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

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… award show season!

I apologize if you follow me on Twitter and A) already heard me say that and B) had to read the million other tweets I wrote about the Golden Globes.  I can’t help it, I just love a room full of movie stars presenting awards to each other and giving bad speeches.  Quote of the Night: “I totally wasn’t expecting this!”  In other weekend news, this was my Friday night.

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I don’t know what’s happening.  I’ve been to three Avs games this season which triples the total number of hockey games I’ve seen in my entire life.  These were third row and those hockey players are so much faster than they look from the nose-bleeds.

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We lost in over time, which makes Joey and I 0-3.  I don’t think we should go to any more games this season, we’re clearly bad luck.

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Afterwards, we went to a video game bar and were severely disappointed.  Sorry guys, but video games just don’t do it for me.  I lingered around the 4-person PacMan game for a few minutes but the group already playing looked pretty comfortable so we took ourselves elsewhere and didn’t make it home till 1:30 AM.  Aka 4 hours past my bedtime.

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Saturday = Brewing Day!  Our first brew in the new house and can I just say, it felt so good to be back at it.  When trying to decide what kind of beer we should brew this time around, Joey and both looked at each other and said “a stout?”  Well that’s that.  It’s dark.

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I totally regret giving away the $8 Ikea side tables we’d been using when we brewed.  This trashcan/cutting board contraption seems sanitary though, right?  We planned on seeing Inside Llewyn Davis or 12 Years a Slave that night, but we were both unusually tired so we went out to dinner, watched Orange is the New Black (am I the only one who doesn’t think it’s all that great?) and called it a night.

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My parents had us all over for breakfast this morning and my mom killed it in the kitchen.  Halfway through breakfast, she announced that the coffeecake had 3 sticks of butter in it and I could feel my arteries clogging as she spoke.  But it really was delicious 🙂

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My dad’s birthday is TODAY!  Happy Birthday, Dad!

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My niece is every photographer’s dream.  When I told her to look my way, she proceeded to sit still, smile and say “cheese.” It was too cute.  We hadn’t seen my brother, sister-in-law and the kids since before Christmas so we finally got to give them their presents and the remote control Jeep (complete with fake mud splatter) went over big with my nephew.  Fingers crossed that it makes it through the week without getting broken.  Boys are so rough on their toys!

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My sister also gave me this manicure, winning her the best sister award.  This nail polish supposedly lasts 7 days so I guess we’ll find out next Sunday.

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After breakfast, my mom and I did a little house shopping and came across this amazing island at Crate and Barrel.  I will now harass Joey into buying it.  May have also wound up in Nordstrom and bought myself some new perfume.  Walking around, smelling all the fragrances totally gave me flashbacks to my freshman year of high school when my mom bought me my first bottle of designer perfume 🙂

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And speaking of wonderful things my mother has bought me… this egg timer is the coolest!  A purple ring starts to fill in from the outside as the eggs cook and it takes the number of eggs and the altitude into effect.  Like I said… the coolest!

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And it seriously works!  William Sonoma for those of you who are wondering.

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Had to break out the popcorn for the Golden Globes, of course!  Did you guys watch?!  Even though I joked that P. Diddy had the best speech of the night (“I was on a boat!”), I thought Leonardo was so eloquent and gracious.  More of him at award shows, please!

Happy Monday!