TGIM?

First of all, a few shout outs:

On Saturday, my dad celebrated his birthday! My mom got him an awesome cake to celebrate:

Wonder where I got my love of burgers?

Terry and I are heading up north this weekend to spend some time with my parents, and we're excited to celebrate Dad's big day. Love you, Pops!

And another shout out to Courtney from Sweet Tooth, Sweet Life, who welcomed a beautiful baby boy over the weekend. I had the pleasure of meeting Courtney at the Blend Retreat last year, and she's super sweet (her blog title is incredibly appropriate on so many levels). Congrats, Courtney!

Another weekend, another missed blog post. I always have the best of intentions, but I'm soaking up as much time with Terry as possible before work gets crazy for him soon. And we really did take advantage of some quality time this weekend!

Friday evening, Terry worked out without me (I'm still on rest--more on that later), and we opted to stay in for the night. We reheated leftovers and watched Anna Karenina, a decent movie. On Saturday, after Terry stopped into work, our afternoon plans got scratched, so we ended up back at home to watch two terrible movies and cook a seriously delicious summer meal of BBQ chicken, baked sweet potato, and grilled asparagus. Then we baked blondies for dessert and stayed up until midnight. Crazy, huh?

Sunday we really took things easy--slept in, drove to the farmer's market,

(I forced myself to cut up the melons right away when I got home; otherwise I just never do it!)

worked on our puzzle,

(I swear we've made progress)

and went to True Food Kitchen for a date night.

Last night, after our little date, I asked Terry what his favorite meal was this weekend, and his response surprised me. He said he loved our Sunday lunch, the big platter of snacks I threw together after our trip to the farmer's market.

Included:

• cucumber slices
• three types of hummus (we've recently become hummus fiends)
• grapes
• cantaloupe and watermelon
• celery
• an olive tapenade
• Ak-Mak crackers
• cucumber-lemon water (not pictured)

It really was tasty, and so simple to assemble. 

And a little update on my aches and pains:

Last week, I mentioned some pretty significant pain. I was aching all over: neck, shoulder, upper back, oblique, lower back, hip flexor, gluteus medius, and quad, all on the left side. I took six full days off of working out (the most I did was a two-mile walk), and I tried everything--a massage, foam rolling, heating pad, ice. But the good thing is that I'm finally, FINALLY feeling better! I'm still achy, but I think it was all just tight muscles. And stretching seems to be solving the problem! (Who'da thunk?) Yesterday I spent probably two hours over the course of the day just stretching, and I think today will be the same. 

I still can't remember doing anything specific to tweak my body, but I think increased sitting and lack of stretching are mostly to blame. Today I'm typing from a high counter and standing while I blog, and I'm going to avoid sitting all day. Fun challenge! Maybe I'll be back to working out by the end of this week, but I'm not going to push it. Wish me luck!

Hope you have a fantastic Monday! (Our local news station keeps saying "TGIM" today--is this a thing? I must have missed the memo.)