The Friday Five, 5/27/22: 5 things I've been up to this week

This was a busy week, so I'm looking forward to this 3-day weekend to relax, even though I'm a bit busy, as I'm seeing a movie tomorrow (actually not Top Gun, haha; Montana Story) and seeing Halsey at "Pine Knob" (that's going to get some getting used to!) on Sunday. After 2+ years working at home, I'm also cleaning out my work cubicle today, which is a bit bittersweet, as they are moving most of us to be WFH permanently.

Melting Pot, Troy, MI
Chocolate fondue for "ThursDate" at the Melting Pot, Troy

What I've been up to this week:
  1. Frankenmuth overnight trip. On Saturday, my boyfriend and I drove up to Frankenmuth and stayed overnight at Birch Run, for the World of Beer Expo in Frankenmuth. I had never attended before, and it was pretty fun—it was $30 per person (online ticketing) and that gets you admission, six tasting tickets, and a tiny beer stein thing to take home. Afterwards, we walked over to Zehnders for their chicken dinner, and my boyfriend had his free birthday one—you can sign up online for that and also Bavarian Inn's. 
    The problem happened when we tried to Uber, Lyft, or cab back to Birch Run: apparently they don't exist after like 9pm at night, which we didn't know—we had taken the beer expo shuttle from our hotel into town. I started calling every number on Google for cabs and thankfully someone came up from Flint (about 30 mins. away) for us, otherwise we would have been stranded there, or had to walk back, but the hotel was about 7 miles away.
    The next day, we checked out of the hotel and went to Bronner's (gigantic Christmas store that's open year-round), Frankenmuth Fudge Kitchen, the Cheese Haus, and had lunch at Prost, which I had been wanting to try—it's a charcuterie and wine bar right on the main street there. Overall a fun trip despite the Saturday night stressfulness. 
  2. Celebrating my boyfriend's birthday. He turned 32 on Tuesday (yes, I am a cougar ... haha. I am 35) and we didn't do much the day of, but I took him to Melting Pot last night to celebrate, which was fantastic as always. They're currently running a "ThursDate" promotion, which is $45 per person (pretty reasonable as far as MP goes) and includes a four-course dinner—cheese fondue, salad course, entree, and chocolate fondue. They also scattered rose petals everywhere to enhance the ambiance. 
  3. Cooking. My boyfriend had a free EveryPlate box this week, and I ordered Dinnerly, so there were a lot of things to cook. On Wednesday we cooked cheese-stuffed turkey burgers with a garlic aioli from Dinnerly, and Tuesday's dinner was chicken satay noodles with a peanut/teriyaki sauce. I still have a steak with truffle fries dinner to cook tonight, as well. Next week I am ordering Home Chef but due to the holiday it is arriving Wed. instead of Tues.
  4. Watching movies at home. On Saturday, I had my infusion, so I usually try to choose a movie instead of a TV show to watch, since I have about three hours there; I chose Along for the Ride, the Netflix movie based on the Sarah Dessen book, and it was cute. I'd give it 3.5/5 stars. I've read all of Dessen's books but it was a while ago; this one came out in 2009. On Monday night, we watched Top Gun (the original one) on Netflix, since surprisingly I've never seen it, and we are planning on seeing the new one, Top Gun: Maverick, on Monday night—one of the T-Mobile Tuesday promotions this week was $5 off any movie ticket, fees included, so we scored matinee EMAX (basically IMAX) tickets for Emagine Novi for $4 each instead of $9. 
  5. Planning on WFH permanently. I emailed work to ask if I could take home my monitors this week—at my desk I had a nice setup with two monitors and a docking station—and they were like, sure, but you'll be WFH (working from home) permanently then. It's a bit bittersweet—I've been with the company ten years this August, and the last time I moved cubicles was in July 2016, when I transitioned from the online department to editorial, and moved from the 5th to the 7th floor—so it's probably going to take me a while to clean out my cubicle. The good news is that work is planning on having "hotel seating" if I ever need to work in the office (if my power goes out, for example), but that means you sit at any open cubicle, so it won't be quite the same as having my own dedicated space ... hence the bittersweetness. 
Prosciutto-themed charcuterie board at Prost, FrankenmuthProsciutto-themed charcuterie board at Prost, Frankenmuth
Prosciutto-themed charcuterie board at Prost, Frankenmuth

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