The First Long Weekend

It's the first Monday of the New Year - and I must admit I'm not quite yet breathing easier. I should make it clear that my breathing is literally fine, that's just a figure of speech. You just never know in these crazy times, you know? 

The first long weekend of the year was a nice one - even if it did pass too quickly. The weekends always pass too quickly, regardless of whether they are "long" weekends or not. I did not stay up on Thursday night to welcome in the New Year - I could have - I read until almost 11:40 but when I was done, I was done. Does that make sense? 

New Year's Eve was nice enough - I made a recipe I found on Pinterest for Cowboy Stew - it was truly delicious and I'll be sharing that later because it will now be in my meal rotation! So tasty! We finished Bridgerton - which was so completely excellent that I may or may not be re-watching it - and watched the movie Emma before I tapped out. 

Friday I had all the plans to get my home organized and back to it's pre-Christmas glory. I put away all my Christmas decorations, rearranged some things, cleaned up the residue from putting away - so much glitter guys - and finished opening and setting up some gifts that I received but hadn't gotten around to setting up quite yet! My Mom made the most divine dinner that included the traditional New Year's Day foods: Pork, Black-Eyed Peas and Greens! We also had corn and corn bread... although I don't know if there is any significance to those foods - but they tasted delicious! 

 

The weather on New Year's Day was a rainy mess... it drizzled and poured and was just generally pretty blah. I mentioned that last year the first day of the year was filled with sunshine, so maybe rain on the first day of the year would be a good thing? The trees ended up coated in something like ice - but not quite - I don't know how to explain it, but it looked really neat! 

Let me now share with you an absolute gem that I received for Christmas. It's a Bitty Boomer Bluetooth Speaker and it's so small that it fits in the palm of my hand but the sound quality and output is incredible! Of course, it also looks like Baby Yoda (I know his name is Grogu y'all) and that's just an added bonus. You can get these on Amazon (of course) and they have Star Wars, Marvel, NFL and I even saw a couple NCAA college football teams!

Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day - the sun was out, the sky was blue and it was almost sixty degrees outside! A large chunk of the day was taken with attending the wedding of a family friend, so I'm hoping that in the coming weeks there will be weather like this again. I'd love to get outside and do some exploring... it feels like it's been a long while since I've done that. 

The wedding we attended was at a Catholic church in nearby Springfield and wow - what a beautiful church it was! I couldn't resist snapping pictures of the interior of the church once we were inside; it was just so lovely. I was especially fond of the blue behind the altar - just stunning! This was the first Catholic wedding I've ever attended and it was... unique? Very different to what I'm accustomed to but also very beautiful in it's own way.

The groom's parents and my parents have been friends since before I was born - they were stationed together in California and so they've known one another and been friends for my entire lifetime. The wedding was; of course, very unique because of COVID precautions. I've never been to a wedding where I had to try to match my face mask to my dress but I suppose there's a first time for everything. *sigh* 

  

After the wedding we stopped at Foster's to grab burgers for dinner - we ate them from the comfort of the car because we still aren't 100% comfortable eating in a restaurant. I'm not sure when that will change but I don't suppose that matters too much. The weather was lovely, the food was delicious and we were treated to an absolutely spectacular sunset on the way home. It's never possible to quite capture the vivid colors with a cell phone - but I sure tried. Actually, my Mom tried and I stole her pictures.

Sunday was another rainy and dreary day... I find I've perfected my loungewear ensembles and so after some coffee and relaxation, I put together the outfit below for a day at the house. I mean - one can't come to the couch for online church in just any old thing, right? I thought my crab leggings and pink pullover were perfect, ha-ha! 

After church we did a mobile order at the Chipotle that just opened down the road from the house, talked to my little sister for a while and I ended up doing quite a lot of reading, getting ready for the work week and watching a wee bit of Bridgeton. The fifth season of Home Town premiered last night and so after making a pot of Corn Chowder (also delicious, I will also share that recipe), we enjoyed that.

And just like that - it was Sunday night and the first long weekend of this year was at a close.