Sunday, March 18, 2012

Weekend Scenes

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I have mixed emotions about using my iPhone camera so much.  On the one hand, I love that I can capture the little day by day moments of my life that I definitely wouldn’t bust out my big camera for.  On the other hand, I’m less likely to get out my big camera when I’ve got my little camera phone handy.  These are the things I like awake and think about at night. I know, I know – first world problems.

Oh what a fun weekend.  It was jam-packed as usual with friends, food, babies, gym time, Buddy snuggles and naps.

Friday, I went out to lunch with my friend Denise and met her little boy Sam for the first time.  He is just a little 6 week old bean and napped peacefully the whole time we ate our lunch and chatted about strollers, FMLA, bosses, Chi Omega and wine.  Denise and I were sorority sisters at Wake, and she and her husband just moved back here in July for residency so it’s been fun reconnecting with her since they have returned.  And Mozelle’s was perfection as usual – I’ve never had a single bad plate of food there.  (I’ve had some subpar service experience, BUT the food has always been awesome.)  This time I had a tomato pie and creamy succotash.  I didn’t even know if I liked succotash but if there’s a place that could convince anyone to like it, it would be Mozelle’s.

After lunch, I went and ran some errands before meeting Anne over Akanksha’s to meet baby Ayanna for the first time.  (2 days old!)  We ended up snuggling so long we missed Body Pump, so we went and did our own weight lifting session in the free weight room before heading up for Dance Trance, which Anne was teaching.  Matt was working, so Anne and I continued our Friday night with pizza and salads at The Loop. 

Saturday morning I met Lauren and baby Jeffery at campus for a long walk through Reynolda Gardens, Graylyn and Buena Vista.  It was an absolute perfect morning for a walk – we have been spoiled rotten by this March weather.  Lauren and I hadn’t seen each other since our coffee date back in December so we had much to catch up. It never fails to amaze me how much farther I will walk or run if I can chatter away while I’m doing it.

After our walk, I was feeling pretty motivated so I rolled up my sleeves (just kidding! already short sleeves! it’s 80 out!) and did a legit cleaning of our house.  I am kind of obsessed with a Christmas present I got from my mom this year – my Shark steam cleaner.  I really, really, really hate cleaning floors.  I will avoid it until I start to notice that my floor looks like the dressing room of a Walmart – which between the dog and my messy cooking style is about 3-4 days. Then I will finally drag out the vacuum and the Swiffer, mop or whatever contraption I’m attempting to use to restore cleanliness.  This little baby is the best of both worlds – first you vacuum and then you pop the little cloth cover on and switches it to steam and you listen to purr while it steam cleans your floor.  When it’s done, for about 5 minutes, I actually do have floors that I would eat off of.  (Whatever, product review mid-blog post?  It’s my blog and I’ll ramble if I want to.  Too bad I couldn’t get Shark to sponsor this post though!)

When I realized it was St Patrick’s Day and I was not going to be partaking in any green beverages, I convinced Matt to swing me by McDonald’s so I could try a Shamrock Shake for the first time.  (Official review: Meh.  Stick to Cookout Mint Shakes if you’re craving a green shake.)  On the plus side though, no hangover!  We joined the Glenns for a little shamrock pre-gaming (Car Bombs for everyone who isn’t pregnant!) and then went over to our friend Dave and Kathleen’s for homemade pasta.  Very delicious. Very Irish.  (Kathleen did point out her sauces made the dish look like the Irish flag!  Well played!) 

I did not get any corned beef and cabbage and soda bread this year, and I’m still smarting over that.  I need to check if HT is putting the corned beef on sale this week post St Patty’s Day because oh how I crave that salty, quasi rubbery, stringy delicious meat.  (The Irish are not known for their culinary affairs, ya’ll.  It’s just tradition.)  I did, however, find another great St Patrick’s Day clearance item – I was visiting Babies R Us to do a little product research and hyperventilating over stuffocation when I saw those 2 cute onesies on the clearance rack.  I couldn’t resist!  Although I had to stop and count on my fingers to figure out that I’d have a 7 month old by next March!  (OMG!)

Sunday morning I had a relaxing morning on my porch with a chai and a pupdog – I have finally figured out that it is a good investment for me to buy the Chai from Harris Teeter and make it at home.  I always talk myself out of buying the $4 carton (and $3 almond milk) because it’s so expensive (my reasoning.)  Then I did the math and realized I can make 5 chai’s out of those 2 cartons making them $1.50 each instead of $4 at the ‘bux.  Oh.  Hey, math major.  (And um, yeah, I reuse my cups from Sbx because I think chai tastes better out of a paper cup.  Quirk.)

Buddy helped me in the afternoon to clean out the future baby room and put some goodies up on eBay (if anyone would like some never-even-taken-out-of-the-box Pottery Barn curtain rods….now is the time to bid!).  We sold the mattress and frame recently on Craigslist so the room is quite empty and starting to look ready for the next thing.  Which is a crib.  Which is still kind of surreal and crazy to me.  A crib.  (And a baby in that crib.  Yea, this is all not really quite sinking in yet, still.)

Then it was back off to the gym for my favorite combo -  Body Pump followed by Dance Trance.  It’s tough to knock out those 2 classes back to back but I always feel like I can kick butt afterwards – and that I can skip the gym for a day or two afterwards too.  After dinner, us dance trancer girls scooted back to the house where Matt had prepared pizzas and salad and was watching the basketball games with the boys (and Zoey!).  It was still pretty warm even as the sun was going down, so we got to enjoy our meal al fresco on the porch again.  It is definitely my favorite room in the house and I love that it’s already been warm enough for us to use it!

And then, just like that, Sunday night was setting, the weekend was ending and it was time to do Monday all over.  The days are long, but the weeks are short.

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