Category: Girls Night

Weekending: Margarita’s, Birthdays, Puttering…

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Last weekend was so much fun! It was a good mix of social events, fitness and relaxation. I was able to hang out with a number of different groups of people, which was a nice treat.

Friday

Friday night, I got together with some of my gym friends (Athena, Ashley, Jen and Stephanie) at The Painted Burro in Davis Square. I didn’t get a picture of us, but I got a picture of the food and margarita’s, which is just as good, right? 😉

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Have you been to the Painted Burro? Holy crap do they have amazing margaritas AND tacos. I got the zucchini one and the Mahi Mahi one.

Unfortunately, I ended up being double booked on Friday, so I had to leave the girls after dinner to make it into the city by 10 for my friend Keefe’s birthday at The Brahmin. I hadn’t been there since my birthday and was quickly reminded of how much I like it there! It was great to see so many friends from home and I’m happy to report that I only had 1 wine while I was there because I didn’t want to be hung over for kickboxing.

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Saturday

After a sweaty and packed kickboxing class (love having my A team in the front row 🙂 ), I treated myself to a Skinny Chai Tea Latte and shopped around Target, of course buying impulsive treats…

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Since I had absolutely NO food in my apartment and wasn’t about to go grocery shopping on an empty stomach (worst idea ever), I swung by Panera Bread for some soup to warm me up!

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‘Twas a nice little Saturday afternoon 🙂

I was tempted to stay in on Saturday night, but my upstairs neighbor, Lisa, invited me to join her and some friends at the Back Bay Social Club and since I didn’t have any reason not to go (I’m trying to be better about going with the flow and being spontaneous), I took her up on her offer. I quickly made a pizza and got ready. I’ve been doing straight hair a lot lately, but since I didn’t have time, I opted for an up-do. With curly hair, I don’t even have to use a sock or bun maker to make a nice looking bun- I love it!

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Sunday

My first thoughts on Sunday morning: Holy hamstrings! I couldn’t believe how sore they were from kickboxing. Good thing yoga was on the agenda!

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I love Exhale spa SO MUCH. Seriously. The locker room alone is worth the cost of the classes- gorgeous showers, sandals, robes, razors, combs, lotion/gel/hair spray, etc. It’s such a nice treat since I’m so used to crappy gym locker rooms at the Y and the BSC.

The rest of my Sunday flew by, which is always a little disappointing. I changed the sheets on my bed, cleaned, prepped my lunches/salads/snacks for the week, blogged… and next thing I knew it was time to start cooking!

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Yes, that’s the most delicious lasagna- I’ve got to share the recipe with you!

And that’s about it. I finally got to get caught up with writing a bunch of posts that I’ve had drafted for a while, so be on the lookout for some good recipes, workouts and a few other things this week!

Questions for you: Where is your favorite place to do yoga? Where is the best margarita in Boston? Where is your favorite place to go out in Boston?

Friday Things & A 25 Days of Christmas Workout!

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Happy Friday, B2B readers! I hope you’ve had a good week. Mine has been good… let’s catch up quickly!

  • Tuesday- We got so much snow! I went to the post office at 3pm and there was no snow. When I left work at 5:45, there was probably 4 inches. I loved it!

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  • Wednesday- We had a company holiday dinner at The Palm (it’s in the same building as our new office!), but since I was going to a SMC girls Yankee Swap after, I just had wine and a few bites of the passed apps. Dinner at Jessi’s was amazing!! Honey mustard glazed chicken and cheesy mashed potatoes with a side spinach salad. So good! But even better? Getting together with some of my favorite girls. And presents. I love presents.

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I ended up with an Alex and Ani bracelet. It was my first one and I was so excited about it, not to mention the one Nikia chose was perfect for me. Very special!IMG_6131

  • Thursday- I treated myself to Cosi for lunch as I got home a little late on Wednesday night and didn’t have the energy to pack a lunch for myself.

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SO good. Do you guys like Cosi? Their signature salad is absolutely delicious. It was the perfect fuel to teach my Thursday double, which consisted of the following 25 Days of Christmas workout and then kickboxing. It was so fun!

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This workout was awesome. It was a total body workout and I loved that once we did something (besides burpees… there can never be too many burpees 😉 ), we didn’t have to do it again. A bunch of members came up to me and said the same thing, so apparently it was a crowd pleaser! If you’re running short on time, feel free to skip the second round for the various exercises where I wrote “X2 rounds” after the exercise.

**Edited to Add: I was so tired when I was writing this last night that I forgot to say where I got this idea! I was looking through Facebook a while ago and came across this workout and just loved the idea. I took the first few exercises from Aimee’s Fitness Advent Calendar, but the rest were just random ideas I came up with. I also took the chest press & leg lift exercise from Athena, which I learned during her Fall Into Fitness challenge. It’s one of my favorite moves at the moment!

I’m hoping work flies by today because I have after-work drink plans with my sister and my old yoga instructor/friend Alyson, who I love! I think we are going to Granary Tavern, but that hasn’t been confirmed. Saturday will consist of a workout, birthday lunch for my friend Lauren and Sunday will hopefully will be ok weather for the Jingle Bell 5K!

Questions for you: What’s your “go-to” lunch place during the week (if you get lunch out)? Do you have any Alex and Ani bracelets? What are you looking forward to this weekend?

PS- We got new computers for my new company because we finally moved offices and they are tracked a lot more than before, so I haven’t read any blogs this week 😦 I will catch up over the weekend!

Celebrations & Decorating for Christmas

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The past weekend was full of some of my favorite things: birthday celebrations, lots of girl time and decorating for Christmas. Saturday was my sister’s birthday, so Friday night we went out with our closest girlfriends to celebrate both Danielle’s and Amy’s birthdays. It was such a fun night! If you missed my post on Saturday, click here for the recap.

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Saturday morning, I headed to Brighton to teach kickboxing. From there, I ran errands and then met Danielle and Amy for lunch at The Asgard in Central Square. The last time I was there was for Athena’s birthday back in August. The lunch was SO good. seriously we were all gushing about it!

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My first stop of the night was at my friend Lauren’s apartment in Malden. My friend Liz came with me, which was an added bonus! Lauren’s apartment was so cute and festive and they even had a “photo booth” area set up. How fun is that?! I love getting together with my SMC girls.

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Like my skirt? It’s my new sparkle skirt from the Gap and I am obsessed with it!!

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Around 9, Liz and I grabbed a cab and headed to Scholars for Danielle and Amy’s birthday celebrations. I haven’t been OUT OUT in the city in so long.

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We randomly ran into my old yoga instructor, which was SUCH a fun surprise! I love this girl to pieces and hate that I don’t see her every week anymore:(

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Sunday morning I woke up feeling: A. Happy I decided to not have that last drink at the bar and B. happy that I was home by 12:30. I had a full day of errands, so after I relaxed and had breakfast, I got busy! I went to the Christmas Tree Shop, Market Basket and Home Depot and then I spent the afternoon decorating my apartment! Even though it’s only me and my apartment is small, I couldn’t imagine not decorating for Christmas! My tree is small, but it’s perfect for my apartment. I can’t wait to decorate it this week!

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This was exactly what I needed to get me into the spirit! There’s nothing like the feeling of having a freshly cleaned and newly decorated apartment!

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Do you get a real Christmas tree or fake one?

Happy Birthday, Danielle!

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Today is my sisters- gasp- 26th birthday! It’s weird, because I feel like I just turned 26. For those of you who have sisters that you’re close with, I’m sure you totally understand the sister bond. Danielle and I may not get along all the time, but at the end of the day, we are sisters and we always have each others backs.

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Last night, we celebrated her birthday and Amy’s birthday with drinks at the Top of the Hub and dinner at Vlora.

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We lucked out because the skies cleared and we could see the city!

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Nights out with these pretty ladies are my favorite!

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What a fun night! It was a treat to get dressed up for fancy drinks at the Top of the Hub and dinner at Vlora never disappoints. If you like Greek/Mediterranean food, I highly suggest going!

Happiest birthdays to you, Danielle (and Amy!). Here’s to a fantastic year!

Questions for you: Have you ever been to the Top of the Hub or Vlora? Where do you go when it’s a special night out?

Girls Night & Other Weekend Happenings

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What a fun weekend I had! I am loving having some extra free time on the weekends to go out and have fun in Boston, as well as get my apartment more and more settled!

Friday evening, the Shapleigh girls came over for a girls night. I did my best to play “hostess” and set out snacks and drinks.

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Our original plan was to go to Rino’s or Prima e Dopo, but we decided we were having too much fun drinking wine and munching on snacks at my place and didn’t want to leave! So, we ordered pizza which did the trick!

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I’ve lived with all of these ladies at one time or another and we all grew up together (Amy’s sister, Sara, is the last piece of the Shapleigh girls puzzle; she lives in NH so when we go home we make it a point to always get together!) so when we get together, it’s basically like hanging out with 3 sisters. We do stupid stuff like have random dance parties and jump contests. Friday was no different as we had a stretching competition to make fun of Danielle for being so un-flexible!

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Clearly the wine had set in at that point so we called a cab and got ready to head into the city.

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Amy had some friends going to Tia’s so we headed there first. From Tia’s, the plan was to go to The Brahmin, but per usual, the line was crazy long so we hopped over to Red Lantern to have a drink while waiting for the line to go down. I’ve never eaten there, but it’s been on my list of places to go for a while now!

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I think this is where things started to go from casual fun to drunken fun, haha I blame it on Amy’s college friend, Andrew, as he could be a professional partier 😉

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I hadn’t planned on going out and/or drinking wine like it was water, but the nights where you don’t plan on going out and end up going out tend to be the best, right?! Saturday night was no different! Any night with dancing is a good night in my eyes 😉

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Needless to say, I did not feel up to my normal self on Saturday, but I made the best of it! I got new glasses, went to the beach, made pizza, watched half of The Great Gatsby (couldn’t stay awake for the whole thing!) and was in bed by 9:30- regular ol’ crazy Saturday night 😉

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What do you think of my new glasses?? I am totally loving them and it’s fun having something so different than my other 2 pairs! They make me feel smarter, haha.

Sunday I got up and felt so much better so I went for a nice walk to enjoy the weather. I met up with my college friend, Pat, and his wife, Colleen for breakfast at Angelas Café, which is equidistant from both of our apartments. I’m SO excited to have some friends within very close walking distance- it’s going to be so fun 🙂 They also took me for a tour of Eastie and introduced me to another amazing park and ‘must try’ restaurants.

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Beautiful, right?! I’m excited to run there and use the gym that they have in the park- it’s a little area with all sorts of fun things to use as workout tools.

After the tour was complete, I headed back to my apartment to do laundry and hang up pictures and other random new apartment organizing things before my sister came over for a Target and Market Basket run.

I finallllyyy got a normal sized tv! It’s awesome!
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I also got new pillows for my couch! I’m going for a yellow/gray/white color scheme and I found these at Home Goods and couldn’t resist!

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I made Shepherd’s Pie for dinner, which I’ll post for you later this week 🙂

Questions for you: Have you seen the Great Gatsby? What was the best part of your weekend? Do you know of any “must try” restaurants in Eastie that I should add to my list?