A taste of summer: weekend-style

Minnesota's been treated to some totally beautiful weather lately, which means we've all moved our lives outside as much as possible. The last few weekends have been spent with friends and family boosting our vitamin D (and our BAC) all over the Twin Cities! 

Prior to our disastrous (first-half-only) trip to "Mr. Burns" at the Guthrie, Mom and I celebrated her April birthday at Yardhouse and Anthropologie in the West End! I savored a Moscow Mule (they make fantastic ones) and we split tacos and chatted. Anthro throws birthday parties on a monthly basis with private shopping, treats and drinks, and a 15% discount. We had such a blast picking out pretty things for Paris...my only sorrow is that we left fast to make it to our terrible show! 

We also celebrated at home with Dad...he grilled burgers, picked up a Farmington Bakery cake, and pulled off an epic surprise with a beautiful David Yurman bracelet. Of course, a "House of Cards" marathon was also called for! 

I'm proud to claim I've gotten Kelsie hooked on A La Mode manicures, and we spent a great Saturday morning gossiping with our favorite ladies and freshening up our fingertips after Mexico. Margaritas for lunch were the logical next step in that equation...especially since we could enjoy them outside on the patio at Rojo!

To keep taking advantage of the amazing weather, Claire, Mike, Eva, Josh and I took the party to the next level...literally. My building's rooftop patio boasts spectacular views of Loring Park and a plethora of comfy patio furniture, and we mixed up cocktails, parked ourselves in a sunny spot, and spent hours discussing bucket lists and life goals and how amazing the summer is going to be!

After a fairly tipsy dinner at Loring Kitchen, we headed to Kelsey's birthday party (not my Kelsie, a different friend!) and spent plenty of time playing fetch with Winnie, her precious dog, and a very soggy tennis ball...fun fact: Kellen, above, proposed to Mollie, his girlfriend of ages, last weekend! So excited for them!

This past weekend, Claire's good friends Mikey and Scott, who went to Notre Dame with us, came into town and shenanigans of course ensued. We took in a Twins game that involved very little actual watching of the game (they lost) and very much enjoying of beers and Barrio guacamole while soaking up the sun. $20 tickets get you top-deck seats...the stunning views of downtown more than make up for the fact that the players look like they're microscopic. I also proved that I apparently really need to work on my selfies if we're going to keep this trend up all summer!

On Sunday, we battled hangovers to suffer through (me) or enjoy (everyone else) the brunch buffet at Kramarczuk's...I can't wait to go back when I have an appetite that hasn't been suppressed by nausea! The long, epic walk we took around the Mississippi River did plenty to clear my head and offered up some pretty beautiful views, as well. How cute is everyone?! I can't wait to hit this path on a day with less wind and fewer clouds. 

While the temps have taken another nosedive and while my focus is back on my impending trip to Paris, the last few weekends have proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm in for a truly fantastic Minnesota summer. Can't wait to see what upcoming weekends surrounded by friends have to offer! 

A recipe for surviving a Minnesota winter.

Ingredients:

-"You've Got Mail" and/or "When Harry Met Sally." Meg Ryan falling in love is a good, good thing. 

-Essie nail polish and early-evening pedicures. Super feeling this hot true neon pink, "Summer Pink" by Pixi (a Target steal!). 

-Angie's caramel-cheddar popcorn. For dinner, when deemed necessary.

-Netflix replays of "Friends." MAKING MY LIFE. (Optional: on actual TV, sub "The Bachelor," "Downton Abbey," or "Scandal.")

-This candle. Olfactory crack. (Thanks Meems! Great Christmas present!)

-India Spice Chai K-cups, because they are delicious. 

-A pretty girly camisole...

-and a big chunky grandpa sweater, for combining into the best of both worlds warmth-and-attractiveness-wise.

Instructions: 

1. Head to the gym to pound through 4-5 miles on the treadmill or elliptical downstairs and warm oneself up/work up a fantastic sweat. For best results (and maximum laughs), combine with 2 episodes of "Friends" on the iPad. 

2. Shower off the gym stank, layer into camisole and sweater with coziest pajama pants in your possession.

3. Light candle, cue up "When Harry Met Sally," "Scandal," "Downton," or "The Bachelor," and start Keurig with K-cup. While coffee brews, select nail color and prep for epic pedicure. 

4. Procure brewed coffee/popcorn, settle into chair close to the fire, open up the nail polish, press play, and prepare for two blissful hours of pretending winter doesn't totally suck after Valentine's Day. 

Life is full of wonderful things.

I'm just getting proverbially smacked across the face with all sorts of delight these days, and it's all about re-framing negatives into positives.

No matter what, I find myself getting really crabby and downer-Debbie this time of year. Chalk it up to winter—I know I’m not the only one who thinks this time of year utterly sucks. It’s bone-crushingly cold, it’s terribly dark. Work for all accountants all of a sudden just takes a nosedive into year-end reporting or, God forbid, public busy season. Everyone’s a little bit fatter and a little bit hungover from the months of holiday partying and eating, or following super-stringent diet and gym routines to reverse that holiday bulge. Bottom line…winter can make me miserable.

I don’t like being miserable. My default setting tends toward the bright-and-sunny end of the spectrum, and being such a cranky downer makes me feel dissonant. With that in mind, I’ve made a conscious effort to notice, and appreciate, little things that make me happy.

Although I’ve been coming to and leaving work in the dark lately, during the day my window desk means I get to bask in sunshine and soak up all that life-affirming light. And views like these don’t hurt, either:

Sure, the cold saps every drop of moisture out of my skin, hair and lips, but that’s been a great excuse to spend a ton of girly evenings soaking in bath oils, exfoliating and doing masques, and slathering up in the best smelling lotion.

I may be totally cutting out or back on alcohol, carbs, sugar, and takeout, but the excessive healthiness of my diet lately makes treats like Cossetta's macarons or the dark chocolate Hershey Kiss I pack in my lunch every day feel so decadent, they're even more satisfying. 

My boss-buddy-man may be in Colombia bonding with his new son and finalizing his adoption, leaving a void in my day-to-day coffee runs and hilarity, but that's opened up a handful of other cool opportunities to step into his shoes at work and prove yet again that I'm a capable, talented team player. 

The gym may totally annoy me with its sweatiness and overcrowding and...well...exercise, but putting the every-weekday-right-after-work miles on the treadmill and elliptical has become built-in time to indulge in my new "Netflix on the iPad in the gym" obsession with no interruptions. 

Sloppy winter roads may leave my car a dirty mess on the outside, but gas hovering around $1.99 a gallon continues to leave extra $$ in my wallet to splurge on a car wash way more often than I normally would this time of year. 

The baby next door whose nursery shares a wall with my bedroom may have decided 5:15 am is a great time to get a daily lung workout in, but my new, improved, earlier wake-up time gives me 45 extra minutes to read in bed, have an extra cup of coffee, or give myself an at-home blowout. 

HA! Suck it, winter blues! Negative Nellie's taken a hike and I'm going to keep my little-miss-sunshine attitude rocking until the actual sun decides to make a reappearance. Here's to forcing the little things to make every day a bit brighter.

Summertime.

The funny thing about summer, in my eyes, is the way time simultaneously manages to speed up and slow down. How is it already late July? I feel like we just celebrated the Fourth and all of a sudden it's...well, wow.

Everything is a little bit brighter in the summer. I'm reaching the apex of the season, just tanned enough to feel confident in bright lipcolors. My ivory-skinned sister, Em, rocks reds, pinks, oranges year-round, but with my sallow olive undertone, I don't feel like I can get away with it until I'm verging on golden instead of yellow. Everything bright looks a little better against tanned skin...neon nail polish, a canary-yellow camisole, even the bright white of a sundress or my teeth, flashing in a smile. 

Everything takes a beating in the summer. The aforementioned golden skin? Fried to a crisp, the proverbial (albino) green tomato, after an afternoon on the boat. I'm peeling now, and wearing sleeves to work to cover it up. I spend my mornings overdosing on lotion and scrubs hoping to shed my skin just like I've shed the tights and sweaters that kept me company all winter and spring...my skin just another layer, tossed aside in the face of bone-deep heat and a bit too much vodka. My liver has taken its fair share of beatings since Memorial Day too, thanks in large part to the myriad glories of St. Germain and new flavors of Skinnygirl. I am the quintessential tipsy, giggling, summertime-saturated girl. 

Every day feels a little less lonely in the summer. In college, I sort of intentionally made sure I was single every summer...something about the higher heat index made independence particularly appealing, obligation to another person repellent. Two summers as one-half of a couple had me thinking about changing my tune; there was something to savor about having a built-in State Fair companion, someone to hold hands with during fireworks and slow-dance to the songs of outdoor concerts. These days, single again, are a swirl of entries in the day planner--a happy hour that goes too late, an all-day brewery crawl, patio evenings and sunbaked afternoons on the lake. The solitude of singlehood liberates me to fill that day planner to overflowing with people to whom I don't bear the ties of monogamy...no strings attached, in a sense. Just the way summer should be. 

Everything gets more exposed in the summer. My freckles pop out of hiding and turn my nose a shade darker, from a distance, than the rest of my face. Oh for cheek-freckles, to even out that discrepancy. My toes, my feet, my ankles...all out to play after months wearing UGGs, liberated in the kind of flat little sandal that provides so little support and protection it might as well not even be there. And hearts...hearts get more exposed, with the aforementioned St. Germain lubricating the tongue just enough to be a little too honest over a cocktail, the memory a little too willing to press rewind, the mind a little too devil-may-care to hold back. 

tids and bits.

I love Saturday mornings. There's something so luxurious about having a whole weekend ready to unfold in front of you, isn't there?

Jon only takes his socks off inside out. I'm sitting here and I should be folding laundry, but I keep looking at those socks scattered all throughout the pile, inside-out, and I just had to stop a minute to marvel and laugh a bit inside at how much our relationship and my life as a result has changed since we moved in. This domesticity and "settled-ness" makes me feel so deeply happy and content. 

Courtney, new friend who I (to be frank) have a major friend-crush on these days, works at Target like so many young professionals in the Twin Cities do. Courtney, however, has the coolest role...she works in the Beauty department! She raided the sample room for me and now I have all kinds of new beauty goodies including the perfect mint green nail polish (Breakfast at Tiffany's, currently on  my toes) and a nude lipstick (Pinky Beige!) that actually works for my complexion! Thanks for the treats, Courtney dear...next happy hour is totally on me :) 

My friend Mike is incredibly politically aware and keeps my Facebook news feed hopping with topical articles from a wide variety of news sources. It makes me feel a little guilty to say it, but a large part of my regular news consumption comes from him! This morning, I woke up to a duet of articles on George W. Bush's post-Presidency painting career. He's exhibiting for the first time in Dallas, and I'm fascinated by his depictions of world leaders he interacted with as a president. It intrigues me to see how he managed to make a wordless medium so revealing of his relationships with and attitudes toward these hugely influential figures. Check it out...fascinating read, if the paintings do leave something to be desired. 

Minneapolis got hit with 6-8 more inches of snow yesterday, which crushed my soul a tiny bit. Fortunately, we're forecasted to see high sixties (dare I hope for low seventies?) this week, which should get this white shit safely out of here before I lose my sanity and start singing "Frozen" at random passers-by. God help us all. 

Hannah and I are hitting up a charity fundraiser tonight called The Womanless Beauty Pageant, and I couldn't be more excited about it. One of her work friends' husbands is participating, and the proceeds go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I can't wait! At the very least, it should be a riot. 

And finally, for the fifth year in a row, my beloved alma mater is ranked #1 for undergraduate business programs by Bloomberg. To quote Roger Huang, Martin J Gillen Dean of the Mendoza College of Business, "It's a responsibility." To quote the published rankings, "Mendoza Students Really, Really Love Their School." It's true. Congrats, ND!