This Weekend

I made CHILI!

At the Golden Gloves Thursday night

This weekend. What a time.
On Friday night we were supposed to go out with a big group of people to the bar  but then we got those wishy-washers going “well it’s raining outside…”  “Well I don’t know if so and-so is going…”  “Well I don’t wanna drive downtown…”  and we got fed up. We went out on Thursday night anyway and had plans for Saturday, so we let Friday go and ended up cracking an old Christmas bottle of sparkling cider, cuddling with our gerbils, and packing up some stuff in our apartment.

We got 90% of our pictures and paintings and randomosity off the wall and now there are a gazillion holes and the space feels so much smaller!
We cleaned a bunch of junk out of the kitchen and I actually threw away tea.
Yes, THEW IT AWAY.  Neither Eli nor myself ever saw that day coming.

It feels soooo good to toss stuff.
And even better donating stuff, which we did plenty of as well.
Eli was finally able to let go of this awful (albeit comfy) shit-brown armchair that has been host to more dirty laundry and winter coats than it has tired bums  and we sorted through some more clothes that we gave away.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early in a rainstorm to go to Spanish Fork to check out some Bernese Mountain Dog puppies.
They were glorious.
There were 5 of these guys, about 6 weeks old, all fluffy and chubby and hyper!!!!
We really like the breeders and although we had our eye on a little girl pup,with our timeline on the house, and the age of the dogs, it looks like now just isn’t the time.
It wouldn’t be fair to a new puppy to bring her home and then dedicate our time to our new house and ignore her, so we’re going to discuss it some more, talk to the breeders, and probably go after the next batch of puppies.  We don’t want to overwhelm ourselves with too much change, and our first house is change enough!!

But it was enlightening and fun to interact with the puppies, especially because Eli has never had a dog before. There was one Berner pup that was obscenely fat and had stubby little legs, nicknamed Sausage. WE. ADORED. HIM.

Then we cruised on back to the Salt Lake Valley and I saw my dear old chiropractor. My neck is out of whack as usual, due to my jaw. When you have jaw problems they translate to your neck and vice-versa, so my neck goes out very easily and then will lock up and I start getting headaches.

I’ve also had sinusitis, probably due to these damn adult onset allergies(which I’ve been told aren’t uncommon if you have a craptastic immune system like yours truly), so I wanted to get acupuncture for it.  Everyone freaks out over acupuncture but it is honestly NO BIG DEAL.
The needles are teeny weeny and they pop them in—just feels like a little pressure.  Getting them put into your face is probably the most intimidating (I’ve had them in my stomach as well—that’s weird) but it gives such immediate relief that you soon move past the creepy Hellraiser aspect.  They pop them into the right spots, turn on the infrared (which makes the acupuncture more effective) and turn off the lights. It is very relaxing.
3 of the needles drew blood on me, which is rare, but the Chinese say is a way of bad blood being released, and it must be right because my face is now detoxing where some of the needles were and I have a few lumps and bumps, but they'll go away.
I walked out of there with the pressure and near-migraine I’ve had for 10 days 95% gone. Wonderful.

Eli "chair testing". AKA napping.

This was in the furniture store bathroom.  Do pill bottles, booze, diapers, racecars, bandaids, and origami count as feminine products??

Which led us on to… some furniture shopping!
We aren’t buying anything yet (nowhere to put it! Haven’t measured the house!Have plenty of time!) but we want to get an idea of the prices and styles available  and we found some great boutiques to give us ideas, and took a little notebook to write down basics on the pieces we liked.  It is incredibly helpful in planning our house! We don’t want to get into it and have a freak out and randomly splurge on the wrong furniture we don’t need.  We’ve been patient for so long, we can keep it up.

And we are stoked in general because we have never had truly new furniture.
Our couches were second and third hand from our families, and we’ve been using them for years.
Our crappy coffee table (that keeps falling apart) is Ikea of course (the same one that everyone has!!).
We get to toss most of the stuff we’ve been getting by on in our dingy apartment (the tatty bath mats! The shower curtain! The nasty couch pillows!That old nightstand!) and start fresh.

Sandlot THEN, in the movie

While we were out and about we cruised by the field where they filmed The Sandlot, one of our favorite childhood flicks.
It sure looks different--they've let is get overgrown and the baseball diamond is gone.  Kind of sad, but at least it is still there and hasn't been developed.

And today.

We’re having fun discussing color schemes and we’ve been pinning like mad on Pinterest.
We picked up some color samples at lunch today that we’re going to look over.

Tomorrow is the inspection (da da dum!!!!) and we are excited to see the inside of our house again (we’ve driven by far too many times now), bust out the tape measure, and ensure that it is all in good shape for us to buy.  So nerve wracking….

Saturday night we went to supper at Buffalo Wild Wings with our work pals and had a ball.
I don’t plan on going back for a loooooooongtime though—this was my third time eating there and once again it absolutely destroyed my stomach. So I spent half of the next day in agony, running the the bathroom.  What the hell BWW???

Then we hit up one of my favorite bars downtown—Keys on Main.  It is a funky piano bar and we had to cram on in at a table because we got there a bit late, but so worth it.  They played the classics—Great Balls of Fire,Devil Went Down to Georgia, Dick In a Box (modern, but still classic!)—and then suddenly they busted into that ridiculous and catchy new song “Thrift Shop”.
One of the gals and I jumped up to dance on stage with the piano player (by now decked out in a fur coat) and the bouncer had to escort us off the stage!! Too much of a distraction to the dueling pianos apparently.  We had a lot of good drinks and a generally awesome time—nothing quite compares to having a cold one and singing your heart out with your friends.

We were out late and unfortunately the next morning our bodies would not let us sleep in. And sleeping in is one of my faaaaaaavorite things!! We didn’t get any sleep-ins at all this weekend.  Bummer.
We had some flapjacks, sharing with the gerbils of course, who have an unnatural obsession with pancakes.  I’ve never seen the like. The literally fight over scraps of hotcakes and it is a sight to see!

Then some more packing, trashing, donating, cleaning, and we popped down to Sandy to do our laundry at my folks’ house and went to see the new Star Trek with them. I haven’t seen the first one, but I am acquainted with the original series (good old Shatner) so I was surprised by the twist that they put in at the end of this one, but I quite liked it.  We really enjoyed the movie overall—it flew by! And now I am excited to see the first one and rewatch the original Wrath of Khan.

My bestie sent a badass package full of English Cadbury chocolate and we were in HEAVEN.
Everyone that says “what’s the point? You can buy Cadbury in the U.S.” is a dipshit.
Read the packaging—Hershey bought Cadbury and you know what that means.
You are eating crappy, waxy, re-molded Hershey chocolate.  So have fun with that, we’ll enjoy the real deal sent from a generous best friend who lives in the U.K.

And boy did she spoil us !! We have 2 dozen Cadbury cream eggs and she sent my favorite—the Cadbury Oreo bars!! Along with a challenge to eat it all before she arrives in July. Which I can guarantee WILL happen.

And so here we are on a rainy Monday and I am exhausted, but clearly it was worth it.
Hope your weekends were just as packed with unique and fun things!!!

Freckles helping us pack.
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