valentine's day 2012: operation aruba cheat.

so as most of you probably already know, yesterday was valentine's day.  i hope everyone had a great day and was able to spend time with someone (or someones) you love or do something you love or eat something you love or whatever something you love.  you deserve it.

i had two plans for valentine's day: dinner at tommy lasagna and a painting class at paint along.

1. dinner at tommy lasagna.
we got downtown around 4:15, walked around, bought me an awesome purple dress to wear in aruba for only $20, and headed over to tommy lasagna.  it's only been open about 3 months but i've wanted to try this place since i first found out it was opening in nyc.  i mean, who doesn't love lasagna?

we had dinner reservations for 5:30 but ended up getting to the restaurant around 5.  the staff was extremely friendly and sat us at a little table for 2 in the corner.  the place is small and quiet and i absolutely loved the atmosphere.

we ordered the beet salad for an appetizer and then i had the garden lasagna (veggies!) for my entree with a side of meatballs.  the lasagna was definitely like none i've ever had before.  white creamy sauce on lasagna? who does that?! but it was good.  it was really good.

we ordered some tea since we still had time before we needed to head over to paint along for our 7pm painting class.  with our tea, our waitress brought us THIS magnificent little cake:

can you see where i started to lick the frosting off?
apparently i was too excited and couldn't wait the extra 5 seconds to take a picture first.  

our waitress said it was "compliments of the chef for valentine's day."  smart move, man.  i love red velvet. nom nom nom.

okay, i know that none of this meal goes with my whole "operation aruba" but it was valentine's day and if you can't cheat on valentine's day then this is an awful awful world we live in.

2. paint along.
definitely one of my new favorite things to do in nyc.  this was so much fun!  our instructor, marty, was really sweet and helpful and made everyone in the class feel like they could create a masterpiece (or at least something that shouldn't be thrown in a dumpster somewhere).

you don't need to bring anything to class but yourself.  you leave your belongings in the back of the room, put on a smock, and choose a seat.  each seat is already set up with a canvas, water to clean brushes, a paper towel, brushes used for todays painting, and paint.  its BYOB so some people brought wine and the studio has cups and a corkscrew in the back so you don't even need to worry about remembering anything but the booze.

the class lasts for 2 hours and at the end, you get to take home a painting that you made! this is mine:

we had so much fun and i will definitely be going back again.  i'm going to keep looking at their class calendar for paintings that i like and want to paint.  for $45, it's a great deal, especially in nyc.  also, it's a really great idea for a date, whether you're newly dating or have been together for longer than you can remember.  they also do private parties and will travel to you if you have an event.

that is all.  hope everyone enjoyed their valentine's day too! and i hope you're not super jealous of my amazing painting skills because i realize that i'm extremely talented and probably should've been a professional painter.  (i also hope that you can taste the sarcasm in that last sentence)

stay tuned: going to my first lululemon run club tonight! guess who's nervous? ME.