The Weekend I Needed

This has been one of those really great weekends that has been equal parts relaxing, productive and downright fun.

After yesterday’s sweat session/shopping excursion/walk-a-thon with the girls, I was excited to end my day with ABS. We had plans to go out to dinner with two other couples at Beyoglu on the Upper East Side. (love when people agree to come to our ‘hood!)

The cuisine is Mediterranean and Turkish, and luckily one of the girls in our group had been there before and offered great recommendations.

For appetizers, we split some hummus (definitely recommend, if only for the warm, fluffy bread you get for dipping), spinach pie and zucchini pancakes. The appetizers were my favorite part of the meal — I could have done without my entree!

While the majority of our table opted for either the lamb kebab platter or the chicken breast for their main meals, I decided to try out the shrimp casserole. Shrimp? Good. Melted cheese? Good. Veggies? Gooood.

Honestly, I was a bit disappointed with it. It’s not that it wasn’t good, it was just really different from what I expected. Still, we had a great meal. The atmosphere was fun, and the interior was dimly lit but not too dark. We of course accompanied our meals with some wine — pinot grigio for me — and all left the restaurant feeling nice and full.

Not too full for 16 Handles though! I had told everyone about how much I’ve been loving this frozen yogurt hot spot, and much to my surprise everyone said, “OK, let’s go there next.” We all had fun making various concoctions. I stuck with the usual: chocolate yogurt with a tiny bit of peanut butter yogurt mixed in, peanut butter cups, brownie bites, cookie dough and peanuts. Oh so decadent. Oh so amazing.

I love that 16 Handles is so quirky. Their T-shirts crack me up.

After that, we were really full!

Our next stop was downtown to see two of my college friends who had gotten engaged that morning. They were both giddy with excitement and I was glad we made time to see them. I swear, someone I know gets engaged every weekend. Lots of weddings coming up in the next few years!

After that, we were supposed to go to the Empire Hotel for ABS’s friend’s birthday party. When we found out the party didn’t start until midnight, I quickly bailed. I came home to get a good night’s sleep and ABS was able to finish his night out with the boys. Fine by me!

This morning I slept in until 9:30 am. It felt so good!

I made a nice To Do list to get me through the day — because I cannot function with a list of things to accomplish — and immediately tackled the most important thing on the list: write work article!

Since I never got it totally done on Friday, I hunkered down at my computer today and banged out the entire thing. Success!

Getting that done lit a fire under me. I did 200 various crunches, foam rolled the legs out — my back and sides are surprisingly sore from yesterday’s gym session with my main man Corey Hill — and then scooted out for a 4-mile run.

The main reason for today’s run was to use my new Garmin and map out my morning route. I’ve been alternating between 3 and 4 mile runs, but I was basing the mileage off MapMyRun.com. With the watch, I was able to see that I was, well, a little off! Now I know exactly how far I have to go to hit those mile points.

Though it was chilly out, the sun made it bearable and I worked up quite a sweat.

I am still loving having a running watch and felt really proud of my pace today.

Note: I did not maintain a 7:54 pace the entire time. That was just the pace at the very end when I sprinted from the last stop light to my building. I don’t know how to use all the fancy buttons to get it to show my overall pace.

After my run, it was laundry time, followed by shower time, cleaning time and TV time.

Dog shows on TV = very happy Ali.

I tuned in just in time to see my favorites: the Toy group! Sadly though, the pug didn’t win.

Dog obsessed much?

Why yes, yes I am.

I did some grocery shopping and now ABS has some guys over watching the football game. Soon we’re headed out to watch the Jets game at a bar near our apartment. I’m no football fan, but I am a fan of the enthusiasm!

TELL ME: What does your perfect weekend entail? Mine was a fabulous combination of girl time, boyfriend time, running, sweating, shopping, walking, relaxing and getting things done.