Lately, our weekends have consisted of decompressing from vacation and dodging the oppressive heat. This past weekend, we decided to kick it off with a Bluegrass Grill breakfast. Bluegrass Grill is one of my favorite, locally owned restaurants here in Chattanooga and it never disappoints. The staff makes us feel at home and we always feel like part of the family when we walk in; they even noticed that we hadn’t been there in a while (shame on us). If there’s one way to get me excited about a weekend, it’s breakfast…specifically a delicious, home-cooked, Bluegrass Grill breakfast.

The rest of the weekend was pretty busy too. Friday night my friend Jennifer and I celebrated our 20 Under 40 nomination at St. John’s Meeting Place (a.k.a. The Meeting Place). If you’ve never visited The Meeting Place, what are you waiting for? It’s the sister restaurant of St. John’s but with a lower (read: more affordable) price point. In my opinion, The Meeting Place has one of the best happy hours in the city. Here’s my guide to happy hour in Chattanooga, which of course includes The Meeting Place.

TIP: Get the fries.

So, how did the rest of the weekend turn out?

I failed to go to barre class on Saturday morning but instead, I opted for baking a pie, which you’ll read about at a later date. I went to brunch at Easy Bistro and spent the rest of the my Saturday afternoon working at a coffeeshop. Despite feeling like I spent the entire weekend eating, I had to save room for a pasta dinner Saturday night. Il Primo didn’t let me down for my pasta cravings. TIP: Get the lasagna bolognese.

For some reason on Sunday, it was really difficult for John and I to actually get out of the bed. Saturday night, we gave each other a pep talk saying that we would both get up early, John would go to work and I would get up and start working on the millions of projects I have going on. I think we fought the alarm for at least two hours before giving in and rolling ourselves out of bed. Sunday night ended with watching part 1 of ESPN’s O.J.: Made in America (don’t judge us) and scarfing down my favorite pasta to make at home, lemony arugula spaghetti cacio e pepe.

Hope you had a great weekend – happy Monday!