A lazy fall weekend

Hello dear readers!  It is starting to feel more and more like fall here in DC, and, appropriately, I christened my beloved jewel tone purple winter coat today.  While I am a complete baby when it comes to cold weathe, it always makes me so happy to break that coat out of my closet!

After yet another draining week, I was in serious need of some relaxation and quality time with the people I love, and this weekend was perfect in that respect.  On Friday night, Dan and I got takeout pizza from, you guessed it, Mellow Mushroom (we just can't help ourselves, but I'm starting to get self-conscious whenever I walk in there to retrieve our pizza, because the.same.people.are.always.working.there.  I can almost smell their judgment.  Oh well, not apologizing!).  We kicked back and enjoyed some 24/7 Pens/Caps Winter Classic footage (with hockey apparently being shelved, at least for part of the season, we have to get some hockey in any way we can, and, even though I'm a somewhat recently-indoctrinated Pens fan, I was like a giddy little kid watching this footage.  Seriously).  Anyway, the combination of being an old lady and being exhausted from my week had me conked out at, oh, roughly 11:30. 

We had ourselves a little jog on Saturday morning.  Dan ran part of the way with me and then, in the interest of continuing his responsible recovery, turned around and went back home.  I had a nice run downtown, and enjoyed the crisp fall morning, other than the part of the run that had me running across bridges, because it was WINDY!  Then, we went to NY Bagel in Courthouse, where we had been once before, because we were both in the mood for bagels for breakfast.  There, completely randomly, we ran into Dan's cousin, who I hadn't met before and who had returned from business in India the night before.  He actually lives in Baltimore, but, due to a series of airline misfortunes, he ended up crashing with friends in DC.  It never ceases to blow my mind how small this city is, and that is one of the things I love most about it :)

I am not at all lying when I say that we did absolutely NOTHING during the day on Saturday.  We debated going out and doing something...and then thought better of it.  Then, we met up with my parents for dinner at Grillfish, which was, as usual, delicious.  I think I mentioned last week that we were going to be meeting up with my cousin and her family for dinner on Saturday night, but that ended up not happening.  They had only a half-tank of gas, and, coming from Manhattan post-Hurricane Sandy, worried that they would not be able to make it far enough into New Jersey to reach a gas station that still had gas.  Totally legitimate reason, especially given that they have two little kids and my cousin is preggo with #3.  They rescheduled their trip for two weeks from now, though, so I look forward to seeing them then!

After dinner, we met up with Goran and Nicole, as well as some other friends, at Churchkey.  We told them to meet us at 9, because I remembered it getting crowded.  I didn't anticipate that, upon arriving shortly before 9, it would already be packed!  What an early-arriving crowd!  We were somehow able to piece together a table and enough chairs to fit all of us, and it was a really nice time.  Dan and I had been to Birch & Barley downstairs for his bday last year, and I had been upstairs for drinks once, but it was nice to go back, since it is such a DC institution.

I would like to say that we used Daylight Savings Time to get some extra sleep...but I was wide awake at 7:30. WOMP.  We lazed around for a bit, and then I headed out to brunch with some girlfriends at Ben's Next Door on U Street.  Definitely not the most exciting brunch I've ever had in terms of food, but it did fill me up!  A group of us walked around a bit afterwards and I luckily managed to restrain myself in Anthro.  With holiday shopping already on my mind, I am trying to limit frivolous purchases.  But Lauren, Jen and I did go to a movie afterward, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (the new Emma Watson movie).  Such a heartbreaking movie, but so well-done.  Also, it was shot in Pittsburgh, so I was so excited to see shots of the city that I am somewhat familiar with! I made sure to text Dan and tell him how prominently his hometown was featured.

Looking ahead at this week, I'm excited for a Lake Family dinner tonight at Tombs.  These crazy kids are so busy this semester (okay, I guess I've been busy too) that we haven't had a chance to all get together.  I'm super excited to see them all!  I have to confess that I'm incredibly nervous for Election Day tomorrow.  Despite the fact that my vote doesn't count (damn DC), I'm planning on hitting the polls early tomorrow, and am hoping for the best, because the polls are too close for comfort right now.  I'm worried...hopefully my next post will be a happy one!

Just Another Manic Monday

Happy Monday, dear readers! Time for my standard Monday post.  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  Mine was really nice, filled with lots of time with Dan, family and friends.

On Friday night, I raced to Safeway to grab some ingredients for my first pie of the summer (blueberry-raspberry-cherry crumb pie, so easy that a child could make it!).  I had time to scarf down dinner and put my pie in the oven by the time that Dan got to my place. We spent lots of time chatting, and then settled in to watch Remember the Titans, a favorite for both of us (fun fact: my mom went to T.C. Williams High!).  We both remarked that it was the first time we had watched the movie since becoming more familiar with the D.C. area, and, thus, the school and city names for the Titans' opponents sounded much more familiar.  It's kind of cool to hear shout-outs to your area :)  One thing that I love is that we are both 90 year-olds, so we hit the sack relatively early without having to worry that the other was not tired. 

On Saturday morning, we went out for a nice run to Rock Creek Park.  We had done this particular run once in February or so, when it was really still too cold to be running outside.  My fingers felt as though they would fall off and, given how steep the hills were, I had an asthma attack (note: this is what happens pretty much every time I run outside with Dan haha.  I think he is starting to doubt that I have actually completed a half-marathon before).  Even though it was already hot by 9:30 a.m., the hills didn't feel TOO terrible (but that didn't stop me from being completely red-faced at the end.  My personal philosophy is that, if you look cute at the end of a workout, you were not working hard enough.  I have never looked anywhere near cute following a workout, so I suppose that means that I'm doing the right things!).  We kicked back and watched Euro while I made us a nice breakfast of Dynk's pancakes (a Swedish pancake recipe that originated with the Lake crowd and has now become the only pancake recipe that I ever use).  After we were both full of pancakes and showered, we headed over to Dan's so that we could spend a few hours at the pool (I shamelessly mooch off of him for his pool, being that my building does not have one.  Don't worry, it's not one of the primary reasons why I'm with him haha).

Following our time at the pool, we met up with my parents and my aunt and uncle (who were visiting from southern VA) for dinner at Indigo Landing, which is reasonably close to my parents' house.  We had a delicious dinner with good company, and it is always such a joy for me to have the people that I love the most in the same room.  We were able to eat outside, and, being that the restaurant is very close to Reagan, we watched the planes land.  I had some delicious fish and Dan helped me eat my strawberry shortcake dessert, so, all in all, it was a lovely night.  I should also note that I was still basking in the glow all weekend of having booked the Boston trip, so I was in a particularly good mood.  After our early-morning run, draining time lazing by the pool, and a relaxing dinner, we were both on the verge of collapse (seriously, both of our eyes were getting heavy while watching Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals/Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, both of which were of interest to us).

On Sunday morning, we got to have a nice, lazy start, since I wasn't meeting up with friends for brunch until 11 and Dan had a late tee time.  That meant that I had time to watch the first set-and-a-half of the French Open Men's Final and got to instruct Dan on some of the finer points in tennis.  We still have yet to complete our epic tennis showdown ;)  I met up with a great group of girls at Ted's Bulletin (yes, the same place Dan and I had gone not two weeks prior; what can I say, I can't resist the homemade pop tarts!!!).  Afterward, I had a nice lazy Sunday, working out, doing laundry and watching Downton Abbey.  Perfect.

I feel like I'm sounding like a broken record here, but, as usual, I have a busy lineup for this week.  I have three separate evenings scheduled with three lovely girlfriends, and the rest of my weeknights will be spent with Dan.  I think our main priority for tomorrow will be watching the season finale of Mad Men (I am seriously peeved that, after a year-and-a-half-long hiatus, they couldn't churn out a longer season, but that's niether here nor there).  We have an event coming up at work this weekend (we are hosting a conference for one of our partner organizations, so I have spent much of the past two months doing work for the event), so here's hoping that all runs smoothly with that!!!