Hutch & Spoon - our new Denver discovery!

Firstly, I can't tell you how nice it was to not have to go to derby practice last night.  Not that practice is awful or anything - I <3 Derby!!  It was just nice to start my 2-month-long-leave-of-absence with a Monday evening to myself.  

I made dinner*, watched a couple of episodes of "Ghost Hunters", went for my first walk/jog of the Couch to 5K plan, painted my nails & toenails, watched a couple of episodes of "Friends", and read a bunch of my book.  It was so nice & relaxing - just great to have a change, you know? 

*this is what I made for dinner.  Homemade mashed potatoes, beet chard steamed with low-sodium veggie broth, and my favorite, a Morningstar BBQ "Riblet".  It was DELISH!

This morning I got up early and went to Yoga with my friend Stacey.  Our usual yoga studio moved to a new location, just down the street from where I'll be living with John very soon!  What's even better about that is it's right next door to a wonderful lil' place called Hutch & Spoon. 

How CUTE is this place??  What a lovely little gem, nestled on a little corner in Denver.  I just got coffee (Stacey was sweet enough to buy me a cup), but the food looks AMAZING.  Beet salad with bleu cheese & roasted walnuts?  Uhm, yes please!!  Bagels with cream cheese & orange marmalade?  YUM!
 

I'm definitely going to have to come back here when I move closer to the area.  Or just go after yoga all the time. ;)  They use a lot of local ingredients for their food, and it looks as though a lot of their furniture / cups / light fixtures / chairs / etc are re-used and re-furbished.  My kind of place! 


What was great too was that I was up early enough to do this yoga class (6:30am), hang out with Stacey for some coffee (until 8:15am), and read my book* (until 9:15am) before heading into work!  WOW!  I really wish I could start every day this way... If I could only avoid the snooze button.... 

Stacey & I (pre-makeup, mind you) enjoying our coffee after yoga! :)

*The book I'm reading (before I start my book club book) is Catching Fire - the 2nd book in the Hunger Game series.  If you haven't read these books yet, you TOTALLY should.  I am really enjoying them!  What's hilarious is that my mom bought the copy that I'm reading in New Zealand when she was vacationing there because she couldn't wait until she got back to the States to continue the series.  Unfortunately, books are a lot more expensive there, so she paid $23.00 for a paperback book that would have cost her $9 here!  Haha! 

Anyway, so far the books have been exciting, scary, touching, empowering - really really wonderful.  I adore the characters too.  It looks like they're going to start banking on films of these sometime next year, so you'd better read 'em before the movies come out!  :)