The Good Things in Life

It's been a sad week in America. All week I've found myself glued to CNN, poring over every new piece of news from Boston and now Texas. Wanting to know every detail about the victims and their families. Watching the father of a Newtown first grader tell the world that his heart is broken since his child was killed in December. I don't know if it's because I'm a mother now or not, but every picture I see of those children brings instant tears to my eyes, and it takes all I have in me not to break down and just have a good cry for how sad it all is. Ever get that feeling?

But then I read about acts of great kindness, about people running into the fires to save those who have been injured, and I remember how good our world is, too. I read this post from a friend on Facebook, which I had to share. It was written by a comedian, of all people. Excuse the language up front...we don't usually curse on SSA, but I didn't want to cut anything out.

That last line gets me every time. But while the good will always outnumber the bad, the world is still a scary place sometimes. So I think it's important to remember, not only during times of tragedy, to hug your loved ones a little bit tighter every night...

To savor beauty in the world, even if it's on the way back from a business trip when you're stressed and exhausted and cramped in a tiny puddle jumper plane.

To not judge yourself or others too harshly. And every once in a while, to eat ice cream sundaes for dinner.

Which we happily did last night.

While my heart is heavy for all the tragedies that have happened this week, and I'm praying for all the families who have been touched by them, I'm enjoying the good things in life as well. I hope you are too.

Midwestern Hospitality

We came, we worked, we ate and we left. Nothing like doing a business trip in under 24 hours! One of my colleagues and I flew into St. Louis yesterday evening just as the sun was setting, and we were greeted by a really pretty view.

I always fly with a window seat because I love looking at the scenery of a new place when we land. I've been to St. Louis once before, but it was super fast drive through after a 4-week cross country trip and we basically waved at the Arch and took a quick picture before passing on through. This trip wasn't much different, unfortunately, but I did enjoy getting to see the beautiful landscape on our way in. There are huge rivers and smaller inlets and lakes surrounding the city, which made the sunset reflection really amazing.

So if I had to describe St. Louis in one word, after having only been here for a day, it would be: Hospitable. The people are so incredibly nice, and every person we met from the shuttle drivers to the hotel front guest person to restaurant waitstaff just wanted to make our stay as enjoyable as possible. They were so friendly and so welcoming in every way possible.

It's nice to be out of New York. ;-)

After checking into our hotel, we took a walk down the street to have dinner at a restaurant that came highly recommended by the hotel staff, Bristol's Seafood Grill at Creve Coeur.

I started with a Mediterranean salad topped with pine nuts, feta cheese and dried cherries. The menu featured a lot of really enticing options, but in the end I selected the seared sea scallops with parmesan roasted potatoes and lemony haricot vert.

I really was too full to finish all the scallops, but I couldn't take them home and I cannot let scallops go to waste...so yes, I managed to get every last one down. A delicious way to end a journey to the middle of the country.

Today we spent the day in meetings with clients, and I'm now back at the airport waiting for my flight to good ole Newark. I couldn't get a flight out until 7:30 PM, so after working on my laptop for a while in one of the lounges, I meandered over to one of the terminal restaurants for some dinner.

A quick perusal of the menu left me with only 3 vegetarian and/or seafood dinner options - pasta, a sandwich, or fish & chips. I went with the pasta.

I ate a house salad first to fill up on greens before the noodles arrived, but I still ate a good amount of that bowl. It was decent for airport fare: Grilled shrimp tossed with spinach and linguini in a citrus and roasted tomato cream sauce. I got hints of the citrus throughout, which I really liked. I'll tell you though, after not eating pasta since I started trying to eat "primal," the load up of carbs really made me feel super full. Oomph.

I've got a mere 20 minutes left until boarding time, so I'm grabbing a water and about to make my way to the gate. I downloaded a new book on my Kindle I can't wait to start reading on the plane - Prodigy, the second book in the Legend Series. I promise, I did take a break from the young adult dystopian novels in order to read a serious book (Wonder, which is a really good book and heartbreaking in so many ways - totally worth reading), but let's be serious. Airplanes call for suck-you-in-can't-stop-reading books.

Oh yeah.

Shrimpy Lunch

This weekend went by way too fast. I'm sitting at Newark Airport waiting for my flight to St. Louis, but I had to pop onto the blog before jet setting into another busy work week.

Friday night my sister Amanda drove over from Philly and, while I had taken some shrimp out of the freezer to have for dinner that night, the Friday night dinner blues soon took over and none of us felt like cooking. We kept procrastinating and by 8:00 we were all famished and decided to just order Chinese.

I ordered spicy tofu and vegetables, and asked them not to bring the rice it usually comes with. We also refrained from ordering Crab Rangoons, which are my absolute favorite. It's a Chinese takeout win in my book when you don't eat the Rangoons.

My sister and I spent the evening lounging in the living room catching up until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Matt on the other hand, had a burst of energy and was determined to take care of a long overdue house project - painting the upstairs hallway and guest bedroom. He painted the whole thing this weekend, and it looks awesome. Pics to come when it's all complete and put back together!

***

On Saturday morning we had a leisurely couple of hours around the house, starting with coffee and omelets stuffed with arugula, broccoli, garlic and Havarti dill cheese.

Amanda and I had planned to do some shopping in the afternoon, but for some reason I just couldn't wake up and felt so, so tired. My throat got sore, I got some body aches and a headache came on, and along with it some serious grumpiness. The last two weeks have been intensely busy with work and social stuff, and whenever I go too fast/too strong for a long period of time I tend to get the same sick symptoms; I think it's my body's way of telling me to slow down and rest. Being the amazing sister that she is, Amanda offered to take Riker back to her house for the afternoon so I could lay down and take a nap while Matt finished painting. That 3 hour afternoon nap did wonders!

After I woke up, Matt and I went to check out a new house that came on the market, and since I was feeling a little better and Riker wasn't home yet, we took advantage of the "just the two of us" time and stopped at the Draft House for an early dinner.

And Bloody Mary's. ;-)

We started with some Clams Rockefeller, which were stuffed with spinach and mozzarella cheese.

For my entree I ordered the fish tacos, which were not amazing but pretty decent. I ate two and Matt ate the third one.

We got back home with just enough time to change clothes and head out to our friend Liz's birthday party. My sister and her boyfriend Justyn were kind enough to not only watch Riker for the afternoon, but stay overnight and babysit at our house so we could both go out. Seriously, Amanda wins sister of the year award this weekend! I showed my thanks by stealing a cupcake from the party for us to share. ;-)

Actually, I brought it home for Riker, but cupcakes don't last too long in our house and Riker didn't stand a chance at getting a bite of it.

The party was fun, but the later it got the more sick I started to feel. My throat felt like it was on fire and I was running a slight fever, so I decided to leave early and try to get a good night's sleep before traveling to St. Louis today. It's not often we get a big group together these days, so I was bummed to be feeling crappy and not much in the mood to be partying it up.

I made sure to snap one pic before calling it a night and heading home.

This morning Matt, Amanda and Justyn all went out mountain biking for a few hours and I stayed home with Riker packing and getting ready for the week. Food has been pretty boring so far today - yogurt bowl, banana protein shake, and some pan seared shrimp - but I plan to remedy that when I get to St. Louis just in time for dinner.

The shrimp were actually pretty good (sautéed in coconut oil and then tossed with some homemade peach habanero jam), but I had planned to top them over a big salad...unfortunately Matt was thawing a piece of beef in the fridge and some nasty juice from the meat spilled all over my tubs of greens, and there was no way I was eating that. I ran out of time to make anything else, sooo, plain old shrimp in a bowl ended up being lunch. At least they were tasty.

I hear boarding calls are starting, so that's my cue. See you from the midwest!