Pumpkin and Spice

If you're like, well... everyone else everywhere, you're feeling the pinch of the economy. (If you're not, send me a job application for where ever it is you work!) While I know better days are on the horizon, I'm impatient and don't like postponing fun "splurge" activities like fabulous vacations. I love vacations, but we just don't have the funds right now to visit luxurious and exotic locales. As a result, I'm becoming a master (mistress?) of the mini-vacay.

I define a "mini-vacay" as a short (ususally weekend or 3-day weekend), local-ish (driving distance), vacation. Cheaper than a "real" vacation, but we still get the change of atmosphere and pace that make vacations so refreshing. Recently, Kyle and I took a long weekend to enjoy St. Petersburg, FL.

Today was an early, early morning- at least for me, especially after a late night at work. The alarm went off at 6a, after a mere five hours after I went to bed, but Sissy and I had big plans for the day, so I peeled myself out of bed to get ready.

Saturday night, after getting off work, I "finalized" our Sundance schedule for today. Since all the films today were sold out, we were going to have to waitlist for tickets. There's no way to know how many waitlist tickets will be available for any movie until minutes before showtime, we wanted to have serveral options available. I made a list with film names, the theatre they were playing at, the times we could get in waitlist lines, and the showtimes.

Okay, let's try this one more time! (This is a long one! It was a busy day...)

Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early... Haha! That was a little joke. I don't wake up "bright and early" unless its absolutely necessary. And it wasn't necessary on Saturday. We woke up about 8:45, which was early enough, got dressed and smeared ourselves with copious amounts of SPF 55. (Yeah, we're pasty.) Before we left, we stopped at the cafe to get breakfast. I tried to get something healthy and filling (I didn't want to be too hungry before lunchtime rolled around.) I wound up having a cup of coffee, scrambled eggs with yummy salsa, most of a biscuit and a cup of fresh pineapple. Kyle had the "breakfast skillet"- eggs, potatoes, cheese, veggies, sausage and more cheese. After our breakfasts, we hopped on the bus to Epcot.

Last night I went out to dinner at Seasons 52 with a group of fellow food bloggers- Jenn from Eat, Live, Run (whom I also go to school with), Caitlin from See Bride Run, Meghann from The Inner Workings of a College Graduate and Gina from Fitnessista. Jenn, Caitlin, Meghan and I all live in the Central Florida area, and Gina was in town from Georgia with a friend, her aunt and her cousin (who also joined us).

I was super-excited about the get-together, because I couldn't wait to meet Gina, Caitlin and Meghann. When you read people's blogs, you really get a feeling of knowing them, even though you've never actually met, so meeting them was such a great experience.
Here we are, left to right- Me, Meghann, Jenn, Caitlin and Gina. (You will notice that I am so freaking pale I look like I've been photoshopped in the picture. This is no trick of the light, friends; I really am that white.)

As minor as we all thought Tropical Storm Fay would be, she certainly proved to be a pain in the butt. It started raining Monday night, and then continued to rain until Friday. Daily rain isn't that unusual here in the summer, but it generally comes at about 4pm and lasts about half an hour, and then it's all sunshine again. This was all day, all night relentless rain. To illustrate, here's a picture of our parking lot from this week. You'll note that the water is high enough that you can't see the curb in some areas. (That little yellow car in the background is mine!)

As a result of the rain and flooding, we've been a little stir crazy. Frankly both Kyle and I were happy when the flooded roads cleared and we were able to go back to work. So, Friday night, we decided we'd celebrate that the rain had (mostly) stopped. We went to our favorite wine shop, WineStyles with a friend for the wine tasting. It's a great little shop- it's a franchise, and is owned by a nice couple that are passionate about good wine. If you're intimidated by wines and wine shopping, this is a perfect shop- all the wines are organized by "style" (ie. bold, mellow, fruity, &c) and every single wine has a card next to it that tells you what flavors it has, if its dry or sweet, what kind of food it's best with. And if that isn't enough help, the owners and employees are very friendly and knowledgeable, and don't mind helping you find the right wine. (Oh, and most of the wines are priced under $25, which is a bonus!) I'd highly recommend taking a look at the website to see if there's a franchise in your area.

We tasted some wines, and picked up our wines of the month, then headed over to the World Beat Cafe, a local tapas restaurant. Recently, they've been offering an all-you-can-eat tapas menu for only $25 per person. They have a special menu for the offer, with about 20 selections, plus the offer includes a bottle of wine, pitcher of sangria or three cocktails per person. (I had a chardonnay, but didn't finish it- we corked it and brought it home.)