Tag: waffles

Thanksgiving Weekend Things

LaurenLeave a comment

I want to be honest and tell you I was not in the mood I wanted to be in for much of this holiday weekend.  Sometimes the makings of a perfect weekend are there — extra time, family traditions, good food, fun plans — but my emotions and attitude just don’t line up with it all.  Or, more likely, it’s BECAUSE of all these good parts that I just set my expectations too high.  I really have been working on that habit this year, but I maybe didn’t do my best this Thanksgiving and found myself in a funk I couldn’t fully shake.

But it’s okay because even when you think things are bad, there’s always good stuff mixed in too!

img_6760

We left work a bit early on Wednesday, prepped a few things for Thanksgiving — please give me props for allowing Joey to handle the sweet potato casserole I make every year, thus giving up the opportunity to take credit for its deliciousness — before heading to Uncle for our traditional Thanksgiving Eve ramen dinner.  We are four for four on snagging chef’s counter seats and watching the hustle and bustle of the kitchen does not get old.

img_6768img_6761img_6762img_6763

img_6750img_6764

We’ve been doing this double Thanksgiving thing for many years now and while I’m mostly glad I get to spend time with everyone, I also can’t wait to just have one Thanksgiving some day when I win the lottery and can afford a bigger house.  Thanksgiving #1 highlights were Lori somehow being able to get everything to the table while it was still hot, this year’s Christmas ornament and trying to talk Chad into cooking the turkey “whole hog-style” next year. Thanksgiving #2 highlights were STUFFING, Mom handing us each a piece of turkey skin and having our little pup with us all night.

Sometimes I get real impatient like “can we sit down and eat already?!” but as we were all crowded in the kitchen — Joey carving the turkey, my sister mixing the cocktail, me re-heating the Brussels and my mom conducting the whole symphony — I realized this (slightly chaotic, sort of loud, maybe disorganized) part, where we are all doing something to help get the meal on the table, is actually the best ♥

img_6765img_6766

img_6780

I just realized I have ZERO pictures from Friday.  Did that day even happen??  I guess I was too caught up in a slow morning, a quick trip to the gym, grocery shopping and a double date night with Wayne and my sister and I’m totally fine with that.  We hit Cart-Driver for pizza — it’s official, this is my favorite pizza place in all of Denver — then saw Widows and look, all the performances were amazing — Viola Davis performs grief like nobody’s business — and it’s shot beautifully, but why make a heist movie if you’re not going to put a lot of detail into the heist??

Saturday started with gingerbread waffles (SO GOOD!) and progressed into cookie baking and Christmas decorating before I headed into Louisville to visit my favorite small businesses 🙂 and when I got back, I came through the back door and straight out the front so Joey and I could have a coffee date.  We ate Thanksgiving leftovers (thanks, Mom!!!) before heading to the Avs game.  The walk to and from the car were MISERABLY COLD but the game was seriously so fun!

img_6759img_6772

What day are we on??  Oh yes, Sunday 😛  We took ourselves to breakfast at Stowaway — there was brief moment of panic when their front door said “NOPE” but turns out the N was just on the wrong end and they really were open.  Lots of coffee, a chocolate pomegranate doughnut and my beloved mushroom tartine perked me up long enough to make lunch salads, mix up Dorsey Bars and clean the bathroom and despite momentarily falling asleep on the couch, I did make it to Sunday yoga.  My teacher kept reminding us to stay in the moment — “anxiety is what happens when we try to predict the future, depression comes from dwelling on the past” — and that hit me hard.

Back at home, Joey had already started dinner (the best!) so I helped finish it all up and we were awarded with a dinner feast of salmon burgers and sweet potato fries that I LOVED.  The fennel slaw was out of this world and please know that I’ve been waiting for these sweet potato fries since 2016, when Chrissy Teigan first teased a picture of them.  Whoa!  They were worth the wait because they were truly crispy and delicious.

This post is already way too long but also know that we started Atlanta and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel this weekend and I’m enjoying both!  Please tell me how your holiday weekend was, I’d love to hear ♥

Weekend Things

LaurenLeave a comment

Can we pause on this moment in time for just a few more weeks?  Because this pre-spring feeling has me in such a good good mood.  We’re not quite in full-on spring mode, so anytime it’s nice enough to walk outside without a jacket or grab an iced coffee or enjoy a sunny Friday happy hour feels like a true blessing.  At some point, all of those things will feel expected, so I’m loving this up-in-the-air, surprise-spring-weather time we’re having.

FRI-YAY!  We were heading to the Nuggets game (why do I feel like I hadn’t been to a game in sooooo long?) so we decided to make it a full out date night and go to happy hour before.  We were thisclose to trying out Citizen Rail but then we remembered we’d also been wanting to try Hearth & Dram and after one glance at their HH menu, we were sold.  It was even better than we had hoped!  We maybe over ordered but everything was INCREDIBLE and we maybe can’t stop talking about it!  Denverites, PLEASE GO NOW!

The Nuggets beat the Lakers afterwards, but I still cannot tell you the name of any player on the team 🙂

img_3862img_3865img_3866

Saturday started with Greek Yogurt Waffles!  We topped them with not-so-great strawberries but they still tasted good so let that be a testament to the recipe and waffles in general.  A little bit later, we hit up the gym, where I ran while listening to a Margot Robbie interview and she is GREAT.  We honestly had no real plans for the rest of the day and it was amazing!  We ate lunch — my Concord Grape Kombucha turned out real nice! — showered, made pizza dough and went to the grocery and it all felt very leisurely and perfect.

Also, they bagged someone else’s ice cream with our groceries and though we felt bad for the person who was going to get home and find themselves without dessert, Joey seemed happy to enjoy said ice cream for that person 😛

img_3854img_3868img_3867

Homemade pasta for dinner!  It was our second time around and I think we did a little better than last time!  Putting the dough through the fettuccine cutter was so satisfying.  We used the noodles to make Fettuccinne with Tomato-Cream Sauce, which we’ve been making for something like six years, so it was already a favorite, but it was EVEN BETTER made with fresh pasta.  I think we were both doing a little happy dance the entire time we were eating it (or was that just me?).  Oh and we finally watched Wonder Woman!  I had mixed feelings that had nothing to do with Wonder Woman or the way Gal Gadot portrayed her and everything to do with ARES, GOD OF WAR, being played by dorky Professor Lupin.  When they superimposed his head on that muscular body in the flashback, I about lost it.  As a fan of Greek mythology, I’m very offended by this casting decision.

Did you guys watch Sterling K. Brown on SNL?!  I thought he KILLED it!  When he came out for the monologue, we already knew he was going to be good, but then he was SO SO good!  I also laughed VERY hard at Alex Moffat as Willem Dafoe.

img_3859

img_3871

We slept a little later than usual — or was it the same as usual but felt later because of the time change?? — so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to go to Annette for breakfast, since they don’t open till 10.  We did that French Press, biscuit-of-the-day, pork hash thing that we do every time we’re there and it did not disappoint.  We don’t know how they make the biscuits so perfect or the pork hash so delicious, but we’re not going to question it.  Back at home, Joey tackled lunch salads while I cleaned the bathroom/backroom and I felt very proud of us.

At 3, I walked to get a manicure and it was just lovely outside.  I saw someone with silver nails the day before and felt inspired to do the same.  I think I’m into it!  While I was out, Joey returned this horrible book that I finally finished for me and I hated it so much that this is the only time I’ll be speaking about it.  After I got home and we had watched our 100th episode of The Amazing Race for the weekend, we made dinner and then suddenly it was the end of the day and sadly, the weekend.  Noooo!  Hey, at least I got to catch snippets of both The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast and annoy Joey by singing/dancing along to “Tale as Old as Time.”

Tell me about your weekend 🙂