Meal Planning Ugh

Chris and I both really enjoy cooking. However, meal planning...not so much. It is always "What do you want for dinner?" "I don't know. What do you want?"

I keep telling myself that I am going to get better at this. I have tried several different things. We have a white board on the wall to keep track of meals...it has been known to keep the same meal plan for a month or so at a time. I even created a separate G-Cal for menu planning. But I never check my G-Cal, so that didn't work.

So...I'm going to attempt to blog it. This may be the only meal planning post ever. But who knows, maybe it will be my meal-planning savior. We shall see. Yeah, I procrastinated doing this for 2 hours.

Meals for the week of April 25 - May 2

Sunday: Mushroom Barley Soup

Monday: Tomato & Fresh Mozzarella Panini w/ Strawberry-Spinach Salad

Tuesday: Cheesy Chicken, Wild Rice, & Peas

Wednesday: Bean Burritos

Thursday: Pork Tenderloin w/ Baked Sweet Potatoes

Friday: Roasted Veggies w/ Chickpeas & Goat Cheese

Saturday: Freebie! Dinner with the Pattersons somewhere in the City

My Parents Visit!

My mom and dad came to visit over Easter weekend and we had a wonderful time! The weather was beautiful for once, although they were a bit disappointed to be leaving the 90 degree weather in SC.

On Saturday we ate at Grimaldi's and wandered about the new Brooklyn Bridge Pier 1 Park that just opened. That night we went to see a Behanding in Spokane, which I have to say I would definitely NOT recommend, but it was fun to see Christopher Walken at least.

Sunday we went to Easter services at Redeemer and then to the Easter bonnet parade on 5th Avenue. We ate very well Sunday...Hill Country BBQ for lunch and Enzo's for dinner. Mmmm Enzo's.

Monday we spent about 2 hours walking around Central Park, which was beautiful because everything had just started to bloom. Then we met Chris in Bryant Park and ate lunch in the park.

It was such a nice visit and I'm so glad that they decided to come back to NY!

Poor Panda

Today I was assigned the wonderful task of taking pictures in Lower Manhattan for work. I decided to give my legs a little rest and sat down on a bench in Battery Park. It was then that I witnessed this hilarity. The video is a bit small, but basically this kid comes up, hits the panda, runs around the statue, then comes back and makes some kind of ridiculous face. Poor panda.

Happy Birthday from John Stamos

For my 25th birthday, to ease the pain of the quarter-life crisis, Chris took me to see the Broadway play Bye Bye Birdie starring John Stamos. Like every other girl I know, I am a huge fan of John Stamos, going back to the Full House days. So, of course I was thrilled. The play was so fun and lighthearted and was a perfect end to the week. We were lucky we were able to see BBB, as it closed the following Sunday. Plus, we had great seats near the center of the theatre in about the fourth row.

After the play, Chris had the fabulous idea of going to the stage door to see if we could sneak a glimpse of John (Chris is such a great husband). We had to wait for about an hour, but he eventually came out and said hello, signed autographs, and whatnot. I told him something cheesy like "Thanks for making my birthday special." He looked at me and then yelled "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" He asked how old I was, and when I told him 25, he was like wow you look so young! It definitely helped to ease the pain of a quarter-life-crisis to hear that from John Stamos!

So thanks Chris for giving me the gift of Uncle Jesse :)

 

Two Months of Catch-Up

Two months have passed since I have updated this blog. So much has happened in that time: Thanksgiving, a trip to Boston, a great big blizzard, Christmas, New Years, and a ski trip. I simply cannot go back and blog about it all...so here it is, in eleven sentences.

1)The leaves in Prospect Park and all over the City turned happy shades of yellow and orange.

2)We flew home to South Carolina, ate turkey, spent time with friends and family, went shopping really early in the morning, and watched the Clemson/Carolina game.

3)We took a weekend trip to Boston with Russell and Renee in which we enjoyed walking around the historic city, sampling some cheese and tea, eating at the delicious Flour cafe, slushing through the snow, and spending time with great friends.

4)I did lots of Christmas shopping in the City including this trip to Grand Central and Penzey's.

5)All of the little lights in New York City were sparkling for Christmas.

6)Chris, Scott, Nicki, and I fell victim to the New York thing and went to see the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall, which was...spectacular!

7)We said goodbye to our favorite German friend, Adrian.

8)And on the same night, we experienced our first blizzard in NYC...12 inches of snow in one night.

9)We flew back to South Carolina for Christmas to spend quality time with family relaxing, indulging in great food, playing Wii, fishing, and just having a generally great time.

10) We drove up to Greenville to see some dear friends from college.

11)We rang in the New Year with friends in Banner Elk, North Carolina where we were able to catch up with dear friends, attempt to snowboard, test out our new photography skills, break Andy's car, and avoid getting frostbite.

Holiday Shops at Bryant Park

Today was a pretty nice day for November...the temperature was in the mid 60s. And since Chris had a lot of school work that he needed to do, I decided to go into Manhattan and do a little Christmas window-shopping. Per Chris's suggestion, I headed to the holiday shops at Bryant Park. Seriously the most versatile park I've ever known, Bryant park becomes this winter-shopping-wonderland in the months of November and December. The ice skating rink is situated in the middle of the park with around 100 individual shops in greenhouse-esque buildings. The normal things to love about Bryant Park - Wichcraft, seating, ping pong etc. - are all still there as well. I had a lovely time browsing the shops and then grabbed some tomato soup and a goat cheese sandwich from Wichcraft, and sat and watched people ice skate. I'm really ready for Christmastime in the City now!!!

It Really Is a Small World, After All

Two things happened this weekend that made me realize what a small and crazy world we live in. Sunday morning, Chris and I went to church at Redeemer on the upper east side. It's a pretty huge church that has multiple services and this particular service meets in a large auditorium at Hunter College. Well we sat next to this couple and came to find out that they were visiting from North Carolina, grew up in SC, and went to Clemson. Then, it turns out that the people they were staying with live in our neighborhood in Brooklyn and also went to Clemson. What?! So crazy!

The second thing happened as a result of reading the Brownstoner blog, a blog that has a reputation for reporting on all things Brooklyn. They posted about a family who recently launched a blog documenting the renovation of a Victorian style house on Albemarle. When I saw pictures of the street I thought that surely that can't be so close, just south of Prospect Park. It also got me feeling guilty that I had never ventured to that neighborhood. There are so many parts of New York City - so many parts of Brooklyn - that we have never explored and probably won't ever get the chance to. So, partly feeling guilty of not knowing my own community and partly doubting that such a place existed so close to my neighborhood, I decided to go on an adventure. It was a beautiful, 65 degree day, perfect for a walk. It took me about 25 minutes, and sure enough, there is a whole neighborhood full of BEAUTIFUL, huge, victorian style houses. It absolutely blew my mind. The neighborhood is called Prospect Park South and was planned in 1899 to be a "country in the city." Amazing. I can't get over how this exists so close to us.

On the way, I passed the corner of Windsor Place and Terrace Place, so of course I had to get a picture! I heart Windsor Terrace!