Windblown: Leaving Atlanta Part 1?

So I abandoned this blog for a minute. Many days, actually. The last time I updated it was about the Portland visit. Now I live here. It's only been a week (this was a draft for... three weeks), but I feel pretty guilty for not writing for my THREE followers. One of whom I live with and already knows everything there is to know. Sigh. But, as I always remind myself, I do enjoy writing and if I keep it up I should improve the... readability, and especially now that I live across the country some of my friends will want to keep up. That was the longest, most grammatically incorrect, sentence ever. Oops. I like commas.

I will start off with moving out of my old apartment. The beginning stages included Nicole (my previous roommate) moving out her kitchen table and chairs which left Tom and I with some boxes and such to improvise with.

We had an awesome dinner with food from, you guessed it, the Grant Park Farmers Market. Spotted Trotter lamb crepinettes, mixed lettuce salad with feta, apples and tomatoes, and butternut squash soup. With a bottle of wine I've been meaning to drink for over two years. I won it in a contest when I first starting working at Bluepointe, and my manager told me it was a big red that needed a steak or something rich so I held on to it. We didn't want to take it with us in the Jeep so we made a nice dinner to celebrate moving, and it was prefect. The crepinettes were exactly what the wine needed. Here is a taste of the other farmers market goodies we cooked up when Tom got back.

H&F Whole Grain Bread, toasted with a fried egg, basil pesto goat cheese, tomato, and arugula.

Yellow and green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, lemon vin, s&p.

Roasted butternut squash, apples, and red onions, spicy lamb merguez. Beautiful combo.

Yellow and green beans, arugula, red onion, muscadines (peeled and seeded!), feta, and a lemon vin. Best salad ever, seriously. Menu worthy, in my opinion. I wish my picture did it justice.

Zucchini and red onion fricassee (that's what Tom called it)

It was so nice to have Tom around to cook with all of the great food from the market, he is definitely more creative than I am. But enough about food. Before the furniture was moved out we had a moving away party so we could say farewell to all of our friends. I invited everyone (via facebook) I would enjoy spending time with, and hoped for the best. Some of my best friends couldn't make it because they live out of state (Lindsay and Leigha), were sick (Kendra and Ben) or had other legitimate excuses (Sydney) but a great group of people made it and I had an awesome time.

Tom's "outfit" for the party. Such a dork.

Honestly, I was disappointed at the turn out at first. I've had several groups of friends since I graduated high school, and some of them I spent a considerable amount of time with. This party really helped me realize what this move was going to do to those "friendships." I realized that friends really come and go. Some people that I really loved spending time with won't keep in touch with me now that I am across the country. It's sad, really. But the people who really matter will always be there. I've been in Portland for a month and I can already tell who those people are. And I miss them so much.

I've mentioned wanting to go home and visit to Tom, and I don't think he gets it. I don't think he has friendships like I do. I don't mean that the guys he worked with during his time in Atlanta don't mean anything to him, I just don't think it is the same. These friends that I miss are people I have known for years. And I'm not willing to go a whole year without seeing them. I know I will meet people here, and start a new life. But if there is a cheap flight to Atlanta and I have the money, I'm going. He said it is okay to be homesick, and I keep saying I'm not. But I guess I am a little. I'm sure it has everything to do with the fact that I still don't have a job. Which means I still don't have any friends.

That turned into a ramble. Oops. I'll go ahead and end this post here and start a fresh one. I can't believe I still have the whole road trip to talk about. I'm gonna end this with a couple pictures of lunch with Kendra and Isla before we left. I miss them so much already. I'm glad I got to

celebrate Kendra's birthday with her and Isla, I love spending time with them. We had lunch at The Roswell Tea House. It was my first time, which is crazy considering I grew up in Roswell.

Isla had a little meltdown that turned around when she got her hands on a nutella sandwich.