What’s Up: February 2023

Hi friends, welcome back! Not much is new since my last What’s Up post. We’ve been enjoying laying low, trying a few new restaurants, celebrating Valentine’s Day, attending a Michigan State Basketball game, and visiting the MoMa. We’ve been embracing the slower times and focusing on getting the apartment decorated, planning our future travels, and Jon’s been busy making new recipes.

On to my post 🙂 I’ve been linking up with the first blogger I ever read, Shay Shull, for my What’s Up posts. Each month I’m answering the following questions:

What I’m eating: next week I’ll be sharing my Foodie Friday so today I’ll share the homemade pasta that Jon made. He’s quite the chef and wanted to recreate the dish I got for Valentine’s Day at da Toscana. I’ll give him 5 stars on Yelp 🙂

What I’m reminiscing about: our first Valentine’s together five years ago! I visited Jon in NYC and we saw The Book of Mormon and went to Blacktap for an insane milkshake. Safe to say we’ve always been foodies.

What I’m loving: planning our trip to Italy! I think I’m like 75% of the way done

Favorite post of the month: I’m going to pick Marble House because it was just so extravagant!

What I’m Up to: reading every blog and guidebook about Italy

What I’m working on: we put up these bookcases in the office so I’m working on filling them with decor. They’re coming along, but it’s tough for me to decorate when it’s not the holidays.

What I’m excited about: March Madness! I love the upsets (when it’s not against my Spartans) and keeping track of all the brackets

What I’m watching/reading: we’ve been watching a lot of golf, we finished both seasons of White Lotus, we also finally watched Wednesday and enjoyed that. We’re currently watching Full Swing and about to start The Gilded Age.

Books I read this month:

  • It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
  • The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post by Allison Pataki- I loved this book! It takes place during the Gilded Age and is historical fiction about the Post Cereal heiress.

What I’m doing this weekend: I have two brunches so it’ll be a delicious weekend.

What I’m looking forward to next month: we don’t have any big plans. Hopefully some nice, spring weather!

What are you looking forward to next month?

36 thoughts on “What’s Up: February 2023

  1. That Marjorie Post book sounds neat; I’ll have to check that out. And you’ve reminded me that we really need to make some homemade pasta again! We had a lot of fun with that last time.

    1. It was a great book! Making pasta is a lot of fun as long as you use enough flour and it doesn’t all get stuck inside the machine haha

  2. A lot going on in a short month Lyssy. That is a wicked pasta machine and Jon seems to have mastered it. I must admit we have not used ours much since we got it. If I could only find the right flour. Ahhhh Italy. Fond memories from 2019. Hope we can get back again. Happy Wednesday. Allan

    1. We also have a machine you just put water and flour and it does all the work, but Jon likes to watch cooking videos and he saw a guy making the noodles that way. I am lucky he enjoys cooking so much! Jon said he uses tipo “00” flour. Hope you make it back to Italy too. Seems a place one never tires of visiting.

  3. I love that bookshelf! Also, I had to do a double take at that milkshake… is that a slice of cake on top of it!? I’ve never seen anything like that.

    1. Thank you! By the third one we were pros at putting it together haha. It is a slice of cake! They went viral back in like 2018 and now a lot of places in the city have caught on.

  4. The bookcase looks great! And, so does that homemade pasta. Hoping for some warmer spring weather, too. We are really looking forward to our next accommodation here on the island – a beautiful and spacious Cycladic house.

    1. Thank you! I was just looking at pictures on my phone the other day of Naxos, it was such a fun place to visit! I am looking forward to all your pictures.

  5. I just recently watched Wednesday too. While I was never a big fan of the Adams Family, I’ve been drawn to Tim Burton movies ever since I watched Edward Scissorhands and Corpse Bride, therefore I knew I would be in for a treat when I started watching opening scenes of the latest Addams Family reinvention. I love your bookcase and can’t wait to see how you gonna decorate it. I believe that if you treat your bookcases as an extension of your room, rather than simply catch-alls, they can be stylish and attractive and enhance the decor in your room! Thanks for sharing and have a good day 🙂 Aiva xx

    1. Edward Scissorhands gave me nightmares as a kid, so I’ve stayed away from Tim Burton movies, but Wednesday was cute in its own way. Thank you! I am excited to have them look like images I’ve been saving on my Pinterest. I agree that they can really enhance the room. Jon is on a lot of video calls, so he wanted something stylish behind him. Hope you have a great day too!

  6. First of all, Jon’s pasta looks amazing! Secondly, so does the bookcase. I bet you’ll find something fabulous for it in Italy. Also, Mike and I loved “Wednesday”. Can’t wait for the next season. Finally, I’m going to read “The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post”. Her story interests me because C. W. Post, her husband, founded the town of Post, Texas which is about 35 miles from where we live, so there is a lot of Post family history around here. I’m so glad you mentioned the book. Have a great weekend, Lyssy.

    1. I am lucky Jon likes to cook! I’m looking forward to the next season too, it’s cute in its own way. Let me know what you think of the book! It was very interesting to me. Hope you have a great weekend!

    1. Yes he finds these Youtube cooking videos and goes to great lengths to recreate them. It is a cake on top, very decadent! They have so many other flavors with cookies, brownies, cotton candy, cereal, etc.

  7. That brunch food looks good! We went to a restaurant a few blocks from the park in December and they served a milkshake like that to the next table. I had never seen anything like that served!

    1. Thank you! I am having fun filling it up with knick knacks so Jon can have a nice background in his work calls. I usually go for the sweet option at brunch.

  8. Not a single comment on your beloved Spartans so far… a travesty! I assume you saw your team play at Rutgers? I see a lot of red in the stands. MSU’s gonna have to step it up down the stretch to make the Dance but at least you have an outside shot. My Irish are having a most humbling season over in the ACC (don’t check the standings). Already looking ahead to the 2023 football season… 🙂

    We watched “Your Place or Mine” on Netflix and were disappointed. It’s a promising enough story but we expected more from stars like Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher. The redeeming aspect was Netflix then prompted us to watch “Full Swing”, which we will do. I’m surprised the PGA Tour players let the network in, though the timing of reality-TV-like drama is perfect with the debut of the LIV Tour. I really admire the character of professional golfers (over most other athletes) so I hope this series doesn’t color them lesser than I believe them to be.

  9. We have had quite cool weather on our South West Road trip. I still have not worn shorts yet and we are in Tuscon, Arizona. It has been a weird winter.

  10. Seems like you had a great month of February! I’m very excited for your trip to Italy too, and I’m sure you will absolutely love it! The bookshelves look great too!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.