{fave spot} whole foods: wine loft.

last august, charlotte became one of the cool kids and got a whole foods. we all watched with anticipation for over a year as it took quite some time to build this giant grocery store. finally, august rolled around and we finally got to go inside!

along with the never-ending aisles of yummy/healthy/trendy food, their fabulous hot bar, and their delicious selection of amazing cheeses, our whole foods has a bar/wine loft called queen's corner. it is located in the back right corner of the store, and on the main level, there is a small bar home to several different rotating beer taps. there is also some seating down on the main level, as well as seating around the bar. once you have purchased your "wine card" from the bartender downstairs, you take the industrial-like stairs up to the wine loft.

 

{wine bottle chandelier}

 

 

 

{the loft}

 

the coolest part about the wine loft is the enomatic self-dispensing wine system. you take your wine card, grab a glass, insert your card into any one of the 3 machines, and choose how many oz. you want. you have the option of 1 oz, (taste)  2.5 oz. (half glass), and 5 oz.(full glass) pours. there are 8 bottles in each machine, totaling 24 bottles of wine. they change the bottles out frequently, so every time you go there is something different being offered. the prices vary from about $3-$20 a glass, but there are always plenty of options at a reasonable price.

 

 

 

 

{inspiration wall}

 

there are daily specials at queen's corner:

 

monday: $3 pints

tuesday: "half ff the loft" (a great deal!)

wednesday: $5 beer flights

thursday: $3 wine feature

friday: sommelier selections

saturday and sunday: $5 cheese plates

and if you get lucky, a nice gentleman from the cheese world may just bring you a yummy little treat such as this....

 

{warm goat cheese & jam on a cracker, topped with toasted walnut; smokey chocolate bites}

 



 

this has quickly become one of our favorite spots in charlotte. sometimes we'll even grab dinner from the hot bar & bring it up while we enjoy our vino. queen's corner is open from 12pm-9:30pm daily. if you are a charlottean, be sure to grab a glass next time you're in the southpark area!



penny pinching.

i'm moving into a new place this weekend, and my rent is a bit more than i'm used to. so in light of bigger bills, i'm trying to find some ways to cut my spending. here's what i've got so far... anyone have any other great ideas?

1. go to the library. i love books. i love buying books. i love writing in books. i love turning down pages of my favorite books. BUT i don't love how much books cost. i got a library card about a year ago and still haven't used it. time to change that!

2. budget gifting. i love sending my pals little gifts every once in awhile. i also love getting people gifts i know they'll love for birthdays, christmas, etc. but this is a pricey little habit. one of my strengths is my ability to craft & be creative - so i'm putting a price limit on what i can spend for gifts, and i'm going to start making the majority of them. this will mean that every month i need to plan ahead for who's birthdays are coming up so i don't have to run out last minute, but that's a good thing to keep track of anyways. same goes for greeting cards - those things are EXPENSIVE and most of the time they don't say what you want anyways. i've already started on this journey - but buying greeting cards is no longer allowed.

3. avoid target. this is the place i do most of my meaningless spending. as we all know, it's easy to go in here for toilet paper and walk out $100 later. speaking of toilet paper - things like that & paper towels will now be purchased at costco. it really is amazing how much you can save on household items there!

4. only dine out once a week. this is a hard one. one of the reasons i've never limited myself before is because most of the time when you're eating out, you're spending time with someone. as a society, that's what we do when we want to schedule time with someone, we eat. but there are other cheaper (and healthier) options for spending time with your loved ones. go for a walk, grab coffee, make dinner at home. there really is no reason to spend $10 + tip on letuce topped with chicken from brixx a few times a week.

5. stop drinking "out." alcohol is expensive. alcohol is even more expensive at bars. and tipping on top of that is downright absurd. you can go out for a few beers with your friends and end up spending $25+ on 3 beers and a tip on a random tuesday. i love drinking beer any day of the week, but my bank account does not. no more throwing my debit card down at the bar.

note: this does not mean i won't have a day or two every month where i completely break this rule and drink on a porch on a random sunday. porch drinking in beautiful weather doesn't count.

6. buy trader joe's two buck chuck wine only. cause you can't argue with a $2. something bottle of wine.

7. gas. not going to have to work at this one, as i'm now 5 miles closer to work. but i MAY start trying to ride my bike to work once a week since i'm only 1.4 miles away again. that may be a bit ambitious.

8. i already cut out starbucks/dunkin/caribou. i only drink it when i have a gift card. this is a big, giant, enormous deal for me as i used to drink it everyday. now i have a keurig, and funny enough, the caffeine works just the same.

9. bye bye birchbox. i have enjoyed getting birchboxes for the past few months, but i'm not sure i can justify spending $120 a year on them. half of the stuff just sits in my bathroom drawer anyways, so i went ahead and cut that off.

10. unsubscribe from all store email blasts. this is the best thing i've done in awhile. it is so easy to scroll through clothes on email blasts that come to you daily and impulse buy things. i was actually embarrassed by the amount of emails i was getting from various clothing stores on a daily basis."50% off - what?" my inbox is thanking me!

what are you doing to save some extra money?

thursday's thought.

{in honor of the movie being released last week} {c/o: we heart it.}

CHEERSPORT 2013.

about 12 years ago, my dad accidentally got involved in the cheer competition business. you see, he had quit his big time corporate job because he wasn't happy, and ended up getting involved with our cheer gym as a "summer project." at the time, CHEERSPORT was a small competition that had been dreamed up by my coaches. and when my business-minded father got involved, he realized this company had potential. so since 2001, my dad has been running CHEERSPORT, and it has grown into quite the crazy event. according to the atlanta journal constitution, CHEERSPORT draws in over 70,000 people to the city and creates $34 million in economic impact, making it the 3rd largest event in atlanta ever year. even bigger than the final four. pretty insane.

this past december, my dad made the big decision to sell CHEERSPORT. and even though he now works for someone again, business is as usual besides everyone's paychecks just come from a different place. we held our annual CHEERSPORT nationals this past weekend, and it was another great event.

{entrance to the competition; 1 of our 5 arenas; this year's competitor gift; our 200,000 sq ft warm up room.}

i got to atlanta on wednesday evening and grabbed a drink with my sweet little from my sorority. she moved to atlanta a few months ago, and we had a beer at a bar i love that i used to frequent when i lived in atlanta, six feet under. it was so great to see her, she is good for my soul.

thursday started the craziness, but we ended the evening at peasant bistro for a quick valentine's day dinner with my family and brett! we even rode back to the hotel in a horse & buggie... i wish i was kidding.

{our usual weird pic; brett & i at dinner; court & brett stunting...normal;  daddy & mary ann on the ride home}

the rest of the weekend was all work and no play. and as always, the highlight of CHEERSPORT is seeing all my cheer friends, and spending some quality time with my dad. after 5 long/awesome days in atlanta, we headed home to charlotte. can't wait to do it again next year!

 

{view from our room at the omni... i love.}

noteworthy things.

so i missed my weekend recap deadline (wednesday), and seeing how it's friday, i clearly can't do it now! but here are some noteworthy things that have been going on with me the past week or so!

 

we went to the circus last saturday!  derrick, kelly, alex & i went to brixx for dinner & beers, and then headed to the circus at time warner cable arena. it wasn't the most organized event i've ever been to, but it sure was fun. the elephants, as usual, stole the show.

 

 

{at brixx}

 

 

{kelly, me, alex, derrick}

 

 

 

alright so this really isn't that cool, seeing as how this is over a year span (with about a 6 month break in between). BUT i remember how amazing it felt last year when i hit 100 miles. i never ever dreamed i would run this many miles. next goal is to run 300 by the end of june - certainly do-able!

 

 

on thursday night, momma and i hit up the wine bar at whole foods. we love this place. i swear something about those self serve machines actually makes the wine taste better... :)

 

and lastly... bully girl (and me too) are certainly ready for the weekend... TGIF people!

 

 

{i woke up, rolled over and found her like this. she is hilarious.}

thursday's thought.