what are you doing this weekend?

happy friday, friends! it's the weekend! yay!

how were your weeks? mine was busy but good, and it ended with some of my best and oldest friends coming into town for a visit last night. we had a great time catching up and eating dinner at owen's fish camp, one of my favorite sarasota restaurants (and the scene of my birthday last year!), and i find its always good for the mental health to hang out with people who've known you for years -- and in jenn and bryce's case, more than half my life. even better, they're thinking of moving to sarasota, which would just be awesome. i would like to shepherd all the awesome people in my life down here, and these two are an excellent start.

what are your plans for the weekend? i need to do some baking -- molly's heart-shaped sugar cookies with cherry-scented cream cheese frosting always make an appearance around this time of year (the cherry is so subtle that it makes the cookies taste pink), plus i'm planning another pastry project that i'll share with you next week if it turns out well. and in non-food-related news, my favorite jeans bit the dust yesterday, so i need to find a new pair.

shopping and baking -- not a bad way to spend a weekend, huh?

tell me what you're up to, and i'll see you back here on monday. i hope you have a wonderful, relaxing few days.

oh,  p.s.: i created a facebook page for this blog earlier this week. it's not very active yet, but if you'd like to hang out with me on facebook, as well, you can click here to "like" the page.

photo by astrid

keep on trucking.

i've been wishing for food trucks in sarasota for ages -- ever since i discovered the amazingness that is orlando's yum yum cupcake truck, in fact. for a city that is full of great, local, non-chain restaurants, with a population that really appreciates them, it's a surprise -- to me -- that there weren't trucks parked downtown all the time. then i heard from several reliable sources that the lack of food trucks was due to issues with zoning, so i figured it was kind of a lost cause.

then, a few weeks ago, a friend pointed me to ringling picnic's facebook page, and i nearly squealed out loud at my desk. (ok, i may actually have squealed.) ringling picnic is a collection of food trucks (!) that will form a sort of "food truck court" in sarasota every monday through friday from 7 a.m.- 3 p.m.  i'm ridiculously excited and can't wait to try the food and see how sarasota responds. so far the lineup includes a coffee truck, a mac-and-cheese truck (uh, yum), a mexican-food truck and a truck that serves sliders -- and the facebook page promises that more are to come (here's hoping for some sort of fantastic dessert truck).

so yes: here's to one more thing to love about sarasota.

do you have food trucks in your town? do you love them, too?

photos of food trucks in orlando at an event near my parents' house by me. in fact, that's my mom in the second photo waiting for her food from the amazingly delicious korean bbq truck -- she loves a good stripe and some sperrys, as she should.

scenes from life lately.

these were supposed to be part of my usual monday "scenes from the weekend" post, but -- as you can probably guess from the radio silence around these parts so far this week -- life intervened. so here they are on wednesday instead: gorgeous afternoon light; a view of a pretty lake (can you see the bird sunning himself on the tree?); fuchsia azaleas; and a knot of clover -- all taken at kraft azalea gardens in my hometown on a perfect saturday afternoon.

happy wednesday, friends.

all photos by me

what are you doing this weekend?

it was a week of small victories.

i executed (that sounds so formal) a work project that's been on my mind for a long time, and got a lot of other work stuff done, too. i (finally, finally) got my broken windshield wiper fixed. i exercised. i did laundry. i gave myself an at-home pedicure (the color? essie's "bachelorette bash," a hot pink). and most importantly, i did pretty well with my commitment to not complain and even learned some other lessons while doing so.

so yes. it was a good week.

this weekend i'm heading to orlando again and am looking forward to one of those weekends that feels long. movies, long walks (the weather's supposed to be a balmy 80 degrees for the next few days) and relaxation are on the agenda, and i'm so looking forward to all of them.

what are your plans? tell me, and i'll see you back here on monday. have a wonderful few days!

photo of sarasota bay by me

a little update.

remember my goal to not complain this week?

that was a really good bullet point to add to the weekly list. while i know i haven't managed to stop entirely (a few complaints have definitely slipped out), i have really been thinking about what i'm going to say before i actually say it, and that in and of itself is kind of amazing.

case in point: yesterday i was driving home from work and an elderly man with a thatch of white hair in a huge buick was trying to make a left-hand turn from the middle lane of the road (not the designated left-hand-turn lane). i'll be the first to admit that i tend to have a wee bit of road rage, and normally i would have been sighing up a storm and making faces and and wondering why i had to get stuck behind this other driver. but instead i just kind of cocked my head and thought, "you're not supposed to be complaining!"

so i didn't.

and i arrived home in such a sunny mood. removing the option to complain totally kept closed the window of negativity that could easily have opened had i done it. i realize that it sounds cheesy and new age-y and silly (and my friend kate, who might be reading this, is probably saying something about how i live on a marshmallow -- hi, kate!), but i think it kind of set the tone for the rest of the evening. i didn't vary my routine -- i worked out, i cooked dinner, i watched this week's episode of new girl, i talked on the phone -- but again, i think i removed some potential negativity. and i feel good about that, especially in the wake of what's been a really busy week.

how about you? how have your weeks been so far? tell me, i'd love to hear.

p.s. happy february!

photo by weloveunicorns