LIFE LATELY

Hi, I'm here. 

It seems like every weekend that passes, by the time I realize I haven't posted it's Monday or Tuesday, and then next thing I know it's Wednesday so I pretty much give up on that week and vow to try again next week. And on, and on, and on. 

Here's a little bit of what I've been up to lately: 

Lots of snuggling with my buddy:

       

     

Embarrassing my buddy by putting scarves on him and making him pose for pictures: 

Last Friday, due to the fact that a large contingent of my co-workers live over an hour away from the office in Wisconsin, my boss let us work from home. It was a rare moment for me, who has never really been a "work from home-r".. but TJ really enjoyed having me around, and I enjoyed working from bed. M also worked from home.. so it was a nice start to the weekend.

That night I went and saw "Once" with M's mom, his step-sister, and his sister. I'm really not a musical person and find myself antsy for it to get over by about halfway through the second act, but I actually really enjoyed this one. It was more modern, with modern sounding music- and I liked it a lot. There's a movie "Once" - which I googled in the car on the way home- and while I'm intrigued, the actors in the movie look NOTHING like the play and I think I'll have a hard time with that so I may wait a bit until it's not so fresh in my memory. 

We went to Crave beforehand in downtown Minneapolis, too. #nom:

Saturday I judged moot court at my law school with my #LSBFF (law school bestest friend forever-- long story, but I couldn't resist) and then we went antiquing at Hunt & Gather in Edina. I took a brief nap, and then M and I went to check out Yard House, a new restaurant near our place. It was SO. GOOD. The menu was huge, I had these orgasmic parmesean truffle fries, egg rolls, and M got a giant deconstructed spicy tuna roll (M and I shared the appetizers but the heaping mounds of avocado on the sushi prevented me from partaking..what with the allergy and the vomiting that takes place):

M had a client dinner Monday and I was the laziest sack of $hi* on the planet. Being too lazy to cook for one devolved into ordering delivery, which devolved into being too cheap to hit the delivery minimum and going to pick up Pizza Hut and then becausewhynot ..stopped for booze at the liquor store across the street from Pizza Hut. Total 100% #fattynight:

We've also been enjoying the warm weather (FINALLY) and cracking the windows. TJ has been able to expel some winter cabin fever by sniffing all the live long day. Meow: 

 

So that's that. I swear I'm going to bring out my nice camera this weekend... I say that every weekend. So far we have a surprise birthday thing tomorrow, brunch with M's mom, dinner with my dad Saturday, lunch with a friend Sunday, and watching the Masters on Sunday with  M's sister and her bf. I need to squeeze in some time to pick up decor for the bridal shower I'm throwing next weekend. All good stuff, and I'm looking forward to the weekend!

PIGGY WEEKEND

Bonus about getting a new phone is that it's actually feasible to upload photos straight to blogger, and then continue to edit a post on the computer. Not that this function didn't exist on my android, it's just that the camera was awful and the chances of the upload attempt working on any given day were about 1 in 10. 

I'm drinking the iPhone kool-aid pretty hard, guys. I love it. 

This weekend was a relatively lazy one, but a good one nonetheless. 

It started with a slow wake up Saturday... due to our absolutely out of control cat, we sleep later on the weekends now. We'd probably wake up around 8:30 or 9 except by that point TJ has been howling and pacing back and forth outside our bedroom for an hour.. which means little actual sleep. We crack, let him in, and then pass back out from mental exhaustion until about 9:30 or 10. 

It's worth it though because-- that FACE.

                               

This particular Saturday involved frittatas.  I even went out and bought a special pan (that we discovered stained our sink slightly from it's maiden voyage earlier in the week: pro tip, do NOT let a cast iron skillet soak in the sink for an extended period of time. Womp.) The frittatas were good though and the ring of grime is now so faint that we've deemed it tolerable. (We being me, I still hear M scrubbing it sometimes in the kitchen). 

This was also my attempt at being sort of artsy with my food photo but it's quite clear I put my frittata on the floor..which I realize is incredibly weird. (So weird that before I did it I told M, "you can't make fun of me for this." -- he did. 

{Paranoid TJ hears the mailman- firmly believes death is imminent.}

Friday night M and I went to a place called Pig and Fiddle- sort of a modern take on scandanavian comfort food. It was delicious.

Saturday my streak of bad luck (scum ring, included) continued when in less than 5 minutes I managed to crack the side mirror of our new-ish car, and then crack the bumper. I realize how incompetent this makes me sound and I'm livid it happened, but the bumper was solely a result of the overcorrection after realizing what happened to the mirror. OH and lest I forget to mention, earlier in the week a rock flew up and hit the windshield and left a small nick. 

I came back in the house (after making a barely-composed trip to the post office after doing the damage to the car) SOBBING to which M of course responded very panicked.. lord knows what he thought happened.. and I proceeded to curl into a ball in his lap and cry "don't be made at me!" .... I'm such a grown up, guys. 

After sitting perfectly still for a few hours (lest I break anything else) and being emo a good majority of the afternoon, M and I went out to eat again- this time to Pig Ate My Pizza (notice a  theme? Piggy weekend? GET IT!?)

This is kind of a hipster bar/restaurant (very tiny, no reservations, but SO worth the wait) with some gourmet artisan pizzas. The owners of this also own a spot called Travail -- which is a way more high end restaurant. The food was delicious and the company wasn't so bad either. :)

                               

{philly cheese steak pizza.. to die for.}

Sunday I went to a barre class after reading Lisa's post about it and realizing my Liftime offers barre classes for free that a lot of people pay a lot of money at a special studio to attend, so I figured I should make the most of my gym membership.

Holy. crap. I. hurt.-- muscles are burning that I wasn't sure existed before (so cliche) but it was such a great work out. It's something I hope to keep up since it's on a Sunday, and not TOO early..and maybe if I make my way over there every week I'll be more consistent with grocery shopping on a set day too since they're right next to each other- which is what I did today and it was fantastic.

I may post more about it later this week but basically it's a bunch of small, tight movements (ballet centered) that you repeat over and over. My thought process each rep went something like this "oh, holding these itty bitty weights and pulsing my arms up and down? I got this... 2-3-4..okay this is starting to hurt a little... 5-6-7-.. it's embarrassing how much pain I'm in.. 8-9-10.. AAGHHHHH"... hurts so good.

Tonight we went to my dad's.. two of my mom's high school friends brought over dinner and visited for a while, which was nice.  I got home, prepped lunch for the week, and am hoping to squeeze in a nail-paint session (BADLY needed) and some reading before bed.

Anyway, that's about it. Hope you all had a good weekend! I took some bedroom photos, that I'll post this week. It's not finished, but it's as finished as it's going to be for a little while now (need to decide about a paint color.. you'll see..and a little bit more more art, a new rug eventually.. but otherwise it's pretty much done). I've never been so in love with a room.. our bedroom upstairs went from a place I'd only go when it was time for bed- it was cold, darker, and so not cozy... to now my absolute favorite room in the house. :) Can't wait to share it. 

For my favorite.

Tomorrow, July 13th, is M's birthday.
He will be 29.

I'll be honest, I kind of freeze when it comes to writing posts like these because there's so much to say and I always see these perfect and mushy posts people write about their significant others and we're really not too mushy ourselves... sooooo I'll do my best to do the guy justice.

Dear M,

You're my favorite. How do I know this? Well, I couldn't spend this much time with one other person and not want to kill them. I'm sure you're thinking, "she sure seems like she wants to kill me a lot.." but trust, it's really very minimal in comparison.

I love waking up next to you, even if you're breathing hot smelly morning breath on me.
I love watching Dateline in bed with you and analyzing the cases ourselves.
I love the way you light up when Randy Hauser's "Running out of Moonlight" comes on the radio, and the way you belt it out so loud you can't even hear Randy-- I also love the accompanying steering wheel drumming and head bopping. (and I love that now when I hear it in the car alone I giggle because I imagine you doing all of the aforementioned).

I love watching you interact with our bitty... and it makes me excited to watch you interact with our kids. I can already tell you'll be the firm one.. which will be necessary, and is currently necessary, when I try to convince you bitty should sleep with us during the week, only to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to whiskers up our nose and paws in our faces. :)

I love being WEIRD with you. A lot of people say that but I truly believe we're the weirdest ever. I love our "language" and the noises you make and... ok.. sometimes I love your schticks. BUT I WILL DENY IT IF YOU EVER TRY TO BRING THIS UP AGAIN. hear me? Mostly I love how funny you find them/yourself when you're doing it.

Most of all, I love that I get to spend the rest of my life with you, because oh my god are we going to have FUN. Seriously.

You're my best friend, the love of my life, and I can't wait to see what the next 29+ years bring!

Happy birthday ya old fart.
Hope you enjoy your day of 'prizes. :)

Love,

Pickles.

finding joy.

TGIF, people.
Maybe not for those of you who woke up to snow yesterday. On May 2nd. That was.....sweet.
Thankfully, my city was spared. Wee! and word on the street is, 70s are returning next week. So there's that.

In the days after I wrote the most emo post ever, I've been trying to do things to bust the funk. Of course, the 70+ degree weekend we had last weekend helped. But, I've decided to put in an effort to find some things that I have a bit more control of. Often I find myself reading blogs in which the blogger describes little "traditions" they have with their spouse, and I find myself smiling thinking "that's nice" and not doing anything about it. I talked a bit about M and I's "brunch date" we have going now, but I also recently suggested to him something I've wanted to do for a while.

Every night (or every night that M doesn't pass out at 9 p.m. on the couch which is sadly, quite often) we head upstairs and read a book together. As in, M reads a few pages out loud on his tablet, and then I read a few pages. Right now we're reading:

I had read Gone Girl a few months ago (and was pissed at the ending) but I heard this book was much better. It's not "chicky" so when M read the synopsis, he said it was something he could get into as well. I'm liking it so far. I think we're on Chapter 5. I also like crawling into bed at night, and instead of each of us browsing our phones (like we used to do/sometimes do when it's too late to read), we do something together.

In addition, despite my "meh" job outlook-- which has inadvertently turned me into a penny pincher- I suddenly have been REALLY GOOD at eating what I brought for lunch every day -- I pulled the trigger on a "me" expense I had been thinking about doing since November.

Yep.
For the next 5 Tuesday's, I'll be sitting in class. As a recovering law student I'm both amused and not surprised at this. I never hated school. I just hated being tested. So "fun" classes still have their appeal!

It seems like people with a DSLR (who go onto become photographers, or just take good photos) wear the "I never took a class, I learned on my own" mantra as a badge of honor. There's nothing wrong with that, but the stubborn person in me was all, "psh, if they can learn on their own so can I!" ... that's not really my problem though. My problem is that I never actually use my down time to teach myself said photography skills.

I'm pretty excited. If nothing else to have a set 2 hours a week to devote to something artistic. For someone who may appear super left-brained.. I'd die inside without a little creativity in my life.

SO despite the fact that I have no job news, things are looking up. Or rather, my mood about things is looking up :)

M was supposed to have a golf trip this weekend but, what with the copious amounts of snow, that got cancelled. SO we now have a weekend at home, with nothing on the calendar. Hoping to make it a good one! :)