Café Con Monica

High Five for Friday!

I haven’t linked up for this one in a while!

Cooking!

One of my Goals for 2019 was definitely to cook more! In narrowing down what I really wanted to share on my blog my love of food is high up there plus I got some great Cookbooks for Christmas! I made some Jerk Chicken, Cornbread and Green Beans from Snoop Dogg’s Cook Book “From Crook to Cook” and everything was DELICIOUS!

Work Retreat

We had a work retreat the first few days of this week. I say it is a highlight because getting a nice big hotel room to myself, free food and drinks, a boat cruise and an escape room are all fun things! It was exhausting (2 very long days with coworkers is a lot mentally) but I am glad that we did it and hopeful for the discoveries made during that time!

My goodie bag!
On the chilly boat cruise!

Praise from work

Kind of ties into the second one but I have only been at this new job and in Austin for 5 months now and I appreciated being told how well everyone thought I was doing my job and that they felt like they could rely on me!

Blog Related

Back in December I decided to move my blog over to my own domain and really give it some work. It has been A LOT more work than I thought. I’ve been learning new things and trying to pick back up where I left off a few years ago when I took that long break. I created a new Instagram (follow me!) and it is steadily growing along with the views and interactions on my blog!

Positivity

Another goal for January and 2019 in general was to really work on that negative self take and negativity in my life. January is an especially hard time to do it with everyone posting everywhere about their diet and their exercise and constantly negatively talking about themselves when they don’t eat right or workout. It is so easy to fall into that but I have held strong and I will continue to remind myself that my weight and my level of fitness is not relevant to the person that I am!

What is your five this Friday?

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High Five for Friday!

– A Christmas Carol –

Listen…I can’t stop raving about how awesome this was. I’ve seen a A Christmas Carol many times over the years (I love it!) but my school got some discounted to tickets to see them at The Zach Theatre here in Austin. They told me it was a pretty good show but like I always think its a good show right? It was a musical…super contemporary while still following the old story line and they even sang songs like Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” and Bruno Mars “Marry You” 
Guys…it was awesome! 

– Beervent Calendar – 

Last year I decided to make A a Beer Advent Calendar or Beervent…I decided this year’s theme will be A Texas Christmas since it is our first Chrsitmas in Austin. All 25 beers will be brewed in Texas. 
Using the box I made last year, all I have to do pop the new beers in and put together a little booklet/cards about each beer! 


I wanted to try a monthly subscription that had YA books. I got a box last month and then again this month and while I enjoyed what I got I decided it is probably not for me. For one, I don’t like to get a bunch of stuff I won’t use and I also did not super enjoy any of the books so far. The first box had a book of short stories and I VERY much dislike short stories so I gave that away quick. Anyway. I thought I would share this month’s box though! 

You can see the details of what was in the box here! I will say that I loved the scarf (bottom of pic)
– Weather – 

It is back in the 60s & 70s!! Sooooo happy and it looks like fall around here. The leaves are changing the air is crisp in the morning. I’m a happy camper!! 
– Christmas Shopping – 

I am so so proud of myself for not buying anything for myself this year during Black Friday or Cyber Monday. I always end up planning to buy XMas gifts for people but instead shopping for myself and honestly. I don’t need more clothes right now, at least not until I do another run through and purge!

High Five for Friday!


This week has been Busy Busy!! Time to share some of my favorites from the week! 

– The rain has stopped 
Guys…the rain has FINALLY stopped. I know this doesn’t seem like a big deal but it rained almost every single day for 6 weeks. 6 WEEKS! Its been 80s during the day and 60s in the evening…all is right in the world!! 
this is not in Austin but I dont care…it just makes me happy 

– We’re going to Europe!! 
I have been obsessing watching flights on Hopper as I have mentioned before because I really really wanted to got to Europe for my spring break this year. So A and I decided we would watch a ton of a flights and wherever we got tickets to that is where were are going. LUCKILY I got an amazing deal on flights to London which pretty much means we can go wherever. Right now we are thinking either London & Paris or skipping London and doing Paris & Amsterdam. Guys…these flights were $497.00 each. I am not shitting you. It pays to start watching flights 8 months ahead and paying attention to the notifications! 

– We won…
our Halloween Decor contest in our apartment complex! Not really anything amazing but I will take the $50 off rent anytime! We didn’t do any special decorating just the usual that we like to do but we entered into the contest anyway and won

– Recipes!! 
This apple pie recipe from Frankly My Dear! 
This dinner roll recipe because I love bread! 
This Cheeseburger Gnocchi from Living on a Cloud!

– Making Christmas Lists! 
I haven’t put up decorations, started listening to music or anything Christmas related but I do start my shopping as early as I can.  So I have started asking for wish lists and making my own. This biggest thing I want this year is a Camera. I will likely put it on my list but I have a bad habit of buying my own gift if I find the right price so if you find a good camera deal please do share!! But in other news I am loving making lists and starting to shop! 

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