no work, all play

our weekends and other free days have been an endless stream of cleaning and weeding and unpacking and organizing and finance-reviewing lately, and there are few things i find more demoralizing than feeling like my life has been taken over by mundane, administrative tasks. so i unilaterally named last saturday no-chore saturday. and, (un)surprisingly, received no complaints.

so, instead of what has become our boring norm, saturday was all sleeping in and homemade muffins for breakfast and more sleeping and  a day trip adventure to leesburg.

ever since i moved here i've wanted to go to old lucketts store, a magical place filled to the brim with every weird and wonderful vintage and antique thing you could ever want. it was everything i had hoped for. i walked through every room and touched almost every treasure. though i think AWD is rubbing off on me because, while i normally would have walked out of there at least with a strange bust or a couple colored mason jars-- something!-- every time i picked something up i thought, where would i put this? or, it would make the house seem too cluttered. people, this is definitely a shift. i wouldn't classify myself as a minimalist, certainly, but AWD seems to have turned my previously maximalist ways into something more middle-of-the-road. (and he couldn't be happier about it.)

i didn't walk away empty-handed from the roadside farm stands, though (corn! peaches! cherries!), and we grabbed a delicious lunch in historic downtown before heading back to washington city.

and you know what? it turned out that putting off those chores didn't matter one single bit.

anatomy of a perfect weekend

start with chinese takeout on a rainy friday night. crab meat wontons are a must.

watch we are marshall, which you thought would be lame, but which is actually pretty good. warning: it will make you miss coach taylor and the dillon panthers really bad.

on a rainy saturday morning, sleep in. eat breakfast in bed. take a nap. listen to car talk. eat lunch in bed. take another nap.

clean the house (way more fun with two of you!), hit the grocery store (way more fun with two of you!) and then head to the movies. sadly, not even bruce willis can save a good day to die hard.

on a sunny sunday, have lunch with friends, bake a big cake and watch the oscars.

the only bad thing about this weekend was that it ended.

photo finish

it was a hundred degrees this weekend (not an exaggeration) and since we could spend all weekend at home with the air conditioning on, that's exactly what we decided to do, minus a quick trip to the grocery store because our cupboards were bare.

behold.

{before}

{after}

other weekend happenings.

{favorite flower}

{new hipster glasses}

{minty home-mani/pedi}

{first-timer}

the end.

a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again.

i started out this weekend (last weekend? already?) feeling a little apocalyptic.

my friday work day started off on bad note, plus it was gray and rainy and i was tired. i spent my free time reading gloomy articles about how rents and gas prices are only go to keep going up, which was a big mistake. i spent my other free time looking up thigh and hip exercises, which just made me depressed about my body in an unhelpful and self-obsessed way.

so, by the time i burned our dinner onto the bottom of my brand-new, just-out-of-the-box le creuset dutch oven, i was pretty primed for a break-down.

luckily for me (though somewhat unfortunately for him), AWD has become quite adept and handling these episodes and by saturday morning i was feeling back to my normal self.

which meant i could enjoy blue-bucks and crab cake benedict at eastern market, plus a stroll around capitol hill with dana. we went to see "hugo" with the murffs and i loved it more than i have loved a movie in a long time. we did some organizing and cleaning around the house, which felt really cathartic and nice. we took a bright, sunny walk around the neighborhood and had a delicious sunday dinner with emma and eric.

and today there was still daylight outside when i left work, so this week is already in a much better place at the start than last week was at the end. whew.

couldn't agree more.

am i the only one who feels like this friday has taken ages to get here?

man alive.

but, here we are! the weekend is in sight.

i am off for a little girls' getaway to the florida keys with dana this weekend, and i hope you have something equally scrumptious planned.

whatever your plans are, here is a little something to get you started right. it's basically my favorite thing that i saw all week.

or maybe ever.

you guessed it.

the weekend unfolded just as i suspected it might.

we saw this movie. (and liked it.)

bought furniture.

assembled furniture.

made these decorations, plus party favors made from giant marshmellows.

enjoyed a delightful baby shower (nice work, d!).

looked at more furniture.

ate here for the first time. (and liked it.)

made a not-so-delious lentil stew.

organized books and various knick-knacks on newly assembled furniture.

made completely delicious cookies (the leftovers of which were thankfully finished off by the poynter dinner crew last night).

and now it's tuesday.

the end.

thursday is the new weekend

today is the best kind of thursday. namely, a thursday preceding a friday off work. hurrah!

we'll be pretty busy, i think. (more) furniture shopping and (more) house organizing, hopefully some baking, a (coed) baby shower and a george clooney political thriller.

i'd also like to read my book, clean my bathroom, wash my laundry and cuddle with my husband. (not in that order.) so we'll see what really gets done.

full report to follow.

enjoy the weekend, my babies!

we like to move it. move it.

we spent most of the weekend moving furniture and organizing the house, culminating in a saturday night date to ikea complete with a swedish meatball dinner ('cause we're high rollers like that), but we did escape long enough for a gorgeous saturday afternoon stroll through dumbarton oaks with elbert, heather and adorable baby penny.

it was a beautiful, sunny day and everything was a blooming explosion of fall colors, even the rose garden.

penny slept for most of our walk-about and then let me hold her while we all drank hot chocolate and ate churros in georgetown, but by the time anyone thought to pull out a camera she was screaming her head off, so there will be no pictures of her this time around.

you'll just have to take my word for it that she is basically the cutest thing ever. and that i was holding her for a pretty long time before she started to cry.

i swear.

hustle, bus(tle)

i made the quickest of quick trips to new york this weekend (as in, left d.c. at 6:30a.m. and left manhattan at 7p.m.) for ck's baby shower.

i didn't take a single picture so you'll just have to trust me that my new hot curler hair-do looked pretty cute, and that ck's baby bump is adorable. guess you had to be there.

when i was at crafty bastards a few weeks ago there were millions (exaggeration) of darling baby things and i actually thought to myself, "too bad i don't know anyone who is about to have a baby."

hello?!? duh.

but, i recovered with a little package of my favorite books for mama and the little lady, including "make way for ducklings," "blueberries for sal" and several installments of frances the badger. because, you know, i like to force my way into the consciousness of babies as early as possible.

after the shower ck and i took a walk around her neighborhood, reveling in the stunning fall weather and the good fortune our lives have been filled with lately. we also saw julia stiles and mariska hargitay. so there's that.

i got a shake shack burger on the way back to the apartment, and then i was off.

when i got home, AWD had already watched a whole season of "battlestar galactica" (dreamy!) so it was a pretty productive day all around.

i love me a friday.

happy friday, my babies! even with a short week, friday seems like it's been a long time coming. and boy, am i happy it is here.

ever since we went to truckeroo, AWD has been craving another lobster roll, so we decided to make our friday night date night a trip to luke's lobster (for him) followed by a screening of "real steel" (for me). what can i say? if the review says it's everything a seven-year-old could want out of a robot movie, i'm sold.

hoping all your seven-year-old dreams come true this weekend, too.

mid week end

wednesday sure comes quickly when monday is another saturday and tuesday is like a monday and there you have it and here we are.

we had a lovely long weekend. it went down like this.

stop 1. winchester, virginia, for our fourth and final wedding reception. AWD's family put on a beautiful party at the handley library, a totally rad historic building (with a rotunda!) that also happens to be my mother-in-law's place of work. we had a great evening.

stop 2. charlottesville, virginia, where we explored the downtown mall via the funky warehouse district, and ate bodo's bagels (virginia famous!) for breakfast, the virginian (longest continuously running restaurant in charlottesville!) for lunch, and the local (nothing to say here except that it was delicious!) for dinner. we also strolled around the UVA campus, including a tour of the rotunda, aka: thomas jefferson's temple of the mind.

stop 3. louisa, virginia, for paul and kyle's wedding, during which we enjoyed ourselves immensely, but during which we did not take a single photo. it was mostly a delight to attend a wedding that was not our own, so it didn't even matter if anything went wrong, which i don't think it did anyway.

stop 4. montpelier, lifetime home of james madison, father of the constitution. the house was just rescued from the clutches of the dupont family and underwent a major restoration that only ended a few years ago, so i would classify it as a work in progress. but standing in the room where the constitution was conceived is never a dull thing, and the grounds were lovely. AWD and i decided that we are sort of like james and dolley madison, he shy and brilliant, she social and stylish. (i bet you can see it, too, right?) i loved thinking of the great and deep friendship between madison and jefferson, and was totally jealous to learn that madison spoke seven languages fluently.

stop 5. home, where we are settling back in to our married life routine. so far, we really like it.

welcome, long weekend. we're glad to see you.

happy friday, my babies!

i started the weekend last night with a gorgeous walk across the key bridge to georgetown for shopping at anthropologie with EH (our favorite) followed by a frozen hot chocolate at serendipity (our second favorite).

when i got home AWD had taken out the garbage, washed the dishes, hooked up my new printer and fixed the furnace. winning!

today we are heading down to winchester for our fourth and final wedding celebration (yep, still going!) and then we're spending the rest of the long weekend in charlottesville. i hope a really good bagel and a plantation tour are in our near future.

have a wonderful fall weekend!

(no) labor day

how was your labor day weekend?

i watched a french movie, went to the grocery store, went to the temple, went to the mall, went out to dinner, went to church, had my trial wedding hair and make-up done by EH and miss angela, ate a leisurely lunch at bayou bakery with EH and miss angela, picked up my wedding dress and went to the mall again.

it all went pretty well, though the ending of the french movie, "the hedgehog," was really tragic and sad. in happier news, the beignets at bayou bakery are a little piece of fried and sugared heaven.

and now we are in the home stretch! the mama bear arrives tomorrow, dad and ben the day after, AWD's parents the day after that and then the day after that is the wedding.

man alive.

i had every intention of doing a bunch of blogging this week to tell you all about the wedding preparations and all the wisdom and insight i have now as a soon-to-be-married lady, but i think i just have to be honest and tell you that might not happen. i mean, wedding dinner favors don't put themselves together, you know?

not to mention that i am obsessively checking the weather for saturday (currently 30 percent chance of rain) and the path of hurricane katia (looks like our honeymoon destination will emerge unscathed).

so, wisdom and insight might just have to wait, though hopefully i'll get some of my favorite wedding details up here before the wedding itself.

four more sleeps. i can hardly believe it.

obladi, oblada.

the weekend started out splendidly.

we went to see "wicked" at the kennedy center. AWD and i were first-timers. we l-o-v-e loved it.

saturday morning i made it to the gym (this is a monumental thing) and then we did a bunch of yard work. the tree out front looks like a tree again instead of a wild bush, and the pernicious weeds along the fence line are gonzo. (for now.)

then we had lunch at tacklebox with the wheeler/hellewell clan, and it was so delicious that it didn't even matter that we had to drive to cleveland park and walk through the rain to get there. (the closer tacklebox in georgetown burned down, you see.)

but, just a few minutes after we got home, isadora, my beloved iphone, took a swim (in my toilet, if you must know) and everything sort of went downhill from there.

first, the blue crabs game was cancelled because of the rain that had been coming down all day. this was quite a blow.

so, we decided to go to the prince william county fair, instead. but by the time we got there it was dumping rain again, and the rides were starting to shut down.

the only thing left to do was hit up the new cafe rio in manassas, which isn't so bad, really, but when you were expecting fireworks at a minor league baseball game, or corn dogs and fried snickers bars, fast food mexican is sort of a let down.

things took a slight turn for the better on sunday afternoon, when i resurrected isadora long enough to download all my phone numbers and calendar items. she actually put up a good fight. she even let me talk to emdawg, as long as i kept her plugged in and on speaker phone. (isadora can be a little demanding.)

but, her last gasp came to an end. so today, with a heavy heart, i went to the at&t store and came home with flora, my new iphone four(a). she joins me thanks to my dad's very generous relinquishment of his upgrade, and so far we are getting along pretty well.

and so, as the beatles would say: life goes on.

friday i'm in love

to celebrate the arrival of friday i decided to be quoted in the salt lake tribune. hello, fame. nice to see you.

i have a lot more to tell you on that particular topic (the topic of the article, not the topic of fame) but that is going to have to wait.

because i am also celebrating the arrival of friday with a trip to see the ballet "giselle" at the kennedy center. (thanks, AWD!)

and celebrations will continue tomorrow with a girls-only valentine's day brunch (heart-shaped homemade donuts anyone?) and a screening of "sabrina" at the AFI theater.

so, as you can see, the life of a local celebrity is rather busy.

i hope you have a splendid weekend, too, my babies. see you soon.