Coming soon: an insider's guide to biking, beer and Atlanta

Sip and cycle... bike and imbibe... pedal and pour (©2014 CLBoudreaux)... Names be damned - this plan is destined to be sweet (or hoppy)! O&I have spent a couple of weekends working out the route and the logistics for a project that combines our favorite things about this great city. Stay tuned for details!

Brussel Sprouts in the garden

It's been almost 8 months since I planted brussel sprout seeds in the garden. They sprouted quickly but I made the mistake of waiting way too long to thin them out (we're talking months too long). When they were finally thinned the remaining plants began to take off. Those with the most hours of sunshine clearly growing the fastest. The snow and ice storms didn't phase them at all and by February we finally began to notice little brussel sprouts forming between leafy stalks. Unfortunately, the warm days have caused the plants to bolt and looks like our chance of eating any these is officially over. Even without the tasty homegrown meal I still consider the experience (perhaps it should be called an experiment) a success. We'll try this again in late summer, implementing what I've learned, and hopefully finally getting it right!

Unexpected happiness. Thank you.

I had a birthday this weekend. Normally, I'm quite the birthday person - but this year has been different. Before I go into detail, I'd like to emphasize (for the first time) that I truly have no idea who reads this. Friends, co-workers, people who hate me, people who like me, possible employers who want to hire me? I don't know. The ambiguity has slowly begun to influence what I'm likely to share. That said, it's been over a year since I gave up the hope that this blog would influence people to live more heart healthy lives. While I have stopped trying to help other people eat and live better - my own healthy lifestyle has become intrinsic.

The aforementioned birthday has been an unwelcome, looming, milestone. The last year feels like a 365 days of failed starts. In every aspect of my life I am stuck in the mud - and as an oldest child, Aries, who graduated from an Ivy League school - the lack of traction has been eating me alive. I hesitate to type this because I am very aware of how pathetically cliche it will sound: my daily loneliness is so isolating. Had someone told me that the panacea was a birthday I'd  have rolled my eyes. But - it's true.

Several weeks ago I challenged myself to find the small bits of genuine happiness that must exist in every single day. To help me focus I quit Facebook and started a Tumblr  that allowed me to tally happy moments. Both efforts helped but they have paled in comparison to the simple acts of unexpected kindness that those around me have recently shown. Those simple acts have been so important to me that I'd like to sit and write each person a thank you note. 

Without giving away too much of my friends' privacy - if you spent time with me between Friday morning and Sunday night - you SPECIFICALLY - made a really big impact on my well being. Thank you. Thank you for your cards, your cakes, your gifts, your surprises, your time, your texts, your songs, your smiles, your hugs, your listening... It's impossible to walk away from the last 76 hours feeling lonely. But - it's not just that I no longer feel lonely. It's more that I finally understand that a lot of the people who I'd previously been holding at a distance have long been my very real friends. I entered the weekend feeling stuck but I leave it feeling the most optimistic I've felt in a very long time. And this time, I owe that feeling to the wonderful people around me.

Thank you guys. Your patience and sincerity is huge to me. Thanks. 

Atlanta's Spring Festivals

Happy Things

The first day of March is finally here! For Atlanta that is ALMOST officially springtime - and springtime in Atlanta makes me very happy. Here spring is synonymous  with daffodils, dogwoods, azaleas, cabbages (okay that might just be me and my garden), the Inman Park Festival and reopening of Farmer's Markets.

This morning we're heading to the grand opening of a new Atlanta farmer's market. This one is the Freedom Farmer's Market and now through the week before Christmas it will be set up every Saturday at the Carter Center. While there a few things that set this market apart from the others around town the one that excites me is accessibility by bike. This location is easy to ride to on both the Freedom Park Bike Trail and the Beltline. I love that!

While I'm on the topic of loving things and springtime and bikes - I have to share this project I found on Kickstarter: Type Rider II: The Tandem Poetry Tour by Maya Stein. Everything about it inspires me. I wish it was me and my idea! The Kickstarter campaign only lasts for 3 more days; as of now they only need another $1500 to reach their goal. If you love the project as much as I do I hope you'll donate a few dollars to help make it a reality. I sponsored JULY 17 Indianola→Altoona (which I'm pretty excited about).

Okay, time to clean up and hop on my bike! Gotta get to that Farmer's Market! Happy almost-springtime!

Historic Grant Park

When the Grant Park neighborhood was under consideration for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places an inventory was taken of all buildings and homes in the area. The information was compiled into a series of notebooks - and those notebooks have recently resurfaced. Paul Simo, historic chair of the Grant Park Neighborhood Association, brought the heavy stack to a recent board meeting. Looking up my home and those around me was exciting!

Turns out our house was built in 1920, making it 94 years old! Our next door neighbor's house (where we were married in 2011) was built in 1889. Most exciting of all - I finally found out more about the gorgeous, overgrown Victorian home across the street. It was built in 1871 for/by (the) Lemuel Grant. The rumor I've heard is that his 2nd wife didn't want to live in their original home after it'd been used as a hospital during the Civil War. This was his home until he died in 1893. His wife lived here until 1912 when she passed (the same year the Titanic sank - and the fictional Downton Abbey begins). Now I'm dying to see inside!! 

If you live in the neighborhood and want to see what the inventory says about your home please contact Paul at historic@GPNA.org.

Atlanta's 2014 SNOW DAY!

Two weeks ago Atlanta made national news for it's "unexpected" "snowstorm". I sarcastically use both words because the snow was neither "unexpected" nor really a "snowstorm". Rather, the Weather Channel (which is based in Atlanta)  had predicted the couple of inches of snow which (as always) caused an ice problem. 

Friends who live outside of Atlanta continue to ask me if this storm was really any different from those of past years. My answer is, yes definitely. The Storm of the Century in March 1993 was a real snowstorm (by Atlanta standards); my suburb received half a foot of powdery snow! When Atlanta hosted the Super Bowl in 2000 we were hit with an ice storm that caused tree limbs to snap and create power outages all over the city. This time a dusting of powdery snow seemed to instantly freeze onto the roads (possibly because the city had been experiencing single digit temperatures in the weeks leading up to the storm). As the snow was falling the city closed schools. This prompted everyone in the city to simultaneously get into their cars and act like half a million little zambonis. Working together, Atlanta's infamous rush hour commuters transformed Atlanta's highways into a massive ice skating rink. It's not that Atlantans don't know how to drive in the snow; it's that we don't have cars equipped to drive on solid ice. And in a matter of three hours the roads went from snow to ice. 

People in my office were forced to either abandon their cars and walk or sleep in their cars on the highway. I was lucky: I left work at 4pm and had a really easy drive home through a mostly abandoned city. Just another perk of city living I suppose!

Photos from Tuesday evening/night

Driving home from work: the opening shot from the Walking Dead.

Sledding in Grant Park.

Looking East on 1-20 at midnight on Tuesday

Photos from Wednesday morning

Looking North on Hill Street.

Looking West on 1-20 at 8am on Wednesday (traffic is a stand still).

Looking East on 1-20 at 8am on Wednesday (traffic is a stand still).

ROAD TRIP!!

To celebrate the New Year, Oliver and I took a road trip to Texas. We spent New Years Eve in Austin and then made stops in a few different places during the drive back to Atlanta. Austin didn't quite live up to it's self proclaimed status as "weird" but there were a lot of cool things about the city that I thought Atlanta could learn from. In particular, public support for bicycling and beer. I was so impressed by the amount of bike parking. All over the city there were entire parking spots devoted to bike lock ups (in Atlanta we're lucky to find one tiny lock up on the sidewalk). The beers laws are also more progressive then those in Atlanta. In Austin the growler shops doubled as bars - something currently illegal in Georgia. 

Instead of writing about our favorite spots from the road trip I've made them into "pins" so be sure to check out Pinterest page! Happy New Year!