You know it’s bad when you take two Tylenol PM and still can’t sleep. Talk about a zombie. Now I know why Michael Jackson kept upping his dose. Miraculously, I felt a billion times better when I woke up and got to work today. I’m really plowing through my to-do list and I will meet all my deadlines very soon! T minus 3 weeks to go!!!

After work, Matt helped me throw together a fabulous summer dinner!

My cold got a lot worse and I pretty much had a horrible day at work (part-time employees don’t get sick days). I’m trying to stay positive, so I’m just gonna leave you with some of my favorite memories in pictures. Enjoy.

I’ve obviously been really into soup these past few days, so I got a big bowl of spicy lentil. Lentil is always hit or miss, but this once was a hit. Kinda reminded me of refried beans.

My favorite thing at Toast is the crostini sampler – you pick three kinds with a big pile of greens. I tried the herb pesto, mozzarella, roasted tomato; the sicilian caponata, goat cheese, pine nuts; and the avocado with spring peas. All were totally unique and simple delightful.

Today has been simple – gym, babysitting, leftovers for dinner. And I’m aiming for a 9:30 bedtime. Sweet dreams.

But I chose an easy spread of foods and did most of the prep work in the afternoon.

We had salad with strawberries, blue cheese, and walnuts with a simple dressing of olive oil, balsamic, honey, and mustard.

Rice made with half basmati and half of Trader Joe’s lemongrass rice (so delish).

Naan from the Whole Foods bakery.

And chicken and vegetable curry from Kat’s fabulous recipe! I actually doubled it to ensure we’d have enough for the men. I didn’t quite have enough curry paste for the double though, so the flavor was a bit less bold than I would have liked. It was popular with the fam though!

Dessert was a sampling platter from Whole Foods along with some chocolate dipped strawberries I made. The samples included key lime pie, pumpkin whoopie pies, and an old fashioned cupcake. It was a very nice evening.

Today’s rainy cold weather has been perfect for nursing this cold and knocking out a lot of report writing for work. It felt great to get the hard work done this morning, so I’m debating a gentle gym session this afternoon. We are grabbing dinner with friends tonight and I’m looking forward to getting out of the house.

Happy Monday.

Rewind to my relaxing Friday – I had given my Mom a coupon last Mother’s Day for a fancy lunch out in Durham, and she just got around to redeeming it! I took her to the cafe at the Nasher Museum of Art for lunch on the patio.

We shared:

the yogurt curried chicken salad with grapes and walnuts along with dill quinoa salad. The food was absolutely perfect – so fresh and bursting with flavor. Matt and I have eaten at the Nasher once before and I think it may be my favorite place for brunch/lunch.

After lunch, my Mom redeemed a gift card I had given her for her birthday for a manicure. I got my toes done for the first time since last year! It felt wonderful to be massaged. And then I took a brief nap before meeting one of my friends for live music at the American Tobacco lawn.

We watched the crowd of dancers in the front,

sipped wine,

ate fried pickles,

and saw a cat at the bar!

All night, I felt like I had food stuck in my throat and I just couldn’t get it out. I woke up around 2am with a horrible sore throat. It seriously felt like there was a shard of glass in there. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well. When I woke up though, the rest of me still felt ok so I went out on a bike ride. I felt horrible by the time I got home, but I was too sad to cancel brunch with friends who were just in town for the weekend.

We tried the new Another Broken Egg Cafe and it was great! I had a shrimp omelette with pesto sauce and really enjoyed it.

I thought I might be able to rally for a trip to the pool and a fun girls dinner with my good friend from high school, but just couldn’t do it:( I watched Sarah’s Key (read the book this year) on Netflix and slept.

The shard of glass is thankfully gone today, but I’m still feeling under the weather. I got chicken noodle and corn bread from Whole Foods, which was fun. Matt just got home from his high school reunion in Maryland, and he’s gonna help me make a mother’s day meal for my Mom.

Happy Mother’s day to all the Moms!

So, the point of this rant? I’m just trying to slow down. Matt’s been telling me for years that rushing is bad for my health and yet I continue to rush to try to do it all. I obviously read a lot of lifestyle blogs with topics about ‘how to squeeze in a workout when you have 20 minutes’ and ‘how save time and money at the grocery store.’ I love the internet, but it stresses me out. I’m trying NOT to feel like I have to squeeze in that 20 minute workout and take a walk instead. I do a lot of passive relaxation (aka time on the couch), but I want to do more active relaxation, like making sure I have time to wind down at night before going to bed, getting massages every once in a while, listening to more calming music on my drive to work, and taking time to breathe.

And I need to use the time I save microwaving instead of cooking dinner to eat more slowly rather than woofing things down!

How do you de-stress?

I battled the urge to fall asleep for almost an hour, and finally let myself take a ten minute nap. I just crash after work and wish I could be like normal people (note: maybe the people I know who train for their half marathons after work aren’t actually normal and are actually super human). The good news is that I skipped over to the gym for 45 minutes of biking after waking up. I didn’t break a sweat, but it was nice to get moving. Especially since my legs are terribly sore after Matt made me do some workout from a men’s health magazine. I was limping through the halls today in heels. I do squats a couple of times a year and then never feel inspired to do them again.

The other good news is that I’ve finally found a doctor I like. I’m starting a new drug for, well, digestive issues, and finally having my hormone levels tested. Keep your fingers crossed that I’m miraculously cured of my terrible twenties tiredness and suddenly have the energy of a college student again (yeah right). Speaking of energy, it’s that time again – good night, sleep tight!

After a failed day of babysitting (kid got sick = I went home), I tackled my to-do list and got in some extra relaxation. Matt and I leave for Atlanta in three weeks, so we paid a visit to Hillsborough to see my parents and have dinner. I had also hoped to vote, but when I let it slip that I live in Durham now, I wasn’t allowed to vote in Hillsborough where I’m registered to vote (duh, should have known this). I caught myself when I started to state my address, but just couldn’t tell a lie when I realized my mistake. So sad.

We brought the leftover sangria to my parents house and finished off what was left. It tasted even better after 2 days. My dad ate every single bit of fruit from the bottom of the pitcher!

We walked down to the Saratoga Grill for the best burgers in the Triangle! They also have amazing scones.

For just $8.50 on Tuesdays, you can get a burger, salad, and beer and it’s a hellaofa burger at that. This guy is thick and the middle is stuffed with blue cheese.

It’s not always pretty, but it’s always tasty. This was Matt’s first time and he declared that the burger was definitely one of the best he’s ever had.

I wish I could stick around and chat, but bedtime comes so fast on school nights:( Tomorrow’s a big day and I’m really feeling the pressure of the end of the school year. Adios.

The restaurant was packed to the brim, but we were seated at a small two-top in the corner of the bar. The waitress rushed over to us several times while we were looking over it to inform us that multiple appetizers and entrees had run out. When we realized how quickly food was disappearing, we just picked three things and got our order in as quickly as possible.

First, we had the signature twice baked grit soufflé with wild mushroom ragout, aged sherry mushroom emulsion, and shaved confit foie gras. Talk about different! The mushrooms were fantastic and the sauce so unique. I wasn’t crazy about the texture of the soufflé (too egg-like), but the flavor was so awesome that I still loved the dish.

Probably our favorite dish of the night was the grilled confit pork belly on Carolina rice grits with warm butterbean salad, cider and creole mustard glaze, and watermelon rind pickle. WOW. Who knew this combination would work so well? The warm sauce, fatty meat, and cold sweet salad were PERFECT together.

Our entree was the spice-crusted Trout in spring onion pesto sauce on creamy lemon grits (I know – grits three times!) and field peas with shrimp, apple bacon, and local pea tendrils. The lemon grits and bacon were by far my favorite part!

Dessert ended up stealing the show, though, because Matt and I love fruit crisps! This one was enormous! It was a pear crisp with vanilla ice cream and a salted caramel drizzle. Luckily, the dessert was so big we didn’t have to fight over it, but I could tell we were a bit competitive while eating this:)

This meal was obviously heavenly and I feel so lucky that we got to eat at Magnolia Grill before it’s doors are closed. Thanks so much to our friends Lauren and Evan for the gift card that pushed us to get there!! I still salivate just thinking about it.

And that was Friday, which was wayy more exciting than my Monday. Typical:)

I made Cristina’s  quinoa black bean salad as well as sweet potato black bean enchiladas,

and some chocolate dipped strawberries. I also made classic red wine sangria with rum. I was busy drinking my friend Maria’s ‘get naked’ margaritas, but I tried some at the end of the night and thought the sangria turned out pretty well.

Katie made ridiculous jalapeno and bacon wrapped shrimp,

and other friends brought loads of Mexican beer, taco dip,

a huge bowl of fresh guacamole,

homemade southwestern egg rolls,

chocolate pie,

and a wonderful key lime pie that I forgot to photograph. I was really amazed by the spread of food, as everything was really delicious and almost completely gone by the end of the night.

We also enjoyed watching the Derby and Matt actually won the $20 produced from the random drawing that he organized. I felt a little bad that the host got the winnings. Oh well – covered all the beer we bought! All in all, it was such a fun night with friends and I’m so glad we got to see everyone before we leave for the summer. It was so fun though, that I woke up feeling lazy and dehydrated and spent a lot of time today just sitting around. Matt invited me to go to the gym though, and I did a much needed upper body lifting session with him. We also took a stroll and later found ourselves at the Q Shack for some of Durham’s best bbq. We split a platter with brisket, pulled pork, hush puppies, fried okra, baked beans, and sweet potato tots (!). This plate was intense! And probably clogged my arteries for the third time this weekend, but I loved it and I’ll definitely need to make another trip there in the fall.

Did any of you celebrate Cinco de Mayo, the Derby, or just life in general this weekend?