WEEKEND REWIND

Another weekend gone by. Gosh, how I hate Mondays. Especially after coming back from a great weekend. I didn’t get much Christmas shopping done but had a busy weekend nonetheless.

Friday
I had a very stressful day at work on Friday…complete with getting yelled at by the boss. She was having a bad day and needed someone to take it out on…that person was me. I couldn’t wait to get the weekend started and get out of the office. Gerric and I had carpooled that day so when he picked me up, he had flowers waiting for me in the car. He knew I was having a bad day. So sweet! We went to Downey Landing shopping center after work to get some things done. We bought new pillows for ourselves, I got some Christmas shopping started and eventually had the stressful day at work behind me. We grabbed dinner at Frisco’s, a little diner in the city of Downey. I went with a burger and fries…did I mention I had a stressful day at work? :) After dinner, we went on a Target run to get some much needed things we were out of…Kleenex, toothpaste, glass cleaner, furniture polish, among other things. We headed home after that.

Saturday
I had made plans with a friend to do some baking. You see, there are a lot of people at work that I wanted to thank for such a successful year but I didn’t want to break the bank. So I decided to bake some Christmas goodies for each of them. I’m not exactly a domestic goddess in the kitchen so I had the help of my friend, Elvia. It was an all day event but we had a great time and I actually enjoyed spending so much time slaving over an oven. We started with icebox butter cookies. Since it’s necessary to refrigerate the dough for 2 hours, it made sense to start here. Then we made her famous raspberry shortbread bars. Byt this time, it was past noon and we were ready to eat. Elvia prepared an amazing lunch. We had a fresh vegetable frittata with a side of greens drizzled in olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. It was delicious!!! After lunch, we continued with our recipes. We had time to make 3 more…chocolate chip cookies, orange-almond shortbread and orange-cranberry macaroons. Baking can be so time-consuming. We didn't know where the time had gone! I think everything turned out so good…let’s just hope my recipients think so too.

Elvia’s house is all ready for the holidays. Her tree was beautiful and I just had to snap a picture of it. The picture doesn’t do it justice but it was the best way I could capture it. I had a great time with her. We hope to make this an annual tradition….Elvia and Jolene’s Day of Baking.

Gerric and I had dinner plans that night so I left Elvia’s a little after 5pm. We decided to have Buona Gente in Belmont Shores. It was another delicious dinner. After that, we decided to snuggle together in the cold winter night and walked along 2nd street. Gerric was craving Pinkberry so we made a stop there. Even though it was one of the coldest nights of the season so far, the place was still thriving. We had a wonderful date night together.

Sunday
We went to church and came back home to eat the leftovers we had from Saturday night’s dinner. Then we headed to the cemetery to visit Gerric’s mommy and my nephew. After that, we made our way to the Christmas tree lot by our apartment and bought our Christmas tree! We actually made a fast decision this time and before we knew it, Gerric was carrying it inside our place. We spent the rest of the afternoon decorating it and putting up lights. It’s still missing something to give it that extra “umph” but we still love it. I have yet to buy a topper too so that will add to its look once we buy that.

Gerric picked up dinner for us and we ate at home. It was nice. Then I packaged all my goodies together and wrote out my cards for everyone. I loved the way they turned out. I’m so excited to hand them out. I think it’s also early enough where everyone isn’t sick of sweets.

In case anyone is wondering about the Internet thing…I’ve actually been typing my posts in Word, then I quickly post them in here. What can I say…I can’t stay away! Okay, happy Monday everyone!