Fireplace Feast.

In celebration of making it through one month of my new job, Doug's vacation, Valentine's Day, and our one-year anniversary, Doug and I at the last minute decided to trek down to the Salem Cross Inn's Fireplace Feast this weekend. I had been several times with my extended family as a kid and so to do this again was a treat. Nothing has changed about it, either. The first part of the evening consists of a horse-drawn wagon ride around the grounds of the inn, appetizers, hot cider/mulled wine, relaxing in the basement of an old barn while watching your prime rib turn on some kind of colonial roasting device, roasting yourself in front of a roaring fire, and participating in the making of the fish chowder. Once all these things are done, everyone goes upstairs to the top level of the barn to sit around and eat. And I mean eat. There is no end in sight to the food that is served to you, and it's all so tasty that you have no choice but to eat it. This meal is the reason why I had to sleep sitting up - if I lay down my whole meal felt like it was going to come back up from whence it came. Doug and I enjoyed ourselves and certainly enjoyed the food; we just wished we didn't have to drive so far to get back to our house after the dinner. Neither of us could walk, let alone feel alert enough to drive a car for over an hour, so it is a miracle that we are back in one piece. We definitely were in a bit of a food coma after the cheese & crackers, mulled cider, fish chowder (two bowls for Doug!), homemade breads, two giant slabs of prime rib, spinach pie, butternut squash, roasted potatoes, and a heaping helping of homemade apple pie. Just writing about the food makes me ill again. As a matter of fact, I am still not totally recovered from the dinner. I may never again get my appetite back. But it was worth it! Here are some photos of the evening:

I was still in the midst of a food coma the next morning, so I decided to plunk myself down in the beautifully warm sun that shines through our dining room windows. The cats love these sun spots, and since I am convinced - and so is Doug - that I am part cat (the slightly aloof kind, the kind that for the most part keeps to herself until she can't take it anymore and has to attack you for some attention), I decided to see what it was all about. I have to say, the cats are on to something. Lying on the floor with my back perfectly straight so that I could feel each and every vertebrae restoring itself to its natural position was heavenly, and add to that the warm sun... please god, in my next life let me come back as a spoiled little house cat! Of course, one of our own spoiled little house cats didn't take too well to me hogging all of her sun, so she decided to take matters into her own hands: But how can I get mad at this face?

So today is our actual anniversary. Doug and I have been married for one year, and I won't get into all the crazy things that have happened since we got engaged a year and a half ago. Our lives have been running on warp speed since then. It is my supreme wish that things slow down a little this year, but I think that I am just wishing for something that may never happen. When I was a kid I never wanted to be anything but grown up, whatever that meant. I never wanted to be a ballerina, an actress, a singer, a teacher, a nurse, a doctor, a lawyer, a pharmacist, a writer, a director, a hairdresser, a model... nothing. I just wanted to skip childhood and move right into adulthood so that I wouldn't have to bother with the aches and pains of figuring life out. I was such a naive child! Now that I am that "grown up" I wish that I could go back to being a kid. Life moves fast for a kid, very fast, but without all the strings that adulthood attaches. Of course, if I were to go back to being a kid I'd have to relive middle school (the horror), high school, college, the dating game, graduate school, etc. I probably wouldn't have the three little kitties that I have now, or the husband I have now (who has decided to celebrate our anniversary by organizing two Craigslist deals, one that involves a woman named Jean coming to our house to purchase something for $35, and the other that involves us driving to the South Shore Plaza to make a trade in the parking lot like some kind of suburban drug dealers), or the friends that I have now. So I guess I really wouldn't like to go back to being a kid. Maybe what I hope for is just a little perspective - and a little time for reflection now and again.

But, before you come away from this post thinking that I don't love or appreciate my husband, take a look at the flowers I got for Valentine's Day/our anniversary:
Aren't they beautiful? For him I'll spend my afternoon sitting in the parking lot at the mall.