Last week at a glance

A few pictures from the past week:


Roux ruling over her roost.


Mom picked up our wedding registry from Gift and Art. It's currently living on a bookcase next to a picture of Bryan and I.


We pulled out our Mardi Gras decorations.


My small poinsetta at work is just barely hanging on.


Loot from Bryan's trip to Lousiana.


Grizz game. Grizz defeated Golden State Warriors.


Me and my Jenna.


King cake


Bryan had been thinking about getting a pipe for a few months. We stopped in the Tobacco Corner and learned all about them.




Squirrel???

Pop Up Food Stop

One of the things on my culinary to-do list this year is to eat at Iris. When I heard that Kelly English would be cooking at City Grocery's pop up restaurant I knew we needed to try to make the drive.

Saturday we met my parents in Oxford for the meal. First we did a little shopping on the square (yay, new shoes!) before getting lost in Oxford.

We ordered nearly every item on the menu. It was awesome.

My favorites were the oyster wontons and shrimp remoulade. The remoulade was probably the best I've ever had. Yum!

The struggle between busy and lazy

Recently I've found myself struggling with a balance of busy and lazy. I tend to think of myself as lazy by nature. I love being lazy. There is nothing more that I love than just lolling about for long expanses of time. But lately I've found myself driven by to-do lists that I haven't found much time for being lazy. And I feel guilty because of that. Does that even make sense?

Okay, so here's a typical weekend. Friday at work I start working on my to-do list for the weekend. Getting it all written down and organized. (I like Google Tasks and so I'll put them in the calendar and print the first page only, because right now if I printed out all my tasks it would be 18 pages. I can't make this up.) I print it out at work and bring it home. I love the look of these fresh, crisp clean page ready to be marked up and crossed off.

If Bryan is out of town or coming back from a trip or even just working til 6 at Breakaway I try to get a few small things done so that we don't have as much to do over the weekend. (Another thing I feel guilty about: ruining Bryan's weekend with to-do lists.) Last night in the hour before Bryan got home from Alabama I cleaned the bathroom, washed towels, unloaded the dishwasher and loaded it again, changed a light bulb,  and started cleaning some blinds.

Saturday morning rolls around and I enjoy some quiet time sipping my coffee while Bryan runs. This is my time to relax and re-charge before starting the list. And here is where the struggle really starts. I want to have a nice, carefree fun weekend, but I can't if there are tasks looming over me that need to get done. Those paint cans aren't going to get in the basement by themselves and that tree is not going to undecorate itself. (Yes, it's still up. Stop judging me.) It's also a struggle between Bryan and I. He likes to be lazy after his run, but that's my peak time to get stuff done. If I can knock out a bunch of stuff before lunch I'm usually pretty happy with myself, but sometimes I work too hard and find that I'm totally spent and a complete bum the rest of the day.

I don't know if there is a real answer to these struggles, but I wanted to put it other there. Anyone else struggle about nature vs. getting-stuff-done?

Fave Photos from Jan 2013

146 pictures were taken and saved so far in 2013. Ridiculous. Only no. I love capturing our daily lives and I love that Bryan likes to pick up the camera and snap some too.

Here are my top 5 photos taken during January 2013

Bevin's Birthday Party

Bevin turned the big 4-0 and we went over to celebrate. Genevieve did a magic show, Giselle was the MC.

Weekend Recap

I have time and feel like writing, so today you are going to get a weekend recap. Aren't you lucky?

Bryan got home from his week in SLC just before 9 pm. It was so nice to finally have him home. 4 days is too long. TOO LONG, Bryan.

Saturday morning Bryan went for a late run. We had a few errands to run which included: home improvement store, library (Bryan got a library card!), lunch at Pho Saigon (yummy!), and a trip to the grocery store. I made our weekly meal plan and grocery list a day early so that we could relax on Sunday.

We enjoyed a pretty lazy afternoon. We did a few things around the house or in the yard, but mostly we just sat around, read, or talked. It was nice. Normally we have tons of chores on Saturdays, but I tried to kick butt, er, do a bunch of chores during the week so that we wouldn't have as much to do this weekend. I'm nice like that.

Friday was Bevin's birthday so we all gathered at Bevin and Jamie's house Saturday night to celebrate. I took photos. There will be another post with those.

Sunday Bryan got up for a run and I enjoyed a quiet morning reading and drinking coffee with the girls. We went to Redeemer for church because Sandy Wilson was preaching. It was excellent. We came home (yay, Bryan didn't have to work!) and I prepared homemade stromboli. There are few things in life that make me feel like I'm winning at life, homemade pizza dough is one of them. After lunch we took Roux to the dog park to run around.

I purchased Grizz tickets on impulse earlier in the week so we headed downtown to pre-game on Beale. Okay, so it wasn't really that glamorous, we got a beer at the Beale Street Tap Room. Unfortunately the Grizz lost to the Hornets, but it was still fun to be there. We followed up the game with beer and snacks at SOB.

It was so nice to have Bryan around the whole weekend and to have some time to have some fun. Sunday night I woke up and for a split second pondered what we'd do the next day before realizing that the next day was Monday and that meant going back to work. I think that's a good sign of doing the weekend right. When you forget about Monday.

The Need to Grow

About this time every year I start getting the itch to grow something. I throw myself into garden prep, research, buying too many seeds or starter plants, etc. I've seen a lot of beautiful succulent gardens on the blogs the last few months and I decided that maybe this would be my temporary fix. I've already purchased my seeds and planned my garden for this coming season. Last weekend I cleaned up some of the beds and tilled the soil. (I still have two more beds to go, but I'm saving those for a spring like day.)

So Saturday my mission was to purchase succulents and make a cute little arrangment (or two or three) using pots that I already have. Because Lord knows I have enough. Just ask my husband. Unfortunately the home improvment store we chose to go to did not have any. I guess it makes sense. They are making room for spring/summer plants. Probably no one else wants an indoor plant right now, except me. Oh well. It was not to be. Maybe next winter, succulent garden. Maybe next year.