When Southern Dogs Experience Snow

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#5 Day Trippin’ to the Olde Hickory Tap Room

Earlier in the week, I was talking to C on the phone and he mentioned that Friday was supposed to be 60+ degrees and it’d be a perfect day to take a day trip somewhere in the S2000. After a bit of investigation, he decided on taking a trip to Greenville, SC to visit a microbrewery but eventually changed his mind in favor of a shorter drive to Hickory, NC. The destination? Olde Hickory Tap Room. Just a short one hour drive from where we are, we arrived a little after the main lunch rush but it remained very busy for the duration of our stay. I started out with a Brown Mountain Light and C started with the Piedmont Pilsner. Both were good, lighter beers, but still didn’t touch our favorites from Sprecher Brewery in WI. C then switched to their IPA (his favorite beer) and had the Table Rock Pale Ale. I moved onto the Unkel Dunkel, which was aged in bourbon barrels. You could definitely taste the bourbon in it, which at first, was a bit strong, but after awhile it tasted pretty good. It was far from my favorite beer, but it was still pretty good. I mean, how often do you really have bad beer? C finished the day out with a Ruby Lager, which was definitely more nutty in flavor. Overall good beer, good times!

We walked around a bit of downtown Hickory, which was nothing special. In fact, most of it was pretty deserted, which was sad. We didn’t spend too long there due to that, but we did see some cute little shops and a ton of furniture shops. On the way back, it was warm enough to keep the top down for the entire ride. C let me drive for a bit on some back country roads, where I’m more comfortable driving that car. I enjoy it a lot more when there’s no traffic and I don’t have to worry about people seeing that car because it’s so small and low to the ground! C did drive most of the way though…top down, heat up… what a great January day!

Reusing instead of Recycling

I came across this information while on a message board and thought it was a really nifty way to reuse Christmas cards instead of throwing them in the recycle bin.  It gives the kids at St. Jude’s something to do, they make a bit of money, and how cool is it that you can buy the cards??!  It’s not just for Christmas cards either, Easter, birthdays and more can be sent and reused!

New Year, New Goals

I don’t make resolutions.  Never have, most likely never will.  This year though I’m making a goal.  What’s the difference between a resolution and a goal you ask?  To me a resolution is a change to a current lifestyle or habit.  A goal is something you set out to achieve, continuing on with a habit/lifestyle that you already have in place.

The goal for this year?  Run 750 miles in 2010.  That equates to 62.5 miles per month.  15.625 miles per week.  This is going to force me to do some longer runs, which I dread and typically find a reason to not do them.  It’s a pretty lofty goal for me and it’s going to require 4 days of solid runs per week.  We’ll see.  I’ve got my handy dandy Nike+ to help me out; I have reset my runs on my iPod to only show the runs for this year.  This means I get Lance or Tiger to come on and tell me again how this run was my furthest yet or that run had my fastest mile yet.  The best thing about this little gadget is that I can keep track on the website under the “annual” tab and it’ll tell me my distance for the year, making updating the ticker easy as can be.

The plan is to give an update each month on how far I’ve gone and how I’m feeling.  I’m hoping I can accomplish this and also stay injury free.

Don’t Look Back

I happened to look back at the New Year’s post I made in 2009, saying good riddance to 2008.

2009 was a much “worse” year than 2008, no doubt about it.  I mean, losing your full time job definitely counts as pretty life-changing for most people, including myself.  We didn’t have any major home improvement projects for the year (just tiling the guest bath and putting in the trim, which has yet to be completed), so that’s a definite plus.  Losing not only one but two jobs was the biggest low point, my mom’s divorce was the shocker of the year.

In all honesty though, we have a good life.  We have no issues paying our bills.  We’re healthy.  We have a great family.  We have a decent house (depending on the day).  So, as the door closes on 2009, I’m trying to embrace 2010 with open arms, hoping for the best when it comes to a new full time job and being able to move forward with plans to relocate to Texas and also to start a family.  It’s hard, but I’m trying.