Tag: New Year’s Eve

Weekend Things: 2017 to 2018

Lauren2 Comments

2017 wasn’t a perfect year and 2018 won’t be either, but the weekend that took us from one to the other most certainly was!  A long weekend felt like the perfect way to pause and reflect on 2017 while also having time to usher in 2018 and even though I’m feeling sort of tired today, I went to bed last night feeling completely at peace with how the weekend played out.

Went to close my office blinds on Friday and saw the most beautiful sunset.  I literally ran outside to snap a picture 🙂  The best way to kick off a long weekend is with a trip to the library to pick up new books, of course.  Joey wanted to stay in but in a rare moment, I did NOT feel like changing straight into my pajamas upon getting home and felt the itch to get out, so I convinced him to go see a movie.  We saw Call Me By Your Name and I’m still not sure what I thought of it.  Beautiful in many ways, confusing in many other ways.

Saturday and a bold statement: If I could only eat at one breakfast restaurant for the rest of my life, it would be Stowaway.  It’s just that every time we decide to go out, it’s the only place I really want to go and it never doesn’t sound good.  Thankfully, Joey indulges me in going all the time.  I don’t even know what we did on Saturday — wait, no that’s wrong!  WE FINISHED WATCHING THE LEFTOVERS!  And I seriously need someone who considers it “the best show ever” to explain to me because I hated it.  Help!

Filled in the rest of the day with a trip to the gym (I ran exactly one mile less in 2017 than I did in 2016, which I think should kill me, but I sort of don’t care?), a mountain of granola and our traditional New Year’s dinner of black eyed peas and collard greens.  Oh and we watched Gone Baby Gone and despite some real plot problems, we still liked it.

NYE!  Started with a bunch of yogurt pancakes (minus the apples and I subbed half whole wheat for all-purpose — loved them!) and then I made a pie for dinner the next day ♥  Later on, we hit up Huckleberry Roasters for some January planning, NYE caffeinating and new book reading.  It gave my heart such joy.  We need to hang out in coffee shops more.

Festivities for the night started with us getting all dressed up Great Gatsby-style!  We had a themed party to attend but went to dinner in costume first.  I think the gal taking our order at Cart-Driver was confused for a minute before we explained we were going to a party afterwards.  Just FYI, we ordered all the costumage (costumery?) on Amazon, it all arrived on Saturday and much to my shock and delight, it all worked out perfectly!  Not going to lie though, that headband was hell.  I took it off mid-party because it felt like it was actually cutting into my head and I had a headache all day Monday that I’m blaming on that thing.  What were women in the 20’s thinking?!

In conclusion, eating Cart-Driver’s clam pizza, talking 2017 happenings and cheersing Joey and Jenn at midnight felt like the best end to a weird rocky year.

The first day of 2018 was blissful.  Started slow and easy with breakfast on the couch, followed by movie time.  We’re seeing The King and I at The Buell next weekend but Joey had never seen the original, so I felt we needed to watch it.  Yul Brynner is a goddamn delight and I was overjoyed to discover the whole film is just as good as I remembered it being.  Newly discovered favorite line: “I’ll do the remembering!”  It just applies so well to my life 🙂  I also picked us up some lunch burritos from the newly opened Illegal Pete’s in our neighborhood.  Every young hungover Denverite seemed to be there so the line was brutal but worth it.

We had my family over for New Year’s Day dinner — a Dorsey family tradition that I thank my wonderful mother for — and it honestly made my heart so happy ♥  Made bacon-wrapped stuffed turkey chicken, shredded kale salad and cauliflower gratin plus that vegan French Silk Pie and loved how it all turned out.  Everyone left shortly after 9, we cleaned up in a state of euphoria and were in bed by 9:45.  It was the best!

Please be kind to us, 2018.

And in with 2017

Lauren2 Comments

Joey and I have very different ideas of the perfect New Year’s Eve.  While his involves friends, family or crowds in general, and doing something that really feels big and celebratory, mine involves a good meal and some kind of low-key activity that allows me to be in my bed shortly after midnight.

I felt like we’d been doing that celebratory thing for years and I was ready for a quieter start to the new year.  (Go figure that the one year we didn’t have solid NYE plans was the year it landed on a Saturday night.)  So I made a dinner res, we picked a movie, chose a brewery within walking distance to that movie and lo and behold, we ended the night in our pajamas in our very own living room.  Hardly exciting, but to me, it was so perfect.

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You may not have NYE plans, but if your nails look like you do, then it’s all good // Dinner at ChoLon involved those French Onion Soup dumplings and we haven’t stopped talking about them since // Post-Rogue One beers at New Image Brewing // Starting 2017 with my #1: PRICELESS

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I’ve started many New Year’s Days with a hangover so starting one with coffee, waffles and Harry Potter is much preferred.  My sister and Wayne got us a waffle maker for Christmas and we had major success using it.  I think it’s all in that flip feature.  Harry Potter Weekend is what I live for ♥  I feel like I usually catch the last 4 movies, but I caught the first four (they skipped MY FAVORITE one: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and I was only semi-livid about it) and I forgot A) how teensy they all were when the series started and B) how good the third movie is!

 Let’s hear it for the families who celebrate actual New Year’s Day.  My mom pulled out all the stops — Mom, aren’t you exhausted after Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s?! — and I made an actual gluten-free/dairy-free pie that tasted pretty good and, more importantly, looked beautiful.  Pretty proud, in case you couldn’t tell.  Afterwards we all watched The Grand Budapest Hotel and for a second I forgot how shitty the end of 2016 was and felt like 2017 might be alright.

My resolution is to take more human face photos — which doesn’t necessarily mean less food photos — and I think I’m starting out strong.

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We started the Monday that felt like a Sunday with breakfast at Stowaway.  I got a Mushroom + Thyme Tartine and holy moly, it was so good.  I’d like that for breakfast every day forever, thank you.  Mostly Monday was a quiet day of grocery shopping, black-eyed pea cooking (for good luck in the new year!), getting my haircut and watching When Harry Met Sally.  Because, even though Carrie Fisher is probably best known as Princess Leia, let’s not forget she was also Rolodex-toting, “he’s never going to leave her”-repeating Marie, who “will never want that wagon wheel table” and I love her so much for that role.  Please let all the good food in this post be a sign of things to come in 2017.

2017, please be kind to us.