savannah day the third

Saturday was our last full day in Savannah. After a great breakfast at The Express Cafe & Bakery we walked the streets and found some really great shops. It’s always fun to shop the boutique stores instead of the chains that seem to inhabit every corner of our lives. I don’t have any pictures, but we found some really unique items for the house and a couple of really great pieces of jewelry at a place called Zia and don’t forget some fabulous dresses at Custard Boutique.

Before lunch we headed out to the Isle of Hope via a recommendation form my brother. If you’re at all interested in gorgeous houses on the water it’s worth the short drive to Bluff St. The homes are amazing and the majesty of those live oaks are indescribable. Go… go now!

Once we got back into Savannah proper it was back to walking. Lots of walking! I believe this fountain is in one of the two parks in the city. I do remember our trolley driver telling us a lot of wedding pictures are taken here and you can see why.

The houses surrounding the parks are amazing. If only I had a million or so dollars to spare…

At the end of the day we took a haunted pub tour with Sam of Savannah Dan. Everyone met at the Six Pence Pub and made our way to the cemetery and about 4 or 5 other bars all with haunting histories.

At Moon River, Sam was allowed to take us upstairs to the areas of great disrepair and supposed hauntings. The room straight ahead and to the left is said to be where the guests from prior years (this used to be a hotel) come back to drink and carryon with there friends. Maybe we’ll end up here someday… spooky!

I think that wraps it up for our trip. We are heading out for breakfast soon and hopefully some wireless so I can post this. Then it is back to our regularly scheduled programming of sporadic posting!

savannah day the 2nd

Yesterday it rained. Torrential downpour kind of rain until the late afternoon. This was the perfect day for the trolley. At least it was semi dry in there… it’s a windowless trolley after all. This may give you an idea of what we were looking at.

If you’re in Savannah I would recommend Oglethorpe Trolley Tours and ask for Margie, she’s a hoot! She made the history of Savannah that much more interesting!

This building was one of the first on our tour. The Telfair Museum of Art. Really gorgeous and on our list of things to go see today if we ever get out of the hotel room… I could really use some breakfast about now, but i digress.

Most of the residential streets look something like this. Really beautiful old brick streets with those live oaks hanging out over it. Very peaceful, especially with all the rain. Another thing our guide pointed out is that the spanish moss turns from that normal grayish color to a pretty green when it rains. Hard to see in the picture, but it’s true.

 

This is the Olde Pink House and is it ever pink. The short story is that they wanted to stucco over the brick and the brick color kept bleeding through so in the end they decided it was easier to work with what they had. Hence, the pink stucco. This is supposed to be a great place to eat in town, but with all the choices I’m not sure if we’ll be trying it out tonight.

One thing about this city is that it is laid out in a very orderly fashion. There are numerous squares named after historical figures and two good size parks. Here is one that we went by during the tour, you’ll have to forgive me since I have no idea which one this is… I did, however, find a really great website with tons of information about the city, here.

This is nice rainy shot of City Hall. It’s a magnificent building.

In the afternoon, after the rain finally stopped we walked through a lot of really neat areas of the city. I like the fact that they have kept and are restoring most of the old buildings. It’s nice to see remnants of the past.

What used to be a five & dime.

Another shot of City Hall in the evening, just before dark. You can see the clouds moving away from us. Hopefully it will be dry today.

A final picture before we headed back to the room last night. This is the main bridge that brings you from SC into GA. It’s a beautiful piece of architecture.

It’s now the morning of day 3. Time to get the battery charged and off to take more pictures of Savannah!

savannah

Hey ya’ll… we are in lovely Savannah, GA for a nice long weekend vacation. Oh, and the reason we’re here is cause we are celebrating our 20 year dating anniversary. Yes, we do keep track of these things and thought this was an excellent excuse to get out of town!

We are staying in a really neat old hotel, (read: horrible water pressure, but everything else is really nice) the River Street Inn. It’s on the waterfront and is an historic building originally used for exporting cotton. It was hard to get good pictures of the room since the natural lighting is poor, but here is the our bed with some old guy there to watch over us.

This is the door to the room. The wood floors are just amazing!

 

Mom seems to love wallpaper, so here’s a close-up of what’s in the hall. I’ve noticed a lot of beautiful floral wallpapers since we’ve been here. Much more than I am used to seeing at home.

Here is a pic of the main staircase. There are four floors and their are places where you can see the original stone and brick that were used and where old doors and windows have been bricked up where solid walls are now needed. It’s interesting to see how the building may have looked in the past.

 

In case you live in a cave or something, Paula Deen is from here and stuff with her face and name on it are sold in almost EVERY store here in Savannah. Apparently, she sells hoecake ya’ll, hoecake.

On a lighter note, with no extra buttah, things grow everywhere here. These are some steps from the riverside walk up to our hotel.

Live Oaks with Spanish Moss are everywhere as well. Too bad they don’t live in my part of the country. They are just beautiful trees!

Last night we ate a delicious Thai restaurant, Ruan Thai Cuisine. It was within walking distance so we ran over there after the happy hour at the hotel. This is my super artsy picture of the Singha Thai beer and the pretty water glass. All those colors were just to good to resist!

I think that’s enough for now. We took a trolley ride this morning in the pouring rain, but I figure I have posted enough pictures for the moment. Be back soon!

you did what?

This was a fun family weekend at Casa de Impulsive… Saturday I drove Mom down to Columbia to meet up with the rest of the fam and in out attempt to find a yarn shop my mom ended up buying a couch, three chairs, and a rug. Really. They’re coming back next week to pick it up.

So how does something like this happen? Dad and brother dropped us off in front of the shop that had not only moved without updating their website, but had the open sign standing out front. They were not open and it was starting to rain. **As an aside, I need to email this shop to let them know updating there info is important to the happiness of their customers. Shop FAIL!** Mom and I start walking down the street to meet up with the boys when a fabric shop is spotted. In we go. It started off innocently enough, looking at rugs, fabric… Then it started to pour the rain. I mean the sky opened up and all the rain in the southeast hit the ground. It was torrential. I go to the front, have a seat and knit while Mom continues to browse. I’m not sure how it happened exactly, but by the time the guys drove over to get us Mom was asking about the set and what kind of deal they could give her. It was good and that was that.

After all the wheeling and dealing we were starving and so headed over to Tabouli for a fantastic dinner. We were a bit raucous at times (it was one of those quiet restaurants and we would all be laughing uncontrollably), a good time was had by all.

I did get a lot of knitting done on the blanket. An hour hanging out at a fabric store will do that. Here it is with 2 skeins of Noro knitted up. Added the third today. It is coming along nicely. It’s starting to get a bit to big to carry around… hmmm… I really like knitting this garter stitch when I’m out and about, but it’s starting to get a bit unwieldy.

knitting and a cheap room at the inn

I’ve been knitting a bit more. Still neglecting my shawl, but I have been a bit obsessed with this.

This is the start of my blanket. Just finished up the first ball of Noro today and will most likely splice the new ball in this evening. That’s a lot of garter stitch. A lot of garter. The Rav link is here.

Monday Joe and I celebrated 13 years of married life. Thirteen people! Saturday we went out to dinner (I wore white pants people!) at a new to us restaurant called Global. Great food, perfect portion sizes, and super nice staff. All that and they brought us each a glass of Prosecco on the house to help us celebrate. Totally recommend this place, especially if you like to experiment a bit with your food.

What else… oh, we booked the hotel for our trip to Savannah in a few weeks. We got a fantastic deal! Joe was perusing hotels.com and found a 48 hour special for the River Street Inn. This place was listed at $175 a night for the weekend we are going, but Joe got it for $110 a night. Score one for us! Go check out the website so you can see the luxury that will be our room at the Inn… go on, go look.

Other than that I have been wrangling the tomatoes into submission. That may be an overstatement. I think they’re winning. Seriously, I think the two plants might take over the house. I will take pictures for proof.

On that note, must go water the porch plants and get the guest bedrooms cleaned up. Cause I will actually be having guests. Well, it’s my family, but they never visit so it’s exciting.

a bit more rambling

Lots has been going on the past few days.

Monday I took a random picture of the fog while driving to work. It looked a lot foggier in real life. Funny how the camera picks things up differently than we do…

So Tuesday I took the day off from work. Our pergola guy (who by the way is awesome if you need someone to do some work) came over to get the darned thing stained and pretty. I noticed that before he painted he patched a few of the splits that were starting the wood. Nothing like someone fixing something without asking. Awesome! So hear is a pic from the inside of the plastic he had lining everything.

Sorry, just thought it was funny looking…  And now for a work in progress pic.

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Looking good! He finished up on Wednesday morning, but of course we got deluged with rain around six (yes, the stain held up just fine) and I haven’t been able to snap a completed photo yet. Anyway, we are just thrilled to finally have that all done and not have to worry about it for ten years or when we get tired of the color, whichever comes first!

The real reason I took the day off was because it was teeth pulling day for Rosey. The vet had determined a few weeks back that she needed 6 front teeth pulled. Ugh! I got a call that afternoon from the vet (Dr Powers up in Huntersville is great if anyone needs a good bunny vet) with the results and it was a mixed bag. The surgery went fine and she was recovering nicely, but two to her teeth decided to be completely contrary. Apparently she had some enamel loss and some of the teeth were really brittle. One had already been broken low and couldn’t be removed and the other one snapped below the gum line. *sigh* We will have to keep an eye on those to see if they just stop growing or become a problem later. For now she is on some pain meds and antibiotics for a few days to be sure she is feeling OK.

On a lighter note, I finally attended the Charlotte Knitting Guild meeting Tuesday night. I have been trying for three months to go and something always seems to come up that first Tuesday of the month. It was a lot of fun to meet new people and they had a guest host that spoke about color theory. Really interesting to be reminded of those things I had forgotten and to learn new as well. Good times!

On the actual knitting front I can definitely say that I have stalled out on my Secret Garden Shawl. totally. stalled. out. I think it’s the color change that I am having an issue with. I know if I just sit down and do it all will be well, but I am having a total mental block over it. hmph! Other than that I have been mindlessly knitting on a stash busting Noro Kureyon blanket. The ravelry link is here. Easy peasy!

computers and knitting

Computer dismantlation has been happening at Chet JS(squared) this week. Due to my husbands love of all things tech/computer related we were apparently due to a system overhaul. Here is a sampling of the innards of one of our ready to be upgraded PC’s. Lovely!

Actually, I can’t really complain. The computer I am on now is running super fast and everything has been cleaned up before our friends show up for some Sunday Grillin’. Keep your fingers crossed that the rain stays away…

I’ve been diligently working on my Secret Garden Shawl for the Unique Sheep KAL. I finished up Clue 3 this morning so now I have two weeks to get through the next one. Wish me speedy knitting! Especially since I am at 382 stitches around.