Labor day kind of snuck up on me this year. I didn’t even realize that I had a three-day weekend until around noon on Friday, at which point I yelled “Praise the LORD!” and wiggled my feet with joy under my desk.
There are definite pluses to unexpected three-day weekends, namely the absence of ambitious home improvement projects and other planned activities. I did almost nothing productive this weekend, and I had a thoroughly good time.
On Friday night Rami and I went to see the Miro Quartet play an all-Bach concert at UT. The concert was so wonderful and inspiring; I highly encourage all my friends in Austin to try to see Miro perform at least once! After the concert Rami and I went to Blue Dahlia Bistro for cheese and wine. It was (as usual) delicious and reasonable. An aside: UT changed its evening concert start time this year to 7:30 PM, up from 8:00 PM. At first I was annoyed because it can be tricky to eat dinner before a concert that begins at 7:30. Now I am psyched about the change because it means that most concerts will conclude by 9:30 PM, leaving me plenty of time to make it to one of wine bars near campus before the doors close at 10:00 PM. Win!
Saturday was wonderful. My sister made breakfast tacos and mimosas, which we consumed while watching college football. I did not move from the couch until 4 PM, when I got up to cook dinner before the UT game. My brother in-law smoked a brisket and I made blue cheese-stuffed bacon wrapped dates and baked beans. Katie and Rami came over, and the five of us watched UT kick some LaMo butt on Saturday night. I am so excited about UT football this year: Colt McCoy looks great, and our receivers seem stronger than last year.
I slept in until 9:00 on Sunday and took a nap from 12:00-2:00. After that I did some homework until dinner time, when Rami and I went to South Congress to hang out with Rami’s college friends Josh and Katherine. We ate dinner at Guerro’s and shopped a little on SoCo. Did you know that Big Top Candy Shop on South Congress has 30+ different flavors of saltwater taffy? Rami and I got 2 pieces of cinnamon roll, caramel corn, caramel mocha, and chocolate chip cookie flavored taffy, which we ate later that night while we were watching True Blood. For the record, the caramel corn was my favorite. Look for a whole post dedicated to salt water taffy coming soon.
I was sort of productive today (Monday). I slept in until 10:00 and then I made corndog casserole. We’re not eating it until later in the week, but I probably won’t have time to cook then, so I was working ahead. Around lunch time, my sister, bro-in-law and I put on our team colors and went to Chick-Fil-A for some free chicken sandwiches! It was packed, but the chaos was pretty entertaining since there were so many cute kids in UT outfits. After lunch we went to Ikea where I bought some bedding for my new apartment. I got a sheet set, pillowcases, a comforter and a quilt for under $100!! Tonight, Beth made blue cheese and onion sauce for some steaks that Andy grilled. We also ate corn on the cob and sauteed mushrooms.
See, with very little planning I managed to have a wonderful, relaxing labor day weekend, complete with 8 college football games, 4 pieces of saltwater taffy,29 hours of sleep, and about 200,040 calories.