Mondays can be delightful.

My co worker told me last Friday she was riding an elevator up to our office and the crabbiest looking woman stepped on.  She said "It's Friday!" to try and warm her up and her response was, "Yes, but boy, do I hate Mondays." 

Goodness, please do not focus on Monday on Friday morning.  That would be the worst and put me in a bad mood too.  Monday wasn't even on my radar yet.

Super good things to remember on this perfectly okay Monday morning.

1.) Cigar City Brewery

  Friday night we went straight from picking up Matt at the airport to Cigar City Brewery.  Tampa residents are so fortunate to have this little gem in their city.


From left to right:  Chocolate Cherry Brown Ale, Hornsboggled on Nitro, Cucumber Saison, Pineapple Pale Ale

My favorites of the night were the Hornsboggled Nitro and the Pineapple Pale Ale.  So much so that I got a full pint of it.  That is rare.  I love variety.



Pinkies out.

2.)  Pineapple Pale Ale (at Cigar City Brewery).

Oh my goodness, it was so good.

3.)  Soho Cycling Gym

Another good thing about Tampa is the Soho Cycling gym.  All of their class packages were 20% off on Saturday which is such a good deal.  If I'm going to die while spinning, I want it to be a class I got for 20% off.  Perfect.  Perfectly torturous.  The teacher really wanted to kill us by spin bike.  But it was so good at the end.  You leave on some kind of adrenaline high.  That is helpful, so while you look like a sweaty mess, at least you have happiness going for you.

Liz and I on an adrenaline high.  I wouldn't go if it weren't for this girl.  I look over at her numerous times during class after hard songs to find someone to comiserate with and she is always laughing at me.  It is very motivating.

4.)  Amazing Baby Showers

I mean really, this was a baby shower that blew up every other baby shower with a nuclear weapon.

There were no weird baby shower games, and the food was incredible.  The hostesses were awesome and so creative.  They didn't just find cool stuff on Pinterest, they found the coolest stuff and actually made it look like it does on Pinterest.  That doesn't really ever happen to me.

Everyone brought a onesie that brought to mind some kind of memory with the new mom.  Then she had to guess who brought it.  My favorite was a tri-athlete who found a onesie that said "Best Swimmer" and pictured some sperm.  Another one was a woman that lived in her neighborhood who taught aerobics and found an Under Armor onesie with a little running skirt. 

Deviled eggs make me want to die a little but these were so funny.  She made her husband help out and attach the axles.  She said that in the picture that the baby was actually mind of a chisled little vienna sausage but she had to draw the line somewhere. 

Lots of champange was available for those of us that don't know what half the stuff she opened is even used for.

Some really talented ladies put this all together.  They are so fun.

I start to well up if I talk about this amazing friend.  She is the best.  And she'll be a great mom. 

5.)  The beach

We live about 30-40 minutes from the beach and NEVER go.  Color me delighted when at the last minute we decided we wanted to see the sunset with some friends and get out there.  Turns out we decided to get some drinks at a bar close to the beach and missed the sunset.    We did get to see the super moon though.  So there's that one.

Bonus Monday good thing:  beers that remind you of vacation. 

I only ever get to enjoy New Belgium beers when we go to Colorado and the only time we ever go to Colorado is when we go skiing (Snowmass actually has a New Belgium bar ON THE SLOPE--it was magical).  We picked up some while we were there last week and the taste just feels very snow bunny. 

So Mom, that's what I did this weekend and why I didn't call you back.  Love you!