february aka the month of handstands

You guys, 2016 has been fabulous so far.  2016, the year of making shit happen, has been happening all the fuck over the place.  And thus, February: A Summary. I LOVE beer school.  I have learned so much, I have met so many people and networked with them and gossiped with them about the industry and I know so much SCIENCE.  My actual brewing is on a whole different level than it was even just last year.  I was never much of a science/chemistry/biology person before, but I am soaking this up and it’s fascinating.

• I put beer in my barrel for the first time!  My lil’ eggnog porter child is soaking in those delicious charred bourbon flavors & coming along very nicely.  This weekend I’m going to give it another little boost of vanilla, and hopefully by April we can bottle.

• I went, on a total whim, to a sour beer blending seminar in Westland on Valentine’s Day, sponsored by Fermenta (more on this later).  I was on my own because fuck it, I’m an independent adult and I can do things that interest me without needing someone to tag along, and I ended up seeing someone else who was alone and deciding we were going to be instant best friends AND THEN WE WERE, and by the end of the day we had drank all the Belgian beers, watched all the hockey, and then gone to another new-to-us brewery in Dearborn.  I’ve never in my life had a local, female friend as into beer (and hockey!) as I am, and I am over the moon about it.  We instantly decided that we were going to become immediately more active within Fermenta (okay, fine – Fermenta is a nonprofit Michigan-based society, basically, committed to camaraderie, networking, and education of women within the craft beer industry and it’s FABULOUS and full of so many awesome people & opportunities), which led to being involved in 2 brew days for the upcoming International Women’s Collaboration Day – so within the next week I’m going to have 2x actual large scale brewhouse experience (one of which we even got to be involved in planning the recipe for, and guys it sounds brilliant). Making shit happen!

Pretending like I didn't blend/drink two flights like this...

HI NEW BEST FRIEND.

• Also beer(ish) related – in lieu of Winter Beer Festival, said friend and I went on a mini beer tour (Griffin Claw, M-Brew, Michigan Growler Company, & then duck legs at The Bird & The Bread) which also included a stop at Valentine Vodka!  I’m much more of a beer girl, but first of all that place is amazing inside and second of all bourbon/brown sugar/cherry. And gin. All the gin.  Plus a complimentary tour and a little bit of knowledge about distilling?? Yes.

This weird yet badass thing at M-Brew.....okay sure??

Valentine Distillery old school looking bar.

The ambiance of this place was just fantastic.

Learning some distilling ;)

Gin/basil/cucumber + bourbon/brown sugar/cherry.

Nightcap Pine Drops IPA.

•  In the gym, I’ve still been doing boot camp 3-4x a week and yoga 2x, which is phenomenal and I can actually feel myself getting stronger, using heavier weights, feeling better during workouts, nailing balancing postures better.  I did a one on one session with my boot camp trainer to get more comfortable with barbells (not the movements themselves so much, but more so how to structure a workout, how to check my form, when to go heavier and how much), and now I’ve added in 2x a week sessions with the bar, and I can’t even begin to explain how good it feels to have a barbell on my back. (My super tight hip flexors tend to disagree, though).  I have a couple new lifting buddies, and our boot camp group has really started to coalesce into the fit fam I’ve been craving so much that I don’t even mind how insanely expensive it is on top of my (already expensive) membership.

Bootcamp Fit Fam <3

What a good shot I am!

• I also decided February was the month of handstands.  I’ve been wanting to do them for AGES now, and when I finally started being able to get them on a total fluke in late January, I instantly decided I was going to practice EVERY DAY in February in hopes of getting some more consistency.  I still struggle with pushing up into them without having momentum behind me, and it’s still a toss up as to how long I can hold them, but it’s progressing. I’ve even started trying without a wall behind me – but that hasn’t been so pretty.  It’s coming!

• I’ve mentioned before but my mother is a CPA, so during the heavy tax season months I cook two meals a week for my parents so that they don’t starve – and this year’s have been SPECTACULAR as seen below: (Grilled Cuban wraps & curry cauliflower, honey sriracha IPA & lime ginger wings, some badass superbowl pizzas [shrimp/onion/bacon/garlic & chorizo/spinach/mushroom], chicken thigh & chickpea tagine cinnamon roasted carrots, Thai turkey/chorizo meatballs with peanut butter sauce over sautéed kale & brussels with coconut aminos, Mongolian beef with cauli rice mushrooms & broccoli, smoked paprika shrimp & andouille sausage kebabs with grilled baby bok choy, and tomatillo pork chili verde so far. I’ve never cooked this many things so consecutively delicious & I’m dying.

So that’s it! February, you were badass.  March, bring it on – heavy back squats, heavy deadlifts, handstand pushups, a trip to NYC & ALL the brewing experience <3

some stuff i forgot...

I literally type this post two weekends ago and......never posted it. Please, explain how I survive daily.

ANYWAY I have things to talk about like school and malthouses & brewery tours but if I let this post never see the light of day I don't get to show off my barrel, SO.

--

After two straight holiday weeks and two straight 4-day holiday weekends, only having two days off last week was an incredibly cruel jolt back in to the reality of the 5-day work week.  Also for the first time in a while I didn’t have much in the way of actual plans, which meant almost the whole weekend was devoted to working out and brewing beer…….could be worse.

Friday night was the annual Men of Zumba event at CC+ - when I first started really hitting the gym hard about 5 years ago, after I made the switch from my small local gym with not much more than a smattering of cardio machines & a weight room to the grand (and pricey) wonderland of Life Time, it was dance cardio classes that really hooked me.  I still enjoy them (I’ve migrated from straight up ‘zumba’ style classes to more hip hop type classes, which if you would have told me I’d be doing about 10 years ago I would have laughed in your face), even though I’ve mostly moved on, but a lot of my favorite instructors participate in this every year, so it’s fun to support.  Unfortunately the more I get out of the scene, the less familiar I am with the local instructors, and the more time I spent desperately trying to catch on to their routines while only being able to see about 50% of what was going on on the stage…but it was still a good, sweaty time.  Props to CC+ for managing the insane amount of people, too – at one point I turned around and the place was packed to the gills, all the way back on to the carpet behind the dance floor!

I also got a surprise delivery from my friend Kirsten in Minnesota – fresh, pesticide-free black spruce tips to add to my next brew, and (almost even more exciting), some Caribou beans!

Saturday I crawled out of bed, hit a boot camp class at my gym, came home to shower & headed back out almost immediately to White Lotus Yoga Studio for their new location’s grand opening.  I was really hoping to check out an aerial yoga class, but unfortunately they were all full, so I popped in to a vinyasa flow since I was already there, & signed up to do some flying next Sunday.  I’d been to the studio for Friday community classes at the old location, but the new one is soooooooo nice and bright and airy!  Solid job, ladies.

Next up: barrel curing!  Back in November a friend picked up a discarded Journeyman Distillery whiskey barrel for me from his homebrew shop (after doing a little investigating – it used to house Silver Cross whiskey, which sounds delightful).  I’ve been scheming a brew to put in it for quite a while now, and finally settled on an eggnog porter that I’ll be brewing next weekend, but it’s been sitting empty for so long that I wanted to go through the curing/sanitizing process even though it’s only held liquor so far.  Luckily my parents’ house, with its much larger laundry room and unused bathtub, was on the way home.

My darling <3

Curing away in a strange environment...

I can’t believe how much char came out of this thing – or how good EVERYTHING smelled. Damn, son.  A week of curing + some sanitizing and she’ll be ready to go!

Prepping for a new batch meant I also had to move along some of my current fermentation projects, so Sunday was a beer transfer day – I have two batches going right now, a Belgian golden strong that I racked over a slurry of almond extract & brandy-soaked dried fruits (blueberries, apricots & golden raisins) to try and conjure up a stollen bread flavor (fruitcake beer is SO last Christmas!), and a standard American IPA that I wanted to pull off a couple gallons to play with (I ended up adding a juniper berry tea).  Both of them came along nicely throughout primary fermentation – the Belgian has a perfect yeasty golden ale flavor and it hit all my projected numbers almost perfectly.  I was shooting for an 8.4% ABV, nailed my original gravity, and after primary it was sitting around 8.9% - bonus!

Beer ingredients looking pretty vile.

Amidst all the transferring I also took down all my Christmas decorations and got in a little extra fitness aka, “I bet you I can totally squat this tree.” (Spoiler alert: it was actually really light and I was kind of disappointed by how easily the whole thing went down).  Apparently the fitness theme of the day was “cold,” though – I tried to meet some bootcamp friends for a nice hour of hot vinyasa in the morning, but the heat at the gym was busted so it was a little more like slightly chilly vinyasa. Still managed to work up a sweat by the end, but hooooooly wow was it hard to find some zen for those first few minutes.

Disappointingly easy, but don't ask me how the attempts at pistols went.

Luckily I warmed up with some Paleomg spaghetti squash pizza casserole once all was said and done – an extra big batch with heaps of ground beef, spinach and mushrooms.  It might only look pretty when it’s fresh out of the oven, but damn is it good (and thank god for that, because with this big of a batch I’m going to be eating it all week long).

hello 2016

2016 started with epic shrimp tacos and about four days of binge-watching World Junior Hockey (RIP tiny Slovakian hopes and dreams), which was not at all a bad time (I also can’t stop playing Undertale either; RIP my productivity).

I did a resolutions/goals post last year, and it actually did a pretty good job of grounding me to a lot of habits & behaviors that made the year a pretty damn solid one.  I’m not sure I have quite as much of a list of specific goals going into 2016, because I’ve decided in lieu of setting goals, I’m just going to make some shit happen, and that shit is:

• I’m going back to school!  I enrolled in a brewing & distillation technology program beginning Winter semester (next Wednesday!), and I’m mega stoked.  I hemmed and hawed about it for a while because while I’ve missed formal education terribly since I graduated from Western, really, am I positive I’m going to use a 24-credit certificate in brewing? Do I know for sure that I’m going to parlay that into a useful experience? Should I spend money on something so unrelated to the career I’m actually in?  But from the second I heard about it, a part of me strangely knew I was going to do it. I’ve seen a lot of brewing/fermentation programs pop up, but the thing I really like about this one is that it’s completely doable for someone in a position like mine (AKA not some full undergrad degree that requires selling my soul to a college), and it’s not JUST brewing – it touches on everything related to owning/operating a brewery, from the actual science behind beer, to brewhouse operations & equipment, to stuff like cellaring and marketing.  AND I’M STOKED, did I say that?

• I’m doing some new programming at my gym – I’ve been involved in some small group boot camp training for a couple months now, which I LOVE (probably because it feeds in to both my love of competition & being held individually accountable), but I’ve started working a little harder on monitoring progress. One of my huge goals for 2016 is to be able to hit some benchmarks & track a LOT more about where I am vs where I’ve been.  We’re starting off the year with monthly fitness tests and a 90-day challenge that I’ve done a couple times, but haven’t taken REALLY seriously since I first joined Life Time.  This time around I’m throwing down for real. 20% body fat, huge lifts & lots of being upside-down, here I come.  (ALSO a thing I’m considering: yoga teacher training.)

• I’m going to travel all the fuck over the place.  The only thing I really have set in stone right now is New York in March (Rangers game, arena #12, what what!), but I went on a slew of pretty big and totally amazing trips in 2015 and I’m going to be extremely disappointed if I don’t keep that up.  I forgot how much I love discovery.  At LEAST one other NHL arena & hopefully a whole shit ton of breweries.

I would also like to train myself to stop pretending to be too busy to do things like take the goddamn cats to the vet while somehow finding the time in between work and the gym to go to Target & buy eleven thousand pounds of unnecessary trail mix, but that’s another story.

AND ON THAT NOTE, happy 2016, babes!

7 month check in??

I had this idea to do a mid-year check in on all the goals I set at the beginning of the year (and the other day I listened to a podcast with Chalene Johnson on push goals and how to be successful at setting and maintaining goals that reminded me again), but now it’s August, so it’s kind of less a mid-year check in and more….a mid-year plus a little more check in.  The good news is I’ve been doing productive sorts of things in the meantime!  Mostly!  But anyway!

• Practice yoga more regularly – I started the year off REALLY strong with this, going 2-3 times a week and just loving it.  I still love yoga (especially a really awesome juicy hot vinyasa class with enormously loud music where I can just lose myself in my body), but…..it’s summer, and being in a 100 degree room full of other sweaty bodies is just harder to find the motivation for right now.  BUT I’ve still been going around once a week, and putting in a lot of work on the “flashier” aspects – after months of trying, I finally nailed getting up into & holding bound headstand without any sort of wall! (Actually my first successful bound handstand with no wall happened on a precarious cliff edge at Mesa Verde in Colorado….

• Incorporate more strength training – YES!!  I’ve been going to barbell-based group fitness classes two days a week, which have been fabulous, even though they use simple iron grip equipment & not full size bars – I’ve definitely seen large strength improvements. My squats, chest & back have gone up exponentially and I’m slowly dragging my biceps along as well.  I just started a new boot camp program and let me tell you what, outdoor tire flips & prowler pushes ALL DAY make you feel pretty bad ass.  My new goal is to get into my gym’s Alpha Training (similar to Crossfit, with Olympic lifting & WOD-style workouts) by the end of the year!

• Read 50 books – I’m at 36! Definitely on track to finish 50+ by the end of the year.  Reading is something I haven’t done that much of in the past couple years, and it has felt REALLY good to get back into it.  I’ve been carving out an hour or so at night to do nothing but read from the comfort of my bed (I’ve even in the past week been starting to leave my phone OUTSIDE the bedroom charging through the night, which I never thought I’d be able to do…) and it’s such a nice way to wind down at the end of the day.

• Get more done – I’d say this is about 75/25.  I HAVE been doing much better at planning out my days to make the  most of my time, and I’ve gotten a lot of things done that I’ve been wanting to/planning on and at forcing myself to just get up and accomplish a task, but there are still those 5-10 minute jobs that I just can’t find it in my not to procrastinate on…

• Write more – PFFT. Moving on.  

• Run at least 6 races – I’ve done 3 so far (The Color Vibe, Hightail to Ale, & Insane Inflatable 5K) and have another one scheduled tonight (Glow in the Park!), so I’m almost there J  Looking at a Halloween race as well as maybe something closer to winter (Hot Chocolate 5k in Columbus is a possibility). I actually really like running when it’s colder out!

• Brew one batch a month – I’ve kept CLOSE to this. I’ve also gotten a lot more scientific in my brewing & started doing a much better job monitoring the process & my efficiencies, which I think has made a pretty substantial difference in overall quantity.  I’ve made a few really quality brews this year, and I’m pretty excited about this barleywine that I’ve got fermenting away right now, as well as the watermelon gose that’s currently in the works!  The second half of this goal was to seriously look in to an apprenticeship or volunteering at a brewery, which I have NOT put time and effort into yet, but I have one lead (a friend is head brewer at a brewery that is expanding) and one potential lead (a brewery run by a guy in my homebrew club is slated to open in a couple months), so the possibilities are out there….  

Bon bon bons & beers beers beers <3

•  Go camping for the first time ever! – YES!!  This happened and it was fabulous!  I went out to Colorado over my birthday and was treated to some glorious company, incredible beer, mountains to die for and also an army of Scottie dogs (no, really).  Despite the fact that it happened over a month ago, I still want to write about the experience so maybe someday…

Overall I think I’ve made some pretty decent progress – obviously there’s some things I’ve skimped out on, but 2015 has been MUCH more good than bad when it comes to personal improvement, and there’s still 5 months left!

month-end check in!

This will be my first post since my resolution post, so I think we can see what resolution in particular I've been slacking on.  However, I've actually made some good progress in some other areas and it's been about a month, so to check in...

• Practice yoga more regularly: I've been practicing about 3 times a week! Yesterday I went a funk/soul hot vinyasa class followed by an hour and fifteen minute long yin class with massage, and all I wanted to do afterward was melt into my mat forever.  I've been making good progress with my tripod headstand & bird of paradise, and starting to work on bound headstand, so I'm feeling pretty good about this one!

•  Incorporate more strength training as well: Also doing well with this one! Making it to barbell strength class 1-2 times a week (missed a class for work last week & for a Red Wings game the night before...one more worth it than the other), and at least one barre class as well. Cutting back on cardio has actually had a good result - I've lost 7 lbs since New Years & hopefully gained some muscle, too.

Pre-barbell this morning, rocking my new hopped & bothered tank ;)

• Read 50 books: I'm on my 3rd book of the year, so I'm about on schedule - but lately I've been on a big movie watching kick (which started off with "well I think I'll watched just the first bit of this and then go to bed" and then I watched the entirety of The Imitation Game because it was positively incredible).  Gotta get back to evening reading!

• Get more done: Loving my new planner - iPhones are great, but there's something that holds me more accountable once I've put the effort in to penciling in a workout or a date, or just "get groceries tonight".  

• Write more: Weeeeell, they can't all be positive, right?  Still working on this one...

•  Run at least 6 races: The NHL All Star game is in Columbus this year (this weekend, to be exact), and despite how close that is to me, I wasn't very concerned until I saw this morning that there had been a 5k complete with NHL All Star medals!  I did, however, basically commit to the Moonlight Bootlegger 5K, so that'll be one down!

• Brew one batch a month: I started off January with a nice Belgian Quad - my biggest grain bill ever (20 lbs!), and some added currant/raisin puree just for a little bit of extra flavor.  I think I'm getting better at getting my ABV up, because I had a blow out during fermentation....high hopes for this one!  (Plus my buddy gave it the badass name, "Jean-Quad Van DAMN," so...)

Off Sides Brew Co. Glamour Shot featuring some bomb ass hop pants.

And of course, the post-brew dinner of citrus macadamia cod, lemon romano asparagus, & rosemary garlic butte roasted beets/carrots.

• Go camping for the first time ever: Plans are in the works - hoping to finalize the details during my Colorado trip that's only TWO WEEKS AWAY!!!

Overall I'd say it's not a bad start...but it's only been three weeks & there's a whole lot of 2015 left.  My mother's a CPA, so she's extra busy this time of year, and has hired me to cook a couple meals a week for her and my dad, so expect lots (more) food photos soon...

toronto cask days 2014!

Daddy-daughter day at the Cask Festival!

Having been home from the Motherland for two days now, I can say with confidence that I vastly prefer trolling for craft beer and shenanigans in my favorite city in the world to working in the automotive industry.

Last weekend was a blur (literally, given how much beer was consumed on Saturday) of friends, family, cask beer & the Great White North.  I was invited by my dearest Ottawa-based friends to come up for Toronto Cask Days – to which I took the opportunity to invite my pops, who is not only my best beer drinking buddy, but also a native Torontonian who hasn’t been to the city he grew up in for over a decade – and immediately RSVP’d a resounding YES.

We took off for the city Friday after work, but didn’t hit the Blue Water bridge without a quick stop at Michigan Brewery #93 on my list – formerly Quay Street, now known as Thumb Coast (much catchier, IMO).  I had optimistically mediocre expectations, but was actually really surprised by how GOOD their beer was!  We tried both the Hitch Hiker IPA (solid, malty) and the Wet Hopped on Quay (bitter but not grassy with a sweet kick at the end), and then because they were so good, had to sample the Expedition Coffee Stout as well (very roasty, lots of coffee, but drier than a lot of coffee stouts, which was a nice change).

Back on the road with raisin tea biscuits in hand, we made AWESOME time to Toronto, where we checked in to our hotel, tossed our stuff down and bee-lined for Bar Volo for some cask beer pre-gaming and charcuterie.  I ended up sampling Great Lakes & Amsterdamn’s collaboration, “Maverick & Gose” (chardonnay barrel-aged Gose), and Bellwoods’ “Skeleton Key” (13% ABV spiced stout – wow).  My favorite thing about Bar Volo is the atmosphere – I’m not even sure how to explain it, it’s dark and homey and has a really great sort of comfortable after-hours coffee shop feel to it.  My last time there was early 2013, so I was pleased to see it stood the stand of time well (although I missed the couch!).  Having finished our beers, we somewhat fuzzily headed back to the hotel (but not without stopping for some late night hole in the wall shawarma sandwiches)…

Maverick & Gose!

The BarVolo tap list - 90% perfect except where are all the hops??

Saturday morning we rolled out of bed early, packed in some hotel breakfast buffet, and then hit the hotel fitness center where I got in a quick workout (ran 1.5 miles, did a little bit of weight and core work, and then practiced some headstands), and then it was time to meet all our Ottawa Beer Blogger co. friends!  We shuttled out to Evergreen Brickworks (which was just an incredibly cool venue for an event like this – half outdoor & half indoor, bustling with music & people & beers, and this really awesome urban outdoorsy steel-wood-greenery kind of vibe) and handed over our tickets in exchange for some really cute Cask Days mason jars and 4 (HA) tokens to begin our adventure.

The cool thing about having such a big group was that we basically set up a meeting spot and then we’d all break, get a sample, come back and pass it along until everyone had tried everything – rinse & repeat.  Of course when you figure in how much beer that resulted in all of us drinking….

Love & lagers with my ones of my dearest Ottawa friends, Pav.

Inside the Evergreen Brickworks - don't ask me how I managed to get a picture with not one cask in it!

I plan to do a separate post on some of my favorites, some standouts, and some uh, “interesting” samples – this would get waaaaay too long otherwise.  I’m not sure how many beers we tried, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I thought it was probably up around 100.  So many, in fact, that my distinct memories of the evening AFTER the festival are trying to do pull-ups on the subway car, and passing out in my hotel bed and missing our evening English Pub reservations (oops…).

Surprisingly (or not – as except for a hourish reprieve to wake up, go get Thai food carryout and stuff our faces, we slept about 12 hours), I felt AWESOME the next morning & was all geared up to meet the group for breakfast, exchange beer presents (them from Ottawa and me from Michigan, obviously!), and part ways as they sadly had to leave to get back to Ottawa for the evening.

My dad and I took the opportunity of a bit extra time in Toronto to walk down to the Eaton Centre so I could have a mini shopping spree at Zara (I fell in love with the store when I was in the Czech Republic – and there still are none in the US except Chicago!) and wander through the Hockey Hall of Fame store.  From there, we decided to be really adventurous/optimistic and walk the 5ish kilometers to Glory Hole Donuts (cheesecake donut, I will dream about you), and then back to Bellwoods Brewery (I had a Farmageddon, which was good, but did not live up to my expectations – I was definitely spoiled by my first Bellwoods experience being Omerta & Witchshark).  At that point we waved the white flag and took the street car back to the hotel to begin our journey to Collingwood to see some family and, excitingly, discover a new brewery had opened only moments from my grandma’s condominium!

My Eaton Centre dream come true~

Roman Candle & Farmaggeddon at Bellwoods!

Canadians know how to do frites right - with herbs, vinegar, and mayo.

Wise words from downtown Toronto.

We’ve been going to Collingwood for about 15 years now, and it’s been crazy to see how it’s grown from a tiny one-Tim little ski/resort town into a still small but definitely growing little area.  They have a really spectacular farmer’s market now, one of the most delicious Thai restaurants I’ve ever been to, and now, North Winds Brewing.  Again, I was really surprised by how quality their beers were, especially since we were told they only opened in August!  We tried a flight, and in the spirit of the weekend thus far, decided to make some choices that deviated from the norm – along with the standard IPA & saison, we tried their lager (DELICIOUS) and their Oktoberfest (which had beets in it!) along with our burger & macaroni, and it was 5 stars all around.  We ended up stopping back the next day for some bottles, as well as to grab some jars of Pickl’d fare (mmmmmmmmmmm pickled beets & wax beans…).

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and Monday we spent the day in the car, heading back to the good old USA.  We made good time, ate more tea biscuits, and toasted our smashing weekend back at Thumb Coast with one more IPA and the fish and chips we missed out on having Saturday night.  I miss my dear Ottawa friends already, the city of Toronto, which I think will always be my favorite place on earth, and even sitting in a car watching wind turbines for miles and miles and miles with classic rock in the background talking beer shop with my papa.  Can’t wait for Cask Days 2015!

fall things i'm loving

Happy Friday!!

I've been at Chrysler training most of this week, so I've been able to take advantage of some "weird" work hours, get in some extra (morning!) workouts, and feeling overall pretty great.  Not to mention I started out the week by getting to spend two days with my college bestie and I'm getting ready to head up to Toronto next weekend - life is pretty great, and here are a few reasons why!

• Hockey's back!  My Detroit Red Wings are looking much improved over last year to start off the season, and there's really nothing like coming home from the gym, flopping over on the couch and watching an evening full of hockey games.  I remember when I was in college and I could stay up all night long I used to get NHL Center Ice every year and literally watch games from 7 pm until about 1 am every night.  I knew every player in the league and then some.  Now of course, I'm focusing a little more just on my beloved Wings (and my latent Toronto Maple Leafs soft spot) and cursing when the game goes to OT cause I just want to sleep, but I'm still pretty stoked to see the season kick off.  It also means much more time spent with my absolute best friend in the entire world going to games, making road trips to other cities and arenas, and coming up with an unreal number of stupid inside jokes.

Opening Night pretty tickets thanks to a pretty great coworker!

The BFF and I - home sweet home at last~

• Kitchen sink spaghetti squash bowls. My new go-to dinner of choice is a big bowl of roasted spaghetti squash with the entire contents of my fridge emptied into it and then heated up with a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese.  My favorite lately has been chunks of chicken thigh, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh oregano, French onion cheese and a handful of mushrooms and broccoli sprouts, but I've also been making them with chopped up pepperoni, and today I had one with swiss cheese, a bunch of cajun spices and some jumbo creole shrimp that was to dieeeeee for.

Pepperoni, mushrooms, chopped up haricots vert, sun-dried tomatoes & broccoli sprouts in this bowl! 

• Family style chicken dinners.  Two weeks ago it was the Dam Site & Legs Inn, this week I had the pleasure of introducing my Western Michigan friends to the glory that is Frankenmuth.  There is absolutely nothing like a good Frankenmuth family style chicken dinner & eating stollen, salads, cranberry relish, stuffing, and chicken until you're so full it hurts.  Plus walking around the quaint little towns that house places like the Bavarian Inn (by far my favorite, but next time I want to hit up Zehnder's - haven't been in years!!) is a joy in itself. 

My very favorite <3  I can't believe people live in Michigan and have never been to this delight!

Of course I had to also introduce the boys to the Christmas insanity that is Bronners - how cute are these science-themed ornaments??

Just lounging in the World's Largest Christmas Chair...what??

• Blue Hubbard squash.  The menu at Frankenmuth always involves one rotating seasonal vegetable - when we went it was clearly some sort of squash mash, but when I asked our (adorable!) waiter what type it was, he said blue hubbard, which I had never even heard of!!  I took one bite of it and I was IN LOVE.  It was sweet and buttery and nutty and a thousand percent perfect.  Luckily for me, the Bavarian Inn grows them out back & had a ton for sale at only 39 cents per pound!!  I ended up picking up the SMALLEST one I could find, which was 12 lbs (!!!!) and taking it home, where I conquered it, roasted it, mashed some with butter, froze some puree (with which I plan to eventually make "pumpkin" butter), and used some to make these Ooey Gooey Pumpkin Bars from Paleomg (just subbing blue hubbard for pumpkin, obviously - THE BEST EVER).  If you have never had this, you need it in your life. Right now. Go.

12 lbs of rock hard blue glory.

Gooey, squashy, chocolate chipp-y delights.

Frankenmuth chicken dinner also always comes with soft serve ice cream dessert - I usually go with the vanilla/orange sherbert swirl, but when I heard they had a pumpkin seasonal, and then that the pumpkin seasonal was made WITH THAT GLORIOUS SQUASH, I was done for. I didn't think I'd ever eat again after that meal, but I could have ate twenty of these.

• Barre classes.  My new workout du jour.  I've been interested in barre for a long time, trying out some classes here and there both at Nafas and at Xtend Barre Rochester (which I enjoyed!), but my home gym (Life Time Fitness) introduced a new format, LifeBarre, recently, and I am OBSESSED.  For the first time I love a "strength" class almost as much as my beloved dance fitness cardio.  I've found two instructors I absolutely love and I've been doing barre just about every other day - plus my little home studio is coming along quite nicely to where I'll be able to do these workouts at home very soon!!

• Lions football.  Every year I try to get into football (I'm a sports girl, but I lean hockey/baseball), and every year I kind of fail.  I LOVE live football, but I have a hard time getting into it on TV.  This year, though, I've been turning the Lions on as background noise on Sundays, and after going to last weekends epic come from behind victory that we had NO right to make, I think I'm becoming a football girl at last.  I can't wait to go again!!

My very first piece of Lions gear and a seriously incredible game was a great way to end last weekend - and to lose my voice.

We instagrammed this one and ended up featuring on the #onepride screen at the game. Famous!!

Tom paid like $25 for this horse head. Everyone around us LOVED it.  What....???

Not bad seats - although we were at the wrong end for the exciting finale.

• Siggi's yogurt. I cannot get enough of this stuff.  It's the perfect thickness, creaminess, it's not gross and overly sweet, but it's a little smoother than super tart Greek yogurt - I love taking a carton of this, mixing in my body weight in blueberries and homemade granola & topping it all off with a big scoop of my other favorite (guilty) obsession - seasonal Jif Whips.

• Podcasts.  I never used to care for podcasts in general & I never really got the appeal, but once I got a desk job that initially involved a lot of data entry (not...so much anymore). Obviously I couldn't get away with watching movies (although I DID used to "watch," aka listen to with my phone's screen upside down so you couldn't tell it was playing video, documentaries at my desk), so I started getting deep into the world of podcasts.  My current favorites are: Girls Gone WOD, Strange Brews, Balanced Bites, Serial, and Welcome to Night Vale, among a huge list of others.

• Stillwater Artisanal Ales Gose Gone Wild.  AKA a remix of Westbrooks Gose, AKA the beer that introduced me to, and got me obsessed with, Gose.  I got lucky enough to stumble on this mega rare bottle yesterday at 8 Degrees Plato while I was picking up some Michigan beer treats for my Canadian friends, and of course I had to snatch it up.  Can't WAIT to experience this one all over again.

 

• My new studio mirrors.  At last!!  Hardwood floors complete, mirrors up, now I only need my TV mounted to truly have the mini-home studio I've been dreaming off.  And they were only $60 each from Home Depot!!

Now I'm going to go eat another "pumpkin" bar, catch the rest of the Red Wings game, and get myself ready to head up to Toronto for Cask Days with my pops and my Ottawa besties tomorrow!!