When the surroundings of your hometown look like this, and come with amazing food and constantly flowing (and delicious) local wine, there’s really not a lot to complain about.

I’ve been in a little bit of a home-sweet-cville fog for the last two weeks, not to mention an absolute crazy circuit of life trying to get ready for all of the big things that have been happening in MADville.  Tack on home construction, and the pieces of my own life that need attention and balance now and again, and you better believe I had a pretty full August.

Last weekend (yes, 9 days ago) we extended our Saturday morning MADness and went off-site to Pippin Hill Vineyards, just outside of Charlottesville proper for a relaxing, community rich, and beautiful afternoon in the blue ridge.

Not much else could beat that view, and there’s nothing that can beat a sweet Saturday with friends.  There’s an endless list of things that I just adore about our MAD community in Charlottesville (including the fact that they are such active community builders, which certainly makes our jobs easier), but what really stands out is just how blended the group is in terms of age, experience, interest, involvements and friend groups.  Despite having such a broad spectrum among all of those areas, when everyone comes together it is always a seamless and awesome time.  That’s a really challenging thing to create, and replicate, and I’m always in awe of our community and the amazing people that find their way into my life.

Case in point: the night before our wine-ventures I had the great fortune to align schedules with one of my favorite humans, and pseudo out-of-towners, for a happy hour walk downtown.  Also a UVa alum and business owner, Erin’s life mimics the same crazy travel mine does, between Charlotte and Charlottesville, our work/home cities.  It’s always a special day when our schedules overlap in the same place and we can do a real life check in.

She’s one of the sweetest humans ever, but she’s also an amazing jewelry designer,  and creates beautiful jewelry that is slowly pushing out anything else I ever owned, acting as constant staples in my life.  She brought me these sweet treats when we met up for our walk, and you better believe they perfectly made their debut on Saturday at Pippin, merging two things I love together into a little weekend bundle of love.  [Check out her website here.]

The weekend was then completed with a post-wine trip to Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie (conveniently across the street from Pippin’s driveway) and Sunday afternoon kickball with our MADabolKick team.

All in all, my return to Cville was exceptional, and everything that you could hope during August in this sweet town; and despite the constant grind of work and business ownership, there were even more beautiful days and MAD events that followed.  Definitely stay tuned for those updates, with special emphasis paid to our 1st Birthday Party for MADabolic Cville, the end of the kickball season, and a very exciting ‘official’ announcement and celebration coming up this week.  It’s all happening – and it’s all awesome.