The Weekender :: Vol. 8

So haven't really posted much about our weekends lately, but here's the wrap-up for this one!

Friday night...

Yummy glass of Tempranillo at dinner. There was also steak involved.

Then I maibs got attacked by Barley and snapped this pic. Yes, that is my baby blanket wrapped around my head. It comforts me AND protects my hair from being gnawed on.

Saturday morning we volunteered at a Cabrini yard sale my work was holding to raise money for our CEO's Christmas gift/donation in honor of him.  It was about 90 degrees by 11 when we left so I was glad we had a morning shift! 

After that, came home and baked some gross cookies we ended up throwing up, fail. And then also hosted an impromptu boy's gathering all afternoon.  

I maybe had this brandy manhattan...

Post that, my friend swooped me up and we went and got mani/pedis in a comedy of errors that included me wearing skinny black crops the ladies could barely pull up over my calves and my friend smudging her nail and then a toe nail. #failling

Toes are Sunday Funday by Essie...

Nails are just light pink shellac.

K so after that we met up with our gentlemen friends for our very good friend's last last dinner out before moving far away from us sweaty Houstonians. I say that because two weeks ago we took he and his wife out for dinner at Masraff's, which if you live here, GO and get a bison steak there immediately.

So anyways, we went to Pappacito's for a ridiculous amount of noms tex-mex and margs. Mine had some kind of blackberry liqueur situation floater on top of a regular marg. like 800 boozes and that's all you need to worry about.

Actually Bryan won with this Jalisco Tea he ordered, which is basically a tex mex Long Island. It was delish also. 

K so then we went to one of our favorite dive bars...we took a out a million pics, but sadly they are all on our friends camera and probably really unflattering. 

I did take a pic of this sign FINALLY to send to my lawyer friends. It always cracks me up in the ladies' room.

Fast forward to Sunday morning...in all my glory here at Trader Joe's struggling to buy groceries and wearing my friend from Chicago's sweet old t-shirt. 

Hot. Mess. Don't worry I also went to petsmart like this to get Barley's nails trimmed. I was also in an old pair of jean shorts. I'm literally offending myself as I type this. 

We got some quality snug time on the couch and then went to see "World War Z".  Which, ok. I basically felt anxious the whole time, I think normal people just say it was suspenseful but I have life issues so it was anxiety-producing instead. 

Honestly, ever since Brad Pitt adultered Jennifer Aniston, I basically only tolerate his movies if George Clooney is in them too.  That said, I'm definitely going to finish that book now. 

K so then I got crazy and made five dinners..well two but there was enough veggie chopping for five.

Stir fry we had last night. Chicken, snap peas, carrots, mushrooms, pineapple, some soy and teriyaki sauces and a little cornstarch to thicken it up. Omnomnom

Then I put together a crockpot full of soup for tonight-it's nothing fancy but its always so good. Potatoes, onion, carrots, tomatoes, basil, browned ground beef, barley (haha the grain not our dog), seasoning salt, bay leaves, water and a couple bouillon cubes. Add peas later for color and so they don't mush while it cooks.

Speaking of mush, look how grossly cute we are!  Just holding hands during Sunday night tv time. Like a bunch of sickos in love!

Oh, and to close our our weekend at 10 pm Sunday night, a MASSIVE cockroach appeared on our bathroom wall. I've never actually seen one indoors or up close, but Bryan gave it the business and even stood in the bathroom talking to me while I showered because I was scared of it. What a man.  

K so what summer movies did you see this weekend? Did you also "accidentally" mix tequila, beer, vodka, fireball and a delicious apple pie shot? But then recover and get your shit together to make a few meals and be a real person?! 

A Q&A with the Mr.

Since I'm out of town, Bryan agreed to do a Q&A that will give you a little more insight to who I am, who we are, and what the hell we do and would like to do in the future! 

Introduce yourself!

What’s up ya’ll. I’m Bryan, Sara’s less than better half, her husband. You may know me as “B” or “him” or “the one from whom all headaches stem” from her posts, I think. 

Hugging his prized buck from hunting season '08 (i think)

What are some things everyone should know about what it’s like to live with me?

HAHA. Um. Well, besides the normal guy/girl differences, the ABSOLUTE WORST part is when she leaves her used Kleenex in bed, or leaving them in the couch cushions for me to find later :)

What is the most fun thing we’ve ever done together?

This one time in San Antonio we got really drunk at a bar called Brass Monkey. It sounds lame, but I think we’d both agree that it was epically fun.

Another fun night, Halloween 2010

What was the first meal that I ever cooked for you? Was it any good?

I think this question is set up for me to stress Sara’s awesomeness... It was bacon wrapped chicken with red pepper flake cheese sauce. It was and still is noms city all stars.  (Note from Sara:  This was not a set-up, but here's a link to the exact recipe he's talking about, now I can call it the man-keeper or something :: Bacon-Wrapped Goodness)

On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you love watching TV with me?  If you had to pick one show that is “our show”, what would it be?

I love watching TV with Sara. We never fight over the remote at all. She’s the best because not only will she let me watch golf on a sunday, but she will actually watch it with me and “ask for pointers” while air golf swinging. It doesn't get any better than that. But seriously, our favorite show we watch together is Mad Men. It’s the best show in the history of shows... (if you don’t agree I’ll have Sara post spam on your blogs)

What hobby would you like to see us try sometime in the future?

Dream scenario: Running 5 miles together with Furbaby Metzger between us

I’d settle for: Golfing 18 holes together every Sat and Sun

How competitively awful am I when it comes to board games/game nights/anything at all related to sports/bets/games?

One time we played monopoly and I won. Now we can’t play monopoly anymore. :l

If we could go anywhere together, where would we go? Your pick!

Europe. Fa sho. Oktoberfest? Italy? Greece? Spain? I want it all.

under the sea?

Has the blog taken over our life yet?

No, it hasn’t. It’s fun for her, and fun for me to read in the background. I’ve been telling Sara for years to start a blog because she is so funny and people really love what she has to say. I’m glad she finally started.

What would you throw out and burn from my side of the closet?

Once the Chicago Cubs T shirt was gone, I had no complaints... but sometimes she wears things that are “girl cute.” That’s all I can say without getting in trouble..

probs one of my girl cute hats

Parting words?

I love my wife, and so should you. I encouraged her to start her blog because I know everyone would think she is as friggin’ cool as I do. So let her know how cool she and her blog is by leaving her comments about it! Also, if you don’t mind, keep reminding her how lucky she is to have such a sweet husband!

smooches

Sincerely hers,

B

The Weekender :: Vol. 5

This weekend was actually pretty eventful, sort of.

Friday:

Stayed all sorts of indoors and caught up on our DVR.  We are currently obsessed with "Mystery Diners" on Food Network.  It's this amazing show where managers/owners of restaurants and bars hire this company to come in and target certain problem employees as customers, trainees, etc.  Seriously, I can't believe the stuff people think they can get away with!

Saturday:

Went for a brief run in the afternoon that turned into more of a walk 3/4 of the way through because I ran into the Houston Art Car Parade along my route!  Here is a fun pic of a "bee hive car"/golf cart that I saw.  Some of them were awesome that I saw from my brief peek.

There was also a Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family all weekend, so I also spent the better part of the late afternoon watching these, which I was psyched over because I hadn't seen them in a long time. Yeah, I said it...psyched.  

Then something totally amazing happened...all of a sudden, on twitter, Adriana at Dog Hair Is An Accessory, direct messaged me and said, "I think we need to take this to a text level." Or *something* like that, whatever.

What unfolded was nothing short of greatness and magical friendship.  Within about 20 minutes, several selfies had been exchanged, including this gem of me waiting to buy popcorn for The Great Gatsby.  Double chin, all the way!   Also, makeup that looks like it's falling down my face but was not.

Basically all of it was ridiculous and hilarious and included a lot of emoticons about wine, happiness, and party horns.  Let's just say that the texting paused while I was at the movie and then continued until like 2 am eastern when I finally passed out of exhaustion.  I don't want any of you to worry that it DEF continued into Sunday.

Sidenote:  I think we all knowing that I was pretty excited to see the GG.  I liked the book in high school, and since then when I've read it, I liked it more and more.  I also loved the 1974 film, and so I was really ready to love this one.  And I guess I did.  It was good, but there was just something that was "off" for me.  I wish I could explain it better, but I've tried, and if you ask the people who I've tried explaining it to, they will describe my explanation as a "rambling mess" probably.

Sunday:

The girl love between Adriana and I continued as we sent more sad selfies of our tired selves.  It's always nice to have a person who let's you send unlimited selfies to without judgment or fear, and I'm not lying, I have found that person.  I know she is reading this, so shoutout to us for being great at selfies! Please go read her blog and follow along on the fun--she has a crazy great pit bull mix, gives great puppy tips, and is hilarious and awesome.

I got to see my mom Sunday! Well sort of, my family was together to celebrate Mother's Day and my niece's fifth birthday, so we got to FaceTime and watch my niece open presents and also see my Mom, which felt really good.  Hopefully next weekend when I'm at home, I will get a chance to put a webcam on their computer for them so we can Skype more often.  It feels so much better to *see* people you love.  I am really excited that in a short six days I will get to spend a couple of nights at my parent's house visiting them!  It turns out there are perks to being unemployed, and this is definitely one of them.

We also spent the afternoon at our friend's house for a bbq, lawn games, and of course, lots of quality friend time!

Also, if anyone reading out there would like to guest post for me the 20th, 21st, or 22nd, I'd love to hear from you!  It can be anything--introduce your blog, tell us your workout routine, share a recipe, tip or just a fun post!  Email me at saraintexasblog<at>gmail<dot>com if you're interested!

Linking with Bre, Sami, and of course, the best blog around that I'm sponsoring this month, Lisette at Northern Belle Diaries! Go check the link-up she sponsors with Rachel and help make the switch to Bloglovin' from GFC.

It's April, Peeps!

Ok, so here's my recap of what we did this weekend--

Friday Bry had off from work (and as we all know, I still haven't found a new job), so in the morning we went to check out a potential new apartment.   VERY excited.  I can't tell you how much we were overpaying at our current place, and now that he's been in Houston for almost a year (!) and myself since October, we have a  better grasp on areas, and whether or not we really needed to live in a "cool" neighborhood.

Let's be real, we are *not* that cool, so clearly we didn't need to overpay on location.  I think we will be very happy at our new place at the end of May since it will also mean that it's puppy time then...and wow do we need a puppy in our lives.

We had breakfast together, and then he went off to bottle some beer he's been making with a friend.  Because even on days you don't go to work at a brewery, you brew beer, check it's quality, and bottle it for a competition.  Ended up having dinner at said friend's house--huge steaks, artichokes, double baked potatoes, and probably other things I am forgetting.  It was a fat kid pig out fest.

Saturday started out very innocently.  We applied for our place and got approved.  Then we somehow ended up at the Galleria on a mission for sunglasses which quickly de-railed into a couple new dresses, new tops, some shorts for him, etc.   *cue danger zone music*

I made a ridiculously delicious meal for dinner on Saturday, cashew chicken over rice.  I will post the recipe later this week--so easy and literally haven't gotten such good reviews on a meal since I learned my mom's beef stroganoff.  It is a pinterest recipe, and a pleasantly surprising one at that!  (I think we've all been there with the shitty internet recipe situation.)

as bryan said, "the chicken looks like steak...and i like it that way."  that is code for, wow lots of soy sauce!

Sunday morning---Happy Easter!  I made another killer meal-honey ham, cheesed-up potatoes, green beans with green onions and bacon, and an arugula salad with green apples, red onion, walnuts and the most amazing champagne vinaigrette (it's from Trader Joe's, go now.) (And no, I can never spell "vinaigrette".  Thx spell check)   We had some angel food cake with fresh strawberries and of course some Easter candy.

oh and we had a really nice bottle of red too. oops.

someone else had approx. double the amount of perfect potatoes i did.

Oh, also, I made some killer caramel pecan rolls that are a family recipe for brunch along with hard-boiled eggs (dyed, duh.) and some crispy bacon that wasn't needed for the beans later.

this is an old pic from Christmas, but you can see the aforementioned pecan rolls.
can you tell i have a favorite holiday breakfast?! 

Pretty domesticated weekend as far as all that goes--we also got to Facetime with our nephew for his 10th birthday on Saturday.  We sent him a Dr. Who Monopoly set, and a couple of books, so it was fun to watch him open everything in real time.

This week is going to be crazy--I have FIVE amazing girlfriends coming into town Wednesday night-Sunday morning (6 am flight out), and they are all staying with us....so there may not be as many posts this week, and I may not even make it to Friday at the rate we will be enjoying sun & cocktails.

Weekend Round-Up

Busy, busy, busy weekend.  Well sort of.  We did a lot, but luckily none of it was "mandatory", if you know what I mean.

Friday evening we went to happy hour at one of our favorite places, The Ginger Man, in the Village.  If you're in Houston and looking for a bar with an extensive beer list, and no liquor, it's a great choice.  Get the big pretzel and sit outside!

Saturday morning I worked a little, and then we went to our friend's house for a little St. Patty's day gathering, where I made a french toast casserole, and hubstigation made his famous breakfast skillet.  Both were received with high accolades!  I will post the french toast recipe soon--I'm thinking of doing a series on a certain day of the week with a recipe I'm making/recently made.

We went to a few bars in the afternoon/evening/night and came home to eat tacos we picked up (Very Irish of us, yes.)

Sunday we got to run a ton of errands-fun ones though, like buying him new Sperry's, me new sweatpants, and a couple birthday gifts.  I also got this shirt from GAP, which I love and can't wait to wear!  It's part of my "wear less black" project.  We also got some new books to read, including World War Z, The Town, and I got a macaron baking book, to start on an item from my 30 for 30!  We went to IKEA too, which was "fun" as usual. But I did get some really cool 4x6 prints that I want to use in a future project (not sure what that will be yet...)