weekend's end.

Grateful today for:

Quality time with my parents. I may be 30 years old, but I appreciate the folks coming into town for a visit just as much as I did back in college. After a morning nursing my pup yesterday (slight complications post surgery, meh) it was such a welcome break to have an afternoon/evening perusing antique stores, buying cool snacks, picking out fabrics, and eating fresh tacos at Tienda Y Taqueria.

Completed home projects. Well, at least PARTIALLY completed home projects. I'm terrible at making decisions, and even when I've MADE the decision I often still feel like I need a nod of approval from my creative genius mother. Then I usually need her to assist me executing the vision. OK, to be fair...often I wind up assisting HER, but oh well. The important thing is that the cheap lamp base with the great shape but ugly paint job that I've begrudgingly toted from house to house is now a solid glossy turquoise and will soon have a nice new fabric covered drum shade.

French fries. And...this may surprise many Oxford townies, but...Old Venice. I had lunch there with my parents today (and dinner with some friends in town who wanted to eat there last month), and both times my meal and overall experience were....honestly, kind of flawless. Today was especially good. My mom and I shared the Mad Italian panini (thinly shaved ham, salami, pepperoni, provolone, pepperoncini peppers, and marinara) and the Tuscan Roasted Vegetable Panini (not positive on the details, but I know it involved roasted portobello mushrooms, squash, zucchuni, red peppers, pesto, and maybe bleu cheese crumbles). Both were fantastic, and the best part...we thought we substituted fries on the side for salads, but discovered when our plates arrived that the salads were an AND and not an OR. Good mistake (though perhaps not from a health perspective), since these shoestring fries were amazing. Perfectly crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, with juuust the right amount of seasoning. Mmmm. Fries.

My Boys. It's a little goofy (maybe a lot goofy) but it's nice and it's fluffy and it makes me laugh. Nice way to ease into a work week.

A pup who (for the moment at least) is peacefully snoozing and not doing any number of things which tend to result in stitches breaking and blood on Mom's carpet. Sweet guy...