I'm a busy lady living in East Tennessee with an adventurous appetite and a serious case of wanderlust. My 
Georgia Smoked Chop
This was dinner from 31 Bistro (a farm-to-table restaurant) a couple of nights ago: A huge cut of pork chop with an apple demi glace, sage butter rice, acorn squash and spinach. Yum.
Knoxville Mulch Fire
About five miles from our home, there’s been a crazy mulch fire that’s been burning for more than a day now. The fire started Sunday around noon at a nine-acre mulch facility near downtown Knoxville. The area where Alcoa Highway meets I-40 is still hazy with smoke, and the smell of burning mulch has wafted over towards our house.
It’s an unbelievable scene, and I feel for the firefighters that have been working around the clock to put out the flames.
Ampient Music
I got to join my talented musician friend Dugan for the April Ampient at Old City Java last week. I played my iPad Animoog synth app and ran it through my Flashback pedal for added delays and effects. Making noise is fun!
Photo by Brett Winston (posted on Ampient Music’s Facebook wall)
A Saturday afternoon hike around Mead’s Quarry with Brandon and Mia.
At the Record Store
Decided to buy a few records from Lost and Found Records on Saturday after marching with Mia in the Mardi Growl Parade and eating a chimichanga lunch at Señor Taco. I picked up some sealed LPs, including The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds (remastered on 180 gram vinyl), Childish Gambino’s Camp (seeing Donald Glover in two weeks!), and Of Montreal’s Paralytic Stalks (seeing Of Montreal and Kishi Bashi in a month!).
Mia at Mardi Growl
Lia and I intended on taking Mia on a walk around downtown and a romp in the dog park this morning. When we arrived, however, we discovered the Mardi Growl parade was about to start. So we promptly registered Mia and took part in the festivities. We had a blast. A tired Mia was even willing to pose for a few pictures on our way back to the car.
Mia is pretty darn cute.
A short video of Lia and our pilot landing us safely in some windy weather.
Landing a tiny Cessna Skyhawk in 13 knot crosswinds can be tricky, but my super young instructor is also super skilled, and we were able to land safely, gently, and smoothly. (At the end of the video you can hear me clap and cheer in celebration of us NOT crashing.)
It was probably too windy to have flown that day — after all, I’m only a beginner — but now I know what it feels like to get rocked by crazy wind gusts. So the next time I have a flight scheduled on a windy day, I think I’ll just reschedule and wait until there’s calmer weather in the forecast.
I was craving cupcakes. Good thing there’s a great cupcake shop nearby.
Oh, and yes, that IS bacon you see on the first cupcake in the second row of photos. It’s a limited edition Maple Bacon cupcake from The Cup. Yum.
Here’s the full list of cupcakes I bought (with descriptions to make your mouth water):
- Maple Bacon — maple brown sugar frosting + bacon-topped maple pecan cake + toasted pecans and candied bacon
- Gold Rush — chocolate buttercream + golden yellow cake + chocolate disc
- Raspberry Beret — raspberry buttercream + french vanilla cake + raspberry filling
- Red Velvet — cream cheese frosting + red velvet cake + red velvet crumbles
- Grasshopper — vanilla mint buttercream + dark chocolate cake + Ande’s® Mint
Last weekend, I was luckily enough to get to go on a discovery flight with Lia (she’s working towards her pilot’s license) to Buffalo Mountain and all over Knoxville, Tennessee. We had a fantastic time even though high winds made for a bumpy ride. Hats off to the pilot for landing us safely despite the crosswinds.
