Butternut squash, good decision-making

Friday night was the end of my pre-planned weekly menu, which generally means it's time for the recipe I found least appealing for the previous several days. Without fail, every time Menu-Planning Erica thinks it's a good idea to throw some kale into the mix, Hungry-For-Dinner Erica thinks, "I hate you so much, Menu-Planning Erica." Friday night was no exception.

Butternut "lasagna" with kale, their scare quotes, not mine.

Although referring to this dish as a "lasagna," even in jest, cannot be classified as anything other than absurd and cruel, it actually tasted really good. It almost tasted like pizza, which means the presence of tomatoes and cheese is all it takes to trick my 7-year-old palate into eating grown-up food.

Saturday night was Girls' Night Out with my ladies-in-law, and as we all know, the first rule of Girls' Night Out is "How about we just stick to discussing the meal, yeah?"

A giant nacho and a very sour margarita at Güero's.

Bread stuffed with delicious things at Botticelli's.

Butternut squash ravioli, also at Botticelli's. Basically the same thing I made Friday night, except wrapped in actual pasta and covered in some crispy sage and about three pounds of butter. By a professional chef. I mean, I could barely taste the difference.

Around midnight: Cheeze-Its Snack mix, red wine, blurry movie.

The only other thing I'll say about GNO is that if you've ever found yourself wishing you were still awake at 5 am, stuck in a hotel room with a crazy person who insists that you quiz her on her own playlist and probably also wants to tell you all the presidents in order: I might be just the party animal you're looking for.

Obviously, as I am a responsible adult, Sunday was a day for pulling it together and behaving maturely. We wrangled a non-grandparent babysitter for Anna for the fifth time in sixteen months and there was absolutely no way we were going to waste it on something stupid. Like, I don't know, another scavenger hunt OH WAIT THAT'S EXACTLY HOW WE WASTED IT.

Look how genuinely giddy I am.

Dude to my right: total stranger.

The "X" stands for "Xtremely surprised I haven't passed out yet."

We were 9th out of over 100 teams, which becomes even more impressive when you note the fact that my only contribution was attempting to prevent myself from throwing up anyone from pulling a muscle by constantly requesting that we please slow down.

"I've been sitting adorably in this tunnel for this ENTIRE POST waiting to get a mention. Mother."