Around the World in 80 Days

Ok, so perhaps I exaggerate a little, but September has flown by in a heartbeat. I meant to blog more (and even had lots of ideas), but was always too tired...I went back and checked my calendar.

In September, I went to five states. Two for work (Virginia and New York) and three for pleasure (Maine, Texas and NH). My work schedule was CRAZY. I went on two business trips, had two all-day sessions of training, had two days off for fun, plus two major Jewish holidays to contend with. Also, need I mention that my darling husband turned the big 5-0, and we entertained my in-laws?

Perhaps this explains why I am wide awake at 12:41 am and writing this blog!

Here is my September in photos:

One weekend, Marion and I squeezed in a visit to the grand opening of Quilter's Way. They moved from their old location in West Concord to a new space in Acton.

We started celebrating Mike's birthday early with brunch at Henrietta's Table.

Mike's whole family joined us for brunch, plus his best friend Matt and his wife MaryKate drove down from Connecticut (not pictured, they took the photo).

If you've never eaten at Henrietta's Table, treat yourself and go to brunch there. The food is amazing. It's all organic and a lot of it is locally grown. The selection is enormous! It's a little pricy (around $50 apiece), but Mike and I usually try to go there at least once a year, usually for Valentine's Day.
http://www.henriettastable.com/ They are located in the Charles Hotel in Cambridge.

P.S. We've also eaten dinner there, which was ok, if you go there, make sure you go for brunch. And make a reservation! Almost forgot to mention that there is a beautiful quilt display of antique blue and white quilts hanging in the hotel lobby.

One of my business trips took me to New York City. I was traveling with my good friend Susie L., and we took an earlier train into the city specifically so I could visit City Quilter, http://www.cityquilter.com/

They have a lot of great fabrics, loads of samples and an adjacent quilting gallery, with an amazing rotating quilt display. I bought some more New York fabrics...

I took Mike to Austin, Texas for a special birthday trip. He's always wanted to check out the music scene there. We left for Austin VERY early on Friday morning and packed in a lot of sight seeing in three days, before crawling back into bed in Boston, early Monday morning around 1:30 am.

My friend Eleanor recommended the Driskill Hotel http://www.driskillhotel.com/, which was built in 1886 and is just lovely. I was blown away by the orange ceiling in our room (see below). It was really different. 

My friend Kim G., who is a professional foodie, gave me a huge list of restaurants. We thoroughly enjoyed Lamberts http://www.lambertsaustin.com/ (ate there twice) and Malaga http://www.malagatapasbar.com/! (Actually, the service at Malaga was terrible, but the food was delicious.) We checked out a couple of music acts on Saturday, and also walked around the city a little. We watched the bats fly out from the Congress Street bridge on Saturday night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1o2SQfAR_c. A lot of people had recommended that we see this. There is a huge colony of bats under this bridge and they fly out en masse around dusk. Although, at dusk, it's pretty dark, and black bats are flying out against a backdrop of black water, so there's not too much to actually see.

On Sunday, before we left, we went to a Farmer's Market and to two great museums. Coincidentally, it was Austin's annual free museum day, which probably made it a little more crowded than usual, but saved us some money. We went to the Mexican Museum of Art, which was tiny but very interesting. They had a special exhibit on personal altars as well as a demonstration of screen printing, which Mike was very interested in. Next, we went to the Texas State History Museum, http://www.thestoryoftexas.com/ which is located on the University of Austin campus. They had a special exhibit, called, Texas Music Roadtrip, that we both thoroughly enjoyed. If we'd only known that our flight home was going to be delayed, we would have stayed longer and also checked out the adjacent art museum.

It was very hot in Austin with temperatures hovering around 90 degrees for the weekend.

Mike is as old as the Austin City Ballet. They had this big sign in the hotel lobby because they were doing a benefit evening. I cropped this. Isn't it perfect?

Mike took me to the cutest quilt shop in Austin, the Stitch Lab. I was good and didn't buy anything.

Stitch Lab was located in this adorable little building!

We stayed at the historic Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin.

We visited the Texas State History Museum.

So, now you know why I'm tired. Perhaps now I can go back to sleep!

Pugs and kisses,
Nan