Weekend Things & Love/Hate Relationships

Don’t worry, that’s not a description of my relationship with Joey.  But it is a description of my relationship with him being out of town for the weekend.  It’s that time of the year again… Spring Training!  Which means Joey’s been in Arizona, soaking up the warm weather, time with his grandparents and of course, Rockies baseball.  Meanwhile, I’ve been at home, loudly playing three songs on repeat, eating a bowl of Brussels sprouts for dinner and spending more money than I probably should be.  In other words, love the alone time, hate that I’m missing out on the AZ funshine <— that’s a new word I just made up.  Like it?!  Some other love/hate relationships I’ve been experiencing this weekend?

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The one with my mani/pedi experience on Friday afternoon.  Love how my nails turned out, hate that it ended up making me wayyyy late for my other Friday night plans.  Note to self: If manicurist says she’s running 20 minutes late, just reschedule.  But, fact: Blondes Pink nails have more fun.

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Love that I got to spend the night with these two cutie faces at the Nuggets game on Friday night, hate that someone stole the cash out of my sister’s wallet when she accidentally lost it on the walk to the Pepsi Center.  At least they turned in her wallet, ID, debit card, etc, but bad karma to that person!

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Love homemade almond milk, hate that there’s such a rush to use it.  I’ve only made almond milk one other time a few years ago and I remember being pleasantly surprised by how delicious it was and not so pleasantly surprised at how quickly it went sour.  We’re talking two days quick.  I made sure to make a small batch this time and use it all up between Saturday (when I made it) and Sunday.  So amazingly creamy!  I definitely need to make this a more frequent occurrence.

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How’s that for a complicated drink order?  I missed one box though!

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Love Saturday morning coffee, wedding talk and massage with my mom, hate when my massage ends!  I most definitely took a mini nap during said massage, which is a true sign of how good it was.  At the end, I tried my best to convince my mom she forgot to massage my head.  She knew better, but did it again anyways 🙂

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Could that roasted red pepper hummus look any grosser?

Love this weekend’s PERFECT weather (hello, al fresco dining!), hate that indoor running endurance apparently does not translate to outdoor running endurance.  It was 75 degrees yesterday.  I repeat, SEVENTY-FIVE DEGREES.  Too nice not to go running outside.  I’ve been religiously and exclusively running 3 miles at the gym lately, but I headed outside on both Saturday and Sunday and felt like I’d never run in my life.  Save me.

Love all the restaurant options in Denver (btw, Twitter informed me that one of my favorite restaurants follows me and now I feel like I’ve really made it in life), hate that it’s so fricken hard to park!  Basically it goes like this: 5 minutes to get everywhere, 15 minutes to find parking.  I paralleled and it only took me one try so this is huge progress.

Love catching up with Hannah, hate that it doesn’t happen nearly enough!  Evidence that we are soul mates is that I had been staring lustfully at all the appetizers and her first question was “should we get some of these appetizers?”  Um yes!  Gorgonzola-stuffed bacon-wrapped dates for the win!  I think we are officially up to date on each other’s lives.

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Love Sunday breakfast with my family, hate that no one ordered the “Cornbread Rancheros.”  I’m pretty sure that’s what the restaurant is known for, yet none of us ordered it.  Boo!  I got a brie and veggie scramble with griddled potatoes and although it was tasty I was kind of disinterred for some reason.  Definitely solid (and close!) enough to give it another try though.

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Love that I was able to take my dad to Cheesman Park for the first time — I had no idea he hadn’t been there yet! — hate that I still suck at getting around in Denver without help from my iPhone.  Bad excuse, but Joey does most of the driving so I’m never paying attention to how we get places.  Codependency problems, right?

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Love that I replenished our grocery supply (now that’s a fruit bowl!), hate that I ended up at home with a bag of someone else’s meat?  Like $20 worth of stuff I definitely didn’t buy.  I consulted my sister and she said the store would most likely have to throw it away even if I did return it, so I guess I just inherited some ground turkey and cod filets?  What does one make with cod filets?

And last but not least, love that Joey is home today because I hate how quiet it is around here!

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P.S. I really did have Brussels sprouts for dinner last night.

Weekend Things

Whew, I didn’t think I’d actually get a “Weekend Things” post up today.  I’m jumping right into it!

My apologies to any of my close friends who are reading this and have to see our engagement photo sneak peak collage AGAIN.  I may have gotten a little carried away sharing it on every social media outlet I could but I was just kind of excited.  Joey and I have felt like we had this huge looming cloud over our heads while we tried to find a wedding venue then get an engagement photo session set up before it got all winter-like here in Colorado.  We ended up booking a venue on Wednesday then scheduling photos for Friday, which didn’t get us much prep time.  But it was Friday or later this week and I did not want to wait.  I’m so happy we did them Friday as it is cold, wet and gray today and there are barely any leaves left on the trees.

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Almost 3 hours of smiling, laughing, nuzzling and public kissing later, we had some great shots (or at least from what I’ve seen) and Boulder was looking especially beautiful in all of its fall glory.  We stopped in at West Flanders Brewery and the staff was SO accommodating and let us get all up in their brewing area to take a few pictures (plus we got to try some delicious beer).  I’m so glad we got to do something special and right up our alley during the shoot.  For the record, my ring is wrapped around a beer hop, not Colorado’s other popular green.  Also, I adore our photographer, Jo at Elevate Photography, and couldn’t be happier with our choice!  And with that taken care of, a HUGE weight has been lifted.  Now we can just look forward to our engagement party in a few weeks 🙂

Remember when our living room wall looked like this?

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Well while I was out getting an extra looooooong massage on Saturday, Joey was going to town on the rest of it.  We had the electrical moved out of the way earlier in the week so we were free and clear to demolish the rest.  Thank god Joey likes this kind of work because it is so NOT my thing.  Someone tell me I don’t have to feel guilty about that…  Or about posting this picture.

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As can be expected with old houses (ours was built in 1906!), there’s lots of “fun” stuff to fix now that the wall’s down.  As in there’s a gap in the floor where I can literally see into our basement…  Such fun!  Meanwhile I cleaned out our second bedroom where we’ve been housing about 15 boxes of random stuff so we can move our kitchen stuff in there when we take out the tile and put in hardwoods.  Also, I think I’m about 90% done wiping the dust off of everything in the kitchen.  Please let me never have to do that again.

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When I was done, I retired to our room with this gift from my mom — a bridal magazine (she also froze some homemade red beans for us, she’s the best!) — then had to go out into the living room and physically remove the broom from Joey’s hands and make him take a shower otherwise I didn’t think he’d ever stop sweeping!  I woke up at 7:30 on Sunday and could hear him out there sweeping again!  I guess there are worse things he could get addicted to.

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Sunday involved this — a “Make Your Own” Bloody Mary Bar — at Highland Tap and Burger with Joey’s side of the family.  Turns out it was really just “Pour Your Own Tomato Juice and Spear Your Own Olive” Bar, but it was delicious nonetheless.  I truly love a good Bloody Mary and have such a hard time resisting any time I’m somewhere that serves one.  We also grabbed lunch (I was the only one at the table to not order a burger, oops!) then headed out to the Buell Theater.

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For The Book of Mormon!  I loathe South Park (same creators) and still found the musical funny.  We walked out afterwards and I could not believe how nice it still was outside!  I’d be fine with some more 60 degree sunny days, Mother Nature.

Happy Monday!