Good as Gold

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I am loving the Olympics this year.  All of these athletes who have geared their entire lives to 30+ seconds of performance…unreal.  Yesterday was the biggest day in Winter Olympic history for Team USA.  They won 6 medals, 3 gold.  I love hearing all the background, heart string pulling stories NBC loves giving me (I definitely cried when Alexandre Bilodeau won the gold for Canada) and seeing all the pretty outfits these athletes at the top of their game choose to make their world statement in.

But what I really love is how quickly I become an expert on every single Olympic event I happen to catch on tv.  I watched about 3 minutes of the men’s mogul event on Sunday before I was able to point out where mistakes were made, cheer along with the athletes when they completed what was obviously a successful run and discuss why the sport is so amazing.  To be clear: I know nothing about moguls–I keep to the blue and green hills when I am skiing.  But there’s something about the Olympics that make the events so accessible to people even thousands of miles away.  Same with Men’s Snowboarding last night–the closest I have gotten to snowboarding is looking at my friend Liz’s board that she helped design.  But even I could appreciate that Team USA is badass.  Now I can’t wait to watch to watch Women’s Figure Skating and impress Ryan with my expertise gained from rollerblading in my basement as a kid, coming up with “programs” I forced my mom to watch and then score.  To the soundtrack of “Evita”.

High Five of the Day: The nice man at Trader Joe’s who pointed me to “the best” almond butter at Trader Joe’s.  Without him, I would have gone home with the same Almond Butter that always goes on my sandwiches but now, I saves a buck and have Almond Butter with FLAXSEED in it.  Thank you, informed grocery shopper.

Lovie Dovie Day and Dirk’s Fish

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Busy weekend.  Ryan had a 2 day conference and I had a work event.  Since there would not be much downtime, I figured I’d get some good girlfriend brownie points and take care of Valentine’s Day.  “Honey, don’t worry about making plans, I’ll just do it.”  Which was super nice of me…until Friday night when I realized that no plans had been actioned.  I frantically texted my friend, who is referred to as Married Mike in Corey’s blog, asking where he gets fish to make sushi.  “Dirk’s Fish on Clybourn” was Married Mike’s reply.  So, after a call to Dirk at 5pm on Saturday making sure there was still fish,  I sprinted to Dirk’s Fish to put a Valentine’s date together.

Dirk’s Fish was fantastic.  Sushi grade fish, live lobster and crab, every kind of fish soup you can imagine and really, really nice fish connoisseurs that were very helpful as I explained my plight.  They set me up with this:

Yes, including that scaly guy on the right.  He was turned into sea bass I could roll into sushi right before my eyes.  With some tuna, salmon, sea bass, seaweed wrap, mango, cucumber, wasabi and pickled ginger in my hot little hands, I thanked Dirk for saving Valentine’s Day and sprinted home.

A few hours and a bottle of champagne later, Ryan and I had created this:

Dirk’s Fish has cooking classes that I definitely want to check out but for an in-home attempt, I don’t think we did too bad.

High Five of the Day: All of the amazing runners that showed up in frigid temps to run the 5k on Saturday!  With over 60 people and tons of goodies from Keihl’s, The Goddess and the Grocer, Element Bar, Vita Coco, Starbucks and Farmer Tom, the event was a huge success.  And super fun! Thanks to all the runners and a HUGE thanks to my friends who ran–I am so grateful for your support!