Birmingham

It is tough to get back to the studying after a really good weekend that didn't feel nearly long enough.  On Friday night, I celebrated another test completed with some classmates... a little drinking, a little talking, a lot of dancing.  On Saturday, I went to brunch with a friend at a restaurant in Decatur called Sun in My Belly.  The owner of the restaurant named it after a quote of Picasso's in which, asked what drove him to create, he replied, "the sun in my belly."  The food was amazing, the service was friendly, the ambiance was perfect, the company was excellent... perfect way to start a day.

After that, I got out of Atlanta much later than I thought I would, but had an enjoyable drive to Birmingham to hang out with Martin and Marielle.  At 2.5 hours away, it is not nearly as close as I would like, but I am so grateful to be close enough to make a quick weekend trip out of visiting them.  Even if we had had no plans at all, it still would have been relaxing and restoring to just be there.  We did have plans, though, or at least Martin did.  Marielle studied hard all weekend for an exam she had on Monday morning, so Martin and I had a lot of time to hang out.  We went to an arts walk in downtown Birmingham, where we enjoyed a beer from a local brewery's tent and spent a couple of hours wandering a few blocks, in and out of local artists' exhibits.  I love going to art-related stuff with Martin; it's always so cool to get his take on things.  (And also funny... at one point he said, "I can't really take art seriously when it looks like my students did it."  Umm, hope that artist was not standing within earshot.)  The paintings were mostly just ok, but the photography stuff was really cool... we both bought a couple of prints.

We took pizza to Mar and ate dinner with her in the UAB med school building, and then rented and watched Where The Wild Things Are.  Sunday morning was all about food... a quick trip to the grocery store for waffle ingredients (we decided to pull out the waffle maker that I gave them as a wedding gift and they have used maybe once since then... great gift.)  This was our delicious result:

Mar out of hiding for a waffle study break :)

Then I continued to cook up a storm for my supper club (gazpacho, zucchini bread and cookies) before Martin almost killed me with one of his crossfit workouts.  My entire body is still painfully sore two days later.  It was hard to leave and make the drive back here, literally and figuratively. :)