Because you really can’t win them all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

These past two months I have had something large planned each weekend, be it from traveling or celebrating a friend’s birthday, so this weekend was going to be my time to get some much-needed r&r ahead of the holidays. To kick things off, I made some pasta aglio e olio to clean out the fridge.

Cin cin to my dad Jimmy from a thousand miles away!!! This was my second time ever being able to do a solo Friday wine night in my apartment, where I make an occasion out of getting some time to myself. I enjoyed Kirkland’s Sauvignon Blanc, one of my favorite Sauvy B’s out there.

Not the prettiest picture, but it turned out delicious and was very simple to make. All you do is saute some garlic in a pan while simultaneously cooking your pasta until almost al dente, then add in parsley and some sort of chili (I used chili crunch but you can use flakes or Calabrian chili paste) to the garlic, transfer the pasta over to the pan with garlic, combine with some reserved pasta water to make a sauce, top with a squeeze of lemon, and BOOM. I had this for days and didn’t get tired of it.

Latin Jazz and pumpkin-scented candles provided the vibes for the night.

After spending the majority of my Saturday morning working at a café in German Village and walking around the neighborhood, I got ready to go to Italian Fest and watch the OSU game at a bar with my friends. Naturally, I had to wear blue to represent Georgia Tech who beat UNC by a touchdown. I tied a striped blue button-down as a halter top, threw on sneakers and a pair of baggy jeans, and called it a day.

At Italian Fest, we sipped on limoncello spritzes, ate stromboli and tiramisu, listened to live Italian music, and saw the cutest pottery at one of the vendors. I really had to restrain myself here.

Before going to Pint House, we made a pit stop at Sam’s apartment and got to see her boyfriend’s adorable chicken nugget of a golden retriever. We then watched OSU lose to the Oregon Ducks at the last minute and pivoted to a dive bar down the street, where I lost darts by one point to a man with three front teeth and another with a tattoo over his entire head.

& then the aftermath. I fractured my left foot doing a ballet leap on the way home from the bars on Saturday night and have consequently hobbled around on crutches the entire week. As my mom always says, you play you pay. So just like how the Jackets lost against Notre Dame, I also took an L this weekend. Instead of visiting my sister in DC as we had been planning for months, I had to reschedule and instead tend to the healing of my foot with lots of ice, rest, and relaxation. But really I can’t complain, because whether I like it or not, I received the r&r I was hoping for all along.

💘 Hanna