Weekend Wrap-Up: A Festivus for the Rest of Us

I try not to waste any time when it comes to the holidays. When the calendar says December, that's my cue to start decorating, baking and shopping (can't forget that one!). This weekend was just perfect, and what better way to share it than through pictures!

Hope you had a very festive weekend too! Stay tuned for Wednesday's post on a new and healthy breakfast idea to spice up your morning routine!

We finished the week with some ice skating at Bryant Park. Thankfully, no bones were broken (I have a
long history with skating rinks).

LOVE the huge tree at Bryant Park!

Spent the early hours of Saturday morning at my favorite coffee shop in Park Slope, Cafe Dada.

We've mastered the art of brunching... 1) Arrive to James early enough to get a table, 2) promptly place food order and
3) sit back, relax and watch as the latecomers fight for a spot.

What's a Saturday morning without a bloody mary?...

Followed by a black kale salad  with quinoa, almonds, ricotta cheese and a poached egg for me...

...and the pulled pork, pickled slaw and cheese scone for Adam.

What better place to purchase your Christmas tree! 

Yeah, that tree was too big for me. Thanks for man-handling it home, Adam!

Walter's first Christmas tree.

A late afternoon trip to check out the new David's Tea in Park Slope, followed by a quick trip
to Barnes & Noble for a good book.

We passed a health food store and I went slightly nuts.

Now for the decorating...

The glittery ornaments had my name all over them.

Walter's guilty face.  I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a ball rolling
across the bedroom floor. Guess who?

The flair on my tree. Isn't he cute?

Ta dah! My very first real-live New York City Christmas tree! It only took 4 years!

...and my Charlie Brown bathroom tree with the leftover trimmings!

A Sunday afternoon trip to Harney & Sons for more tea. 

Tea heaven... for real.

Yep, we went Christmas shopping for other people and only bought things for ourselves.
 Christmas - 1, Lauren and Adam - 0. Better luck next time!

Weekend Wrap-Up: My Happy Place

This weekend, I decided to focus on relaxation. I have a bit of an OCD problem. I live and die by my to-do lists, scrawled half-legibly across multiple post-it notes and stuck to my computer. It's very hard for me to just sit down, relax and do something I enjoy. So, after two weeks of moving, unpacking and settling in, I decided this weekend needed to be different.

Maybe some of you have the same problem. You find it hard to give yourself any 'me' time because you have a million other things you should be doing. Honestly though, that to-do list will always be a mile long. Life is one big to-do list. So before you spend your whole life running around like a chicken with your head cut off, remember to stop every once in awhile, smell the roses, do something you love, meet up with a friend for a coffee and a chat, and maybe even take a mid-day nap. These are the beautiful moments in life that we sometimes miss when we're being too OCD for our own good.

I know it's Monday and we're all back at it, but I encourage you to find a way to feed your soul today.

And now, my weekend in pictures...

The view from my new bedroom window. A very nice sight to wake up to.

The view from my living room window, facing west, meaning I get fantastic sunsets.

What's a Saturday morning without a hot cup of joe? Cafe Dada did the trick.

Man, I love my neighborhood... so many cool brownstones and beautiful, old trees.

The Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market was rockin' this weekend... fall crops are here!

Just look at these peppers! Ay yi yi!

The apples were looking crisp and tasty!

These little girls were pumped about the pumpkins. 

The Indian corn pretty much makes fall official.

...Same goes for the autumn-colored mums.

Isn't this just the cutest? They sell milk in a bottle like the old days.

You gotta get free range pork if you're gonna make....

...homemade pulled pork! Nice job, Adam. Perfect game day food.

My favorite farmer's market booth.

...and the flowers I took home with me. Aren't they just beautiful?

Shopping on Smith Street (Oh Brooklyn Industries, why are you so pricy?)

A lazy Sunday morning

Watching Felix Baumgartner skydive from the edge of space (I'd hate to be his mother).

He survived!!! Phew.

A quick trip to Brooklyn Homebrew for the ingredients for Adam's latest homebrew... a Belgian Dark Strong Ale.

A beer-ice bath, apparently part of the brewing process. Maybe I shouldn't have cleaned the bathroom pre-brewing.

A little late-night blogging before bed.

Oh, and I saw John Mayer this weekend. His Escalade almost ran us over. Man, oh man, if my camera hadn't been deep inside my purse, that would've been some good blog material!

Oh well... can't win 'em all!

Saturday Splurge: Stone Park Cafe (Brooklyn, NY)

Image courtesy of betweencourses.blogspot.com

Fair warning... I'm about to get a little intense. But such is my love for Stone Park Cafe in Park Slope. I know this would never ever happen, but if I was forced (at gunpoint) to pick one restaurant to eat at for the rest of my life (serious situation, I know), even under duress, I would have enough sense to scream 'Stone Park! Stone Park!'.

Every single time I eat here, I find it hard to stop eating. Or pay the check and leave the table, for that matter. Stone Park Cafe was born in 2004 when two friends Josh Foster and Josh Grinker (who grew up together in Park Slope) decided to go into business together to offer innovative, yet comforting, fare to the community they grew up in. Considering the class of its food, Stone Park could easily be pretentious, but instead, it's nothing short of warm and welcoming. I have always been greeted with a big smile - the kind of smile I'd expect when attending dinner at a friend's house. Now that's how I like it!

Stone Park prides itself on it's seasonal menu, with ingredients sourced from local farms. The menu is ever-changing, which is why it's clearly the best pick when forced to choose one restaurant for the rest of your waking life. I took my friend Marissa there this week for her final dinner out in New York City. She's hitting the road to San Francisco, so I figured it was my last attempt at convincing her to stay. The food was fantastic, but apparently she's still moving. Wait...where did I go wrong?

We both started with a smooth glass of pinot gris (we are self-professed winos after all), followed by an appetizer - the short rib slider. Just imagine a housemade potato roll topped with a thin layer of creamed spinach and a hearty slab of short rib, topped with a quail egg. I'm pretty sure I had dreams about it afterwards.

I have got to stop diving into my dishes and forgetting to snap a picture! This is becoming a problem!!

For our entrees, we both went the pasta route. It was rainy outside and a little Italian comfort food just felt like the right thing to do. Marissa ordered the swiss chard raviolini with seasonal mushrooms, sage and pine nuts and I cleaned my plate of squid ink tagliatelle - a beautiful bowl of chipotle pepper, gulf shrimp, pancetta and scallions. Some people say 'death by chocolate', but for me, it's 'death by squid ink'. Ridiculously good!

We should have stopped there, but the dessert menu was calling our name. Might as well make a night of it! We chose the Affogato, a beautiful combination of housemade caramel ice cream and hazelnut whipped cream, topped with espresso. We showed that dessert who was boss... and in record time, at that.

Dessert - Round 2

Our generous waiter than decided to send Marissa off to San Francisco the right way... he showed up with 2 glasses of dessert wine on the house AND wait for it! wait for it! a second dessert that he said we just HAD to try! You know what they say... when at Stone Park...

So, needless to say, we needed an ambulance to roll us out of there when we were done. That's how I would like to eat for the rest of my life! Thank God I chose Stone Park!

STONE PARK CAFE

324 Fifth Avenue (at 3rd Street)

Brooklyn, NY 11215

718.369.0082

www.stoneparkcafe.com

Weekend Wrap-Up: Movin' On Up (Literally)!

My weekend was marked by stair climbs, weight lifting and running from here to there. No, I wasn't at a CrossFit class. No, I didn't spend all weekend in the gym. No, I didn't participate in a women's bodybuilding competition (though that would have been super impressive).

No, what I did was much less fun than all that... I spent the weekend moving into a new apartment on the top floor of a brownstone, to be exact - 4 flights up and no elevator in sight (welcome to New York!). So, between all the stair climbing and box lifting, I got a pretty good workout this weekend, which made me wonder... approximately how many calories did I actually burn? If my throbbing calves were any indication, I'd guess a lot!

With the help of a handy dandy online calorie counter, I figured out that I burned at least 2000+ calories just in the 4 hours I spent moving - that's not even counting the unpacking part. That's a lot of calories! - which got me thinking... how many calories on average do we burn while doing day-to-day chores or other activities? Exercise can be found in many ways. You definitely don't have to go to the gym to find it. Sometimes we have days when our to-do list is a mile long and it's impossible to fit a workout in. No worries, my friends! By staying busy and crossing items off your to-do list with gusto, you are burning more calories than you thought!

I've listed some examples of calories burned in the span of 30 minutes! Remember, calorie counts are dependent on your weight, so consider these to be approximate figures...

IRONING - 70 calories

VACUUMING - 90 calories

CLIMBING STAIRS - 285 calories

PAINTING - 100 calories

RAKING LEAVES - 225 calories

CAR WASHING - 140 calories

LAWN WORK - 120 calories

In addition to the calories burned, most of these activities give you a resistance workout as well. Washing your car works for arms and your core. Raking leaves gives you a great all over workout! Climbing stairs works your leg muscles, while vacuuming attacks your arm muscles. Even cooking can be considered a calorie burning activity, especially if you're burning things and doing the 'smoke detector' dance like me!

Courtesy of usmagazine.com

Oh, and the best news (for people like me who like to practice their vocal stylings while cleaning) is that singing also burns 75 calories in 30 minutes! So tack that on to your boring household activity and you'll really be getting somewhere!

Hope you all had a good weekend! If you live in NYC, you might be getting a dinner party invitation soon once I get this place under control. And if you don't live in NYC, that's a good reason to get yourself on a plane headed this way! I actually have a skylight in my apartment and a view of the Freedom Tower and Empire State Building across the water! Renting doesn't get much better than this!

And now...for a photo montage of my moving weekend. Peruse and feel sorry for me. After all those stairs, my quads burn like the fiery pits of hell.

Moving day breakfast of champions.

 

Gotta unpack the most important things first!

Living room before the mess of boxes arrived.

Bedroom before being beautified.

What a sweet man! Helping me line the kitchen drawers (a job I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy).

Walter, not so sure what's going on.

My helper collapsed... Time to call it a day.