, I don't want to be one of those people who acts like they are the only one with a lot to do. My roommates are working really hard too!

oh boy i know that you like what you see

Okay, I know this blog has never been used for celebrity gossip, but that's not what this is...

In case you didn't recognize her bling and her bump, this is Beyonce (the goddess of our house) pregnant. At last.

At the Hampton house, Beyonce is our dance party inspiration, our distraction during exams, our studying soundtrack, our music video motivator - we even named our puppy Sasha fierce. We love her! (and might be a little bit obsessed?) Needless to say, squeals of delight resounded from our living room when she announced little B at the VMA's.

can we take a breather?

This was the lazy Athens weekend I've been longing for. Homecomings, first days of school and birthday celebrations are wonderful, but I was ready for a slow, sunny Saturday and no obligations.

On Friday evening Brit and I went to Terrapin with a bunch of friends, and I got in free! for having a birthday this week. I know, I said the birthday celebrations were over, but this was the final little perk.

Then we ate dinner with Sadie, Zelda and Magali at White Tiger and sat and talked for hours. I had a seared tofu salad (above). At the wee hour of 9 p.m. Brit and I drove home, exhausted, and fell asleep watching Father of the Bride. (Actually we fell asleep during the opening credits, but would we sound a little cooler if we stayed up for a whole movie?)

I slept past 10 on Saturday (the latest I've slept since May!), ate breakfast with Jonathan at Big City, read, ran, relaxed and had dinner with Brit, Tatum and Anna. We made sangria with the ingredients my mama brought, and it was wonderful! It would have been even better if we'd let it sit over night, but we'll plan better next time... at least it looked pretty ;)

I started my Sunday with church and Five Star Day brunch, squeezed some studying in the middle and finished it off on a nighttime drive with Jonathan. I hope your weekend was relaxing and filled with friends too!

the birthday that never ends

As if I haven't had enough birthday celebrations already...

my parents came in town with another little present (the Grit cookbook!) and coconut cupcakes from my Grandma.

We went to the Oak house where Tyler made us pre-dinner martinis in Mason jars.

(That’s the townie Athens way to drink them, in case you were wondering… or the way to drink them when you can’t afford martini glasses).

My dad especially enjoyed them, because he and Tyler share a love for gin and lemon zest.

Afterwards we met Matt and Carol at Le Dolce Vita for dinner. We ordered red wine, bruschetta, caprese salad and a platter of olives, meats and cheese. By the time my main course came I was already stuffed, but I still managed to down a large helping of pasta ;)

I love my family so much, and I can't even explain how thankful I am for them. Saying goodbye was sad, but hopefully I’ll go home and visit soon... I better after getting so many birthday surprises delivered to my door!

3 a.m. yoga

Last night I woke up at 3 in the morning in excruciating pain. Okay, maybe excruciating is a little strong, but I'm a baby about stubbing my toe so it felt like that to me. My stomach hurt so badly that I crawled, bleary-eyed into Brit's room and curled up in fetal position on her floor. She woke up Kaiti who pulled her car around in case we needed to go to the emergency room.

Minus the gory details, I had a really bad case of food poisoning, and while it was far from funny lying face down on the hardwood floor - we were dying laughing about it today.

Brit has a terrible fear of 3:33 a.m. (the witching hour in scary movies), and her first thought was that I was possessed.

Kaiti was trying to teach me “child’s pose” – a more effective yoga move for pain relief.

All I could mumble the whole time was that I wanted running shorts… I guess I didn’t want to wear pj’s to the ER??

The moral of this story is that they are WONDERFUL friends, and there's a reason they're going to nursing and PA school. They jumped out of bed, stayed totally calm and gave me Ginger ale to make everything better ;)

This is not my bed, but doesn't it look so comfy to crawl back into?

finally twenty one

I woke up Saturday to a mocha chocolate cake on my doorstep. My sweet mom had ordered it from a bakery in Athens.

She showed up a few hours later with a pitcher, a set of 8 beautiful glasses, and ample ingredients to make sangria (including a lemon or orange in every glass). She is the most thoughtful gift-giver ever! I’ve learned never to ask for anything, because her presents are always better than what I come up with.

My roomies and I spent the day baking and getting ready for our party. We ate Earthfare takeout for dinner and made blackberry mint mojitos. The sugary mint mixture wasn’t fun to clean, but the drinks were so pretty that out Mason jar presentation was worth it.

After dinner we threw a birthday/ everybody’s back party, and it was perfect! Really though, it was everything I ever wanted for my 21^st birthday. Everyone I missed this summer was there, and my brother even came from Atlanta.

In true Hampton House fashion, my roommates made me a HUGE sign to wear around my neck with 21 things I had to do by the end of the night. (I did all but 2... and ended up with a few bonuses) At midnight we went downtown, talked on the deck at Bluesky , attempted to steal pool balls from Magnolia's, danced at 9d’s Bar and finished the night at a hot dog stand.

My favorite part of the weekend though was Mama's Boy on Sunday morning. We sat on the back porch and ordered champagne strawberry lemonades. I'm so happy to be back with my roommates and back in the land of cheese grits, butter, biscuits and $4 meals!

They are the best friends ever and did so much to make my birthday special. They even cleaned the whole house afterwards (and accidentally stole a lot of balloons from Kroger).

ready for a long post?

This weekend started out on a slightly sad note, because I had to say goodbye to Kylie. We both came to New York ready to make professional connections and focus on internships, but neither of us expected to find such a close friend. Even though she’s about to move to France for a year (I know, so fun!), I'm sure we’ll keep in touch. And since she goes to Georgetown, I’ll get to see here when I visit Matt.

We had our farewell over a slice of pizza in Columbus Circle. Then we walked to Grom for real Italian gelato – I mean the good stuff, with an Italian menu and employees with accents.

After we said goodbye, Kaiti and SB showed up on my doorstep! Actually they showed up down the street, and we literally ran a block to hug each other – I was barefoot, suitcases were flying, people were staring and I was too giddy to care.

That night we wandered through the West Village and talked non-stop over frozen yogurt and red wine. We got up early the next day to pack in as much as we could – and that’s exactly what we did.

We started our day with brunch at Bubby’s . Then we walked through Soho in search of Bethany Frankel or the Kardashians. No celebrity sightings to report, but we did see lots of expensive price tags so we headed to Brooklyn stores that were more up our alley.

Of course I took them to 10 ft Single , but after this weekend I have a new favorite store - Made . If you sifted through all the other vintage stores, found only the best items and arranged them in a little boutique you would have Made. Reusable canvas shopping bags made it all the more charming.

We were starving after walking and shopping, so we stopped by the Brooklyn Farmer's Market for a snack. I've always gone in the morning, but late afternoon is definitely the way to go. Some booths were closed, but we got free tastings, discounted prices and a spot at a picnic table to eat our hot and spicy Mexican tacos.

(Yep, those are oysters above – this is a farmer’s market like no other – with frozen bananas dipped in chocolate, bloody mary’s with an okra garnish, homemade mustard and so much more)

That night we ate half-off dinner on Bleeker Street , thanks to Kaiti’s i-Phone, stopped by Grom for dessert and went out to The Jane Hotel . We seriously (I mean seriously to the point of lifting the lid off a cookie jar and reaching my hand in) considered Magnolia Bakery post-Grom, but ran out before the cupcakes got us.

On Sunday we had BBC’s with B and J, wandered through Central Park, walked the Highline (below) and squeezed in Magnolia right before Kaiti and SB left for their flight.

I love SB and Kaiti more than I can say, and it made my week to give them tight hugs again and get excited for our senior year. (We already have our whole first week planned.)

All of our friends have been so scattered this summer. We’ve learned a lot from our various countries, jobs and camps, but we all three missed each other more than we ever expected to. We are so blessed to have the most wonderful friends and life in Athens, and I’m excited to get back to it very soon!

a slice of home

Guess which of these people just called to say they're coming to visit on Friday...

the ones to my right and my left!

New York has been wonderful, but I miss my friends and family and I'm ready to be back in Athens. Since I couldn't get there fast enough, Kaiti and SB are bringing a little taste of the South to me!

And they'll wipe that homesick look off my face faster than you can say ba-jangles.

don't sweat it, it's $9

My weekend with Em was too short, but wonderful. We didn’t do a lot of touristy things, because we were more interested in catching up and staying cool (it was a whopping 104° here). Instead, I took her to my favorite spots and showed her a little of what it’s like to be a New Yorker.

We went to a lot of places I’ve mentioned before - Alice’s Tea Cup , 10-ft Single , the Union Square Market , Magnolia Bakery , Five Leaves – and a few you’ve probably heard of but I haven’t gushed over enough yet.

First, Anthropologie – Okay I have gushed over Anthropologie enough, if not on this blog than in my daily life, but I’ll never stop singing its praise because…. I found a $9 dress there this weekend!! No, I didn’t forget a zero. I really found a dress on sale for $9, and it used to be $130.

Second, Shake Shack – On Friday night, Em and I met our friend Jeff at Shake Shack . It’s a burger shack in Washington Square Park that you must, MUST visit next time you’re in New York. The burgers, Shack sauce, cheese fries and shakes are amazing. And Michelle Obama was just spotted at the new one in D.C., so you’ll be in good company.

Third, Momofuku Milk Bar – I’ve heard about the Milk Bar all summer, and I've been very intrigued (mainly because I like saying the name), but I hadn't tried it until this weekend. They serve only milk products – milk and cookies, milkshakes, yogurt and granola, etc. It was a little over priced for moderate portions, but completely worth it in this weather. I ordered lemon raspberry soft-serve ice cream and - with some speedy ice cream scarfing skills - managed to down it before the heat could.

I love Emie more than words can say. She knows me so well, and I can tell her anything. She likes to dream about things with me - like opening up a children's bookstore/bakery when we grow up or writing a book together. We've spent nights crying over boys in stairwells, hours in the car singing Beyonce and eaten countless meals at Mama's Boy and the Grit. In Athens we give sleepy hugs every morning when we first wake up and at night right before bed.

As wonderfully fun and colorful as those pictures look, my favorite part of the weekend was just snuggling up on the couch and talking to Em.