What Dave Ramsey, Christmas and Valentine's Day all have in Common

He gets the last bites of the cream from our Crème brûlée, because I've already eaten all the burnt sugar.

Christmastine's.
 
Yes. I said it. We made it up. But don't be confused, it has immense meaning for us.

And no, Lechner, we don't need calendars. We have them, thankyouverymuch.

Every year we've been married lines up almost perfectly with with every year that Cliff's been working at Lampo (that's where Dave comes in). It was December 2007 and we were leaving the Christmas party (that's where Christmas comes in), walking the streets of Nashville with our jaws dropped so low they were practically doing the street sweepers' jobs. We were blown away that night and were excitedly chattering on and on about which location we'd likely request for our "pick where you want to go" $50 giftcard. 

Well, after little debate, we settled on Bonefish.

Sidenote: our second Valentine's together - in 2006 - was at Bonefish. And that was a pivotal year. What with the recent closing of Houston's, the location of our first Valentine's and the first proper restaurant (Panera doesn't count) that we ever shared a meal together in within a week of dating. Bonefish met every expectation and soon became a favorite - especially for this coastal girl who finds it difficult to get good seafood in a land-locked state. And for the record, Valentine's 2007 was at Zola, which has also since closed. I'm sensing a pattern...

And though we had that giftcard just burning a hole in our proverbial pockets, the days drew closer to our first married Valentine's and it only seemed appropriate to use it then (thanks for the date, Dave!) But, you see, we'd learned our lesson in 2006 when on the actual date of February 14th we stood and waited for an hour and a half at Bonefish, despite already having reservations for dinner that evening. So we booked reservations a couple of nights post-Valentine's, and enjoyed a lovely meal together. At some point in the evening, I said something to this extent: 

"You know - this is like our own holiday, right? Because it's not Christmas, though we're using a Christmas gift. And it's not exactly Valentine's, though it's always nearby. But it's really in the spirit of both. It's like Christmastine's!"

And it stuck.

So every year since, usually just a couple of days before or after February 14, when the waiter or waitress asks "Is this your first time dining with us?", we smile broadly at each other with a knowing look of familiarity, joy, and nostalgia, and say "Oh no, no. We've been here before."

And then, after we've had our adult beverages, eaten our share of an appetizer (I dream about Bang Bang Shrimp) and a shared entree, or if we're feeling frisky, one each - and are polishing off of our traditional Bonefish dessert, I think, "I have got to be the luckiest girl in the world." We slide out of the booth, he grabs my hand in the parking lot, and walks me to the car... and the feeling settles in again: I know I am.

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For (Part Two)

Day Three

• An even earlier start to the day because it was Easter, and we had a trip ahead of us out to El Cajon for a wonderful service at Shadow Mountain Community Church where David Jeremiah is the pastor (whose name and face I recognized from years of working at a Christan bookstore).
• After church, we spent some time just resting and walking around Balboa Park, touring the gardens, drinking coffee in a courtyard cafe, stopping over and over again to take pictures of the beautiful fountains, flowers, and architecture.
• From Balboa we drove out to Pacific Beach again and stopped a seeming hole-in-the-wall which turned out to be the world's largest Hawaiian BBQ chain called L&L. Oh My Gosh. If you've never had Hawaiian BBQ, try it sometime in your lifetime. It's soooooo good.
• Next stop: Point Loma where we visited the Cabrillo National Monument (don't think we didn't bring our NPS Passports), the lighthouse, and the tide pools. Fortunately on our way from Point Loma to Old Town we crossed paths with a 7-11 which more than made my day.
• Our goal for the day was to catch the sunset after doing some hiking in Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. And that we did. And we got a whole lot more than a sunset and a good hike, too. Despite not seeing a whale on our boat tour, we got our bang for our buck at Torrey Pines and not only saw a whale fluke slapping out in the ocean but also caught wind of (literally) and saw a whale that had died and come ashore.
• Dinner at Miguel's Cocina in Coronado (where Cliff and I split their delicious lobster and shrimp fajitas) and dessert at Mootime (yes, again).

Day Four

• Woke up sad, of course, but ready to fill up our last full day in California with as much good as possible, which began with a visit to Seaport Village and brunch at Don Pancho's Taco Shop in Imperial Beach. A brunch of California Burritos (steak, cheese, sour cream, and FRENCH FRIES) at a stand-up taco shop just miles above the border. First times for everything, right? Well, it was gooooood.
• And the rest of the day? We lounged on the beaches of Coronado at both Silver Strand State Beach and the Hotel Del (with a sad goodbye with Aaron and a stop for just a little bit more ice cream from Mootime in between each... color us addicted) soaking up every last drop of sunshine that we could and enjoying a moment, just the two of us, together.
• Soon after that, we were heading back up to the Orange County area (and stopping for a "last meal" at In-n-Out on the way) to catch our flight home which took us on a roundabout way back with a layover in Las Vegas. So cool to see from the sky (seeing as I've never been before)!

Definitely a memorable trip, and thanks for bearing with me as I've recounted (almost) every detail. Ha. The travel agent and resident tripadvisor.com poster in me just couldn't help but share.

Bamboo Shoots

Okay, so I might be a little late on this...

But as I was growing up, Beef and Broccoli was my favorite dish to order at or from any and every Chinese restaurant. Never a big fan of broccoli when I was younger, this was just a bit out of character for me. But I think my childhood preferences had to do, mostly, with the perfect mixture of simply steamed rice, some sort of meat that was chewy and wonderful and not very beef-like, broccoli that doesn't taste like broccoli because it was drowning in a delicious sauce, and finally, those wonderful little slices of something-or-other that were kind of veggie-like and had a very slight crisp to them and tasted wonderful.

Well, I finally figured out what those veggie-like entities were last night while dining at Genghis Grill with the Mays, and my mind was blown. I'd been there before, but last night, as I was browsing the very well-stocked veggie portion of the bar, I noticed a metal bucket of what looked to me like the mystery ingredient in my favorite beef & broccoli dishes. I searched frantically on the glass sneeze guard above me for the label and sure enough, right there in front of me...

Bamboo Shoots.

Who would have though it?!

And you can be sure my bowl was loaded up with that stuff once the discovery was made. Heck, yes.

Looking Forward To This Weekend

It's astonishing how quickly things can go from busy to, kablooie. You know, where everything sort of explodes all at once. Suddenly, you become aware that your stomach is ravenous because you forgot to eat breakfast, you think you may have forgotten to turn off approximately five lamps in the apartment before walking out the door, and all you remember from the drive into work was the consoling and comforting voice on the other end of the phone (thanks Smudd) and you don't actually remember driving... at all.

That's no good. But when the unexpected happens, you just move forward and do your best to toe that tricky line between total mental/emotional breakdown and complete peace. You're probably laughing, thinking that line doesn't exist. But oh, does it ever.

We've been looking forward to this weekend for awhile now. But now, it's so needed. Here in an hour or so we'll drive east until we hit that gem of a city known as Pigeon Forge where we'll settle into our lodge for a weekend spent hanging out, investing in our marriage, reading, praying for some recent life developments, playing in the mountains, taking pictures, and doing some shopping. Good company and relaxation are about all I've been hanging my hat on for the last twenty hours or so, and I can't wait.

While we're gone, don't forget to vote in our "Cliff Post" poll on the top right hand of the corner of the blog which will be up until Sunday! I didn't tell him I was doing this and when I showed him my diabolical schemes, he thought it was great and told me he'd wait to make his decision until the final results were in.

Hope you all have a FANTASTIC weekend!

You Might Say...

I'm pulling an all-nighter. Or at least a late-nighter. But for what?
Well, I can't tell you and I may not ever tell you. But if things work out the way this path starts leading, then I may have something to tell you. Or I may not. Who knows?

Enigmatic, enough?

I think it's the sopapillas. Or the five pages of stuff I've been scrambling to write in the last couple of hours. And no, I'm not publishing anything, so don't even ask or I might start crying. Let's just say for the night, I've almost had my fill of the words "higher learning", "philosophies", "student development", and "seek". But not of sopapillas, I could go for another. You'd think I was in grad school again. Of course, because of the words, not the sopapillas.

Anyways, we went to Trivia Night with The Mays and wouldn't you know, WE WON!!! A $20 gift certificate for our next visit to Nacho's which we will, of course, use for our next night of May-Neeley trivia. So, that was awesome. It helps that Vaughn's got a Ph.D. and that backed by Whit, Cliff, and I, we had a lot of brains on the table. Now that would have been gross.

Okay, I think that's enough. See, I told you Cliff should start posting...

Back to being an enigma.

Well, I'm in the Club

I have officially crossed over to the dark side. The side where no matter how much you love your favorite college football team, you have come face to face with the reality that nothing is ever perfect. They can lose, even when you're there. Knowing what it's like to sit in a crowd of 100,000 or more people and feel the pulse of disappointment in the air is slightly defeating. I guess with our record this year, it was bound to happen. But to Wyoming? Oh dear.

None the less, there are always bright sides to these sorts of things. As much as Fulmer has given to this team and to his university over the year, it is possible that new leadership might bring some change we Vols fans can believe in. (Feels like I've heard that slogan somewhere...)

And our non-actual game related festivities yesterday were great, so all-in-all, it wasn't a bad day at all! There's nothing like a drive east on I-40 in the fall or the company of really great people. We had lunch on the Strip in Knoxville at Buffalo Wild Wings, which made Cliff very happy because in his words the wings "were perfect!" and me because they had Cherry Coke on "tap". Then the game itself commenced and despite losing, a few rounds of "Rocky Top" and at least one touchdown were energizing in their own ways. Oh! And there was a National Anthem fly-over by two Navy jets from the Naval Air Base in my hometown - Oceana! After the game we took our time browsing in the bookstore, nabbed a few good buys, and then made our way to the car that would take us to Oak Ridge our final destination before heading home: Big Ed's Pizza.

So here's the disclaimer: Big Ed's isn't the best pizza I've ever had. It's good. No, it's really good. But it's not the best. In some respects, for me, it rivals the "Pizza Oven" in Rockville, MD. There's just something about this hole in the wall in Oak Ridge that keeps people coming from up to 30 minutes away just to eat pizza. Nothing else on the menu, food-wise at least. They make their own dough, offer the standard toppings, and do their dough-throwing and pizza making behind a plex-glass wall so you can see it all happen. A pitcher of soda is $3 and a one-topping medium-sized pizza is a whopping $10 and that means for cheap eats, good pizza, and fun ambiance. The place was packed, lots of big parties, and not an unhappy face in the crowd. It's a good ways, maybe 15-20 minutes, off I-40 but definitely worth making a pit-stop for if you're ever in the area. I know we'll be building it into our route whenever we can!

I went into a bit of a food-coma on the way home, but I'm still not complaining. We talked and laughed and shared most of the way home, so much so that I can barely remember the dark passing scenery all the way back.

And those are moments when I'm glad I don't get hung up on something like a lost game... or a losing season, at that.

Trivia Thursdays

Okay, so we did something a little out of the ordinary last night.

I finished up the Bridal Portrait shoot yesterday (which was INCREDIBLE!) around 6:15ish, and no lie, I was craving Mexican food like nobody's business. For those of you who know me well, this isn't quite so abnormal. (So no, there are no babies on the way.) To give you some background, Mexican food -or at least the whole experience of sitting down, eating a few warm, crunchy tortilla chips with delicious salsa, and then ordering fajitas jalisco (because most Mexican restaurants have the same food items) for one to share with my hubby - is quite possibly one of my favorite dining experiences. Not in that fine-dining way, of course, but just the cheap, casual, comfortable, and convenient aspects of it all.

So last night I called up Cliff (who was still working, mind you) to let him know that I was done and on my way home. "Oh, and even though I have salmon thawing in the fridge and we have little to no 'eating out' money left in our envelope system, I'm feeling Mexican tonight, and I've got some 'blow money' I didn't realize I had." About an hour later, I'm home sorting through the day's mail, he calls me up and says "Meet me at Nacho's." "Nacho's?" I ask. Because, of course, why would anyone go to Nacho's when Pancho's is also just around the corner? But he thought trying something new might be a good idea, so I went along with it. Even though I have become loyal to Pancho's (thanks Brooke and Chad), I have to admit that they're all about the same, at least when it comes to the menu. And besides, everytime I go to Publix, my curiosity towards the source of the delicious smells wafting in the area during lunch and dinner grows.

Nacho's it was. And boy, was it great! I guess, turns out, on Tuesday and Thursday nights they do trivia from 7PM - 8PM. I've never really gotten the whole "restaurant trivia" thing, but the place was packed, huge tables of people old and young, and great music playing, and you couldn't help but feel the weight of the world slip off your shoulders as you walked into that kind of environment.

We ordered our usual, only at a new place. Service was wonderful. The trivia was awesome. Seeing as we got there around 7:30, we had missed half of it, but it was still great fun! The Rats (don't ask...) ended up in last, unsurprisingly, but in only a half hour racked up a good 39 points. That's what I call making a comeback!

We're thinking of making this a regular thing (or at least bi-weekly) and are hoping to maybe rope some friends into it as well. If you're interested, let us know!

Home Cookin'

Okay, so let's just say you know a young woman who grew up in the mid-Atlantic region of the country. A region known for its outstanding seafood, not the least of which this young woman practically cut her teeth on. You could also say though the particular states she lived in were technically southern they were by no means Southern. So, "Home Cookin'" (as I have come to call Southern fare) in my definition was always Cracker Barrel, because it was about the closest you got to the ham-hock in your green beans, butter in every nook and cranny of your casseroles kind of food.

My life has been revolutionized, living here in Middle Tennessee. Oh sure, I will always be a seafood-lover who craves a good and plentiful crab feast at least once a year, the kind where shells end up falling down your shirt or flying across the room in a gluttonous fever. But Southern food. Man. It's good stuff.

My mom likes to tell the story that as a child, you could tell me just about any type of food, including vegetables, was a "casserole" and I'd eat it. Who knows where that came from, but it sure gave me the propensity to almost automatically love the food that is so very abundant in this region of the country. And I have to, because it's everywhere - especially at every family function on Cliff's side of the family. I used to not touch squash with a ten foot pole, and now after my fair share of eating artery-clogging squash casserole, I actually enjoy the vegetable. Even, lightly sautee it in cooking spray and I'll eat it. I just like it, now. And the same for asparagus. And green tomatoes. And zucchini. I have converted, through the means of frying and trying, to be an equal opportunity vegetable lover, even when merely steamed with not a bit of butter or oil gracing it!

Oh, and don't even get me started about okra. I used to loathe the food. The first and only time I ever ate it, it was squishy and soggy in a gumbo. When I found out they fry it down here, I guffawed, wondering why in the world you would choose to demoralize the act of frying with such a vegetable? And now? Thanks to my in-laws, I crave it. Like one would crave chocolate, chips, or even soda. Fried okra is my vice.

So today, after much debate (which was all between my inner voices who couldn't decide between three restaurants WITH THE SAME EXACT TYPE OF FOOD), Kim and I decided on what has quickly become the Neeley's favorite local restaurant - Barbara's Home Cooking - for lunch. And wouldn't you know, I prayed the whole way there that Miss Barbara had decided, in her good nature, to put poppyseed chicken on the menu. When we got there? Sure enough, in bright purple marker on the white board sitting on the front porch, my day had been made. Densely warm, to-die for rolls, a big glass of sweet tea, poppyseed chicken, macaroni and cheese, and fried okra (but, of course!). I know, not in the least bit, was that meal of any nutritional value in the pyramid sense, but it fed my soul, that's for certain.

Barbara's is just one of many places we love (Loveless Cafe, Dotson's, Country Kitchen, Monell's) and dare not frequent, but I have decided, after today, that it is absolutely the best. So, if you haven't tried it, please do.

And would you invite me to come along with you?

So Very Proud

If you're reading this, there's a likelihood that you know I'm a sushi enthusiast. I was eleven years-old the first time my mom introduced me to the world of the packaged goodness of the California Roll. Since then, my love has only grown.

Upon meeting and dating Cliff, we quickly discovered our tastes for Japanese rice, seaweed, and wasabi, among other things, was an area in which we had nothing in common. Cats and sushi should have been enough to quit, but I persisted. To my liking, his outlook has changed on both. Now, we're talking turtle changes, not hare. But you take what you can get, right?

We've enjoyed sushi together on four occasions now, the most enjoyable of which was last evening when Cliff devoured our White Cloud Rainbow Roll (shrimp, salmon, crab, cream cheese with spicy sauce wrapped by crab slice) from Taste of Tokyo. Man, is that roll awesome. I spent my college days frequenting TOT but had never partaken in the White Cloud Rainbow. Thanks to the apt suggestion of the Larews whom we shared a "last supper" with last evening (before they move), Cliff's been converted to more than just sushi-tolerant.

He actually likes it, now!