So, I’m a little somber this Friday.  Last night Nick reminded me that I had agreed that we would refinish (remove the popcorn) and paint our kitchen ceiling this weekend.  I completely forgot said agreement, and was looking forward to a weekend of doing nothing.  When he asked me when we were going to start taping stuff off, I felt like this:

Needless to say, my weekend will be unfun and full of housework, so let me live vicariously through you and tell me all about your exciting and/or leisurely plans!!

Reading: I finished up The Girl on the Train, and I really enjoyed it.  Unlike most Gillian Flynn books (it was compared to Gone Girl quite a bit), it actually had a somewhat satisfying resolution, so that was nice.  Now I’m looking for my next read.  I have two books checked out from the library right now, but one of them is a YA novel, which I’m not particularly in the mood for.  And the other is a historical fiction, but I’m very much in a creepy/mystery/thriller place right now.  Decisions, decisions.

Here are some interesting articles I read on the interwebs this week:

• 7 things never to talk about – Ha, guilty of so many of these, but especially the route talk.  It’s my small talk go-to.
• Are you an abstainer or a moderator? – I am most definitely a moderator.  I find it easier to stay on track with good habits when I let myself be “bad” every now and then.
• Why the Government’s Definition of “Healthy” Doesn’t Work – I’m a believer that everyone has their own criteria for what is healthy.  What works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another, so it’s an odd concept to have a government sanctioned definition of healthy and that can’t be an easy job.  But it seems pretty ludicrous that they are going after something like KIND bars.  It’s nuts and fruits for god’s sake.

 

Watching: I’ve pretty much abandoned Making a Murderer on Netflix, because I inadvertently found out how it ends, and I’m not as into it now.  I wasn’t super into it to begin with though.  We started watching Arrow, but I’m feeling pretty meh about that too.  I’m having trouble getting past the slight cheese factor that comes with comic book based shows/movies.

Eating: I made One Pot Greek Chicken and Rice, which really blew me away.  I think of chicken and rice as being pretty bland and nothing to get excited about, but the rice turns out SO flavorful in this recipe.  I’ll definitely be making this one again, good thing I bought the Costco pack of chicken thighs.  I also made some minestrone soup in the crockpot but it only turned out ok.  Nothing special.

For lunches I had Crunchy Thai Quinoa which was delicious.  I love peanut sauce so, so much.

We tried a new-to-us restaurant in downtown Wilmington on Saturday, The Reel Cafe, but I didn’t love my meal.  I got the Fried Chicken BLT (sounds like something that would be hard to mess up, yes?), but it was just ok.  Nick got the Reuben, which came with house made corned beef, and it was really good.  I think this was a case of me just ordering the “wrong” thing.

Travel: I’ve started making “to-do” lists for our Germany/Austria/Hungary trip.  I like to make a list for each area that we visit and then rank them as “must-do’s” or “maybes”.  I also get a little crazy and list approximate time for each activities and other things that they are near, so we can plan our time most efficiently (it’s the engineer in me).   I’m pretty sure on two excursions we want to do, visit the Dachau prison camp (which is surprisingly easy to get to from Munich, it sounds like) and the Neuschwantsein Castle (huge castle near Munich that the Sleeping Beauty castle at Disney was based on).  I’ll be adding much, much more to this list in the next few weeks!

 

What are your weekend plans?  Have you watched Arrow?  Does it get less cheesy?  Any recommended must-do’s for Munich?

 

Friday Friday Friday!  Another weekend with no travel and minimal plans, I couldn’t be happier.

My to-do list for the weekend:

• Finish painting IKEA dressers that I have been harping on about since the beginning of time.  I got one coat on, then it got really cold (like 40 degrees) and I couldn’t motivate myself to hang out in the cold garage for an hour while I got the other coat on.  I also want to get some prints and hang some stuff on the wall in the guest room, then I’m officially calling that room DONE.

• Assemble the second set of dressers.  Haha, oh that’s right friends, this saga has a second act!  We are using the same base dressers as night stands in our bedroom.  I have no delusions that I’ll finish those this weekend, but I will feel pretty productive if I can at least get them together.

• Complete my long run for the week, 6 miles.  To me, this is the last long run that is actually somewhat easy to accomplish in a half marathon training cycle.  I can complete it in roughly an hour (ehh…closer to 1.5 hrs including warm-up and cool down, but who’s counting) and don’t have to block off a whole weekend morning, I don’t need to worry about bringing my handheld water bottle or fuel.  I can also enjoyably run it on one of my familiar trails and I don’t have to do intense research and google mapping to figure out a new route that doesn’t include tons of stop lights, is shaded, etc. etc. (I’m picky and Wilmington doesn’t have a ton of great long running options).  When we get to 7 miles, running officially becomes An Ordeal (and all of the people that regularly run long distances and marathons are laughing to themselves right now).

 

Reading: The Girl on the Train.  It’s definitely got me sucked in so far (I’m roughly 110 pages in), but I can’t get over how much second-hand embarrassment I feel for the main character.  I’m constantly setting the book down so that I can face-palm and just simmer in the cringeworthiness.  GIRL, come on.  Have some gd respect for yourself.

Watching: I finished season 3 of Vikings on Amazon Prime in approx 3 days (would have probably been 2, but our internet was out for like 24 hours this week).  I love that show so much.  I love anything related to historical fiction and I don’t know a lot about the vikings and this period of history (so it’s TOTALLY educational).  And also there are kick-ass women in this show (I like to think I would be a Lagertha if I had lived in that time.  I want to be a she-warrior for the kickass braids alone.  Although, if I’m being honest with myself, I’d probably be a Siggy, “Lol no, you guys go ahead and fight, I’ll just hang out here and like, cook and watch all the kids.”).  And also, Rollo:

We’ve also started Making a Murderer on Netflix, but I find that I really have to be in the mood to enjoy that.  It’s not exactly light, fluffy entertainment and I feel like I need to pay attention more than I normally would.  I also feel like it’s going to end in the same way that Serial did, and I’m not really prepared to invest a ton of time for that sort of ending.  I hate it when I don’t love things that everyone else is going crazy about.  I feel so left out, wah!

Eating: I made this recipe for Steak Braciole this past weekend, and it was pretty delicious while also ridiculously high in points.  Also, when did flank steak become super expensive?  At my local grocery store it was $12/lb, and that was the sale price.  I thought flank steak was supposed to be a generally tough, undesirable cut of meat??  I also had some chicken picatta of course, and threw together some shrimp stir fry for the rest of the week.  I’ve been craving mexican food lately, so a trip to our fav mexican place (k38 for any Wilmington peeps) might be on the schedule for the weekend.

Travel: We booked our apartments for our trip in May!  We officially decided to stay 3 nights in Vienna, 3 nights in Budapest, and 4 nights in Munich.  I’m so glad to check this off of my to-do list, now to get the fun stuff, planning our activities!  I’d love to hear any tips and advice you guys have on those locales!

What are your weekend plans??  What is your currently looming project that you just can’t seem to finish (like my dressers)?  

 

First week of the new year is done!  The holidays always remind me how much I love routine (until I’m bored).  And I had such a refreshing week of completely mundane routine.  And it made me so happy.

• Dammit GRRM.  I wish I could say I was surprised, but I felt this coming a few months ago.  If he were on track with the next book, we would have been hearing more about the impending release.  I didn’t actually start reading the books until after the first season of the show, so I don’t feel like I have a TON of room to gripe about having to watch the show spoil the books compared to OG book readers (and I use the term “having” loosely, obv I could just not watch it), but I do enjoy the books so much better and would much prefer to be able to read it first.  Oh well, at least now Nick won’t have to work to thinly veil his annoyance at my hint dropping (“OH MAN, next week’s episode is going to be INTENSE, you are in for such a treat!”) and shameless staring at his reactions (I probably completely gave away the Red Wedding bc my eyes were constantly flickering between his face and the screen.  He knew some shit was about to go DOWN.).

• We bought actual bedroom furniture from a store this week!  This isn’t really exciting, but it’s the first time we will have new furniture that I didn’t have to build and stain myself, so YAY.  Adults.  This has also given me all kinds of inspiration to get our master all clean and decorated.  Note: I haven’t actually done any physical work in that regard, but I’m INSPIRED to.  I’ve been pinning lots of things.

• I changed my WW weigh-in day from Friday to Monday, in an attempt to push me to keep it together on the weekends (haha, we’ll see about that).  I’ve ALWAYS weighed in on Fridays no matter what system I’m using to track food, so it’s really really bizarre to me to not have to weigh-in today.  I don’t know what to do with myself.  I totally could have had wine last night without any immediate scale repercussions.  What is life.

• I’ve hit another “If I have to eat this again, I’m going to die” point with my usual lunch salad.  Every couple of weeks I get totally repulsed by my usual favorite salad and have to switch it up for a week or so.  So now I’m on the prowl for good, weight-watcher friendly lunch ideas.  What do you eat for lunch?

• I read “Luckiest Girl Alive” by Jessica Knoll this week.  It was pretty dark, but I loved it.  Dark, weird, mystery books might be one of my new favorite genres.  I read this one in about two sittings, it reminded me of a few months ago when I stayed up til like 1 am finishing up “Dark Places” by Gillian Flynn.  Mysteries are just so ENGAGING (this is news to no one), and a nice change up from all the historical fiction I’ve been into lately.  I’m still on the waiting list for “The Girl on the Train” from my library, so I need to find an available creepy mystery to entertain me until then.

Tell me about your week!  Do you love routine as much as me?  What have you been reading lately?  What is your favorite go-to lunch?