Weekend Things: 2017 to 2018

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.

Low Key Weekend Things

Happy Monday, you all.  I hope you had a pleasant weekend.  Mine was pretty low key.  I bet you didn’t see that coming judging from title of the post, right?  On Friday, as we drove home from work, I commented that I was pretty sure my throat wasn’t really sore, it was just really dry.  Then I woke up on Saturday with a definite sore throat and about zero energy.  Hence the low key-ness around here.

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Remember this place??  Even though they were out of both movies we wanted to rent (Anna Karenina and Argo) it was such a trip to be inside a Blockbuster for the first time in years.  It brought back fond memories of trips there with my family when I was younger.  We were there a lot.  We ended up buying Anna Karenina on pay-per-view and I managed to stay awake through 3/4 of it.  I’m a fricken party, people!

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Beer brewing took up a majority of the day on Saturday.  We did manage to take a nice walk outside in the 60-degree weather.  There was so much snow last weekend and this weekend was perfectly beautiful.  That’s Colorado for you.

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Our beer currently looks like this.  It’s a Hefeweizen, which I’m a big fan of so I’m crossing my fingers that it turns out good.  We may or may not have almost forgot to add the malt extract, which is, you know, pretty important in the beer-making process.

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I wanted to go to the free Saturday yoga class, but my lack of energy made me skip yoga for the Great Gatsby (I want to read it before the movie comes out!) and a green smoothie.  Then I took the most awesome nap.  I felt a million times better afterwards.  Naps are the best.  Weekend movie #2 was Adaptation.  How crazy is that movie?!  Fun Fact: the main character’s identical twin brother is the only fictional person to be nominated for an Oscar.

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Sunday involved outdoor running, a trip to the mall –I took my sunglasses to be adjusted and it literally took them 30 minutes to get them “just right” — and new candle purchases.  Spring scents are out and that plus the warm weather this weekend has me totally craving spring.  It’s just around the corner, right?

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I also did some healthy food prep for the workweek.  There’s chopped veggies galore, homemade hummus, hardboiled eggs and Baked Oatmeal Snack Bars all packaged up and ready to go!  I find chopping and baking extremely cathartic and if I had the time and motivation to do something like this every weekend, I totally would.  After all that healthy-ness, it was time for burgers.

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Look, Joey and I already broke our “no eating out” rule only 3 days into the challenge.  To be fair, we planned on letting the rule slide for this special occasion.  Since my parents couldn’t make it to my nephew’s birthday party last weekend, they took us all out to Red Robin for burgers, bottomless fries, balloons that kept ending up on the ceiling and presents.  I multi-tasked with a baby in one hand and a burger in the other.

Here’s to as fast week — I’m headed to Arizona on Friday!

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Are you a beer drinker?  What’s your favorite kind?

Are you a napper?

Are you as excited for spring as I am?