My dining companion:

The menu is creole inspired for about half of it (yay!), so [...]]]> What a great weekend!  First off, on Friday night, John and I had gone out to dinner.  I had a Living Social deal for 50% off at Mouzon House, which is a farm to table restaurant in Saratoga.

My dining companion:

The menu is creole inspired for about half of it (yay!), so we were all over that.  John and I split an order of crawfish beignets.

A little spicy on the inside and topped with a remoulade.  They were light and fluffy and very tasty.

My course was a half portion of shrimp and grits.  Probably not a great picture, but the dish was delicious! It had a dark sauce, which was like a creole barbecue sauce on top of cheesy grits.

This doesn’t look as good as it tasted.  It was so good! Plus, there were collard greens on the side that had the most wonderful smoky flavor and I ate every bite. Me eating greens, how about that!

Since we got half portions for our dinners, we decided on dessert.  This was a warm flourless chocolate cake topped with local Battenkill vanilla ice cream.

The portion was a little small for splitting, but the ice cream was the best part!

A very good dinner.  I would definitely go there again.  I love that they support so many local farms, too.

After that, we went to see David Russell in concert.  He is a classical guitarist and he was amazing.  Just amazing!  Tickets were only $7 through the university, which is a fantastic deal to see someone of this caliber.

Sunday was spa day.  My sister’s birthday is this week, so my mother and I took her to the Crystal Spa for some girl time.

Posh inside:

with stained glass:

And a crystal chandelier.

I like sparkly things.

The three of us did a dry sauna before hand scented with rosemary and a few other aromas.

Photo from Crystal Spa

 I was drenched after a couple minutes.  My sister and mom get dewy – I get drippy.  

After the sauna, my sister and I headed off for private mineral baths and my mother went for a facial.  My room was called the Star Room.  They must have know I am a superstar!  Saratoga Springs is known for the mineral springs and is called Spa City.  This spa has its own mineral spring to draw from, and the water is full of lots and lots of dissolved minerals, which is why it is dark.

The lights are lowered and soothing music is piped in while you relax and float in the warm bath for about 1/2 an hour.

I was worried I was going to drop my camera in LOL!

This is very, very relaxing and felt so good on my muscles.  I work them hard and it was good to treat them.  After the half hour is up, then you are asked to dry off and lay on the table (covered with a towel).  You are given a warm sheet to relax under.

Then the attendant gives you a cooling cucumber facial massage, which feels so refreshing, but all I could think was that I wanted to eat the cucumbers!  Then she laid 2 slices across my eyes with a cool washcloth and then you are left alone to relax until you are ready to dress.

As tempted as I was, I did not eat them.  (ewwww).  The mineral bath only costs $25.  Quite the bargain, I think!  I was all warm and relaxed after that.

Happy early birthday to my sister!

Afterwards, we went out for coffee and pastries.

I was really hungry by this time!  We each got a pastry and them cut them into 3 pieces, so we each got to try a brownie, a blondie and a muffin.  That’s the way to do it.  I forgot to take a picture of those, but I ate all 3 pieces.

What a nice way to spend the afternoon, too!  I do feel a little sleepy now, but definitely refreshed and relaxed.

Such a fun, fun weekend!

I hope the comment feed is settling down?

I had a very good strength workout on Saturday.  Increasing a couple weights and reps.  Then, John and I [...]]]> Rainy and cool weekend.  This is the spring that we skipped over!  It was a nice weekend with a lot of little projects and a lot of relaxing.

I hope the comment feed is settling down?

I had a very good strength workout on Saturday.  Increasing a couple weights and reps.  Then, John and I went out to lunch and shopping on Saturday.  We stopped at Chipotle.  I had the salad with barbacoa, salsa, cheese and sour cream.

This is really good.  You don’t even need dressing.  This is one of my treat meals for the week.

We did some mall shopping (empty handed) and then to Lowe’s. We got an estimate on resurfacing our driveway the other day  and it was $1800.  That was waaaay more than I was expecting.  So, we are looking into doing crack repair and resealing ourselves rather than having them tear up the whole driveway and replacing it.  If we can get another 7 years out of the driveway, that would be nice.  I really want to put laminate in our downstairs this year, so we couldn’t do both if we had someone else do the driveway.  And as I said to my mother, I don’t think we could possibly make the driveway look worse than it already does (remember these words, everyone).

I did buy a new bird feeder to put outside my ‘working’ window.  Hopefully the cardinals will come to this one since it has a platform.

And, you can see why we need to redo the driveway this year. 

Rainy days, puzzles, and kitties.

One of these things doesn’t go along so well with the other 2.

I’s helping, right?

I have not put a puzzle together in the 3 years Pixie has been living in the house. Our other cat, Chloe, was blind at the end of her life and I could do puzzles and such without her bothering them.  Not so with Pixie. I am having to reassemble pieces that she decided didn’t go together.

Another good indoor weekend project: I had gotten the 5-minute Artisan Pizza book out of the library, so we made some dough up for pizza this weekend!

Just simple pizza.  Sauce, cheese and some cooked chicken.

I didn’t know this was going to rise so much in the oven and be such a thick crust!

It was really good, though.  Yum.

Off to do some more puzzlin’!

Question: Do you do puzzles?