Taylor's Birthday (Kind of)

Taylor's birthday was in August and thanks to some disappearing mail my parents' gift to him was delayed. Before I tell you what it was I need to set some premises.

Here are a couple things you should know about Taylor:

1. He doesn't like celebrating his birthday.
2. He doesn't like "things."
3. He loves food.

Here are a couple things you should know about my family:

1. We love celebrating birthdays.
2. We love giving gifts.
3. We love food.

When I was in elementary school my mom had the idea to go Hamburger Hopping for dinner one night. That meant we stopped by four or five fast food restaurants where we ordered one meal to share between the five of us. After eating 1/5 of five meals everyone got full and we have a distinct memory of being together.

So, in an effort to resolve the six facts listed above, my mom sent Taylor a list of three BBQ restaurants in Jacksonville along with some money so we could go BBQ Hopping. I know, my mother's a genius.

We only made it to two restaurants before getting full and only one is worth mentioning: Sticky Fingers.

We ordered a hamburger, pulled pork sandwich fusion because it was unusual and some wings that had been grilled because we had never heard of doing wings that way before. It was all delicious. We will totally be back.

Happy birthday, Love!

Roadside Jacksonville

Taylor and I have been trying to explore Jacksonville as much as possible so we spend time driving down unknown roads. I try not to stop him every time I see something interesting, but there are times when I can't help myself. Or even better, when we're walking and I can snap a few pictures here and there. Like this one: The VW Bug matches the house.

One back road drove us through the tributaries of the Saint John's river and we can across a sign that said "Steve's Boiled Peanuts."

 I first tried boiled peanuts in South Carolina a few years ago with my best friend and her southern mother so I call them "bowled" peanuts. I don't know if it's the Alabama in my blood or what, but I love those stupid things so Taylor and I bought a bag of Cajun-spiced peanuts from Steve. They were awesome.

Have you ever tried bowled peanuts?

Island Barbeque Competition

 The best thing I’ve found so far about being in Florida is the variety of events around us. I have a list of areas to check out, places to go and events to attend. The first event I found was an annual BBQ cook-off competition that takes place on Amelia Island. Amelia Island just about 40 miles north of us and it is a quiet area, an island by technicality rather than an island out off the coast, and it is gorgeous. I told Taylor we have to go back when the weather cools and just explore.

As soon as we parked and walked up to the event you could smell the food. I love the smell of BBQ and there were smokers and pits all over.

Yes, this guy does have an alligator head next to his grill because he was cooking it. They weren't selling the meat for a couple more hours so we weren't able to try any, but it sure looked awesome.

After wandering around the tents I was pretty overwhelmed. How do you pick which person to buy meat from? There were so many varieties of meats, styles and people I had no idea. We went with our gut (aka: the team with the longest line) and got a half-rack of ribs and I wanted to try the shrimp hush puppies, because that was the most interesting non-meat item I saw. Plus, the lady selling them was wearing shrimp earrings.

We ate along the coast-edge of the event on a picnic table. The meat was tender and delicious, the sauce was tangy but not overpowering and I got my fingers all messy; the perfect barbeque combination.

And then we went to the beach. How was your weekend?

Korean Ice Cream

I am obsessed with ice cream. It's in my blood to love it, an inheritance from my dad's side of the family. Naturally this has led Taylor and me to search around Jacksonville for Florida's finest ice cream shops.

The most interesting one we've found is called Three F(x) Ice Cream. It's a mix of Cold Stone and Sub Zero. You pick the flavor ice cream you want (I got raspberry and they had to blend the berries up in the cream. That was a huge bonus for me!) and they pour the base liquid on a cooled metal slab where they mix it around with spatulas until you get creamy, delicious ice cream. I got raspberry ice cream with almonds and chocolate chips.

The intriguing thing about Three F(x) is they promote themselves as an ice cream and waffle shop so Taylor ordered a waffle with Bavarian cream filling. It's hard to say "We didn't know what we were expecting the waffle to look like" because we all know what a waffle looks like. Square, gridded with squares and delicious. So imagine how excited I felt to have the waffle lady drop this off at our table:

 

Yes. That is a fish waffle. And it was delicious. We've been back to the shop just for waffles because they're that much fun. I may just become a waffle connoisseur.

Apparently fish waffles are popular in Japan (their official name is Taiyaki) but this shop is owned by Koreans, so along with my waffle and ice cream we watched Korean boy band music videos.

Did I mention that Jacksonville is fun?

Across the country to Atlanta

Continuing the epic, cross-country story:
After a six-hour nap, and a stop at the famous ice cream shop, Ted Drewes, we made the final leap into Atlanta where Taylor’s family lives.

Ted Drewes is awesome, and somehow famous. I'm not sure how a little ice cream shop gets to be nationally recognized, but it is. My parents lived in Saint Louis 30 years ago and they ate there then. Watch how an exhausted Hilary eats her ice cream.

p.s. I love ice cream.

We did finally make it to Atlanta where we spent a week with my in-laws. I like those crazy people a lot. My mother-in-law has a juicer so we drank beet/carrot/celery/apple juice everyday, which does amazing things for your body. My nails started growing super fast and you start to crave the stuff. Now I'm sans-juicer and I'm not happy about it.

We spent most of our time watching the Olympics and driving around looking at Taylor's old stomping grounds. This was at the old drag race track. Doesn't it look like we stepped into Jumanji?

The other item of note is my sister-in-law's furniture business, Furniture by Maria. All summer she's been buying old wooden furniture, painting and antiquing it. She's really good. So good, in fact, she's spent most of her time completing custom orders and she has them lined up for Christmas and next summer. So, while she and my mother-in-law were at their finest, I pulled out my camera.

Are your visits to the in-laws this fun?

Roadtrip: Stage one

Today is Taylor’s first day of law school, we are officially moved into our new place in Jacksonville, Florida, and I already have a tan.

Pretty incredible how quickly life changes. A few weeks ago I was busy working at OrangeSoda, making friends and feeling productive about life. Now I’m across the country, using internet from our new clubhouse to work remotely and Taylor is in school full-time. It was actually difficult for me to leave Utah (never thought I’d say that) but I’m so glad we’re here. Jacksonville seems great so far and we’re 15 minutes from the beach. Holler.

But more on Jacksonville later. Today, and Thursday, I’ll update you on our trip out here.

We left Utah with our Explorer and Taylor-made trailer and we were so excited.

We decided to take the north route so we drove through Wyoming (see the windmills below) and Nebraska.

 See our reflection? That and corn were all the entertainment Nebraska had to offer.

We meant to stop in Omaha, but there was a bridge tournament so there were zero open hotel rooms. Seriously, bridge. Anyway, we got about 40 minute south of Omaha and found an American Inn & Suites just off a trucker stop. We got as far as our teeth-brushing when Taylor found used earplugs in the bed. It was enough to piss him off, wake him up and we headed off (with full refund).

We ended up going until we were just outside of Saint Louis. We watched the sunrise (check out my picture of it or see all of them in Instagram @hurststatus) We checked into a Motel 6 a full 24 hours after leaving Utah. Taylor’s incredible, doing that with our little trailer.

Orange-Type Karma

Remember how I talked about putting myself out there and seeing positive results? You know, Bill Murray? Well, it continues.

The day after I wrote that post, I was pulled into one of my company's executive's offices and he asked me if I would be interested in taking a new position.

Long story short:
This executive was so impressed by the work I submitted for the competition he created a job position just for me. I'm technically the "Operations Analyst" but it's really a mix of executive assistant, project guru and get-it-done-right operative.

It's bad ass.

Seriously, I am using my mind in a way I love, it stretches me and I can see my work making a difference throughout the company. It's amazing.

As for continuing my good karma: We just launched a new product, PageInk, and for the launch we had a little party at work, part of which you could spin a wheel to win a shirt, hat or pen. I have been wanting a PageInk hat so badly, I'm not even sure why. So, I told myself I would win. Badabing-badaBOOM! I now own a PageInk hat. I was happy*.

*"Happy" is an understatement. "Stoked" is more accurate. I literally ran out of the party to yell at DeNeige telling her I had won. Thank goodness my friends get my weirdness.

Scenes from the weekend

Chocolate-dipped ice cream from Maceys.

Ducklings all over the place.

Taylor flying our kite.

Why, Thank you Bill Murray!

This year I have been working on being more aggressive in taking advantage of opportunities that expand, showcase or otherwise involve my talents. I have an issue with people seeing my skills because I have this weird fear where I feel like I haven't reached my true ability, and I'm embarrassed by that. But that's dangerous, because you can't reach your potential without putting yourself out there. Right?

So this year, I was published in the Huffington Post here. I was a finalist in the Stratejoy "Living Life on Your Own Terms" contest. And most recently I submitted 20 pages of content for an intra-company contest. I took liberty with the topic and submitted an internal re-branding proposal.

As one of the winners I received a chunk of change and I will be part of the committee to finalize the documentation.

Booyah.

In response, my dear co-worker, Whitney, gave me this:

Fact.

Work Lessons and Life Mottoes

Working full-time has been a great opportunity to really learn. Let me bullet-point a few things I have found to be especially pertinent to career-minded women and to me.

1. Talk More. We hear all the time that we need to listen more, but it goes two ways: we really do need to talk more. I have spent a lot of time listening and talking with my co-workers about general life issues and specific life problems. I have always loved listening to people, because I feel like I am able to "get the interesting from them" but really it helps me establish myself, my goals and my direction. And I am astounded at how much people just need to be heard aka they need to talk.
2. Self-confidence. Two office-girlfriends and I have made this picture our new life motto. Women have an uncanny ability to be our own worst enemies. And so, we have all decided enough is enough. We are beautiful, we are smart, we are capable and dammit, the world is going to know it!
   
   
   
   
3. Do work. The number one thing I've tell myself is to just do work. No matter how boring, how unrelated it may seem to my long-term goals, or how much I may begrudge it, just get it done to the best of my abilities.