Weekend Highlights: tempura broccoli and Colorado lamb at Work & Class, checking another Best Picture nominee off our list, sesame-honey pancakes, quality time with Mom, a good workout, staying on budget at the grocery store, a big bowl of noodles and Dunkirk, Will Ferrell on SNL, coffee and croissants at The Source, laughing really hard while watching The Mindy Project, a late afternoon stroll, ricotta gnocchi, reading in bed.  And perhaps best of all, waking up Monday morning feeling rested and ready to go 🙂

Post-delicious-dinner at Work & Class, we headed to the Mayan to see The Shape of Water and look, I’d been avoiding seeing it because, come on, a fish man?  Really?  I’m here to report it wasn’t as dumb as I thought it’d be but it was also just as dumb as I thought it’d be.  I feel like I’m in a place where I find it hard to appreciate a polished, large production, sweeping score, predictably plotted films, though I did think Sally Hawkins was great.  Mainly though, THIS IS THE EXACT SAME PLOT AS SPLASH and I like Splash a lot more.

Had enough time for pancakes and Top Chef before heading into Louisville to see my mom for a massage.  I hadn’t had one in so long and between the heart to heart chatting we had before and the much needed kneading (see what I did there?) of my muscles, I felt so incredible afterwards.  Back at home, there was lunch, a trip to the gym, a trip to Whole Foods, super seed butter and leftovers of this Mongolian Beef Noodle Bowl Joey made earlier in the week.  He killed it — this meal was so so good!

We also watched Dunkirk and I actually liked it a lot more than I thought I would!  I mean I didn’t know any of the characters names afterwards and it took a minute to figure out the overlapping time tables but I found it really interesting.  Plus I learned all British soldiers were good-looking 20-year-olds with the exact same hair color.  Who knew?!  P.S. Harry Styles had a much bigger role than I had anticipated.

I woke up Sunday and felt sort of crabby but then we took ourselves to The Source, ordered coffee, picked out pastries, semi-plotted our February and read in silence and I think it set the tone for a wonderful Sunday.  It also felt like a really long day in a really good way, so that I got lunches made, cleaned up the kitchen, read and went on a walk but also had time to watch a lot of TV and be really loungey on the couch.  We rounded out the day with ricotta gnocchi and pesto from The Savvy Cook and I know I sound like a spokesperson for this cookbook but literally everything we’ve made has been incredible and this gnocchi was no exception!

Here’s something that’s been on my mind lately.  I feel like we are in a time where we post the best parts of our life online and it’s really easy to see someone else’s best and compare yourself to that.  On Saturday, my mom told me she’s so impressed by how much I cook and go out and do fun things and how do I do it all?!  And whoa, I do not mean to make it look my life is perfect because sometimes I feel overwhelmed by “doing it all” and Joey and I do not always get along.  In fact, we argued A LOT on Saturday, and I usually edit stuff like that out of my weekend recap because I’m afraid, to an outsider, it will sound like a relationship red flag, but I actually think it’s fine and normal to argue with your spouse.  I just wanna keep it real with you, ya know?

Anyway, it’s all good and I hope you feel that way too and I hope you have a good Monday!