Snapalicious!

This weekend was another Meg-stravaganza, the best kind of weekend, of course! :) We started off the weekend at Rachel's, where we enjoyed a lovely dinner + drinks get-together (including a sexy swing on the hammock!). Rachel and Don have done a lot of work on their house and yard over the past few years, and I just have to give them a shout out for how awesome everything looks. They are quite the inspiration!

Saturday, after years of uneducated "yuck!"s when discussing Indian food, I was finally feeling adventurous enough and joined Meg and Melissa for my first Indian food buffet at the restaurant Melissa calls the best Indian food in town. I have no idea what I ate, but it was pretty good. Rice, bread, some green lentil thing, and two helpings of some red stuff that had a vaguely Greek taste, with nutmeg perhaps. I left feeling pleased with the outcome -- while not jumping up and down, I felt I could now join friends when they have Indian for dinner. Afterward, we drove over to the Huron River where Melissa introduced us to a new trail at Gallup Park, and we walked for a half-hour or so. Midway through the walk, the Indian food started to kick in, and I now must say I definitely cannot tolerate Indian food. I've felt worse, but I felt all out of whack the rest of the night. While disappointed, I'm proud of myself for giving it a try.

I powered through, though, and came home and kicked our basement's ass. I swept up all the spiders and dead rolly pollys, moved Brad's parents' stuff into one corner, reorganized our workout space, and set up my new craft space. Woohoo! I hope to replace my makeshift desk with real tables, but for now this will do. I'm fully inspired to finish up my Heidi album and start scrapbooking all my old family photos. After cleaning myself up, it was time to pick up Birgit and head downtown to meet our townie friend Shiny Shoes for the Ryan Adams concert.

Just a quick review for fans: He definitely didn't suck -- the music sounded fantastic and it was cool to hear him play his ass off all night long. That being said, it was really mellow. Really mellow. And quiet. There were some moments where it was so quiet you were afraid to even whisper to your neighbor. The fans were also incredibly obnoxious and even rude, shouting song requests out at really quiet moments, and, oddly enough, men kept screaming "you rule, Ryan!" and "that was fing gorgeous, Ryan." Weirdos. After the show, we met up with Meg and Melissa and some other folks at Grizzly Peak. The pink drinks ("cherry poppers") were flowing and good times were had by all (except my belly, of course, who sent Brad and I home a little earlier than everyone else). Us girls enjoyed asking the boys dating brain teasers and were adorably flirted with by a cute old man still carrying his seat cushion from the game. After switching to a bigger table to accommodate our growing party, he came over and said "I know caribou migrate, but I didn't know foxettes do!"

After an epic brunch journey with Meg and Melissa this morning, I finally hit up Trader Joe's. I don't know much about the store, so I definitely want to read up (I will as soon as I finish this!), but from what I could see, it is close to Whole Foods in philosophy. I'm basically in love. It's smaller, less crowded, and holy crap is it ridiculously cheaper. The only downsides: hardly any produce and few premade items (which is fine, I really don't need those). I also hated buying produce I knew I could get at the Farmer's Market, but I just couldn't wait until Wednesday for certain items. I typically don't like to buy pre-sliced, packaged fruits and veggies, but I was excited to find butternut and acorn squash available as such. I want to eat more squash this fall/winter, but I've never had either kind. This is much easier than committing to an entire squash, plus all the work it entails. Overall thoughts: I think I may have found THE place.

My favorite find at Trader Joe's? Real pizza dough! I've looked but was unable to find anything other than rolled-up Pillsbury dough. TJ had a whole line of different doughs, though, and I snatched one right up. Tonight I made my very first homemade pizza (tostada pizza doesn't count). I nearly died when I opened the package of dough -- hello?! Best. Smell. Ever. I made a three-cheese pizza with mozzarella (made from hormone-free cows!), asiago, and light goat cheese. I also threw on some black olives, then mushrooms on my half. It smelled and tasted deeeelicious. Notes for next time: more pizza sauce, roll dough a little thinner. There will definitely be lots of next times.