date night & a little kvetching

cocktail hour, provo style

today was a day where i really, really, really, really could have used a strong drink at the end of it all.  or, if i were a character on mad men, i would have started in drinking hardcore at work already.

but, like  a good mormon girl should, i opted instead for frozen yogurt hour,

the good, stiff tart variety, with c., for date night.  i got tart dragon fruit and plain tart while c. got lychee tart and plain tart.  i topped mine with lychee fruit, mochi, mango and yogurt chips.  c. used lychee fruit (lots--he loves it), blueberries, mochi, kiwi. strawberry, mango, and blackberries.  he's a food snob and won't touch the yogurt chips.  i love the cold waxy bitey swaggy mouth feel of the chips in the frozen yogurt, but in no other context.

(i think i'm coming down from the excitement and craziness of the last month, and was feeling really bummed out about the lack of life in provo parts today.  i made c. drive up and down center street tonight, hoping that some new sophisticated establishment had magically popped up while we were in nyc and seattle.  don't get me wrong, i love it here a lot ((i mean, you already know i also hate it here a lot)), but sometimes get bored with the lack of night life, &. . . . yeah.)

but here's what went wrong today:

1.  work.  ugh.  i won't share details, but i'm feeling discouraged about it and like i should make a change.

2.  shoulder.  double ugh.  had to leave yoga it was so bad.  i couldn't hold a downward dog or child's pose.  i couldn't even do my hair or put on my dress without a lot of pain.   i suppose i should have sat in meditation and breathed in yoga instead of following the class practice but

3.  forest fires are ablaze in utah and the air is horrible. i had a raging headache and kept sneezing my head off.

4.  found out some bad news about someone i love.

5.  neglected the children for the fifth day in a row this week.

6.  didn't get writing or submitting done today (yet!)

on  a more cheery note, some food and  things went right today, maybe even more goodies than baddies, (but most of the wrong happened in the second half of the day, so it's fresher on my mind).  here's the good stuff:

pedicures & lots of red

1. my brother dave is in town for the utah valley marathon.  we got pedicures together  (he didn't get red toes, though.)

2. after pedis, we went to communal for lunch, hands down my favorite restaurant in utah valley (it holds up super well next to james beard chef maria hines' restaurant golden beetle, where i ate last week in seattle--here's my first blog post and my second  blog post on golden beetle.  here's my blog post on the oyster bar the walrus and the carpenter.)  we sat at the bar of the open kitchen and watched chef justin do his thang.  i had the lucious grilled zucchini sandwich with housemade lemon ricotta and a fantastic spring salad with shaved fennel (fennel is the most glorious vegetable in the world to me right now.)  dave had a shrimp po boy.   c. shared my sandwich and had a cup of roasted pepper/tomato soup and we all had the sumptuous boulangere potatoes (dense little fingerling potatoes sauteed in some sort of veal/balsamic reduction with caramelized onions and housemade bacon.)  chef j. treated us to an array of sorbets, including our favorite, the blood orange and clove sorbet and the white peach/vanilla. 

3.  red.  i put new red sheets on the bed and found a perfect cheap red lipstick from maybelline today:  red revival.  it's the first really good non-designer lipstick i've ever found for myself.  not too orange, not too brown, not too purple, not too pink.  just right.  i got out my old red purse and a new coral red on my fingers and toes, wore my red sandals. 

4.  listening to white stripes right now with c., and one more episode of holmes on the dvr for tonight.

5.  borrowed a copy of the artist's way from diana at work today.  more on the significance of this later.

6. got out of the house today--went to work today which, although it was frustrating, at least got me out of my summer lack-of-schedule malaise.

7.  knowing that things will be better tomorrow--the air, my headache, the farmer's market, and my ability to be more present with the kids.

legwear:  bare, tipped with new red toes.

looking forward: to trying something new.

inspiration: shades of red.