Goin Down to Mississippi

“But an accurate definition of the self is impossible. You are more than you realize, more than you can define. And the more time you spend trying to nail down the definition, the less time you spend living right now. … Your past is not your identity… You, living now, is your identity.” -George Lawrence-Ell

Hope your Thanksgiving was a great one! We are finally unpacked from Mississippi, done with Thanksgiving cooking (and cleaning!) and ready to start decorating for Christmas. We’re so excited to share what we learned in our a la carte Advanced Training Class with Teri Roddy, designer, fine artist, and owner of Patina Home.

Here’s a quick background about how we met. We became mutual friends on Facebook through our business pages. We started seeing gorgeous faux finishes come through on our feed so we hopped over and checked out her pictures. One picture in particular, the massive ceiling done for her client in Natchez, MS was INCREDIBLE and we fell in love. She is so passionate and creates the most magnificent walls and decorative finishes. We starting chatting and asked if she offered classes and the rest is history!

Fast forward a bit and we were ready to leave for our trip. Things got off to a slightly rocky start at the airport. We arrived on time only to discover that our flight was delayed which totally mucked up our connection in Charlotte. We were given the option to change our connection, but as it was also delayed, we threw caution to the wind and went with it. We landed at Charlotte and had 6 minutes to make our next flight. Well no one told us that Charlotte was a massive maze and that we would literally have to sprint to make the plane…that’s no exaggeration. We ran like we were in a marathon only to find out we missed the plane by 10 minutes…10 MINUTES!!! What’s worse is they knew we were there and running like fools, but didn’t hold the plane. We sat there defeated, sweaty, and annoyed and did what anyone in our situation would do…got Starbucks and ice cream 🙂

Everything was smooth sailing after landing in Mississippi. Teri picked us up and we drove two hours to the quaint town of Natchez. It reminded us of a southern version of Princeton back in Jersey. Teri had graciously offered to rent us her home for the week which is on the market, but a few days prior to our arrival, she got a phone call informing her that a movie, James Brown, was being filmed be in town and one of the main characters wanted to rent her home. How does one respond to that. “Absolutely!”?!

Teri knows everyone, so we ended up staying at her friends house a few doors down which was gorgeous. We put up a few pics so you could see the architecture. The town is an entity all its own compared to the neighboring areas; everything is preserved from the Civil War era- from the homes and downtown area, to the magnificent church in the middle of town. Even the coffee shop, Steam Punk, had the comfiest, laid back feel like nothing we’ve seen.

Our week stay in Natchez was truly an unforgettable trip. We learned 23 faux finishing techniques that we’re so excited to bring back to you. We were in awe in how beautiful each piece came out.

This story wouldn’t be complete without telling you about the celebrities we met! First, we were invited by Teri and her friends to a prix fixe 6 course dinner featuring a guest chef. Of course we were in. When we got to the restaurant we found out it was Cory Bahr, a past winner of Chopped on Food Network, ummmm…awesome! While at dinner we were told that some of the cast from the movie were at the bar in the next room… double awesome. A few minutes later Craig Robinson walks from the room and out the front door! We are huge fans of The Office and the movies he’s been in so I (Amanda) being myself ran after him in my 5 inch heels and phone in hand to get a picture. He was so nice and even invited us to meet up with him and some cast mates later on for karaoke. We totally would have gone if we weren’t exhausted!