While, sure, I love when I have something to celebrate, I love seeing friends and loved ones truly happy.

Last night, Lacey, one of my best friends in NYC, hosted a surprise graduation party for her boyfriend, John. It was really sweet watching her go from super nervous to pleased at executing the surprise to proud as she toasted him.

He was either totally surprised or is the best actor ever.

Potato and egg omelette

She hosted the party at Socarrat, a paella bar in Chelsea. We had a room to ourselves with a long table, and it had a really cozy feeling.

We started with cold tapas and progressed through hot tapas and had paella for dinner.

There were a gazillion plates being passed around the table, and I only got a chance to take pictures of a few. This was the grilled octopus with…some sort of potato thing in the middle. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had octopus before, but I liked the taste. It was certainly kind of chewy, but it sort of tasted like (grilled) calamari.

Y la paella! This was the seafood paella (obviously) with basa fish, shrimp, cuttlefish, mussels, cockles, squid and scallops. And it was delicious. (Although it was really salty.)

Dessert included flan, which is one of my favorite desserts that I don’t have often.

Everything was delicious, but I walked home with an upset stomach from eating so much. It had been a long time since I’d felt so sick from eating too much, and it was a good reminder that moderation is so much better. I’m heading to the Outer Banks on Saturday (sixth year in a row!) and D.C. tomorrow, and I think that, ironically enough, this trip will be a little bit of a detox for me. I’ve been going out a ton lately, and we usually cook in at the beach house, so that will be a nice, needed change. Also, our house this year includes steep discounts at lots of local places, so we have lots of active plans – including biking and playing tennis. (And obviously, I’ll be running.)

Are you doing anything for Memorial Day? Do you typically stay active on vacation? It depends on the trip for me – but after two trips this year where I was much more laissez-faire about what I ate and working out, I think it’s back to moving a bit more and eating a bit less while away.

Tonight, I was thinking about how I used to blog so much more – a few times a day when I started on Tumblr, but even once I moved over to WordPress, still sometimes twice a day.

On Facebook, I saw that tomorrow is a former coworker’s birthday. She’s going to be 26, Facebook told me. How is she only 26, I thought? It was a few years ago that I worked with her. (Oh right, she was an intern.)

I was 26 when I started this blog. I’d just moved to New York, and I didn’t know a ton of people, didn’t have many hobbies and hadn’t yet assumed such a big commitment with Junior League. I wasn’t coming home and sitting on the couch with Bailey every night, but I wasn’t as busy as I am now. As I wrote a few years ago, it was the perfect time to lose weight. And also start a blog, apparently.

More to come on all of the below soon …

But after finishing a ginormous project today, I met up with Tina and Monica for a wine and cheese media event at the Columbus Circle Whole Foods. I keep telling them I hate wine, but they refuse to listen, so…

Dear Theodora: there is nothing about that angle that works for you.

Dear Green Dog: that angle always works for you.

After, I stopped at a Lyfe Kitchen media event my friend Steph invited me to. Lyfe is a company that’s launching as both a line of restaurants and food that will be available in a grocery store. Again, I’ll write more soon, but the premise is that it’s all healthy and low-sodium. Which you would think would be a recipe for no taste, but the taste of the frittata I had was actually really flavorful.

Anyway, that’s a taste of what I’ve been up to. What have you been up to lately?