MIMM: Well That Worked Out!
The winners of the Bristol Bliss giveaway are Steph, Heather, and SmileyJoyLove! Congratulations and I will be contacting you for your shipping info so that you can receive your scrub. Remember to check out the Bristol Bliss Etsy shop for natural beauty goodies for yourself…or a custom gift basket for a holiday gift!
This weekend taught me a few lessons and gave me some great ammo for the next time I’m feeling down. I always need these kinds of weekends to prove to myself that the fun in my life is not a “bad habit”…it’s marvelous!
Join Katie‘s marvelous weekly link-up!
Marvelous is…a double cheese plate Friday. After an amazing cooking class at Pond House Grille (full blog post to come), which started off with a dynamite cheese plate, Jeff and I went to Rooftop 120 to get our dance fix. We certainly did just that, and worked up an appetite for an after-dinner snack. Not dessert though…another cheese plate. Because honestly, why stop at one?
The Pond House Grille cheese plate…unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the Rooftop version. But it was great!
Marvelous is…letting go and staying out on Friday night. In the comments on last week’s post about my hesitance over going out on weekends, Missy challenged me to go out without a watch or looking at my cell phone. The reason I have no picture of my Rooftop cheese plate – or me in my dancing shoes – is because of that challenge. I tried to leave my phone in my purse as often as possible…and I wore my watch, but those who know me well know that none of my watches show the correct time and half don’t even have a functioning battery (I view them as accessories and nothing more). So guess what happened? I stayed out until I wanted to. I went home and went to sleep around 12:30AM. I still woke up at 8:30AM and made it to the gym to lift weights in Group Power and finish my workout with 15 minutes of StepMill intervals.
Did I feel shitty about myself all day on Saturday because of the alcohol calories from the night before? Okay, yes I did. But did I let that stop me from going through with sampling all the cheese at Whole Foods, attending a Sonoma Wines & Spirits wine tasting, and going through with my dinner plans that night? No I didn’t.
Unfortunately nothing worth purchasing.
Marvelous is…dinner at Barcelona with old and new friends. We were going to go to J. Gilbert’s, but the bar was absolutely packed so we relocated to Barcelona West Hartford. Fine by me! Bourbon cocktail maestro Dan created a beverage just for me – Willet, B&B, Carpano Antica, and cinnamon syrup.
I selected three tapas (two veggie and one meat) for myself, but the table ended up doing some sharing. Our waitress comped us a plate of anchovies which was awesome…I soaked up olive oil with bread crusts and then put anchovies on them like little toasts. Delish!
My tapas: mushrooms a la plancha, broccoli rabe, and pork belly with a sunny side up egg!
Marvelous is…my body telling me what it needed after dinner. All afternoon and on my way to dinner I was future-tripping over possibly going out that night. I’d gone out the night before but kept thinking about last weekend and how I went out both nights. I couldn’t stop focusing on the empty alcohol calories I would consume if I went out. The late night Barcelona bread. Maybe even a *GASP* dessert.
But once I got to dinner I lost myself in the moment with my friends and when the check came, I realized I felt EXHAUSTED. So after we paid the bill I went home, watched some bad TV with a half glass of Prosecco, ate an Apple Pie Quest bar, read my book, and went to bed around 10PM.
Warmed up and combined with chocolate pudding…heaven. Source
AND IT FELT GREAT. I was totally content with not going out. My body told me it wanted to lay low and sleep and I listened. That felt SO reassuring to me. Oh, and I slept later the next morning than I did the night that I stayed out late. So my whole don’t-stay-out-late-because-I’ll-wake-up-later connection was totally broken. And yes I still went to the gym…just about an hour or so later than my “usual” Sunday time.
I took 10AM Group Kick for the first time in awhile and feel a bit sore today! Gotta love switching up the routine! Source
Marvelous is…getting in some cooking practice. Since I still live at home I am totally spoiled by the fact that my mom loves to cook fresh, healthy meals. But she and my dad have been away at our Florida condo for the last couple weeks and I have long since worked through the frozen dishes she left me. So I decided at the end of last week that I need to end my dependence on restaurants and the Whole Foods salad bar. I picked out a few recipes for weekend meal prep so that this coming week I will have plenty of healthy dishes in my fridge ready to use in my salad lunches and reheat for dinner. I won’t be living at home forever and I want to work on improving my cooking and meal prep skills before I’m living on my own and suddenly looking around wondering how on earth I’m supposed to make myself dinner. I will be sharing some of what I made on the blog, but the recipes I tried (and tweaked) were from my Things I’d Actually Make and Baby Cabbages Pinterest boards:
- Honey Chicken Salad With Grapes & Feta
- Indian Chickpeas With Tomato & Dill
- my very first unique recipe creation (which I will be eating tonight) for use in a Pacific Foods sponsored post…stay tuned!
Marvelous is…spending some time with my younger brother. Saturday night I received last-minute notice that he would need a ride Sunday evening from our house back to school. Yes it was a bit inconvenient but I was happy to have forty minutes of driving time to chat and catch up. I mostly included this tidibit in this post for you Sarah 🙂
Marvelous is…Sunday night football with friends. I met up with Olivia, Jeff, and others at Damon’s Tavern in Hartford after I dropped off my brother. I didn’t really watch any football but I did have a lovely Lagunitas IPA and glass of prosecco, plus a surprisingly fantastic (for a tavern) salad with shrimp, yellow and red beets, apple, toasted sunflower seeds, a warm goat cheese medallion, and asparagus. I got home nice and early – plenty of time to get in bed and get a good night’s rest before the work week.
This was very filling and I took some of it home, but finished it once I got there! 😛
So really this weekend taught me one big lesson: Don’t future trip because it’s probably all going to work out in the end. And turn out to be marvelous!
What was the most marvelous part of your weekend?
Do you ever find yourself future tripping over stuff that ends up working out on its own?
Did you go low-key this weekend? Late night? A bit of it all?
