I’m having such a fun weekend with my friend Jessica here visiting.

On Friday, we hit up Sandwhich in Chapel Hill for lunch – I bring all my guests here because it’s so delicious! We ordered two things and shared – one half was a pressed chicken sandwich with olive tapenade and cheese – SO good.

Plus my standard favorite – the fried egg BLT!

We also ordered some roasted beets to share, and the sandwiches came with their standard curried carrots, too. Tasty!

After lunch, we had planned to walk around campus and Chapel Hill some, but the weather was getting ominous looking, so we decided to do some wedding-related stuff instead! As I mentioned, Jess used to be a wedding planner. She was asking me questions about all sorts of wedding specifics like color, flowers, and theme and I was basically like: “Um… I have no idea what’s going on or what I want… please help…!” She was more than happy to come to my rescue.

First, we went to a hardware store to pick out some paint sample sheets in colors I liked. This way I could bring them to show them to the event coordinator because I was having trouble explaining exactly what colors I liked – isn’t this idea genius?

We ended up with these:

And later narrowed it more to these three (although the bridesmaid dresses are a darker navy blue) – hoping to have bouquets in these colors-ish. 

Speaking of bouquets, I also spent some time pinning some beautiful ones I liked the looks of on Pinterest – check it out on my wedding ideas board to see them all.

Source

After figuring out color scheme ideas, we decided to investigate sashes to go with the bridesmaid dresses (details/pics in this post)! I really liked the dress in person (and love that the girls all love it enough that some of them wanted to keep it even if I didn’t end up going with that dress – it’s very versatile!), but it was a lot darker navy than I wanted. We figured a sash or belt in a bright color would solve that problem! Jess had the great idea to go to Joanne’s fabrics and simply pick up some ribbon – cheap and awesome! We found a bright green ribbon that looked really cute with it. Yay! All we’ll have to do is cut it into the right sizes and tie in the back the day of!

I was thinking it would be fun to match the groomsmen’s boutonnieres and/or vests to the ribbon, too – we swung by Men’s Warehouse since we were right near it and found these cool vests that matched – I’ll float the idea to Matt to see his thoughts.

We also bought a smaller size ribbon to use in the boutonnieres. Fun!

Dear Jessica, Can you please move to NC and be my full time friend and wedding planner? Love, Anne

After the wedding fun, we went out to dinner at Panzella with my friend Lauren and one of her friends who was in town visiting. Delish! Too dark for photos, alas.

Saturday morning, I of course had to bring Jess to my favorite, Franklin Street Yoga!

Jess is actually the first person that introduced me to yoga! Back when we were roommates in DC, I remember coming home from work and seeing her doing a yoga DVD in our living room. I was like… what the heck are you doing? I remember doing the DVD with her at some point and her teaching me some of the basic moves. I was happy that she LOVED the class at Franklin Street – yay! It was a sweaty 1.5 hour power flow class and Lori was teaching – my fave.

We made a delicious chicken & white bean chili soup back at my place for lunch yesterday – full recipe coming later this week because it was amazing!

We spent some time exploring Chapel Hill and campus in the afternoon, and then last night headed over to my friend Elle’s place for homemade pizza and wine night with the girls.

We had a blast and basically spent the whole night laughing. While making delicious pizza creations, of course!

All the pizzas were on pre-made whole wheat dough from Trader Joes.

We had a goat cheese, spinach, pear, roasted garlic, and mozzarella pizza:

Zucchini, sweet peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni, and cheese:

And ricotta, arugula, onion, roasted red peppers, and artichokes:

We also had roasted brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and grapes (!) – Elle got the idea to roast grapes from Pinterest and they were GOOD! Never would have thought of this.

Such a fun night. Jess and I are off to get in a workout before I take her to the airport – I have 10 miles on the docket for my half marathon training!

Happy Sunday!

Look who is here – one of my BFF’s and bridesmaids, Jessica! We were roommates in D.C. back in 2007 and 2008.

I’m so happy to see her again – we saw each other a ton in 2010 (I visited her (and potential grad schools) out in Seattle area in January 2010, I saw her in August 2010 for a friend’s wedding, and was in her wedding in Texas in October 2010), but not since! So sad. It had been WAY too long.

We headed out for a nice long walk this morning – it’s REALLY warm here today – 70’s already?! She was thrilled because it’s been a very cold (and gray/rainy) year in Seattle area, apparently.

Love that NC sunshine!

Before heading out to walk, we had some nice warm weather breakfasts. I was planning on whipping up my Simple Baked Oatmeal for us, but it was way too hot outside! So weird.

I had a big bowl of cereal with a mix of mesa sunrise (love this cereal) and Kashi heart to heart, plus banana, berries, and 1% milk.

Deeelish.

Jess had a big snack last night before bed since her system was all thrown off from traveling all day, so she was in the mood for a smaller breakfast this morning.

She enjoyed one of the new Chobani passion fruit yogurts – we both really love the flavor of this, but don’t like the seeds. I love the seeds in the pomegranate one, but not in this. Please take them out, Chobani?

In other news, I received an exciting package yesterday!

I was chosen as a Verizon Wireless Ambassador, and they sent me a new Droid RAZR to review here on the blog! I’m excited because my current phone is rather outdated – I have a smart phone, but it’s a Palm (remember when I first got it – 2 years ago – and reviewed it on the blog?), and while I still love it, it’s super annoying that I can’t get ANY apps on it because no one makes apps for Palm.

Given that, the first thing I did on my new phone was to download the USAA app. I have been dying for this app!! USAA is my main bank/credit card/savings account provider, and they are entirely online (no physical banks, etc.), so to deposit checks I used to have to mail them in and wait up to a week for them to be deposited. About a year ago, they made an app for Droid/iPhone so you can instantly take a picture of your check and deposit it! Amazing.

Matt has a Droid, so he’s been helping me get all set up (and downloading a billion other apps for me already). So far I like it! It’s super thin:

But the screen is nice and big, which is perfect for cruising the internet, etc. The camera seems a billion times better than the one on my old phone, too.

I’ll share more thoughts/reviews as I explore the new phone more, so stay tuned. Do any of you guys have a Droid RAZR? Any tips/favorite apps?

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Jess and I are off to explore Chapel Hill and to do some fun wedding-related stuff – she used to be a wedding planner and I clearly have zero clue what I’m doing, so it’s been amazingly helpful already to talk to her! Yay.

Happy Friday, friends!

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Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Wireless Ambassadors’ Program and have been provided with a wireless device and three months of service in exchange for my honest opinions about the product.

Sometimes the most delicious meals are the most simple, don’t you think? Yesterday’s lunch hit the spot.

I enjoyed a massive salad of mixed greens, green pepper, canned beets (my fave – not pickled, just regular), and avocado, topped with some cracked pepper and balsamic vinaigrette.

Plus a whole wheat English muffin with almond butter and honey.

Mmm… almond butter + honey = happiness.

So satisfying!

I also enjoyed some clementines and a kiwi to cleanse my palate after lunch.

The rest of yesterday was filled with blog work, school work, a bit too much procrastination (I must have been way more productive before Twitter and Facebook existed…), and enjoying the beautiful flowers blooming outside our porch. It’s like a pink wonderland out there.

I took a short walking break in the middle of the day, and at 5:45 I headed to Franklin Street Yoga for my favorite “Rock Your Asana” class! I just love that place. They make yoga so fun. We were all laughing half the class. Killer workout, too!

I just got in my standard 4.5 mile Thursday early a.m. run (so happy it’s light out again in the mornings now! …at least until the clocks change again in a few weeks) and now I’m heading off to school for the day. Have a wonderful day!

What’s your favorite simple lunch?

Yesterday’s workout was in two parts. I had an intramural walleyball game at 5:45, so I decided that instead of getting up to run before class, I would combine my workouts and do a track workout in the evening before walleyball. Efficiency AND a chance to sleep in? I’m sold.

I arrived at the track around 5:15, so I only had about 20 minutes to work with – good motivation to get moving and not stop!

I decided to do a speedy 2 miles – I’m trying to amp up speed work some in preparation for all my upcoming races – the Tobacco Road Half Marathon, the Tarheel 10 Miler, and of course the Reach the Beach Relay!

Here’s what I did:

• 1 warm up lap (0.25 miles)
• 6 laps of sprint the straights, jog the curves (1.5 miles)
• 1 cool down lap (0.25 miles)

It was a great workout – quick and dirty and with no stopping, since I knew I didn’t have a lot of time to work with. I didn’t have my watch with me, but I would guess my jog the curve pace was about 8:30 min/miles and my sprints were about 7 min//miles. Not the fastest I’ve sprinted, but it worked!

Post workout red face:

It was fun to be working out outside in the evening vs. the morning – I got to wear shorts! It was pretty warm out.

After my speedy track workout, I hightailed it over to the gym for intramural walleyball! (Here’s some info about what walleyball is!)

And would you believe this: WE WON OUR GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!! For the first time ever!! Not only are Lauren and I (next to me in blue shorts in the photos) a lot better than we were last year, but the other girls we have on the team this year are good, too. I was so proud of us!

Today, intramural walleyball. Tomorrow: the world. No big.

We ended up playing for about an hour – the first half hour was our actual game (the other team was good but we were better – it was a good game with lots of epic points and battles – and I was on a serious tear with my serve – aces all around!), and the second half just hitting it around for fun. Randomly some UNC senior guys walked by and decided to join us, so that was funny. Great night.

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I’m off to get some serious work done – today is basically “cram as much work into the next 12 hours as possible” day (with a break for yoga and a walk at some point) because tomorrow I’ll be at school all day and then my friend (and bridesmaid) Jessica is coming to visit, arriving tomorrow night! I can’t WAIT to see her – she lives out in Seattle and it’s been way too long. She’s also bringing her bridesmaid dress (the girls all ordered them already – details/pics in this post) so I can finally see it in person! There are free returns so if I’m not feeling it, we can always send it back. I’m worried it might be too dark (almost black) in person? I wanted more blue… we’ll see.

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Are you training for any races (or doing any fun/silly sports) right now? How’s it going?