a great day (pho sho)

Today was an unexpectedly great day. I could really just add this entire day to my jar of happy things in 2013.

The Denver Art Museum offers free admission to its regular collection on the first Saturday of every month. After a little convincing on my part—Nathan was worried that we’d run into too many screaming kids in the crowd—we trekked downtown for our first visit. It had been a while since I’d been in a big museum, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed. The place is huge, and it took us a couple of leisurely hours to get through all seven levels. I love the calming effect that museums have on me, and the possibility of coming across a piece I didn’t know existed by a favorite artist, like this one by Roy Lichtenstein (source):

I may just be partial to it because my grandfather was a violinist, but I think it’s pretty sweet.

We left the museum and had lattes at the first café the GPS directed us to. I have a thing for lattes lately. Then we came home and this happened:

Homemade pho. Nathan used this recipe, but he made half as it’s written for him and half with vegetable broth for me since I don’t do the beef thing, even in broth form. I marinated and baked some tofu to add to mine. The whole thing was delicious.

We also enjoyed some mojitos along with it—not because Vietnamese food made us crave them but because if we were already using a recipe that requires lime and mint, why not just pick up some rum as well and mix it all with some of the sparkling water we always have on hand? Right? Like I said, a pretty perfect day.

What’s your idea of a perfect day?

Compadre Thursday

This is Coleen.

She is one of my closest friends. I am pretty sure that I have to have unlimited texting in my cell phone plan mainly because we are always telling each other everything that comes into our heads.

A couple of years ago, due to a slight miscommunication during one of these texting conversations, Coleen and I decided that we should always call each other “compadre.” Now most of our conversations start out with some kind of reference to that term. (“How great are sports, compadre?” or “Ugh, compadre, it’s too early.”)

When I said last night, “I’ve started a blog, compadre,” she made fun of me at first, but later she asked if I was going to do “Compadre Thursdays” where I tell stories about my compadre. So that’s what I’ve decided to do. She once wrote a Wikipedia article about herself that was subsequently removed, so maybe Compadre Thursdays will make up for that.

Honestly, my compadre is someone who will probably never leave me short of stories to tell. Between her being a weightlifter with a philosophy degree…

…being always willing to drink beer with me and get photobombed by a neon sign…

…and always reminding me to calm down and not worry so much…

…I don’t think I’ll run out of material any time soon.

happy things in 2013

Yesterday, a childhood friend posted on Facebook something that I thought would be a good thing for me to try as well. The idea is to write on little pieces of paper good things that happen throughout the year—big, small, life-changing, simple, anything—and collect them all in one place. My friend chose a jar for hers but said that she might tape them all in a notebook instead. I found a pretty green vase from a thrift store (they are all over the place in Denver and I love it) and have decided to use that.

I love my new home in Colorado, but I still feel as though I’m in a transitional period and that can be hard. I’m hoping that this little project will offset that a little bit. I hope that I’ll remember to contribute to my vase often, and that it will help me to be thankful for all of the good things that happen this year, no matter how insignificant they seem. So far I’ve added little things like this…

…but by the end of the year, I’m sure some more memorable events will be in there as well. Like finally renewing my passport and getting married. It will be fun to go through all my notes at the beginning of 2014 and reread a whole lot of positivity.

Do you have any plans to record good times in the new year?

first tea of the year

Nathan and I were running an errand today when we realized that we were more than halfway to Boulder, so we made an impromptu trip to an amazing tea house there. Our friend Greg introduced it to us when we went to visit him a few weeks ago, and I don’t think I’d ever get tired of it. The building itself is absolutely gorgeous and was apparently imported piece by piece from Tajikistan, and they have an interesting East-meets-West menu, but today we went for the tea.

Their tea list is several pages long, and a lot of the varieties are oriental. Nathan and I bonded over tea when we first met, so it’s special to us. Not to mention that it’s just generally delicious. Today we enjoyed some oolong and pu-erh. Our teapots each came with a lotus flower dish so that we could set aside our tea leaves once they had finished steeping, and our waiter even brought us a tea timer and told us how long we needed to steep our tea (three minutes, or the entire length of the timer—good to know).

It was a perfect way to have tea, and a great way to spend a little bit of the first day of a new year. Happy 2013!

How did you spend your first day of the new year?