Happiness, Part 2

Happy Friday, friends! How are you today? I'm feeling sleepy, but I don't mind...it's Friday!

It's another happy day.

I'm happy because it's supposed to be another sunny, and relatively warm day. Don't you love those? I do.

I got 2 new pairs of shoes this week. Don't tell Shaun. One is purely fabulous...

 

and one is functional/wearable and fabulous. Sometimes a girl just needs new shoes. It's a total mood changer.

I may or may not have also ordered these in nude. I'm ignoring the fact that at present, we have nowhere to store said shoes aside from under the living room coffee table, in the corner of the kitchen or in our entryway. I'm working on it.

This weekend, we are running another 5K with our friends Ryan + Kristen. The race is through the Lincoln Tunnel. I'm not sure how I feel about this one yet.

I also plan to work on my gallery wall in our entryway. Has anyone else done this before? I can't wait to have a whole wall of family photos mixed with paintings and fun postcards from our travels!

Oh, I'm also going to get my pre-Easter bake on so that I have some things to share with you next week. For now, feast on these coconut cupcakes, which I made last year. Oh how I wish I had one for breakfast this morning...yummmmy!

I think I had a dream about Ina Garten last night. Though I can't remember what she was telling me. She may have come to me to tell me the secret to her outstanding, creative recipes. I guess I missed it.

Shaun and I are on the hunt for some new TV shows to watch on DVD since most of ours are coming to a close in a matter of weeks. I'm bummed! The ones on our list right now are: The Wire (even though we gave this a chance and weren't crazy about it, but I'm willing to give it one more go), Big Love and Breaking Bad. Do you have any suggestions for us? I'm still crying that Shameless is over until next year...when does True Blood start up again?

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2 of my all-time favorite books have been made into movies and will be coming out over the next few weeks. I'm so happy I could cry. Or jump for joy. Or both. Here's hoping they live up to my internal hype over them...

These movies can only mean one thing...girls movie day with my mom and sisters! I'm thinking the dine-in movie variety.

So that's what's making me tick on this lovely April Friday. What's making you happy?

Soup Season

Today is a good day. Not for any particular reason. But there are a few things making me happy today.

• Shaun made a delicious dinner last night for us and we ate together in front of the television so we could catch up on Castle & Jersey Shore (yep, Jersey Shore). Love those kinds of nights.

• The Jackson Browne station on Pandora + the fact that he wrote Somebody’s Baby

• The fact that my workout at the gym today was better than yesterday

• It’s cool and sunny here in Manhattan and it feels oh-so-fallish

• I have a grand plan to bake some delicious muffins tonight so that I can use the remainder of my uber yummy tart cherry jam

Oh and stay tuned for the wrap up of Shaun whipping up some whole wheat spaghetti and turkey meatballs. And now onto yet another reason why I love the Fall. Not only is it totally appropriate to OD on apple and pumpkin things, but it is also the opening of soup season! There's nothing I love more than a delicious, warm, comforting bowl of soup on a chilly day. And friends, when I say I love soup...I mean, I love soup. As in I can effectively eat it every single day for lunch from now until the end of March (not that I plan to, but you get the point). And yesterday was the seasonal kickoff, if you will.

The soup of choice? Butternut squash! Though my favorite butternut squash soup to date was devoured at Lincoln Center's Winter's Eve in 2007 and was served up by Cafe des Artiste. Those were the days before the blog, but can you tell that I was meant to be a food blogger? The fact that I'm still dreaming about soup from 3 years ago that I had at a street fair frightens me in that it makes my life seem kind of...sad. But I'll say it's just passionate.

This butternut squash soup, however, was warming, creamy and delcious, if not quite Cafe des Artiste quality. I picked it up at a local TriBeCa spot, Beach Street Eatery.

Once the cool weather strikes, I'm a frequent patron of Beach Street Eatery since it's a short walk from the office and they offer up new soup flavors everyday with free samples to boot. This is not, however, to discount 'wichcraft, which is located just across the street from Beach. 'wichcraft has my second favorite soup of all time, Tomato Parmesean. But that's a story for another time.

So how about you? Do you have any go-to cool weather foods? A bowl of soup? A hot cup of tea? A tray of hearty pasta? Dish 'em!