Tracy Calabrese

If you didn’t catch that, I have a five day weekend coming up. :)

I will be spending part of the weekend with my mom and some of her girlfriends and their daughters somewhere in the middle of nowhere…cooking, drinking, floating a river (but not THE river) and having a good time. The rest of the weekend will probably be spent by the pool, hanging out with friends, getting some things done around my house and just relaxing. It’s going to be really hard to “turn off” work, but I am going to try my hardest. 

It’s too bad it is almost over, but I am happy to report that I did everything that I had planned to do (minus CB’s birthday), plus a few a extra things this weekend.

The Dallas Vigilantes game was…interesting. The key was to find a cute player and cheer him on and that made it fun. After the game, my friend Ashley and I went to see our fave bartender at Vickery Park.

The Dallas Flea was super cute, although I didn’t buy anything. Wicked was amazing (see earlier post) and dinner at Jorge’s at One Arts Plaza was delicious. It was good to spend the day with my mom.

I spent 4 hours at the pool today with Ashley. Ate at Rusty Taco on Greenville, which I have wanted to hit up ever since I saw it on Thrillist. Had some froyo at Yogurtland, which is by far the best froyo place in Dallas and worth the short drive up to Northwest Highway, across from Northpark. I ended the afternoon watching Transformers 2, which I had to see after watching Transformers on TV on Saturday night. That Shia LaBeouf is just so cute and the movie was good, despite hearing that it wasn’t.

This week is going to be super busy at work, but after this weekend, I feel good. Happy. Relaxed. For now. Tomorrow is another story.

This week has been pretty darn stressful. Things are not going as planned (as if they ever do). I have been exhausted every night. This whole online dating thing is not really what I expected and it is more like online dissing rather than dating. The weather has been humid as hell, which I think adds to being tired. And this season of Glee ended. Boo.

I am so ready for the weekend. Tomorrow night I am going to a Dallas Vigilantes game at the AAC. The box seats and parking pass were free. Bonus! I am spending Saturday with my mom - hitting up the Dallas Flea, seeing Wicked and going to dinner. Saturday night is my friend CB’s birthday. I plan to sit by the pool with a book and my iPod on Sunday.

This weekend is shaping up to be a good one and I am not going to let anything ruin it…at least that is my plan.

Friday was my birthday. I planned everything out - dinner at Fireside Pies, Zane Lamprey comedy show at House of Blues and then back to the Henderson area for drinks. I invited my friends, who invited their friends and was ready to have a great time.

And I did have a great time, but I am just so over birthdays. It sort of felt like any other weekend night, just that people were buying me drinks and I got a few presents. And there is always some kind of drama, which I will leave out of this post.

Next year, when I turn one year closer to the big 3-0, I just want to do something for me. Have a really nice dinner. Take a trip. Go to a spa.

The rest of my birthday weekend was spent staying in bed on Saturday until 3pm and catching up on Glee and Parenthood. On Sunday, I went grocery shopping, cleaned my entire house, went to Half Price Books, did 5 loads of laundry and finished the book A Thousand Splendid Suns (which I highly recommend).

So yeah, happy birthday to me.

I definitely could have handled this week with more composure, but the stress got to me. I snapped at a few people, freaked out about things I had no control over, worked too many hours and ate too much junk food.

But today, a big weight was lifted off my shoulders as things started to fall into place. I feel so much better. I am really looking forward to some dinner and drinks with my friend Lenora tonight, sleeping in tomorrow, dinner with the family to celebrate my mom and dad’s birthdays tomorrow night and a nice relaxing Sunday.

Cheers to a good weekend!

• Friday - Worked from home due to the snow covered roads and because my office building had no power. Met up with my friend/co-worker Shaun, a true NJ boy, who was in town for a work event. We bitched about work, rambled on about how we can’t find normal people to date and had a few drinks.
• Saturday - Ran some errands. Lounged around. Gave myself a manicure. Did laundry.
• Sunday - Went grocery shopping. Spent Valentine’s Day with my friend Ashley - saw Up in the Air (best movie I have seen in a while), had drinks and appetizers at The Porch, then met up with our co-worker Brett and his buddy for some drinks. He was definitely trying to set Ashley up with this guy. A little awkward.
• Monday - Helped my dad at his office. Bought a new car! 2010 Volkswagen Jetta SE. Spent some time with my family. Going to bed early.

Ate like a piggy today.

I think my diet might be on hiatus for the long holiday weekend, which officially starts tomorrow, but in my mind, started today. It started with a work-related luncheon, where they served a decent salad with apples, feta cheese and walnuts, then fried chicken breast with sides of mashed potatoes and veggies and the kicker, chocolate cake for dessert.

When I got home around 4pm today, I thought, “Hey, I am going to each something healthy for dinner.” Then I remembered I had some fabulous tortilla chips from the Mexican store my mom goes to in Denton. So I figured, screw it, and made some nachos. And I think I am going to eat ice cream or some chocolate in a little while.

Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow is also the start of the weekend and I always blow my diet on the weekends by drinking beer and eating junk food.

So…next Tuesday is a new day! Yes! Tuesday!

Good times with old friends (Friday) and new friends (Saturday), drank a few too many beers (both nights), wasted half of Saturday at car dealerships and didn’t drive off with a new car, ate everything I shouldn’t have (cheeseburger, fries, nachos, etc.) and enjoyed every minute of it, lounged around with Jersey until 2pm on Sunday.

Is tomorrow really Monday? Can’t I have one extra day of the weekend?

Last weekend was a good one. It’s been a while since I have had a really good, blog-worthy weekend in Dallas, so I thought I would recap it.

• Friday - After work, I went shopping with my friend Ashley and then we sat at Time Out Tavern, a total dive bar on Lovers and Inwood, with a few drinks and caught up. We complained about work, she bitched out her ex (literally) and then we deleted him from her phone and I talked about how I hate the dating scene.
• Saturday - My parents came down for the day. My mom and I went to see The Color Purple at Music Hall at Fair Park (amazing!) and then had dinner at Fireside Pies. Yum! My dad stayed at my condo and put shelves up in my closets. His loss. Later that night, I went to see my coworker, Jenny, sing with the band Bricks in the Wall, a Pink Floyd cover band, at House of Blues. A bunch of friends and coworkers and came out and after the show we went to The Bank downtown. After paying $20 (seriously?!) to valet, it was quite the interesting scene. Downtown is so much more diverse than Uptown or Knox-Henderson. It’s a refreshing change of scenery (especially since I hate the Uptown scene lately), but you also run into a very strange mix of people…like a strange, extremely short chick who decided she wanted to dance with me in a completely inappropriate way. We spent a couple of hours getting bumped into and drinking overpriced booze and on the way out, ran into a friend of a friend which led to a late-night gathering at a friend of that friends’ condo, which happened to be 18 floors above the club. I finally got home at 3:30am.
• Sunday - Wished I could have slept past 7:30am. Grocery shopped, ran errands, vacuumed, sat on my couch, napped and made soup. It was a nice, relaxing way to end the weekend.

• Take Jersey to the vet (tomorrow)
• Wrap Christmas presents (tomorrow)
• Go to the psychic with Ashley and Makenzie’s (Mak’s Christmas present from Ash - Tuesday)
• Drink too much with Jessica and Lenora (Tuesday)
• Paint my bathroom (sometime)
• Matte and frame pictures; hang pictures (tomorrow)
• Clean (tomorrow)
• Do laundry (tomorrow and throughout the week)
• Eat and/or give away all the cookies I have (ongoing)
• Make a run to Sam Moon (tomorrow)
• (Lastly) Head up to my parents house for family Christmas festivities (Thursday - Saturday)