Fast Week & A Long Weekend {5 for Friday}

1. Barley got fixed this week! I wouldn't usually be so excited about our puppy having surgery, but this is really for the best obviously. He came through like a champ! The worst part was probably for us, I felt so sad Thursday morning sending him off with Bryan. And he couldn't have his breakfast either, so he was a little cranky! But seriously, how cute is this picture?

2.  Today I'm working a charity golf tournament for work, so I'm working but I'd say that's a pretty easy Friday!

3.  Barley and I had a great walk pre-snip snip and he is really getting better about being outside and meeting new people.

4.  We got Zoe's Kitchen for dinner Wednesday. Nom mom kabobs and Greek salads! 

5.  My sinus infection is basically gone! Hallelujah!

Wow this week was super boring. Sorry guys, I will try to actually so something this weekend!  We have no major plans which is awesome.  I love the casual possibility of plans without the expectation of having to show up somewhere.  

Monday night I'm closing out Houston Restaurant Weeks with a couple lady friends at Mockingbird, super excited!  I have never been and the menu looks delish!  Other than that, maybe some pool time and a couple runs to get back on track! 

What are your big plans for the long weekend?! 

 

It's Friday & I'm So Excited {i'm so...scared.}

Do you like my Saved by the Bell reference friends?  Bad jokes are ok today, because it's Friday, and everything is better for just that fact alone.

This week was rough.  Work kinda crawled by, Barley is cutting his adult teeth (woof.), I have a sinus infection, and I think Bryan is still tired from driving back from the casino last weekend.   So needless to say, we weren't exactly "out and about" this week.  Still tho, here are the best five moments of the week:

1.& 2.  Lauren from Method to My Madness and I met up last night at Anvil in Midtown for cocktailllll hour.  Don't worry, I think this makes us real IRL friends now. 

I had a Pimm's Cup, she had the House Punch (why did I capitalize those??), and we both got the ridic pretzel with queso flameado. Um it was amazing.  And even better was our conversation about everything from family to work stuff to *gasp* husbands, and of course, blog world things.  

3.  You guys, if you aren't watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix, I want you to finish reading this post, drop everything else you have planned for today/tomorrow, and go watch.  

It's a hilarious/scary/thoughtful/well-written show based on a memoir of the same name (which I reallyyyy want to read), and it's about a woman who goes to jail for smuggling drugs in Europe for her ex-girlfriend who was also an expert heroin smuggler! And oh yeah, now she has a gentlemen fiancé on the outside.  There are characters called Crazy Eyes, Tastee, and Pennsatucky. Just watch it. It's great.  

4.  This corn we grilled.  I know it seems simple & lame, but sometimes finding the little things in life is what it's all about.  Lauren, aren't you happy you beat out corn on this list?! ;)

5.  Bryan sneakily took this pic on my phone the other night, and it's great and our pup is adorable and he is just getting so big it's crazy. 

What was the best part of your week?! 

Living With Mean Girl Face {i swear, i'm nice.}

I live with a syndrome called mean girl face. Or bitchface. Or for fans of Juno and Katrina de Voort or whatever her name was, that's just how my face looks!

 A couple weeks ago we were at the bars, and I was walking back to Bryan and our friends from the bathroom, and he goes, "oh no, what happened in there?" Umm...nothing, why? "Oh well your face just looks so angry and cranky and unimpressed!" "I have chronic bitchy face!!" They actually thought that was pretty funny.

And it is, but it got me thinking that people might be getting the wrong idea.  To confess, I have heard it before.  I have lots of good friends now who have said, "You looked soo mean, I definitely didn't think you'd be nice!"  or "I was scared to talk to you!"  So I looked into it on Facebook (of course)...and today I'm sharing a historical retrospective of my mean girl face (also lots of cool hairstyles and outfits I've had since birth):

 First? second? birthday. Bored. Lame. Not even crying! 

 In the full version of this pic, my big sister is holding one of our newborn cousins. Maybe I wasn't cool with that? 

Casual sass face at my grandparents' 50th anniversary party. 

Followed up by even better mean girl face when my mom was probably telling me to smile! 

 Between the hair wrap and my mean girl face and my vest (which, shut up, it was amazing.), it's a miracle I had as many friends as I did. No boyfriend in fourth grade though soooo... 

I I'd like to say I'm regretting my outfit in this photo...but I feel like it's mostly just me looking like me. Crank face and all.

 Pre-gaming a Badgers game in college. People are actually dancing around me and I'm just hanging out, looking like I hate the world. 

 Kites are HARD and make you look like a mean person.

 Can't even keep my face together at our engagement party! What is wronggg with me?! I'm also surrounded by booze. I should be thrilled. 

 Finally, I think we all know what is lurking under that ski mask, hood and those sunglasses. 

 100% mean girl, stink-face. In my defense, Chicago winters on the lake are bruuuutal! 

 K so now it's your turn to dish friends, do you have something you so that makes you seem the exact opposite of your personality?!

Favorite Running Jamz {for now.}

For me, a big part of a successful run is music that keeps me interested and moving!  So today I thought I would post up some of my fav running jamz (always with a z, yes.) as of lately!

I pretty much switch my music up constantly because if I get too comfortable with it then I feel like I know the times of each song, and this start mentally timing myself and know how far I'm going.

For me the goal is to trick myself into not knowing how long a song is, and then I don't pace myself based on length! I actually love techno and mixes from Girl Talk for this reason, but didn't include them on this list because those are almost always in my rotation.

Here we go: 

Ok so I love Miley and I love this song, and the video is weird and great, and I love listening to it when I run because duh, not gonna stop!

I feel like this song was crazy popular and then I never heard it again...well truth be told, we were out one night and had So. Much. Fun. dancing to this together so I always think of that when I'm running and it takes my mind off of  what I'm doing.

Lana, Lana, Lana! Sort of picks up tempo and pumps me up!

Do the D A N C E 12345! All Justice is great to run to, enough said. 

This beat just keeps me moving. I think this is what Miley would agree is a "bangerz."  I could repeat this forever when I'm out there.  

RIP run, just killed it! 

Ummm I love some Bey for a run.  This song especially because it's crazy upbeat and I like to mentally sing the countdown part of the song to myself, like a straight up weirdo. 

If you see someone running around Hermann Park mumbling and rapping to herself while looking kinda spastic, it's definitely me!  So say hi and ask me hat I'm listening to!

What's your favorite workout song right now?! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Weekender {vol. 13}

Such a fun and busy weekend for us.  Lots of eating, touring, and hanging out!

Friday night we went to Pappasito's for dinner and of course I got this delish blackberry marg tequila creation again!

Um I also ordered this insane combination meal-pork tamale, cheese with chili con carne enchiladas, and a crispy beef taco! I hate like half of each and then just about died.

Saturday we drove out to Galveston, and spent the first half of the day shopping on the Strand. I found like 10 maxi dresses I would have bought were it not for something called "a budget" and "saving for a home."  Boooo.  

However, I did get some really great bracelets that I think are knock offs of ones I've seen at like Nordstrom, but whatever: 

Annnnd here is a blue tree to raise awareness of conservation because of Hurricane Ike (I think?)
 

We were all set to take my mother in law to an awesome seafood place so she could get something delicious and fresh, but then we saw this Mediterranean place and got hooked on the idea of a Greek salad:

 

Umm yes I got mine with gyro meat. No shame!

K so then we ended our day with a tour of the Bishop's Palace, I will let the photos speak for themselves:

 

Gorgeous! We grilled some dinner up, had some wine, and then everyone was pretty much exhausted from a long day!

Sunday, Sunday!! We went to Buffalo Grille for brunch, and omelettes and breakfast burritos abounded.

After that we headed to the zoo.

Rawwwrrrr

Oh hi sad zebra, let's be friendssss!

Crazy giraffe all splayed out!  They have like 400 giraffes, it's great!

Sea lion getting a drinky drink!

Sunday night we grilled again, and then ended up going to Dessert Gallery for some cake!  I got the "chip off the old block" which was white cake with chocolate chips and dark chocolate ganache.  yeah. and Bryan and his mom both got the Italian cream cake. 

A little HGTV later and we were all done for after two full days of walking, talking, eating and drinking!

What was your highlight of the weekend? Hope everyone had a great one!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five on Friday {what a week.}

Sooo happy Friday everyone!! 

We have had a crazy week, but in a good way! Bryan's mom is staying with us and having a little vacation, and it's going to be a fun weekend playing tourist in Houston and showing her around!  I actually feel semi confident that we know what we're doing here now and can actually guide peeps around a bit! 

Onto the FIVE!

1.  Oh hi perfect German Chocolate cake I made! & happy birthday again Bryan! 

2.  I am happy to share that The League on FX will be back in just ONE month!  

Seems muy trivial, but for real got me excited!! 
 

3.  Oh hi Internet! What's that? More amazing news for me? About a PHILLIP LIM LINE AT TARGET? Omg dies. 

This bag is everything. I am in love and will make it mine for fall & winter.

4.   This pic is also everything, but in a less RZ, more adorable puppy snoozing on husband pic. I die a little inside over this. 

Sorry I'm not sorry that I'm a HUGE CREEP taking sleep pics. We all know he does it back because I've posted the evidence too. 

5.  I will never apologize for jamming to Mariah. But this song? I mean jamming doesn't cover the things that happen when I play it in the car while I'm driving solo.  

Cheers to the weekend everyone!  What was your jam this week?  Did you bake or cook anything amazing? Most importantly, did you take at least one creepy photo?! :) 

 

The Weekend and 3/4 of the Week {lazy.}

Whhhhat? I'm supposed to post on my beautiful new site?? Ok. I know. Slacker ways.   Well good news is that I have a bunch of photos to share. Which is great news because we are currently hosting Bryan's mom for a week here and I have virtually no free time for the next week! 

Golf love last Friday! Read all about how I didn't suck at golf inMonday's post. 

Woooo wine!  Friday night we went out to dinner for Bryan's birthday. I promptly drank a bottle of wine to celebrate for him!  This was glass two.

Then I had a delicious steak! Yay for Churrasscos! Please note the three stems of glasses in front of me. 

Took a semi decent selfie before everything went to hell and I took a couple too many birthday drinks in honor of my husband!

 

Saturday we hauled up to our friend's pool party and took Barley! He frolicked off the leash and added three new girlfriends  to his book!  So now he has two black labs who are seven, and one boxer who is 6 months, plus a few from around the apartment area too! 

Playa puppy!

Saturday night we got to go out to dinner with my BFF's older brother and his fiancée who halfsie live here now!   We went to Cyclone Anaya's and I even managed to choke down a marg.  seriously delish food tho!

After we went to a few bars in Midtown and showed them around a bit! Seriously such a blast and I can't wait for both of them to be here permanently! 

Sunday is all summed up by this pic:

L.a.z.y.

In other random news:

Barley is really starting to get big!

Beatles are ruling my commute to work this week.

We picked up "a little" BBQ  for my mother in law's first night here visiting last night! So out of control delicious. Always get grilled zucchini people!