britt's donuts. better than krispy kreme.

i know. 

it sounds blasphemous, but i wouldn't lie to you.

 if you are ever in carolina beach, you must go to britt's donuts and get you a dozen.
and then, maybe another dozen the next day.

holy shizzam!

best. thing. on. this. earth.

even if you are allergic to gluten.

oops.

they only take cash.

they only make plain and simple good ole glazed.

and it's still worth getting up on vacation, walking over a mile from your condo, and waiting in line for 40 minutes to get 'em.

and it's not because they might run out.

it's because they are just that good.

period.

worth every penny.

and calorie.

and gluten cramp.

lesburndaroadup!

our fam is basically in three parts of the north cack.

as a result, i am frequently on the road.

i love this time because i can listen to reba and miranda and bone thugs really loud and pretend like i can sing - at the top of my lungs.

 

i enjoy stoppin at random stores along the way.

well, i don't really enjoy it, but it happens because i pee a lot.

or i might need a diet coke or a snack.

i love the skinny white women in their 50's who work in these stores - the ones with a ponytail and bangs and wrinkles from smokin dorals since they were thirteen.

sometimes, you get a fun store with a big ole young black girl workin - the ones with four shades of bright blue and green eye shadow and fake lashes.

the white ones are either like, "hey there honey. is this gone be it?" or  they are dry as a bone, pissed off because they are havin to interrupt young and the restless to ring you up.

the black ones either have a great big ole smile and are happy to be alive, cuttin up with everybody who walks in, or just look real sleepy.

i don't ever see any menfolk runnin these stores. but there sure are enough of em sittin around, smokin, or playin some random video game, harrassin the chicks who are runnin the store.

and they will smile at you through their smoky teeth to hold the door open for you with a big ole grin on their faces.

 

i'm always pissed when they carry caffeine free diet pepsi but not caffeine free diet coke. woof.

so, then, i am basically forced to consume caffeine, which gets me further crunked up, and before you know it, i am so keyed up and singin so loud, and so into my music, that i am like, "shiiiit, i have missed my damn exit!"

and that, my frands, is how you get to really tour all of the great state of NC.

 

also, i really enjoy wavin at old menfolk drivin work trucks - you know, a regular old chevrolet or ford, or sometimes a dodge, but with a commercial license plate, and a lot of random shit in the back, like some ladders, and pipes and boots stuck between the bed of the truck and the back glass. they ride by, and automatically throw one finger {faingah} up in the air, even though they don't know you from adam, lookin all cutie in their carhartt and baseball hats that say, "Cozell & Sons Plumbing" or "Charles Chauncey Electric" or "Davis General Store".

 

i also enjoy wavin at the peeps holdin the signs that say "slow" when there's a one lane road because they're doin construction. you know they get tired of standin out there all damn day holdin a sign while people ride by. just smile and wave, why not?

 

know what else is fun? when you are at a stop light, do this:

turn your radio up really loud, and sing like you are axl rose, into your diet coke, or steering wheel.

be sure to get really into it, mouth wide open, eyes squinted shut, with a lot of movement.

it's better if you have on sunglasses, especially some with a little personality, like some reflective lens aviators.

when people start to stare, pull the glasses down to the tip of your nose, and smile at them and wave.

they will think you are bat cave crazy.

 

one thing i dislike about my trip is people who are goin slow as mufuggin molasses on a two lane road that is up and down hill. solid line. can't pass. and they have given absolutely no thought whatsoever to the speed limit. it's like they are just lettin their car drive itself. fast down hills, slow up hills. whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?

today's driver of the year was a lil hatchback covered in all kinds of stickers, you know the ones. huggin trees, unless of course, the paper is needed to completely suffocate their car in that shit.

i finally got to go around em, and i want to look at them like, "what thaaaa fuuuuuudge?!" but you know they are so deep into their own planet, they have no idea what is happenin or where they are.

for pete's sake, push the damn gas pedal, playa!

 

anyhoo, if you gone be in the car for awhile, might as well make the most of it, and find a way to entertain yourself.

 

i recommend the following:

*diet coke or starbuck's

* comfy clothing so you can dance

* a baller playlist that makes you want to sing loud and dance like you are gettin paid dolla dolla bills y'all

* CVS sunglasses

* plenty of Burt's Bees {lips be gettin chapped}

 

* these treats:

{nuts for protein (be sure to get the party ones, and not regular peanuts for lames)

and

munchos because they are the shizzzznatti. Just like it says - light and crisp ... and sallllllty! seriously, if you've never had these, it's time to get on the train. You won't regret it.}

 

happy travels!

 

 



baller weekend: eat, sleep, knit, visit

my weekend was snuggly and cozy, but busy at the same time.

my bro and his shugpie, boegerlicious came to visit.

we visited the store and Big Silas, ate some of Anj's bomb chili, and hit up target for some glitter nail polish and hot chocolate.

the next mornin, we got up at the ass crack, and hit up a lil in-and-out nook for breakfast. you know, the kind where you go in, order, get your grub and sit down. no waitress, just eat and leave. everything's served in wax paper and white paper bags, and you have your choice of magical soft drinks - can or bottle - the kind of place where hunters go for breakfast before headin to the stands.
anj was on cloud nine with his livermush sandwich and cherry lime sundrop.

since we got up at the ass crack, some of us caught a lil nap on the way to the mountains ...

our first pit stop was in saluda, where a man bout talked our ears offfffff. omg. we stopped at M. A. Pace General Store as well. cute lil historic general store. if you're ever in saluda, gotta stop there. we got some goodies:

we ended up in hendersonville, where we visited a lovely lil history museum which is in the old courthouse, and visited several antique shops and mountain stores. then we tore up a delicious lunch at Mike's on Main, which is in the old Justus Pharmacy est. 1882
{grilled pimento cheese, ohmagyahhh!!! -

no pics of that, too busy eatin it. but, here's a pic of the inside thanks to their website}:

kept goin til we were around chimney rock/lake lure - bought some apples and cheese, ate some ice cream, ventured down to the riverwalk. {was mad as fire that i left my dang memory card for my camera at home!!! but, it was sort of nice because i could just enjoy the day without documenting everything} did snap a phone pic of this creepy mountain mama:

between gettin up early, bein in the car, ridin all over western nc, and eatin tons of deliciousness, we were tired when we got back.
poor anj has the nose funk, too. :(

after some nappage, we got our asian cuisine on, and ended up at michael's for some knitting supplies.

sunday, i woke up to the smell of delicious sausage.

and eggs with cheese.

and hand shredded hash browns.

and toast.

and juice.

worrrrrrrrrrrd.

the rest of sunday was spent in a 3 hour nap or doin this:

it was a good weekend. hope y'all's was too!

Chatham County Line

Y'all.

If any part of your soul likes bluegrass or fiddles or banjos or mandolins or bass guitars or regular guitars or harmonicas or the south as a culture, then you need to check out 

Chatham County Line

crappy phone pic, sorry

We saw a show last night in NoDa and it was mind blowing.

I loved it!

They are all from NC

and they rock.

I think of it as bluegrass on Mt. Dew with a mix of folk.

LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

Check them out! Download them on Itunes. 

Here's a playlist below. Listen!

lots of sax, cheaters, and an amateur in the white house

duh. you dono?

1) this weekend, me and the Hubs Davis went to the airport overlook. there was an older man parked in his truck beside us. he struck up a conversation with us, and he shared that he drives up about four times a year (from about an hour away) to watch the planes. but, he is terrified of flying and said you couldn't pay him enough to "fly in one of them thangs". isn't it interesting? one is more likely to die in a car accident than in a plane crash.

2) children write things that are unintentionally inappropriate/humorous .... in a letter to ben roethlisberger: "Do you get sax a lot?" ... aka ... "Do you get sacked a lot?"

3) my brother's dog is a freak. she comes over and chases Brody around and tries to basically lick the entire inside of his mouth with her too-big-for-her-mouth tongue. freak, i say. i seriously became nauseated.

4) as i was driving this weekend, i was reminded once again what a blessing it is to live in such a beautiful place. i love nc. here's to hoping that our "image" of being backwoods and redneck is keeping people who think shit like that somewhere else.

5) so far, i have tried gluten free pizzas from mellow mushroom and brixx. mellow mushroom = tasty, but the texture is a little different, and it's not good reheated. brixx = major difference in texture and not good. that's just my two cents. has anyone tried domino's?

6) i hate it when people try to guilt trip you every time you are around them. then they are baffled as to why you don't want to hang out all the time.

7) the charlotte knights baseball stadium is not in charlotte. it is not even in nc. weird, right?

8) i wish you could buy mixed nuts without the cashews. they are sweet and soft and dis.gust.ing.

 

9) i much prefer waylon over johnny. blasphemy in austin, apparently. sue me.

10) i love anj davis. i think he smells delicious. he will be embarrassed that i wrote this.

11) now unc's got african american studies classes goin on ... MINUS an actual professor and real grades. nice. am i on glue, or is this for real?

12) The Amateur - I have not read this. And I clearly won't. But the thought of Oprah bein pissed because she prostituted herself out to his campaign and now they don't want her ass over for supper makes me smile. Duh. What was she thankin?

 

dreamin {special thanks to Diet Coke & Starbucks}

Whattup, peeps? Guess what? I may have had 3 Diet Cokes and a Grande Mocha Frappucino in a 2 - 2.5 hr. time frame. Welcome aboard. 

I decided, I am in love with the great state of NC, and am clearly favored by God to be born and raised here - and, in the south in general, really. (No offense to you shugpies from somewhere else. Thanks for readin. ;)  )  Anyhoo, I have spent a great deal of my life in a car - either ridin or drivin back and forth between NC, SC and VA. No complaints here. ;)

I was born in the northern part of NC, within a half hour or so from the Virginia line - in a town where there's not a lot to do. Sooo, drivin to VA happened on the reg.

 Also, my dad's job moved us around a good bit growin up, and as a result, I've lived in several towns in NC, as well as a 2.5 year stay in VA. Since being an adult, I've also lived in SC twice ... so far. ;)  Once at the beach, once on the state line. I have spent, and still do spend, A LOT of hours ridin back and forth, between 2 or 3 towns, 2 or 3 times a month. And as I've mentioned before, I LOVE TO RIDE. To me it is straight up therapy. No yackin. No phone ringin. No email. Just my music. My car. My windows down.

In NC - you see lots of rolling hills, wild flowers, farmland, ponds, lakes, mountains, beaches ... hear blue grass, have pig-pickins and buy stew to raise money for a cause. People are nice when you stop for gas in a random town. Strangers say ma'am when you buy groceries. Yes, I love it. 

I especially love it in fall and summer - fresh air and ridin for hours. Today, I left from the Charlotte area to meet a friend in the Greensboro area for lunch. I was telling her how much I dream of an old house on a bit of land, close enough to family, but not close enough to neighbors to shake their hand out my bedroom window. I don't wanna hear what you're doin in your house. I don't want to wave at yo ass every time I check the mail. No offense.

Anyhoo - on my ride back, I just thanked God for a beautiful day, and for havin him raise me where he did. Just gorgeous. 

As I was rockin out to my radio on the way home, I heard both of these songs, which I am totally obsessed with.

Yes - Dirt Road Anthem is old, but it's my blog, and I say it's still magical. 

The other song - Fly Over States reminds me of the beauty that's often overlooked in a small town. Y'all know I LOVE ME some Jason Aldean.

I guess you learn to love whatever you grew up with. (Or maybe for some people, the opposite?) And the world is full of beautiful places. And while I like a little taste of downtown city life every now and then,  I'll take the sound of crickets over the sound of traffic and nightlife any day. 

Peace out, sugar lumps.

trains, tractors, old southern menfolk and fall food - I heart NC

you ever have those posts where you went somewhere regional, and you really enjoyed it, and you want to tell everyone about it, and it's total photo overload, but you can't really think of anything magical to say about it, except you really enjoyed it and you totally love fall and are really glad you live where you live? well, that's how today's post is. I love NC. and old southern menfolk.

happy veteran's day!!

Withers - Tell Ya Mouf to Stop Writin Checks ...

... Yo program can't cash.

First of all, a little house keepin' -

For you readers who are from far away lands, us NC Staters have a wee bit of a rivalry with the baby blue shug pies over at UNC. But here's something that pisses us ALL off. "Carolina" means UNC. People from other states seem to think it's all "Carolina" and it's interchangeable. 

This is severely false. 

That said, I am normally not a shiz talker. Because it's tacky. Well, this year, their INTERIM COACH decided he had a few things to say about the ACADEMICS at UNC ... especially the "high" graduation rate of their ATHLETES. Well, for those of you who have been under a rock, the baby blue shug pies at UNC have been in a weeeee bit of trouble for paying players, paying people to do the players' work, basically, umm sketchy, fraudulent no-no's that they TOTALLY knew they shouldn't have been doin' that the NCAA happens to heavily frown upon.  
I truly am sorry to all you UNC fans out there. It was a shitty thing to go down, and it's sad the whole university's reputation took a hit because some people in the athletics department were doing STUPID stuff.  
Anyway... Carolina HAS an interim coach because their old coach got fired for said sketchiness/fraudulence, etc (their AD is adios amigos too) ... so their interim coach, who has a job as a result of sketchy coach's firing, had this to say:

UNC's interim Coach Withers Runs His Mouf

That didn't sit well with our coach, so he had this to say:

Tom O'brien Fires Back

= errbody's alllll kindsa fired up.

Y'all. I was stressed out. I cannot handle the tension. So, when game day finally got here I was excited. But jittery.



Cut me some slack. It was 7:30 am.

I can truthfully say that I never sat down in the whole game. Not once. My voice was half gone on the way home because I yelled THE WHOLE TIME. Even with this madness going on RIGHT behind us.



Really? WHAT are the odds?
PS - I've never seen the opposing team's band be up in the nose-bleed seats before. Was this done on purpose? ;)

Anyway ...

It was intense. But EVERY. SECOND. WAS. DELICIOUS.

Can we say

SHUT OUT

?

Side Note: Carolina did get one touch down. But it was called back ...

for holding.

Here are some faves from the News & Observer:

Credit: Ethan Hyman - ehyman@newsobserver.com

5 years in a row.

Yeah, it was a good day.

Didn't their mamas tell them cheaters never win?

Dear UNC fans that I like - basketball season is just around the corner. ;)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta pick out the perfect combination of red, white and black to wear to work tomorrow.

xo,

How I'm Livin

Que Pasa, Shug pies? This glorious Sunday, I'm doin' a little link-action via Ms. Kim @ Yep the Blog. She's super magical. In fact, this little button here is pretty much her personality. Don't you love it?

Link up on Sundays and tell us what you did all week. Or make somethin up.

Below are the details of the exciting life I lead.

My cousin's 18th birthday was this week, and his friend Alex was here from Germany. My mom and I have been wanting to go to a Carolina Hurricanes game, so the four of us went on Tuesday. 

(They sold Red Bridge! Uber-exciting!)

We lost after a shoot out. Oh well.

********

I dealt with this shiz.

In NC, you have to get your car inspected when you renew your registration. Mine "wasn't ready" because it just had a repair involving the stupid check engine light being on, and it hasn't been driven enough to reset yet. Really? Um, it expires tomorrow. NO I DID NOT WAIT TIL THE LAST MINUTE EXACTLY. I got the problem fixed, tried to get it inspected. Drove around for no reason trying to reset the dang thing. STILL NOT READY. And then, I'd already made plans to go out of town. Thankfully, there is a 15 day grace period. Everybody say a lil prayer for Sylvia and me.

********

I ran into some jackasses in the mountains of NC.

Look how crooked my tooth looks in that pic.

 ********

 I thought about shiz that stresses me out and what things I can do to make my life less stressful.

1) Keep my living and work area CLEAN. This is so hard for me. I totally envy people whose brains just work that way automatically.

OHIO. Only Handle It Once. 

I am forever picking crap up to put it where it goes, wash it, throw it away, etc, and then I will set it down to deal with something else, thereby getting NOWHERE.

2) Go to bed by 10:30. This is hard too. Damn you Blogger and Pinterest. Sad, I know. 

3) Get up 30 minutes earlier than I think I need to, so I can get to work with time to handle emails, organizing, copies, etc. that stress me out throughout the day. 

4) I promised myself I would delete pictures from my phone once they have been uploaded. Dang it.

5) I will read emails and deal with them daily. Not ignore them, and come back to an inbox of 798 and feel overwhelmed.

6) Write things down in my planner immediately.

7) Pay bills when they arrive.

8) Bring crap in from my car right then as opposed to letting it pile up in there for weeks and then, driving around in a mess, whichhhh, stresses me out.

 ********

 I was forced to leave little hidden notes under pizza like this:
<=======

Because apparently, my brother has these totally absurd notions that I might steal toppings off of his pizza just because they look delicious and I can't eat the gluten-ous bread portion of the pizza.
                           =================>

Crazy, right? Can you believe him?

 ********

 Discussed the excitement of fall fashion with Bro-ham.

 He's really excited about Halloween tomorrow night too, lemme tell ya. 

Bad Daddy's Burger Bar = gluttony at it's worst

Dude.

If you live in the Charlotte area, and you've never been to Bad Daddy's Burger Bar, then you needs to get to steppin. Like, supa fast.

Holy.

Mother.

Of.

Pearl.

First of all, they have a gluten free menu, including Red Bridge, New Grist and Original Sin Cider. And, lots of options including bacon.

And just look at these options to build your burger ... 

Here's what I had:

Burger, like the actual patty, made of 1/2 beef and 1/2 bacon!!!

topped with bacon strips that're "crispy fried" - like, it had an extra coating of crunch on it

with fried onion straws

lettuce 

tomato

red onion

horseradish mayonnaise

Holy Toledo.

and the best. damn. tater. tots. I. have. eva. had.

Look at that thang! Melt in yo mouth. 

And, Anj got sweet potato fries that come with this delicious dipping sauce. Sorry, no idea what it was. You know I ate several of those in addition to my big BOWL of tater tots - straight awesome sauce.

*I should mention that I don't eat the bun ... even gluten free ones ... too much carbage for this diabetic shug pie, which is why the burger is spread eagle and there is a fork in the picture.

I was afraid I would have a heart attack on the way out. I swear to y'all I looked four months preggo by the time we waddled outta there. 

Sick.

But worth it. 

I am currently drinkin Caffeine Free Diet Coke in order to burp so I feel less like I'm going to explode.