By the Numbers: Mother’s Day Weekend

Happy Monday! I made a pretty last minute, very quick trip home to celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend, and even though it was short and more focused on coordinating around a soccer schedule than celebrating, it was the best. I say that a lot. It’s true a lot. In an effort to make this post a little less sappy and a little more organized, I’m going to make it a By the Numbers post. Let’s start with Friday!

65: Minutes between the end of my Economics of Sports class and the time my flight to Columbus started boarding. I brought my suitcase to class and everything in the interest of saving time. Class actually went over about five minutes and I was a little nervous.

5: Minutes between the time I got to my gate before boarding began. Perfect timing. Seriously. Bless Midway and its relative closeness to UChicago and reliably minimal lines.

45: Minutes in the air. Also, percent of my super-thick packet of sports econ articles I read while flying. I’m not certain whether we’re actually responsible for reading them, but I figure it can’t hurt…?

3: Meals at which I ate avocado in some form on Friday. Avocado + Paleo bread + turkey for breakfast.

Guacamole + hummus-coated chicken + endive for lunch. Chipotle bowl topped with guac (+ dipped in more guac because they were stingy) for dinner.

1: Target run I made on Friday night to accommodate our weekend visitors. My uncle and two cousins stayed at my parents’ house this weekend and one of those cousins is rather a picky eater. His requests? Go-Gurt, fruit, Snickerdoodle Entenmann’s Little Bites, and V8 Fusion Light Strawberry Banana (affectionately known as “red juice”). I also picked up Salted Caramel Cluster ice cream for me.

5: Miles my dad managed to get me to run on a glorious Saturday morning after a bad night of sleep. I take a long time to warm up in runs, so the first 2 miles are a struggle, but then I’m good. Since I was having a hard time getting into it, we were going to stop after 5K. Then, we were going to do about 4. Then, we were going to run till we hit 4 and then turn around and run home. And then we ran straight past home to get to 5 miles at an 8:56 pace. Great way to start the day.

2: Surprises at lunch. My grandparents had no idea I was coming.

9: People at lunch. It was my parents, me, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and two of my cousins. The third cousin was shopping with her friends because that’s what happens when you’re almost a teenager. (How do they grow up so fast?!)

2935: Times I would like to go back to The B Spot. OMG. Everything was amazing. My mom and I split a burger with avocado, cilantro, roasted red peppers, salsa verde, red onion, and pepper jack cheese, an order of onion rings, and the hands-down-no-questions-asked best milkshake I’ve ever had. It was a chocolate peanut butter pretzel shake spiked with vodka (which I totally couldn’t taste). Also, I got a little of everything from the pickle bar because I love all things pickled. They had pickled green tomatoes, pickled onions, garlic dill pickles, kimchi, pickled banana peppers, and hot and sweet pickles. Oh, and they have an array of fun sauces on the table. The Coffee BBQ and Shasha Sauce are excellent!

Seriously, everything about The B Spot was amazing. No one made fun of me for moving to the table close to the window for the milkshake pictures. The service was great and quick (they accommodated our larger party so well), the food was fabulous, and it was a really nice location. If you’re near one, go. And if not, come visit me in Columbus this summer and I’ll take you. Michael Symon knows what he’s doing.

4: Parking lots my mom and I entered while trying to find the right one at the soccer fields where my cousin’s tournament was. Whoever decided you shouldn’t be able to drive through the park was some kind of genius.

1: Soccer game we watched on Saturday. Camryn’s team won handily (and won the tournament). I got a little sun while laying there for 45 minutes. Win-win.

Soccer photos courtesy of my very talented mom.

{She’s the one with the braids.}

{Though she be but little, she is fierce.}

2-ish: Hours my mom and I drove around on Saturday. When we left the soccer field, I was like, “Let’s take a long way home.” So, she threw it back to my middle school and early high school days when we would just go driving aimlessly on Sundays and asked me which direction to turn at every intersection. We were in an unfamiliar area so, I unknowingly took us farther and farther from home. It was a great time with my mom, though.

But then I got an email I needed to deal with and couldn’t easily deal with from my phone, so I typed our address into Waze and we discovered we were 45 minutes away from home. Oops. About 15 minutes later, Waze still said we were 45 minutes away. It took around an hour to actually get there.

3: People I thought I was feeding for dinner. After a big, early lunch, I finally started to get hungry by the time we got home around 5:30, so I started making honey mustard salmon and brainstorming a side slaw.

6: People I ended up feeding for dinner. Fortunately, my dad bought a lot of salmon. My uncle was headed back to the house with Kayla and Mason, so I prepped a honey mustard-ish slaw and waited to cook the salmon till they arrived.

4: Phone calls I tried to make to deal with the aforementioned email. Let’s just say that if you’re ever booking a tour with a travel company, be sure you book it from your native country’s site. I booked from the EU site because that was the first that popped up and there was a lot of confusion, as well as 2 cancellations. 

10: Days I will actually be spending in Britain and Ireland because of all that confusion. No worries. Everything is now fine and I’m out a little less money than I’d otherwise be.

6: Rave reviews on dinner. The 5 older people had salmon and slaw and the littler one had my famous cheese quesadilla. I learned from the best on those quesadillas. Thanks, Mom.

3.5: Hours of life chat with my younger cousins and mom and hockey talk with my dad and uncle on Saturday night. Next year I can watch all the playoff hockey!

30-ish: Minutes it took me to get through this circuit plus some jumping jacks in the driveway on Sunday morning. It was a great, quick workout that left me sweaty on a beautiful morning.

1: Walk to the park with Pippa for the weekend. We were out and back all before 9am on Sunday and she loved it.

16: Times I had to drag Pips away from the geese on that walk. Geese are not friendly, at least in my experience, and my dog just wants to say hi to everyone and everything. I don’t think she got that from me…

24-plus: Hours of flight time booked for me this weekend. That Europe trip is real, y’all.

4: Egg sandwiches my dad made this weekend. One for me, my mom, Kayla, and himself.

{Mine had turkey in place of the cheese. Notice the begging pup in the background. She likes eggs.}

46: Hours I spent in Columbus this weekend. 

2: Yoga classes I’ve taught ever. I mean, I did my 5-minute sequence in teacher training, but that’s nothing. The grad student that lives with us has been wanting me to teach a class for the house, and I’ve been busy and nervous, so I keep declining. Anyway, I offered one last night and it went so well…even though she was the only one that remembered to come. Typical college students. 😉 She practiced on a towel because not everyone has a yoga mat in their dorm room, but I’m so glad to say I’ve taught one now and it didn’t suck, so I’m gonna do it regularly for the end of the quarter.

6: Quarters I’ve been treasurer for the house. I’m turning that responsibility over to someone else next week, though. Crazy.

53: Approximate dollars I have probably lost personally being treasurer for the house. I never forget to pay other people back but I’m 99% sure I sometimes forget to pay myself back. Oops.

4: Times I’ll have seen my family this quarter. A tad excessive. But #worthit. Needless to say, it won’t be nearly as frequent in the fall. My grandparents will visit once in November and my parents will come at the end. Anyone else wanna stop by?

12: Days until my first final

16: Days until my first and – thank goodness – only econ research paper ever is due.

19: Days until my last final. More days in Chicago. 

Your turn:

What did you do this weekend?

When are you visiting me? I swear Columbus is cool.