2015 Recap

2015 is coming to a close and I find it easier to think back on my year if I write it down. We've had a fun-filled year with it's fair share of ups and downs but here are some of the highlights of our year.


Books
My reading challenge for this year was to read 25 books. So far I've made it to 23. I'd like to think I could knock out a book a day these next couple of days and I'm sure as heck gonna try but it may not happen. I'm usually late to the game with books so it's not as if any of them are new this year but here's my list of books that are worthy of your time. They are quite varied: political, fiction, religious, Appalachian, cooking, you name it....it's on the list.


1. The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
2. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
3. On Writing by Stephen King
4. Gray Mountain by John Grisham
5. Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant
6. Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans
7. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
8. Heritage by Sean Brock


Movies


I went to the movies exactly twice this year. Both times with my sister to see rated R female comedies which were funny but I'm not qualified to give you advice on movies considering I don't watch them.


Podcasts
I discovered podcasts this year and my life was changed forever. These are worth your time (as if you didn't already know).


1. Radiolab (the very best)
2. StoryCorps (duh)
3. Gilmore Guys (they break down every episode of Gilmore Girls, it's my guilty pleasure)
4. Serial (which I haven't actually listened to yet but I've heard only wonderful things about it)


Music


This year we bought a record player and started our collection of albums. We saw Old Crow in concert 3 times (Blacksburg, Denver, Roanoke).

TV
I may not know movies but I am an expert TV watcher. Aside from watching countless football games these are the shows I wasted precious hours binge-watching:


1. Drunk History
2. The Mindy Project
3. Sherlock
4. Parks and Rec
5. Orange is the New Black
6. Gilmore Girls for the 47th time


Animals
In 2015 a small fortune in vet bills (2 hip replacements, lots of pain meds, physical therapy, Lyme's disease test) and added some new outside family members to the farm. First 2 hens and a rooster, then 4 hens and minus one rooster. Do the math and we have 6 wonderful hens and said good riddance to a hateful old rooster who attacked all of us.

Food
We grew our largest garden to date and had the widest variety we've ever had. We ended the season with 10 cans of strawberry rhubarb jam, 15 cans of kraut, 16 cans of pickles, 4 cans of pickled peppers, 14 cans of salsa, 6 cans of tomatoes, and 40 cans of spaghetti sauce. We also put a good bit of asparagus, broccoli, rhubarb, corn, and zucchini in the freezer.

Travel
Our big summer trip was when I got on an airplane for the first time and we travelled to Colorado for a week where we hiked, camped, relaxed and decided we didn't want to move there.


We attended our first pro football game in Charlotte and watched Green Bay lose. Drew went to Italy for 2 weeks. We camped with family on Memorial Day. We spent a week on the New River with my parents. We had two weddings in Tennessee and my siblings and I spent a week in Williamsburg.

Here's a little video recap of the year

I hope you all have a wonderful New Years and a joyful 2016 filled with sweet friends, books to lose yourself in, travel to beautiful places, and animals to love on. What were some of your 2015 highlights? Books? Places to travel? Podcasts? Chicken names?

Colorado

Remember when I had a life...and a blog. I'm beginning to get back a small part of that now that it's summer. Nevermind the fact that I'm already doing prep work for next year, I have a little more freedom.

I'll do a reflection on the school year at a later time. It's still pretty fresh but FIRST I want to share about our trip to Colorado. If you follow me on insta (mountainmeghan) then you likely felt like you were on this trip with us. But in case you didn't get enough allow me to give you some highlights and pics here on yet another social media outlet.

This was my first time flying and the flight west was amazing! So easy, arrived 30 minutes early and lugged our Osprey packs and luggage around Denver for a few hours while we waited on our room to be ready. We stayed downtown and enjoyed walking along the 16th Street Mall. We were told we had the "swagger of humanitarians" by a friendly street vendor. When I asked her what that looked like she said that we were wearing earth-tones and were smiling as if enjoying vacation but still pondering the injustices of the world. She was pretty dead on actually so we listened to her for 45 minutes.

Denver was a city. Convenient. Wonderful brunch. Lots of people doing their own thing. We attempted public transportation and bragged on ourselves as we got on the bus saying "We are so good at this." Then had to pay a stranger $20 because we didn't have change for our bus fare and after 15 minutes on said bus another well-meaning stranger told us we were on the wrong bus. Despite being a "city" Denver was incredibly friendly. In the end we paid $40 to realize we should just stay downtown and walk to destinations. Lesson learned.

While in Denver we also went to Red Rocks amphitheater which is apparently a rite of passage if you visit Colorado. We would have seen any old band there just to say we went but once we caught wind that Old Crow Medicine Show was going to be there we bumped our trip up from July to June. The venue was breathtaking and OCMS never disappoints. Drew clearly scared our neighbors when they played Carry Me Back to Virginia.

We spent the next day driving into the mountains (we rented a car after our bus fiasco) where we rented sleeping bags to camp in Rocky Mountain National Park that night. We took our Enos and set up camp for the night. We made pork chops and s'mores and lounged and read. Unfortunately it rained and we slept in the car but it was still a great experience.

The next day (my birthday) we had planned for an 11 mile hike along the Lumpy Ridge trail. We chose this trail because it allowed for so many different views, it is supposed to be the best to see all of the landscape of the National Park: mountains, meadows, rocks and a lake that is only from snow melt. Pretty freaking awesome. Sure it rained and I thought I was having a heart attack because my left arm and hand went numb but again totally worth it.

That night we met our friends Sarah and Ben for my birthday dinner in Boulder. I ate my weight in crab legs and we enjoyed catching up with them. Drew and Sarah had planned for us to go to an escape room which was really cool even though we didn't solve the mystery.

We stayed in Boulder for the remainder of our trip relaxing in our awesome Airbnb, or Enos, or eating really yummy food. Admittedly, this trip was to kind of feel out the city of Boulder as a possible move for us in the future and we did love the entire vibe of it. We did a little kayaking and a tour at Celestial Seasonings for our last day.

Our trip home was not quite as smooth, cancelled flights, mechanical issues and an overnight stay in Newark made us more than ready to get home.

The landscape in Colorado was breathtaking everywhere you turned. We WILL go back and hopefully take our family and dogs. But....it's not home. We were so happy to be back in "our" mountains and immersed once again in our small town. It's been so nice to be home and start my summer.

Apple Sauce & Old Crow

Here's all the wonders happening here in Floyd:

All three of our transplanted tomato plants are alive and thriving! Many a'mouth told us they were too big to try and move but I'm glad we don't take advice cause now we've got maters.

We have frozen more apples than we'll ever use so I've switched to canning apple sauce. I'd never canned before in my life so it was an adventure. The first batch I worked up by myself one day while Drew was at work and I ended up with 3 whole jars, one of which didn't seal so we'll have to eat it soon.

I really wanted to avoid adding sugar but I knew some of our apples were sour so I used maple syrup instead (and cinnamon and lemon juice, believe it or not the only grocery store in Floyd was OUT of lemons, small town charms am I right?).  The second round Drew and I double-teamed and cooked overnight. I do not recommend this because waking up at 4:30 to can apple sauce is less than ideal (especially later in the day when you're driving to Pittsburgh attempting to listen to Game of Thrones on audiobook and you're both dozing off).

This round we ended up with 7 jars all of which sealed. Hooray!!!

I am already making plans to can some apple butter and salsa and depending on our cucumber crop, pickling some cukes. I have lofty goals but need to remind myself I start school next week. Cue Meghan muttering Martin Luther quotes incoherently in front of 16 year olds.

Since we have both blackberries and apples on the grounds here I wanted to find a recipe to incorporate both. Found here. 

The recipe made 12 which you won't need to worry about if you drop the pan in the oven trying to get them out and half of them catch fire while you curse and yell dramatically for "HELP!" I'm pretty sure Drew thought I was on fire. Another alternative is freezing the extras. They are seriously the best muffins I've ever eaten. The only thing I did differently was replace the suggested yogurt with blueberry Activia to keep me regular.

In other news...

We took a whirlwind trip to Pittsburgh on Friday which was totally worth it to see our friends, Sarah and Ben. They bought a beautiful house and it was great to get to visit them and see their town before things get too crazy with school. Also, it's probably the last time we will see them before baby Arlo arrives!!

We left them on Saturday to head back down to Charleston, WV to see our favorite band, Old Crow Medicine Show. We saw them last year with Mumford but wanted to see them headline. And West Virginia was the perfect place to experience it. It's hard to even describe how much fun they are live.

Also, Charleston was lovely.The concert was outside which is always preferable and you just can't beat the goodness that happens when different types of people come together for music as good as OCMS.


We finished off an amazing weekend with what I like to call "The reason I haven't been lesson planning is I've been deciding who I'm going to draft for fantasy football." Priorities people. Eddie Lacy trumps Henry VIII in my world right now. It's just the way it is. And I'm gonna kick ass this year.

Soak in these last few days of summer, teacher friends. I felt a fall crisp in the air today and football is coming. I, for one, can't wait.

I will love with urgency and not with haste

This weekend we traveled through the flatlands in West Virginny and Ohio, slept on the ground, got a contact high and were almost eaten alive by bed bugs but it was totally worth it, because we got to see

Mumford & Sons and Old Crow Medicine Show.

We arrived Friday night and the Gentlemen of the Road had taken over the adorable city of Troy. The town square was closed off where there were 2 stages and lots of food and beverage.

The "shuttle" from our car to the campground was a bit of false advertising because in all reality it was a hay ride from a tractor. But it kept with the theme so I  bought in. I also bought into the camping, I was going to make the best of it despite the fact that neither of our air mattresses would work and we were next to loud frat boys whose sole desire was to keep us up all night. Dear frat boys with visors....ever heard of quiet hours because according to my pamphlet they're supposed to start at 12!!....how old do I sound right now????

Saturday we had a nice pancake breakfast from at the town rec center. Then we purchased our gear and were free to enjoy all the lovely town of Troy had to offer. troy is the stars hollow of ohio for all you Gilmore girl fans, it was almost too perfect

 

For everyone in my hometown my sister compared the festival to "like Heritage Days times 1,000." Drew and I spent the better part of the day in a used book store shocker. As the day wore on we became increasingly aware of how tired we were and how we really did not want to sleep on the ground next to our insensitive neighbors.

 

 

So in the 90 degree heat we packed up camp and rode the hay back to the car and sat in the a/c for a while before hay-riding back for the concert.

 

 

 



 

 

 



At the risk of sounding dramatic I will just say that Mumford was a spiritual experience for me. I cried twice and Drew made the comment on the way home that he felt like he was at church a couple of times. It was church for me and their voices are amazing. And I must tell you the f-word does not sound dirty with a British accent, in fact I quite like it.


Mumford was so humble and funny. There is no lyric they sing that does not stir my soul and their voices make me weak at the knees. Watching them collaborate with OCMS on Wagon Wheel warmed my heart and I cannot speak highly enough of them. 

Our getting home story is one for another day but just know that I would pay twice what I paid to see OCMS or Mumford any day. And probably even sleep in bed bugs in a smoking room on the floor. I don't care if I never see anyone else, I now know that they are both amazing live and I feel so lucky I got to have church with Marcus and the boys.

 

 

 

 



Until we meet again Mumford.....I'll be waiting.

 

A Stormy Week

Last weekend was set to be an exciting one. Two of my best friends (who happen to be sisters) and my dear little sister were coming for a visit. And also to attend a concert about an hour down the road in Bluefield. We were excited to see FSR, Lee Brice, someone I can't remember, and Eric Church. Clearly male country singers are not my strong suit as they are all easily confused in my brain.

We pre-gamed with a little KFC in the 100 degree heat in our cowboy boots and were primed for some country music in West by god Virginia (that's the only appropriate way to state that you are in such a state).

This is us, primed

My saintly husband for taking all of us ladies, rarely are we this photogenic.

Two acts into our long awaited concert and the annoying radio personalities on stage announce that everyone must evacuate.....just after my clueless lovely sister decided she was going to leave the group in search of pizza. Again, my dear husband saved the day and found her, crisis averted. Sort of.

For a large group of drunk people, everyone remained very calm as we made our way to the single exit. I suppose the alcohol mellowed everyone out and no one noticed the small children and dogs that were flying in the air past us as the wind picked up.

We decided we would bail out rather than waiting to see if they allowed everyone back in and headed back to my favorite Virginia, the original. Little did we know we were driving into the worst of the storm. Unfortunately this is what my house guests and I ran up on (literally we had to leave our car at the end of my road).

Of course these were taken the next day. And these are just the ones in our yard. We slept that night with all windows open, no a/c and no power. So much for our intentions of going out in Blacksburg once we got home. We were in damage control mode and let me tell you, that's my least favorite mode to be in. I panic. I have a vague memory that night of sitting on the toilet peeing and crying about my dog being safe and my sister sitting in the floor attempting to comfort me. That goes on the list of low points in my life.

Positive outcomes from the night: my dog was safe that's number one, no damage to our house, no damage to Kristan's car, and a sense of community as neighbors came together to get trees out of the road.

Negatives: 6 days later and still no power for 5,000 people in our county, 100 degree heat almost every day since then, not having been home in almost a week

I love my family but I'm so homesick I can't stand it. I've been away for longer times than this but something about this time has me missing our routine. That and the fact that I'm leaving again on Sunday for another week (granted it is to the beach) but I will still miss my house and hubby and dog. I hope I don't sound too selfish, I'm so grateful that we had a place to come and stay and that no one was hurt but I want to go home.

Okay, whining over. Please remember those in our county and surrounding counties who are still without power but had no place to go. I have worried sick about some of our elderly neighbors. Keep cool everyone and beware of summer weather. Who knew power outages would be worse in summer than winter? Well, I know it now.

P.S. We got an e-mail this week that they were rescheduling the concert, that Eric Church he's a stand up guy....whoever he is. Just kidding, I know he sings smoke a little smoke. Right?