it’s hard to gracefully just waltz right back into blogging when you’ve been away for a week or two. long story short i had nothing to say for the past two weeks. thanks to a mystery illness my workouts were light and my food was boring.  In other words it has not been a picnic for the fitness fanatic inside of me. Luckily today I was able to jump right back into my old routine so fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong and I’m back to normal!

My first workout back at bootcamp was fun, but I pretty much sucked, as to be expected. Two weeks of the stairmaster and elliptical don’t prepare you for box jumps and pull ups, my friends.  But I survived and I know that the worst of it is over–the hardest thing to do is start back up again, especially when it took twice as long to get out the door thanks to the snow and cold.

We did two 12 minute AMRAPS (as many rounds/reps as possible), for a total of 24 minutes (plus warmup).

It’s going to be a lonnnnng time before my squats look good again. No bueno. Luckily my long legs made me look like I knew what I was doing on the box jumps, so there’s a plus.

Other than doctors appointments trying to pinpoint what’s been up with my body, it’s been a busy few weeks full of holiday parties, birthdays, and the occasional out-of-this-world meal.

Who knew that one of my favorite bars in Chicago, Public House, had an AMAZING food menu as well?! I’ll have to do a full restaurant review of the place soon. They are the only casual bar that offers mussels (I didn’t even know that was a thing!) They have three choices but I went with the Misto mussels bowl: it came overflowing with calamari, roasted garlic, red finger chilies, tomato caponata, fresh basil, and, of course, mussels. It was served with hot buttered sourdough bread, to get every last bit of the incredible sauce.

I don’t remember the last time I fell head over heels in love with a meal like I did with this one. Please excuse the poor picture quality and just know from the bottom of my heart that mussels, while they might look scary, can be oh so delicious. Side note: Zman doesn’t understand how I find red meat gross but I have no problem with mussels, shrimp, or escargot. To be honest I can’t explain it either, but thank god I’m not queasy about seafood because I’d miss out on so much deliciousness.

Over the past weekend we celebrated the holidays at the Planetarium downtown and had a blast with friends, an open bar, and free deep dish pizza.

It was good to have a fancy holiday party to go to finally! The past few college years included plenty of ugly Christmas  sweater parties and spiked apple cider but nothing like this. The view of the city from the Planetarium was breathtaking, and although we skipped it, Zman and I heard that they put on a free show in their cinema for all the employees and it was awesome. Space ain’t our thang, so we hung back and danced.

We also celebrated Zman’s birthday recently! We went to dinner at a fancy Brazilian steakhouse with servers walking around with endless skewers of meat–aka Zman’s dream.

That chocolate chip cookie skillet was perfect. It was so dark inside the restaurant and the plates were so small (seeing as they were endless), so I skipped the pictures. We dined for two hours on an assortment of meats, cheeses, appetizers, soups, breads, and meat. I stuck with mostly seafood and a little chicken while Zman was all over the ranch-marinated beef and even tried venison. It was an adventurous night and, while I don’t see us going back any time soon ($$$), it was the perfect place to celebrate a special occasion.

A few other recent eats:

Things should go back to normal now, so expect some recipes and restaurant reviews soon.  I hope you’re all having a fun holiday season–it’s going by crazy fast!