One Of Those Weeks

Good afternoon my dears.

Today, it's a cloudy 68 degrees, so I can indulge in a little respite and catch-up on my blog. I don't know about you, but as soon as the sun begins to shine, I'm outside, avoiding my inside responsibilities, and acting I'm on spring break!

So let's rewind to a few weekends ago...

Friday, March 17th

On St. Patrick's Day, we were going to go celebrate with avocado toast at the Cheesecake Factory, but it was busy, and life is too short to wait to be seated. So we went to Maggiano's instead. I had the chicken masala, with a request of adding peas.

When I dine out, I like to take mental notes of what we both order, and then try to recreate the recipes at home. So, at the market I googled "masala sauce" and realized it was a white wine sauce, considering we rarely, if ever drink, I felt odd spending so much time in the wine section looking for masala wine. Thankfully, we found it, and if you add a little olive oil, and flour it makes a delicious base for a carb loaded pasta dish.

Afterwards, we strolled around Crate and Barrel, to see what furniture selections they had to keep in mind for our new house.

Saturday, March 18th and Sunday, March 19th

We spent the weekend at our land. The weather was beautiful - not too hot, not too cold. I set up a campfire, and got to work collecting brush to burn.

We also got a special delivery, a 42" John Deere mower. I wish I'd taken a before and after, because I mowed the front 2 acres, and was quite content looking up at the Carolina blue sky, smelling the freshly cut lawn, and hearing the church bells in the distance.

Here's my hubby on the side 2 acres which overlooks our neighboring church and pastoral land.

Sunday 18th Evening

After a hard-working weekend on the land, we came home in time to get ready for our second appointment with our building advisor, who has been hard at work helping us make changes to the floorplan. We also found out, that she attended the same home church as Cory's cousin, Sam. It's a small world.

Wednesday, March 22nd

For date night we went to PF Chang's, and then to see Beauty and The Beast. Oh my lucky stars, it was fantastic. I especially loved the casting of Emma Watson, she's so delicate, and ladylike that I think there's few other actresses who could play the part.

Thursday, March 23rd

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I got an plumbing emergency message from my neighbor, who has a four-month-old baby, so I went over to help. I recommended a plumber, and helped plunge their sewery water, wishing I'd worn different shoes.

Anyway, she asked if she could come over to use our restroom, and it just happened to be, on the day I hadn't unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher yet, vacuumed, or fed the dogs breakfast, so our house was a chaotic mess. She couldn't wait to get out fast enough.

Then later that evening, I left my purse when I was out running errands, thankfully the manager recognized me, and my purse and came out to the car-park.

It was one of those days, and like my mum says "we all have them."

Friday, March 24th

We were outside all evening, working on the garden, the pool, and pool patio. So I made dinner al fresco. Fresh strawberries, and mini homemade pizzas, with Carolina BBQ sauce, cilantro, red onion, chicken, bacon bits, and mozzarella. They were a hit!

Saturday, March 25th

We had to go renew my license. Which I've already had to renew five times in the past five years, and it can't be done online. The reasoning is that I submitted an application to renew my green card this time last year, however, the USCIS is a year behind, so I had to get a 1 year renewal, and with each renewal requires a new license, as it expires when my green card expires.

Thankfully, I'm used to it, but I'm sure it would be frustrating to some green card holders - especially those who are elderly, or disabled, or don't live close by to a USCIS office like we do.

Afterwards, we had planned to have brunch, but we took a wrong turn and headed towards the city, we usually come into the city another way. But as they're doing construction work, we accidentally ended up in the BUS LANE. Oh my gosh, we kept driving, and driving and couldn't get out because there was concrete barriers on either side. We honestly thought "this is it", we're finally going to get stopped by the police.

But thankfully, the sky lit up, and a beam of sunshine led us the way out, and we took a deep sigh of relief. It all ended up okay though. Seeing as we were in the area we decided to have lunch at The Big Ben Pub, in Charlotte's trendy South End. Here's my hubby with a Cornish pasty, and a pint of Guinness.

I'm so thankful he's who I get to do life with!

Here's to hoping for better luck this week,

~ Kiki Nakita ~

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