A Winter Weekend in Spring

I hope everyone’s had a great weekend! I can’t believe that it’s already winding down. Why do they pass so quickly!? Unfortunately, it’s been all rain and winter temperatures here all weekend. What happened to those 80 degree days we had last week!? Spring needs to be here to STAY! Despite the weather, I really enjoyed my weekend. Here’s a quick look at what we’ve been up to.

I kicked off Saturday with a 7:30 a.m. super flow practice at my studio and it was awesome. I love having my yoga practice done by 9 so that I have the whole day to enjoy! Brandon and I tag teamed breakfast when I got home.

So apparently during all the weekends I was in yoga teacher training, Brandon became an expert scrambled egg maker. He watched some online tutorial about making perfect scrambled eggs and his are literally perfect. He whipped some up for me and I couldn’t get over how fluffy they were! Scrambled eggs are one of the ultimate simple comfort foods for me. On the side we had Morningstar “sausage,” fresh fruit and toast.

We topped the toast with homemade strawberry and spiced rhubarb preserves. My friend Sarah made the strawberry for her wedding favors and we picked up the rhubarb at Brandon’s family reunion last year. Both are incredible!

I had a Y staff meeting at noon on Saturday so Brandon and I decided to use that opportunity to spend the afternoon downtown to have lunch and visit a museum.

It was a gross, rainy day but Brandon discovered that all the downtown buildings connect so we meandered through them to get to our lunch destination. We found this fun hallway on our walk!

We had lunch at Ri Ra’s – it provided the perfect warm and cozy atmosphere for the cold and rainy day. I went with a grilled cheese and veggie sandwich with a side salad. And…

Lunch beer! The beer that I ordered was served in two eight-ounce mugs instead of one pint glass…I couldn’t get over how strange that was and kept asking the bartender and waitress why! Apparently, that’s just always how the brewery has served it and Ri Ra’s does their best to provide correct glassware. Interesting. I had too much fun with my mini mugs.

After lunch we made our first visit to the Bechtler Museum. It’s Charlotte’s modern art museum and opened last year.

The Bechtler had a Niki de Saint Phalle special exhibit and I loved it. She was a famous sculptor and painter and her work is very unique and interesting. I really enjoyed learning about her life and her work.

After our afternoon downtown, I had to head to my yoga studio for a teacher meeting. I ended up not getting home until after 8 p.m. so Brandon and I had leftover pizza for dinner. Not exciting but it made for a relaxing Saturday night.

I failed to photograph brunch this morning but I made French toast with Great Harvest Cinnachip and then I met Sarah at Starbucks for coffee to catch up on life. Sarah is not only my friend but my yoga mentor. She is a teacher and went through training several years ago. I could not have made my decision to go through training without her so I had about a million questions for her today that have come up since I’ve started teaching a little bit.

As part of our teacher training we have to complete 10 hours of assisting. My teacher kindly allowed me to assist his class this afternoon and I had a great time helping out. I’m not going to lie though…it was a lot of work! I think I was sweating as much as I would have had I taken the class!

Brandon and I were craving comfort food for dinner. He made our last fire of the season while I cooked another recipe from the amazing Canyon Ranch: Nourish cookbook.

Rustic Chicken – full of hearty goodness like mushrooms, carrots and pearl onions. It’s healthy and delicious and the recipe is up on Bakin’ and Eggs!

Salad on the side.

Mixed greens, baby spinach, blue cheese, almonds and dried cranberries with homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

Oh and I baked a cheesecake this morning!

Snickers Peanut Butter Squared Cheesecake with Oreo crust. Insanely delicious. I’ll be posting the recipe on Bakin’ and Eggs this week.

And so starts a new week – let’s make it fabulous! 😀