This Weekend I...

I'm linking up my weekend recap with with Sar and Syndal

This weekend I..

met up with some blogger-bitties for HH on Friday after work.

(Jess, Syndal, Jen, Lauren)

"Just one drink" quickly spiraled into 3 glasses of wine and a table full of appetizers.
I had told M he should come over after work and that we'd go have a mini-date-night in downtown. Well, I filled up pretty quickly on appetizers and ended up buying M dinner out of guilt.
He was quite the trooper, showing up to an all girl (blogger) happy hour. He said it was really nice to meet some of the girls I talk about, though, and that the girls seemed like nice people. Even you, Lo. ;-)

He drove me home, and I passed out during the Gopher's game on the couch.

This weekend I...
got my oil changed, like any good boring adult. This was made doubly fun since I made an 8 a.m. appointment for Saturday (WHY?!) and needed M to bring me back to my car the next morning. It was nice to have someone to chat with at the car shop, and he even stopped and got us Starbucks before coming to meet me.

This weekend we...
GOT A NEW COUCH.
Once again, hi, I'm a boring adult. but OMG it was so exciting. We had this slipcovered nightmare in the living room for the last 2 years. One day a few months ago when I was getting my oil changed, I wandered into the Slumberland outlet store next to Midas (on Excelsior in St. Louis Park- for you locals) when I saw this pretty:

 

annnnddd then I saw THIS pretty: 

and nearly bought it on the spot.
A few months went by,..and as a part of my birthday present for this year, M said I could finally go pick out a couch. Of course, this beauty popped back into my head, so last weekend we were putzing around and stopped by the Slumberland outlet again, and she was still there! (they had 7 others available when we bought ours, so RUN AND GET ONE if you're looking for a couch). We bought it on the spot, and picked it up this weekend.

Here's what it looked like before:

aannnnd after:

I am in love.
TJ approves, as well.

This weekend I...
went over to my parents house on Saturday night with M to have dinner. My brother was working, but it was still nice to get to hang out with my mom and dad.
The guys talked about their fishing trip, and I stared at the wall.
Just kidding, but last year was the first year M got to go along on my dad's annual fishing trip to Canada. I got to listen to them talk about it for 2 months prior to the trip, and a month after.
Well, they're gearing up to go in May again, so the fishing talk has geared back up again.

We hung out for a few hours and watched the hockey game,... and I caught my parents' cat, Lucky winking at me.

He says, "I got you."

This weekend we....
woke up early and headed back to St. Paul to meet my parents at church. It was doughnut Sunday, so we stopped downstairs after mass for doughnuts and coffee and chatted with my parents' friends.

After church, we stopped by Target and did some shopping, and then had every intention of stopping by some open houses on the way home (we nosey, yo).. buuuuttt after swinging by the house, I ended up falling asleep for 2 hours. When I woke up we went and grabbed a late lunch/early dinner at Woodfire Grill in St. Louis Park.

Since then, we've been hanging out at home.
I made a pathetic attempt at writing a cover letter and just wasn't feeling it, so I gave up. My brain was mushy and the words were not coming out eloquently, so I'll take a stab at it tomorrow. Wah.

Hope you all had a good weekend as well!

Kelly

A cat and his toy: a short story.

I don't have much for you today, but just wanted to share a short photo-story titled,

"a cat, and his toy"

meow.

I thought of publishing this draft (that is clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of content. woops) after we got rid of our living room couch last night.

Oh yea, we bought a new couch this week. Story and photos to come after we get it this weekend (wee!) but the ugly slip covered monstrosity you see in the background is GONE. yes.

Anyway, some people came over to take it last night and lo and behold, underneath it we found ALL of TJ's toys. 3 mouse toys, 2 fuzzy balls, a wine cork (he freaking LOVES them) and oh yes.. because my cat is disgusting, a tampon applicator he fished out of the trash. Color me mortified. I wasn't home and asked M if the people saw it and he said one of them may have.

I have kind of a more thoughtful post that I had every intention of posting this week... but.. it just didn't feel "right".. sooooo better luck next week.

Adios.

Surprise Florida Trip: The "what" Part 2

We left off Saturday, which was breezy.
Sunday was cold.
Cold is naturally all relative, but for FL it was cold.
We headed to the beach to look for shells in the morning and I snapped some photos.

(waving, hiiiii!)

We then headed to breakfast (uncle was there too, but he was hiding in the car) at the Cove Inn. It's a teeenyy tiny hole in the wall, but has the best pancakes. Or so I'm told, I had an egg sandwich with bacon. (I've been making note of a lot of food the last 2 posts. This is because as of the drafting of this post, I am starving. Duh. 

After breakfast, my aunt, M and I went to Goodwill. 
I hear you laughing, but do some simple deduction here: what is Goodwill comprised of? Discarded clothes from residents in a relatively close proximity (usually) to that particular store. And when the area in "relatively close proximity" to Goodwill happens to be ridiculously affluent neighborhoods, on occasion, you find some pretty good steals. It was my aunt who first turned us onto this gem a year or 2 ago. This year, M got a Ralph Lauren polo and a (seemingly) never worn Banana Republic T-shirt for a total of $12. Last year he got some dockers shorts, a polo, and some brand new FootJoy golf cleats for $20.

That afternoon my aunt and uncle went to some open houses (being a real estate attorney, my uncle likes to keep abreast of the local market.... I'd do it for the sole purpose of snooping through million dollar homes.. se la vie). M and I camped out on the porch and read in the sun. Despite the fact that it was chilly, the sun was warm.

Monday was our last day in Florida, and coincidentally, the warmest.
We started the morning by walking to a breakfast joint I had spotted a different day, where we enjoyed the warmth of the morning sun on the patio. 

After breakfast, we walked down the pier again and enjoyed the lack of gale-force winds.

 

We walked back to the condo along the beach, grabbed some towels, and headed back for some much needed sun. Well, warm sun, that is. 

Imagine my delight when, after walking to the water to dip my toes in, I turn around and spot M with the camera, snapping away. 

I haven't quite gotten to the point where I feel comfortable thrusting it into his hands and asking him to take "natural" looking photos of myself.. as much as I love those type of photos other bloggers post. I know, I know, I can't get what I don't ask for.. but still, it was nice for him to do it all on his own.

After getting sweaty at the beach, we headed home to rinse off a bit, and then hit 5th for a cocktail and appetizer (notice a theme here?) 

On our walk there M noticed through the breezeway of one of the buildings that there was some type of deck and fountain near a body of water, so we stopped to check it out on our walk back. 

 

 

We left the pond and were walking home when M said he wanted to stop down at the beach and just sit on a bench to enjoy the gulf view for the last time. 

I ended up falling asleep for a bit with my head in his lap.. waves gently crashing on the beach always lulls me to sleep. 

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the condo, and indulging in some of my aunt's ridiculously tasty cooking. She whipped up some fresh egg salad (I have never had it and honestly don't like eggs other than in breakfast-form, and even I wolfed some down) and chop salad with fresh veggies. Maybe it's because she shops at the farmer's market, and everything is obviously fresh in a place where it doesn't usually drop below 30 degrees.. but man. Things just taste better in Florida. 

Aaanndd on that note, TGIF. 
Actually if we're being honest it'd be TFGIF.. you can take a guess what that first "F" is for. 
Nothing like coming back from vacation, getting sick (seriously, who does that?), and then coming back to work on Wednesday to 5 new projects... one of which I was given the Friday I was out, the magnitude of which clearly telling me that the 4 workdays I was in FL/sick were necessary to doing it justice. This translates to working this weekend. Anybody out there a resident expert in hearsay, send em my way. You want to talk about words that start to look and sound fake after staring at them too long? --> HEARSAY. Seriously. 

Surprise Florida Trip: The "what"

[I'll be honest in saying I don't usually see a point in drawing out vacation posts, but, I have nothing else to blog about this week and after seeing how long this is getting after just sharing photos (hi, DSLR obsessed apparently...) of Friday and Saturday, I'm going to leave Sunday and Monday until tomorrow. Soooorryyy. Mah blog, Mah rules.]

Now that you know HOW I pulled it off, here's what we did!
Just for posterity, and honesty, it was 80 the day before we got to FL and 80 the day after we left. While we were there?
Friday was rainy
Saturday was windy
Sunday was chilly (for FL, that is. Still, 60 is better than a -20 in MN!)
Monday was juuuuustttt right (Goldilocks knew what she was talkin' about). It was 75, sunny, and a light breeze. This was actually the only day we hit the beach. The rest of the days were spent eating (a LOT), walking around, and just overall relaxing. If I'm being transparent, the weather coincidence before/after our trip made me a twee bit stabby, but, nothing I can do about it.

First of all: southern girls. How in the F do you carry on in the humidity without lookin' like a poodle every day of the week? seriously.
Below you can see the fuzz halo starting to form (and this was day 2 hair, just after waking up): 

I quickly abandoned any attempt at styling my hair, and just rocked the natural curls the other days. Which means my frizz-poof turned into this before dinner on Friday night:

It was less hipster than it was practical. Still, you can see a faint fuzz halo. Sigh.
M and I trucked up 5th street to McCabe's in a light rain for lunch.
You can also see my hair beginning to betray me.
(I realize how desperately vain I sound but it's hard (in the loosest sense of the word) to go on vacation to warm climates, want to take lots of photos, and then not feel pretty because you look like a poodle. Wahhh. Whine over.) 

Droooool.
We were pretty low key the rest of the day Friday, what with the rain.
We snuck in a nap, like any good senior citizen on vacation, and then ventured out for pizza with my aunt and uncle.

Saturday we hit 5th Street for "Cars on 5th": a bunch of ridiculously expensive and beautiful cars (Some of which that can be seen driving around Naples at any given moment. The MONEY, people. Oohhh the money in Naples, FL.)

So shiny, and pretty, and expensive.
Speaking of expensive, M and I went to grab a drink and an appetizer by the pier Saturday afternoon.
Apparently in Naples, when you order rather pricey egg rolls, that means 2 long skinny egg rolls. Annndd that's it.
This happened both times we ordered egg rolls and at 2 separate restaurants nonetheless. 

(M loves himself some Sangria. Yum)

We walked down to the pier afterwards, made it halfway, and the wind blew us back to land.

We headed to a Thai/Japanese place for dinner that night, and binged on curry.

(my aunt and uncle..and M)

Up tomorrow: Sunday and Monday.