Happily Ever After: Life As Mrs. Blackwood

Friday, July 6, 2012

Finally! After what seems like week after week of rain, gloom, wind and a general sogginess, the sun has finally reappeared in Jacksonville! It’s so good to have that bright beacon of optimism back – however, it brought 100+ degree temperatures along with it, so now we are baking instead. Oh well, at least we had beautiful weather for the Fourth of July!

Life has been busy lately, which I’m sure you all deduced from the lack of posts, but a good friend gave me an encouraging nudge a few days ago, so this will be my attempt to catch you up! After living here for over a full month now, one of my favorite things has been our many outings and adventures. I always used to be passively content with the usual and the familiar, but my sweet husband has challenged me in my desire to try new things and places, and we have made more fun memories exploring together! Here are just a few of the highlights:

The Magnificat Café, Jacksonville Art Walk and Museum of Contemporary Art

Our first official date night after moving to Jacksonville - this is still one of my most favorites! The Magnificat is a sweet little corner café in the middle of downtown, and has some fantastic French-inspired cuisine. Don’t worry, if everything on the menu looks too good and you can’t pick, Chris will be more than happy to tell you just what you’re in the mood for, and his little brother will happily devour your cookie for you, should you be too full to finish it! J After dinner, we headed across to the Hemming Plaza for the Art Walk that is put on by local artists the first Wednesday of every month. The aforementioned dampness meant for a slightly smaller crowd than usual, but we enjoyed meandering through the various stalls in the hopes of a great discovery. We didn’t find anything worth bringing home, but the paparazzi found us – follow the link to see us posing for the cameras of Florida Times Union’s Jacksonville.com!

Austin & Amber - Art Walk

The MOCA!

After this, we ventured into Hemming Plaza’s other gem - the Museum of Contemporary Art! Their main exhibit right now is entitled ReFocus and features the art of the 1970’s, including photorealism, earthworks, conceptual art and abstract painting, as well as video, performance and installation art. An article about the exhibit describes the art of the time period as “far from the mainstream and appreciated by a select, usually underground, audience.” So true! The art was weird, but I have to admit, some of the people emerging to wander the galleries were even weirder! I wouldn’t say it was my favorite artistic display, but the experience was fun and the Stormtroopers that showed up at the end made it all worth it! Don’t believe me? Well, here’s another link with photo evidence!

Stormtroopers

Five Points, Pizza Italian, Memorial Park & The Bold Bean

Main Street in Five Points

Memorial Park

Jacksonville has a surprising amount of quaint little historic districts that abound with bookstores, coffee shops, boutiques, and amazing hole-in-the-wall restaurants that are just waiting to be discovered. Another favorite weekend excursion was to the historic main street of Five Points. Here, we wandered through dusty antique shops, hunting for treasures amid the junk and memorabilia of yesteryear. A small back room filled with bin after bin of old records provided nearly an hour of entertainment as we laughed over our various finds. Soon it was time for lunch, so we strolled across the street and through the front door of Pizza Italian. First impressions were not good – the place looked like it hadn’t been updated for at least forty years, the entire room looked dingy and smelled musty, we had a few peeling and water-stained menus tossed to us over the counter, and a very large expanse of ceiling above the soda machine was falling down and hanging on by a few mere pieces. While I tried not to freak out about the code violations for both health and interior design, Austin ordered us a pizza to split. They make them fresh, so it took a while in coming – long enough anyway for us to hear a commotion back in the kitchen. As Austin and I sat staring across from each other in our booth, we could hear the chef yelling in very loud, very adamant Italian to whatever poor soul happened to be caught in the kitchen. After a while it got to be downright comical, and we had a hard time not dissolving into giggles or attempting an impersonation of the tirade, complete with frantic hand gestures! Thankfully, the pizza was absolutely delicious, bigger than we’d expected and piled high with fresh, yummy veggies – Pizza Italian had redeemed itself – for now. An afternoon stroll brought us to Memorial Park on the banks of the Saint John’s River, a beautiful little slice of serenity in the middle of suburbia. We relaxed here in the shade and enjoyed the views until the afternoon coffee craving hit. The Bold Bean Café was happy to oblige and we very much enjoyed their French roast. Austin has been a huge coffee fan all along, but seems to really be enjoying the art of gourmet coffee lately, so we purchased a grinder and returned from our second visit to the Bold Bean with their delicious Ethiopian blend. Nothing like waking up smelling that in the mornings!

The Cummer Museum & Gardens

Another fun place we enjoyed was the Cummer Art Museum and Gardens. Their collections and exhibits were quite impressive and they have a wonderful interactive area designed specifically to teach children about art. However, it was the gardens that I fell in love with. Sculptures and reflecting pools, a gently splashing triple-tier fountain, ivy draped arbors, wandering paths, sheltering oak trees – this place would be more ideal for a manor or a chateau! They feature both the Italian and English garden designs and provide wonderful views of the river. Austin enjoyed the complimentary painting supplies and I was happy to wander and take pictures, although my camera couldn’t capture the sweetest view – a little boy of four with soaked overalls and an utter enchantment with the ever elusive tadpoles living in the pond!

Chamblin’s Book Mine

If you’re ever in Jacksonville and need something to read, look no farther than Chamblin’s Book Mine! Yes, that’s really what it’s called – and for good reason! Never in my life have I encountered a place quite like this. From the minute you walk in the door, all you see for row after row is shelf after shelf piled from floor to ceiling with every type of book imaginable. Between this company’s two bookstore locations and their warehouse, they have over two million volumes! Yeah, talk about literary overload – it only took about five minutes for me to feel like I was on a book high! Normally I don’t get overwhelmed that easily, but after browsing for close to a half an hour, my eyes were glazing over, I felt claustrophobic and I’m pretty sure my eye was starting to twitch. Needless to say, we didn’t stick around too much longer, but I’m determined to go back again with a specific goal to keep me on track. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure the place might eat me alive – oh well, there could be worse ways to go!

San Marco

One of our more recent excursions was to the historic square in San Marco for a movie night. The theatre there was built in the early thirties and boasts only a single screen. One of the original projectors stands proudly in the lobby, and the concessions booth in the back of the theater itself will be happy to provide you with whatever movie fare you might require. Our movie choice of the night – Pixar’s newest film, Brave! We’ve been following the film ever since it was announced two years ago and we couldn’t wait to finally see it. Opening night was full and we just barely found seats between all the wide-eyed and expectant little girls J, but the movie was well worth it. Full of fun, magic, and drama, Pixar has done a fantastic job once again! Yay for bagpipes and kilts – I would have loved to have been on that research team!

There’s so much more, but I’ll save the rest for when I have more time to really tell the stories properly!

Happy reading!

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Of Pots & Turtles

Life has been a surprising paradox this past week. In some ways, it seems as if we've doing this together forever as our routines and habits have begun settle in. In other ways, however, there are still things on a daily basis that I find trouble comprehending. Like waking up to some ridiculously handsome man kissing me goodbye as he leaves for work every morning, or seeing the name Amber Blackwood and having the vague feeling that I've met her before! :)

And of course, we're still having fun making our way through all our "firsts." For example, one of the first things on the task list was a much needed grocery shopping trip. The amount of things in the refrigerator that were either nearing or past their expiration date was slightly disconcerting! In any event, everything we could possibly need in the way of shopping is no more than 10-15 minutes away, and ever so conveniently, there happens to be a Publix just down the road from us. All in all it was a rather large shopping trip, stocking up on staples and planning for future dinners. My sweet husband surprised me with a subscription to E-meals, which for those of you who don't know, generates a weekly meal plan and shopping list based on the store of your choice. I can't help but feel that I'm cheating somehow by using it, but it certainly does make my job easier! So there I was, navigating the veritable labyrinth of the Publix shopping aisles, working off of two lists, feeling (and looking, I'm sure!) like the complete amateur I was. Thankfully, due to the gracious help of several kind sales associates, I was managing nicely, when I heard the thunder and lightning. Soon the rain was pounding on the roof of the store, and one lightning bolt later, we had lost power! The generators kicked in soon enough, but it was barely enough light to illuminate the very perimeter of the store - the aisles themselves were dark and shadowy. Not about to let a little thunderstorm stop me, I continued bravely on, despite not being able to see very well. The power was back on within the half hour, just as I was finishing up and Austin had come to meet me and help with the check out. As we gathered up the groceries and headed home to unload, I warned him that half the things in our bags I had grabbed in the dark, and to adjust his culinary expectations accordingly! So far, dinners have been going well - let's hope it continues!

Yes, Mom, that is macaroni and cheese! I promise, it's actually for a

recipe - one box of it, anyway. They were buy one, get one after all! :)

Other shopping trips this week included one large excursion to Target to finish off my registry with the very few items I still needed, thanks to the amazing generosity of our friends and family. Two hours, two very large shopping carts full and one flustered sales associate later, I was headed back home with my treasures. My biggest purchase, and the one I was most excited about, was my new set of cookware. Making dinner up until that point had always been an adventure - hoping each time that Austin's bachelor pad kitchen supplies would see me through. It had been going fairly well until we got to spaghetti night. Yeah, you kind of need a stock-pot to boil anything pasta related, so that was what originally necessitated my Target run. Needless to say, I am very happy with my new pots and pans!

We'll see if the "non-stick" proves true or not!

It was on my return from Target and as I was unloading the car that I happened upon yet another member of the St. John's apartment community. Granted, he's a little different than most, and he did look very out of place lounging there in the middle of the sidewalk, but I'm sure he was just on an excursion from his normal residence near the pond...

At the very first, Mr. Turtle startled the heck out of me! The long grass in front of the sidewalk completely obscured his shell, so all I could see was his large head and long neck, fully extended upward and crooked over, rather like a cobra as he surveyed his surroundings. For a fleeting moment, I actually did think he was some hideously large snake, and actually said out loud, "Holy crap! If that's a snake, I'm going to run screaming bloody murder in the opposite direction!" Thankfully, it was just a turtle, albeit a very large one, and although I knew he wasn't going to ruthlessly attack me at any moment, I still gave him a ridiculously wide berth as I skirted around him on the way back to the apartment. I'm sure we'll meet again at some point, but for now, I hope my reptilian friend safely finds his way back home!

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Welcome!

At the outset, let me just say that the recent myriad of requests for me to join Facebook has been astounding! :) I'm touched and honored that so many of you have expressed the desire to keep up with me and all our new adventures. In a way, this blog will serve as the answer to your questions. While I have nothing against Facebook itself, I recognize the temptation it would represent for me during a season when I am striving to set and keep priorities, especially when it comes to how I'm spending my time. That being said, I thought perhaps a blog where I can post pictures and write about my newlywed nest would be the best way to keep up with you all!

Have you ever had the experience of packing your entire life into the back of a moving truck and going from one existence to something completely and utterly different? I must say, my mind and body are still reeling, and I'm sure it will take me some months yet to take in all these changes. I still can't get over the feeling that I'm playing house, the way I used to when I was a little girl. However, this time there are real dishes and cleaning and bills and dryers that don't work (moral of that story: always clean out your lint trap! We found enough lint clogging the line to choke a horse!). Even though I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that all this is for real, I've still been amazed at how smoothly everything has gone, from the move itself, to unpacking, to settling in. My sweet husband has been a wonder through it all - running errands, making me laugh when I'm homesick, leaving notes for me to find the first day he went back to work, and making me waffles and coffee for breakfast! It's a bit of an adjustment for me being home alone during the day now, but I have plenty to keep me busy. The first major grocery shopping trip is planned for tomorrow and there's still lots to do at the apartment. I've had many requests for pictures, which I'll happily supply, just as soon as I've cleared more of the clutter and dressed up my walls! In the meantime, here are just a few of my favorite things about our new home...