Saturday night in Charlotte

This weekend I'm visiting my BFF Becky in Charlotte, North Carolina. And it's awesome!

A great weekend

This. Weekend. Was. Fantastic.

It all began on Friday morning when Shane invited me to come downtown and meet him for lunch! Yes please!! I picked him up from his office and we trekked through the charming streets of SF to The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen! Seriously yum. I'm still amazed that a restaurant which features only one type of sandwich could stay in business, but they are definitely doing it right! Their menu features just a handful of sandwiches, soups, and salads, all of which sound incredible.  Shane and I both started with a bowl of smoky tomato soup, and also both had the Mousetrap sandwich.  Shane opted for adding bacon and jalapenos, while I stuck with the classic.  DELICIOUS!

After lunch, I walked Shane back to work and we stopped for a cup of coffee from a place that Shane has been raving about for weeks.  Now, I certainly enjoy a cup of coffee, but in no way am I a coffee enthusiast like some people are... until now.  Without a doubt the best coffee of my life, thanks to Blue Bottle Coffee.  They have a small hole-in-the-wall location that you would never find unless you knew where to look and they're only open for like 4 hours a day.  Anyways, they do drip coffee and it tastes amazing.  Anyone planning a trip to visit us should put this on their list of must-tastes. 

After coffee, Shane returned to work and I ran some errands downtown, did a bit of shopping, and ended up with these fabulous shoes!

Friday night dinner was Indian takeout (my FAVE) and then we fell asleep watching MSNBC. Heaven :-)

Saturday consisted of a little gym time, leftovers for lunch, and then off to Kennedy & Dan's for dinner! They had a little barbecue with some of their neighbors and invited us over. We had lamb sausage, BBQ chicken, burgers, ribs and a bunch of yummy sides -- we were stuffed! Somehow we saved a little room for dessert: s'mores over their firepit, my fave!! Then we headed to a Karaoke bar in Berkeley to celebrate Dan's birthday (Shane and I are party poopers though and didn't sing lol). 

On Sunday we slept in a bit and then headed to La Corneta (I told you we're suckers for routine!) and then enjoyed a double feature at the movie theatre: Contraband and The Devil Inside Me.  I'd recommend Contraband, but not so much Devil Inside Me (terrible acting and a weak storyline).  Oh, and then I got sushi for dinner.

So yeah, a really great weekend :-)

Before & After: The Guest Bathroom

Well, we're still slowly chugging along in our home decoration process and the next on our list of completed rooms is.... the guest bathroom!

Why in the world did the landlord purchase those furry green monstrosities??!

A reminder of just how terrible our shower doors are

Come visit us! You can bathe here!!

Interesting things I've done this week....

... I use the word "interesting" quite loosely, as you'll see:

1. Painted my toenails!

2. Made a fruit salad! (I actually do this everyday for breakfast, but isn't it a great photo??)

3. Took a jillion pictures of Archie!

As you can tell, unemployment is making me stir crazy.  Here's hoping I find a job soon!!!

La Corneta

For those of you who aren't aware, Shane and I are very big into routines.  We figure, if something works, why change it?  Well, our newest weekend tradition is a visit to our new favorite taqueria, La Corneta, followed by a trip to our favorite grocery store, Canyon Market (I'll probably write another post about the market sometime soon). 

Anyways, back to the good stuff: La Corneta is just 2 short BART stops away from us at Glen Park.  They have every delicious Mexican thing you could ever want: carne asada tacos on fresh corn tortillas and piled high with pico de gallo (my absolute fave), tamales (yum! i love the pork ones), spicy chicken tacos (Shane's fave), not to mention the mexican beers (duh), mexican cokes (made with real sugar cane = heaven!), churros, and all the other staples.  There's not really a whole lot I can say to properly describe how delicious it is (isn't the fact that we eat here once a week enough??), so I'm mostly just writing this post so I can share my photos...

 

The Bay Bridge

Nothing exciting to report, so I'm just here to share a few recent photos I took of the Bay Bridge (connects San Francisco and Oakland).  Enjoy!

Day...

And night...

Obligatory New Year's Post

I know I'm a little late on it, but HAPPY NEW YEAR! Can you believe it's 2012? I certainly cannot.  Where does the time go?? In any case, it's resolution time! The following are my goals/resolutions for the new year...

1. Finish unpacking so that we can have a functional guest room (the other half of this resolution is to harass everyone I know until they all visit!)
2. Exercise regularly (yeah yeah, this is on everyone's list but Shane and I really have been working out twice a week for a few weeks now!!)
3. Find a fantastic job that is both challenging and rewarding
4. Cook more (for those of you who've had the pleasure of tasting Chef Shane's masterpieces, you'll understand why I have let him cook dinner for 363 of the last 365 days -- but It's time for me to step it up!)
5. Get married!! WOO HOOOOOOO