Life was getting me a little down, but that didn’t stop me from eating some tasty dishes:

Salmon thanks to our resident fish-fryer, The Boyfriend:

Spaghetti and turkey meatball masterpiece:

Heard of oats in a jar?

What about sundae in a jar?

An entire plate of chocolate chip pancakes The Roommate made (nah, I shared):

And finally, plenty o’ green monsters:

I was drinking green monsters, but I was a blue, miserable monster.

But then the clouds parted and something wonderful happened.

I won’t share too much just yet because it seems to good to be true, but things are turning around for this Page girl!

The weather is acting accordingly. Thanks, Albany.

My boys and I spent a warm Easter Monday at the park. Normally we go to the dog park by our house, but Washington Park was buzzing with people and puppies!

Jack is normally a total princess about the water (bathtubs and cups included), but today he spotted some ducks and bolted in!

Attaaaaack!

Retreeeeat!

Someone needs to work on his swimming skills. Perhaps we could enroll him at the Y?

It was so beautiful out, despite a quiet threat of rain. The weatherman is predicting 84 degrees for Wednesday! Woohoo!

Dinner tonight was simple with cheddar and broccoli pierogies with steamed veggies and pesto.   

I’m off to bed soon because Granny has work, a meeting, and three apartment showings (!!) tomorrow. But I’m baaaaack to blogging and it feels good!

The two apartment couples spent a night in on Saturday. We watched Spanglish and ate copious amounts of cheese. The Roommie and I decided early on that we wanted cheese, wine, and crusty French Bread for dinner.

Counterclockwise from the orange cheese: smoked Cheddar (if you have not tried it, you MUST!), Brie, herbed goat cheese, and smoked Gouda.

In addition to olives and bread we had grapes and an apple.

Sometimes I think it might be nice to lose five pounds, but with so much cheese in the world, is it worth it?

NO.

With our cheese we shared a bottle of Malbec.

I don’t know anything about wine, but I like Malbecs as far as red wine goes. Later we popped a bottle of Mondoro, which is sweet sparkling wine.

Jack and Lola were happy to chill with us in the living room (and wait for pieces of cheese to hit the floor). We wore the younger pup out — Jack fell asleep on my shoulder halfway through the evening.

But Lola was ready to hang out!

Lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lola. (Do you know that song by the Kinks? I’ve been singing it all week.)

I ate more cheese last night than I’d care to admit. Despite the large block of dairy digesting in my stomach currently, I’m thinking sometime in the future this apartment needs to have a wine and cheese party. Ever hosted/been to one??

My Valentine:

I’m cooking tonight and we are spending a night IN with no plans or obligations! Woohoo! Happy Valentine’s day, everybody!!

Other than my slight hangover excitement over my friend’s news, it’s a pretty low-key day.  Today is turning out to be one of those to-do list Saturdays.  Nothing horrible, just some laundry and dirty dishes (I’m not sure we actually do dishes during the week in this apartment.  We seem to save them for the weekend).  And a trip to the dog park with my two favorite puppy twins!

We’re taking care of my cousin’s dog, Lola, who is a fatter version of Jack and a big ball of lovin’.  It’s so much fun having two dogs!

I should get to my list. But before I do any of that, I need a playlist.  Don’t you always need some good music to motivate you? I came across the new version of “We Are the World” and, since I’m a total sucker for super emotional musical collaborations, I watched all 8 minutes of it. Twice.

My impressions:

• I want to do karaoke with Pink. How fun would she be at a bar?
• The lead singer of The Fray is super bald and super cute.
• Jennifer Hudson has some nice pipes.
• It’s Enrique Iglesias, everybody!
• Is that Jeff Bridges?
• I secretly like Sugarland.  Shh.
• Lil Wayne “sings.” It’s weird.
• Wyclef Jean is awesome.

I’m not totally missing the point of this remake, by the way: you can still donate to Haiti relief by texting “WORLD” to 50555.

Off to be productive!

Now I’m sitting down for a hasty (but tasty!) lunch before work.

I used hot sauce and pepper olive oil as dressing. I also sprinkled some Parmesan on top, too. It might seem random but I find there are few situations where Parmesan is the wrong choice. The end product looked more like this:

Super filling with a spicy little kick!

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Do you have a dog? Mental_floss has an article today claiming people get more exercise from owning a dog than having a gym membership. I agree! Jack is a great motivator to get up and moving.

Off to work and then I’ve got super rockin’ evening of laundry at my mother’s!