Instaxy Delight: The Town and Country Edition

Summer is over and Fall is upon us, but that doesn't stop me from looking at some fairly recent Instax pictures I've taken. There are photos here from DC, WV, and PA. Clearly, me and my camera like to get around this fair country! My instax and I have been dying to take photos of some beautiful Fall leaves and with my upcoming three day staycation, I think I'll do just that. Happy Tuesday, buckaroos!

Friday at Five: The Somewhere Between Coffee and Beer Edition

 Images via me while at  Lost Dog Cafe and Cafe Amouri

After going home to visit with my family last weekend, which is 10-11 hours of driving in a 48 hour period, I've felt tired all week. You'd think that would mean I'm definitely going to relax this weekend, right? Au contraire derriere! R. and I are off straight after work to see the Afghan Whigs tonight at my favorite club. I'm so crazy, crazy stoked about it that it's the first thing I thought of this morning after "Fudge. I hate that alarm clock". I also really want to go to the movies, work on my class stuff, and I'm finally* feeling ready to start doing some actual wedding planning for the decor. So yeah, I'm somewhere between wanting to go out and do fun stuff and staying in and being productive. Hopefully, I'll hit that happy medium. Have a lovely weekend!

*My friend Karen, a wise woman,reminded me that not everyone lives in a Pinterest boarding, magazine hoarding, over-blogged existence like me and so it's okay to plan the wedding I want, even if some of the elements might be played out. HELLO CHALKBOARDS, I can't quit you. Maybe this was a simple idea, but one that had gotten away from me and caused me to waaaay overthink some stuff, so thanks! I owe her a burrito for such good advice. 

Nugget's Day Out

Last weekend while visiting my family, I got to spend some time with my nephew Nugget. After having three nieces, he seems like such a Boy,with a capital B, but it's kind of awesome. We had a full, full afternoon of playing. In the span of an hour we checked on his strawberries, found a stick, admired his baseball, played with the wagon and practiced swinging on his swing set. I don't know what kind of coffee he's drinking, but that's what I need.  

Double Feature Movie Day

On this Wednesday morning, my mind is already on the weekend. Nothing huge planned, but I'm hoping that R. and I can catch a double feature this weekend. There is nothing more luxurious that going to two movies back to back. While it can get pricey (FIST SHAKE at you $13 movie tickets!), we don't do it often. If you've not done it, I fully recommend it. While it is particularly fun to do on a hot summer day, when you don't have to pay for the AC, it's pretty much awesome all the time.

Here are the two movies, I want to see this weekend:

Looks good, right? I guess it's loosely based on Scientology, which makes it all the more interesting. And anyway, who doesn't love Jaoquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman? I hope we can catch the 70mm run at the AFI. Have you ever seen a 70 mm film?
I don't even know what to say about this aside from HELLO JGL... If you read Tiger Beat at any time in the late 90's (Hello 8th grade crush!), you know what I mean.

Wedding Talk: How do I avoid being "that" wedding?

I have to say, as I panic over wedding planning which has been put on the extreme back burner while I started teaching my class, this is how I feel about most of it:


I do want a beautiful wedding that will be enjoyable for my friends, but in this day of Pinterest* wedding boards, wedding blogs and HUGE, dictionary sized wedding magazines, its easy to feel overwhelmed. I mean, will my friends and family think I'm a trashy jerk if I don't have a photo booth and artisanal cheeses? Will there be judgment over the extreme lack of Mason jars? Will my marriage even be recognized by the state if I don't have some adorable pennant flags?

I don't really care if anyone thinks my weeding is the coolest or anything, but this wedding stuff is just baffling to me. Where is the happy medium between the couple in the video and courthouse wedding with no guests? If you find it, that's where I need to be. Okay, enough with my rant, Happy Tuesday.

*In fairness, Pinterest has been a helpful tool and I did make myself a wedding board to help corral my ideas. Just looking at it now makes me realize... Man, I love chalkboards.

Random Thoughts

• Bought this Kiehl's chapstick last weekend in the cranberry flavor. Wowee Zowie! It is so good that I've definitely overdone it this week. My lips have had a fine sheen all week.

• Honeycrisp apples are back for the season and I intend to eat about a million. Good thing apples are healthy. 

• Hoping to finish reading I'm Down, which is hilarious, this weekend. Was thinking of starting The Lord of the Rings books... Between this thought and my new found love of Battlestar Galactica, I'm getting cooler by the minute.

• R. and I watched two movies last weekend and it was so fun, I hope we can do it again this weekend.

• I made Italian Wedding soup for the first time this week. It was pretty delicious. Who knew escarole rocks the party that rocks the party? I used this recipe. 

• I need a haircut. Badly. Bangs are work, but I really do need them.

• I love New York. I don't love looking for cheapish hotels that don't give me the heebie jeebies for our trip. I need a pied-à-terre. 

• It's been a two- cup* morning so far, but I have full intentions of having a better day, so yeah, I'm jazzed to go for my bi-annual dental cleaning. Really. I love brushing my teeth. 

Have a lovely weekend. I hope it is crisp enough out there to get our sweater wearing on! 

*Quindome Defines: Exhausting, tiring, generally crummy day that requires additional caffeine.

Quindome Reviews: Ballet Beautiful

Image via Fit Sugar

Where was I yesterday? ACHING LIKE A Mo'Fo. Once you read why, the classiness of that statement will really resonate. I'll never be a ballerina with a sass-mouth like that.
 
I can't lie that having a wedding coming up next year has caused me to re-evaluate my fitness regime, which was, uhhhh, not much. After a year of hard work on my thesis, where I sat, wrote, and ate Cheez-Its (in that order) , I wasn’t exactly feeling like the best version of my physical-self. Lately, I’ve been trying to focus not just on eating well, but also on re-incorporating physical activity back into my life. Thus, I overdid it this week and took a six mile walk on Sunday, then started my Ballet Beautiful DVD on Monday. Dumb. So dumb. Let me tell you, that is one hard work out, six mile hike behind you or not.

At first the all-white room filled my TV screen and the instructor comes on with her super soft voice and I thought, like an idiot, that all I was going to work out was my eyes-from rolling them. You know, because I’m a sarcastic jerk like that. Anyway, Mary Helen Bowers, the instructor, trained Natalie Portman for Black Swan, which was enough for me to buy it. You all know how I feel about Natalie. She’s my Joey Ramone, which also sometimes causes me to go a little fan-girl and buy things to be more like her. This time though, my inner fan-girl did not lead me astray. My muscles are still aching after two days. Overall, as far as exercise videos go, it was easy to follow, uses no special equipment, and is hard enough that the hour flies by. I give it two sore-as-heck thumbs up.

P.S. I couldn't help but feel weird for buying an exercise DVD. It made me think of all the hilariously bad exercise videos found by the guys at Found Footage Festival, like this Jazzercise video.