Preview of Civil War Grand Ball

Next weekend—June 22-24—is going to be a busy one! Last weekend, I visited two different sites to write sneak previews of events for the Hendricks County Convention and Visitors Bureau blog, and both of them happen that weekend. I'll be going to both events, as well, and writing about the experience.

The first sneak preview is now live on the HCCVB blog! Check it out.

Sneak preview: Civil War Heritage Days Grand Ball

After a widely successful initiation in 2011, Hendricks County’s Civil War Heritage Days celebration is back again this year, with an even wider selection of events and activities during the two-day festival in the heart of Danville, Indiana, on June 23 and 24.

One particular addition is a Grand Ball on Saturday evening in the Courthouse Rotunda. After many re-enactors participating last year requested a Grand Ball, the organizers at the Hendricks County Historical Museum and Danville Public Library added it to this year’s schedule of events. Read more...

Beautiful La Jolla and not-so-beautiful hotels

La Jolla, a northern suburb/area of San Diego, boasts some of the most expensive real estate in the country. People called it "ritzy," "the Beverly Hills of San Diego," etc., and many people recommended that we do some shopping while we were there.


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The main shopping area is Girard Street, but we found a lot of shops (and longer-term parking) along Herschel Avenue. I specifically wanted to find the Title Nine shop in La Jolla, which is one of my favorite women's active-clothing stores, but we don't have one in Indiana... so I have to drool over the catalogs and website from a distance. I would love it if I could have one of everything from their store and dress in their style every day.

As I mentioned earlier, we found a great quantity of shops, but I got the feeling that the area definitely caters to the brand-name retail store over the local artisan. I'm sure part of it is due to the cost of renting a storefront there—so national or international brands may be the only ones who can really afford it.

When it comes to beautiful landscapes, though, I found the La Jolla coastline to be the most beautiful we saw.

A group of sea lions—adults and youngsters (the lighter-colored ones in the photo) alike—had staked a claim on the rocky shoreline, and I enjoyed watching them for a while. It may be the first time I've seen wild sea lions outside of a zoo setting, which is always thrilling.

Once you see how beautiful this section of coastline is, it's easy to understand why La Jolla is called "the jewel of southern Calinfornia" and people pay such a premium to live there.

Our day in La Jolla was a chilly one: I don't think the temperature climbed above 65°F, and we never did see the sun. But nevertheless, there were some very brave souls on the beach, wading in the water. I can only imagine how cold it was! Maybe they were from an area like Juneau, Alaska and 65° felt like a tropical day?

That night, we made our way to our hotel in San Diego, where we spent the final three nights of our trip. We chose the Kona Kai Resort & Spa based on its affordable rate, proximity to the airport (especially nice since my flight home departed at 7:30 a.m.), and positive reviews both online and in a guidebook.

Boy, were we disappointed. We laughed about how far we felt from the earlier hotels on the trip!

The location was nice: the hotel was on a peninsula called Shelter Island, which caters to vacationers and boaters. Beaches could be found on both sides of the peninsula, so if the weather had been warm, we might have taken advantage of it.

Our room was at the far end of the property, and while the structure of the building was like any standard hotel (interior hallways and entries) with a covered hallway, it was open-air, and the hallway floor was bare concrete. Which meant that noise echoed.

Inside the room, we definitely felt like discount-rate guests. The amenities included:

• A window-style air conditioner for the room that appeared to be a 1980 relic and needed a few Fonzie-esque taps to quit rattling.
• An outlet and separate table lamp that didn't work.
• A single washcloth for a room that could sleep four.
• A handtowel for a post-shower bathmat.

We also found it suspicious when we called to inquire about spa services, and were told that 1) they didn't offer manicures and pedicures, and 2) if you wanted to schedule a massage, your selection of appointment times were limited to the hour before or after another guest, since they had to bring in an off-site masseuse. 

But we took all this in stride, figuring the cost savings would be worth it. 

That was until 12:30 a.m., when we needed to call the front desk and complain about our noisy young neighbors, whose conversation we could hear every word of. And again at 6:30 a.m., when the smoke alarm in the room went off for 10 seconds or so, and the front desk brushed it off and said we shouldn't worry about it.

That evening, I complained to the manager and got us switched to a new room. The manager was very accommodating, which we appreciated, and he waived our parking fee for the duration of our stay. We definitely felt like we'd received an upgrade when we got to the new room—from an interior, carpeted hallway entry—and found four washcloths, a bathmat, working outlets and lamps, a newer and quieter air conditioner, and three decorative pillows on each bed (instead of just the two standard sleeping pillows).

It was certainly a stay to remember. 

Wine tasting in Temecula

Pure vacation time begins!

Taking advantage of my work trip to California, I extended my stay by a few days, and my friend Sarah Lynn flew out and joined me. It worked out perfectly, because she was planning to fly to Los Angeles the following week for her husband's grandmother's 90th birthday gathering, so she came out early so we could explore southern California together.

Neither of us had been to San Diego before, so we focused our four days there. We chose to take an inland, scenic route from Newport Beach to San Diego, which took us through Temecula.


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It was a beautiful, winding drive through Cleveland National Forest. It really hit home for me how susceptible to wildfires this landscape is. The whole area of southern California I saw was much more arid than I expected, especially around San Diego. I didn't expect to see cacti unless I were to drive inland toward Death Valley, but they were really all over the place.

While the altitude of this particular "national forest" wasn't very high, the quantity of trees were far from my idea of a forest, and the landscape was populated more by scrub-type vegetation.

The weather inland differs dramatically from the weather along the coast of California. Our drive to Temecula was the hottest we experienced, with a high temperature in the upper 80s. I hear so many people say, "Oh, but it's a dry heat, it's not as bad," but I tell you what—it was hot!

Temecula is a town of about 100,000, but it was the local wine country that encouraged us to make a stop there. Last summer, on my trip to Traverse City, Mich. with Mom, I did my first wine-tasting—so I was interested to see how it compared to a California experience.

The area promotes at least 35 wineries—we stopped at four. That was all we could handle! The four we visited:

• Leonesse Cellars: This one was personally recommended by one of my clients, so we went there first.
• Danza del Sol Winery
• Ponte Family Estate Winery
• South Coast Winery: It was chosen Best California State Winery of the Year for the last two years, so we were definitely curious to see if it lived up to the award.

I much prefer white wines over red, so that's what I focused my tasting on. I found a couple Gewurztraminers I liked, and an Orange Moscato at Danza del Sol, but nothing else even came close to encouraging me to buy some. And surprisingly enough, I liked the lauded South Coast Winery the least. Part of it was the atmosphere, part was the service, but I actually didn't find the wine I tried to be anything spectacular.

After a day of sweating and sampling wine, we continued our journey south, toward our hotel near Escondido. We'd heard from friends that roadside fruit and nut stands and avocado groves were plentiful outside Escondido, and since we both are big fans of fresh, local food, we really wanted to see this for ourselves.

I didn't get to see any avocado groves—and I was curious to see avocados in their element—but I certainly saw the plentiful evidence: Sarah Lynn and I were shocked to see roadside stand after stand advertising 25 avocados for $5.00. That's $0.20 each! I'm excited when we can find avocados for $1.00 each in Indiana, so this was unbelievable. Neither of us had a way to really transport or consume dozens of avocados back to Indiana, but we certainly laughed about the possibilities for selling them at a profit!

And let me tell you, we had fresh avocado on everything. Omelettes were topped with it. Salads featured it. Even Subway, which in some Indiana locations offers an avocado spread as a sandwich topping, in southern California had fresh, whole avocado on hand to slice individually for your order. I definitely enjoyed that!

Up next: La Jolla, which boasts some of the most expensive real estate in the country.

Shopping in SoCal

It's probably hard to go to California and not do any shopping. I took full advantage of the stores available to me while I was there. (My eyes and feet got a better workout than my wallet, thankfully.) Shopping in southern California offered some different experiences than I'm used to in central Indiana.

The second hotel on my trip was another "nice" one: the Island Hotel at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. Sadly, there was no champagne waiting to greet us when we arrived, but there was always a staff member on hand at the door to open it for us.

The Island Hotel was a 10-minute walk from a large mall, Fashion Island. The proximity was fantastic, because I ended up with an extra day in limbo between work meetings and vacation, and I was able to spend part of the day at the mall, without need for a vehicle. Anchor stores included Macy's, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus. Walkways and entries to each store were outdoors, which is one area that differed from many shopping malls in Indiana. In the last ten years, we've actually seen new and renovated malls move toward this outdoor model, but the weather in Newport Beach is definitely more pleasant for outdoor walking year-round.

If I were to pick one scent that best memorialized my trip, it would be that of the plentiful Night-Blooming Jasmine. It was a favorite of landscapers all over Newport Beach and San Diego. Its small, white flowers give off a wonderful perfume each evening, so walks to and from the mall, and dinners on landscaped restaurant patios, were accented by this beautiful scent. I intended to find a candle or lotion in this scent to bring home with me, but didn't find one that hit the mark. I'll have to keep searching from home. 

I could get used to malls that came with views like this!

I'm fully willing to attribute it more to the specific areas I was in, but I did notice that national retail chains were much more easy to find than locally owned, artisan shops and boutiques in California. When vacation officially started, we spent a day in La Jolla, and even the main shopping district there catered much more to recognizable retail labels. I missed that personal touch, and it was especially noticeable if you mentally compared it to Asheville, NC or Saugatuck, MI.

One of my favorite aspects of shopping in southern California was this: dogs were everywhere! Man's best friend was the shopper's best friend, and they were welcome inside all stores I saw. Many stores even had water bowls out on the sidewalk or inside the front door for these four-legged friends. Perhaps this openness has to do with the more outdoor-living culture. The terrier in the photo below wouldn't be seen inside a Banana Republic in Indianapolis unless he was wearing a service-dog vest.

The dog-lover in me really enjoyed seeing all these little friends out on the town. It did make me miss Buster, though!

Summer travels: California

You probably have a travel wish-list: a list of places you want to visit and see for the first time—or maybe a second or fifth time. Mine includes lots of European and Mediterranean destinations, but it also includes dozens of places within North America. (Not the least of which is a goal to visit all 50 states.) California has always held a spot near the top of that must-see list. The stars aligned for me this year, and I got the opportunity to travel to southern California for a business trip, which I extended by a few days and turned into a vacation. I'll share my adventures with you over the next few weeks!

I've wanted to see California for many reasons: various natural landscapes from north to south, including Redwood National Forest and Yosemite National Park in the north and central regions of the state, and Death Valley and the coastal beaches in the south; city landscapes and environments like San Francisco and San Diego; an abundance of fresh, local, and organic food (year-round!); and the promise of daily weather forecasts that rarely stray from sunshine and 70-75°F. 

Two of my clients at work have headquarters in San Diego and Brea, CA. We've been working with them for about a year and a half, but with the wonders of telephone + Internet communication, we've never before really had the opportunity to head west and drop by for a face-to-face meeting. That all came together last month, though, so I flew into San Diego with two of my colleagues for a couple whirlwind meetings just after Memorial Day.

Our first night, we stayed in La Jolla, a northern suburb of San Diego, at the Estancia Hotel. This destination hotel and spa had some of the most beautiful landscaping I'd ever seen, which not only gave us a fragrant, gorgeous walk to and from our rooms, but it gave the property a private, quiet, secluded feel. In a testament to the year-round nice weather, all rooms were accessed by outside doors, and to get to our rooms, we had to cross a couple interior courtyards. Wouldn't it be nice if all sidewalks looked like this?

I immediately felt transported to a different lifestyle when we entered the lobby to check in and were offered complimentary water (with cucumber, of course) or champagne. Relaxation and pampering were the name of the game at this hotel.

I was personally more entranced by the flora that I'm not accustomed to seeing in the Midwest. So the first thing I did after dropping off my luggage in my room was grab my camera and wander the grounds of the hotel.

We only got the chance to spend one night in this hotel, because the next day was filled with client meetings and a trip to Brea, a suburb of Los Angeles, about 1.5 hours north of San Diego.

We toured the client campus there, and I particularly loved the fact that they had lemon trees growing all across the grounds. They had a bowl of fresh lemons in the lobby that had just been picked that morning (and were the size of a softball), and employees are welcome to pick their fill any time. How great is that?

More and more companies are embracing things like on-site farmers markets (this company has one weekly in the summer), healthier foods, community-supported agriculture, etc. I'd love to have a company garden that included fresh citrus! What about you? 

More tales to come...

A new venture in blogging

Happy June to you! If I had to pick a favorite month of the year, June would be it. And not just because I happened to be born in this month. It's the beginning of summer, the longest days of the year, the beautiful weather, the green and bountiful vegetation, the growing garden, the outdoor activities with friends... I could go on and on.

Beginning this month, I've embarked on a new venture in the blog world: I am now a Digital Destination Expert for the Hendricks County Convention and Visitors Bureau. Each month, I'll be writing a handful of blog posts that highlight events, activities, sights, and features of the county I call home. I'm very excited about it! I'll be writing about just about any topic that strikes my fancy, but I'm specifically the go-to person on the team for Arts & Culture and Girlfriend Getaways.

My debut post is now up. Check out the preview below, then click through to read the rest. I hope you'll follow along. And please send me ideas, if you have any!

Five great Hendricks County spots to stretch your legs

One of my favorite things to do during the warm-weather months is meet a friend for an evening walk. After a long day of sitting at a desk, I love getting the chance to socialize, breathe some fresh air and exercise at the same time.

Whether you’re looking for an easy stroll, a scenic hike, or a day out with your family, you’ll find hundreds of acres of green space in every corner of Hendricks County. Take a deep breath and stretch your legs at these five must-see spots. Read more...

Intricate design: bleeding hearts

I'm endlessly fascinated by the range of design or form you can see in flowers.

All flowers—and each part of the flower—serves a purpose. But some blossoms are relatively simple in design and color, like a crocus, poppy, or even dandelion (yes, it's a flower, too), while others, like the bleeding hearts pictured below, or these irises, zinnias, and stargazer lilies have intricate shapes and color variations.

I love how it demonstrates such an intelligence in nature. It's easy to just look at a flower and think, "Pretty!", but when was the last time you really got in close and looked at it? I count at least four different colors in each of these bleeding heart blossoms.

Give it a try! What amazes you?

Apple blossoms

I'm not sure if I've ever actually eaten one of the apples grown on this tree, but the blossoms are so delicate and beautiful and draw me in every spring.

Apples are, hands-down, one of my favorite fruits. I love how versatile they are, whether you want to eat one all by itself, in a salad, in oatmeal, as dessert, with peanut butter, or cooked low and slow into homemade apple butter.

I also love that you can find decent apples in the grocery store during many months of year. Unlike strawberries or tomatoes, which are more delicate and have zero flavor outside their natural growing season, it seems like apples are a little heartier and are still worth eating.

Though nothing is better than fresh apples, grown locally, and picked just hours or days before.

We have another five months to wait in central Indiana before that time comes back around, though, so I'm content to enjoy the blossoms on the tree for now.

Cherry blossoms

When it comes to cherries, my favorite way to eat them is fresh, straight off the tree. The best place to eat cherries is standing next to the tree, so you can eat the fruit within seconds of picking it.

You can't get food much fresher than that!

This small white blossom is only about 1.5" in diameter. It bloomed on my parents' cherry tree, a tree that produces small, tart cherries. When I was growing up, we had a huge cherry tree that was sadly toppled by a strong thunderstorm. This tree is its replacement, and it's doing well, though it's definitely an exercise in patience while we all wait for it to grow. It currently produces enough cherries for only about one cherry crisp each year.

Tart cherries are harder to find in stores than sweet or Bing cherries, because they aren't cultivated as often and tend to be more delicate and not do as well in transit. As a result, many people have probably never had tart cherries—but there's really nothing like them.

In the Midwest, Michigan is known for producing tart cherries. Traverse City, where Mom and I vacationed last summer, has an annual Cherry Festival that attracts thousands of visitors. The cherries were just starting to ripen when we were there (and we specifically skipped town before the festival craziness), so we were a week or two too early to try fresh, local Michigan cherries.

We weren't too early—or too late—for the good wine, though! I'll just have to make a trip back to catch cherry season again in the future.

Drawn to fuchsia

This rich, deep shade of pink—which I'm constantly drawn to—always makes me think of my Junior Prom.

My dress was this shade of pink. I remember loving that it was different than the prom dresses I usually saw on my classmates. Mine was a two-piece dress with a slim, straight cut, while big, frilly princess-style ball gowns seemed to be more common. I felt beautiful in it.

Since then, I've gravitated toward this color, and you'll find more than a few items of clothing in my closet that feature it.

So when this azalea at my parents' house blooms each spring, I'm out there with my camera.

Spring has sprung

After a very unusual Indiana winter—which technically doesn't end until later this week—that was filled with warm temperatures and little snow, spring has come a little early! In fact, for the last week, it's felt more like mid-May than anything. High temperatures at or near 80 degrees, sunny skies... I'm the last person you'll find complaining, though it's a bit disconcerting. I hope it doesn't come back around to bite us later.

The crocus and daffodils in my yard are up and brilliantly blooming, and I can't pass them by!

I had my wisdom teeth taken out last Friday, so I spent the weekend recovering at my parents' house. I had some flexibility with scheduling the procedure, and I'd initially thought about choosing a weekend in May or June, so I could lounge on their screened porch and enjoy lots of fresh air. I eventually decided to just get it done and over with—and I never would have thought that St. Patrick's Day weekend would be just as nice as one in May!

When I felt like getting up and strolling around the yard, I visited their magnolia bushes, hyacinths, and an interesting tree stump.

I couldn't have asked for a better weekend to recover from the surgery. I'm now on the mend and am looking forward to eating normally again.

Welcome back, spring! It's great to have you.

Warm salads: my go-to cold-weather meal

Happy New Year! It's hard to believe that we've begun yet another year on the calendar, and it's time to get back to work after the holidays.

Today I want to share with you one of my favorite go-to meals for this time of year. It's a versatile dish I affectionately call a warm salad.

I started eating these a couple years ago when I found this recipe for a Cous Cous Salad with Winter Squash and Cranberries at TheKitchn. To be honest, I've never actually made the recipe exactly as written (which is not uncommon for me). But it's endlessly variable when you step back and look at the essential ingredients. What you'll need:

• A whole grain, to form your base. In the original recipe, it's cous cous. I have brown rice a lot, and I've also had this with quinoa (with great success), buckwheat and millet, to name a few. Pick your favorite and go with it. 
• A vegetable. Lately I've been using lots of sweet potatoes/yams, but I highly recommend butternut squash and beets, too. I've had it with broccoli, cauliflower, and other squashes, as well. 
• Protein, usually in the form of nuts or beans. Again, pick your favorite, or what sounds good that day, and go with it. 
• Fruit, whether dried or fresh.
• A little cheese, if you like. Feta is my favorite.
• And dressing. The original recipe has a dressing included, but I most often have this with an Italian vinaigrette. 

Once you have all those items on hand, you're ready to get to work! Here's my method:

Whole grain: I like to fix a batch of whole grain and have enough on hand for several meals during the week. Try this super-easy baked brown rice from Alton Brown. It's amazing. You'll need a 1/2 cup or so of cooked grain for one serving.

Next, add your vegetable. Sweet potatoes and yams are easily cooked one at a time in the microwave like a baked potato. Depending on the size, I usually use about half of one sweet potato for one serving. Roasted beets are great, too. Whatever you pick, cook it (or warm up your leftovers) and add it to the whole grain.

Next, add your fruit. Apples are readily available right now, and they make a wonderful combination with both sweet potatoes and beets. I'm generous with the apples, so I usually dice one small apple for one serving.

Finally, add your protein (Whole Foods' wonderful raw cashews pictured here), cheese, if you like, and dressing.

I mentioned that my favorite cheese to use is feta. In the picture above, I've used feta cheese made from goat's milk. For the last year, I've reduced my dairy intake, and in many cases (milk in my tea, little bits of cheese), I reach for goat's milk as an alternative. The nutritionist I worked with last year recommended it for me primarily because you'll find lower levels of hormones in goat's milk as compared to traditional cow's milk. I've gotten used to it and really like this feta, which I get at Whole Foods.

Voila! A versatile, warm, satisfying meal that is easy to throw together on a week night after work. I made this for my mom a couple months ago for the first time, and she's now hooked, too. Enjoy!

Fresh pomegranates in season

Let's start this post with a little two-question poll:

1. Have you ever bought, opened, and eaten a fresh pomegranate?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Maybe, but I'm so consumed with holiday stress that I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning.

2. If you have at least attempted to open and eat a fresh pomegranate, did you think it was (multiple answers are allowed):
a. Interesting, fun, intriguing
b. Tasty
c. More work than it was worth
d. A mess that left me and/or my kitchen covered in red juice
e. Too intimidating; it went bad before I got to it

Until last year, I would have answered B to number one and E to number two. Then, after watching an inspiring episode (as I find so many to be!) of Alton Brown's Good Eats, I braved the task of opening this mysterious red fruit and was hooked.

Many people just associate pomegranates with the curvy bottles of juice on the grocery shelf but have never had fresh arils (unless perhaps they came atop a fancy dish at a fancy restaurant). I was talking to a desk-neighbor at work one day last week, and she offhandedly mentioned that she doesn't like fresh pomegranates and finds them to be more work than they're worth.

Here's my trick: I buy multiples at a time (usually about three), spend a few minutes opening all of them up at once, then store the separated arils in the fridge for easy access. Stored in an airtight container with a damp paper towel on top, the arils will keep for several weeks.

You can juice them and make your own fresh pomegranate juice (I haven't taken it that far), cook with them (haven't honestly done that yet, either), or just enjoy them in their delicious fresh state. My favorite ways to use them involve sprinkling handfuls on:
- Salads
- Coleslaw
- Greek yogurt
- Ice cream

If you've never tried a fresh pomegranate before, do it! They're in season now and can be easily found at your neighborhood grocery store.

If you have tried them, what did you think? What are your favorite ways to use or eat them?

New items in my Etsy shop!

Great gifts for the sewing, knitting and crocheting fanatics on your list

It takes a long time for me to get a new item to the point where I'm ready to launch it, because I want to plan everything correctly and make sure it's perfect before the baby bird leaves the nest. Because of that, it's incredibly exciting when I get to the point where it's ready!

The idea for these two new items started more than three years ago. If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you've probably noticed that I have an incredibly talented mom. She sews. She knits. She crochets. She cooks. You name it, the woman can do it—or teach herself how—and it's awe-inspiring.

She's been sewing and crocheting since she was a kid, and she taught herself to knit several years ago. These hobbies aren't just a passing fad in her life, either—they've become ways for her to make unique hand-made gifts for friends and family every year.

That adds up to a lot of projects over time!

Because of that, when everyone's birthdays rolled around, or the holidays approached, she had to spend time racking her brain to remember what she made for them the year before, three years ago, five years ago... not an easy feat by any stretch of the imagination.

So, three years ago for Christmas, I made her a journal that she could use to keep track of her sewing projects. I used one of my photos for the front, created lined pages for project information inside, and bound the journal myself.

She loved it! As soon as all the gifts under the tree had been opened and the bits of flying ribbon and paper settled to the floor, she started logging her recent projects. It's become an invaluable resource for her.

She needed the same thing for her knitting projects, too, so I made a similar journal—but with different, specialized lines inside—for her for Christmas last year.

All her crafty friends started asking for them, and that brings me to today!

When you visit my Etsy shop now, you'll find a sewing project journal featuring this photo on the front and back cover:

And a journal for knitting and crocheting projects with this photo on the covers:

Both of which have pages inside with room for 64 different projects. If you (or the sewer, knitter, or crocheter on your list) make one new item a week for a year, there's still some extra room for more!

A journal like this becomes a scrapbook, a resource, and a place to recognize accomplishments. Heck, you could even consider it stress relief!

I'm so excited to have these ready for you now. These two journals have been in development for a long time, and I know they'll be something you or the crafty person on your list will really love.

Visit my Etsy shop to see both the sewing and knitting / crocheting project journals in more detail (with more photos of each).

Happy holiday shopping!

Interesting stories from the life science industry

I went to the Indiana Life Sciences Summit a couple weeks ago for work, and the keynote speaker shared some really interesting stories about what's new and exciting in the industry.

I wrote a blog post about it for the company blog, and you can check it out there. Then come back and let me know what stories you found most intriguing or exciting (or scary or disturbing, if you want to go that route)!