The Weekend Recap

Pin It now! I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend.  It was nice to have a long weekend although I technically worked from home on Friday.  Thanksgiving Thursday was a full day of the Garden State.  The usual hour-long ride took us almost three hours from the city to hubby's cousins house - an hour from the parking lot to the Lincoln Tunnel alone.  When we finally got to their house, it was nonstop eating (thank goodness!).  After trays of stuffed mushrooms, proscuitto wrapped breadsticks, pulled pork and the first Thansgiving dinner of the night, we headed to my parents' house the next town over for our second dinner.  Don't judge!  My sister and her boyfriend did the same although they were in Philly first and had a few hours to digest on the way to my parents'.  My mom was amazing and made everything herself this year since we had our obligations earlier in the day.  She made some of the same (cream of mushroom soup, candied yams, garlic string beans) and a few new additions (a delicious new stuffing recipe, homemade cranberry sauce and chinese bbq spare-ribs).  I made smitten's spiced applesauce cake for dessert and took a horrible photo of the turkey...

Friday we took advantage of The Gap and Rite Aid's Black Friday sales (good basics and toilet paper, respectively).  It was a low key night and we stayed in to watch the original Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo.  I haven't read any of the books, but why didn't someone tell me the movie is not for the faint of heart.  I was expecting Borne Ultimatum, but instead (spoiler alert!) the movie is full of sexual violence and serial murders.  It was a good movie, but a little terrifying.

Saturday, while hubs was at the gym and taking his friend's Crossfit class, I was off to TJMaxx (again!).  I bought a couple more toys for my office holiday toy drive and then hovered over the Le Creuset table for a long time.  5-qt Oval French oven for $199 (retail $$225), 5.5-qt Round French oven for $159 (retail $235).  If I didn't have all the toys with me and didn't have to lug the heavy pot home, I would have rationalized buying one.  I imagine myself cooking roasts and stews like Giada de Laurentis in a gorgeous Le Creuset... Where the old Filene's Basement was on 6th Ave, they put in a new Marshalls.  The home section is fabulous and has great designer finds, something I didn't find at TJMaxx.  I saw a Vera Wang Wedgewood Sable Duchesse teapot for $99 (retail $216) and teacups for $11 (retail $30).

** Celeb alert!  We saw Harvey Keitel outside of Amity Hall last night.  Anyway, yay for four day weekends.  By the time Sunday arrived, it felt like I was on a mini-vacation.  Today was all about the chores though.  Laundry, supermarket, baking (smitten kitchen's pear bread) and cooking dinner.  Ahh, almost done, just need to do a little ironing and I'll be finally done.  I'm ready for Amazing Race and Walking Dead tonight and then back to work.

Hope you had a fabulous weekend too!