Five Things To Sum Up My Weekend

Ty and I enjoyed a much needed low key-ish weekend with no official plans. I love these kind of weekends. With all my heart. Forever and ever. Amen.

Here's an update on my five favorite things that happened this weekend:

1. Friday night at Smitty's. Have you tried this place yet? Honestly, what are you waiting for? It's the very best pizza in town, but it does require some commitment. Considering we can get to Pie Works in under five minutes, getting to Smitty's, about a 20 minute drive for us, doesn't always seem to be the most practical decision for pizza. But it's so good that we made the drive Friday night and got two very bad announcements upon walking in the front door:

• They were out of cheese sticks. Heavens to Betsy!!!
• There was a magician in the house.

Out of sheer fury, I was ready to flip over a table right then and there. But Ty did a fantastic job of giving the magician a suggestive look to let him know we weren't interested in any magic that night. He didn't come near our table. I love my husband and his suggestive looks. Unfortunately, he could not correct the cheese stick shortage. My heart still hurts a little.

2. Face to Face Chat with Steven and Danielle. I got Ty an iPhone 4 for his birthday, and while I thought he would only use it to check the weather, I must say the man is full of surprises. Saturday night, we spent some time Face to Face chatting with Steven and Danielle McMorran, aka. "our friends from California."

You have to love anyone who will travel all the way from Los Angeles for your wedding. But making that trip doesn't happen very often, so the face to face chat was a great way for us to catch up! Here are some interesting things about Steven and Danielle:

• Danielle is the assistant publicist for Miley Cyrus. Can you imagine doing that job? I would really like to hear Danielle's take on salvia.
• Steven is a musician and he's written songs for Michael Bolton and Celine Dion. Steven's music sounds very different than you would think after hearing who he's written for. See his music video below ... I think he's amazing and I'm embarrassed that I ever karaoked "What's Up" in front of him.
• Both of them are way too cool to be our friends.

3. Cleaning the Heck Out of Our House. This point is less than interesting and almost sucks as much as actually having to do the cleaning. But it's the reality, the ugly truth of my weekend. And under our terms of full disclosure, I felt forced to share.

4. Punching Out a Window at Superior. We had a low-key evening at home planned for Saturday night. Until our friends called with an invitation to joint them at Superior. They just had a baby and the mom works all the time, and we figured we needed to rally for our friends who really needed a night out.

We had a great time over frozen margaritas, and somehow ended up discussing circumcision with the people at the table next to us. For the record, they started it.

And as we started to leave, one person in our group decided to tap on the window to startle a little boy on the other side of the glass. I'm not sure how it happened, but the glass shattered and the little boy looked at our friend like he was going to be in big trouble.

We left soon after that.

5. Cooking Extravaganza. On Sunday, I really felt the urge to get after it in the kitchen. I spent the afternoon making Buttermilk Chive Biscuits and Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars to take to our friends (and new parents) Walt and Nancy, and then I started prepping for the fish tacos we were going to have for dinner. I sliced tilapia fillets and dredged them in a seasoned beer batter, then we topped them with a citrusy, colorful slaw and some homemade chipotle mayonnaise for an extra kick.

We invited the Taylors over and ate poolside on Dixie paper plates. I'm certain bad things are impossible while dining al fresco on Dixie plates. It was the perfect Sunday night.

I'll be sharing these recipes as the week goes on.