Gumbo and Cornbread Love: Spring Weekend

Spring has officially arrived in Nashville. I just about called it last weekend, when we had 2 snowdays followed by 2 days of nice weather, but I'm calling it now. Our week long rain storm finally tapered off on Saturday evening, just as we were heading into the Symphony and Sunday was a 70 degree glorious day. Here's a rundown on our spring weekend:

1. Saturday Date Night. Saturday night we scored free tickets to the Nashville Symphony from a friend and planned a date night out. After getting the tickets, I complained and complained about going downtown on a Saturday night. The SEC tournament was happening that evening, streets would be closed, we couldn't get a reservation anywhere, can't we just stay at home and nearly cancelled. Thankfully it turned out that dear friends from Milwaukee were passing through Nashville and managed to get dinner and see the performance with us! I'm so glad we made ourselves leave the house. Note what wasn't the list of complaints: leaving Caleb with a sitter. My good friend babysat, and she's got a recommendation list for being an awesome babysitter a mile long: a former professional children's pastor, 5 or 6 godkids, even familiar with cloth diapers! Plus she loves Caleb and they had a great time- no tears.

Our seats at the NSO. Their Symphony Hall is very different from Milwaukee!

2. Sunday Outside Work. Sunday was the kind of day that makes you glad you're alive. 70 degrees and sunny, I'd say we made the most of it. Church followed by lunch out with friends followed by a serious nap for Caleb. I had to go in to wake him after nearly 3 hours down! That kid sure loves his sleep. We took a long walk and let Caleb play outside until dinner. Brian and I worked outside for most of his nap. Brian's done with the baby gate, so I started painting and he worked on building his work bench. I raked the last of the leaves off my raised bed, and there is a lot of work left to be done. Weeds galore and other plants coming up that will need to be moved. Tulips, hyacinths, day lilies and something else is sprouting green leaves. That means I need to find someplace to put those plants, as well as plant my veggies! I think I'm seriously behind on planting peas and beans, but we had snow 2 weeks ago and rain all last week! Everybody else is held up in their planting, right?

Not in my garden, but I do have a couple surprise bulbs coming up.

3. Grilling Season Kickoff. We started grilling season with pork chops and asparagus on the grill. I made an extra lemony-garlicy homemade mayonnaise to drag the asparagus through, and I am seriously addicted. It was a cut above my first version of homemade mayonnaise, which I made with olive oil. This one I made with a farm fresh egg yolk, extra lemon juice, a huge garlic clove and canola oil. I also managed to make a version of quinoa that I enjoyed, which meant cooking it in chicken stock instead of water. Caleb was lurching his body toward the spoonfuls of quinoa and peas, so I considered it a triumphant dinner.

Walks outside sometimes end with mud.

4. Cocktails on the Deck. Finally, we capped the day off with cocktails. I begged off my regular Sunday night girls get together in favor of sitting on the deck with my husband, cocktail in hand, watching the last of the light disappear from the woods. The stars came out and I tried to see if there was a bat in one of our trees.

Warm weather means a lot of running around in the diaper. Caleb thinks it's the best ever.

5. Future Weekends. Next weekend will be focused on getting the guestroom ready for my Mom, and other future visitors, and the weekend after will be another garden focused weekend. It's got 2 weeks to dry out, then I'm going in!