Weekend Things

Oh my god, the return of the Weekend Things post!  Because real life exciting things actually happened this weekend, not just me laying on the couch because we have nothing to do 😛

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My sister graduated from nursing school!!!!  I’m so proud of her ♥  It went by so quickly… for me, a person who didn’t have to do any of the hard work she did 🙂  Her pinning ceremony was cancelled and rescheduled as a Zoom call.  It was my first one and I found it highly entertaining.  The best was when someone didn’t have their microphone muted, so any time they made noise, the camera would jump to them!  Andi was less invested, apparently.

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Saturday morning, we had to make ourselves scarce for a few hours because we are renting out our house once we move and we had a whole bunch of showings.  Only slightly freaked me out to think of strangers walking around my home, but masks were required and they weren’t allowed to touch anything.  First, we headed to the Wooden Spoon for breakfast sandwiches!  I forgot my mask, so Joey went up to place our order and I attempted to walk Andi in the neighborhood but he acted like separating from Joey was a death sentence and threw a huge barking fit the entire time, probably waking up every living soul in the vicinity….  After we ate our sandwiches, we took a stroll through our new neighborhood (we even discovered a little cottage bakery!) and I can’t wait to live in it!  We did some packing and grocery pick up during the day, then made this delicious dinner and watched Blow the Man Down, which we both really enjoyed.

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Sunday, I woke up to pancakes (joy of all joys!) and we did a bit more packing but also stopped to 1. take a walk, 2. do some yoga and 3. watch episodes 7 & 8 of The Last Dance (yes, even I am watching).  Around 5, my mom, dad, sister and Wayne came over and look, please don’t judge me.  I don’t know what the rules are any more and it is shockingly easy to talk yourself into seeing your family.  We sat outside, at separate tables and each had our own box of take out food from La Loma.  We did a margarita cheers to my sister because graduating nursing school is a big deal and we couldn’t leave it at a Zoom call only!  My mom made a batch of virgin margs for me that had pickle juice in it, which must be why it tasted so good 🙂  I even let my mom and sis touch my bump (masks on!), but this bathroom selfie I snapped shows the bump a bit more clearly.

After everyone left, we watched the last two episodes of The Last Dance.  That part about Steve Kerr and his father though 😦  I have now gone from a person who’s only Michael Jordan knowledge came from Space Jam, to liking tweets about “the poison pizza.”  This is who I am now.  I hope you all had a good weekend 🙂

Recently Consumed: Quarantine Edition

Yes, it now takes me three weeks to rack up enough content to write a post.  Sadly, I have not grown better at capturing the moments that have been lifting us up and keeping us occupied.  We have watched a ton of movies, I’ve actually gotten back to reading, we celebrated my sister’s birthday (six feet apart and with masks in a big outdoor area) and this weekend, the weather was so so nice and we spent lots of time outside.  Yet, my camera roll is just pictures of Andi and Cream of Wheat.  What is wrong with me??

Anyway, since my life is now just a list of things I’ve consumed, I thought I’d just break it down into some categories: things watched, things read, things eaten.  Here we go!

Things Watched:

  • I think we’ve talked about watching The Sopranos for ten years, but we finally pulled the trigger (no pun intended :P) and are already a few episodes into Season 2!
  • Can you believe we’d never seen any of the Lord of the Rings films?  In my mind, it seemed like some big time commitment and I’d made it my whole life without them, so it didn’t feel pressing but we plowed through them a couple weekends ago and I LOVED them!  The plot was interesting, the graphics really held up (Helm’s Deep is how you do a nighttime battle scene, Game of Thrones) and Orlando Bloom really made being a fairy seem cool.  Halfway through Return of the King, I told Joey “if one of these hobbitses die, I will lose it!”  Why did I wait so long??
  • My sister told me I needed to watch Broad City and she was right!  Every time Joey would catch part of an episode, he’d laugh the entire time.  It really is funny.
  • Joey flew through Misery so after he finished, I promised I’d watch the movie with him.  He wouldn’t even tell me if there were more torture scenes than that one torture scene, but I survived and actually thought it was pretty good.
  • We’ve watched like a thousand other things, but I’ll end here 🙂

Things Read:

  • In all honesty, though I’ve technically read parts of three books during this quarantine, two of them I’d started way earlier and I’m only halfway through the third one.  Don’t be like me and get into a habit of looking at your phone instead of reading at night!
  • The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip.  Unless you count Harry Potter, I don’t think I’ve read a true fantasy story maybe ever?  I got this one at our book swap in December and vowed to actually give it a go.  I didn’t love it, to be honest, but I’m glad I gave it a chance.
  • Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.  If you know me, you know I love Taylor Jenkins Reid.  This one wasn’t as good as The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo but I still really liked it.  She has such an knack for creating characters that feel so real I often find myself wanting to Google them before I remember they’re fictional.  
  • Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver.  I’m only halfway through and something like ten years removed from the last time I read a Barbara Kingsolver book, but I really like this one!

Things Eaten:

  • Asparagus Quiche with a Polenta Crust.  When your mom already makes the best classic quiche, it’s best not to even try making something similar, so polenta quiche it is!  We’ve been making this for years and it’s truly creamy and delicious.
  • Kale Caesar Salad.  We’ve definitely forgone our weekly salad-in-a-jar habit, but we’ve been trying to throw in a dinner salad here and there.  This one is old and I actually made the recipe up myself, but it’s delicious and the only update I’ve made is this technique for homemade croutons (they are crazy good!).
  • Sesame Soba Noodles.  Joey made these for us and then I think I ate the leftovers four days in a row.
  • We’ve also ordered a lot of take out.  Ramen from Uncle will never get old!

A pup who likes to sleep with his tongue out // A blossom update // A snowstorm that ruined all those blossoms // Aforementioned polenta quiche

In other news, we close on our house this Thursday (and it’s in person, ugh!!!), so that’s something to look forward too 🙂