Fleming's | Southern Ideal Home Show | Kickball

Friday night, Brian and I decided that we wanted to go out to a fancy schmancy dinner because we hadn't been on one as a date in a very long time and it's always fun to spoil yourselves! So, we decided to go to Fleming's (one of the new restaurants at Crabtree). It was VERY good. Though, honestly, I would have probably loved it no matter what because the hostess totally made my week when we got there. I was wearing my cute blue dress that I bought in New York with a half-sweater and my favorite heels. Anyways, the hostess was like "girl, you look beautiful. I just love that dress." And then said it again when we got to the table. She might be my most favorite person in the whole world this week. It was just such an unexpected compliment and totally made my night. The dress is kinda short, so I was feeling a little bit weird (I'm just not used to showing that much skin) and I annoyed poor Brian like 3 times before we left to make sure it looked OK.

So, anyway, the dinner was delicious. They served really good bread and I started with the Fleming's Salad (seasonal greens, candied walnuts, dried cranberries, tomatoes, and croutons with a lemon vinaigrette). My main entrée was a tuna mignon (cooked rare) served with a vinaigrette, halved cherry tomatoes, and three (yes, three) asparaguses. Brian had a prime ribeye and we split some parmesan peppercorn mashed potatoes (all sides are served à la carte). For dessert, we split the chocolate lava cake (rich chocolate cake with a molten chocolate center, served with vanilla ice cream and homemade whipped cream). So yummy. I very much love food. :-)

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This afternoon, I went with Mike and Barb to the Southern Ideal Home Show at the State Fairgrounds.

I had a good time with them and we even saw Kevin's girlfriend Blair, who was wo-maning the TWC booth.

Other than that, I have to say that I was unimpressed. There were a ton of vendors, but I really didn't see anything new or exciting. There were some cool landscaping stands and some fun swinging hammock things, but everything else had all been done before.

And no one really had any good tips or ideas: it was mostly just here's our product and here's what it looks like installed. :-/

I think Mike and Barb got some good contacts on some different things that they want to do around their house and I wasn't really looking for anything specific, so maybe that's why I was unimpressed. However, I was looking for some cool ideas on landscaping the plant beds in our front yard, but there really wasn't a ton of that kinda stuff. Most of the outdoor stuff was on building patios. I also would have liked to see more cool organization stuff (closet and kitchen organizers, etc.), but there were only a couple booths on that and they were pretty weak.

Maybe I'm just more a fan of going to concept and idea homes to get ideas. Maybe I need the presentation inside the home to get the full effect!

This was the first time I'd ever been in any of the buildings at the fairgrounds (Dorton Arena, the Jim Graham Building, and the Exposition Center), so that was pretty cool.

Oh yeah and evidently I live in a utopia because it never even dawned on my that I might have to pay get in (I'm an idiot). Fortunately, Brian's parents spotted me $9. The sucky thing is that I had a ton of cash yesterday (from winning my March Madness bracket pool at work!), but used it all at the Teeter last night because I hate carrying cash!

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We are playing kickball again with the Town of Knightdale. We have almost a completely different team (only 2 people from last season are back). I really like our team this time. Lots of really friendly people and we're all trying very hard. Bless our hearts.

Basically, we suck. We're 2-4 on the season at the halfway point. We may improve for the second half of the season, but if we don't, "oh well." It's fun and good exercise.

Thursday I caught a popfly in the outfield (catching popflys is actually more difficult than it seems). I'm pretty sure no one thought I'd catch it. Even the other team complimented me on the catch! It also was a damn good thing I caught it because there were two people on base who definitely would have scored! I also had a good kick to get on base. Yay, me.