Weekending: Moving, moving & more moving

Yup. Moving was the jist of my weekend starting on Thursday night. I keep telling everyone that moving to a new floor in the same building is just as hard, if not harder, than moving to an entirely new building! Instead of packing things up and doing a few big trips, I ended up not packing and just making a million trips up and down the stairs every time I needed something. It was a bad way to go about the move, let me tell you that!

After a few hours of strenuous moving on Thursday night, I had a glass of wine then treated my helpers to pizza and wine from Santarpio’s.

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#prioritiespeople Clearly wine is the first thing that should be in a fridge. Booze helps moving suck less 😉

I hadn’t been to Santarpio’s since my birthday weekend, and boy was I craving it! Per usual, Santarpio’s did not disappoint. Look at these bad boys!

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My parents came down on Friday to help my sister with her stuff (she’s moving in with me for a few months), so I rushed home after work to join the party. I was pleasantly surprised when I walked in and saw this beautiful bouquet of flowers from RM. For those of you who don’t know, he’s actually my landlord and that’s how we met 🙂 Last year, when I was just his tenant, he knew I was nervous about moving and surprised me with a bottle of wine and little note in my fridge. This year, as my boyfriend, he left flowers… I’m a lucky girl!

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I took a quick break for dinner (we ordered from Jeveli’s) and continued working until 8:30.. yuck! It was fun having my parents around, though. Dad broke in my new deck, I toasted to the new apartment and we all indulged on delicious food!

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I didn’t sleep a wink on Friday night, so I was up and making trips up and down the stairs at 7am on Saturday. This wasn’t a good idea before teaching cardio kickboxing! I was such a space cadet in class 😦 and tired- physically really tired!

Once I got back, it was nice to do some more organizing and a few additional trips. My downstairs neighbor, Lauren, came up for wine and snacks later that evening- it was such a fun night! It felt weird to sleep at home by myself on a Saturday night, though… and even more weird to wake up on a Sunday and have a quiet place to myself… I took advantage of it and watched tv and blogged. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve done that! I was even able to eat lunch out on my deck- such a beautiful day.

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The rest of Sunday was spent moving the final pieces of stuff from my old place, cleaning it and doing the last bit of organizing in my new place. I went to Target and picked up some new curtains and a lamp- what do you think of the place so far?

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I finally decided it was time to put together some dinner. Salads have been making me gag lately, so I knew I needed to prep enough food to bring for lunch and eat throughout the week. Since my dad brought me all these veggies, I tried to put them to good use.

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I made a big ol’ batch of roasted veggies, including carrots, parsnips and onions from my dads garden and sweet potato and butternut squash (side note: I originally typed SQUAT instead of squash… i have issues) from the store. I just put coconut oil, salt, pepper and garlic salt on them and roasted them at 400* for about an hour.

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On the side, I made some stuffed peppers with the peppers that my dad gave me. I put onions, summer squash, zucchini, broccoli, black beans and ground chicken in them. SO good!

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I made some ground chicken burgers with the leftover ground chicken. Thank goodness I had wine to keep me going through all that food prep!

So, there’s my weekend. I have to say- it was really nice being around on Sunday without a million plans. My sister was gone all day, so even though I got lonely by 7ish, it was a super relaxing day where I was able to do what I wanted when I wanted. I need more days like that 🙂

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Did you make any good meals? Do you food prep for the week? What’s a way to spice up a salad?

Weekending: Relaxing, Spontaneous Girls Night, Sunday Dinner

I wasn’t sure what my weekend was going to entail going into it, which is very unlike me! For once, I went entirely with the flow and sans plans. It was quite nice, might I add!

Friday was weird since I went into the office. Luckily, we can wear jeans on Friday’s now. Since I was dressed and had my hair done, I had wanted to get drinks after work, but no one was around and by the time I got home, the last thing I wanted to do was go back out in the cold so I just stayed in.

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Saturday morning I took a class at Recycle studio with my friend Lindsay which was the best way to start my day!

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We grabbed coffee (tea for me) at Starbucks after class and it was really interesting to hear how she got into teaching at Recycle. It makes me want to do it, but it was a huge time investment and I don’t know if my schedule allows for that right now. By the time I got home, I was starvinggggg, so I quickly whipped up this delicious quesadilla.

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Ground turkey, mushrooms, kale and cheese. It.was.perfect.

I was able to spend the rest of the afternoon catching up on a LOT of blogging. I don’t often have a solid chunk of time to do that, but I wish I did because I was so productive.

I met my sister and Amy at Stoddard’s in Downtown Crossing for a drink before our dinner reservations at 49 Social. It worked out perfectly because they are literally across the street from each other. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you probably remember that the “Shapleigh” girls like to get together for girls nights. Rachel was out of town, so it was just the 3 of us this time.

49 Social was really, really good! I didn’t take any pictures of the food, but we got hummus, a Duck Confit Quesadilla, a burger and some asparagus and everything was absolutely delicious. We always like to get things from the bar menu or appetizer section since we all like to share, so it was perfect. Danielle and I shared a bottle of this sauvignon blanc which was quite tasty.

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For once, I didn’t want to go home after dinner. We were having so much fun that we decided to keep it going and have “one more” at Gem as it was nearby. Well, “one more” ended up being “three more” without even really realizing it! I absolutely love nights that turn out like this. We were all just living in the moment and enjoying being out together, so we kept it going.

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We met the young man in the photo above when Danielle was showing off her stellar dance moves. He was visiting from Australia and I’m not sure he really knew how to handle us. It was hilarious.

Anyway! Sunday was productive, but also flew by. I went grocery shopping and then next thing I knew, it was time to head into the city for a class at Exhale Spa. When I got home, I got cookin’ in the kitchen. I made garlic and cheese mashed cauliflower, roasted veggies and marinated chicken. It was simple, but healthy and really good. The flavors were spot on.

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Fantastic way to end my weekend!

Questions for you: When’s the last time you were spontaneous? What was your best meal over the weekend? What was the best part of your weekend?