37 Things: Happy Birthday Rob
This week, we celebrated Rob’s 37th birthday. At this point in our lives, we value “the little things” in life. We don’t like to spend a fortune (we can’t). We’d rather make memories with “what we have.” Our moments are priceless.
This year, we woke up on Rob’s birthday with absolutely NO PLANS. For me, as a dreaded “planner type girl” this was almost unbearable. I hadn’t even prepared a cake… or knew if I had the ingredients to make one. We christened the morning with a workout. Since it was Rob’s birthday, he selected the workout: Insanity MAX:30 Friday Fight Round 2. Oh boy! Well, we definitely worked up an appetite. We enjoyed a delicious post-workout smoothie; Blueberry Basil Delight Shakeology!
[yumprint-recipe id=’7′]Then, after getting cleaned up we enjoyed a lovely omelet and a side of fruit. We like to have a BIG breakfast so that we don’t end up hungry and unproductive while at work. We fondly refer to our breakfast omelets as “Kitchen Sink Omelets” because we pretty much use up whatever is in our fridge. On this particular day, we enjoyed a combination of kale, mushrooms, tomatoes, and onion.
I did a lot of thinking that afternoon. I thought about our relationship and life, realizing I have known Rob now for 10 years. The time is passing so quickly and I appreciate so much in him, that I know I fail to acknowledge as much as I should. Quite often, people fail to even realize these things until their loved one is gone… So, I sent Rob a little email while he was in the midst of his work that day, called 37 Things.The 37 Things were things I notice and love about him. He smiled later, recounting how some of what I wrote actually surprised him… he didn’t know I actually noticed certain things about him. That simple note did not cost me a penny or take a crazy amount of time, but he will remember it always.
Some of our most wonderful memories go back to a care-free time in our lives. Rob and I were both just getting started with our careers, still dating and excited about the future. Rob had a conference in Berlin, Germany in 2007 and I was thrilled when he asked if I’d like to join him. I would finally get to see where my ancestors came from. What does this have to do with Rob’s birthday? Well, there is a new little restaurant here in a section of Nashville, referred to as “Germantown” called Butchertown Hall. We decided, even though we shouldn’t be going “out” to eat, that sometimes, we just need a date night and a chance to get away from the stresses of life.
Dinner Out!
It was awesome! Rob tried three beers for his birthday. We usually enjoy a nice glass of dry red wine and we’ve become fairly familiar with wine tasting lingo, so we chuckled listening to the server use words like thick and chewy, or referring to a beer having notes of toasted barley, bread crust and dried grass. The experience was amazing. We will definitely return to Butchertown Hall; a modern yet rustic beer hall that pays homage to the neighborhood’s historical significance as a German immigrant neighborhood lined with butcher shops right in Nashville, TN!
We lingered at Butchertown Hall for a good 3 hours before deciding it was probably time to go home, enjoy the rest of our evening together and get a good night’s rest. After all, morning (& work) come early. On the way home, I decided a birthday isn’t a birthday without cake. I don’t use flour at all anymore, nor do I use sugars (even artificial ones). My cake creation would have to be creative. And, it was.
We enjoyed Watermelon Cake! I used our Chocolate Shakeology to form a perfect icing after trimming our watermelon in the shape of a cake. I even mashed up a few strawberries to create an internal jam-like layer and decked out the cake complete with all the trimmings of a real birthday cake. The best part? This cake didn’t spike our blood sugars like a regular, carb laden sugar stuffed chocolate cake nor did we have to turn the oven on in this blistering summer heat. Perfect cake for a July birthday. It was a good day.
Happy 37th Birthday Rob.
