Happy weekend, friends! As promised, I wanted to give you a recap of my wonderful trip to Cleveland, OH to visit my dear friend Holly. Cleveland gets some flack in pop culture, but I don’t know why — I thought it was a beautiful, vibrant city with lots to do! If any of you find yourselves in Cleveland, here are some fun things we did that were absolutely lovely.

Our first morning, Holly took me to the West Side Market, which was an enormous indoor market with a farmer’s market and tons of stalls selling all varieties of food! We spent quite some time wandering around, “window-shopping” and browsing all the delicious options.

We ended up splitting a Shepherd’s Pie and a Turkey-Swiss Cornish Pasty, plus a pumpkin cheesecake cupcake for dessert! YUM.

There is quite a vibrant Irish culture in Cleveland, which was evident from the food… I snapped a photo of this cake for my dad, who loves Guinness! I am going to look up a recipe for this cake and try to make it myself one of these days! 🙂

Holly and I also spent some time browsing Penzey’s Spices, located just across the street from the West Side Market, which was my first time ever being to a Penzey’s. It smelled divine in there! I also loved picking up all the free recipes on notecards around the store. I picked up a jar of Dried Jalepeno Peppers for my sweetie, who loves everything spicy! {I, however, am quite the opposite!}

We lucked out with gorgeous weather during my visit to Cleveland. Crisp autumn perfection. Holly took me to Lake Erie, which was so much bigger than I had pictured! It reminded me of the ocean, with the waves lapping the shoreline.

Throughout Cleveland the trees were lit up with bright oranges, reds and yellows. I could not stop taking pictures! It was obscenely beautiful.

During my trip, Holly took me to these restaurants, which I loved:

Angelo’s Pizza
The Root Café {excellent chai tea latte!}
Piada Italian Street Food
First Watch for brunch {their pumpkin pancakes were right up my alley!}

I always have such a wonderful time with Holly, and it is always hard to leave. I am already looking forward to our next visit!

Hi, everyone! Monday means it’s time for this week’s year of Wooden challenge!

January: Drink deeply from good books.
February: Make friendship a fine art.
March: Help others.
April: Build a shelter against a rainy day.

This metaphorical shelter includes family, friends, good work, faith — but, since we will focus on these elements in other months, right now we are focusing on the financial interpretation.

Last week, the challenge was to keep track of where you spend your money — even small amounts. Not counting staple items like groceries and drugstore purchases, I tend to spend my discretionary money at Starbucks, bookstores, the movie theater, and going out to lunch at places like Panera.

This week, the challenge is to take just ONE of your weekly discretionary purchases and drop the money into your spare-change jar instead. For example, maybe I’ll swap one of my Starbucks chai lattes for a mug of home-brewed green tea on my own back porch. Or instead of meeting up with a friend for lunch at a restaurant, maybe we can meet up for something free like a walk outside in this beautiful weather.

Having a savings safety net is so important, and these little actions can really add up! I’m inspired by these words from Coach Wooden:

Questions of the day:

Where do you tend to spend your discretionary money?
What small change are you going to make this week to drop a little extra money into your spare change jar?
Have you ever had the experience of not taking the time to do something right the first time, and having to go back and do it over?

Day-By-Day Masterpiece

Tag Archives: restaurants

my trip to cleveland

a year of Wooden: week 15

Questions of the day: