Tag: Valentine’s Day

Weekend Things

Lauren3 Comments

If I had to name a theme of the weekend I guess it would be: good food, depressing movies.  And lots of down town in between.  We were at the movie theater every day this weekend!  And between the utter horror of the Live Action Shorts, finishing up The Assassination of Gianni Versace last night and just being in the cold throes of winter, I could really really just use some warmth and humor right now.  Thank god a new season of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt just came out!

img_7598img_7599

As Joey was bowling last Thursday, we relocated our Valentine’s Day celebration to Friday and hit up The Way Back for the first time in TWO YEARS (oops!).  They’ve also relocated and the new(ish) spot is much bigger and beautifully arranged.  We had a seriously hard time narrowing down our order, but ended up splitting the white bean fritters, pappardelle and sirloin.  Man, it was all SO good!  And to top it all off, a warm apple cake that we nearly licked the plate clean of.

img_7600

It wasn’t until we were en route to the Mayan that I realized I hadn’t even read up on the Oscar-Nominated Shorts, which is VERY unlike me!  The result being I had NO IDEA what we were getting ourselves into, which was legitimately nightmarish.  First up, a child calling his mother because his father has left him on a beach and his phone dies just as he tells her a strange man is approaching him.  Next, two boys messing around when one drowns in a pit of wet concrete.  Followed by the true story of two 10-year old boys who brutally murdered a two-year old.  Lastly, blatant racism and violence that ends with a child shooting his father.  Okay, I left out the happiest one which was still about an old woman dying alone.  WHY???

Sitting through this barrage of sadistic hell was truly traumatic.  You guys know I live for all things Oscar related, but like, maybe just don’t see these.  No one needs to feel this sad.

img_7601img_7602

Saturday started with begrudgingly-made waffles.  Don’t get me wrong, we LOVE waffles, but we don’t love the time it takes to make them.  I whipped these out pretty fast though!  Later on, I made some granola bars for the week and then we ran some errands, mostly motivated by the promise of lunch at Chook.  It’s a bright and beautiful order-at-the-counter type of place, that offers rotisserie chicken with choice of sauce and a bunch of delicious sides to choose from.  I went piri-piri and grilled carrot salad alongside my quarter dark meat and was blown away by how good it all tasted.  Why are all my new favorite places in Wash Park??

I got a facial later that afternoon and then we headed back to the Mayan for the Animated Shorts, which though they had some sadder moments, were overall MUCH LESS DEPRESSING than the Live Action Shorts.  At one point, I was actually laughing out loud and thought “well this feels good!”  We actually thought one of the “highly recommended” (but not nominated) shorts (Tweet, Tweet) was one of our favorites.  Joey liked One Small Step best (it is beautifully animated and touching) and I just loved Weekends.  

img_7609img_7625

I managed to take ZERO pictures on Sunday so please enjoy this picture of the manicure I got on Valentine’s Day and a recycled photo of the dinner we had, thank you!  This is actually a good way to mention I’ve been feeling unusually low picture-taking motivation.  It’s probably a good thing to NOT feel the pressure to photo-document every moment of your life but it also makes for less interesting blog posts.  I’m very at odds with it all so any advice you have would be greatly appreciated 🙂

Anyway, we started Sunday at Snooze with Joey’s grandparents, then went to see They Shall Not Grow Old, which is a World War I documentary, directed by Peter Jackson.  I legitimately haven’t seen any of the Lord of the Rings films, but I felt like that name-drop would be impressive to someone who has.  It was really interesting!  They restored, colorized and added audio to all of the old video footage and it was truly impressive.  I took myself to yoga later and we ended the night with that super satisfying dinner.

How was your weekend??

Weekend Things

LaurenLeave a comment

I don’t even know how to start this post because there were so many good things this weekend.  Namely, visiting with Hannah and Josh and Mason, — who is starting to support his own head already?! — making pasta for the first time ever (!!!!) and lots of family time on Sunday.  I mean I also burnt my mouth on coffee, yucca fries and a bite of farro but shhh, let’s not talk about those things.

img_3461

I love this little baby!!!  Oh sorry, that’s probably too much yelling for a Monday morning but seriously, he’s the cutest and the best and watching him throw his little baby arms in the air, mid-nap was heart-melting.  I feel I could just gaze at him forever.  Bonus: we got to eat some delicious pizza and exchange Christmas presents with Hannah and Josh.  What time should we come over this Friday, guys? 🙂

img_3459img_3457

Some Saturday morning scenes.  Including a Greek yogurt, tahini, date, granola toast pre-eye exam and grabbing a latte from a new coffee shop with the prettiest details post-eye exam.  Guys, I’m pretty sure my eye doctor is semi-insane.  I found it half entertaining and half annoying so I’ll have to weigh the pros and cons of laughing really hard but also having to wait 15 minutes to see her and another 30 minutes for her to get through the exam.

img_3463img_3471img_3470

We took on a double grocery store trip afterwards and I’m pretty sure Joey was suffering from caffeine poisoning and didn’t even know where we were or what day it was.  He’s lucky I was in a good mood 🙂  But let’s skip over afternoon activities of lunch, reading and going to the gym to hit the most important event of the day… HOMEMADE PASTA!  Lori got us pasta attachments for Christmas and I had been reading up on how to make it all week.  Suffice it to say I was a bit excited.

We used this really detailed guide — there’s a shortened recipe at the end — and mixed the dough, then Joey kneaded it for A LONG TIME because it was sort of stiff but we got it all sorted out and the actual pasta rolling process was so dang fun!  I had to give myself a pep talk beforehand that went something like “if this turns into a giant disaster and we end up throwing it all in the trash, IT’S OKAY.”  But then it wasn’t a disaster.  And it was fun.  And we ended up with some wonderful pappardelle that we loaded with beef ragu, ricotta and parm for dinner.  I’ve never been so happy!  Also, please know we were listening to the “Italian Cooking Music” playlist on Spotify and “Mambo Italiano” was playing at the time of those pictures.

P.S. We started The Handmaid’s Tale that night and there will be more on that once we finish.

img_3484img_3478img_3483

Sunday started with breakfast at my parents’.  My mom knocked it out of the park with the food — Mom, Joey and I decided that was the best your French toast casserole has ever tasted! — and I drank coffee out of that hilarious mug, then my mom, Dad, Joey and I drove up to my brother and Nikki’s to give them their Christmas presents.  Joey was out throwing the football with Gennaro and I was inside making/putting up Valentine’s Day decorations with Belle and then when the boys came in to play Madden, Belle, Nikki and I did some crafting with this jewelry kit.  Apparently, Joey and I are the kind of psycho non-parents who think it’s a good idea to give a child something with that many beads.

We dropped my parents’ off back home around 3 PM then grabbed linner at Vital Root and finally headed home ourselves to do those adult duties of laundry and making lunch for the week.  Not going to lie, after getting our salads made, I mostly lazed about on the couch for the rest of the night.  Feels necessary to do that sometimes.

How was your weekend?