This is how I spent Sunday. Granted, we avoided putting up holiday decorations because it didn’t feel right, but still.

Don’t hate me too much.

I don’t really like beer that much.

I never really drank beer in college, or after. Except for fruity lambics, me and beer just didn’t get along. Finally a few years ago I got to where I enjoy a good Hefeweizen, but even now, I’d rather NOT drink than drink most beers (and I’m ok with this. Although living in San Diego, which is so heavy into craft brews, I do sometimes wish I liked beer more.).

However, my usual easy drink of choice is totally a beer. Just…doctored.

A type of a Michelada, a Mexican cerveza preparada, this is my favorite thing to have after a rough day at work (or a nice summer afternoon. or a good bbq. Or, you know, whenever). Now, there are a ton of recipes out there for how to make a Michelada. The typical Michelada is thought to have tomato juice, but my variation I learned on our honeymoon doesn’t have that particular ingredient. That would be a much heavier drink I think, and part of what I like about this is the lightness of it.

I will say, this drink is HEAVY on the sodium, so you know, I probably shouldn’t drink it as often as I do, but hey, my blood pressure isn’t bad yet so it’s still my drink of choice.

Onward to the booze! (please ignore my crappy iPhone pics and kitchen counters. I was in a hurry to ENJOY my beer).

Ingredients:
Corona (or other light Mexican beer. I guess you could use domestic beer, but I wouldn’t)
1-2 Limes
Worcestershire Sauce
Tabasco
Salt (what’s on the plate. My margarita salt container was empty, so this was my solution). 

Instructions:

1. Rim your glass with salt.

2.  Juice your lime(s) into the glass. I like mine REALLY lime-y, so I usually use two limes, but my husband will often just use 1/2 a lime. It’s really up to you. This picture only has one lime, because it’s all I had.

3. Pour Worcestershire in to taste. I usually put about 8-9 glugs. In my opinion, the mix at the bottom should be a dark, rich brown. But again, I like salt like WHOA, so adjust to your tastes accordingly.

4. Add Tabasco to your heat preference. I usually put two dashes, unless I have a cold and then I add 3-4. HA! You can skip the Tabasco if you MUST, but it really adds a nice touch.

5. Add your beer. Be careful, as Corona will completely fizz over if it touches the salt. Pour slow to avoid this if you can.

Voila, the finished piece.

You end up with a salty, savory, beer cocktail with a slight hint of heat. A perfect way to finish a long day.

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky to be invited to a Moms Night Out with some wonderful local ladies at the Del Mar Races. For those of you who aren’t local, the Del Mar Races are a BIG part of summer in San Diego. There are concerts, family events, opening days, and, yes, hats. I’ve wanted to go to the races since we first moved to San Diego, and this year even put it on my To-Do list. So when the opportunity came to enjoy a ladies night, at the races? Yes, PLEASE!

I had an amazing time. We had amazing seats. The weather was GORGEOUS. We got to go to the paddock. We got a hands on lesson in betting (um, hi, betting on a horse race? WAY more intimidating than I was expecting! There’s so many variables!). We had drinks. We ate. We had a great time.

Thank you San Diego MOMfia and Del Mar Racing for helping me check something else off my 2011 To-Do list, and for such a great time doing it!

This past weekend, N.C. and I took a little break and headed to Vegas for a short anniversary celebration. We spent one night with my mother in law, and then we left the kiddo with her while we spent a night on the strip. I’m going to write about our hotel/casino/food experience tomorrow (spoiler alert: OMG IT WAS AWESOME), but today I just want to focus on how even that ONE night…just one…was exactly what we both needed, not just to celebrate our marriage and each other, but to give ourselves a freaking break from the real world.

Things have been crazy busy. Stressful. Overbooked. Underpaid. Tense. Life has been taking us for a bit of a ride lately. We’ve been snippy with each other. We’ve been hard on ourselves. We’ve needed a break. I wasn’t sure that one day and one night would put a dent in the stress level, but we figured we should take what we could get. And thank goodness we did, because we came away from our weekend recharged.

We put our phones away and disconnected from the outside world (mostly). We put discussions of work on hold. We spent our time together talking about everything and nothing. We held hands and meandered. We had NO agenda, NO schedule. Nowhere to be, nowhere to go, no one to answer to. It was bliss. The only thing we had to do was…relax. Enjoy ourselves. Enjoy each other. I think it was an assignment we both relished.

Look, would I have liked a week to recharge instead of a day? Of course. But I’m honestly amazed at how much relaxing and enjoyment and decompression we were able to cram into 24 hours. And honestly, it actually gives me a little bit of hope and excitement, because it’s much easier to figure out one day weekend vacations than it is to figure out (or afford, or get the time off approval for) longer ones. So I feel like..maybe we can do this again? Sooner than a year from now? Maybe?

All I know for sure is I’m a better wife when I’m connected to my husband. I’m a better mother when I’m not walking a razor edge of pressure all the time. I’m a better employee when I’m not so stressed that I can’t keep deadlines and projects straight. And hell, I’m better to myself when I feel like I have air to breathe and space to think. It’s hard to remember how important even brief respites from the day to day can be until it’s been too long since you’ve had one and you realize you’ve not been nice to yourself or your family, you haven’t been on your A game with your responsibilities, and you haven’t been taking care of things (including yourself) with anything more than “it’s done that’s good enough” mentality.

This weekend was exactly what I needed, not just for right now, but also for the reminder for the future. To reiterate (again) that recharging isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.

You know what I’ve been fantasizing about lately (get your minds out of the gutter, folks, not that kind of fantasizing)?

Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. Yes, a video game. An old video game. An old video game that was released for a system that’s basically not even around anymore (xbox).

Ahhh, those were the days.

I guess I should probably explain right? Well, here’s the thing. Morrowind was my first real foray into video games. Led by my husband (then boyfriend) while we were living in the New York area, Morrowind became a bit of an addiction. The two of us would play for hours, and hours, and hours. Instead of watching a movie, we’d get a pizza, some drinks, and bunker down on the couch to play together. Most of the time, he’d drive the controller, and I was look-out (for treasure or danger)/task master. We made a good team most of the time.

One weekend, we had a marathon video game session. Friday night we stayed up late playing, and then after a late morning, we picked the game back up and stayed up ALL NIGHT Saturday playing. We had snacks, and food delivered (ah, how I miss that about the New York area), and just…played a freaking video game all weekend long. It was glorious, that break from reality.

It dawns on me occasionally that days like that are behind us, at least for the foreseeable future. We can’t stay up all night anymore (no, really, physically, we can’t stay up all night anymore). Even if we could physically, we have a little dude who makes that impossible. We are no longer at a place in our lives where we can ignore reality for a weekend to immerse ourselves in a video game night and day.

So when I say I’ve been fantasizing about Morrowind, what I really mean is I’ve been fantasizing about being so free of responsibility that we could ignore the world, the errands, the bills, the to-do list–and yes, the kid–for a weekend.

I love my kid, don’t misunderstand me. I love being around him, and I love everything he’s brought to our lives. And I even, most of the time, like being a grown-up, even with all the responsibilities. But every once in a while, I fantasize about a weekend of staying up all night, of hours spent playing a video game, of a totally reality, responsibility, grown-up free weekend.