Sweet Friends and Tupelo Honey Cafe

We have found a new favorite restaurant in Greenville!  Tupelo Honey Cafe opened here about a month ago, and it has definitely been the most recent craze.  We had tried to go to the one in Knoxville back in the winter but it was packed and had too long of a wait for us since we were on the road from Nashville back to Greenville.  We kept thinking, "I know everyone raves about it, but surely it's not THAT good!"  We found out last week that it is worth every minute of the wait!

We decided to finally try it when my good friend Erin and I were planning a double date for us and our husbands.  Double dates were a common occurrence this time a year ago and before, since both couples were engaged.  Erin & I met and became close friends at Clemson and Adam & Rob met and became close friends at PC.  Erin put the bug in my ear a couple of summers ago to consider Rob (even though he didn't pay much attention to me until the end of the summer). ;)  After Rob and I had been dating about three months, we set up Adam & Erin on a blind date, and the rest is history as they say!

Erin and I always enjoy when we can catch up, and even more so now that they live in Clinton.  Part of the fun is in watching and hearing our husbands berate each other (in a loving way of course) for the first hour or so that they're together.  Erin and I just sit back and laugh at them, and they reply, "y'all married us!" to which we answer, "not together!"

Anyway, back to Tupelo Honey...they don't have a ton of seating in the restaurant so we had to wait 20-30 minutes to be seated.  Anthropologie is right around the corner so Erin and I looked around while Rob and Adam braved the impending storm.  We all ducked inside before the bottom dropped out.

Let me just say that the biscuits and honey won us over from the start!  So good I wish I could make them...well, that probably would mean the rapid decline of our health...we'll stick to just eating them when we visit Tupelo Honey.  Rob and Adam then launched into a discussion on how they can't taste differences in types or brands of honey.  Then Rob went off on his latest tirade of how "everything is about perception" and how people buy things just because of the brand name slapped on the side. (He sees this all the time in coffee sales- i.e. Starbucks even though there are much better coffees out there). I keep telling him he hasn't posted on our blog in a year and this should be his next "soapbox" that he posts.  Leave him some love here and maybe he'll be convinced. ;)

Ok, back to the meal.  The menu seemed endless...breakfast, lunch, and supper choices which just means we'll have to come back for the other two meals we missed.  We each settled on something different from the list of entrees: "Not Your Mama's Meatloaf", "Brian's Shrimp and Grits", "Nutty Fried Chicken", and "Sassy Garlic Crusted Char-Grilled Chicken".  Everything was amazing!  Needless to say, we'll be going back again, and if you don't live in Greenville it's worth traveling to if you're not too far away.

My friend Rachel told me that she'd found their recipe for sweet potato pancakes online, so I made those this weekend- AMAZING (and more filling than plain pancakes)!  So try the pancakes or just check out their website and drool!

Happy 4th of July!

I worked on a patriotic project last week to prepare for July 4th.  I'm hoping we can enjoy it in our backyard tomorrow night complete with good friends, sparklers, lightning bugs, corn hole, and homemade ice cream, but we'll have to wait and see if this rain stops.  If nothing else, at least we have a little more color in our backyard now thanks to a painted pallet.

This was a super cheap project:

• pallet: free (side of the road)
• red, white, & blue paint: free (leftover from previous projects)
• polyurethane: free (again leftover)
• star cutout: free (printed from google images)

Total: $0!!!

I decided not to make it look exactly like the American flag since that would take much longer.  Here are photos to document the process.

1. Find a pallet with slats close together.

2. We had blue spray paint so I covered up the rest of the pallet to keep it from being sprayed.

3. Pink, white, & blue??  The red paint I have has to be primed with this pepto-bismol pink!

4. Star stencil

5. Finished product: Stars & Stripes

I'd say it adds a little bit to our concrete backyard. :)

And...if you're looking for some interesting facts about tomorrow's holiday, check this out. 

A project and a find

Here's the project (a purse/coat rack):
We found the piece of wood in our neighborhood (someone else's trash) and I bought the different drawer pulls at Hobby Lobby.  Rob built the shelf a while back, but we just now got around to hanging them up in our empty space behind the front door.

And here's our find (an old upright piano):

We had been looking for a piano on Craigslist but couldn't find exactly what we were looking for or the right price.  I stumbled upon this one at the S.O.S. thrift store in Greenville.  (Have I mentioned that I'm a thrift store frequenter?) ;)  Anyway, the price tag said $75, and my bold husband convinced me to talk them down to $60, so we ended up with a HEAVY piano and a deep gouge in a section of our hardwood floors.  Does anyone know any DIY floor repair? ;)  Oh, and probably someone who can tune pianos?

Weekend in York

Last weekend Rob and I went to York.  While I was helping with a baby shower for a sweet college friend in Charlotte, Rob was being put to work.  He really doesn't expect anything less when he goes to York, but he doesn't seem to mind.  Daddy put him on the skidsteer (first time ever) to help with cutting and bagging oats.  I'm thankful for a husband who works so hard and is always up for anything new. He also got to experience picking blueberries for the first time!  We picked 2 gallons together in about an hour, so I'd say he's pretty good at it!  Needless to say, this week I've been using lots of blueberry recipes.  I froze most of them:

But I also made blueberry muffins and blueberry crisp (which is really this recipe- just substitute blueberries for the raspberries.)

One of the highlights of the weekend was seeing our cutie pie niece:

I love her funny faces. :)

And we got to celebrate Father's Day with my dad, Pawpaw, and brothers.  (Hard to believe that my brothers are dads now!)

Very thankful for a wonderful father who has pointed us to our perfect Heavenly Father through Jesus.

Homemade Ice Cream

I grew up with home-churned ice cream every summer, and I'm not talking pulling out the churn once a summer; it was more like every 2 or 3 weeks!  My dad says this is his "calcium", since he doesn't drink milk. :)  So, I thought I'd share my mom's homemade ice cream recipe since it's ice cream time of year.  First of all, if you don't have a churn, I recommend White Mountain.  They're pretty pricey, but it will last.  (We've tried the Wal-Mart churns before, but they break pretty quickly.)  Maybe put it on your wishlist for Christmas or birthday.

I made strawberry ice cream this weekend, but peach is probably my favorite. (The recipe for both is the same just substitute peaches for the strawberries).

Mix the following in a food processor or blender:

• 4-5 cups strawberries (preferably from the B-N-V)
• 1 quart half & half
• 1 can evaporated milk
• 2 cups sugar (I used a little less & it was fine)

(I also didn't have room in the food processor to mix all of this so I just mixed the sugar and strawberries first, then dumped into a bowl to mix the rest.)

Pour the mixture into the ice cream churn canister and add whole milk to the "fill line" or in our case, the churn isn't to be filled over half full.  Stir.

Let this mixture chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

Make sure you have rock salt and plenty of ice on hand.

Place the canister in the churn, and alternate ice and rock salt layers (make sure you have way more ice than rock salt.)

Lock the motor in place and plug it in (preferably outside since it makes lots of noise & the ice/salt mixture leaks as it melts).  It will only take 20-30 minutes before it's ready.

I didn't take any pictures of our ice cream when it was finished, because of course we were too busy eating it.  We had plenty leftover so we put the rest in a freezer container to save for later.  It's not as creamy when it's leftover but still oh so good!

A Few Favorites

Since Summer is right around the corner (two more half days and two teacher days), I thought I'd share some things I'm looking forward to!

1. Reading!  I just read this book after watching an interview of the author.  It was a quick read and it really challenged me to think about how I am called to love people- speaking truth with grace.  Some other books on my "To read" list this summer:

• And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
• Glimpses of Grace by Gloria Furman
• Letters to My Daughters by Paul Friesen
• The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer

Any other recommendations would be appreciated! :)

2. Mornings outside.  Summer is definitely here to stay so that means I'd rather not be outside in the heat of the afternoon unless I'm beside or in a body of water.  My goal is to keep getting up fairly early so that I can run and work in the garden. (The squash and zucchini are doing really well!  I guess there aren't any city animals that will wreak havoc on those- at least not yet.)  We did see a raccoon in our back yard a couple of weeks ago, but haven't seen him since.

3. More time to cook.  I'm hoping I'll be ambitious this summer and try some new recipes.  I found one for stuffed bell peppers last week and it was amazing!  (I didn't have enough peppers to stuff so I just took the "stuffing" for lunch one day.)

4. Lunch dates.  For any of you who have lunch breaks or also have the summer off, I'd love to hang out! :)

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I've posted on the blog, but summer is so close I can almost taste it!  I have one more full day and three half days with the kids.  Here's a little of what we've been up to the past month. We were out of town three weekends in a row.

Weekend #1: celebrated my mom's 60th birthday with the family in York.  I'm so thankful for her, her love for Jesus, and her love for us.  We (the sisters) had a shower for Lindsey the same weekend and got to go to her shower at the church.

Gift from Daddy...wonder if we'll ever see Macey in this outfit. ;)

Weekend #2: We went to Barnwell to visit the Martins then to Batesburg-Leesville to celebrate cousins' graduations and Grandma Sharpe's birthday.  I forgot to take any pictures that weekend, but we enjoyed visiting with family that weekend too.

Weekend #3: We went to the mountains for our second annual couples trip.  This time it was much colder and rainy so we played a lot of games..."The Game of Things" might have been the highlight of the weekend.  If you don't have it, it's a great group/couples game.  We also watched the Kentucky Derby, and thanks to Erin had mint juleps & hats for the occasion.

Rob and I found a waterfall (Elk River Falls) the day before everybody else got there, that would be fun to go back to when it's warmer, to swim in the huge pool at the bottom.

After three weekends in a row out of Greenville, we planned to stay in town the weekend of May 10th, but our little niece, Macey was born on Saturday, May 11th!  We excitedly drove to the hospital that day to meet her.  I know we're a little biased, but she is a cutie!!

We can't wait to see her again soon!

The following weekend we went to a wedding of some friends, Holly, from the church where I grew up, and Scott, my friend and former roommate, Anna's brother.  (It's such a small world.)  It was a beautiful Christ-centered wedding and the reception was lots of fun at the Clemson outdoor lab.  My Gamecock husband restrained himself from making too many Clemson/Carolina comments. ;)

Until next time...  :)