The World is Our Oyster!

I have so much catching up to do, it's crazy. January has been so hectic! To back up for a minute though, I wanted to blog about a really fun little overnight trip that Brent and I stole the week between Christmas and New Years.

For those of you who follow my blog regularly, you probably know that Brent's artistic side never ceases to tickle me to the bone. I am in love with Brent's artistic "style" and being around him in his creative state makes my heart laugh.

I was an art major in college and painting and drawing runs thick through my soul. For me, it's euphoric but not really something I regularly find the time to indulge in. One weekend, while we were still just dating, Brent took me to an art store on the back of his crotch rocket to load up on canvases and paints because he knew how much I loved it. (I will never forget that ride home when we learned that motorcycles are the dumbest way to transport canvi.) Anyway, we spent that entire afternoon painting and watching football and my sweet Brent, the anti-Van-Gogh, sat with me and tried his hand at painting too. Although it took him hours upon hours to complete, what he revealed became my all time favorite painting. EVER.

Seriously, this shit sent me into a fit of tears. And, had I not preempted the portrait with a story, I guarantee that you probably would have thought one of the twins painted it. At the time, it was a family photo of our days living in sin together. I swear, this painting still makes me laugh 8 years later. If I had the balls to do it, I would get it tattooed on my body somewhere. I love it that much. The flying saucer gives it that certain je ne sais quois.

This was my painting from the same day...

We were cranking out some Louvre worthy originals that day. Anyway, we both enjoy reminiscing about that day and those paintings quite often. So, few months ago when I found a groupon for an art studio up in Charleston called 'Bottles n Brushes', we jumped on it. Both of us were giddy about another art adventure and when we saw a painting class called, "The World is My Oyster" we were sold. It's been our date night slogan for years. Inevitably, one of us will ask the other while deciding our plans, "What do you want to do tonight? The world is our oyster!" (And sometimes, on an experimental date night when we try out a new restaurant, the "oyster" gives us hepatitis.)

We headed up to Charleston for our painting adventure but were hell bent on stopping at a Japanese restaurant called Bushido to try out a Man vs. Food spicy tuna handroll challenge. (10 levels of handrolls with increasing heat intensity each level.) I ordered a #4 while Brent went for the #8 (too scared of the anal napalm aftermath to go straight for the #10).

We ate them very quickly and mine tasted like fiery, ass tomato vurp. Foul. Brent's did too only his was loaded with chopped habenero. It wasn't even the heat that sucked. The flavor was like rotting carcass with ketchup. They don't tell you that on the Food Network. It was a serious problem.

Then off we went to our art class, bottle of wine in tow and it exceeded all our expectations. We had so much fun drinking, painting, and laughing at all the fellow anti-Van-Goghs in the room. They even piped Dave Matthews through the studio while we were painting. I was on the verge of tears - it was so perfect. Brent had fun too. We were totally, fully, and completely, in the zone AND we were painting oysters.


In the end, we had two more precious paintings to add to our growing collection in our happy place gallery. It was so fun and such a gift that we were even able to experience something similar to our memorable afternoon of painting such a long time ago. It was awesome.


Afterwards, we did what any other wholesome, half-lit, southern couple is supposed to do when hunger strikes around midnight. Waffle House! All Star platter, baby! Scattered, smothered, covered, and chunked! Holla Holla!

It was an awesomely Merry week-after Christmas!