off we go!

In just six short hours, Jon and I are off on an adventure! 

We're going from this...

to THIS!….

From this...

to THIS!...

from this...

to THIS!…

from this...

to THIS!...

Turns out when we got cabin fever this January and booked our trip to Puerto Rico, we picked the perfect time to get the hell out of Dodge…er, Minnesota. The Twin Cities got slammed last night with two inches of solid ice and ten inches of snow, and the forecast for next week is subzero and miserable all the way through. I can't wait for:

- rum-based drinks and catching rays on the beaches of Culebra

-zip lining and waterfall hiking the rainforest of El Yunque

-snorkeling and experiencing the bioluminescent bay of Vieques

-exploring the culture and history of Old San Juan

And MOST of all, spending lots and lots of time with this cute guy on our first big-time vacation together!

We get back the 28th, and I can't wait to share pictures and stories from the trip with you, along with more February awesomeness (um, can you say MOST epic birthday ever?!). Til then, keep your toes warm and the fires burning! 

Getting by with (more than) a little help from my friends.

Oh my gosh! This poor little blog has gotten so neglected lately…but with good reason! My life has been filled with a lot of truly wonderful things…which is no less than I'd expect from February!

With that said, I'm going to spend the next few days playing catch-up before Jon and I jet off to sunny, sandy Puerto Rico for a week (I CANNOT WAIT.) There's a lot that I'd like to share, starting with what turned out to be a pretty epic January.

Guys, I really haaaate January. There's nothing awesome about coming down from the holiday high into year-end, (super)sub-zero temperatures, feet of snow, and the bitter little pill of knowing there are three more months of winter to get through. 

To combat my January blues, I kicked one of my New Year's resolutions into high gear and really focused on surrounding myself with the people who make day-to-day life so lovely: the amazing community of friends I'm so lucky to have in the Twin Cities! Filling a usually-miserable month with awesome new experiences and memories with these people was seriously the only thing keeping a smile on my face through the bitter cold and blowing snow. Without further ado: here's a quick highlight reel of some of the month's great times: 

Hannah and Sarah have been so much fun to get closer to in the past few months! Our brunch traditions are one of my all-time favorites. On New Year's Day, we celebrated 2014 with a return to Loring Kitchen for bottomless mimosas, ranchero scrambles, and eggs florentine...girly gossip and chatting about resolutions, weddings, relationships good and bad, and twentysomething life in the Twin Cities was a great way to start off the year. 

Midway through the month, we took advantage of Hannah's employment with the corporate headquarters of a major beauty company to get some super-awesome, super CHEAP facials! We couldn't have picked a better time to indulge and pamper our skin a little--coming off a week-plus of negative temperatures, my face was feeling rough. The experience left me so relaxed and chilled-out...heavenly. 

Hannah and I got adventurous on a particularly warm Sunday and headed to Minnehaha Falls for a winter hike! Hannah is a really gifted self-taught photographer, and the frozen falls on this beautiful blue-skies day were begging to be photographed. We risked our lives skidding down a few steep flights of frozen stairs and savored the 40-degree "heat wave" along with a hundred other people who had the same idea we had. What a relaxing, fun "nature" experience in the middle of this city!

I've also had a great time hitting up some of the Twin Cities' best restaurants with friends to reconnect over great food and fun cocktails. Steph, who I met through Notre Dame's prospective student host program and became dear friends with when she followed my footsteps into the Band of the Fighting Irish, now lives in Minneapolis. It had been way too long since we'd caught up, and doing so over to-die-for lobster rolls at The Smack Shack was just what the doctor ordered. 

Kim and Kelsie and I go back nearly a decade now--gosh, that throws my age into relief! We met our sophomore year of high school and, despite attending different high schools and colleges, we've managed to stay close as can be. We finally reunited after several months apart at Rojo...one of my absolute addictions in the area. Their margaritas? Lethal. Their guacamole? Delish. Their queso? Out of this world. After a margarita and like...three baskets of chips, we, of course, jumped right back into the flow of our friendship that I cherish so much. Kim and I met up a few weeks later for manicures and delicious Punch Pizza. Loving seeing these ladies more often...and looking forward to another decade of friendship ahead of us!

We also had a great day earlier in the month celebrating Alyssa, everyone's favorite bride-to-be! After months of waiting, she and her fiance Andrew fiiiiinally have a wedding date for this October, and Andrew jetted off to Vegas for a bachelor party a few weeks into 2014. Some great Minneapolis Domer ladies spent a day shopping for bridal accessories, dining (and sake-bombing!) at Chino Latino, and watching wedding movies. Great girly fun!

I also hosted one of my book clubs for the first time. We busted out a bruschetta bar, munched on to-die-for macarons from Patisserie Margo, and discussed (sort of) Khaled Hosseini's And The Mountains Echoed. Fun night--a not-so-fun read, but hey, any excuse to relax with wine, right!?

On a particularly miserable negative temps day, Jon and I spent an entire Saturday indoors with some of his awesome college friends nerding out HARD over board games and drinking mimosas. Literally. All. Day. We played some Catan, I learned a game called Sol that's basically team solitaire on crack, and we laughed until our sides hurt at Cards against Humanity. So great.

And so here we sit nearly through February! Thanks to the friends who helped me get through the worst month of the year painlessly...here's to temps above zero and a short little month that will fly by!

Resolutionizing Check-in: January 2014

Since we've entered my favorite winter month, it's time for the first monthly check-in on those resolutions I wrote a while back. Because accountability is the only way anything gets done around here, after all! 

1. Cook at least one new recipe a week.

Status: Fail! Oh, FAIL! I cooked like…one new thing period in January! Such a disappointment. Looks like I have a long way to go on this one. 

2. Manage my closet/shopping habits in conjunction with each other more effectively. 

Status: Moderately proud of my progress on this one…I did shop (damn you, online clearance sections!), but everything I bought was for work. Further, I cleaned out a ton of old (seriously, high-school old) skirts, shirts, and sweaters. I'll give myself a B for January on this one. Goal for February: no online shopping whatsoever. Here goes nothing!

3. Have at least one "event date" a month with Jon. 

Status: I'm so in love with this resolution and so proud of how I'm doing with it! Jon and I had a great January of dates. We got in the habit of doing something fun on Fridays after work, which has included a few ski trips to Afton, along with taking advantage of the free WinterSkate in Rice Park after swanky cocktails at the St. Paul Hotel. We also saw "Frozen" (DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED, I'M OBSESSED!) and have started watching "The Bachelor" with wine and snark galore. I do love this guy…pretty lucky. Here's to more dates in all the rest of the months. 

4. Focus on continuing friendships. 

Status: Also really proud of this one! I've had such a social butterfly month, which I'm excited to share soon, and I'm loving taking advantage of more free time to reconnect with friends. Definitely planning on keeping up the great momentum here. 

5. Call my grandma regularly. 

Status: Another epic fail here. I'm disappointed I haven't done this…as I said in my original post, a phone call is SO easy. We've been seeing Grandma Lo regularly for Sunday Funday (deets to come, it's a blast!), but that doesn't give me a free pass on making just a teeny bit more effort. 

6. Grow some succulents. 

Status: Fail. It's cold, it's dark, and my green thumb is gonna be in hibernation until like…Daylight Savings Time starts. Expect some blooming/growing/greening things then. 

7. Write more!

Status: Moderate success? I've been writing lots of little things, like my five-year journal and plenty of verbose emails to BFF Conk. I've sadly neglected the blog this month, though, and that's gotta turn around. Thankfully, I have plenty planned for February! I also did write three pieces of snail mail this month, which was fun and is definitely going to be a continual goal. 

8. Stop leaving my clothes in a pile on the floor. 

Status: Progress has been made! There is now a clothes pile approximately 75% of the time instead of 100% of the time! And I may be wishfully thinking, but it's shrunk. Here's to total elimination by April at the rate we're going…ha!

9. Make smart, healthy choices. 

Status: Actually really pleased with this one so far. Barre has been so inspiring for me. As a friend put it, there's nothing like sore muscles to remind me that I made a great effort to improve my health, which in turn inspires healthier eating and life choices across the board. I also haven't slept in my makeup ONCE yet this year, awww yeah!

10. Focus on maintaining a positive outlook. 

Status: Ugh. This is the one that I didn't think I'd fail, and toooootally did. January is hard, you guys! Not that it's an excuse, but -50 degree temperatures, hours of darkness, and the post-Christmas crash hit me hard this year. I've been brutal to some of the people I love most. Hopefully having things like my birthday, Puerto Rico and spring on the horizon will be the kick in the pants I need to stay grateful for all the wonderful things in my life. 

Here's to a month of progress and 11 more months of accountability!

A love letter to February.

February! Oh, February!! HELLO! I've been anxiously awaiting this month basically since January 2nd. I am NOT a January fan. Call it discriminatory winter behavior, but coming on the heels of December and standing in the way of February, it's 31 days of a very, very unhappy Liz. 

February, on the other hand, is the kind of month that tends to leave me smiling. I think February's always gotten a bad rap that it has never deserved...at least in my eyes. Think about it...it's such a short, quick month! Even in leap year, it's at least a day down on all the other months. And at least how I look at it, a winter month that's 1-3 days shorter than all the others is fine by me. 

Plus...a month that's all about pink? Sign me up. Duh. Really, a month that's all about love is right up my alley. I find it very easy to forget to celebrate the incredible amount of love I'm lucky to be surrounded by on a regular basis...having a month that's intended to focus right in on that forces me to remember that there are some pretty great people in the world who love me an awful lot. And if that doesn't warm a girl's heart and get me through this winter, I don't know what will. 

February is also fantastic because it includes my birthday. I am shamelessly the person who enjoys making a totally unwarranted, really big deal out of my birthday (because it's like I did so much, being born on this specific day, right? I feel like moms are the ones who should get celebrated on birthdays!). This is the first year since college that I can really do much for my birthday, but I still don't really have big plans. I'm headed up north this weekend to visit Jon's family, and am for sure celebrating with my family on the 9th and doing something fun for dinner on the 11th (the actual day, which is a Tuesday this year, boo!). 

Jon and I are jetting off to Puerto Rico on 2/22, which is the biggest reason to celebrate of all! I cannot wait to escape the arctic tundra and get myself on a sandy beach with a frozen cocktail in hand. We'll be gone for a week and have grand plans to hike through the rainforest, visit Vieques's bioluminescent bay at night, see Old San Juan, and of course spend ample time relaxing and basking in the warmth. 

February, you are my favorite. That is all. Looking forward to everything the next 24 days have in store!