Not Your Average Joe’s – Burpees to Bubbly

Hey there! Has everyone cooled done a bit? I’ll tell ya, working from home on a Monday is ALMOST as nice as working from home on a Friday! There’s something about not having to do food prep and “week prep” on a Sunday night, especially after coming home from Maine, that is SO nice. Sunday evenings are drastically better when that’s the case.

Friday

My friend, Cristina, hosted a Lupus Fundraising event at Tia’s on Friday night after work. With the weather temps at over 90 degrees, I couldn’t think of a more perfect place to spent a Friday evening!

Not only did I get to hang out with my college girlfriends, but my friend, Stephanie, was also there! Steph and I went to the same high school and used to Rollerblade down Main street in Sanford in the summers. #classy

The whole time we were at Tia’s, we were checking our phones since we knew Sara was most likely going to have little Zeke at some point that night. Sure enough, around 8:30, we got THE text from Amy that we had been waiting for! Baby Zeke Aronson White was born!!!! And boy was he beautiful! I think Danielle and I made everyone at Tia’s cheers to baby Zeke! We are proud “Aunts” of this little boy 🙂

Saturday

I got up and packed an overnight bag since Danielle and I were going to head up to Maine right from the YMCA after my class. Class was sweaty and awesome, but to be honest, my mind was TOTALLY focused on going home to meet Zeke that I can barely even remember what I taught! I hope everyone liked it, though 🙂

We got to Sanford around 1:15 and drove straight to the hospital. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking, but I will say that Zeke is the most beautiful little boy and has a wholeeeee lot of people who are already so in love with him! Sara looked like a beaming mom and it was so sweet to see her interacting with Zeke. She was in labor for about 20 hours with unreal contractions and the kicker was that she couldn’t get the epidural 😦 Sara was fully on board with getting one, too, but things moved so quickly once they broke her water that it was too late to give her the epidural. Poor thing! I can’t imagine how tired and physically beat she was. Anyway, here he is!

(mom and baby! I had Sara send me a pic of her with Zeke when I was writing up this post since I realized I only had pictures of Zeke being held by other people… we were baby hogs!)

(and then she sent me this! I wonder what he is dreaming about that makes him smile?!)

We stayed at the hospital with Sara until about 5pm when we decided to give her and Tim some time to themselves. Once we got home we had a really nice cocktail hour on the back patio with mom and dad.

Not long after we poured drinks, Amy and Chris stopped by to do more baby gushing and celebrating!

We all decided it was too hot to BBQ or cook, so we ordered food from the Corner Store (literally right next door) and called it good. While it tasted delicious, I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst stomach ache 😦 Such a fun, impromptu little get together, though! Sara, congratulations on your new little baby boy. I cannot wait to spend so much time with both of you and to be able to watch him grow up!

Sunday

I woke up early (I mean, I was in bed at 10pm, so no wonder why I was up early!) and decided to go visit my very good high school friend, Caitlin. She was due to have her little baby boy on June 1st, but he decided he wasn’t ready to come out quite yet! As I was leaving the driveway, I caught a glimpse of the huge snapping turtle who crosses our lawn each year to get from the brook behind our house to the pond across the street in order to lay her eggs. She was HUGE!

Anyway! For Caitlin’s sake, I hope he decides to grace the world with his presence sooner rather than later! I hadn’t seen Cait in far, far too long, but like always, as soon as we get together, it’s like nothing has changed; the true sign of friendship! She is the most adorable little pregnant lady (she literally just has a basket ball belly!) and I am so bummed I didn’t get a picture of her. Can’t wait to meet her little one!

When I got home from my visit, Dad and Danielle had already done all the potato planting.. bummer! Since there was nothing else to do to help around the house, we took advantage of the sunny (but HOT) weather and sun bathed on the back patio.

We decided to hit the road relatively early so that we could go grocery shopping and unpack and grab dinner (since it was too hot to cook). We walked to the grocery store (about a 1/2 mile away) to get a little exercise since we did nothing all day but relax in the sun! For dinner, we kept it casual and grabbed apps at Not Your Average Joes. I got their special “Strawberry Rhubarb Sangria” which was SO SO SO delicious! And BIG! Look at this thing!

I got the Tai Chicken Lettuce Wraps for dinner and they were quite tasty.

Filling, but in a light way.. perfect for hot weather!

Well, there ya go! Fun-filled weekend surrounded by friends, family and a new baby!

Questions for you: What did you do to stay cool last weekend? Favorite summer cocktail? Any new babies in your lives? Do share!

**edited to add- As I posted on Facebook yesterday, I had this post all ready to go up yesterday, but after Monday’s horrific events in Boston, I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it, so I ended up doing my best to avoid social media all together. I realize for most people, this was a source of comfort and way to express emotions and connect, but I really just had to step away for some time. To all my readers out there, I hope everyone is safe and that your friends and family are safe as well. The texts, emails and phone calls I received to make sure I was safe were overwhelming. I was, and am, safe and am fortunate that all of my friends who were at the marathon are safe as well. Boston is the strongest city around, so I know we will overcome this.

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I’m not the best with words or transitions, and am not even really sure how to segway into my original post, but here goes nothing…

Hey everyone! How’s it going? I swear the birthday talk and posts are almost done:) Even though I nursed an awful headache all morning, I pulled myself together to go out for a birthday lunch. I had really wanted to go to Local 149 in Southie, but since I knew my patience was low, I opted to avoid the parking and probable lines and suggested that we go to Not Your Average Joe’s right near us in Medford. The greasy food and fountain soda did the trick. I felt a million times better not long after we got there!

Yes, all 3 of those drinks are mine. I needed a lot of liquid and wasn’t sure what was going to do the trick so I went for a variety: booze, soda, water. The Diet Pepsi did the trick! My sister’s recent hangover cure is a milkshake, so we swung through McDonald’s after lunch and I just had to get myself a sundae! I’ll tell ya, I felt human again after these! So much so, that I was able to come home, pick up around the house and clean my room! boom! Take that, hangover;)

I got a pleasant interruption midway through the afternoon. MORE birthday flowers… AND chocolate covered strawberries. I am a lucky girl!

Rachel stopped by a little while later and it was fun catching up, hashing & rehashing, and playing with Millie (her sweet pup!).

After Rachel left, I started to make a healthy dinner to try to redeem my not so healthy lunch (I don’t regret any of it, though! It was just what the doctor ordered.). I stocked up on a bunch of veggies at the grocery store because I was not sure what I was going to be in the mood to make on Sunday night. I took my mom’s tip and sautéed up a huge batch of veggies (EVOO, wine, garlic, seasonings) to have handy for the week. I also had a few chicken sausage links leftover from when I made my Chicken Sausage & Veggie Sauce Spaghetti Meal, so I also cooked up some of those. To accompany the chicken sausage and veggies, I made a batch of quinoa/brown rice blend (love this stuff!).

I probably cooked about 3/4 cup of each veggie, few dashes of wine and garlic, and a few shakes of different herbs/seasonings and let everything simmer for about 30 minutes on med/low heat.

When the veggies were about halfway done, I started my quinoa and chicken sausage.

Once everything was cooked, I placed some veggies in a bowl, topped with chicken sausage and goat cheese and gave myself a serving of quinoa. I wasn’t sure what to use for a sauce for the veggies and chicken sausage, but out of sheer laziness, I settled on using a little marinara sauce which was actually a pretty good idea!

Yum! This meal was so warm and comforting. And it was really very easy! I packed up all the leftovers and am excited to have a bunch of nice veggies and quinoa handy for meals throughout the week. If any of you have any ideas/suggestions for how I can use these in a meal this week, please share! I also have a sweet potato that I want to do something with, too, as well as a spaghetti squash. So many options!

Questions for you: What was a memorable meal from the weekend? Do you like to “stock up” on foods so you can have quick and easy meals during the week?