Sunday Southern Days

While there are still, like, six weeks to go before Halloween, we are in the early prep stages at our house. Toula has selected both Elsa and Elena of Avalor costumes (We'll see who wins out in the 11th hour) and I've ordered her adorable little Trick-Or-Treating bag (and it was on sale for only $8.40)! Score yours here:  https://www.mythirtyone.com/kyrap/product/8330 You can also add embroidery personalization on the Cinch Sac backpacks, which I think are great for older kids to Trick-Or-Treat. For now, we'll stick with the Carry All Caddy for T's little hands. Happy Fall, Y'all!

Everyone has their preferred libations, but if you're like me, wine is your game. It takes me back to Dr. Brett Horton's Wine Tasting class at James Madison University (Go Dukes!), sitting in the second floor banquet room of a downtown Harrisonburg brew-pub. Since the JMU campus is dry, we had to shift off-campus to effectively learn about wine (before you laugh, this was an actual course open only to Hospitality and Tourism Management majors). We learned to swirl, sniff, tilt the glass to check for color and opacity, swish, and had the option of spitting it out. But we were 21. Seriously, who wastes wine like that? No me, I tell you. In the (just a few) years since sitting in that class, I've come to love wine more and more, and appreciate the importance of selecting *just* the right wine for the occasion. Then came parenthood. And an entirely new gamut of drinking events came about, lending the opportunity to explore new wines and find perfect fits for every parentin