Boring People

January and February are a time for hibernation. The world gets cold, snow comes and slows everything down. Plans made with friends are few and far between because, honestly, who wants to go outside this time of year? Even just to travel to another location. No, late winter is the time to curl up on your couch. Time to wait and reflect, to make plans for the future and enjoy the present.

I've spent the last few weeks reveling in my bring little life. I got to work and come home. Walk the dog, get on the bike, cook and eat dinner. I watch TV and read, and let everything stagnate a bit.

This isn't to say we haven't done anything. We went to the Kennedy Center to see Kevin's mom sing. We went down to Zach and Sarah's for a delicious dinner. We hosted my aunt, who got stranded here by the snow. But there hasn't been a ton of excitement. And I'm perfectly happy with that.

Our social lives are about to go into high gear. Well, a higher gear. I'm never one to be moving all the time. But we have the next three weekends planned. After that, the weather will warm up and we'll be doing more. Wine tastings and game nights and whatever else we come up with. I'll throw the windows open and give the house a good spring cleaning. I'll start taking the dog on longer walks and hopefully find more time to take her to the dog park.

All of that is coming.

For now, I've been enjoying the couch and tea. Long days and evenings spent doing not much of anything. Storing up strength for the months to come.

I really love winter. I also love when it ends and the world picks up the pace once more.

Valentine's Day

We had a perfectly perfect Valentine's Day this year. Well almost perfectly perfect.

I woke up with a runny nose thanks to a cold that I seem to have had forever. I worked my way steadily through most of a box of tissues before I started feeling better. Then we ran to the store to pick up stuff for dinner and spent the rest of the day being sort of lazy and not leaving the house.

By sort of lazy, I actually mean that we made ravioli. It wasn't difficult, but it took a while. Mostly because you can only work with so much of the dough at once. So you have to go through all the steps of rolling out the dough, spooning in the filling, and cutting and smushing together the ravioli a whole bunch. We also didn't have a special stamp or cutter, which may have made the whole process go a little faster.

I also made a different, and completely superior, tomato sauce from scratch. It was beyond easy (throw everything in the pot and let it simmer for 45 minutes) and I'm looking forward to making it again.

We played games and watched tv and I finished my book and napped. And then it snowed at exactly the right time to walk Kina through the snow. I love walking Kina through the falling snow, partly because she loves it even more than I do and partly because the ambient light gets reflected enough that I don't need a flashlight. Also I don't need to towel her off afterwards, like I do when it's rainy or muddy (most of Winter and Spring).

It was a great day overall and I'm glad we decided to mostly stay put in the house.

Spaghetti From Scratch

Pasta dough setting up

I've been meaning to make spaghetti from scratch ever since I got the pasta attachment for the Kitchen Aid mixer last summer. Then Kevin and I got a hankering to make meatballs. And then I received a cook book with an easy recipe for tomato sauce from scratch. So this past weekend we decided to put it all together and make a delicious home made meal.

Kneading into fat rectangles

The pasta was pretty straight forward. It's basically eggs and flour (with some water and salt for flavor and texture). I found a video online that detailed how to use the attachment, and I'm glad I watched it. Rolling out the dough and sending it through the cutter is a process. Though thankfully it didn't take quite as long as I was anticipating. And by the last batch, Kevin and I had a pretty good system worked out.

Rolling out the dough

The meatballs were a pretty basic recipe that Kevin added some spice to. We made some similar ones for my mom's birthday party in December, so we had the basic idea down. And they aren't too different from burgers when all is said and done. The extra spice made these really flavorful and delicious.

meatballs!

Finally there was the sauce, which took about ten minutes according to the recipe. We should have cooked it for longer, though, to let it thicken up more. It was ultimately pretty thin and oily. It didn't help that we just spooned it over the pasta instead of mixing everything together. It separated and which led to a meal of pasta followed by tomato sauce. But next time we'll know. And I found a different sauce recipe that should be thicker.

The finished product

All in all it took a little less than two hours to make dinner. Things staggered pretty well (we mixed meatballs while the dough was setting and cooked the sauce while the pasta water was boiling). I think it may just have been worth the effort. Even if we did end up with comically long noodles. I'm excited to try again, now that we have a better idea of what we're doing. Though this definitely won't become a typical thing. It's way easier and cheaper to buy pasta pre-made.

The Home Gym

I should have switched over to a home gym years ago. Though it's possible this wouldn't have worked out as well years ago. It's possible (probable even) that I needed to spend the last few years learning about weight-lifting and discipline. Laying out the foundations for good habits.

At any rate, the home gym has been fantastic so far. I went out and bought a yoga mat and a foam roller and some dumb bells. But I'm still mostly focused on the exercise bike, only breaking out the rest of the equipment once or twice a week.

It's just so easy to get on the bike every night while we're watching TV. Instead of sitting on the couch, playing on my phone, I spend that time pedaling. And I no longer miss key scenes because my multitasking was dividing my attention. This is a much more efficient version of multi-tasking that actually allows me to do everything I want to.

The key has been to not drink with dinner. Kevin and I didn't drink at all in January, which made it easier to form this habit. Come home, walk the dog, eat dinner, and get on the bike. Or bike then dinner if I need to do laundry that night. Either way, it's been surprisingly easy to maintain, coming in to February. And skipping the beer or glass of wine in favor of water or tea can only be good for me.

I still have a few months left of my current contract with my physical trainer. I'm planning to end that and my gym membership at the end of March. In the meantime, I'm actually glad I have so much transition time. It should help me really establish this routine.

I think I've finally something that really works for me, on all counts. Fingers crossed that I'll have more progress to report soon.

Birthday Bonanza

Friday was Kevin's birthday, and we spent the whole weekend celebrating.

On Friday, we went to dinner at Del Frisco's, which just opened a new location in DC. We ate delicious steaks in a round booth with a very nice view while being very impressed with the service. Granted, for what I paid for that meal I would expect to be impressed by the service. But it was still nice for everything to go so smoothly. They kept our wine glasses filled and split the bottle evenly between us. Everything was timed perfectly. And we even sat in astonishment when our server deboned and sliced the ribeye for the table next to us as though they were too young to wield knives on their own.

On Saturday Kevin wanted to tour some local breweries. We started at Forge Brew Works, which is a bit south of the beltway and described themselves as a nano-brewery, meaning they produce fewer than 1000 barrels a year. From there we went to Port City in Alexandria, where we sampled nearly everything and forewent the tour to play games and visit instead. Then we attempted to check out the relatively new Bluejacket brewery. But the two hour wait convinced us to head to Chinatown for dinner instead. I went home after dinner to walk the dog, but other people stayed out to play shuffleboard, then went back to Zach and Sarah's place to lay beer pong.

Sunday was the Super Bowl, which starts way too late on the east coast. We had delicious nachos and chicken wings and lots of beer. There was slightly too much food, which is better than the other way. I didn't end up paying a ton of attention to the game, and several of us were ready to fall asleep before it ended at 10:30. But it was fun to hang out with everyone and wonder at the number of sad dad commercials and Katy Perry's dancing sharks and beach balls.