Monday, Monday

And here we are, at the beginning of another week.
Remembering how sick I felt last Monday, though, I'm not going to complain about this Monday, because other than a lingering cough, I feel much better.

This past weekend included:

- Going out for Italian with some neighbors on Friday night. I don't often get excited about Italian, because the only Italian I really crave is Nana's spaghetti, but dinner was delicious and our neighbors are fun and it was very nice.

- Saturday and Sunday I spent several hours helping out a family in town for a wedding. There were about 65 of them, and they were Orthodox Jews. Basically I spent my time in a hotel room that had been transformed into food central. The mother of the groom who hired me went to Costco and bought enough to feed a small country, but as Friday-Saturday night was the Sabbath, they needed some help, so I opened a lot of containers, turned on lights, and cleaned up. Surprisingly it was really fun. I like being there to help people be less stressed so they can enjoy time with family. And in addition to being paid for that time, we got a ton of leftover snack food, so Drew and I will eat well this week.

- In between working on Saturday, Drew and I stopped in at Duke Hospital to meet our dear friends' new baby girl! Ms. Isla Rowan Lee Baker was born on Friday night, and she is precious.

[Drew holding little Isla, and her Dad, Adam]

- Saturday night I had a bunch of Duke Lutheran gals over to bake and watch movies. It was super fun. Tangled and How to Train Your Dragon are both excellent movies that you should watch. As soon as possible. Plus two of the girls made a raspberry & strawberry pie (with crust from scratch), I made a pumpkin pie on graham cracker crust (per Drew's request), and we made these lemon bars. Holy crap. So bad for you. So extremely delicious.

- Sunday I woke up way too early to go back to the hotel and continue helping out. So when I got back, I took a shower and promptly fell asleep :P After waking up and hanging with Drew for awhile, I then went out and laid in the sun since it was almost 80 degrees. Living in the South is awesome. The day ended with Duke Lutheran's worship (you should totes check out Drew's sermon. It was legit), and watching the Emmy's.

All in all, I'll call it a success. Plus, there's so much to look forward to in the near future! How I Met Your Mother premieres tonight (!), I just got some great new books from a friend, and now it's only 10 days until Drew, Stan and I head up to New York for my cousin's wedding. Most excellent.

[Another great JJ Heller song you should listen to]

[Pinterest] Weekend Adventures

Mondays are lame.
Being sick on a Monday makes it even more lame.


In short, I hope your Monday was better than mine :)

Despite the super lame Monday, this weekend was pretty great.
Drew and I took Stanley out to the Eno River on Friday. It was pretty great. Stan is hilarious in the water, enjoying himself until it gets a little deeper than he was expecting, at which point he leaps and bounds every which way until he finds his way to higher ground.

[grainy cell phone picture of my two boys at the river]

Saturday was lazy. Went to Buffalo Wild Wings and watched the OSU game with Drew. 

Then it was baking time :)

I had to help with dinner for Duke Lutherans this weekend, so of course I volunteered to do the desserts.

I made these cookies [from here]. Brown butter chocolate chip cookies with nutella in the middle.

Yep, they were as good as they sound. Do yourself a favor and go make them. Now.

And I made two of these cakes [from here]. I put chocolate chips in one of them, just for good measure. It was also a hit.

Oh Pinterest, how I love thee.

Oh, and to continue my Pinterest kick, I made a version of these for some friends tonight. 

I heard they were well received also.

So, if you're looking something to brighten up your Monday, I would recommend any of these. But especially the cookies. Seriously. Make them now, thank me later :)