A new season

While I did not love this book about friends, it has made me incredibly thoughtful about how I spend my free time. Recently, a mantra has been running through my head:

                                 

For the past few weeks I have jammed my schedule full of people who I don't always get to see. It's the last weeks of summer and patio-seated, margarita-drinking, out-too-late living. We're all about to crawl into our caves and hibernate until Spring, only peeking out for the occasional football game. And I am trying to make the most of it. 

But sometimes it means making choices. It means sometimes saying no to what has always felt like the obvious social invitation and saying yes to the one that requires a little more work.

It always feel better. Every time. It feels better to spend that time with people that matter to you.

I am finding myself being more thoughtful about what I plan, working harder to reach out to people, and grateful that I am surrounded by so many great people who want to be my friends.

Let's just call it a midlife resolution.

TYOE: A Saturday in Milwaukee

2013 will be The Year of Exploration or TYOE.

For Christmas, Boyfriend gifted me the gift of adventure within the continental United States (just like on Double Dare!). Due to the absurd amount of flying for work he did last year, he earned enough miles to get me a Companion Pass on Southwest Airlines. And while many airlines would make you give up all your hard-earned miles for such a fancy piece of plastic, they let him keep the miles and the girlfriend-in-tow. So this year will be all about exploring as many of the places Southwest flies as we possibly can. The Year of Exploration (*trumpet noise*)

Well, our first adventure did not even require a plane ticket, just some gloves and a full tank of gas.

Boyfriend has been talking about this Spy Restaurant in Milwaukee forevvvvver, and we got the braintrust-y idea that we should go explore it in the middle of February when Milwaukee was a balmy 16 degrees ABOVE freezing.

I've discovered that when Boyfriend and I travel, we focus most of our energy on eating and drinking and walking around. We'll wander into a museum every now and then but we love food, we love booze and we love walking around burning off all those delicious, delicious calories. Are there awesome museums in Milwaukee (and the other cities we will visit)? Absolutely. Will we visit them? Meh. Maybe. We'll see.

The day started at Trocadero for brunch. We picked it for its proximity to the Lakefront Brewery - and in that regard, its awesome. We were told we had to have a Milwaukee Bloody Mary. I don't know how The Frenchie compares to other Bloodys (since I don't drink them on the regulars, being a mimosa girl myself), but it was spicy and delightful. The beer chaser felt unnecessary but I mean, when in Wisconsin... The food was fine, but I feel like its pretty hard to foul up brunch. The service wasn't great, but since we were only walking across the river to get to our next destination, we weren't in too much of a rush.


Then! After brunch, we discovered that the Holton Street bridge has both a convenient pedestrian walkway AND a sweet teeny-tiny little playground. Full of brunch and a little tipsy, in 16 degree weather, is not quite picture-perfect swinging weather, but we gave it a shot.


We mulled over which brewery to go to (Lakefront vs. Milwaukee Brewing Company) and ended up at Lakefront because that is where Facebook told us to go. It was a great experience, but now we want to try out Milwaukee for comparison's sake.

By 11 AM we had both had about 1.5 beers and were feeling AWESOME. Day drinking is the BEST, winter, summer, don't care. I like my beer while the sun is shining. The tour was fine, the beer was good (although we were disappointed in the lack of variety in the brew pub) and we walked out with two complimentary pint glasses (just what every household needs more of - pint glasses).

Three beers in and feeling buzzed to the max, we meandered down the riverfront path. I bet in the summer it is super gorgeous and full of fun things, but I have to say, with a snowy river and literally NO ONE around, it was kind of perfect.

We made it to the spy restaurant (with a quick stop at the statue of the Fonz which is sort of meaningless to me as I have not ever seen a single second of "Happy Days." But I love a good photo op).                 

The spy restaurant at 4 PM lacked a little of the required ambiance. It needs some darkness and to be less full of screaming children. But we had some fried cheese curds and ice cream (Lunch of (drunk) Champions) and a fancy martini and explored all the fun spy bits. If you really want a Super Spy Experience, get your ass to the Spy Museum in Washington DC and do the Spy training thing. I know its expensive but it is WORTH it for the James Bond power trip. 

We made it down to the Public Market which eeeeeveryone said we had to visit. Not knowing what it was, I was up for it. Until I realized it was just a giant, uber-trendy Whole Foods. 

Had we not just stuffed ourselves with sweet, sweet cheese we may have been amped for artisanal pickles and fresh halibut but it was just noisy and smelled funny so we left to find some non-food third ward adventures.

We found an amazing antique shop (in the same building as Paintball Dave's) and spend an hour or so convincing ourselves that we did not need a whole bunch of garbage (despite how bad we might have wanted it).

By that point, buzz worn off and cold starting to seep in, we made the choice to be done with Milwaukee. Was there more to see? Sure. But going to a museum at 5 PM is dumb and we live close enough to find comfort in the fact that it will always be there, hanging out, waiting for another day of drunken stumbles.

Celebrate your local adventure! Visit a small city within driving distance today!

Outside and Off.

Sometimes I get home earlier that Boyfriend. Earlier enough that it doesn't make sense to start dinner yet. And occasionally I manage to make it home without feeling the heaviness of work that must be done before the sun goes down. On those days I have made it my mission to turn everything off.

I leave my phone and my laptop inside. I take a book and a glass of something delicious out onto the deck and I read. I know this doesn't seem particularly luxurious, but it is my favorite part of my week.

If I am awake 15 hours a day, I probably spend 13 of them staring into the soulless brightness of a screen. And its totally my own fault, I will admit that. Between having a job, looking for a job, and Dance Moms - I find it hard to tear myself away from them.

But for, like, 40 minutes, twice a week - I make a decision to just let it all go. Its wonderful. Its amazing. Its all the adjectives. Four out of five Rachels agree.

So my new goal is to do it more. By the end of the year, it should happen almost every day. Granted- if I am unemployed by that point - it shouldn't be too much of a struggle, but jic - let's enjoy the world beyond the internet.


***bonus points if you can figure out what book I am reading...

Dumb Stuff I Do: two wheels edition

Since we moved up north, I have been a bicycle riding monster. If a monster still gets panicky making left hand turns and is terrified of the day they get a flat tire three miles from home.

Overall, it has been awesome, but since I can't do anything right - it hasn't been without its spectacular mishaps.

The best one so far is that I cannot manage to bike to Target without coming home with over 10 pounds of Target on my back. I feel like I should blame Target for being so g.d. tantalizing, but really - I should learn some frickin' self control.

I am too terrified to slip bags over my handlebars still, so everything has to go into my backpack. And then my backpack looks like this:

While I am pretty good at the biking, I still struggle on big roads and with making left hand turns. So of course, this particular journey - no matter how I slice it, will always include at least both of these things.

And the problem with biking with a bodega on my back is that my first concern switches from "keep yourself alive" to, "don't spill yogurt all over the ground." Why I put spilled groceries ahead of my own well being, I am not a hundred percent sure, but the fact is - its Chobani before skull all the way these days.

Here is all the stuff that was in my big ole backpack (that pink rectangle is my computer which should maybe lose some weight if it wants me to carry it around all the time). And yes. That is a giant tub of animal crackers. Perhaps in the future, I will wait to buy ALL the animal crackers until I have an automobile at my disposal.

And seriously? Bread, bananas and yogurt? I managed to find the holy trifecta of things that should be delicately transported. What an idiot. Although the bread was the only thing that got ever-so-slightly damaged in the trip (no, that's not a glare on the photo, that's a dent in the loaf).

I like to think that I have learned my lesson and will just stop going to Target when I am on my bike, but no. I'll just get one less yogurt next time.