Long Weekend Basics

Our long weekend was filled with family, food and my 30th birthday — it was a full weekend to say the least...

Wednesday night Tim put our turkey in the smoker at 11pm and set the alarm for 5:30am to get up and check on it Thanksgiving morning — here's the bacon wrapped goodness we had waiting for us just after sunrise.

That's dedication. Shortly thereafter, we pulled ourselves together and packed up the turkey to head on down to the farm where my mom lives overlooking the James River. Tim knows how to pack food on the go in style:

All this time, Basil patiently (and sleepily) waited by the front door in his neon orange harness wondering when we'd be ready to go:

He loves the farm and since it's hunting season, we always make him wear the orange harness so he doesn't get mistaken for a deer running around on the property. We're looking forward to sharing a recap of the day down on the farm here on the blog tomorrow.

After Thanksgiving dinner, my sister and I mapped out a plan for a little Black Friday shopping. Did anyone else put craft stores at the top of their list for holiday shopping? Tell me I'm not alone.

Saturday we celebrated my birthday. I came downstairs to this huge bouquet of flowers and was thoroughly spoiled the remainder of the day.

Tim had been hiding the flowers all day the day before out in a big empty green trash can in the garage so I wouldn't see them and he'd be able to have them waiting first thing — I don't know why this cracks me up so much. I got a good one in him.

I even got my signature cake. Once a year, I love to indulge in a Ukrop's Bakery store-bought birthday cake with giant icing roses on top. My family always comes through on this wish:

So far, the 30's are looking good.

We finished out the long weekend yesterday with Tim cooking up some new recipes in the kitchen while I made and packaged up a slew of holiday jewelry orders that came in over the sale weekend. We started out the day with a batch of homemade Hungarian crepes:

They were an amazing end to the long weekend — look for the recipe coming from Tim this week!

P.S. There's still time to take advantage of the Cyber Monday sale going on in my Contrary Jewelry Etsy shop, along with many others — get all of the discount details in this post and find a host of other small businesses holding sales in the comments section of the same post.