Wow, the time has flown.  And not because I am having fun.  On the contrary, there has been so freaking much to do and my brain is split a thousand different places…most often with “you need to be studying” on repeat, which doesn’t help anything.  But January, as a month, seemed nice and long.  Not usually my favorite month by any stretch of the imagination but I’m also needing time to go nice and slow for a few months, at least until April.

While the weather has been mostly wet we haven’t had that many chilly days and we have had some breaks in the rain that help keep me sane.  It hasn’t been the worst weather this January, nor the best.  Probably perfect for studying and working, which is more or less what both of us have been doing.  Since being back we have had a little bit of fun in the form of:

• Saw the Book of Mormon at the Paramount Theater and loved it!!  Enjoyed a Mexican happy hour beforehand at Rioja with Mark and his girl.

  

• I took a cycle class complements of Yelp and really liked it.  Since then I have started ClassPass and have checked out two more spin classes and a barre class.  I like the philosophy of ClassPass and being able to do a variety of workouts at a variety of places with a very flexible schedule.
• Enjoyed a dinner at home with Billy and Ainsley.
• Dined at Eastlake Bar and Grill twice with Groupons.
• Enjoyed FareStart community dinner for the month of January and there have been many stellar meals at FareStart already in this new year for Guest Chef Night.
• Have had fun and love our Google Home.
• Obsessively watched the entire last season of Top Chef – Charleston, made bets on the winner, and now I owe Bryan two GOOD massages.

  

• And watching Always Sunny in Philadelphia all over again because even though it is vain and vulgar it is quite possibly the most hilarious show on television and puts us in a good mood every single night.
• I’ve been rowing for short stints when I can, mostly for a break in the study action to break up the doldrums.
• We got sushi with the whole gang for Carina’s short return to Seattle this past Sunday.  Everyone (except Mark) I hadn’t seen since well before Christmas so it was great to catch up with everyone all at once.  Sushi was meh.
• We had our first Novelty Hill/Januik wine club member party of the year and like usual we collected our wine and enjoyed the always delicious dinner feasting.
• And we have been cooking as much as we can at home, per one of my goals for “18 for 2018” to come shortly in the next post.  My goal was 20 dinners at home each month but with FareStart every week and other occasions with friends or fun that are just not right to turn down I have modified it to 20 meals at home, which works because we do have brunch at home most weekends when we could (and sometimes do) go out for brunch.  And we have been doing pretty good with this with only a few quick dinners scattered in there.  We have been doing a lot of the cooking together to get Bryan some recipes under his belt.  We started off the year with a trio of meals from Home Chef delivery service, we made an awesome and simple hot sausage and fennel pasta, callilloo stew, beef stroganoff, chicken paprikash, moussaka, steak and potatoes, Thai turkey lettuce wraps, and others and they have all been delicious.

As you can see, for an entire month we haven’t been that active.  Largely that is due to my study schedule (which isn’t all that strict but just needs to happen) and that Bryan was pretty darn sick for a good long time.  He even had to take two days off of work because of how awful he felt.  But being stuck at home isn’t too bad with good company.  At some point we are going to start going stir crazy though.  Fortunately, we do have some exciting performances and dinners out ahead in our future.

Chelsea