mpls -> athens -> madtown

i have to say that it feels kind of nice to be in the same city friday through monday. not that i haven't enjoyed my weekend travels, but sometimes you just need to sit still for a little bit. so that's what i've been doing. . . well, kind of.

not sure how this happened, but i like it

to start with, the trip to athens was good. matt and i both spent the day working on friday. i settled into one of my favorite spots with an italian soda at donkey coffee and met up with matt and co. for dinner and drinks in downtown athens. we made ourselves delicious breakfast tacos for brunch on saturday, caught an acoustic show including some of the members of southeast engine, and met up with peggy on sunday to see the movie safe house and enjoy some delicious peanut butter pie. that seems extremely condensed, but it some ways, it sort of felt like the weekend went just that quickly. once again, i can't help but note how wonderful life will be when our relationship doesn't inherently involve a plane ride commute. though we have a lot of things to be thankful for in the meantime. certainly.

this weekend has been a lot of catching up - less with work than with life stuff. i put off getting groceries all week long so that it finally culminated in my having to spend about 20 minutes cleaning the all of the friday-night snow off my car (and shoveling around my car. . . i'm not getting caught on that ice again!) i'm not sure how much snow we ended up with, but it felt like a lot. trekked to hy-vee and then put off the trip to target until today. i *think* i've gotten everything on my list now. and whatever i've forgotten will likely come from the downtown market on my ride home one of these days. the real kicker always seems to be getting water. it's partially my fault, because i'm so picky about it. i'm not suggesting that anyone would actually drink the tap water here (maybe i'll post a picture sometime of what it's done to my humidifier), but also not everyone has to have spring water but also hates buying it so much that it has to come in the big container (big enough to last a while. . . not so big that i can't carry it the few blocks from my car) that only target carries. it's absurd. but it's the way that it goes around here. side note: matt's totally starting to be able to tell the difference in the waters also. he made a comment about it when i was in athens. *snicker*

mixed berries and quinoa

so now, i'm all groceried and necessitied up, i've cleaned the apartment and am in the process of baking cookies. yeah. . . that's right. my big sister sent me a delicious-sounding recipe for some vegan fruity cookies that i thought needed a shot. the one drawback seems to be that i apparently left any cookie sheets that i had (including the makeshift cookie sheet that might more accurately be called a "pizza pan") under the oven in state college. so today's cookies are being made in a casserole dish and a pie pan. i'll let you know if they turn out.

actually, speaking of vegan deliciousness, i made this mixed berry and quinoa salad yesterday and was delighted at how amazing it was. it's super easy and the weird-sounding dressing actually brings out all of the sweetness of the fruits (don't ask me how that works. . .) if you need to put together a side salad and want to do something a little different, i'd totally recommend it. it rocks. and don't be fooled. . .with all of the grains it's way more filling than you'd think.

just another regular week of work ahead. hopefully one more to put behind us until the real spring weather gets here! have a great week, everyone!