I'm Spoiled.

This weekend cemented it—I’ve gone from a church mouse lifestyle to being spoiled. Thank goodness!

If you know me well, you know that I’ve spent the last two years working myself to death… quitting my corporate job to earn my MBA, working for myself… taking big risks. It has taken a lot of time, and a huge amount of energy.

On Friday after work, I flew to Los Angeles to spent time with BoRyan. Bright and early at 8 AM Saturday morning, we took off for Santa Barbara County. We drove from Santa Monica, through Malibu, up the Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1 / PCH) toward SB. Our goal: relaxation and good wine. The next week or so is the harvest season for the grapes, so this was an extra good time to go.

In all, we visited 6 wineries on Saturday; 5 were open. Gainey was closed for a wedding, so we weren’t able to visit them. But, we did go to Rideau (favorite winery), Foley (like it a lot, despite that they’ll never ship to Memphis), and a few new places, including a place in a shack that was surprisingly wonderful. We also visited one vineyard that used to just grow grapes for other vineyards, but recently started producing their own wine.

Probably the most unexpected experience was our stop by Firestone. Although we’ve both visited Firestone before once, it was fairly basic. We saw the location where Sideways was filmed and that was about it.

This time, we had the good fortune of falling into a tour right when we went into Firestone. We were able to walk up to the grape vines and actually eat grapes off them. Then, we got a chance to see how the grapes are smashed… and then how the wine is made… and lastly, how it’s stored. Pretty good tour… and the wine wasn’t too bad either. :-)

After this all day tour (complete with lunch in Los Olivos at the Wine Merchant place from Sideways), we headed to our hotel in a Danish community nearby. We ate Danish diner food at a place specializing in split pea soup. Of course, we both had to try it.

After dinner, we watched Little Miss Sunshine, but as usual, I fell right to sleep. Looks like I’ll have to watch it again another time. I hear it was good.

Sunday morning, we woke up, and after breakfast in bed, we headed down the hall for massages at the hotel spa. It was GREAT!

After the massages, we headed into Santa Barbara for a wonderful lunch at an Italian café and a little shopping. I found a new purse, and a new necklace.

After driving back to Santa Monica, we finished the weekend with dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Monsoon, and a new episode of Desperate Housewives.