Weekend Review {11/25}

FRIDAY

Friday was the last day of class before Thanksgiving break started and it was a struggle.  I managed, but Lawd, I did NOT want to be in my dungeon.  As soon as class was finished, I headed to work to fight with the instant pot (which is no way instant (as it claims to be)).  Because we don't have a stove at work, I figured I could make the pasta in the instant pot and it wouldn't take that long, because instant pot, and then just melt in the velveeta and cream like normal.

Fun fact, when you put 2 pounds of pasta and 12 cups of water in the instant pot, what is normally a tedious process of building pressure becomes a lifelong process of building pressure.  In case you also think that cooking pasta in the instant pot could be a good idea, I would recommend sticking with 1 box of pasta as 2 boxes + the water took almost 40 minutes to come to pressure.  The pasta only had to cook for 3 minutes... Then there was the process of depressurizing, which also took a LONG time since 12 cups of water.

Here's how instant pot deficient I am: I had to have someone else turn it on to start the process for me.  He is a regular instant pot user, so that helped, but even he was shocked at how long it was taking.  Soooo, take my advice, if you want to "instantly" cook your pasta, it is NOT instant. 

Several people came in the kitchen while it was cooking and we had the "Do you recommend the instant pot?" conversation.  Spoiler alert: I 110% DO NOT RECOMMEND the instant pot.  It is a liar.  NOTHING is instant.  It takes just as much time to build pressure as it does to cook something on the stove (unless it's frozen, in which case, the instant pot is superior, but not better than throwing that frozen thing in the crockpot in the AM and coming home to a cooked meal). 

Anyways, despite my loathing of the instant pot, it worked for me in this situation.  Mac and cheese was made, not nearly enough of it was consumed because we had so.much.food.  I left it all at work though, knowing it would get eaten and knowing that I'm making mac and cheese again this week for Thanksgiving.

I was so hungry I took a half-eaten-plate photo. /shrug

After eating and cleaning up, I left the office for a massage appointment I had scheduled late the in the week.  I know that I just had a massage on Halloween, but I was a mess and I was struggling mightily last week with being in school without a break since the September Hurrication.  So it was part treat yo self, part necessity as my body was rebelling against me.

At some point during my massage, I realized I had left the week behind.  I wasn't focused on all the school things that constantly bombard me and it was such a relief.  If I would have had the time, I would have written a pretty feely post about end of semester strife, but I didn't...  because Thursday I was put on a new project and tasked with writing documentation for a project I know ZERO things about, oh yeah and they need it by next Friday.. but really Wednesday since holiday week.  Fun!  Not.

Wednesday, I texted Teh Bestie and said I needed a pep talk because I was run down and struggling.  She called right away and reminded me that it was only 2 more days until the break and really only one since there was no class on Thursday.  But the bigger part, more than the pep talk she gave me, was that I reached out instead of struggling on my own.  Usually, I struggle quietly until I manage to pull myself up by my bootstraps or whatever.

Anyways, after my massage, I headed home to work and wait on Teh Advising Sister to arrive.  She arrived around 7 and soon after, we headed out for dinner. We went to Pearlz in Avondale.  I hadn't been there, so fun adventures!  After dinner, we went to Kaminsky's for adult beverages.  We were pretty tired after drinks, so we headed home and had some couch time, judging dating app matches for Teh Advising Sister. 

Way later than anticipated, we finally headed to bed.

SATURDAY

Saturday was a slow start.  We had plans to go day drinking to celebrate Teh PT Husband's birthday.  We managed to meet with the gang, late, and proceeded to hang out for many hours. 

We started at Ghost Monkey Brewing, but due to a church group with A LOT of children, we headed out pretty quickly and went to Two Blokes Brewing.

We spent several hours at Two Blokes, then headed to Dog and Duck for dinner.  There had been plans to go Westbrook Brewing, but since they closed at 6, the group headed to Commonhouse instead.  We actually ended up going home after Dog and Duck because the dogs needed to be fed and I was over day drinking.

Here's the (selfish) thing.  I don't drink beer, so day drinking at breweries isn't my jam.  I go to be a good sport and hang out with my friends, but it's not got the same appeal for me as it does to the majority of the people we hang out with, so I try not to be overly sassy about it.  Additionally, it was a birthday celebration, so it wasn't my call.  We've discussed day drinking at distilleries, but that has yet to happen.

Teh German opted to come home instead of being dropped off at Commonhouse and then he proceeded to be upset after he realized he had "missed out" by not going.  Siiiigh.  Whatever.  I was able to get in my TV time for the week.  We watched Noah Trever's and Iliza Shlesinger's standup comedies.  We were in bed by 11.  It was fantastic.

SUNDAY

Sunday, the guys scheduled a brunch event, gasp!  It was called "Beards and Brunch" and there was absolutely NO information about the brunch part of the event, which was my priority.  It was a Rusty Bull Brewing, where I'd seen food trucks before, so no info on the food situation made me skeptical about the situation and I was very adamant if there were not solid brunch options, I would go somewhere else.  After being at breweries for the majority of the day before, I had no problem going somewhere I could also drink something besides water.

Fortunately, Rusty Bull has a kitchen (which I was not aware of, and no one told me about) and the brunch options were pretty good and I didn't feel the need to relocate.  Teh German and Teh PT Husband signed up for the beard competition and didn't officially win, but they were the real winners in my book.

Eventually, Teh Advising Sister said she wanted to do ax throwing, which is connected with the brewery.  We were all down.  It was $26 for an hour of throwing time and we almost finished one game, but after about 15 minutes of trying to score and play the game correctly, we gave up the fight and just spent the rest of the time throwing without keeping score.

Fun fact: I'm actually kinda good at ax throwing.

That was one of my legit throws.
BOOM!  BULLSEYE BABY!

After our time ended, we all headed home.  After walking the dogs and feeding them dinner, we headed over to Teh PT House for socializing.  We hung out until about 7:15, when Teh German and Teh Advising Sister agreed on Japanese for dinner and we headed out to Sushi 101 for dinner.

After dinner, we headed home and it was bedtime soon after since Monday was a normal work day for us.

______________________________________________

A fantastic weekend with Teh Advising Sister!  I love when we have company and she's always down for whatever (i.e. day drinking with people she sees maybe once a year and some strangers).  We went to several new-to-me places and I can now say I've done ax throwing annnddd that I'm fairly good at it.

This week includes NO SCHOOL, kinda.  I should say no class, since I still need to work on some homework things, but I'm not overly motivated to do those things.  In addition to these docs that I'm working on for work, doing homework is even less appealing.  Friday is more tattoo and I have no idea what I want.  Originally, I wanted geometric pattern as the background, but now IDK and decisions are hard.

Thursday is Thanksgiving.  In the AM, Teh PT Wife and I are running a 5k, then we will go home and do cooking things.  Socializing and food in the afternoon.  Maybe if I'm super productive this week I can pound out those docs AND get a Friday post up?  Bahahahah, let's not get overly excited, Gentle Readers.

Happy Thanksgiving if that's your thing.
Happy normal week if it's not.