Our friends Adam and Savanah hosted their annual Nip Hunt one recent Saturday. Rather than hiding Easter eggs around the yard, Adam and Savanah (with the help of a few family members and friends) hide mini alcohol bottles all over the yard while we wait in the house. All the guests contribute nips and Adam and Savanah make a big deal of counting and keeping track of the totals year after year (always trying to break that record!).
This year, we DID break the record with over 570 nips! We were like one or two short and then someone RAN into the dining room with two more nips. It was super exciting to break the record.
After all the nips were hidden, we all gathered on the porch for a picture and then ran all over to find the nips. While I did get more than I’ve ever managed to get before, I need to make a mental note that short dress and floppy hat does not make for an easy time.
Everybody in front of the porch ready to go! Photo taken by Savanah
Each year, a “golden nip” is hidden somewhere in the yard. The person who finds that wins a full size bottle of alcohol – last year Matt won! This year it took forever to find. Savanah’s mom kept yelling that nobody was even close to it. I was over near some bushes and just as I was about to move to the bush closest to the back door, a girl started screaming bloody murder. I saw that her arm was in the bush and I honestly thought that like she was getting attacked by squirrels or wasps or something. Nope. She found the golden nip! The prize was some pink lemonade drink and not gonna lie, I was def jealous!
After the golden nip is found, people trade with each other for nips they like more than the ones they found. I didn’t realize that James and Matt were also trading with people to try and get more Jameson nips for the house…because that is exactly what I was doing! Adam also takes pictures of everybody with their favorite nip.
This year we had to leave earlier than normal to get to another party (we’re so popular) but it was great to see Adam and Savanah and other old friends again!
The other day, one of the student workers in my office said that she can’t wait to graduate and make lots of money and be able to do whatever she wants. I started laughing so hard that I was basically cackling. Being an adult is EXPENSIVE. Rent, groceries, student loans, TRYING TO PAY FOR A WEDDING…it’s rough.
I’m in so many Facebook groups that talk about paying off your debt so that you can do the things you want (travel, raise more dogs, the usual) and I’ve been introduced to a lot of side hustles that I didn’t know existed. It’s great because for years I’ve attempted to have a second job but it’s never worked out for a variety of reasons. Working in ResLife meant I worked really weird hours so that made it hard to have a second job. The only things that could have worked (on a surface level) seemed to be MLM-type things which I did NOT want to get back into again.
Enter VIPKID – it’s a Chinese company that runs online English classes geared towards kids ages 5 – 12 in China. They hire Americans to work from home and run one-on-one classes. Because of the time difference, the hours are a bit strange (this actually would have worked PERFECTLY with my ResLife job) but I get to work from my house in my sweatpants with my dog sitting next to me so that’s pretty ideal. Also, you can work from anywhere with a good internet connection so I can work while I’m traveling if I wanted to. A lot of people work pretty much full time for VIPKID and travel all over the world! There’s a blogger I follow (https://www.seenicwander.com/) that earns her income by house sitting and VIPKID and works from the best places.
The company prepares all the materials for me so I don’t need to create lesson plans or a curriculum. I put a few posters from the Dollar Tree on a wall in my basement and use random household objects as props for most lessons. If I need something super specific, I print it out and color it in. I actually sit at the bar in the basement while I teach. I store my teaching materials on a shelf but leave the posters on the wall so if you ever wanted to hang out a bar that looked like a kindergarten classroom, I have just the place for you!
So far I’ve taught six classes and they’ve all gone really well. Most parents sit near their child while they are taking the class and then they provide the teacher with feedback. The most you can get is five apples and so far all of my feedback has been five apples! The better your rating is, the more classes you get booked for – I have more bookings coming up later this month. I’m excited to have more classes and get certified to teach more levels. I don’t know if I’ll ever make this a full time job but I’m happy to have extra income!
Two of our friends are having a baby girl this summer! Their families threw them a beautiful baby shower that was “Jack and Jill” so both James and I got to go.
The highlight (for us) was a relay race some of Jasmine’s friends planned. One person was the “mom” and the other person was the “baby”. Each pair had to complete a series of tasks – the mom was blindfolded and had to find her baby, then mom had to walk baby across the room and put on a bib and diaper, mom had to toss a bonnet on baby’s head ring-toss style, mom had to feed baby pudding and a bottle, and then baby had to skip rope. James and I are both…very competitive. And we won, hands down.
Enjoy this picture of James in his finest baby outfit!
In the past few years, so many craft breweries have sprung up in our local area. The home brew trend is alive and well and our friends Julie and Jeff have been making their own beers and wines at home for the past few years (fun fact – they actually made the wine and beer served at their wedding!).
Bad Sons in Derby has been holding events at their brewery to publicize local craft brews. I had to miss their “April Sours” event because of work but I was able to to make it to their Brewers Ball recently (James was unfortunately working but Matt came with!). Julie and Jeff were there showing off two of their beers – a stout that tastes JUST like Reeses Puffs cereal and an IPA.
Matt and I started at Julie and Jeff’s table and made our way around the very cold and very wet tent. There were some really great beers and I made sure to take photos of my favorites so I can possibly see if they distribute. Like I said, more and more people are fulfilling their dreams of opening their own breweries so I’m hoping to see some of my favorites (especially Julie and Jeff) in their own location some day!
Bad Sons is about forty minutes from our house but there are closer breweries that are having all sorts of events – bingo night, yoga, trivia. Maybe I can drag James to yoga if there’s beer involved…
Even though James and I aren’t religious, we love learning about other cultures and people’s traditions. Last year, Jake invited us to his parent’s house for a Passover Seder. We enjoyed learning about the symbolism of everything on the table, the different songs, and of course Jake’s cooking.
This year, we told Jake that he was more than welcome to host a Seder for our friends in our new house. Matt, Will, and Paul all joined us. Jake made the main courses and I made the side dishes. All the food came out amazing AND there were leftovers (I think I’ve only bought lunch once or twice since starting my new job so leftovers make me happy).
We definitely are going to make this a yearly tradition for our friend group!
When people hear that I went to Nashville the week after my wedding, everybody automatically assumes that James and I went to Nashville on our honeymoon. We didn’t – we haven’t planned a honeymoon trip yet. Keeping in line with the super amazing awesome wife that I am, a mere four days after getting married I abandoned my husband and hopped in a car to road trip to Tennessee with two of my best friends.
(Note – James and I did visit Nashville as part of our two-week long road trip we took back in October…obviously I didn’t have this little online journal back then to update everybody on that trip so maybe I’ll just have to write about that! We have tons of great pictures – a lot of them are in the scrapbook we gave James’ mom to bring back to Ireland.)
So how did I wind up going to Nashville without my husband four days after our wedding? Back in the fall, a favorite podcast amongst my friend group announced they were doing a live show tour in the spring. HECK. YES. We eagerly awaited dates to be posted only to find out that the closest they were coming to Connecticut was Philadelphia (about a four hour drive). That date was also in February and it just seemed like too much of a risk to plan a weekend trip when the weather was so unpredictable. Instead, we had the GENIUS idea of making it into a bigger trip and finding somewhere that we actually wanted to visit. This is where I’d like to list all the cities we considered but once we saw that they were playing in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry the day before Good Friday…our plans were pretty much set. Tickets went on sale and Maranda, Julie, and I all logged in to try to get them. We literally had like floor seats in our cart only for us to get kicked out. Within five minutes, all that was left was the back row and we happily took those tickets.
Fast forward a few months – James and I get engaged and we start planning our wedding. I had to work April 6th and I was going to be gone April 20th so we literally HAD to go with April 13th…luckily 13 is my lucky number so I wasn’t too upset. People kept asking if I was still going to go on my trip. Ummm….yes? I asked James about 800 times if he was mad or wanted me to change plans but he is the most laidback human ever and had no problem with me traipsing off to Tennessee.
A quick rundown of my trip to Tennessee with Maranda and Julie:
We listed to the “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” audiobook during our drive. It was free thanks to Audible. And yes, we drove, it was about 14 hours. Not too shabby splitting it three ways on the way down (excitement = energy) but Julie flew back to celebrate Easter and splitting it two ways on the less-exciting way home was ROUGH.
We got into Nashville at around 9 am and went straight to Five Daughters Bakery for the most AMAZING cronuts. Excellent start to the trip.
Our check in time wasn’t until 3 pm so we went to Centennial Park to walk the cronuts off/stretch our legs/enjoy the great outdoors before the rain started. While we were there, I texted our hosts (we stayed in the most adorable Airbnb) and they said we could come whenever! We promptly sped over the Airbnb so we could shower/change/relax before heading out.
Our first stop on our Thursday adventure was Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint where we all had smoked wings, mac and cheese, and local beers.
Next I brought the girls to Beercade – similar idea to Barcade that we have up here (vintage arcade games in a bar) except that the games in Beercade are FREE. We actually went back multiple times during our trip.
Another second visit for me – Luke Bryan’s 32 Bridge. It was super new when I was there in October and not all the floors were open yet. It’s a gorgeous space with different music, drinks, and food on each level. We headed for the rooftop bar and and ordered fun cocktails and sushi. The roll we had was amazing and I actually texted what was in it to a friend that works at a local sushi bar!
FINALLY it was time to go to the Opry and see My Favorite Murder live. I am not kidding when I say that I was sitting on the edge of my seat I was so excited. Julie made us adorable shirts with our favorite MFM quotes – they received lots of compliments. After looking threateningly dark all day, the skies finally opened up as we were waiting in line for the show. After the show, we called it a night and headed back to our house.
We started Friday off with a delicious breakfast at Nashville Jam Co. It was another restaurant James and I visited and I knew the girls had to try it. Julie and I both got shrimp and grits with a Bloody Mary. I think Maranda got an omelette. (If you’re noticing a pattern, all three of us do tend to order the same things…)
After breakfast we drove around. Our end goal was Draper James but we enjoyed seeing all the murals in Nashville as we drove. The GPS directed us to turn into an alley to park behind Draper James. The black SUV in front of us stopped in the alley so we were stuck in the road…and watched a man with white gloves unload the STANLEY CUP for a photo op in front of a mural. We quickly found somewhere else to park so we could also have a photo op with the Stanley Cup (it’s the championship trophy for hockey).
The rain started up again so we stopped in a brewery. It was super crowded so we had to share a table with two other girls…that were also from Connecticut.
Our lunch was a crave case from White Castle that we ate in our house while watching The Office on Netflix and it was perfect.
In the evening, we decided to go to some bars a Nashville native had recommended to us. They turned out to be not-so-great. On our way there we had passed some other bars that weren’t too far away so we decided to walk there and it started POURING. We made it to the other street (that Maranda happily refers to as Demon Brewing Street) and had sushi and sake for dinner, some great gummy bear flavored drinks, and stole some kazoos from a bar.
We ended our Friday by visiting Santa’s Pub for karaoke. It is my new favorite place on the planet. One – it’s a dive bar and I love me a good dive bar. Two – it’s in an old trailer. Three – it’s Christmas themed and there are Christmas lights EVERYWHERE. Four – it was a bunch of millenials performing karaoke so EVERYBODY was singing along to Backstreet Boys, Britney, and of course (our contribution) Bubba Sparxx. Absolutely amazing! We also made friends with the Canadian version of Jim and Pam from The Office. We tried to go with them to a speakeasy but the place was at capacity so we called it a night.
Julie had to fly out on Saturday so we found a breakfast place near the airport. Google directed us to a place called Monell’s at the Manor which was a family-style all-you-can eat place in an old mansion. We were seated with another family and enjoyed a super-filling southern breakfast.
I took Maranda to the Country Music Hall of Fame to visit the Hatch Show Print which is a print shop that makes vintage posters for events around Nashville as well as other gifts. It was pouring when we finished shopping so we went to a restaurant in the complex and had the most delicious milkshakes. Honestly, with all the eating we did, it’s a good thing I don’t own a scale!
The rain finally let up Saturday evening and Maranda and I went back to Broadway where I introduced to Jameson and now it’s her favorite thing.
Sunday was the only nice weather day we had. Even though we had to get on the road, we went down to the Gulch to take photos with some famous murals and then rented scooters so we could see as much of Nashville as we could in such a short time. We had lunch at a place in the Gulch right before we got on the road and began our journey back.
Our next girl’s trip won’t be nearly as extravagant (probably just up to the lake) but I’m still looking forward to it! James and I are currently planning our summer vacation…nothing far after last year’s huge road trip but it will definitely be somewhere new for him to explore!
On Saturday, April 13th, James and I got married at a state park near our house. We kept everything small this time around and are planning to have a more formal reception next year (gotta save that $$$).
The only photos I have from the day so far are random cell phone and Polaroid shots taken by friends, family, and a random stranger at a hot dog stand (true story). We had an amazing photographer at the ceremony and kept her around to do some couple portraits but we haven’t received the edits yet. Even though she has a two month turnaround listed in the contract, I still can’t stop from checking my email multiple times per day. I can’t wait to see them! Our photographer does have a sharing policy so once pictures are available, I will be emailing the link to friends and family with instructions on how to view and share them. We did get to see a few preview photos and they’re GOOD. We really like our photographer and ideally we’d love to have her photograph our wedding next year (…I wonder if she’d be down to come to Ireland too…) so I don’t want to make her mad by sharing the photos in an improper way!
A quick review of the day…
I woke up bright and early with only Lilly for company (James slept at his aunt and uncle’s house) and started in on my make up. I met my mom at the salon so we could get our hair done and then we came back to my house so she could zip me into my dress. Matt (our roommate/ordained minister) drove the flowers to the park and I drove the dog.
Once we got to the park, James was off with the photographer getting some pictures taken and prepping for the first look. There’s a covered bridge in the park that we knew would make a perfect first look location because he wouldn’t be able to see me walk in from the parking area. James always looks great but I don’t really ever get to see him dressed up all that often so seeing him in a suit and tie was extra special! We did a bunch of photos in the bridge and then joined our families over by a waterfall for the ceremony.
After the ceremony, we did a bunch of group photos and then sent our families off while we did more photos. It was a gorgeous day and our photographer had us get in the water – it was freezing but it made for some amazing pictures!
When James and I were done with the park, we were STARVING. When wedding planning stress was getting to me earlier this year, I kept saying that we should just go to a courthouse and then go to Taco Bell after. I was mostly kidding. Mostly. As we were driving home, we passed a hot dog stand on the side of the road and knew we had to stop. A few people were there and one lady was in complete disbelief that we had JUST gotten married. She took a picture for us AND THEN TOOK ONE ON HER OWN PHONE. So now some random lady has a photo of us on our wedding day. Cool.
Of course knowing me and my (incredible lack of) luck, it wouldn’t be my wedding day without a 911 call. On our drive home, we came around a rather sharp curve to find a telephone pole broken, dangling above the road, AND ON FIRE. We pulled over further down the road and called 911 and it was the weirdest call of my life. We barely had any service so they couldn’t find our location and when we tried providing our location (we gave the intersection of where we were at which were two main roads), the dispatcher still had no idea where we were. We left the scene uninjured and I didn’t see anything on the news about it so I’m guessing nobody else was injured and that it was repaired relatively quickly.
At night we went to the bar where we met and joined friends and family for some food and drinks. We had a Polaroid camera for guests to take photos and leave in the guest book…they are my favorite things of all time. I forgot how great it is to actually HOLD pictures. That camera will definitely be making more appearances at future events (it’s already made the trip to Nashville!).
So now that we’re married, what’s next? Well, every lady over the age of 50 is hoping for babies but that’s not on our radar just yet. I honestly don’t even think I could handle another dog right now! We’ve started planning some upcoming vacations and this summer we’re going to take a stab at planning the Big Wedding. I’m really bugging James to go to Disney for our honeymoon but that won’t be until after the Big Wedding so we have some time to decide plan.
Two days left until our wedding! Today I got my nails done and received a text that the florist received the flowers so everything is coming together. People keep asking me if I’m nervous but I’m not (well except about my hair behaving but that’s a normal everyday worry for me). James and I are pretty much the same person and we’ve always been super comfortable around each other. I’m excited to start our lives together.
We decided to take a little space up on the internet to share our lives with you – especially since most of James’ family lives across an ocean from us! Can’t promise anything interesting but at least you’ll know what’s going on over here.
The Harkin Chronicles 