Weekend Recap

What a full and busy weekend! And so totally just what I needed.


Friday I got off work a little early, and went home to paint. I taped the rest of the trim in the living room and kitchen and got a first coat of paint on that trim. Mike got home around 6 and we grilled some steaks I purchased from Paulina Meat Market.I'd never been there, but the steaks were AWESOME and they had a cute little gourmet grocery. They had a lot of premade foods that looked yummy - fresh pastas, brisket, mac & cheese, chicken pot pies, etc. Plus they had a bunch of fun gourmet foods and sauces. I'll definitely have to go back and get more steaks and try something new each time. This time I got a bottle steak seasoning herbs and spices - it had salt, pepper, garlic, chives, and some other stuff in it. I used this on my steak and it was so good - once I completed my little steak trick of rubbing some butter on it and then letting it rest for a minute or two, the steak was by far one of the better ones I have had, period, let alone at my own home! A lot of restaurants do the butter trick, it makes any steak about twice as good!


After dinner we had some drinks out on the patio with our neighbor Joel. This is becoming a habit and one of our favorite things to do - Joel is animated, fun, and smart, and hanging out on the patio you see all the comings and goings of the condo building. It's lots of fun.

After drinks we took Milly for a walk and stopped by Mike's friend Carl's place. He lives right on Sheffield and it was balmy (high 70's) and very windy, and the guys were having fun sundress-watching.

Saturday was SUPER busy but just what I needed - a whole lot of fun social time. I got up and ran a 5K with my friend Stacy (although RUN wouldn't really maybe be the word I would use to describe it... Stacy is FAST so I think a better description would be "huffed and puffed, then made Stacy walk for a very long time."). The run was for colon cancer and was called "Get your rear in gear." The organizers had great fun making everyone chant out words that alot of people don't like such as "COLON!" and "RECTUM!" before the run. Stacy and I would have been laughing had it not been POURING rain at that time. Luckily the rain tapered off and we got the run in without getting totally soaked.

I hit up brunch on Saturday with Jessica at Southport Grocery. They call themselves a grocery and cafe - but it honestly tilted a bit more toward cafe. There were like four shelves of gourmet fixin's between the tables and the checkout. The stuff they had was cool, but it was definitely more restaurant than combo! The food did not disappoint. I had an egg-white omelette with ham, leeks, and mushrooms and swapped out their red potato mash for a salad of field greens. I was glad I swapped out for the salad, because I was very full from the omelette. It was by far the most filling egg white omelette I have ever had. I did have a small snack around 5:30, but I wasn't even that hungry around that time, I was just more worried I wouldn't make it until 8:15 dinner reservations without being starving! We also split a chocolate cupcake for dessert. It was great - super light and fluffy and the buttercream was sweet enough to get my sweet tooth fix in but not too rich.

We shopped a bit after brunch, and I found a sweet new green handbag at Nevermind on Belmont. So the handbag search ends, and I am in love with my new spring bag! I headed down to Emily's in west loop and helped her dip some cupcake pops (not pops, didn't have sticks, but same idea), then headed to drinks with my gals. Mike picked me up from there to hit up Terragusto. This place was good, but I don't know if we would go back. They had a pretty small menu and alot of the stuff was either super fancy or "chef's choice." There wasn't a whole lot that Mike felt comfortable ordering as he is a super picky eater. As an aside, I know that "chef's choice" items give the chef all kinds of creative freedom, and that's great, but I think it's a slight disservice to the diner. Not everyone (most people!) don't like EVERYTHING and it should be the chef's goal to please the customer - not to just create create create. If the person doesn't like something the chef chooses it's all kind of moot - they're not going to be likely to recommend the place or dine there again for fear of getting the same thing again. So anyways, it was good and we very much liked the food we had (Mike had the 4 cheese ravioli and I had the gnocchi with brussel sprout leaves and shrimp) but our top Italian food choice still has to be La Gondola. Sorry Terragusto, La Gondola still rocks our socks more!

After dinner we met my brother and his girlfriend and her mom up for a beer and then went home and hit the hay. The beagle was in top form behavior all wekeend with Mike around (v. cute and cuddly), and this I very much appreciated... she was a TOTAL punk last week.

Sunday I put a second coat on the trim in the living room, second coat on the stairwell and upstairs hallway (yeah, that took me three hours), took the tape off the trim downstairs, moved the furniture back in, vacuumed a bit, and made chocolate chip cookies. Another steak dinner (this time with sweet potato fries, YUM) and the last few episodes of Generation Kill topped off a great weekend.

Super busy, but just the right mix of accomplishing, social time, and Mike time. Well, I could always have more Mike time, but I stayed out of his hair so that he could study. He has a test on Friday, so excited to have it out of the way. Let's hope he passes!!