Abele's Family Restaurant

Near our hotel was this family restaurant that was ALWAYS crowded. We decided to check it out, and I would rank it as one of three best places we ate all weekend! One of their options was to order a meat, and then you could add either the salad bar, soup bar, or vegetable bar (or all 3). We chose the vegetable bar. I should have just ordered that! They had 12 vegetables to choose from, and it wasn't things like sliced tomatoes that you see in so many country places. I'm talking collards, lima beans, corn, squash, okra, stewed okra & tomatoes, peas, green beans...and on and on and on!

Somewhat amusing (and also a little horrifying) was the decor of the place. Tightly packed, every inch of the walls and booths and ceilings were decorated with old metal advertisements, wooden decorations...and sayings. I would say 90% of the sayings were derogatory towards men. For example: God created men first so he could correct the rough draft.  or The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

There were a few sayings that were men-friendly, but not many!  We debated whether the owner was a woman who had a bad marriage, or a man with just a terrible advertising idea of getting women to come eat! But if you ever pass through Morganton, NC and are looking for somewhere to eat, I highly recommend this place. Reasonable prices and GREAT food. 

high class dining...of sorts

Normally for our anniversary we go out to eat.  And it's normally not a high class place.  At least not by intention. A little higher class than Smithfields or Bojangles but not by much.  The three times we have traveled during our anniversary (twice to the mountains and once to DC), we ended up in a high class restaurant by default. And of course it was after a day of walking/touring/hiking and I was in tennis shoes and hot and sweaty. Not exactly what you have in mind when you think of an evening in a nice place. (The first time it happened was pre-GPS and we were driving and driving and driving and looking for ANYWHERE that had a bathroom or restaurant, and this was the first place we found open after 2 hours. They wanted to know if we had reservations. I'm not sure why, as the place was barely even half full. Once seated, we looked at the menu with its prices, dismally looked at each other, and Bobby made a face and said "hmm. happy anniversary.")
So this year, I was a little more prepared. I had a bag of snacks packed in case we wound up on another winding road with nothing open, AND we have a gps device that will find restaurants. :) Turns out we needed neither. While quickly passing through Blowing Rock (the city, we didn't make it to the rock itself) we stopped at the only restaurant that resembled something we would like: the Speckled Trout (or something like that). It looked like a place for normal people. The decorations near us, dangling from the ceiling, were wooden fish, painted in the colors of our living room. We joked about asking them if they would sell them, but I'm not sure that's quite the look we want. :) This was the first time we've eaten in a pricier restaurant that I've actually enjoyed the food and not felt out of place/unwanted. Here's our dinner for that evening:

Appetizer:  frog legs (one for each of us!)  And even though Bobby has always told me they taste like chicken, I think they taste more like fish.

Meal: Fish (I don't remember what kind) wrapped around a crab meat dressing with 2 veggies each AND fresh bread. It was great.

and we were both full so didn't get dessert. But it was good, and I would probably eat there again if we ever drive through Blowing Rock (but only after stopping at the Fudge place which we didn't visit due to the rain and it being on the other side of a heavily trafficked street).

and tomorrow...tomorrow I'll tell you about Abele's Family Restaurant.

Waldenses

Twelve years ago today I married my best friend of 2 years.
In honor of that momentous and life-changing event, we're taking a vacation! By the time we get back next week, I should have pictures to show of the wonderful town of Valdese, NC. 
One of the things I love about my husband is that he loves history, which is quite funny considering I hated history in high school.
The town of Valdese was created by Italian immigrants, known as Waldensians, who were escaping religious persecution from the Catholic Church in Rome and France. Here's an interesting excerpt from a Catholic encyclopedia about them:

Among the doctrinal errors which they propagated was the denial of purgatory, and of indulgences and prayers for the dead. They denounced all lying as a grievous sin, refused to take oaths and considered the shedding of human blood unlawful. They consequently condemned war and the infliction of the death penalty.

Sorry for all the underlines, as I copied and pasted, but that also allows you to click on the word and it will take you to the source.  I don't agree with all their doctrines (vowing a life of poverty, divorcing a spouse once you convert in order to live a life of poverty and evangelism), but were it not for people like them, willing to acquire copies of the Scripture in their own language and determine for themselves what God's truth was, then the church as we know it today might not exist. I'm curious to see how much of their outdoor drama about their history includes religion, and to see how secular the town is.

So until next week, ciao!

and it's done...

I don't know that I will ever attempt this again. After running out of the specialty thread last Friday night and waiting until I was back in Raleigh to get more, I was relieved the bag was finished and disappointed with the outcome. We'll know in a few days whether or not it actually works. If it doesn't, then it's back to scouring the internet in hopes of finding something that works. Maybe I just need to find a class in PatternMaking 101, get a decent sewing machine, and start practicing for my own line of wheelchair bags.  Hahahaha...not.

growing up

Our nightly visitors (they like to eat the remnants of the geese's corn, though lately they've become a bit bossy and started chasing them away) have grown up. They're no longer the playful, jumpy animals that start at the least noise.  In fact, they're almost not scared of us at all. Oh, they run when we come outside now, but never very far. Two of them will sometimes stay within 20 yards!  But here's our "teenage" visitors:

taken through the window so it's a tad blurry, but here's the smaller guy

3 of the 5

and the bigger guy

the girl toward the front is the last afraid of us and the geese

hot weather storms

This past weekend brought some interesting storms. We delighted in watching the temps quickly drop from 102 to 89 and then back to the mid-90s as the rain disappeared. The hot breezes before a storm have been interesting.  The aftermath of the storm has been a bit bizarre as well.

 The top of this tree collapsed. We've had to cut a section of its V before, so we thought this time the entire top was gone.  But...it's not.  There's still one tiny branch sticking out! Some trees just die hard!

I had a hard time getting the light setting adjusted on my camera so I could capture the rainbow. It was clearly visible in the bright sky (the previous picture gives you a sense of how bright it was outside) but my camera refused to register the bow's reflections without some major adjustments. Rainbows always excite me, and remind me of the song I learned in middle school:

What kind of music does a rainbow make?

What kind of song does it sing?
Oh, it's a happy kind of melody and it brightens everything.

For the rainbow is a promise that God is in control.

Oh the rainbow is a promise that He'll always keep my soul!

What kind of music does a rainbow make?

What kind of song does it sing?
Oh, it's a happy kind of melody and it brightens everything.

I've always enjoyed that visual reminder.

forms at the dr.'s office

It never fails. You go to the doctor. And to keep you from being too fidgety while you wait, they give you some forms to fill out. It doesn't matter that you filled out the exact same form the previous 20+ visits you've had in the last seven years, you still have to fill them out again.

I know. I know. Information can and does change.  But these forms always make me feel like I'm back in school taking an achievement test. You remember fighting the feelings and urges, don't you? You're taking the dumb math section and they ask a question like:

There's a cow tied to the fence. If the cow eats all the grass it can eat within the rope's reach, the portion eaten will be what shape?

A) triangle 
B) rectangle
C) semi-circle
D) square

Do you know what happens when you give such a question to a bunch of smart-aleck middle schoolers? Or how many stupid discussions we had at lunch on how we could make any one of those answers fit? Did you ever fight the urge to intentionally go through and mark EVERY single answer WRONG? On purpose?

That's sometimes how I feel at the dr's office. It's actually become a joke now, that neither Bobby nor his doctors will ever truly know what is wrong with him if I fill out his forms unsupervised. For example:

Please circle the correct answer to any of these symptoms you are currently experiencing or have experienced in the last 6 months:

Hearing Loss        Yes     No
Memory Loss       Yes     No
Confusion             Yes     No
Bouts of Insanity   Yes     No

Is it ever safe to ask a spouse those questions, covering a period of 6 months? :) I mean, he lives with me!

And I can't help but wonder, do they even LOOK at these forms? I don't think they do. I really think it's just something to fill up your time so you don't notice how long you're waiting. Sadly, like achievement tests, I will probably never intentionally fill out the wrong answers just to see what happens. But I'm afraid I will always be tempted.