Category Archives: travel

We’re Not Moving!

 

So after nine months, and suggestions around the world, we have learned that we are not moving!

As you may know, we moved into our house in Tulsa in October. And we have still unpacked very few boxes in all that time. Why? Because shortly after that, David entered discussions about a new position. Of course, I didn’t know this and decided that now that we had moved, I really needed to figure out what to do with my life.

boxes

After having moved and enjoyed the moving process, I thought being a Realtor would be fun but my Realtor (who is one of the very best in the state, probably in world!) is a hard working woman. I think that to be an awesome Realtor, you need to be completely dedicated and I just wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t want to travel with David if a Fiji, Malaysia, etc. opportunity came up. So, I thought that maybe staging houses would be fun.

My friend, Lisa, is a home stager in Oklahoma City and she told me about a workshop she puts on that is three hours long. She said it would give me an inexpensive idea of what staging is and if it’s what I really want to do so I signed up for the workshop.

The class began at 9 a.m. By 10:30, a.m. I knew this is what I wanted to do. I could “see” the things she was talking about and thought it would be a lot of fun for me.

At 1:09 p.m. David called.

“We’re moving,” he said. 

“Where?” I asked.

“Overseas”. 

“Oh”. 

Wow. I knew I wanted to flip a house some day but I didn’t think it was going to be THIS house. 

They told him we’d be going to one of four regions: Northeast Asia, Middle East Asia, Sub Sahara Africa or the Mediterranean.

Given his experience, we were sure we were going to the Middle East or Africa. Until a few weeks later when they told us we were going to Madrid. Spain? Really? Okay, cool. We visited Balboa, Spain back in 2011 and it was an awesome trip in a fabu country and I could see living there. It’s not a far trip, only around 7 hours from Chicago, and certainly more appealing to anyone who would want to visit us than Riyadh.

madrid

So we wrapped our heads around the fact we were going to Madrid.

The first thing I thought of is, who do I follow on twitter from Madrid? No one. Amazing. My main goal on twitter is to have friends all around the world so I can have someone to share coffee with no matter where we travel.

At the time, my friend Gini was preparing to release her book Spin Sucks and I’d been selected as an ambassador to help her promote it.

There is a group of 100 of us and we hang out in facebook. It was here that I realized that Corina was in Madrid! I private messaged her and told her we were moving to Madrid and she said that it would be nice to meet over coffee. Yay! All of a sudden I was happier about going to Madrid. 

Then we learned that another division was interested in having David work with them. They wanted to make a North American position for him but if that didn’t work, we’d be going to Riyadh. 

Ha! It’s all back to Saudi. 

I didn’t want to get overly excited about the possibility of staying here. I mean, with a new house and fabu glambaby close by, I just didn’t want to jinx it. I figured if I got too excited about staying, I’d end up in the middle of a Saudi desert in my custom abaya and 140 degree temperatures. 

abaya5

So we waited. And the boxes remained packed. And the popcorn remained on the ceilings. We waited.

I didn’t really tell too many people because we had planned to move to Saudi in 2011 and some really fabu friends gave me an awesome going away party. And then we didn’t go. They were all so great and understanding when we learned we weren’t moving after all but I felt stupid. So I mostly kept this one to myself. 

goingaway

I’m glad I did!

We finally learned that we get to stay in Tulsa! David will be working from here! We were sitting in a restaurant when we learned the news and I’m sure the people there thought I was crazy as I happy danced in my chair.

tulsa

I’m sort of sad we won’t be going to Madrid because it truly does look like an awesome place. But I do know that I’ll visit there one day. And we’ll have coffee then, Corina, okay? πŸ™‚

But I’m so happy to be staying here. Close to Geoff, Nikki and the glambaby. In this house that we have so many plans for turning into a home. 

Now to unpack those boxes… 

Carpe-ing the Java at Cafe’ Mondo

After CoffeeCON, I drove out to where I call The Middle Of Nowhere, Illinois. I call it this because I get NO cell service there. It is my cousin’s house. 

I love to visit here and just hang out and watch her animals. This time, there was no Llily the Llama as she had passed away since my last visit. There was, however, another dog named Cosette, lots of chickens, and kitties. The day it snowed, the mini horses were playing like little kids in the pasture. I wish I could have gotten video but I was so afraid they would stop when I opened the door.

Cosette

We drove to the nearest town that was bigger than 84 people which is the population of the nearest town to them, Adeline.

My cousin had to run some errands and we stopped off at Cafe’ Mondo, in Freeport, for lunch. The cafe’ is cute and I loved the coffee pot display they had on one wall.

coffee pots

Of course you know that I needed coffee and I was happy to find Tanzanian Peaberry coffee as an offering. I’d never had it before and I liked it’s smooth, nutty flavor a lot. 

The menu was nice with a lot of sandwich offerings. I chose the Colosseum Sandwich which was a grilled chicken breast, provolone cheese and tomatoes served hot on a bun. We also ordered a little piece of dessert to split that was chocolate and caramel. I don’t know the name but it was delish! 

Colosseum

The service was very good and friendly. If I get back to Freeport, I’ll definitely stop back at Cafe’ Mondo. It was a good choice. πŸ™‚

#CoffeeCON 2014

Last year, in May (yes, MAY!) I drove through a snow storm to get to CoffeeCON 2013 in the suburbs of Chicago. It was an awesome event where I was able to meet four twitter friends in real life (IRL) and have some fabu coffee. I also took classes and learned a lot about coffee. And got sick. Really, really sick. 

You see, with all that coffee there, I was like a kid in a candy store and I had ODd by around 11 a.m.  I was hoping to go back this year and was absolutely thrilled to be invited as a media guest. 

press pass

This year, I knew I would pace myself so I could fully enjoy the day and the coffee. And the visiting, of course.  CoffeeCON 2014 was held at the Zhou B Arts Center in Chicago. It’s on the same street, a few blocks down, from the park formerly known as Comiskey. 

Zhou B Arts Center

It’s such a cool old building which I loved almost as much as the coffee. I have this fascination and love of doors and had to take a photo of one to complete my day.

Zhou B Door

 This year, I was not too sick to try the Kopi Luwak coffee from Indonesia. If you aren’t familiar with that, in a nutshell, civets (a catlike animal) eat the coffee berries and they are processed after elimination. Sounds gross but the story behind why they originally did this is very interesting.

Kopi Luwak

 I found the coffee to have an interesting, sort of nutty taste. The little coffee cracker cookies they had at their table were delicious!

coffeejoy

 It was fun to go around and talk to the vendors and sample their coffee. I absolutely got goosebumps when I tasted Rustico from Counter Culture and I had to take that one home. Their website describes the coffee as having a kaleidoscope of flavors and it truly does. 

Rustico by Counter Culture

I also got a Sowden Oskar pot which I haven’t tried yet but plan to this a.m. In the Sowden class, the man said it was simply the easiest way to make a good cup of coffee. I’m looking forward to that. The thing that struck me even more, though, and made me choose it over the Aeropress (which I’m sure I will get one of these days) is that it is like French press coffee, which I love, but the filter is so fine, less particulates are left in the coffee when it’s poured. I’m hoping this will help it to be coffee that David enjoys better, too.   

Sowden Class

The winner of the contest I held last week was Dwana, a long time twitter friend of mine. I was so happy I would get a chance to meet her. Our first reaction to each other, IRL, was “OMG you’re tall, too!”. πŸ™‚ 

My only regret for the day was that we didn’t take a photo together but I did make my CoffeeCON movie staring Dwana and the Aeropress.  

We were introduced to the iCup machine by iCoffee. I enjoyed the presentation we were given. The iCup will take a K-cup and turn it into a good tasting cup of coffee by steaming and aerating the grounds, extracting the Co2 before dispensing the coffee. It also plays a little Mozart!

Although I’m not a Keurig user, I’ve had coffee from one a couple of times and found it to be bitter. The coffee we tried from this machine was much tastier. A real improvement!

Of course I can’t forget about the fun coffee roasters outside. I know I talked about the heat gun lady and popcorn popper guy all year and they were there again. 

heat gun coffee roasting

The popcorn popper roaster had a new addition this year: a Weber grill. Ingenious! 

Roasting with a WeberOne of the ladies outside gave me my own little packet of green coffee beans. I’ve decided that I will make Beauty Pageant Roast by using my blow dryer and curling iron. πŸ˜‰

green beansOnce again, I had a great time at CoffeeCON. Well, I actually had a better time than last year since I paced myself. Thank you, again, to Kevin Sinnott for inviting me.

There are other CoffeeCON events planned for this year in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles. Check the website for further information and Carpe Java! πŸ™‚

Jose’ Clairvaux You Are a Friend of Mine

I saw my friend, Kat, Thursday for the first time in over 16 years. We met in an email group in the late 1990s and have managed to keep in touch over the years. When we saw each other today, itΒ was like we had just seen each other yesterday.

mejose

Back in the day, her email address was clairvaux1@someplace and so I called her Jose’ Clairvaux and it stuck. She’s been Jose’ to me ever since.

The other day before we left for Florida, I mentioned something to David that Jose’ had said on Facebook.

Me: Kat said…

Him: Wait a second, who’s Kat?

Me: Oh, you know, Jose’.

Him: What? I thought her name WAS Jose’. I never knew she had another name.

And that’s because I have ALWAYS called her Jose’ since around 1998. πŸ™‚

We met for lunch at Mary Mac’s Tea Room in Atlanta. Mary Mac’s is an Atlanta institution having been in business for 65 years. They serve “made-from-scratch true southern fare served with genuine southern hospitality”.

Mary Mac's Tea Room

I had grilled chicken and veggies which were delicious but everyone else ate more of the southern fare. On our table were chicken fried chicken with gravy, fried green tomatoes and cheese grits.

The food was delicious but the company was awesome. We got to meet Jose’s new husband, Jim, and we all talked like we had just seen each other not too long ago.

friends

I’m so glad we were able to connect on this trip as it had been so long since our last meeting. Jose’ Clairvaux, you are a friend of mine and I love you dearly! πŸ™‚

Review: Loveless Cafe’

Back last summer, David brought me some moonshine from Arkansas. It came out of an actual still and not the shelf at the liquor store. He brought me some corn and some rice moonshine. I have no idea which is which but they do smell different.

They scare me.

So I started an internet search to see what I could do with moonshine. I was clearly not going to drink it in its native state. This is when I stumbled upon the Loveless Cafe’s website. And began my obsession to go there and eat.

Loveless Cafe

We drove down to Florida last Friday. The most direct path to get there is through Birmingham, AL. But…if we took a slightly longer way, via Nashville, we could put the Loveless Cafe’ in our plans and that’s what we did.

Yesterday, we got up early enough to get there when the Cafe’ opened at 7 a.m. I had read reports of having to wait three hours for a table and I knew that David wouldn’t be okay with that. Plus, we are early risers so 7:00 is a little late for us to eat breakfast anyway.

coffee at Loveless

We were the first people there. No waiting! πŸ™‚

We knew we were going to have biscuits because that’s what they are known for. But everything else involved heavy deliberation. After looking forward to this meal for so long, I didn’t want to make a mistake.

We placed our orders and the server brought us biscuits and jam. I ate my first biscuit with the strawberry jam which was amazing. And I ate my second biscuit with the peach. I was so afraid it would be orange even though we were so near peach country but it was yummy peach.

biscuits

Then our food arrived. I had decided on a BBQ Pulled Pork Omelet. This was the BIGGEST omelet I have ever been served and it was delicious! It had SO much meat in it and it was so good. I ate every last bite of it because I could.

bbq pulled pork omelet

Along with my omelet, I had two more biscuits. I put the rest of the peach jam on one half and then took the third jam and put it on the other half. I wasn’t quite sure what kind it was. When I tasted it, I could not believe it but it was the very best of the three! The server told me it was blackberry jam. Let me tell you, if I had eaten that one first? I would have changed my order, ordered the 12 biscuits from the ala carte menu and that alone would have been my breakfast. And I would have eaten all of them with that out-of-this-world blackberry jam. Yum!

I took a photo of David’s breakfast because it was really more photogenic than mine. He got the Southern Sampler Breakfast. It was supposed to come with Redeye gravy but they didn’t have any ready so he got standard gravy for his biscuits which he was quite happy with.

southern sampler

I’m so glad we made the detour to eat breakfast at the Loveless Cafe’. I can’t wait to go back for cocktails! πŸ™‚

BICSI Winter Conference – Trophy Wife Version

As you know, I was in Orlando with David this past week. He was invited to speak at the BICSI Winter ConferenceΒ lastΒ Sunday.

bicsiOn Monday afternoon I joined him as he walked through the Exhibit hall.

bicsi

We had complimentary beverages. πŸ™‚

beverages
There were pink cables.

pink-RAnd blue cables.

blue
I got a Magic 8 Ball from dura-line. Thank you! πŸ™‚

magic
And a coffee mug from Vertical Cable. Thank you, Rebecca. Carpe java! πŸ™‚

coffee mug

I was super happy that the conference took place this week because

Temperature

All in all, I had a great time at the BICSI Winter Conference. πŸ™‚

Click here to read David’s more technical version.

Review: Hilton Grand Vacations Resort on International Drive

We spent the last week in Orlando for David’s conference. We decided to stay at the Hilton Grand Vacation Resort on International Drive instead of the hotel where the conference was being held because, like I mentioned in my previous post, we are almost 100% brand loyal to Hilton in the US.

gate

While trying to determine where to stay, I saw this:

No smoking

Wow a non smoking resort? Sign me up! And I booked our stay. Back in November.

We arrived on Saturday evening and the people we dealt with in the office were lovely. She did tell us that parking is a bit difficult but if we had to park all the way back out at the gate, they have shuttles that could take us to our building. We had a lot of luggage and we managed to get semi-close to unload and there were luggage carts available so that was good.

The room was really pretty.

room

The towels were amazing! Bigger than a normal bath towel but not quite a bath sheet. And fluffy!

towels

The toiletries were by Peter Thomas Roth and I first used this brand when I went to Washington DC as a guest of Eight O’Clock coffee. I LOVE this stuff. The shower gel is the best and smells just like a freshly cut grapefruit.

toiletries

I loved being able to walk around the resort every morning. There’s a nice sidewalk that’s about 3/4 of a mile long. I got some cool photos on the move.

resort

There’s also a bridge that cuts the loop in half and we usually did that at the end of our walk to get our typical morning walk distance in.

bridge

We mostly enjoyed our stay here. I loved sitting on the balcony while knowing it was only 10 degrees in Tulsa. I kind of wished that we had stayed at the other resort where we saw the time share presentation because their balconies are not screened in. I’m sure having screens when there are bugs is awesome but I wasn’t able to get a good photo from the balcony because of the screen.

I hated that I had to go back into the room and close the balcony door because of cigarette smoke. I feel the website is a bit misleading saying it’s non-smoking when apparently only the rooms are non-smoking.

smoking

Still, when I stay in a standard Hilton hotel in a non-smoking room, I rarely smell smoke.

Again, the people were lovely and helpful but I’m highly allergic to cigarette smoke and this just didn’t work for me.

They were not kidding about the parking situation. It’s AWFUL! If you get back to your room in the late afternoon, chances are you will get to park in the spaces in front of your building. The night after we went to the BICSI Exhibit and then out for dinner, we had to park .54 miles away from our door!

walk

Again, in a regular Hilton hotel, I’ve never parked that far away from my room.

So we live and learn. Hilton Grand Vacation Resort life isn’t for us but we were super pleased with the lovely, helpful staff. And the towels. Now we’re on to Tennessee where we’ll be staying at a Hampton Inn. πŸ™‚

West Coast of the East Coast of the US

Yesterday we took a drive over to St. Petersburg to have lunch with friends. St. Pete is located on the west coast of the east coast of the United States.

Gulf waters

Driving down I-4 from Orlando to Tampa was a revelation. We’ve been gone a little over 10 years and how things have changed!Β 

St. Pete

We had no real plans except for to have lunch with the Mitchesons. When we saw the Cafe Mozart German Bakery, we had to stop and turn around and go inside. It was fun to talk to the owner who said her husband had brought all of the recipes with him from Germany. They had lots of yummy baked goods and some fabu looking sausages I’d have loved to take with us if we had a cooler. Sausages make my little German American heart happy. πŸ™‚

Cafe Mozart

We met Kathy and George at the Red Mesa Restaurant for lunch. The food was delicious and fresh. I had Ginger Encrusted Salmon and we shared lots of great conversation catching up the past 10+ years.

IMG_5604[1]

When we lived here, I worked for George at Native Sun. He is a terrific and fun person and I loved working there. I was a marketing assistant but he gave me cool titles like Office Wizard followed by Cruise Director. Fun!

Mitchesons

On our way back to Orlando, we stopped and got Cuban sandwiches. Oh yum! We ate them too fast to take a photo. πŸ˜‰

Such a fun and delicious day. So great to see you Kathy and George!