Pictures from the weekend

Well, I'm back from a little blogging break. No worries, nothing was/is wrong...it was just a combination of feeling kind of uninspired, writing-wise and being busy and not feeling like coming home after a long day (of writing) and writing more. I decided I'd rather hold off on blogging a bit instead of forcing myself to pound out a bunch of crappy posts. I missed writing though, and honestly I like having a place to document my day to day life to look back on...so I might not post quite as much as I had been, but hopefully my posts will be better quality since I'm not going to pressure myself to write on a schedule.

Anyway, I thought I'd ease myself back in with some pictures from this weekend.

Some fresh flowers to get me into a springy state of mind (even if it's still freezing and wintry outside)

My dinner Friday night was a strawberry tartine with marcarpone and honey, inspired by Joy's post on  Cup of Jo (really pushing that spring thing).

This would be...MY ENGAGEMENT RING!! Yep, Jeff proposed to me on Saturday evening. It was such a fun evening, leading to a funny, imperfect, sweet proposal. It was 100% us and couldn't have been more perfect. It hasn't really hit me yet I don't think, but every once in a while I'll get a rush of excitement...we've been together forever, but now I OFFICIALLY get to spend the rest of my life with my very best friend. I'm over the moon. 

A little celebration brunch Sunday morning

Our dining room on a snowy afternoon.

Lazy Sunday latte.

Thanks for hanging out while I went MIA. I promise not to yap about wedding planning 24/7 (I don't even know where to start), and hopefully I'll be more inspired once it starts warming up and I thaw out a bit.

Pictures from the Weekend

Enjoying some tasty mulled wine and a bottle of red at a local winery's winterfest.

How cool and intricate is this ice sculpture?

My friend Amber desperately wanted to ask this guy if she could take a turn with the chainsaw. I talked her out of it, because I'm a BUZZkill (pun intended).

Despite being chilly, it was the perfect day to hang outdoors, and it was nice to get some fresh air in the middle of January.

So many food trucks! We shared french fries and fried cheese curds, being the pillars of health and nutrition that we are.

 Wine tasting amongst all the cool wine-making equipment (wine-making is a technical term).

I bought this Chile Honey from a vendor at the fest, and it's crazy delicious. I plan to use it on everything.

Jeff's friend Steve came up from DC to meet us for dinner Saturday night, and after dinner we headed back to our house to enjoy some drinks and conversation.

At long last, my beautiful new lady. Yep, I've decided she's a girl...no name yet, you don't want to rush such important things. She's a 2012 Volkswagen Passat, and I love her very much. I think we'll be very happy together. It was pretty emotional watching the nice guy at the dealership drive off in my poor old Altima (who was a dude, in case you were wondering)...we've been through a lot! A lot of server car-naps were taken in that guy. But they'll fix him up nice and he'll be happy with whatever new adventure awaits him.

I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend. Mine was pretty great, albeit activity packed! My busy January continues tonight - we're meeting some good friends for dinner and a couple drinks, and I'm going to try to squeeze in doing my taxes beforehand (right nowish). So far my plan of fending off the winter blues by packing the month of January with activities has been working, and I'm finally going to get back to the gym starting tomorrow, so that should help too. Off to do those taxes - wish me luck!

Pictures from the Weekend

Here are some pictures I snapped on my phone over the weekend...

I woke up to this adorable little setup the morning of my birthday. Our small kitchen glasses have been breaking in our dishwasher, so Jeff went to great lengths to find the exact same glasses we had purchased years ago. The 7up is to feed our Christmas tree!

Dinner and drinks on my birthday with a couple of my favorite ladies.

Our mini-trip to Philadelphia started with a stroll through Old City and a coffee break to kill time before dinner.

I always know I'm lucky to have scored such a great fella to share my life with, but lately there's just something about this guy that's made me feel like I lucked out extra hard. He made sure that my 30th birthday weekend was one for the books.

We went to Zahav for my birthday - it's an Israeli restaurant with a Tapas-style small plate setup, and the entire meal was amazing, but I felt self conscious taking pictures of the food. The only one I snapped was of dessert - I felt like it was more acceptable because of the candle? Anyway, Brown butter ice cream = holy crap.

The Lodge at Winterfest - a big heated tent that looks like Pinterest threw up all over it (in a good way, though!) with big leather couches and bar stations with seasonal beer and spiked hot cider. This place was pretty magical, and I'd like to live here.

Winterfest is located at Penn's Landing in Philly, which is right on the waterfront, and they have a big ice rink set up right on the edge of the river, Rockefeller Center style. Even though it was after 10 PM, there were tons of families with children around and everyone was extremely happy and friendly. If you're in the area, I highly recommend stopping by, especially if you have children.

The porch of the Lodge, with rocking chairs and big cozy flannel blankets

Jeff and I were awkwardly trying to take a picture of ourselves in front of this tree, and this guy came up to us and told us his girlfriend had noticed us struggling and sent him over to help. Ha! Thanks, guy!

On our stroll back to the hotel...it was miraculously not so freezing that I wanted to curl into a ball and cry, which is rare. 

We ended the weekend with a quick trip to Reading Terminal Market Sunday morning to do some browsing. My mom had seen Dinic's famous roast pork sandwiches on some show and hasn't stopped talking about it since, so she would have killed me if I didn't stop. The sacrifices we make for family, right?! (We may or may not have also stopped for coffee and fresh beignets at a cajun restaurant.)

Tales From the Weekend

How was your guys' Halloween?

Mine was great. In my usual need to be loved by all, I put together a phenomenal candy bowl brimming with full sized candy bars AND Reese's pumpkins (because we all know the holiday shape Reese's are the best Reese's) AND sour skittles, and then got drunk watching Jeopardy. We ended up getting ONE set of Trick-or-Treaters, two little boys who appeared to be about five or six and what I'm guessing was their older sister who said that there was an additional little girl sleeping in her stroller in the driveway. It was getting toward the end of the night, so I shouted, "Take as much as you want!" and cackled gleefully as the little boys each snagged about three big candy bars and handfuls of Reese's and Skittles. It was pretty great. I blame the fact that our driveway is pretty long, we're across the street from a school, and our "this house may be abandoned and is DEFINITELY actually haunted with real ghosts" curb appeal vibe on the lack of kiddos, but I'll continue to spend way too much money on candy in my desire to be the good house. JUST LOVE ME OKAY?

Saturday I hosted a get-together for the co-workers that started at the same time as me last year - it was our one year anniversary on October 28th. If you know me, you know I'll take any excuse to put together a cheese plate and get drunk in my own house surrounded by people who've come to ME. I also realize that this post makes me sound like a raging alcoholic (if you weren't already convinced by that Italian Festival post from two years or whatever ago), but I've actually gotten to the point where I get sufficiently buzzed off of two beers (two higher alcohol content craft beers, but still), which is awesome because cheap date! But, yeah. We may or may not have broken out the old flip-cup table. Who's turning 30 in a month? Psh.

I'm gonna go eat some of that leftover cheese. Hope you all had a great Halloweekend!