My New Calling

Holy Moly! I can't believe I haven't updated since December 12th! Meh...who am I kidding? It's not THAT shocking.

Our first Christmas on our own was a bittersweet mixture of emotions. Nothing makes me miss family more than the smells and traditions of the holidays but it was wonderful to avoid the pressures that come with the season. My favorite gift from Adam were my Kitchen Aid pasta maker attachments, which I'm excited about but wont get a chance to use until we move into the new house...

Speaking of- We're still scheduled to close on the 24th. WOO! Apparently the seller repaired the downstairs heater (which wasn't working) and replaced the water heater (which was on the verge of exploding or something). We're waiting on the sellers to make a few additional repairs then we need a re-appraisal. For the record, I'm pretty sure that's not what it's ACTUALLY called. Adam dropped some papers off by the lawyers today and we're continuing to pack up Leicester. Dear Lord, when did we get so much STUFF?! I don't know what excites me more: the prospect of moving into a new house OR finally throwing away Adam's smelling, sagging pleather bachelor couches. (Probably the latter.)

My wonderful friends (Mr & Mrs Middlemas, their sons Ian and Sean and almost-daughter-in-law Kelly) decided to vacation up in Williamsburg this week. I believe the story involved something about a time share but you could see the real reason in their eyes...they missed me. Since it's only a 45 minute drive, without tunnel traffic, I decided to spend my Wednesday with them. I mean, it's only fair since they drove 11 hours to get here THEN drove to our house in Norfolk THEN drove alllllllllllll the way to Virginia Beach to pay for everyone to eat delicious seafood on Monday night. THANKS AGAIN, BY THE WAY! Anyway, back to today. The Middlemi and I went to the Williamsburg Winery. Even though the weather was cold and rainy, I had an amazing time and learned a TON. I also discovered my next true calling: to be a professional wine taster. You might think I'm joking or perhaps hinting at the fact that I'm on the verge of becoming a lush but it's a lot harder than you'd think. You're probably asking yourself the same thing I was thinking before the tour..."What's so hard about getting paid to drink wine?!" Sounds like a dream job, right? Well...it is; however, I learned there's a lot of hard work and knowledge that go into the process.


First, our guide took us to the vineyard. Due to the weather, we weren't able to go out into the rows of twiggy grape trees but because of the cold weather, the lack of leaves made it easy to see pretty far. I would love to go see the winery in the summer. I bet it's beautiful. We went through a museum full of old wine bottles, tools and corks, even articles on the wall about the discovery of the bones of a 6'8" 20-something Englishman on the property! The fermentation tanks were MUCH larger than I anticipated (2 stories!) and full of delicious rotting grapes. Did you know they actually keep cooling bands around the tanks to chill the mixture in case the fermenting process gets a little too heated? Our guide made his way to the cellars- down a narrow, winding staircase with us in tow. Immediately I smelled cinnamon and spices. As it turned out, we were in front of the winery's storage tank for their spiced dessert wine. We made our way past real oak barrels full of white wines to the windows where we could see the bottling machine. They have the ability to bottle a 1000 bottles an hour (I think). Next we made our way into the red wine cellar where they play classical music all day long. Funny, the traditions that stick around. Finally we got to my favorite part, the tasting! Having never done this before, I thought I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the wines. I mean, I love wine but let's be honest...I've had my share of $2.99 boxed Walgreens wine. As it turns out, I not only can taste the difference but I was able to pick out distinct flavors. I developed my own 1-5 scale and rated the wines writing down notes to help me remember WHY I liked what I did. Obviously I'm a novice but I think with a little training, I'd be able to give tours and tell people all about the loveliness of fermented fruit. We were able to take home our tasting glasses as well as a free wine topper but I also made off with not one but TWO bottles of delicious wines! AGAIN, THANK YOU very MUCH! Here's a couple of collages of pictures I took. Unfortunately there are none of us tasting the wine. We were enjoying ourselves too much for photos. Our guide, Ian, was wonderful! If you ever go to the Williamsburg Winery, I highly suggest him. He new a lot about the process and flavors of the wines they offered but I never felt pressured nor did I feel like he forced his opinions on you. It was such a great time with wonderful, hilarious people. I love those guys!

As if I don't have enough dependence upon social networking, I'm now addicted to foursquare, a way to share your whereabouts with friends. I think it helps that you earn points for every place you go. The points are absolutely useless but it makes me feel like I'm accomplishing some sort of goal which, in turn, makes me feel great about myself. See the benefits of social networking?!

I'm cozy at home now, with Adam, who has one more day left of class number one. Unfortunately, after that, he's on to class number two. Hopefully learning how to be on a ship is exciting for him. I was debating between reading more of The Help, which I'm LOVING or watching our new Netflix movie. I'm thinking the movie wins...

Goodnight!