Adventuring to the mall and beyond

Okay okay, it's time I get real with y'all.

I've already explicitly told you a great deal about myself and implied even more. Eating well, with only a few obvious caveats that display my sweet tooth, shopping local, living boldly. I mean, I think I'm pretty awesome. I'm a child of the eighties. I spent all of elementary and middle school being taught how great I am and how I should have high self esteem. The message clearly stuck. (Please note this is intended to be tongue in cheek. Carry on). But, there is also another side of me.

The princess hugging some raisins, for some reason

Folks, I'm a princess at heart. If you know me just casually, this might not be readily evident. If you really know me though, it's disturbingly obvious. I blame the mom, mostly. Yup, I'm a grown, professional woman and my mom does most of my laundry and cooks most of our meals. I occasionally get a great deal of razzing for these facts, but I make no apologies. I would, and sometimes do, gladly carry out these chores, but, hey, she jumps in there and picks up those tasks. What kind of princess would I be if I stopped her? Sheesh!

Far and above all the small ways that I'm a princess is my love for retail therapy. Y'all I love to shop. I love clothes. I love kitchen and home products. I love makeup and personal care. I love candles. I love toys and games, and I LOVE shoes. I will say, I like to bargain shop. It hurts me to have to pay full price, but even finding a good deal doesn't take away from the pleasure that I get from a good shopping trip. I'm also not necessarily one to come home with bags and bags of things. I don't have to buy the store out. I just need to shop from time to time... okay, fairly often.

Since The Mom and I have decided to make Saturday adventure day, we came up with the plan today to head to the Monroe, Ohio outlet malls. I mean, why not? The mom loves to shop, too. It's a nice long drive. Adventures come in all shapes and sizes, and you never know what a trip for even something as mundane as shopping will bring.

Sometimes it brings pretty, unexpected sites 

As I've mentioned before I recently started a new job. In my job, I'll be spending a good deal of time in meetings and in one on one planning time with teachers. Having been one very recently, and honestly, I still consider myself a teacher, I know how hard these people work. Sometimes the best thing is just to walk into yet another meeting or planning session and find a little treat. It's always a happy pick me up. With that in mind, I've been planning to have occasional small treats to give to the teachers I work with. Just a little somethings to show my appreciation for what they do everyday. This week I received an email about an awesome Groupon for the Lindt Chocolate Outlet store in Monroe. **light bulb** Teacher treats in the form of high quality, really good chocolate and a chance to shop. Yes, please.

Lindt truffles *drool*

Bright and early, the mom and I headed across the river into the land of the buckeye. We made a quick stop at an amazing plus size consignment shop in Fairfield. If you ever get a chance to stop by Just Her Size, do so. He's such a nice guy, he has tons of inventory, and the prices are reasonable. From there, we hit the back roads. The Mom and I do this often. Whenever it's a reasonable option, I have Audrey (that's my GPS) avoid interstates. It never fails that we find something cool along the way when we do this, and we get to look at something other than drab, boring, cookie cutter interstate roads. One of my all time favorite books is called Travels With Charlie by the venerable John Steinbeck. It is a travel memoir Steinbeck wrote about his cross country adventures with his poodle, Charlie. The interstate system was new at this time, and he made it a point to avoid them at all costs. He talks at length in his book about how this new system of connected roads bypass all the heart and soul of our vast country. I've never forgotten this thought, so when I get the chance, I do it like it like John and Charlie did.

Beauty on the back roads 

Today our find was a farmer's market. WOOOHOOO! We were hauling it down a quiet country road when we drove past a giant wooden ear of corn in front of the cutest little farm stand I have ever seen. With my love for these places an obvious, that's saying something. I glanced at The Mom and said, "You know we're turning around, right?" She completely agreed. Being a farmer's market connoisseur, I knew right away we had hit pay dirt. We were greeted by clucking chickens, beautiful ears of corn, perfect green tomatoes (for frying) and red tomatoes (for eating raw with salt), lovely new potatoes, and all other manner of deliciousness. They also had a cold storage area with fresh cottage and small hams. We are hooked up for most of next week with incredible produce.

Carver Family Farm Market

I need to digress for a moment. I thought a great deal about tomatoes on this stop. I bought multiple varieties including some gorgeous and deliciously acidic tiny yellow balls of sunshine. I always feel bad whenever someone tells me they don't like tomatoes, and this is something I hear often. This never fails to leave me wondering if the person has really ever had a tomato. Those things that they sell in grocery stores are not tomatoes. That is an over bred, inbred, science experiment gone horribly wrong. The same with restaurant tomatoes from places that don't buy from local small vendors.  I understand that really good, homegrown, pure seed tomatoes don't ship well. I know why we've done these hideous things to tomatoes. However, it has completely ruined this beautiful product. Real tomatoes run the gambit from unbelievably sweet to lusciously savory and acidic and all points in between. True, good tomatoes are not the oddly hard yet, at the same time, mushy, slimy things that so many folks have eaten as their one tomato experience. I challenge you, my friends, if you don't like tomatoes but you've never tried one fresh from someone's garden, give them another chance. You might be surprised. The Mom challenges you to send her all of your homegrown tomatoes.

Unbelievably good and tiny 

Brings a tear to my eye

Our bounty 

Then it was onward to the mall!! So, let me explain what I didn't realize before we made this journey. It is tax free weekend in Ohio. If you're not familiar with this concept, each August, some states host a weekend where all goods like clothing, school supplies, and the like are sold tax free. This typically happens along side crazy sales from not only purveyors of those items, but any other stores in the vicinity trying to cash in on the uptick of consumers. Lawd, y'all, that place was overrun with all manner of humanity. It was like Black Friday in August up in there. There were special traffic patterns, people walking willy nilly on whichever side of the walkways.. Can we all embrace the walk on the right philosophy, by the way? It's just the way it needs to be done. If everyone walks on their right, then we get a good traffic pattern going, and everybody has their own little space. Think driving but with your feet, or something like that.

A puzzle for like three cents or something equally astonishing

However, it was still a great time. We spent all afternoon perusing the kitchen store, the Yankee Candle, a game store, a couple of clothing places, the aforementioned Lindt store, and various other curiosities. We purposefully avoided the shoe stores because I seriously cannot be trusted. While we didn't buy from them all, of course, it was glorious. While the better part of me wants to not be an obsessive consumer, I just am. While I don't want to be driven by things, I like things. I like cool things. I like pretty things. I like unique things, and I love things that smell delightful. There is no better place to find these things than a good outlet mall. My princess side is calmed by all the stuff. In the immortal words of Princess Ariel, "Look at this stuff! Isn't it neat!"

Taking the back roads proved a good choice as we tried to leave. There were easily forty eleven hundred (It's a southern thing) cars trying to turn out of the parking lot onto Interstate 75. We zipped right into another lane and took a nice drive across the county over to 71. Traffic jam headache avoided! Just before we got on the interstate I spied a Perkins out of the corner of my eye.

The Mom sniffing the giant bag of chocolate as we wait for our food in the Perkins

 If you've never eaten at a Perkins, you must have not been blue collar in the nineties. It's akin to a Denny's, Shoney's (do those still exist), or maybe a Frisch's Big Boy. They specialize in breakfasts for one that could easily feed a small army and the standard burger or pot roastesque dinner. You don't find too many of them around these days, so we decided to stop in and see if it held up to our memories. Besides, outlet shopping makes a princess and The Mom hungry. We both enjoyed decent sandwiches, nice onion rings, and oddly delicious tomato basil soup. Like, seriously, there is a much higher scale restaurant in Louisville that serves some of the best tomato soup that I've ever had the pleasure to sample. This Perkins soup was easily as good and a whole heck of a lot cheaper.

Grilled cheese and soup

Now that the mom and I are home in our comfy jammies, all tucked in for a peaceful evening, I feel like Saturday adventure day was a success. When I first considered making Saturday adventure day, I definitely was thinking more of kayaking, random road trips to exotic locations, hiking Kentucky's fabulous trail system, and the like. I didn't really plan for it to be a trip to a mall just a little further  than the mall literally around the corner from our home. However, it was still an adventure. I got to spend great quality time with The Mom, who kept me in stitches the entire day. I got to look at lots of stuff. I got to see areas I never would have seen otherwise, and I added a another page to the book of me. Not too bad as adventures go.

See below for a picture of my burger and another of some corn. I know this is the part you've been waiting for. #extrapictures