Yes, I know, it’s April. Okay, my creative experiment went a little awry last month as I realized as the days kept slipping past me that, holy cow, did I try three more new things this month to accompany my new event (Wiregrass Fresh Market) and new recipe (Five-Can Soup)?
Well, yes, technically I did but since I neglected to really expound on each of these in individual blogs, I thought I would just summarize here what remaining new things I tried for the month of March, and move the heck on to April. (Let’s all do that, can we?)
So I had a few great networking opportunities last month that brought me to two new places that I’ll pass along here…
These new places: a coffee shop I’d never visited, A Cup of Organic in Land O Lakes and La Creperia Cafe in Ybor City for lunch. Now granted, the first one launched just last fall so it is fairly new in the area. La Creperia on the other hand? Not so new, I’m just slow to the party.
I met up with a business colleague at the coffee shop and I will say that the iced mocha coffee that I had when I went was delicioso – in fact, the gentleman behind the counter was so helpful and even suggested some alternatives to make it even tastier, such as one regular customer’s secret ingredient request – almond soy milk. Hmm. I didn’t partake in the alternative version but it does sound intriguing. What I liked best about the place aside from that it was nice and wide open though it is a fairly small place, is that it offers quite a few gluten-free options for my buddies who require this assistance…so that’s nice.
I will say this though – I walked through the door not knowing exactly what I would experience. If you visit their website, you will soon learn that this company and its owners are quite focused on religion with several Christian scripture messages throughout the website and I found out later on the walls of the place itself. I myself am not a religious person in the least, so I wasn’t sure if I would feel out of place in the establishment, didn’t know if I’d be blessed placing my order or feel intense pressure to pray over my java… I will say that this is definitely a theme of their business and I certainly respect that. But I do want to tell anyone like me who’s not religious, don’t let the site deter you from stopping by to try their tasty coffee. They do have an Open Mic night and live music sometimes, which as I understand it tends to run a bit gospel but for general meetups for coffee or delicious morning treats, I’d give it a shot and I certainly plan to go back without any reservation. But I felt that I needed to mention this aspect of the business since it is a very big part of who they are that they promote, and that could both attract and detract folks from going…so there you have it. Good coffee, good service, nice place.
Later in the month, I met up with some great friends at La Creperia, and I must admit that I was a little worried about staying on my Weight Watchers PointsPlus program once I saw the quite enticing list of menu items available. If it can be stuffed into a crepe, it’s probably on their menu! What a variety! Of course, everything truly delicious-sounding was probably going to be high in my weight loss program’s points, so I thought perhaps this might be my only meal for the day! But I was wrong. For one thing, they use only a whole wheat crepe which provides great fiber (a good thing for any of us…I’m just saying…) And they not only had crepes that were vegetarian, they also had some options that were geared toward health-conscious eaters, such as fruit, walnuts and low-fat yogurt. I ordered the Vegetarian Crepe which was delicious though I was a few steps away from trying the Zorba which sounded like I’d be lost in feta forever.
I liked La Creperia and suspect that I’ll be returning, perhaps on a day when I really want a treat and can devour one of those nutella crepes! (For those of you who have heard me say this before, I still have not tried nutella…hmm, that could be a Five to Try in the future…) But the best part of the outing is that now I have another Ybor City dining option to add to my list of possible places to visit with friends, and that’s always a very good thing!
Okay, I haven’t actually gotten far into it, but I suppose this counts. If you knew me and knew how unbelievably hard it is for me to read anything for pleasure anymore and stick with it, you’d know that even just starting the book is an accomplishment in itself!
I have always heard how great the book Eat, Pray, Love is, and with the closing of Borders Bookstores, I happened to come upon a new copy of the book for just $7 – can’t beat that. So I decided to take the plunge and have only begun to dive into it as of the end of last month. It’s hard for me to offer an opinion just yet but I am holding off on seeing the movie now until I either finish the book or if I decide to not pursue reading it further. If I do read it, I’m sure it will spawn some kind of revelation that I’ll want to blog about in the future so you have that excitement to look forward to (yes, I’m being facetious here).
Reading for pleasure in my spare time (spare time? what’s that?) is not common for me, beyond picking up an entertainment magazine or tuning into some mindless but thrilling reality competition TV like Amazing Race, Survivor or American Idol. I would much rather escape from my workload listening to music, watching a good movie or fun TV show then pick up a book and I know that in the era of Kindles, Nooks and the like that this is an extremely unpopular opinion but as someone with my head in words at all hours of the day reading, writing and editing other people’s stuff or my own, when that free time does arrive, the last thing I want to do is read! If you don’t have this kind of job, this may be a difficult concept to relate to but for me escaping is avoiding the written word at all costs. Strange, I know.
So we’ll see how this fifth exciting NEW endeavor for March works out. I don’t put a lot of faith into the process but if it truly is a captivating book as women tell me, perhaps I too will get swept up in it, as well. I certainly hope so.
And there you have it, March in a nutshell, and it only took me until April 6 to write about it! What new things will this month have in store? Hmm… I’ll be finding out very soon…
And what about you – what new things will you learn or activities will you try for the month of April to join me on this creative quest to become smarter by December 31?
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