Speck Of Texas

2012 already?

2012-01-30T21:33:00.002-06:00

I'm futzing on the internet while Michael is valiantly making mozzarella cheese in the kitchen. It's quite a process. It's the third time he's tried making it. The first one was pretty good, the second a complete failure. So far the 3rd one is working out. fresh mozzarella. yum. He's already been fiddling with his recipe for homemade bacon. He made a batch with garlic and pepper and it's so good! Now I just have to have him make dinner during the week! We're slowly coming to a compromise about how often we go out to eat. He likes to go out, and I really don't. But, I'd rather go out during the week when places aren't so busy and I really don't want to cook. On the weekends I have more time to put something together and restaurants are too busy. I need to work on putting a weekly menu together. That has helped immensely in knowing what to make each night and what I need at the grocery store.

I made chili for the first time yesterday. We went over to my parent's house and Michael's mom came over too. I made the Alton Brown pressure cooker chili recipe and it was AWESOME. Even Michael and his mom (native Texans) said it was really good (of course - no beans). I think I'm going to make it again this week and freeze it. I still have several of the ingredients and it makes sense to make it now when I don't have to buy everything all over again. I just need to get more stew meat and salsa.

I've also been playing with the slow cooker, but so far the recipes have been disappointing. I've tried a couple chicken recipes and they're just kinda gross. Luckily, I shred the leftover chicken and we had soft tacos the next night. That wasn't too bad. Just throw some sour cream on that mess.

We already have reservations for our 1yr wedding anniversary at Perry's Steakhouse. We went a few months ago when we had tickets to see Ron White at the Paramount. Their New York Strip was one of the best I've ever had. Michael wanted to go to Bohanan's in San Antonio, but I wasn't in the mood to drop $300 on a meal. We'll be going to Vancouver and Alaska in June and I'm sure that's where we'll drop some coin. Especially since Michael found a casino down the street from our hotel in Vancouver. And they have roulette! ach...I'll have to make a budget.

Fully documented!

2011-09-18T10:54:00.002-05:00

Dealing with the death of Michael's father has been very eye opening to the importance of wills, POAs, and medical directives. It made everything so much easier that he had all his paperwork together and in order. So, of course, Michael and I started talking about our situation. It's a little tougher since we aren't having children to figure out how we would want our estate handled. But, even though we won't have children, there will still be people that would have to deal with things if we become incapacitated or killed. So, my finance guy recommended an estate lawyer. We met with him and for $500 we each have wills, POAs, and medical directives. I asked a lot of my child-free friends if they had wills and if so, how they handled things....and no one did. Even my boss who is a CPA, and husband is a CPA, doesn't have a will. Texas probate is a lot easier than most states, but a will still makes things even easier. Why leave your family a mess when you die? that's just rude.

Michael is donating his entire half of our estate to charity, and I'm doing some of mine to charity and the rest to my niece/nephew. However, there's a stipulation that they can't touch the money until they're 25. ha! Yesterday I took both of our moms (known as 'The Moms') to our bank to get their names on our safety deposit box so they can get into it if needed. I believe everything has now been taken care of, and it's a load of my mind.

wedding pics

2011-07-18T22:30:00.004-05:00

Most of you got an email with the wedding pics link, but here it is again

http://flickr.com/gp/hrast/kpAGp1

Michael's friend Kat took the pictures. She's a professional photographer in Manhattan and they're good friends. She's not a wedding photographer. She does still life and product photography for some major companies in NY. I think they came out great.

Dealing with the death of Michael's dad was quite an ordeal. We learned a lot about probate and Texas law. Luckily Corsicana is pretty small. He lived in Kerens (about 10 minutes from Corsicana), population about 1500, and that made it easy to find things and find out who to talk to. The funeral director has weekly coffee with Michael's aunt, the local coffee shop was the best way to get out the news about the funeral, and there was only 1 flower shop in the whole town, so it was easy to get things done. I'm not even going to get into his banking situation which was a farming bank - no website, no online access, in a town with population of 124. Dealing with them was very interesting. We're still waiting on the graveyard headstone, but everything else has been taken care of.

Besides all that, not much going on here. We're starting to save up for our kitchen redo which will happen in about 5 years. I've gotten over my new car wanting and am now back to being happy still with my 2003 Corolla. It has 125k miles. I really want to go 2 more years. By then I should be able to pay cash for my next car. At least, that's the goal. It helps that I like cheap cars! ugh...yeah...not much else going on. sorry!

going on

2011-04-08T08:44:00.002-05:00

Hey! Yes, I'm a married woman. It has been a very unusual 2 weeks. Here's what's going on:

The Thursday before the wedding I went to the airport to pick up Kim, Jeff, and Andrea who were coming in from CA. We met Michael at Chuy's for dinner. Michael tells me he got a call from his Aunt Ruby that his father was in the ICU in Corsicana and it wasn't looking good. Michael had not spoken to his father since 2001. There had been a strained relationship (his parents divorced when he was 12) and there was an incident in 2001 and Michael chose to end the relationship. Since then, Michael has had therapy about it and worked out his issues, but still didn't want his father in his life. So, he gets this call from Ruby and tells her that he's getting married on Sunday and can't leave right then. She said she just wanted to let him know what's going on. Then, that night while we were all at my house visiting, I started to feel really sick. That began 24 hours of throwing up. I NEVER get sick like that and I could not believe I got a bug right before the wedding. I had made a bunch of plans to take the CA group to things around Austin - we were going to go kayaking, to Smitty's for BBQ, down to 6th street, etc. Well, instead, I slept and threw up all day Friday and Michael took everyone to Smitty's and then drove them around town a bit. He was such a good host. Luckily he had met everyone during our CA trip 2 years ago, and Kim and Andrea went to HS together, so they all knew each other. Then they came back and we visited for awhile and then he took them to dinner at Torchy's and dessert at Mozart's. I was so thankful he just stepped up and took care of everything for me. On Saturday he wanted to hang out with his mom and talk about the situation with his dad. The gang stayed at my house and watched RED while I slept some more. Then, we had the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at the Salt Lick in Driftwood. I was still recovering and not eating much - I was eating 1 saltine cracker every hour. It really sucked since Salt Lick is my fav BBQ and we had the family style for everyone so there were ribs and sausage and brisket all over the place. cry. cry. That night we went to Mike's to watch the old Tom Hanks movie Bachelor Party. I wasn't stressed or worried about the wedding at all. The illness really just took it all out of me.

On Sunday everything went very smoothly. I was feeling better and had a little bit of breakfast and everyone helped me get ready. We had professional makeup people come in for me, Andrea, and my mom and they did a GREAT job. My mom and Michael's mom helped me with my hair and it was all very cute. The wedding was really quick and everything went off with no problems. The food was good, the cake was good, the flowers were pretty, and everyone seemed to have a good time. We hadn't planned seating, but it all worked that the parents and an Aunt/Uncle of Michael's sat at one table with us, the ANK people sat at another table, the CA people sat at one table, and Michael's friends were at the other 2 tables. Our goal was to have a quick ceremony and then lots of good food, and I think we were successful. We don't have our pictures yet, but I'll post a link when we get them. That night we stayed at the Mansion and the next morning we left for Corsicana. I have A LOT to say about Corsicana but I'll just say this for now - Michael's dad has passed away and the services are tonight at 4pm. It has been quite a saga.

stupid email hackers

2011-03-13T20:46:00.002-05:00

A few months ago I got an email from Randy in Japan (he's ok btw). then, a few days later I got another email from him with just a link. I replied back that I didn't click on links that were in emails that don't have any text message with it. Randy replied that he hadn't sent that, and his account had been hacked. Well, I checked my backup hotmail address I use for shopping and that one had been hacked too! My usual one was ok cause the password was a little harder. But, now everytime I try to log on to my backup email, it's frozen cause the hackers are still trying to get in. So, even though I changed the password I can't get cause it keeps being frozen! Argh. Then, I also got an email from Mark in NY with the same link. I emailed him back as a heads up but it looks like his email was disabled. Why do people have to be such dicks? Leave my email alone!

a month away

2011-02-27T15:11:00.003-06:00

sorry about not being as active on the blog. I guess before I met Michael, I didn't really have anyone to bitch/complain to, so I just typed it all out. But, really, that's an excuse. I could be blogging about all the stuff we've been doing....Michael's quest for the ultimate homemade pizza (dough and sauce are figured out...now doing cheese tests), my dad's multiple surgeries (he's ok now), all the local restaurants we've been finding and enjoying (Blue Star Cafeteria!!, Phils! Dog Almighty!...), etc etc etc.

But, instead, I'm lazy. sigh. I do feel bad about this, if it makes you feel better! I know Randy in Japan was keeping up with me on the blog, and my buds out in california too....so I feel like I've kinda let everyone down. I'm not on facebook or twitter, and I'm not a big emailer. I also don't text on my phone. So, the blog was really the only electronic communication I was doing. Although, I have called everyone recently (except Randy - need to send a letter). I really should start letting you know more what's going on. Especially now that I have a laptop and can do this in front of the tv!!

Ok, here's an update:
We are now exactly 1 month away from the wedding. 4 weeks left. At this time, in 28 days, I will be married. yikes. Although, I am keeping my name, so I don't know how 'married' I'll feel. Hm. Everything is done for the planning. Final count is 31 people. We had our tasting at the mansion and I think the food will be yummy. We need to talk to Jon about the vows, but I think that's it. We are most certainly not writing our own! But, even the 'traditional vows' have different variations, so we have to do some research. Neither of us like the 'till death do us part'. I personally like the phrase 'for the forseeable future', but Michael didn't think it was wedding appropriate. We found vows that mentions 'through the seasons' which sounds a little better. Anyways...that's one thing left.

The wedding planning has been a little weird - just because we tried to keep it small. Lots of people were expecting to be invited. People we only see every so often. I didn't even invite any of the St Louis people. I am still in touch with Kim, who I worked with at the Courtyard during college, but she's not invited either. I'm really not in touch with my business school friends because they all got married, started having kids, and then they dropped off the earth. I used to try calling every once in a while, but when someone only wants to talk about their kids.......that's about it for me. Although Vicky did send me a Christmas Card this year (with pictures of her 2 kids). I will definitely be sending out wedding announcements though. I gave them wedding presents. It's my turn now!! We're registered at Amazon and Crate & Barrel, so we'll see what happens. Yeah, it's not supposed to be about the gifts....but free stuff is still free stuff. Everyone appreciates free stuff!

I was going to put more, but now Foodtv has distracted me.....

We're staying put!

2010-12-01T21:57:00.001-06:00

In the past I had mentioned that Michael and I were thinking about buying a new house after the wedding. Well, we had some big talks about it, and we decided that since we both like my house and the location, we would forgo some of the new house benefits (like the theater) and instead stay in this house and refinance. I called my previous mortgage broker and she took care of everything. We refinanced for 3.75%, put Michael on the title and mortgage, and went to a 15 yr mortgage. We had saved up a bunch of money for the downpayment for the new house, but since we were staying, we decided instead to redo the master bathroom. We were already planning on updating it a bit to help when it was on the market. So, instead of just doing the bare necessities, we gutted the whole thing. We had Eduardo (IQ Remodeling) do it all. He has done a ton of stuff at my parent's house and also some stuff for me. He's not one of those contractors were you meet one guy and then someone else comes out to do the work. He's the one that does everything, comes every day, very reliable. It took about 6 weeks and it's great. Now we're saving up to do the kitchen in 4 years or so.

Here are the BEFORE pictures

Here are the AFTER pictures of the walk in shower and the cabinets. Michael really wanted the frameless doors. They make a big difference. For the cabinets, my side is low, and Michael's side is a kitchen cabinet height. There's a storage cabinet in the middle. Our mirrors are not in yet...still on order.

For those of you

2010-08-19T22:11:00.005-05:00

that wanted info about the wedding...
My mom talked to my Aunt and they're not coming. Oh, and she also said Michael and I don't need to bother coming out to CA. Wow, passive aggressive much? But, hey, everything is settled and that's what I wanted to hear.

The location is going to be the Mansion at Judges Hill which is down by UT

http://www.mansionatjudgeshill.com/

Nathan recommended it since he and Brian eat dinner there once a month through a UT discount club. Michael and I had dinner there and really liked the food and the feel of the space. It is also a boutique hotel, so we are staying there the night before and the night of the wedding. We're doing a Sunday morning since it's sooooooo much cheaper.

Here is a link to my dress. Some would say it was expensive, some would say it was cheap. After watching Say Yes to the Dress and how so many of those gowns are in the THOUSANDS, I am quite pleased with this. It's cute, it's very 'sunday morning', and the shoes are adorable. Instead of tying the ribbon in the back, Michael's mom suggested tying it in the front off to the side, and that really worked. Also, the little jacket hides my tattoos, so I won't have to put makeup on them. I'm not going to worry about my ankle tattoos...it was really the one on my arm and back that I was going to hide....it's just a little tacky in my opinion

http://www.davidsbridal.com/Product_Strapless-Lace-Tea-Length-Cap-Sleeve-Gown-9T9948_Bridal-Gowns-Shop-By-Size-Plus-Sizes

Also, here are pictures of my amber and silver engagement ring. The dark spot you see is the black fabric behind it. The pic of it on my hand gives you a better idea of what it looks like.

Now I have the flowers, cake, and rings to figure out. I welcome all recommendations/suggestions. There are so many freaking wedding websites out there. Lately the trend is all DIY, but you know what? I don't want to DIY! I just want to show up. And, as it's a small wedding with only one attendant each, I'm just going to pay a freaking florist to do the bouquets and make it look nice. I really don't want the added stress.

Oh, and we also are going to do a registry, but I promised Nathan we'd go out shopping for that. It always helps to get another opinion. I'm hoping to get some stuff done in Sept. Wedding date is late March, so I've got time.

What part of 'you're not invited' did you not understand?

2010-07-20T18:10:00.002-05:00

Sigh. I've had the first bit of wedding 'drama'. None of my family from California is invited to the wedding. There's too many aunts/uncles/cousins and if I invite 1, I've got to invite them all. They are all also fairly high maintenance and high drama and I'm not particularly close to any of them. My mom had let them know I was engaged and that is was going to be a small ceremony with only a few people. Somehow, she started getting the impression from one of my aunts that she thought she was coming. So, to nip that in the bud, I sent an email to all the cousins and aunts/uncles that the wedding was going to be a small, private affair in austin and then we'd come out to california later in the year and have a little party out there for everyone. My aunt then responded. "We heard about the wedding and Uncle M and I thought we'd fly back with Nana to the wedding. Thought this would be nice for Nana to attend since she didn't attend your sister's wedding. Also to seee where everyone lives. If this is going to be a problem, let me know."

Yeah, it's a fucking problem. That's why you WEREN'T INVITED. So, basically she just invited herself to my wedding without even a phone call to me (she never even called to congratulate me on the engagement). And don't try to guilt me about my sister's wedding. Even my parents didn't attend that one since it was quick on a naval base in VA - I was the only family there. You know, this is why I'm paying for the whole thing myself. So I can't be told what I have to do for the wedding. An additional 3 people is ridiculous. I don't have room for it, and quite frankly, I don't want to make the room. We've been out in Austin for six years now and my parents always have offered to come pick up Nana and fly her out here to see us. She always declines. And now my aunt wants to come out and bring nana and oh by the way we'll be attending your wedding? I don't fucking think so. I'm not going to have any time for them to visit and show them around. I was looking forward to my CA friends coming out and going out to BBQ, maybe the Broken Spoke, maybe shooting, I don't know. But, driving around my aunt/uncle/nana is a whole different thing. And it will completely change the feel of the wedding (yes I know I'm being unreasonable...but I'm the BRIDE I get to be). As it stands right now, it's just parents and our friends. I felt it was going to be casual and fun. What's my aunt and uncle going to do? Sit in a corner? I'm not having a church wedding, we're not doing a catholic mass, we're not doing dancing. It's a friggin 5 minute ceremony and then some really great food. They can come sometime before or sometime after the wedding if they want to visit. Just not for the wedding weekend itself. Argh. My mom said she'll call her tomorrow and talk to her about it. My mom has a hard time standing up to her sister, but I figured I'd let her take a stab at it and be diplomatic and if I need to come in and be a bitch, that's fine. I don't want my aunt and uncle at my wedding. Simple enough.

Cardboard Warfare!

2010-07-17T14:24:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned this to some of you. It's awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE-ZmwATS8E

Dress: Check

2010-06-19T22:18:00.002-05:00

Ack! I went shopping today with my mom and Michael's mom and we found a dress! In fact, I was the first person to try it on cause the dress just came out and it fit perfectly. So we just went ahead and bought that one! I gave the consultant the numbers of ones I wanted to try, and mentioned that it was a Sunday morning wedding. She asked if she could pull some others, and I said, sure, I'll try anything on. I didn't know what would look good or what I'd like, so I was open to anything. It was the second dress I tried on and it was so cute. It's fun and flirty and perfect for a Sunday morning wedding. I did try on the 'traditional' gowns, and they were just too much fabric. They would have been fine for a larger venue or more people, but not for what I was going for. Both the moms really loved it too. Oh, and my colors have gone from black and white to black and cream cause white gowns just washed me out. The gown I got is a lovely ivory color. So, that's done. Got matching shoes, undergarments, and a hair thing. Now I just need to figure out the flowers and cake.

Wedding update

2010-06-16T00:00:00.004-05:00

Hello all! Things with the wedding are progressing. We have a date set 3-27-11 and a location. We're keeping the invite list to about 35.

Because of that we're not inviting everyone under the sun...and we're asking that people don't bring their children. I just feel weddings are not the place for a lot of little kids, and we have several friends with 2-4 year olds (it's different if it's a huge wedding and you have people to corral the kids...but 35 is NOT a lot of people). As good as they think their kids are, they still get fussy, or loud, or bored, and as it's 'our' day -we'd just like to spend it with our friends and have them be relaxed and comfortable. It's only for a few hours on a Sunday morning. I told my sister and she was like 'we don't think it's right for children to not be invited to a family event, so we probably won't come'. I told her that was her decision. Frankly, it would be better if she didn't come - she's so high stress and dramatic. She has a 2 yr old and an 8 yr old and I know she has people in town that could watch her kids for a little bit. My parents got a little angry about that saying they were 'good kids'. But, you know what? I've been over to my parents last weekend and this weekend when the kids were there. The 8 yr old gets bored very quickly and then bugs his dad to come play with him, while we're sitting around the dining room table chatting. Then the 2 yr old starts her high pitched screaming/crying/general baby sounds. All I could do was look at them and think, yeah, this is why no kids. Don't you want a morning off where you can just sit and chat and be an adult without constantly filling the needs of a kid? My friend Melanie, who had the premie a couple years ago, (whom I feel if anyone could be protective/concerned/mindful of a child's needs, she would have the right to feel that way) AGREED with me that a wedding is not a place for small children. So, there it is. We're sticking to our guns.

I've asked one of my high school friends - Andrea - to be my maid of honor. Michael will just have a best man, so we'll have a nice small wedding party. One of his friends who's done about 9 weddings will be our officiant. I'll be sending out a 'save the date' email to the invitees and I'm working on the invitiations. I invited Michael's mom to come dress shopping with me since Michael's her only kid. She's coming down this weekend and Saturday me, my mom, and she will go and check out some dresses. This is where paying for the whole thing ourselves will come in handy. I can take their opinions, but I don't HAVE to do what they say, cause they're not paying for it!

I'll post pictures of the engagement ring later...want to show it to a couple more people in real life before I post it here. Don't want to spoil the surprise!

2114 Miles, 5 Cities, 1 Marriage Proposal

2010-05-28T11:39:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone! We're back from our New Mexico trip, and yup, I'm engaged! Michael's going to make an honest woman out of me. I'll post more later and put some pictures up. Just wanted to let everyone know. The wedding is going to be in March/April of next year and will be pretty small (around 40 people). When I graduated high school my parents gave me a choice of money for a wedding or money for a college education, and I chose college, so we'll be paying for this ourselves.

If anyone has recommendations for venues, let me know!

post more later.....

I don't want to write a title

2010-03-11T19:32:00.004-06:00

Eh, you've probably all abandoned me. So now I get to write horrible things about you all! Yay!

All right. Anyways...

Last night I had a very vivid dream about someone I used to know. It felt very real...I was even doing some weird math computations and I think I was getting the right answers! I've always wondered if you dream about someone one night if they're dreaming about you too. Hmmm...

Things have been good lately. Michael and I went on a lovely double date with Nathan and Brian down to Bohanan's in San Antonio (remember? the place with the japanese/texas $100 steaks http://www.bohanans.com/). Brian and Nathan had gone after reading my original post and really liked it. They wanted an excuse to go again so we all went down a couple weeks ago. Brian drove his very shiny Mercedes (don't know what kind...I'm a girl)...so it was like we were being chauffeured to the restaurant. Dinner was as lovely as expected. Michael and I did are usual where I get the New York Strip, he gets the sirloin, and then we cut them in half and share so we get to try both. Brian has the Akaushi fillet and thought it was good. Nathan got the dry aged New York Strip and the thing was HUGE. We've never had dry-aged beef so we all tried a bite. It was wayyyyy too strong for me. Very powerful flavors. I don't think I would have enjoyed it. We were there about 3 and a half hours and had a great time. The bill came to about $300 for each couple, which is pretty good since none of us had any alcohol. It was a lot of fun to go out there with other people than just me and Michael - more to talk about!

Michael's been living with me almost 5 months now. It's been going good so far. We were talking about buying a new house about 5 years from now, but I think the timeline is getting pushed up dramatically. I had originally said 5 years to allow us time to save up for a heafty down payment. Michael had debt in his past and although he's all done with that, he's never really focused on saving. I thought 5 years was a timeframe that he could ease into realizing that saving was important and sometimes you had to put off purchases in order to save for the big thing down the road. Well, the other day we were looking at models in the Brushy Creek area of Cedar Park (that's just a little more northwest of me). They were out of our price range, but we liked looking at models to see what our tastes were and to make sure we liked/disliked the same things (we do). Well, the house guy mentioned there was a new subdivision being built at 1431 and Anderson Mill and the prices were lower there. So, we figured we'd go check it out. There's only one model built and of course it's the biggest plan. We talked to the guy and said we wanted something a little smaller. He told us their division down in Dripping Springs (way south) had the model of the house we really wanted to look at. They just didn't have the model built in Cedar Park, but it was the same thing. The next Saturday was a really pretty day and we decided a drive down to Dripping Springs sounded like a good idea. Well, we found our dream house. It has EVERYTHING we wanted. It even has a 3 car garage option, which would give us plenty of room for the kayaks and Michael's bikes. http://www.highlandhomes.com/730-MARTB.html Luckily the builder has 3 phases and they just started Phase 1. So, we're shooting to get into Phase 2 which won't be until spring/summer of next year. Uh. yeah, the saving plan is going to have to accelerate some. And that's frankly a good thing. I want Michael to know he can save a shit load of money when he really puts his mind to it. With what we can save, plus the equity I can get out of this house, we shouldn't have a problem with getting the upgrades we want and putting down 20%. It'll add about 15 minutes to my commute, but it's easy access to the freeway, and 1431 is getting really built up. There's a lot going on out there.

Now we're looking at our expenses and seeing where things can be cut or tweeked, and we're focusing on saving for the house. Michael has done a remarkable job of cutting some of his expenses and really taking this seriously. He even brought some food to work to make lunches there, which in the past he has refused to do. He realized spending $50+ a week on lunches downtown was not the best thing to do. I'm really proud of how far he's come with his finances. He pointed out one day that I knew everything about his finances and he didn't know anything about mine. So, I showed him my retirement accounts and my savings accounts. Although I should have more than I do, I think I have a decent amount. I think that spurred him into saving more as well, especially since he makes more than I do.

As for marriage, we've talked about it, and we both know it's in the near future. I don't know if it will be before the house or not, though. As I'm keeping my name after marriage (which he's fine with), we won't have to change the names on the deed.

Have I ranted about engagement rings before? I'm not sure. Well, here it is. Most men are lemmings and blindly follow what the diamond industry has forced down our throats for decades. That diamonds are a girl's best friend, diamonds are forever, every girl wants one. Well, I'm telling you now, before you buy that engagement ring for your honey, take a good hard look at who she is and decide if you just want to buy some cliche diamond ring, or if you want to take the time and get something different, unique, colorful, and thoughtful. Although I do own a couple of diamond rings, Michael is well aware of how much I despise the idea of a diamond engagement ring. I'll probably wear the wedding ring more anyways. I really like the look of carbon fiber rings - light weight and durable. And black goes with everything!

alright, that's it for now.

2009

2010-01-18T13:05:00.002-06:00

Sigh. I keep meaning to post and then I keep getting distracted. I'm not sure if anyone checks this anymore, but here goes!

Since I did so few posts in 2009, here's a bit of a recap:
Michael and I went to CA for 2 weeks and realized we didn't want to kill each other.
Michael has moved in and all is going well so far.
For Thanksgiving we had it at my house like last year. His mom drove in from Dallas and we had something like 12 people. We had 1 regular cooked turkey and then Michael also brined and then barbequed a turkey. He didn't brine the one last year and wow, it made quite a difference. It was fantastic.
For Christmas we drove to Dallas to be with his mom. It rarely rarely snows in the Dallas area, but we just happened to be driving up on the one day they got snow. For people in the east coast/midwest a couple inches isn't a big deal. But, since they harldy ever get snow, the roads are not treated properly. They don't salt anything. They just put sand on the overpasses and that really isn't enough. Michael was driving his brand new GTI and didn't want to hit anything, so we were going fairly slow. A lot of people were driving much faster and I couldn't believe it. There were several cars that had spun out onto the median. There was NO reason to rush. So, instead of 3 1/2 hours it took almost 6. The nice thing is his mom's house is on the edge of a ravine in a private area, so when we woke up the next morning all the snow was beautiful and perfect and sparkly. I ran out and did the one thing I always have to do when I see perfect snow - I put my hand right above it and let my body heat melt an imprint of my hand. It's so fun.
For New Years we stayed in and watched the Twilight Zone Marathon. Neither of us felt like going out, so it was nice and low-key.
My car odometer is now over 100,000 miles! I'm hoping to get a few more years out of it - it's only a 2003. I'm saving a little money every month for a down payment, but I'm not looking forward to having car payments again. I'll try to put it off as long as I can.
Things in general with Michael and I are going well. I can appreciate couple humor a little more. Everytime something annoys me and I talk to some girlfriends about it, I realize that a lot of people have all the same issues! It's been interesting to figure out what are 'guy' things (in a generalized way) and what are 'Michael' things. The nice part is that he does help clean and cook. Although when he cooks it's a 2-3 hour event. I just try to get dinner on the table. So, I'll ask him to come in and help chop vegetables or something so I don't feel like I'm doing it all. I don't understand women that let their guy get away with not helping. It's one thing if she's a housewife and doesn't work. But, if both people have jobs, there's no excuse for the guy not to help. That just would not fly with me. Get off your ass and come help - I'm not your chef and I'm not your maid. Michael understands that quite well. The only thing left to fix is to get a king bed. Our queen is just a little too small. We've been working on that, but I need to find a headboard that I like first. We'll probably get that done in the next few months.

Movie reviews:

The Hangover - fucking hilarious.
Avatar - yes, it really is that cool. Yes, it is Dancing with Wolves in Space, but it's still really well done.
Daybreakers - wow, Ethan Hawke must have a lot of bills to pay. It was ok. Kinda campy
Sherlock Holmes - liked the actors, did not care at all about the plot. It did not draw me in.
Transporter 3 - as much as I LOVE Jason Statham, this movie was bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD.
Drag Me to Hell - a Sam Raimi movie - well done, good horror flick
My Kid Could Paint That - documentary about a little girl doing modern art. very good, thought provoking.
Monsters Vs Aliens - Awesome! The green blob guy was the best.
Julie & Julia - very entertaining - Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci stole the show
Inglourious Basterds - someone stop Tarantino now! He needs an editor to come and bitch slap him a little. He is too in love with his rambling dialogue and unimportant scenes. That movie was WAY too long.
Extract - Mike Judge movie (Austinites love Mike Judge) - it was ok. We all agreed 'ok' was the term for that movie.
The Proposal - Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds - had no business being as good as it was, but it was quite enjoyable.

I'll try to keep posting!

ran out of time

2009-10-24T11:40:00.003-05:00

I was going to put up this huge long post of how things are going, but then my mom called, and then Michael called, and now I've got to leave to go meet him and his two friends that go riding together every Saturday. Sorry! I'll post a ton later, I swear. I'm off to Taco Deli! hmmmm...queso.

one more thing - I'm on a Boat!

2009-08-04T23:51:00.003-05:00

Ok, here's one more thing I keep meaning to post.

One night while Michael was working night shift (meaning he was sitting on my sofa chair with his laptop), I was watching MTV, and Fuse, and some other music channels, trying not to feel old. I was checking out what the 'kids' were watching. It was like 2 in the morning and this video came on. I did a double take and we had to rewind it. It's fucking awesome! I've tried showing it to some people and they don't think it's funny. Michael and I think it's hilarious, and maybe some people out there will too.

Adam Samberg is in a band called The Lonely Island, and it's like Weird Al but more curse words. If you don't get it.....they're making fun of rap songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7yfISlGLNU&feature=channel_page

They also have a lovely song called Jizz in my Pants. It's a play on dance/club music. The video really makes this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=ED9441CFC963F147

Enjoy!

I've got my swim trunks
and my flippy floppies!

What? It's just not seasoned salt?

2009-08-04T22:31:00.004-05:00

So, you know the Lawry's Seasoned Salt that everyone has in the pantry? Scrolly L on the label, orange top. Well, did you know it's a freaking restaurant???? I had absolutely no clue!

http://www.lawrysonline.com/theprimerib.asp

Last time we were in Dallas visiting Michael's mom, we passed it, and I was like, uh.....that L looks familiar! It was also on Food Network's Steak Paradise special. Their 'thing' is prime rib. That's basically the only thing on the menu besides lobster. I told Michael the next time we came to Dallas, I wanted to go. He'd never been either, so we both looked forward to it. This past weekend we drove to Dallas to see his mom and went to Lawry's on Saturday night. It was so good! I'm not one to put salt on my food....but that Lawry's Seasoned Salt on prime rib was incredible. It's a quiet, posh restaurant that feels very intimate. They wheel these huge stainless steel carts around and cut the meat from the roast right at your table. It also comes with mashed potatoes and Yorkshire Pudding. I hadn't had Yorkshire Pudding since I was in England, and this one was really good! If you are ever in the Dallas area and enjoy a good piece of red meat, I highly recommend it. It was pricey, but I felt you got a very large piece of meat and the value was there. For the prime rib, mashed potatoes, and Yorkshire Pudding, it was $33. There were smaller cuts of meat and a couple of larger cuts, so the price can vary. But, the prime rib was really thick and filled the plate up, so I didn't feel like it was too expensive. I wouldn't go every night...but it would be a nice 'special occasion' place.

We are on track for Michael to move in by the end of October. I just sold my sofa and chaise and he has to put some of his stuff for sale. We had two garage sales in July and did pretty well. As he goes through his stuff and we find duplicates, we're putting things aside for another garage sale in Sept. I had to sell my sofa cause the sides were really high so you couldn't lounge on it that well. We bought a really cheap one that has low sides, so it's easy to put your feet up or rest your head on the cushion. We went cheap because it only has to last a few years before we buy our new house and get one that fits the space.

ok, I know that's a small post after being gone so long.....eh, you'll take what I give you! hee hee.

CA Pictures

2009-06-13T14:04:00.002-05:00

As promised, the best CA pictures have been uploaded to Michael's smugmug site. Here is the website. Some have captions at the bottom.

http://hrast.smugmug.com/gallery/8506312_GXv6N#559894891_9rJVx

The ones that crack me up the most are on page 14 near the end. There are two pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge and a metal view finder (I don't know what they're really called). Michael was taking some shots of the bridge, and I thought the view finders looked cool. I asked him to get the view finder in the foreground and the bridge in the background. He took it and showed me the screen. I was like, well, that's not really what I meant. So he gave me the camera and I took the picture that I wanted. When I showed it to him, he was like 'argh! that's a better picture!'. And at that moment we realized how different our perspectives are, being 8 inches different in height. I was right in front of the view finders, while Michael looked over them.

All the ones of us together were taken with my Olympus. You can't really do that 'arm out to take a picture of yourself' thing with a camera that has a 6 inch lens on it. So, my little Olympus still comes in handy. We also brought my camera in to the Thomas Keller Napa restaurants to take pictures of the food. It's a little more discreet than Michael's big camera. hee hee.

Oh,,.....and whoever deleted their comment from my previous post - you can't do that to me! What did it say??? I'm dying of curiousity now!

lots of news

2009-06-06T20:32:00.003-05:00

Just got back from a 2 wk trip to Northern California. We've been planning this since October, so it was quite fun to actually have it arrive. Although I usually like my trips a little spontaneous as far as where to go on each day....this trip was competely planned. We just had too many places to go, too many people to see, and it was around Memorial Day weekend so we needed to make sure we had hotel reservations. In all we saw Napa, Pinole/Stinson Beach, Santa Cruz Beach/Boardwalk, Monterey, Yosemite, San Francisco, and Muir Woods. We also saw all my family in Gilroy, Andrea in Pinole, Heidi in Stockton (on the way to Yosemite), and Kim in San Rafael (on the way back from Muir Woods). So, yeah, I had a spreadsheet to detail out where we'd be each day and what hotel we were staying at. We drove over 1600 miles in 2 different rental cars. Started with a Jetta, but it got a piece of metal in a back tire, and a nail in the other. So we turned it in and got upgraded to a Mazda 6. Two things to say about the Jetta - I DO NOT like the Jetta. I am TOO SHORT for that fricken car. My legs are too short and the head rest cut me at a really bad angle so much so that I had to stick my jacket behind my neck. The second thing- damn that thing had some get up and go! I drove it from the San Jose airport to Gilroy and it had so much power (compared to my Corolla). You hit the gas and that thing WENT. But, the Mazda was a lot more comfortable, but it didn't have as much power, so it wasn't as much fun to drive...eh, trade offs. Both got good gas mileage thought. It was about $2.80/gal for gas in CA which isn't too bad.

I have LOTS of pictures, but they're all on Michael's computer. Every night we'd take the photos off his camera and mine, put them on his laptop, and backup to an external hardrive. I'm not sure how many we ended up with, but we got some REALLY good ones. A new one of Michael's camera is like $800 and the lens we were using is $1300. I frikin LOVE that lens. We did some wedding photos for friends of his back in September and Michael rented a really professional camera and lens, lent me his camera, and rented that lens for me to use. It took such great photos he went and bought it. My pictures come out so great with it. He's going to upload the best to his smugmug account and I'll post the link then. There's a few we'll be printing fairly large and hanging.

One thing that is working really well in this relationship is that Michael really trusts my eye for composition. In Napa we were doing a tour of a cave for wine barrels, and as the guy was talking, I gestured and quietly told Michael to get on one knee and get a picture of a group of barrels that was really pretty. He didn't even say anything - just did it - and that's one of the pictures we're going to get framed. It's so beautiful. I don't understand the mechanics of cameras - iso and f-stop, aperture, depth of field, etc. So, when I want to take some pictures Michael just sets the numbers and then gives me the camera. We're going to work on having me learn that though, so I can set my own numbers. It's just confusing. Too much like geometry! But, I was still using my little Olympus and got some really good pictures with that too.

The big reason for this trip was to figure out how our relationship was going and if Michael was going to move in. His lease is up at the end of October. All in all, things went really well. We had a couple of tiffs, but nothing major considering the amount of driving and places we went to. So, we had a talk today about the things that annoyed us on the trip, we both agreed to work on them, and agreed that things went generally well. Michael said he likes me even more now after being around me so much....aw so sweet! So, we'll be working on that for the next few months. He's selling quite a number of items - washer/dryer, coffee table and side table, kitchen table and chairs, tv, computer desk, bed frame rails, and futon. He's moving most of his stuff into my extra guest room and will use that for this computer and gaming systems. We figure with the money he'll get from selling all that stuff he can buy a nice tv for that room. Luckily my other guest room already has a queen bed, so he'll move his mattress (that he bought recently) into there and he'll use that closet for his clothes and stuff. He can also use that bed when he's on night shift - which is for a whole week and it happens once a month. He gets paged all night to work on stuff, so he can just sleep in there and not bother me. I think it will work out well. I already told him he can't use my bathroom - so he can use the guest bath right next to that bedroom. This'll be my first time living with someone like that, so it'll take me awhile to get completely comfortable. He's going to pay rent and 1/2 utilities. I'm going to save the rent in a different account and use it to redo the master bath for when we are getting ready to sell this house. One cool thing - we both have Farmer's insurance, so when he moves in, even though we aren't married, we'll get 'multi car' discount since it's the same address! I think it's a 10% discount. Yay!

There's a whole lot to say about the trip, but I'm not in the mood to type it all out.

Oh, some movie review for those of you that have missed me:

Wolverine - fucking awesome! I don't care what the review say about it. I was thoroughly entertained.
Hamlet 2 - really thought this was going to suck, but both Michael and I thought it was hilarious and awesome. Rock me, rock me sexy Jesus!
Twilight - I do not base what I see and I what I won't see on how popular something is. Just cause people are going ape shit over these books don't make them good, but don't make them bad either. I wanted to see it and make my own opinion. Movie - not bad, made me want to read the books. 1st Book 'Twilight'- wow, that's really like the movie! Like, scene for scene. Huh. 2nd book (New Moon) - absolute crap, I am done with this series.
Bolt - so cute! really well done. The hamster steals the show.
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - Someone needs to tell Simon Pegg to get back to doing Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz movies. Hopefully he's good in Star Trek, cause this movie was horrible. But, on the bright side, it did have Gillian Anderson and she still looks great.
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - at first I was livid that some no-talent director hack was trying to use the venerable Thin Man series to sell some teenage crap. But, I heard it was good so I gave it a shot. It was really, really, really, really good. It wasn't a 'teen' movie. I really recommend this one.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno - ok, with a title like that, this movie should have sucked (ha! get it?) cough....but, we saw it at Mike and Annette's and we all thought it was great. It was hilarious, had great casting, and a nice plot. It wasn't too raunchy or over the top. It helps if you know some people in the porn industry (like Traci Lords and Katie Morgan)
My Name is Bruce - Like Bruce Campbell? See this. If you don't know who that is, DON'T see this movie.
Leonard Part 6 -voted one of the worst movies of all time. I saw this as a kid so I have a soft spot for it. Michael and I got through 25 minutes of it before he was begging me to turn it off. But, it's got Bill Cosby!! And no, there is no Parts 1 -5

Trips and no trips

2009-03-04T23:26:00.002-06:00

Hey. How's everyone doing? Has the economy screwed anyone over yet? All I can say is that people that were buying houses for $500,000 when they were only making like $50k a year were idiots. So many people just ignored what they could 'afford' and wanted the swanky huge house with a huge mortgage and property tax. Really, having a down payment is a good thing! Luckily the prices in Austin have been fairly stable. But, a lot of the tech companies like Dell and Freescale are starting to lay off people, so who knows? I'm glad I'm in healthcare - that's pretty stable.

Anyways......my college 10 year reunion is in April in St Louis, and I don't think I'm going. Yes, I wanted to see all my friends that live out there, but Michael and I are planning a big trip to CA in May, and I'd rather focus my money on that trip. Sigh...I don't know. StL really is just a road trip - If I take Friday and Monday off for drive time, I can be there the whole weekend. But, really, I can go anytime. I went to the 5yr reunion and it was pretty lame. College just didn't 'shape' me the way high school did. So many of the kids in high school had been with the same people since elementary school. It's cool seeing how they've turned out. Going back to Wash U is kinda pointless. I would think everyone has made something of their lives. And the tickets are kinda pricey. yeah, I think I'll pass.

Monday night I'm meeting with the plant lady to discuss Phase 2 of the yard project. This winter was very mild and almost all of the plants seem very happy where they are. My water bill has gone up quite a bit, since I'm actually, you know, watering and all....but I guess that's the price to pay for a nice yard! I've received a lot of compliments from people in my neighborhood, and a couple people have asked me for her information. I'm so glad I did it, my house just looks so nice with it, and I never would have been able to plan that out myself.

The kitchen is not done yet. I had painted some of the walls a brown color and I'm not loving it. We're going to try a dark blue and see how that comes out. It's only paint!

Damn, you'd think there's nothing going on in my life...and I guess there isn't. We're still hanging out with everyone and doing stuff. Just don't blog about it. Michael has been messing with the smoker again and I had some people over on Sunday for pulled pork and ribs. In a couple weeks he's invited all of his close friends to my house for a bbq smorgesboard of briskit, ribs, sausage, and pulled pork. My friends have had it a couple times, and this will be a first for his friends. I hope everyone can make it. For Christmas I bought Michael some industrial/chemical rated gloves that go up to his elbow so he can handle things coming off the smoker. They are really cool. Oh, FYI, if you're looking for a good BBQ sauce, try Cattleman's Original. I don't know how available it is outside of TX, but it's really good. A lot of BBQ people that make their 'own' sauce use Cattleman's as a base cause it has such good flavor. You can get it at the grocery store.

Ah, that's right, we also had Valentine's Day. Since I am a romantic, we were of course doing SOMETHING for Valentine's Day. But, I didn't want to go to some fancy restaurant and deal with the crowds. So, Saturday morning Michael surprised me by taking me to brunch at Chez Zee, which we've been talking about for awhile. It was lovely and the food was good. Then we went shopping a bit, drove around Austin, and just hung out. For dinner we had talked about making something, but I just wasn't in the mood and really wanted fried chicken. So, uh, yeah, we went to Popeye's and had fried chicken and biscuits. Yum yum yum. Very low key, and that's what we like! Michael knows I despise red roses (cliche) so on Friday he had Tiff's Treats deliver warm cookies and ice cream to my office. It was such a surprise. Their cookies are so good! I don't know if they're local or national, but it's a great gimmick. Who wouldn't want a delivery of warm cookies?

ok, that's it for now.

Hello, 2009

2009-01-11T14:03:00.003-06:00

I hope everyone had a great New Year's and holiday time. For Christmas I went with Michael to the Dallas area to spend it with his Mom. She has this huge 4500sq ft house and it's so gorgeous. We mainly just hung out - didn't do anything too major. She bought us a new food processor and a GPS unit for the car. The story with the food processor is this: Michael's mom (Karen) came to my house for Thanksgiving. There's a certain cranberry dish she makes every year, so she was going to bring the ingredients and make it at my house. Well, she asked for a food processor, and I did have one, but had never used it. When my grandmother passed away in 2001 I got it from her kitchen. It was Wolfgang Puck, and it had never been used - still had the receipt from HSN (my grandmother bought a lot of stuff over TV). Anyways, I figured I might have a use for it, so I took it and it's been in my cupboards ever since. Well, Karen got it out and started using it to chop up the cranberries. Well......unfortunately, the blade spun backwards! We could not figure out how to fix it. So, instead of chopping, it kinda just mashed them with the other side of the blade. It was so weird. My brother in law even took it apart and moved some wires around and it still spun backwards. We think the motor had been installed the wrong way. So, anyways, that's how she knew I needed a new food processor! As for the GPS, I refused to let Michael buy one since his iPhone connects to Google, and really what more do you need? But, hey, if Karen wants to spend money on a swanky new GPS, I'm not going to say NO! So, yes, I do really like it, and yes, it will really come in handy for our trip to CA. I just didn't want to spend our own money on it. But, hey, that's what the holidays are for, right?? My parents gave me and my sister money as usual, and there's no complaints over here!

Michael and I spent New Year's in my hot tub. He had a bottle of $40 champagne, and I had my $3 bottle of Martinelli's Sparking Apple Cider, which I drank straight from the bottle, thank you very much. Mmmm....sparkling sugar water....so good. My neighborhood has now been officially annexed into 'City' of Austin whereas before we were just county. Now we can't do fireworks in our yard. Too bad, so sad. Although we did hear quite a few go off on New Years. I think my Mom still isn't 'City' so at least we can go over there again for 4th of July fireworks in the street.

Again - can I just say how much I love Austin??? The Saturday before Christmas, it was 78 degrees so Michael and I went kayaking on Town Lake. Then, on Friday Jan 2 we had another warm day so we went out again with some of Michael's friends that were in town for the holidays. We weren't even bundled up! Shorts and a tank top on the water, in winter! Love it.

Friday night I had ANK Party Games Night at my place and we had 6 people total - good group. We played a great board game called 'Wits & Wagers' that incorporates trivia and betting. We also played Charades since the 2 new people that showed up had never really played. I know whenever Loel comes to Party Games, he and I can usually successfully lobby for Charades. Love playing that! But, we usually just write our own, which is starting to get annoying. I may just break down and buy an official game. My favorite one that I made up on Friday was 'manny'. You know, a male nanny. Now, that was hard! But someone eventually got it.

Oh, right, I promised pictures of the yard, right? Here you go.

Here's the 'before' pic. I really hate bushes in front of houses - just big green blobs. I told the designer I didn't want anything 'structured' or box like. She did a few different designs and gave me a bunch of pictures of native/drought resistant plants. I told her which ones I thought looked cool, and she incorporated what she could. We kept my Lacebark Elm tree in the middle of the yard since it was new and she agreed it was a really good tree for this area.

Here is the after. It took 3 days and they did it right before Thanksgiving. I also put in irrigation for the front yard. I had received quotes for that a couple years ago, and the guy she works with quoted me $1000 less. So, I went ahead and did that at the same time so his irrigation could match her plan. The rock sitting by itself on the right hand side is part of 'Phase 2'. It will be a circle around the tree which starts near the boulder and ends at the raised bed in the middle. It's already been taken into account with the irrigation and she said it will only take 1 day to implement. That will be in March sometime.

Yes, the grass is fairly dead...eh give me a break, it's winter! The rock in the front is pea gravel, the walkway has decomposed granite around the stones, and the beds near the house are Texas hard-wood mulch. We're going to start working on the grass in the spring.

Here's a closeup of the part near the house. They also put in the walkway leading to the front door. Before it was just cement and it was cracking and it wasn't straight. So, they did this flagstone walkway which is so cool.

I have 29 different plants and I have a map of what each one is. She also gave me a list on how to take care of them - which ones to cut down to the ground after the first frost, which ones to cut into a fist sized ball, and which ones to leave alone. They are all perennials, so they should come back in the spring. I really like how it came out, and the designer was a pleasure to deal with - Her name was Liz Klein with Design My Yard, for anyone interested. She has a website. I was just glad she took my little job. So many designers only want projects over $10,000. They won't even deal with small projects. I think with the economy right now though, this is the best time to do this kind of stuff. I even got great deals on the plants since it was 'end of season', so she was able to get me bigger plants than she originally expected.

When I first decided to do this, I really thought it was going to cost a crap ton of money. I always watch 'Curb Appeal' on HGTV and most of their yards are on the east coast. Every so often they'll flash how much money each item is, and it's always really pricey. When Liz first showed me the plans, I really thought it was over $10,000. She was saying how item A is 'more expensive' than item B, and I kept saying, what do you mean, 'more expensive??' Couple hundred dollars or couple thousand??? I had no concept of what things cost out here. But, she said I could do most of the original plan for $5,000 I was shocked. But, she said things are a lot cheaper out here in Texas compared to the east coast. And, the quarry where most of my rock came from is actually just down the street from me, so the delivery was cheaper. All in all, if anyone is thinking of doing this, the irrigation was $1450 and the yard was almost $6000 - which includes all the stone work and new walk way. I think phase 2 is going to be around $1500. I'm really happy with how it all came out. Michael also chipped in some money as part of my birthday present, which really helped pay for it. I had planned on using the last of my Accenture stock, but then the market tanked, and I ended up just using money out of my savings. That was annoying. One of the reasons I'm doing this now is that if Michael and I do get married, we're going to need a bigger house. So, I know within 3-4 years I'm going to sell this house. By then the yard will be matured and it will really add value to the house. I'll definitley get my money back with the sale price.

Oh,....yes, I did paint my kitchen but I don't have pictures yet. I'll post that later.

I guess that's it for now. Going to Mike & Annette's for dinner and a movie tonight - They're making a new slow-cooker recipe and need guinea pigs. Eh, I'm always up for free food! I'm making dessert. I'm trying a new cheesecake recipe which is currently chilling in the frig. But, as is my way, I never rely on a new recipe when bringing food to a friend's house, so I also made Ghiradelli brownies which are always good. We're going to see Tropic Thunder, which I've been looking forward to.

And what are YOU thankful for?

2008-11-27T23:26:00.003-06:00

I'm thankful that Thanksgiving is over and all 11 people have left my house.
I'm thankful that Michael's mom met my parents and it all went over quite well.
I'm thankful that several thousand dollars and three days of labor has transformed my front yard into something beautiful (pictures to come)
I'm thankful that having people over for Thanksgiving forced me to do some home projects I've been putting off....like painting the kitchen cabinets (pictures to come)
I'm thankful for Michael, my parents, and all my friends that support me and make me laugh.
I'm thankful for DVDFab.
I'm thankful for 1yr no interest financing (yes, I got my new TV...it's pretty)
and I'm thankful for many other things I can't put into words right now. I've been working really hard this past month getting my house ready for today, and now that it's over, I just want to SLEEP! talk to you soon....

Stupid ants!

2008-10-13T00:26:00.002-05:00

Mike has soundly chastised me for not posting. Sorry y'all. I am currently waging a war against ants in my kitchen. When I first bought this house in 2004 I had a lot of trouble with ants, so I started paying for a regular exterminator service that comes out every 3 months, and if I need them to come out special, I don't get charged. For the past few years I haven't had any ant problems. But, I think the drought has forced them to come into the house. So annoying. I love how 409 kills them. I just have to spray a little and they all die. And I'm cleaning the countertops at the same time! Windex works too, but not as fast. Anyways, I'll call the exterminator guy tomorrow and since Michael is on night shift this week he'll be able to meet them. That way I won't have to take time off work.

Uh, not much else going on. Michael and I had our 1 yr anniversary. We both have kayaks now. Yay! For the anniversary we went back down to San Antonio and had dinner at Bohanan's. It was still wonderful. And, I told our waiter that we were there for our anniversary and that we'd been before. When she brought out our appetizer (duck confit eggrolls which were amazing!) she also brought out a free appetizer! It was french grilled oysters. We both looked at each other and were like, uh great! thanks!. I'd had raw oysters in Virginia when my sister lived there. I gagged - couldn't let it just slide down my throat- so gross. But, these were breaded and grilled. So, I thought, hey, they were free, gotta try them. And they were AMAZING. If someone had just handed me one and said 'eat this' I would have no idea they were oysters. Not rubbery at all. Michael really enjoyed them too. It's always good to try new things (especially when they're free!)

side note....MESSAGE TO RANDY
Hey. Don't know if you check your comments on your blog or not, so I'm posting here since I know you read this. What TV shows do you want? What can you get in Japan? Didn't you mention you lost one of the Buffy tapes I sent you? Just let me know and I'll send you my original. I don't know why I'm keeping them since I have it all on DVD. Does your DVD player play DivX files? If so, let me know. That's an important question. I can hook you up with a ton of shows that Michael can download for me.

..side note ended.

Go to bed!

The Big Disappointment I call 'Ike'

2008-09-14T00:58:00.002-05:00

Yes, yes, major devastation throughout Houston/Beaumont/Galveston. But I'm not there, am I? No, I'm in AUSTIN. Where on Friday they said we had a 100% chance of rain on Saturday with high winds, etc, etc, etc. And you know what we got? Cloudy skies and four drops of rain on my windshield. First Eduard disappointed us and gave us nothing. Now, Ike comes through and we miss it by miles! Michael and I were watching the Weather Channel and I kept chanting 'Go West! Go West!', but alas, it swept east and we got NOTHING. I don't want to water my damn lawn tonight! When's the next hurricane coming through? Tropical Depression? Nasty looking storm cloud? Anything? I even cleaned my garage so I could park my car inside! Ike, you let me down!

Magnetic Spice Rack with bonus feature!

2008-08-20T22:16:00.003-05:00

Sometimes everything comes together perfectly!

Example: I'd been playing with the idea of doing a magnetic spice rack after being enamored by Alton Brown's on Good Eats. It just seemed like a good way to clear out the spice cabinet. Also, spices aren't supposed to be near the stove - heat and steam are not good for them. I noticed that my cabinet to the right of the stove actually got fairly warm inside when I was making pasta or something that steamed a lot. But, the one thing holding me back was repainting my cabinets. Right now they're what I call "peaches n cream". The previous previous owners loved the color peach and had it everywhere. The previous owners did not like the peach, but only painted the outside of the cabinets a cream color. So, cream outside, peach inside! That's classy! Sanding and repainting have been on my to-do list for quite some time and I didn't want to install a spice rack till I had all that worked out.

Well, then I got a completely different idea for a project. My cutting boards were resting against my backsplash and made the counter looked cluttered. Also, my cookie sheets and cooling racks were laying flat in my cabinets and taking up a lot of room. My cabinets just don't have a place for thin vertical storage. It occured to me that I could buy wall in-box holders and put the boards in that! I went online trying to find some that were sturdy enough for heavy cookie sheets but I really didn't find exactly what I was looking for. I was afraid I'd have to get legal sized in-boxes to hold the larger cutting boards. Well, this is a good example to not rely on just the internet! The moment I walked into Office Max I found exactly what I was looking for (and I can't even find it on their website!) They are metal holders without sides - so it doesn't matter how long the item is! And....since they're metal I can use them as magnetic spice holders!! Awesome! Two ideas in one project. It came out really well.

My pantry is really to the right of the door and in the left corner was previously a thin 5 drawer cabinet that didn't hold anything important. I moved that out and installed seven metal holders. Three on the wall to the left and four on the wall facing the door. They are now holding all of my cooling racks, cutting boards, and cookie sheets. I have opened a lot of space in my cabinets now.

You can see how crappy my door is. I really need to sand all that sticky stuff off and paint it. But, the pic gives you some idea on how my pantry works.

This is a side view so you can see both areas, kinda. They aren't perfectly spaced cause I was going more by what was in them, how I would be taking the items out of the holder, and how short I am. So, there really wasn't any "measuring" involved (my kind of project!). I made a cardboard template of my largest cookie sheet and used that to help gauge where to hang everything. The cardboard was light so it made it easy to hold the metal holder up while I marked the holes. I also cut out some green shelf liner that's the foamy non-stick kind. I already had it on hand and it helps cushion the metal racks against the metal holder (you can see it below). Michael went with me to Lowe's to pick out what type of wall anchors to use, but other than that, I did everything myself.

So, let's talk about the spices! I researched on the internet about this and there are a couple different types of containers out there. I ended up getting mine at Bed Bath & Beyond. The lids have a pour hole and sprinkle holes. The backs have huge magnets on them. There are other containers out there that don't have holes, but I wanted them. At BBB they're $2.99 each, which is actually really expensive. I just found them today at the Container Store in a package for 3 at $4.99 (the exact same kind). But, the reason I went to BBB was I have $25 gift cards from my Discover points and I have the $10 off $30 coupons they print in their fliers, so I used two coupons, saved $20 and used 'free money' gift cards - so I didn't have to outlay any cash for them. In case you didn't know - BBB coupons NEVER expire. They ignore the expiration date and you can use three at a time. I keep mine in the trunk of my car since I never know when I'll be shopping. Anyways, I bought 26 of them which sounds like a lot, but I like buying extra since you never know when one will break or if they stop making the same style. I bought clear labels and printed labels on my computer for them. Yes, I played with the font for awhile - wanted something different but still easy to read. Ended up using 'Civic'. I don't really like how you can see the label since it's not really 'clear', but oh well. It's what I bought and I didn't want to deal with it. I'm getting used to it, and it's not as noticeable as it is in the pictures. I also went to Walmart and bought all new spices. Figured I'd start out fresh!

I also had this great idea - for those spices that may not be permanent items in my pantry - I cut up whiteboard and taped it to the front of the spice tin (see below). These metal inbox holders actually came with little magnets, a picture frame, and a very thin magnetic white board. I just used scissors and cut circles out. It all came together perfectly! I'm very pleased. I'm still working out how I'm going to do liquids like vanilla or almond extract...I already have some ideas....

And one last thing - A VERY BIG THANK YOU goes out to Gil for helping me with yet another 'I can't believe your house hasn't burned down yet' electrical project. This house is just one adventure after another. On the left side of the wall in the pantry was a little halogen light that was somehow wired into the wall. Not plugged...the wire actually went into the wall and the patch job was so bad there was a big crack in the wall next to the wire. It didn't bother me before because I had my plastic bag holder hanging above it, covering it. Well, for this project it was in the way. And as I do for all strange electrical things, I called Gil. He came by, took off the light switch on the wall next to the pantry, and saw where they had used ELECTRICAL TAPE and just taped all the wires together. Lovely. But wait! There's even more craziness. We got a screwdriver and started making the crack bigger next to the wire, trying to figure out how big the hole was and how they had wired it. After getting some dry compound out of the hole, Gil started seeing paper stuck in it. Once we got past the compound he pulled out huge wads of yellow pages paper, sunday comics, and newspaper (dated 2001). Instead of patching the hole correctly they just waded up paper and them slathered compound over it! If those badly connected wires had sparked it probably would've caught the whole thing on fire. So, we disconnected the whole thing, tore the wire out of the wall, went to Lowe's and bought a new switch and drywall patch kit, and did it all up correctly. It looks really good. Gil did a great job with the first layer of drywall compound over the patch. I did the second coat and painted it. With all the holders up now you can't even see the patch. Thanks Gil! I still owe you dinner!

We've started smoking! (In a good way)

2008-08-20T21:36:00.005-05:00

One of my favorite things about Texas is that barbeque is taken VERY seriously out here. Michael recently purchased a smoker and it has been AWESOME! It's the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker Smoker. I asked him why he got that one and his response was that there's entire websites devoted to this smoker and what you can do with it. Hmmm...good response. I have completely removed myself from the workings of this smoker. This is Micheal's fun time - I just reap the rewards. He's made a place in my backyard where there aren't too many trees around. Once the smoker's going with the wood and charcoal it really doesn't put off any fire hazhards - it's just getting the charcoal ready that's rather flamey.

Anyways, on his first big run he smoked two kinds of ribs (one with sauce and one dry), handmade sausage that he'd made previously, and a pork shoulder that turned into pulled pork.

When he said what he was making I started inviting people over. Mike/Annette and Jeff/Judy came over to help us eat. It was soooo freaking yummy. We had a ton of pulled pork left over so I gave some to my parents too (and getting some bonus points for Michael in the process).

This is what the pork looked like coming out of the smoker. The blackness is just the smoked meat. It's not burned or anything. It's good stuff.

Wimberely

2008-07-27T15:49:00.002-05:00

Item 3 - The 21st (Monday) was Michael's birthday. A few months ago we agreed to take Friday and Monday off but at the time didn't have any plans. We just wanted to get the request into work. As the time got closer, we decided to do a trip but didn't want to fly or travel too far. I told Michael I'd plan everything as part of his birthday present. I researched day/weekend trips from Austin and came across the little town of Wimberley. It's only 5o minutes from here and really easy to get to. It's known as an artist community and there's lots of galleries down there. It's kinda a 'one road town' where everything is based around RR 12 that goes through it. It's the type of town you could do in a day or a leisurely weekend. Michael wanted to have a lot of relaxation time, so this fit perfectly. I booked us at a beautiful Bed & Breakfast I found online (http://www.creekhaveninn.com/) and got the least feminine room they had available. Friday we drove down and went to the Wimberely Glass Works (http://www.wgw.com/) which was out of our price range, but stunning to look at. We then checked into the B&B and went down the road into town for dinner. I had chosen an Italian restaurant in the square that had good reviews on the internet. It was really yummy. The town itself is 'dry' in that they don't sell alcohol, but you can bring your own bottles to restaurants and that's allowed. It's a common thing in Texas. Saturday we had a wonderful breakfast at the B&B and then went shopping on the main street and square. There's lots of little shops that have art, pottery, jewelry, stained glass, etc. We were out almost three hours. I bought a gorgeous silver bracelet that was all hand worked. I didn't see any art that I wanted, although there were a couple of bronze statues that if I had $4000 to plunk down would have been coming home with me. We had a small lunch in town and then went back to the B&B to hang out till dinner time. The whole town closes up by 9pm, so I had made reservations at the local steakhouse for 7. I had found it online and all the reviews were positive (http://www.cedargrovesteakhouse.com/). It was an incredible dinner.

Michael always gets the crab cakes for an appetizer if the restaurant carries them. He said the ones at this place were the third best he's ever had (followed by one in Portland and one at some fancy 4-star place he went). I don't even like crab usually, but these were damn tasty.

Some of the reviews said that this place had the best duck they've ever had. I've never had duck, but figured might was well give it a try here. It was so freaking good! It tasted like a cross between turkey and steak. I didn't think it was gamey at all. It was in a port wine reduction sauce and came with creamy garliz orzo (small rice like pasta) and I substitued parmesan mashed potatoes for the asparagus that would've come with it. I really enjoyed it. Michael got a New York strip that he said was really good.

For dessert Michael got the creme brulee, and he said it's the best he's ever had. Even better than Bohanan's. I got the mousse chocolate cake. I'm usually really critical about restaurant chocolate cake. It's usually too dry. This was probably the best I've ever had.

Early in the meal I told our waiter we were here for Michael's birthday and to give the check to me. When he came with the check he said they had comped his creme brulee as a birthday treat! So, we got a $9 dessert for free! Yay! The whole dinner was under $100 which I didn't think was bad at all for appetizer, duck, steak, two desserts, and one glass of wine. I would so go there again.

All in all, Wimberely was just a great trip. Now Michael's all freaked out about how he's going to 'top' this for my birthday. I told him it's not the amount of money spent, it's the thought that goes into it. So, we'll see what he does in October. For his actual gift I got him a kitchen blow torch for making creme brulee and an aquarium that I know he wanted. I gave him a gift card for the plants and fish cause there was no way I was picking that stuff out. So, A+ for me for his birthday.

Baby Shower & Baby Room - no, not mine silly!

2008-07-27T14:59:00.007-05:00

Ok, I have been soundly chastised for that tiny previous post. Since I've got some time right now, I'll try to update as much as possible.

Item 1 - Mike & Annette's awesome baby room which I helped paint. They went with a transportation/automative theme after seeing something similar on the internet. The entire room is that carribean blue color, with a wide tan stripe around the middle. The mural above the crib is from a picture of Austin's 360 Bridge (a major landmark here).

All of the signs painted were done using Mike's projector from the upstairs theater and pictures from the internet. He projected the picture onto the wall and we traced it with pencil. Using small art brushes we just painted regular wall paint within the lines. It was really tedious but it came out so great. Mike did all the work on the mural. I did the I-35 sign, the Slippery When Wet, a Stop Light Sign (not pictured), and half of the No Parking. Mike and Annette did the Stop Sign and the green Welcome to Texas sign. Annette did all the clouds. I realize that as much as I'm not 'artistic' in that I can't free hand worth a damn, I can follow the lines quite well. The No Parking sign looks like a real sign from a distance. Growing up on the east coast Mike & Annette are used to smooth walls. The texture on their walls here was so annoying when trying to get smooth lines!

The truck is a decal. It came in a really cool set that they found that had a bunch of car/truck/racing decals.

One of Annette's uncles in New York works for Mack truck and he got them these die-cast models that are 1/32 (or something) exact models of the trucks. The hoods of the trucks come up and everything is so detailed. They're a great addition to the room. The little trucks on the wall are decals, the Stop Sign is painted.

Item 2 - Annette's Baby Shower

As soon as we heard Annette was going to have a baby, Judy suggested throwing them a Baby Shower. So she and I got together to plan a N0-Kidding group baby shower! Heh, is that ironic? Since neither of us goes to many baby showers, we decided to have some fun with it and do a few games. The first one was 'Meaure the Tummy'. I brought ribbon and everyone had to cut a piece that they thought would go around Annette's tummy. The closest one wins. I was so close! I was only 1/4 inch off from the winner. (and don't you think the tiara is cute? Judy and I had a lot of fun shopping for this!)

Another game not shown was guessing the number of M&M's in a baby bottle. I had counted every single damn one of those, and in fact Judy got it right!

The last game we did was something that Judy had done before and it was a BLAST. You go around in a circle and everyone says a baby's name that matches the next letter of the alphabet. Since they're having a boy, we only did boy names. As the alphabet goes around, if we get to a letter and no one can think of a name (like for X or U or O), we would all agree to stop that letter and go to the next. But, if you had K and couldn't think of a K name, but other people agreed that there were other fairly common K names out there, then you were out of the game. I don't even know how many times we went around, but we came up with a lot of names! In the beginning I said you couldn't use 'Chair' or 'Window' or some crazy ass word and say it's a 'name'. All names had to be commonly accepted as a boy's name. We did accept older names though. We also said if Charles was said, you couldn't use Chuck or Charlie. Samething with Robert - couldn't use Rob or Robby. They had to be 'unique' names, so to speak.

Here's the list. The dash means the letter was stopped. I think if you click on the picture it gets bigger. I especially liked 'Zule'.

Heh. Judy pointed this out. It's their to-do list on the fridge. Check out what I circled in black.

Stop driving slow!!!

2008-07-24T23:09:00.002-05:00

Yes, I understand gas is $4.00 a gallon, but driving 50 mph in the FAST LANE will only cause accidents! If you're gonna drive like an old granny, get your ass over to the slow lane! Argh! I'm getting so annoyed with these people driving so freaking slow.

that's it for now...I have a shit load of pictures to post and stuff happening, but I've got to keep cleaning house - Saturday I'm hosting a Pampered Chef party for my neighbors and co-workers. oh, and yes, my sister had her baby on Saturday - little Olivia Rose. I said it was ok to use my middle name (also my mom's) since I'm not going to have kids - it's only fair that she gets use of it.

Happy Blowing Things Up Day!

2008-07-06T22:54:00.003-05:00

Was this really a three day weekend? It went by so fast. Friday Michael went to a co-worker's house for a picnic and I went to my parent's house. We did hot dogs/hamburgers, very low key. Later Michael and I were going to go to the Alamo Drafthouse cinema to see Sex and the City, but just as I was going to leave my mom's to get tickets, his friends Shelly & Bryan called me to invite us to dinner. They had a baby a few months ago so we don't see them that often. I really like them and get along with them. So, I called Michael and he agreed he'd rather see them than the movie. We all met up at Kerby Lane for dinner and had gelato (um!) afterwards. Shelly works at Parks and Wildlife and knows all the kayaking and hiking trails. The department actually 'rates' trails where they'll take kayaks down the path, take GPS coordinates the whole time, take pictures of flora/fauna in the area, and rate how deep the water is and if there's portage places. That's so cool that she gets paid to do that. Sometime they'll get a babysitter and we're all going to go kayaking. Ok...anyways,..... after dinner Michael and I went back to my parent's house. My mom's computer was acting up and wanted Michael to look at it. After he got done fixing it, the fireworks had started. Uh, yeah, that's something I'll never get used to. Out here fireworks are legal as long as you're not in the 'city' of Austin. My parent's house is considered 'county' as is mine, so fireworks are legal. Now, when I say fireworks, yes they have Roman Candles and sparklers, etc. But they also have the huge ass exploding fireworks that shoot way up in the air and explode in a huge burst. You know, the ones you see at professional events. Yeah, you can buy that kind out here! Crazy. One house to the left and two houses to the right were setting off fireworks in the street. So, we just all sat on my parent's front deck and enjoyed the show. The nice thing was that the fireworks were in the street, but we were up by the house so we didn't get into all the smoke/gas that gets discharged when the fireworks are set off. It was AWESOME.

Saturday Gil had a 'Thanksgiving in July'. He had a turkey in his freezer that he bought on sale and he wanted to get people together to eat it. He invited a bunch of no kidding folks, thinking a lot wouldn't be able to come due to the holiday weekend. Well, he had 19 people! We all brought food so there was plenty to go around. As usual I went a little overboard with cooking. I had wanted to do a pasta dish, homemade biscuits, and stuffed zucchini - all new recipes. I ended up making stuffed manicotti and stuffed shells. I also sauteed some yellow squash, onions, and zucchini in case people just wanted a simple veggie side dish. The manicotti were pretty good, but I think I need to fiddle with the recipe for the stuffed shells. I just gave up on doing the biscuits and stuffed zucchini. Well, I still have all the ingredients, so maybe I'll make them this week. We'll see.

Today Michael and I went shopping. We got the car rack and kayak holder for my car. Even though we're not buying kayaks yet, there's a place in town that rents a lot of different kayaks and Michael wants to try out some different ones. If we have the car rack we can go and rent them, and then drive to the water for the put in. I've basically found the one I want. http://www.wildernesssystems.com/tarpon-120

He wants to try the Tarpon 140 and a couple of sit-insides. After falling into the river last time, I've realized I definitly want a sit-on-top kayak. It's easier to get into from the water, and I won't feel 'trapped' if I fall in the water. I think I might want Orange. I've already decided I'm going to buy that Rustoleum spray paint for plastic and customize the paint job. We've joked about putting flames on it. That would be interesting. Anyways, we're slowly going to the inevitable of buying kayaks. Michael found out that the place in town he's renting from has a 'Demo Day' in September and the kayaks are on sale then. So, if they have the ones we want, we'll probably get them then. That's right around our 1 year Anniversay, so I joked about just buying kayaks as our gifts to each other instead of trying to find something special and most likely expensive. The kayaks are expensive enough - $750 or so. We also need to buy a mount system for my garage. We measured today and a 14 foot kayak will fit, but just barely. I know we'll be buying a kayak soon, I just don't want to pay full price. They never go on 'sale' so we have to wait for these special events. Hopefully we'll get ours in Sept in time for the weather to cool down. There are just so many rivers, lakes, and paddling trails around Austin - there's a lot of opportunity to kayak. I don't think we'd get tired of it. See how happy I am!

Keystone Kayakers

2008-06-16T18:19:00.004-05:00

In my last post I said nothing was going on, well now there's stuff! A couple weeks ago Mike got a huge group together to go kayaking down the Colorado River. There's a little town called Webberville about 40 minutes from here and there's a place on the river that rents canoes and kayaks. Mike got 10 people together for the trip! Only four people had to rent kayaks and it was only $20 flat fee. I thought that was resonable. Michael and I brought our own paddles (which I LOVE) but the guy gave us the rest of the stuff. Anyways, the way it works when kayaking a river is that they drop the cars off at the bottom and then drive back up to the top to 'put in'. Then, we basically just drift with the current until we reach the 'take out' spot where the cars are. It's really not all that physically demanding - you just paddle to keep yourself straight and out of the TREES LINING THE RIVER. What? Keeping out of the way of the overhanging limbs? Surely you jest! Well kids, let me tell you a little story about the Keystone Kayakers. Everything was going fine in the first hour. We had all scattered a bit down the middle of the river but were still fairly close. There was a spot where the river turned a bit and the channel narrowed. All of a sudden, we hear that Lynn got knocked into the water by some overhanging branches - she hadn't noticed how close to the shore she had gotten. So, while we are all turned around watching to make sure she's ok, other people got swept into the trees by the current too. I hear Annette say that Michael's in the water too, so I paddled over to help. I grabbed his paddle so he could focus on the kayak and getting back in. The current was so swift, you had to grab everything quickly or else it would be downstream before you knew it. Then, maybe a minute after I grabbed Michael's paddle, Annette yells to me to look out. I turn around and there's a HUGE overhangling limb. Now, this isn't exactly white water rafting, so it's not like it was rushing at me. So, I saw it and thought 'oh no big deal, I'll just brace my arm against it and stop myself.' Well, yeah, that stopped ME, but it didn't stop my kayak which continued with the current. Yep, I fell in too. I was able to feel the bottom of the riverbed where I was, but the current was so strong, I couldn't stop and stand up. I was able to grab the two paddles and my kayak. Then Annette came over and grabbed the paddles from me so I could hold onto her kayak while she pulled me to the shore. I've never been swimming in current before, and I'm so glad I had my life jacket on. That really made a huge difference. By this point, I had no idea what was happening with everyone else. I was just trying to get out of the current and find a place on the shore shallow enough for me to get back into the kayak. Annette paddled me over, and one of the other guys who had already fallen in and gotten back into his kayak came over to help me get back into mine. At the end of the farce, we realized that 6 out of 10 had fallen in, and 1 (Mike) had jumped in to help the rest out. But, since no one was injured we could all laugh about it. The only items we lost was my water bottle and a small towel I had in my pocket. Everything else had been strapped to our kayaks. Fun times, fun times. I would so do it again!

You may be wondering why Michael and I bought paddles. Well, I'm not ready to plunk down $700 on a kayak, but I would spend $150 on $200 paddles that were on sale. The paddles at the rental places are heavy and don't have the guards to keep the water off your hands. I decided that crappy paddles were impacting my enjoyment of the outing, whereas a rental kayak wasn't a big deal. So, we bought the paddles and are enjoying it a lot more. The paddles are so light and the one I got fits my hands a lot better than the rentals. I'll probably buy a kayak next year, after I see how much I go this summer. But, I'll also have to buy a car rack/mounting system to transport them, so there's that cost too. Michael has it all figured out on what we need to buy....just don't want to do it yet.

Yes, yes, I'm still alive

2008-06-06T21:53:00.002-05:00

I'm not even sorry I haven't posted! Not much going on, went kayaking, bought my own paddle, went kayaking again, we're going kayaking down the Colorado River tomorrow with 6 other friends, should be fun.

Movies:

Cloverfield - liked it, interesting premise and good camera work
The Kingdom - awesome movie, well balanced, good script, love Jennifer Garner
I am Legend - Will Smith can do anything. very well acted, but the ending was ok

Ok, that's it. Really, pretty boring.

I've been stimulated!

2008-05-10T12:45:00.006-05:00

Damn, it's been almost a month since the last post. Time goes by so fast! Yes, there's a ton to post about, but I'm not in the mood. I got my $600 stimulus check direct deposit yesterday! Woo Hoo! Hmmm, what to spend it on. Oh, that's right, I ALREADY SPENT IT! That's right boys and girls, no fun toys for this cowgirl. Instead, I got a shiny new water heater! A couple weeks ago Michael and were going to go kayaking with Jane for the first time. That morning when I went to take a shower, the water was lukewarm. Luckily, the water heater hadn't leaked or exploded or anything. Just the pilot light was out. And, as I do whenever I have a house emergency, I called my mommy. She said not to try to light it myself, and if I didn't smell gas, it had probably automatically shut itself off. She called her handyman who installed their water heater and has done a ton of remodeling for them. He's very reliable. He came out on a Sunday evening and got a new water heater and installed it. So, with the water heater, supplies, and install, that was $638. Yup, there went the stimulus check. Well, they said you should buy local, right? I guess that qualifies.

Yes, kayaking was a blast, will post pictures soon.

Finally had dinner with Melanie after 8 months of not seeing her. Her baby that was a premie is now 13 months and doing great. He's off all his oxygen and other stuff. It was great having dinner with her again. I missed her. Everyone tries to say that nothing will change after you have a baby, but those of us without kids know that EVERYTHING changes. In fact, Annette and Mike are pregnant now, and it'll be interesting to see how often we hang out after the baby is born. I joked that between me, Gil, Jeff, and Judy, we could always have team babysitting if they need a night out to themselves. I figured between the four of us, we could figure out how to care for an infant. I'm helping them paint the nursery (quite involved with murals and whatnot). Pictures will be posted when I'm done.

Well, what do you know, I AM in the mood to post. Well fine then, here are kayaking pictures of us on Town Lake! This is the first time Michael and I have ever kayaked and it was damn fun. I didn't feel like I'd fall in - the kayak was very sturdy. We rented them from a place right on the lake, and Jane brought one of her smaller ones (she has 4). She gave us some tips on how to paddle, but it took me a long time to get my angle right cause my hand kept hitting the side of the kayak. I couldn't go down too steeply cause my arms are short. So, I had to keep the paddles a little wider. We were out for 2 hours, and by the last half hour we all had a good rhythm going. Jane went slow since we were beginners. At one point I told her to do her usual paddling, and she just smoked us! The day was really overcast and not that hot. We would've stayed out longer, but a breeze started and my legs were getting cold. We really want to go again, just need to find time.

Michael and I went out to Fogo de Chao (http://www.fogodechao.com/) which is a Brazilian steakhouse where the waiters walk around with different types of meat on big skewers and they cut off pieces at your table. We also went with his friend Scott, and he and I had never been before. It was fun, but kinda expensive since it was all-you-can-eat. The meat was good, though. Scott took this picture of Michael and I. It's really grainy cause the flash wasn't on, and I haven't figured out all the settings yet. But, I thought we looked cute.

a little more

2008-04-16T01:57:00.000-05:00

I feel bad that the last few posts have just been about what’s going on. I haven’t really done a ‘perspective/my thoughts’ post in awhile. So, here you go.

I have been thinking about relationships a lot lately. Several of my friends have stepped up the search for a mate and I have been closely involved in the adventure.

Quite honestly, I still can’t believe I met Michael so quickly through Match and that we’re getting on so well. I thought it was going to take months and months to meet some guys decent enough to consider dating. The funny thing is that he thought he’d cancelled his membership, but instead it was on a monthly renewal. I guess that’s fate?

I have thoroughly thought through whether I’m with him just to be with someone or if I’m with him because I want to be with HIM. I’ve really debated this. As I have not been in many relationships, I wasn’t sure what my expectations (requirements) were, and I didn’t want to be with someone for the wrong reasons. I’ve learned a lot about myself in these past few months - what I need, what I won’t put up with, etc. And looking back before meeting Michael, I honestly liked being by myself. I didn’t mind doing things on my own and as I had several close friends, there was always someone around to go out with. I have never been the person that NEEDED a boyfriend, and I am so thankful for that. You have to be comfortable with yourself first before you can be comfortable with another person. Anyways, as much as I’ve thought it through, I am happy with Michael and I am happy in this relationship. He makes me laugh, he makes me feel good about myself, he supports and helps me, and I feel very comfortable with him. So, I’ve decided, yes, I’m really in this relationship. Is he my one true love? No. Am I expecting to ever find my one true love? No. I don’t think that’s cynicism, I just think it’s reality that it’s hard to find the PERFECT person out there. Michael is somewhat close to perfect, but his flaws are what make things interesting. If he acted exactly as I want him to or said exactly what I want him to say, that would be boring. He’s an individual and learning who he is and enjoying the adventure is what a relationship is. Right?

Chocolate aftermath

2008-04-05T17:41:00.003-05:00

Yes, the chocolate party went very well. Nothing was 'earth shattering', but everything was quite yummy.

I feel so bad about not posting! And it's not like nothing's going on! There's been quite a bit -

My mom had everyone over for Easter. My sister finally met Michael, so she can stop whining about it now. I also had Gil, Sherry, Nathan, and his new boyfriend Brian over. I think it was 10 total. All the food was so good. Nathan brough a pancetta brussel sprouts dish that was really good. I hadn't had brussel sprouts for 15+ years since I've never liked how my mom made it. But, just to be polite, since they'd done a lot of work on the dish, I tried one, and it was damn good. My mom made a ham and a turkey, so there was plenty of food to go around.

Last month for our sixth month anniversay, Michael gave me three hours of yardwork. Just what I wanted! (seriously). I DESPISE mowing the lawn and edging. He did such a good job -he also fertilized and watered it all in. He grew up on a large piece of land near Dallas/Fort Worth, so my yard, which seems big to me, seems small to him. Yay!

He also came over today and mowed my front and back lawns while my parents were over and we tilled the soil in my front planting bed for some cool Chinese purple witch hazel plants I recently bought. We also cleaned out all of my gutters. I have so many yard projects that I'm thinking about. Michael has been a huge help. It's great that he lives in an apartment, so we only have to deal with my lawn. I'll be taking pictures soon so you can see it. The lacebark elm that was planted last year is doing really well. I know it'll take a long time for it to really grow, but I think it's going to be a great tree.

Ok, gotta leave now. I'm going to a brazilian steakhouse with Michael and his friend Scott. Scott and I have never been there, and everyone says it's awesome. People come around with meat on big swords, and it's all you can eat. mmmmm mmmm meat.

Chocolate is always a good thing

2008-03-14T00:03:00.002-05:00

This week is our 6 month anniversary. I don’t think we’re really doing anything since Michael’s on night shift. I’m hosting party game night at my house on Friday, and then Saturday afternoon I’m having 9 people over for a chocolate party. Usually the No Kidding group has an annual Chocolate Party in Feb around Valentines. This year everyone forgot about it and no one wanted to deal with it. Well, since I’m a whore for chocolate, I figured I’d have a small party at my house just for our main No Kidding friends. I was so not in the mood to host a big shindig since I just did the Holiday Party in December. I figured if someone felt everyone should be invited, they could host it themselves. At the usual No Kidding party some people bring homemade items and some people bring store bought items. As this was a small private group, I made the rule that anything brought had to be homemade. Of course, box brownies are acceptable since you’re still actually baking. I just didn’t want to see a box of store bought cookies or something where all your effort was getting out your wallet. Most of us are trying out new recipes and I’m very excited. I’ve got three or four things I’ll be making. I’ll also have some non-chocolate stuff out to break it up a bit. At least I’m having party game night and the chocolate party back-to-back so I’ll only have to clean the house once.

Did I tell you I broke down and bought a Roomba off Woot? What can I say? I caved in. Everyone has one, and they seem so handy (robot vacuum cleaners http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=122). Mike had brought his over before to see how the cats reacted and they were fine. It even clears under my sofa! I named him Jack. But, I can’t run it while I’m gone cause it keeps getting stuck in the bottom of one of my chairs. I just run it when I get home, and it’s so quiet I don’t have to turn the volume up on the TV. Yes, I’m so lazy I watch TV while Jack vacuums.

Oh, do you not know what woot is?? Have I mentioned it to you? Well, one of the benefits of being friends with techies is that I hear about all the cool websites and new items coming out. Woot is a website that sells one item per day. If that item sells out, that’s it for the day. You never know how many they have to sell. Every so often there’s a woot-off where they clean out their inventory and they sell one item after another as each one sells out. Usually you can get amazing deals. A lot of the time the units are refurbished. That means someone has returned the item to the manufacturer, they fix whatever was wrong with it, and resell it cheaper. My roomba was a refurb and really there’s nothing wrong with it. New ones go for $200-$500 depending on the model. I got mine for under $100. I also bought a Dyson off woot for $200 instead of the usual $400. Mainly I like woot cause it’s something to check in the morning when I get into work. It’s fun to see what they have. Sometimes it’s cool, sometimes it’s crap. When it’s crap the forums really have fun tearing it up. Check it out! New items go up at midnight central time. www.woot.com

San Antonio p2

2008-03-11T00:38:00.004-05:00

I need to get to bed, but wanted to add these pictures of the missions. Besides the Alamo, there are 4 other missions. I saw two and drove by a third. They are all within about three miles of each other - which would have been an easy day of walking. The last picture is of the 'rose window' which is supposedly famous,...eh, it was pretty.

Ok, here I was just playing with camera angles.

San Antonio p1b

2008-03-03T18:22:00.002-06:00

Here are pictures from the Botanical Gardens

They also had glassed in conservatories. This one was all orchids. It was so pretty!

This conservatory had tropical plants. Thought this pic was cool.

San Antonio p1

2008-02-29T19:23:00.001-06:00

I know I was on a good roll for awhile. I meant to post this a few days ago but didn’t have the time.

Ok, here’s what’s been going on:

Did I talk about Valentine’s Day yet? We stayed in since neither of us wanted to deal with the crowds. We bought each other small gifts – nothing too huge. Michael made me dinner of garlic bread, homemade linguini with a pancetta tomato sauce similar to what he made me on our second date. For dessert he made homemade chocolate ice cream and I swear, if he hadn’t told me it was homemade I would have thought it was store bought – it was incredibly creamy and a really good flavor. All in all, it was a wonderful Valentine’s Day. I have personally never been against that day – I always considered it a good time to get cheap chocolate on 2/15!

Next item:
Last weekend Michael took me to San Antonio. We drove up Thursday night and stayed till Sunday. Our hotel was on the river walk and we really lucked out on the weather. It was just gorgeous the whole time. Friday we got up late, went to lunch on the river walk and then went to the Botanical Gardens. I know it’s February, but there were quite a few things to look at. Pictures later.

That night Michael had made reservations for dinner, so we got back to the hotel around 6 and then took our time getting ready. Where we were going was completely Michael’s idea. He had wanted steak, so he checked the steakhouse issue of Texas Monthly – it’s a really good Texas-centered magazine. The number 2 steakhouse in TX happened to be in San Antonio – called Bohanans. http://www.bohanans.com.

When we got there, the valet asked if we had reservations and when we said yes, he replied that he’d show us the private elevator. We walked through a courtyard and then took an elevator to the second floor. It opened right into the lobby. The Maitre’d was in a black suit and seated us immediately. At first, we weren’t given a menu – they just took our drink orders and then brought out crostini with cream cheese and jalepenos. It was a little too spicy for me, but Michael liked it. We had a main waiter and a waiter’s assistant. The waiter was in a full suit and the assistant was in white shirt, tie, and vest. They were quite spiffy. When they gave us the menu they also mentioned the off-menu items and that that they’d bring the ‘meat platter’ to show us. They also brought the wine list, which really was more like a ledger. I think it was about 40 pages! When they brought out the ‘meat platter’ we were speechless. It was a giant silver platter covered in meat that was shrink/plastic wrapped. One half was the top 2% of prime cuts that were $75.00. In the middle was a 34 oz bone-in Rib Eye, from which the bone protruded at least a foot (no,I’m not kidding, a foot). On the other side was the good stuff- Akaushi beef. They were $95 EACH. But, they were a good size – 12/14 oz.

Here are two links about it. Believe me – you’ll want to check this out.
Link to the article that originally got Michael interested in the restaurant:

http://www.texasmonthly.com/2007-12-01/feature.php

Explantion of the beef at the bottom of the page under the heading
"How Now Brown Cow"

http://www.texasmonthly.com/2007-12-01/feature-7.php

We just kind of looked at each other and Michael flat out said he was getting the Akaushi rib-eye and that I could get whatever I wanted. Rib-eye is usually too fatty for me, so I got the New York strip. I’ll come back to the meat in a bit. For appetizer Michael ordered miniature crab cakes. Everytime we go to a fancy restaurant that has crab cakes, he has to try them out. When the waiter was telling us about the specials he mentioned caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes with 15yr balsamic vinegar. Now, I’m not much on tomatoes, but I really like buffalo mozzarella, and it’s hard to find good quality. So, I went ahead and ordered that. It was so freaking good. I even ate ½ of the tomatoes. After the appetizer they brought out an intermezzo – palate cleanser. It was a martini glass with a scoop of raspberry sorbet, a blueberry and a mint leaf. It was perfect. While we were waiting for the main meal, the waiter brought out a wooden box with steak knives lined up, for us to choose our own knives. Michael looked it up afterwards and they were like $100 each. Really nicely designed and very sharp. Ok, here’s the main dish: Michael ordered the Akaushi Rib-Eye and for sides he got potatoes-au-gratin and White Truffle Oil steak fries. I got the Akaushi New York Strip, baked squash, and macaroni & cheese. Michael had one glass of red wine with the meal too – a 2004 Fransiscian. Really, we didn’t need four sides, although they were single serving. We just wanted to try them out. The white truffle oil steak fries were quite tasty, and my baked squash was unbelievable. It was the mashed up insides of the squash with clarified butter, bread crumbs, cheese, and crushed crackers on the top. It was incredible. The potatoes-au-gratin were ok, and the mac & cheese was too pungent for me, though Michael really liked it. Ok, onto the steak.If you missed it earlier, yes they were $95 EACH just for the steak. But, I’ve got to say, it was worth it! They were just incredible. We ended up splitting each and sharing, so I got half of the rib-eye and he got half the New York Strip. Usually rib-eye is too fatty for me, but with this beef, the fat was so microscopic and throughout the whole meat, it just made it so tender and soft. It practically melted in your mouth. The New York Strip was quite thick so it had more chew to it, but really after two or three chews it was done. Both were incredible. You know how you have some wonderful food and the first few bites you’re like ‘wow, this is really good! I love it!’ but then by the time you’re half way through, it’s really just a meal and you’re just eating it? Well, with this steak, every single bite was an experience. We starting cutting our bites really small cause it was so flavorful – you didn’t need a mouthful. It never got bland or too much. I just cannot say enough about this beef. You can only get it a few places in the US, so I’m glad one of them is in San Antonio! I told Michael that while I still like Logan’s Roadhouse for a nice $12 steak, let’s forget about all the other ‘fancy’ places like Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. When he’s wanting a good steak, he should just give me $40 to put in an envelope for our Bohanan’s fund. Throughout the whole meal the waiter’s assistant made sure our drinks were full. I had sprite and Michael had iced tea. When my drink got to the middle of the glass, they immediately brought me a new one. No asking what I was drinking or if I wanted more…just immediate service. I was really impressed. By the end of the meal I was quite full. Michael ordered Madagascar vanilla creme brulee since he really likes crème brulee and we figured they’d do a great job here. But, I wasn’t really in the mood for a heavy dessert, so I actually just asked for another serving of the raspberry sorbet intermezzo. The crème brulee was the best I’ve ever tried- and I usually don’t like it. My raspberry sorbet was perfect – a perfect ending – and they didn’t charge me for it, which I thought was classy. By the time we left, it was almost 3 hours. Oh, yeah, the total bill with tip was $360. Not bad considering only $14 was liquor! As much of a cheapskate as I am......it was worth it, and I’d do it again. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was such an experience.

two posts in two days! wow

2008-02-20T19:43:00.002-06:00

Damn you guys! Do you have some setting to tell you when I post? Love all the quick comments!

Ok, let me add something about my previous post. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with internet dating. I’m merely saying that for ME, I was a little disappointed that I’d had to resort to that. I guess I’m just old fashioned enough for it to bother me. I’ve never been asked out on a date, and the fact that I met my current boyfriend through ME emailing HIM does tweek me a little. But, whatever, that’s how it worked out.

New topic:here’s a little rant for you. As most of you know, I am usually a happy, upbeat person. Yes, I’m sarcastic, but I’m not ‘mean’ or ‘angry’ most of the time. But, there is one topic that will get me extremely mad. That is when people that are in relationships do not realize how hard it is to meet someone – and they make single people feel bad for being single. Before meeting Michael, I had not had a date since sophomore year of college….1997. My brief joke of a relationship back in Dec of ’06 does not count because I was never asked out nor did we ever go on a real date. I don’t even think the guy paid for anything. So, yeah, that doesn’t count at all.

Anyways, I think current media – books, tv, movies, make it seem like everyone is dating and if you’re home alone on a Friday night then there’s something ‘wrong’ with you. I never understood how women could have several dates with different men in the same week. I think people that are constantly dating someone (serial monogamy) or have been married for awhile, don’t realize that not everyone is getting hit on at the grocery store. There are many, many, many very nice, normal, polite, friendly, caring people that aren’t dating. Even women that go out to singles events, or speed dating, or trying to meet people through friends of friends, there’s no real guarantee of meeting someone or being asked out. Sometimes guys don’t realize what their ‘league’ is and they just want to talk to the hot chicks – ignoring the normal looking women. I know it’s hard for guys to ask out girls, but it’s even harder for us!

I have always felt that I’d rather be alone than with the wrong guy. I have never felt that I ‘needed’ a boyfriend. I truly believe that there is someone out there for everyone. And quite honestly, I feel that there’s multiple someones for everyone, cause just 1 would be too mean. Ok, back on point. I don’t think anyone should make anyone else feel bad for not having a date in X number of weeks/months/years. Sure, you have to at least TRY. You’re not going to meet anyone while sitting on your sofa. But, just because someone is 40 and never married doesn’t mean there’s something ‘wrong’ with them – that they’re afraid of commitment, or a momma’s boy, or a perpetual immature teenager. Maybe they just haven’t found the right person. I know it’s easy to get depressed and feel that there’s no one out there for you. It’s such a cliché, but you just have to keep a positive outlook on the whole thing. You will meet someone, and they’ll be wonderful, and they’ll make you happy.

I guess it's time

2008-02-19T22:35:00.001-06:00

I guess it’s time I come clean about how Michael and I met. And really, I’m not doing this because I feel guilty about fudging the truth. I’m mainly doing this because I can’t remember who I’ve told what! That’s why I don’t usually lie about stuff – my memory isn’t good enough. So here it is:

Yes, Michael works with Melanie- that was true. But, we actually met over Match.com. Shocking, I know.

Fade to black as the flashback comes into focus:

Picture it – Austin, 2007. I was 29 years old. About to turn 30. I decided to get a bit more active in trying to find someone to be in my life. One of the women at my office had met her boyfriend on match. They’ve been together over 2 years and neither of them are what I consider ‘lookers’. Very much country Texans. I figured if those two found each other, there’s hope for me. So I went on, did a profile, posted a few pictures. Thank goodness I’ve got a nice smile and photograph fairly well – and I guess a bit of sarcasm didn’t hurt either. I was very up front about not wanting kids at all and that it was non-negotiable.

There are A LOT of people on match! Some really gorgeous guys, but also a lot of ‘regular’ guys in all shapes and sizes. I emailed a bunch of them with a short greeting. The large majority did not respond. A couple responded saying they’d met someone already. One guy I did chat with, but I felt I was being interrogated, so I cut that off quickly. Then I emailed Michael. He emailed me back and we went back and forth a few times. Then we did a phone call…I think it lasted over an hour, can’t remember. Then we met for lunch. Four hours into our first date, the conversation went around to me volunteering at the shelter. He said, “hey, if you volunteered there, you must know Megan, our HR person. She used to work there.” I said, “well, if you know Megan, then you know Melanie, my best friend, and I know exactly where you work.” We got very quiet for a few minutes while we digested how small Austin is. At that point Michael went from being ‘internet stranger’ to ‘guy that works with Melanie’. That facilitated the date going to 11+ hours. Then I called Melanie to get all the dirt on him, and she said he was a cool guy. Five months later, we’re still going out, still getting along, still enjoying being together.

Why did I fudge the truth? Well, basically if this relationship had only lasted a month or so, I wouldn’t have said anything. But, since this is getting fairly serious, I felt I should come clean. Also, I wanted to encourage anyone out there thinking about going online, to try it out. Do match.com, not eharmony. I hated eharmony. It’s not set up well and hard to use. Yes, I did both. In the long run, if a few hundred dollars helps me find the guy to spend the rest of my life with, that’s a decent investment. Of course, it’s also a large amount of rejection. I feel you just have to brush that off and say, eh, he wasn’t the guy for me then. If anyone wants encouragement or support in trying it out – let me know. I’ll help write your profile…and Michael can take pictures if you need!

lost track of time

2008-02-13T22:34:00.002-06:00

sorry cpu I know I'd said I'd post a bunch in response to your blog.....but I'm tired. I know it's only 10:30, but I haven't been sleeping well lately. Actually fell asleep at work yesterday! Ah, fun times.

Hey, was I supposed to tell people about your blog?
Everyone, check it out! It's lots of fun rants.
http://madcompscientist.blogspot.com/

I'm just shocked the name was still open!

If you want me to remove the link just let me know.

Just a little narcisistic

2008-02-05T19:26:00.000-06:00

Ok this is when he was fiddling with the lights in the beginning and I got tired of smiling for no reason. He wasn't really taking pictures at this point - just testing the lights. This is in no way my 'real' photoshoot with Michael. I was also not having a good hair day.

Yes, that's me doing cross-eyes

Ok, this is where I was actually trying to look cute.

I told Michael to take this photo this way. I really like it.

well really, there's no excuse

2008-02-05T18:52:00.000-06:00

I'm all by myself tonight. Michael has a photo shoot for some acrobat friends of his, so he'll be getting in late. I've been putzing about on the internet, checking up on blogs (bad Randy! post more!) (yay to Gil! always interesting!) and realized I really need to post on mine.

It'll be a quiet night tonight. Not only is Michael busy, but I left my cell phone at work. I never do that, but I just drove off and left it sitting by my monitor. And since I don't have a home phone, this night will be fairly silent.

I'm trying to decide what I want to do...sleep, read, cook, do laundry (ok, I've already got a load going), watch tv (bunch of Reaper, Heroes, Sarah Conner eps to watch), or just continue to putz around on the internet. So many choices, so few hours before I have to go to bed. Oh, yeah, I guess I could look for a new job. I was supposed to be working on that, wasn't I? Sigh.

Oh, hey, my dad is doing really well. Thanks to everyone for their well wishes. The surgery went smoothly and he's healing nicely. He had a doc appt last week and they took the staples out. They'd met the staff at that office before when they got their flu shot, so the medical asst - Angie- gave them a bunch of free stuff to take home. They said my parents are 'cute'. He doesn't need to go back to the doctor unless something starts to not heal right. But, so far so good. He can't pick anything up that's heavier than 10lbs and he's gotten into trouble a couple times with that. Then my mom yells at him about whether he wants to go back into the hospital.

Hmmm...updates, updates, updates.......Mike & Annette have been making homemade pasta lately. That stuff is so freaking good. If you have the opportunity and have a mix master with the pasta attachment, def try it out. It's really easy and it's amazing how much better it tastes. .....A few nights ago we watched Lucky Number Slevin at Mike's with a bunch of people. Didn't care for the movie. Too much exposition at the end. I was like 'ok, I get it! just roll the credits already!'. Not recommended......ah, the tv show Psych is still going strong. They even had a spanish telenovella episode that was hilarious (Randy I know you were a Spanish major, so I taped it for you). It's on the USA channel - check it out. It's got hijinks......Went to Costco last weekend with Jeff/Judy and Jayne. The nice thing about going with other people is we can buy huge quantities of stuff and then split it. For example, buying a whole chocolate cake is excessive. But, buying a whole chocolate cake to SPLIT is perfectly acceptable. This time we found fresh butternut squash ravioli and jars of organic tomato basil sauce. We bought some and split it. Michael and I had the ravioli with the sauce on Saturday night. It was AMAZING. That sauce has got to be the best sauce I have ever had in my life. I'm not one to jump on the 'organic' bandwagon, but it tasted very fresh (for being from a jar!) and incredibly flavorful. The herbs were just right. I called Judy up to ask when we could go again. They had tried the ravioli and loved it too, but hadn't tried the sauce yet. I think we're going back in a couple weeks. I'm going to have to get several jars of that sauce. I hope they still have it. That's the only annoying thing about Costco-they don't carry some items all the time.

Oh, I guess I was going to post some of the pics Michael took of me, wasn't I? Ok, let me go work on that.

I feel kinda boring tonight. Not really happy about this post, but oh well. I'm just not witty tonight.

update on the dad

2008-01-23T21:08:00.001-06:00

Hey. My dad had surgery yesterday afternoon. The actual surgery was scheduled for 1pm but the doc said he'd probably be picked up from his room by noon. I wanted to see him before the surgery so I got off work at 11:30 and got there by 11:40. My mom said I had just missed him. I kinda had a weird feeling about that. I just really wanted to see him before they did the surgery. Well, they couldn't do it laparascopically because of too much inflammation. They tried it, but had to open him up halfway through (that's fairly common). Now he has a huge incision running down from below his belly button. The surgery was only two hours long, but he was in the recovery room for four hours instead of the usual hour and a half. His blood pressure got really low and they had to give him fluids and other medication. But, today he's back in his room and is doing really well. He's even walking the halls a bit. He'll probably be in there for another five days so they can make sure all the plumbing still works.

My mom and I waited in his room instead of the surgery waiting room - much more comfy and we had our own tv. My sister couldn't be there since she's pregnant and we don't want her to catch anything at the hospital. While we were waiting, my mom told me a bunch of stories I'd never heard before. We were watching TV and there was a program on about how a lot of the fast food that say '8grams of fat!' 'only 7 grams of fat!' actually can have a lot more or a lot less depending on how the worker makes it. My mom starting telling me a story about her parent's old bakery. In the 60's the government told them they had to display all the ingredients in the breads, pizza, donuts, etc and how many calories each one had. Well, they didn't have the money to get it tested, so they asked another place in town if they could just copy their numbers! So, that's what they did. Those wacky kids.

Thanks to everyone for your emails about my dad. As long as infection doesn't set in, I think he's going to be ok.

Not a good week

2008-01-18T18:38:00.000-06:00

The last few days of this week really sucked. My dad has been in the hospital since Wed with a perforated colon. I won't get into the messy details, but he's having surgery on Tuesday (by two of my doctors, so I know they'll do a good job) and then he'll be in the hospital for another week so they can make sure the colon and intestines are all working like they should be. They caught it early enough that it wasn't life threatening or anything. In general, he's been in good spirits. The whole thing has just been stressful. This is the first time one of my parents have been in the hospital for something urgent like that. My mom is holding up well.

This morning when I got into work, I found out that the office downtown that holds two of our clinics had caught fire. The fire was contained on the 5th floor, and we're on the 2nd, but the building was evacuated for a few hours in the morning and most of the staff came to my office. So I had to scramble to find desks and phones for everyone to reschedule patients and for the staff I didn't have phones for, I found them busy work to do.

And then later in the morning I realized that I have a urinary tract infection. Yay. Never had one before, and I wouldn't recommend it. I got in to see my doctor this afternoon and she gave me a 3 day pill supply. That should clear it right up.

The one bright and shining thing today is that Michael sent me flowers at work. Such a sweetie! They are so beautiful. It's a mix bouquet of carnations, lillies, and sunflowers. He knows that I despise red roses. I love what he sent. It's a 'thank you' for helping him write his annual review for work. I enjoyed doing it - it's been so long since I've written for a professional paper. I was whipping out all this cool vocab and phrases. I know it's hard to write your own review, so I was asking him questions about what he'd done during the year, how it benefited the company, its customers, and its employees, etc. It's a lot easier to remember what you've done when you've got someone grilling you with questions! I'm really happy that he sent me flowers. I've been wanting flowers for a while, but didn't want to say anything. I haven't been given flowers since my 21st birthday when Sherry bought me a bouquet of wildflowers. Sigh. I love getting flowers.

At least this week ended on a good note.

made it

2008-01-18T00:49:00.000-06:00

k, Jason got here around 11:30 - had a flat tire in El Paso and had to wait 4 hours for AAA. Then, his cell phone had no reception in the rest of Texas. At least he's a good-natured guy so all he said was he's having a 'bad day'.

Still waiting

2008-01-17T22:13:00.000-06:00

My friend Jason from California is moving to Florida to be with his new girlfriend. He was supposed to stay with me tonight on the way out there. He called at 11am to say he was in the middle of TX on I-10. I have not heard from him since. I left a message around 8:40 and now it's 10:14. I'm not sure if I'm annoyed or concerned. If I'm concerned, there's nothing I can really do about it. If I'm annoyed, again, eh, what can you do? If he wants a free place to stay, he'll call. If not, I'm going to bed in an hour regardless. If he just isn't calling for no reason, well, that's just rude.

Follow the trail of lights....

2008-01-17T21:51:00.000-06:00

One of the big things in Austin during the holidays is the 'Trail of Lights'. It's at Zilker Park and it's basically just lights on all the big trees and holiday displays (dioramas?) I had never been before, so Michael, John/Jessica, and John's mom took me. Here are some pictures.

This is a big string of lights that people go into and twirl around while looking up. It's very nausea-inducing. I'm really pleased with this picture - flag flying in the breeze and all.

Here's the entrance. What, are we in Vegas now?

Yeah, they put a lot of lights up

Ok, this is me fucking around with the night mode on my camera

Here's one of the dioramas. If I had been on acid, I think I would have started to freak out. Who created this stuff??

Ok, I know everyone is proud of being Texan, but come on!

Even the cattle skulls were in the holiday spirit! Yeesh.

Putting a little merry into my Christmas

2008-01-17T21:22:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I know it's the middle of January. Just shut up and drink your month-old eggnog.

I never would have decorated my house as much as I did if I hadn't hosted the ANK party. Here's some pics:

A ceramic tree my grandmother made for all of her grandchildren. This is the first time I've actually had it out. Yes, it's lit from the inside.

The day after Thanksgiving Michael's had some great sales on garland. I bought a bunch, as you can see.

Chris & Marjean from ANK had bought these lights for their tree and decided they didn't like them. Since I was hosting the party, they gave them to me. I think it was 12 strands. Michael held the ladder while I went up and hung the lights using picture hooks. It looked so cute. I just did one side of the living room wall.

Here's Jennifer and Kelly at the buffet. I put all four leaves into my dining room table and then pushed it against the wall. I had another table on the other side for the desserts. We used every inch! You can also see the fabulous color I recently painted my dining room. It's such a pretty green.

You can see all the party pictures here:
http://www.austinnokidding.com/xmas_07.htm

My holiday cookes. The usual - nothing new. And no injuries! Yay!

Don't get your hopes up

2008-01-09T22:17:00.000-06:00

Dear lord...I have so much to write about! Gah! Having a boyfriend really sucks up all my time! I stayed home tonight, hoping to get some cleaning done, blogging, etc. I ended up watching TV and fucking around with my new Quicken software. I've decided that I'm actually going to try and track my expenses. Gasp! I don't think I WANT to know, but I think I SHOULD know.

I really want to get to bed early, so I'll just do a quick recap and post more later:
1. Yes, Michael and I are still together. Almost 4 months.
2. Yes, he took my new blog picture. He is an amatuer photographer and has lights, backdrop, etc. He was testing lighting on someone with glasses and took a ton of photos of me. Most I was just fooling around in them with weird faces and whatnot. A couple came out cute. I'll add them later
3. New Year's was fairly tame - went to Michael's friend's house and hung out. I am slowly meeting everyone. The man knows a shit load of people. Luckily, I really like most of them.
4. My cats are fine. But, I have been very bad and have not been volunteering at the shelter much. I could blame Michael, but really, it started in the summer. I'm still doing Orientation, but I haven't been actually volunteering. I don't know why. It's been 4 years of going every weekend. I think I'm taking a sabbatical.
5. My brother-in-law graduated from the police academy last week. Now he's an Austin police officer. But, after his three-month training period, when he becomes an official officer, the Navy is shipping him out to Iraq for a year. They're waiting till then so APD is required to 'save' his job for him. Of course, nothing is final in the military till the orders are in your hand...but it's fairly certain he's going out. Oh, and my sister is pregnant again. Won't THAT be fun?
6. I am completely over my job. I kept saying 'next year' I'll start looking. Well, crap. That's now isn't it? Gotta get the resume updated and start looking. Why can't I just call up a company and say HIRE ME! so not looking forward to this.

ok, I guess that'll calm the masses for awhile. I promise to work on this over the weekend!

7. oh, by the way, Michael really made a home run with the Christmas presents. He got me RAM for my computer so it'll run faster (and installed it for me) and he got me the same camera that Mike took with us to Italy! It's the newer model, but basically the same thing - shock proof, water proof, in general very awesome. I kept mentioning how much I loved his camera but couldn't justify getting it since mine still worked well.

He also got me the little tripod gorilla grip (http://www.gizoo.co.uk/Products/AvCommunications/DigitalCameras/gorillapod.htm) which is AWESOME! You can get great night shots with it since it holds the camera still. It's also good for getting pictures of you/the whole group since no one has to hold it. Just wrap it around something or perch it on something and you're good to go. I was completely surprised at everything. Wasn't expecting it. I didn't spend as much, but got him more stuff and everything was really thoughtful so I think we were pretty even for our first Christmas gift-giving.

Ok,.........bye!

A mighty party

2007-12-16T02:25:00.001-06:00

Tonight was our ANK Holiday Party. I was asked to host since they like to change up the location every year. I had over 40 people at my house! It went wonderfully and I realized I really can have a crap load of people here! Luckily no one got drunk or rowdy and cleanup was fairly easy. Some people left items, so I'll have to get an email together with the list.

It started at 5pm with most people arriving by 5:30 - we're a very punctual bunch. Most people left 10:30-11:30, but Jerrie, Susan (new person I met last night at Game Night) and Sherry all stayed fairly late. Jerrie left at midnight, and then Susan, Sherry and I got into the hot tub for an hour. Michael and I have been the only ones using it, so it was interesting to see how the layout works with three people. I think three is the max. It's a 5-person hot tubs, but there's only so much room for your legs, you know?

I'll post pictures later. My house was so cute. I really had fun decorating. Tomorrow (or rather a few hours from now) I'll be working on my holiday cookies. You've seen in the past posts I ususally make 8-9 different kinds. I'll see how it turns out tomorrow. Yummy!

Company

2007-12-06T00:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday evening Heidi and Bert arrived on their road trip from CA to New Orleans. It's their belated honeymoon. They're driving to New Orleans and then flying back. They're leaving tomorrow morning, so really I just had one evening and one day to show them around Austin. As happens with so many of my visitors, I really planned the meals of the visit and left everything else up in the air. Capital building, Innerpace Caverns, Lake Travis, Mount Bonnell, LBJ Library, etc....there's a lot to choose from!

Tuesday night they got in around 7pm. Michael and I took them to Chuy's - my favorite tex-mex place. I think everyone liked it. Then we went back to my place. We were talking about going to 6th St, but they were tired and we ended up just chatting. This morning we went to Kirby Lane for breakfast (best pancakes ever!) and then stopped by the Ford dealership so Bert could look at a truck that he'd seen the night before. The sales guy was so pushy, he wouldn't leave us alone. Finally I just had to say WE AREN'T BUYING! and then he left us alone.

After the dealership we went back to my place to put the leftovers in the fridge and check the internet for movie times. We decided to go to the Alamo Drafthouse (movie and food) to see Beowulf. I called Nathan about it too since he also went to school with Heidi. Anyways, we stopped by the Domain for some shopping since they have White House/Black Market which Heidi loves but it's hard to get to in CA. Then we went to the capital and did the tour. That's always interesting. Afterwards we went to a late lunch at Rudy's BBQ (yummy!) and then onto Neiman Marcus Last Call. Heidi had asked if we had one, so I called my mom and she googled it for us. It was really close to Rudy's so we stopped by. Bert stayed in the car to sleep. The place wasn't that great. I mean, when a pair of jeans starts out at $200, 50% off is still $100. So, they're 'marked down' but everything was still hella expensive.

But by that time it was 5pm and Nathan got out of school. We met up with him at Barton Creek Mall where we did even more shopping and I got some cute stuff on clearance at Macy's. We wandered around for awhile till it was time to go to the movie. Michael hadn't wanted to go since he's more of a drama fan and I'm more of an action fan. But, I asked him to go so he could meet Nathan. Wow, after that movie, I told him that I 'owed' him a movie. Beowulf was not that good. It had received some good reviews, so I was hopeful. The script wasn't bad, it was just LONG and the weird computer animated people kinda gave me the creeps. You could tell they spent extra time on Angelina Jolie's character cause that one looked the most life-like. They also took more license with the gore since it was CGI. It was REALLY GORY. Even I was uncomfortable with how much gore there was, and I LOVED 300 which is a total bloodfest!

Now they're asleep in my guest room. They said my bed in there is really comfy. I realized I've never tried it out. One of these nights I'll have to sleep in there.

Meat! Meat! Meat!

2007-11-20T23:06:00.000-06:00

I’m actually impressed how quickly I got responses on my last post. I guess you guys really are checking this! Again, sorry about the long absence. I haven’t been spending much time on my home computer.

So, here’s some interesting stuff that happened:

The Alamo Drafthouse movie theater moved its Downtown location to a new building and they just finished renovating it. The owners decided to do a ‘quote along’ for Blazing Saddles. And, instead of just showing the movie, they decided to do a road trip for BBQ. They rented a party bus, filled it with 35 loyal patrons (including me, Michael (calling him MB now is just ridiculous since most of have you met him), and two of his friends John and Jessica) and we drove from 11:30 to 6:30 around Central Texas just to eat BBQ. Awesome. We went to four different places, all of which I’d never been to. They passed out these shirts that we all had to wear. It’s amazing how just wearing the same shirt builds such cult-like feelings (Meat! Meat! Meat!)

Tim, the owner of the Drafthouse was so excited about the BBQ, he wore his special Adidas BBQ shoes. So cute.

…anyways….the first place was Smitty’s in Lockhart. Lockhart is called the birthplace of Texas BBQ. There’s a family feud between Smitty’s and Kreuz’s…something about the dad dying and leaving the building to the son and the recipes and business to the daughter. So the daughter kicked out her brother and started her own BBQ place called Smitty’s….something like that. People take it very seriously if you’re a Kreuz’s fan vs a Smitty’s fan. Eh, I like both. One of the down-home kinda things is that all you get is butcher paper and a knife. There are no forks. You just eat everything with your hands! There’s also no BBQ sauce. It’s called dry BBQ. Kreuz’s is like that too. Makes it easier to eat with your hands. Oh, and of course there was the required white bread. Wheat bread just doesn’t cut it! The white bread gets all mushed into the brisket and it’s soooo good We were allocated ¼ lb of BBQ each, but basically anyone could go back for seconds as long as the food held out. We had prime rib, brisket, and lean brisket. I didn’t care for the sausage at all. I’m a real wimp when it comes to sausage. All the places we went to had really coarsely ground sausage and the texture just made me want to throw up. I’ll stick with the sausage at Rudy’s (the worst BBQ in TX! Hee hee).

After Smitty’s we went to Luling City Market. It was only a 20 minute drive, and by the time we got there everyone was still full from Smitty’s. The place was packed and they hadn’t set aside any room for us. I could tell Tim (the owner of the Drafthouse) was pissed about it, but we ended up sitting by the train tracks and eating on a load of discarded rail ties. I only had a couple bites. It wasn’t that good, and I was trying to save room for the next two places.

After Luling we drove to Gonzalez, about another 20 minutes. The owner greeted us and set us up at private tables. He was so happy to see us! He invited small groups to the back to see the fire pit and smoker. It smelled so delicious back there. The walls were completely black from years of BBQ smoke. I really liked it. We didn’t get any side dishes with the meat, but as we were walking out I looked at the main restaurant area and they had some yummy sides. We are definitely going back.

Oh, and the 'Come & Take It' is a reference to a battle in Gonzales in 1835. Something about us getting a cannon from Mexico and deciding we'd like to keep it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_and_take_it) Ah, those rascally Texans.

And last, but not least, was back to Lockhart for Black’s. We were supposed to go somewhere in Buda, but it closed down. I think Black’s was my favorite. We got pork tenderloin, brisket, and sausage. I really liked the pork and the brisket. By that point I really needed something non-meat so I asked for some potato salad and they didn’t even charge me for it. Nice people.

Lots of meat!

After all that meat was the drive back to the new Alamo downtown location. Everyone on the bus was friendly and chatty (did I mention the two kegs of beer in the back? Luckily before we left I asked if there was any water on the bus and they grabbed two buckets of bottled water before we left). I think my colon was in shock from all that meat.

When we got back to the Drafthouse they had reserved seats for us so we could all sit together. We got some strange looks at the t-shirts. They handed out cap guns and whoopee cushions to use at the appropriate points in the movie. The cap gun was cool! I didn’t use up all the caps, so I’ve got em saved for next Halloween or something. Never know when you’ll need a fake gun for a costume. I realized I had never seen Blazing Saddles all the way through. It was funny, but not my favorite Mel Brooks movie (Spaceballs!). We were pretty full, but I wanted dessert. Michael and I split an order of their just-made chocolate cookies and their molten chocolate cake. I’m usually pretty picky about chocolate cake at restaurants cause it’s usually too dry, but damn that was some awesome dessert. We got out around 9pm and Michael and I both agreed that for the 10 hours we were together, we got along quite well. Oh, and uh, here’s a picture of us on the bus. He’s a photographer on the side so he hates having his picture taken. I on the otherhand am a picture whore and am really good at the one-arm raised photo. So, yes, I took this. I think we look cute.

Movie Reviews:

Transformers: Sucked Ass. The special effects were INCREDIBLE but the story was really slow and the character that was supposed to be annoying was SO annoying I just wanted to rip his face off. So glad I didn’t pay for that in the theater.

Ratatouille: Pixar movie about a French rat that wants to be a chef. We saw this as ANK Movie Night last week and about 12 people were there. We ALL loved it. Pixar does such quality work. The pacing was good, characters were funny, lots of physical and verbal humor. I really really enjoyed it. Not just a kid’s movie!

Was that enough?

2007-10-29T02:20:00.000-05:00

All right, you're all caught up in my life. Now I'm going to bed, damnit!

Halloween 2007

2007-10-29T01:48:00.000-05:00

Our annual ANK Halloween party was a blast as usual. I told MB he didn't have to go since he didn't have a costume and it's such a low-key party. I wouldn't feel weird going by myself. He already met most of the people in ANK at movie night a couple weeks ago and they all gave him the thumbs up.

My costume this year was not as awesome as last year. I couldn't think of anything cool, so I went as a homeless person. Here are some pics of me and others at the party.

I had two different signs. They told me I was smiling too much in the pictures so we took this one too. I make a cute homeless person! The thing around my neck was braided newspaper and duct tape. The hat and plaid shirts were from my dad's old work clothes. I also got dirt from my backyard, added water, and smeared the mud on my face and chest.

The 'God Bless' really sells it, doesn't it?

Annette as a ballerina. She actually took that for 10 years and could stand on point!

Sherry (new to ANK, co-worker of Gil's) as Marilyn Monroe

Jeff and Judy as followers of followers of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (I've actually linked this on my blog before! http://www.venganza.org/about )

Group photo (some people got cut off on the right, though) And that's Mike in the back as the Dread Pirate Roberts from the Princess Bride...though some people thought he was Zorro. And on the left is Jerry as Fat Bastard from Austin Powers. Marjean in the front with the black lace was a Southern Belle who slashed her wrists after they lost the Civil War. Awesome costume.

I'm sure in a few days there'll be more posted here:

http://www.austinnokidding.com/special_07.htm

30th Birthday!

2007-10-29T01:39:00.000-05:00

Damn, I hate that little '3' in the front of my age now. Oh well. My actual birthday was on Wed and MB took me out. We've only been going out for 6 weeks and I told him he didn't need to get me anything, but he took that for the lie that it was. Instead, he surprised me with a bottle of my favorite perfume - Chance by Chanel. I don't wear perfume a lot, but I had a little tester of it and really like it. I'd worn it once a month ago and he mentioned that he really liked it. I offhandedly said the name and that I just had a little tester so I didn't wear it that often. We were in my room and I showed him it. Well, last week while I was on the phone with someone, he snuck into my bedroom to double check the name. So sweet. And it's a perfect gift cause it's something I wanted but would never have bought for myself.

For dinner he took my to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse where I've always wanted to go. Yes, it was good, but I don't think a piece of steak is worth $40. I'm not as much of a food connoisseur as he is. After, we went to Mozart's for dessert and sat by the lake for awhile. It was a wonderful birthday.

Everything with MB is going quite well. I can't believe it's been 6 weeks. He's very thoughtful and perceptive of what I say and my moods. He's starting to read me quite well (scary sometimes). Also, he really knows how to make a woman feel special. I've talked with some of my single girlfriends and we've all agreed that a lot of the single guys in their 30s/40s don't know how to treat a woman. They don't take the time to tell her she's beautiful or treat her like she's special. So few guys understand that importance of that. I am so lucky I met MB.

Corn Maze!

2007-10-29T01:28:00.000-05:00

Saturday I went out with Gil, Mike, and Annette for my birthday. We drove to Marble Falls for lunch at the Blue Bonnet Cafe. This place is really well known for its pies. I'm not going to get into it, but we were all disappointed. Before we left I had brought some of my mom's pear pie that she makes for me and THAT is pie! The stuff at Blue Bonnet was ok, but I wouldn't drive an hour out for it.

After lunch we went out to the corn maze and pumkpin patch. I'd never been to one and it was fun. The maze was in the shape of Texas and eveyone was given a paper card that had 10 names of cities on it. Throughout the maze were signs with each city's name on it and a hole punch. If you came out with a punch for every city you got a free soda (and yes, all punches were different). We got 8 of them in a little over an hour. I was getting hot and tired and wanted to stop. Mike went out, looked at a little map of Texas they had posted, and 2 minutes and many left/right turns later, we had all the punches. That man is a walking compass.

On the drive back we pulled off on a little road that Mike/Annette had been on before called Cow Creek Rd. It was an out-of-the-way road and with Cow Creek running next to it and really pretty trees everywhere. We pulled off at one spot and walked around the river a bit. I think this picture of Mike and Annette is cute. Nice outing.

Day at the Salon

2007-10-29T01:05:00.000-05:00

On Friday the 19th I took the day off work to go to a spa/salon that Judy and Jayne had both recommended. I'd never been to a spa before and had never gotten a real professional cut and color. I was turning 30, and thought I'd do it as a gift to myself. I was also looking forward to seeing what a 'professional' would suggest as a hair cut. I always just cut it straight around with a little layering in the back. It's so wavy, it kind of just does its own thing. Any cut I get has to take that into account and I didn't want to get my hair straightened. I was REALLY looking forward to the color. I wanted to do a color, highlights, streaks, whatever. I wanted to do something different.

The first thing was an hour long facial and brow wax. Ok, the facial I would definitely do again. That was awesome. She put a bunch of different stuff on my face and cleared out the pores on my nose and chin a bit. The brow wax was interesting. I just wanted them cleaned up a bit and shaped and she did a good job. Afterwards I was handed off to the owner of the salon (Marcia) for my cut and color.

She suggested a short layered cut in the back and leave the front long. Uh, ok? Then for color, I told her that I look really good with dark hair and reds. She agreed. She said she'd do some dark red lowlights that would look 'chunky' and 'cool'. Uh, ok? The cut only took a few minutes and then she did that funky tin foil thing with the color in my hair. While I was waiting for the color to set, one of the girls did makeup for me. That was fun. After 45 minutes they washed out the color. When I got back to the chair with my wet hair, Marcia said 'huh, you can't really see the red.' I replied that when wet my hair was dark and we'd probably see it after it was dry. Uh, not so much. She blow dried my hair and we just kinda both said nothing. You couldn't see the 'red lowlights' at all. My hair just looked darker with no color distinction. She pulled out a little slice of my non-colored hair and then a little slice of my colored hair, and I agreed that yes, parts of my hair were colored. But, you couldn't SEE IT. She said she'd only charge $20 instead of $65 for the color. Yeah, thanks. I could've done this with a $7 box of hair color from the grocery store. I was also disappointed with the cut. The long hair in front was weird and if it wasn't all styled and scrunched up and curly, it looked odd. And frankly, my hair isn't very curly every day. It all depends on the weather, humidity, and how fast it dried in the morning. Sometimes it just flips at the end. A week later I ended up having my mom cut off the extra inch in front so now it looks more like the length at the back...which is basically how I always cut my hair. Well, I tried, didn't I?

Before the cut/color:

During....see all that foil? SOMETHING was being colored!

...and an after picture in my kitchen. Wow, I look SO DIFFERENT! All right, I'll shut up now.

Two weeks ago...

2007-10-29T00:38:00.000-05:00

Obviously I have been piss-poor about posts. So, damnit, I'm going to catch up tonight!

Here's the first thing to talk about:

Last year sometime I went on a bird watching expedition with Jeff/Judy and some other ANK folk. It was a nice leisurely walk through a nature preserve with stopping often and enjoying nature. Our guide was wonderful and I really enjoyed the outing. So, when Judy sent me an email about an 'Autumn Amble' that a wildlife refuge was holding with a guided walk, I thought that sounded like fun. It said it was three hours of a leisurely walk to enjoy nature and learn about the local prairie land, wildlife, etc. Now I may not be as active as Mike/Annette or Matt, but I like nature. I like being outside. And since Jeff/Judy are about the same speed as me, I thought, why not?

Here's the website:

http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/texas/balcones/events.htm

It's about an hour outside of Austin, in a really pretty area out by Lago Vista. When we got there, we were greeted by a volunteer that was going to lead our group of 12 people. She said that she'd point out all the local plants and whatever wildlife we come across. Then she said 'we'll be going over that mountain and then around the side. It'll be pretty vigorous, so I hope everyone brought water'. Uh, vigorous? What happened to a leisurely amble? Amble means stroll, walk, enjoyable time in the outdoors! Jeff/Judy and I kinda looked at each other, and thought, hey, we can handle this. Most of our group were older people (40s-60s) so it's not like we were surrounded by heavy duty hikers.

At first, it was a great time. We ambled, we stopped, we looked at the pretty plants. Then, we got to the edge of the mountain side where our guide practically sprinted up the side. By the time we got up, I was....not enjoying myself as much. Then, it all went downhill from there (unfortunately I mean that figuratively). Our guide never really stopped long enough for us to ENJOY the countryside or take a rest. I'd stop to take a picture and then have to jog to catch up. Judy told me afterwards that one of the women had fallen and our guide didn't even stop. By the end of the three hours I was actually starting to feel faint. Our guide began talking about this random plant and I basically just interrupted her and asked if we stay on the path if we'd reach the parking lot. She said yes and that we were close. I just headed off, and most of the group followed me. I think we were all done. When we got to the parking lot I talked to a park ranger that had been in the back of our group and I asked him how long we just hiked. It was 4 1/2 miles! I told him if the website was going to say LEISURELY AMBLE it should have been more like two. That was a HIKE! Judy said she was close to taking our guide out near the end. But, it was nice to be outside and enjoying the great weather we've been having.

You can kinda see in this picture all the colors in the grass. Yes, it was pretty. I just didn't need to see 4 miles of it.

all right, all right

2007-10-20T10:07:00.000-05:00

ok, sorry about not posting in a while. And I can't post now either! Heh. I'm leaving momentarily for Marble Falls with Mike/Annette and Gil. We're going to Blue Bonnet Cafe for lunch and then over to the corn field maze. Yes, MB and I still together. Five weeks! Crazy. We're going out tonight and also on Wednesday for my actual birthday.

I have many pictures to post from last weekend's nature preserve 'leisurely amble' which turned into an arduous 4 mile hike. Damn marketers! I also took yesterday off and went to a salon/spa and spent a shit load of money for something I could've done myself. Oh well. At least the facial was awesome and I'll probably do that again. The cut/color was a disappointment - you can barely see the color. I'll get into this later.

Gotta go!

Crack!

2007-10-05T23:05:00.001-05:00

Didn't realize it's been so long since a post! Everything with MB is still going well. On Saturday it'll be 3 weeks. He lives really close to me (less than 5 minutes) so we've been hanging out a lot after work and just watching tv/talking.

Last Friday night we went out on a date and I told him to surprise me. We like the same food (no sushi) so I figured anywhere he liked I'd probably like too. I've realized that I love being surprised. So, he took me to a restaurant in RR that was nice, small, low lighting, excellent steak and then afterward we went to Mozarts down on the lake. It's a dessert/coffee place but it was around 10:30 and not that busy. We were able to sit on their patio for a long time and enjoy the weather and breeze from the lake. It was a lovely time.

Later after we got back to my place and were hanging out, I noticed my back was hurting a little. And no, we were not doing anything kinky! I figured it was just cramps or something. I rarely get cramps...maybe once or twice a year, but it was my lower back so I figured that's what it was. The whole weekend it bothered me. MB and I had separate plans for the weekend - we're trying not to become the couple that ignores all their old friends when they're dating someone new. I have always found that annoying, so I'm glad we're setting time aside to see our friends. Saturday afternoon Nathan and I went out to barbeque and then walked down South Congress and did some window shopping. There's a cowboy boot store down there that all the celebrities shop at. I think the cheapest boots we saw were $300 and some really cool ones were $1200. I should have taken some pictures. Some of those boots were real works of art. Later that night I hung out with the usual gang and we saw the Simpsons movie at Mike's and it was so good! Incredibly funny. Sunday Jayne and I were supposed to go out on my neighbor's boat but they canceled it because they thought the weather would get bad (and it didn't! boo hoo!). Instead, Jayne and I went swimming in her pool. She lives on a really expensive golf course so there aren't a lot of families with kids - we had the pool to ourselves for a couple hours. That helped my back a lot, but it was still painful.

Monday morning I was in agony on the way to work. When I parked, I could barely get out of the car. I tried sitting down and working, but after an hour I was like, no way is this cramps - something is really wrong with my back. The girl in the office next to me goes to the chiropractor once a month and she gave me her doctor's name. I have never been to a chiropractor and never really saw the need. But at that point, I was ready to try anything. They got me in at 10am and did some tests which were so painful I actually started crying. I NEVER cry over pain. They said I have a really high pain tolerance after doing the tests and marking my reactions. Some of the things I reacted to made them realize my back was a lot worse off than they thought from my initial description. It was my lower back - L5 disc that was inflamed. I went everyday this week and I'll go 3 times next week. They've been cracking my neck and back and putting this cool electrode thing on my lower back that pulses electricity through it and works out the muscles. I feel a lot better now, but still can't sit for very long. When I get up my back is incredibly tight. At least my insurance covers it. It's still a $35 co pay every single time. They took X-rays of my lower back and hips (awesome! love x-rays!) and I saw that my hips are a little uneven. They said that they'll work that out and everything should go back to normal in a couple months. I almost wish I had some crazy kinky monkey-sex story that I could blame this on, but I don't. Maybe I'll make something up....

Getting rid of telemarketers

2007-09-26T18:10:00.000-05:00

Been meaning to post this for awhile. At my company I'm in charge of dealing with telemarketers and cold calls. Everyone in the clinics know to transfer those calls to me. You never know, maybe we are looking for a new janitorial service or something. Well, if you're one to get these calls, I'm sure you know that even when you say 'no thank you we're happy with who we have now', they'll still try to do the sell, try to 'compare prices' or whatever. Well, I have a wonderful trick that I use and it works EVERY TIME. When they do their pitch, I just reply with 'my boss has a personal relationship with the owner/rep of our present vendor'. That just shuts them up. Every time they just say, 'oh, ok. Thank you!' and hang up. No hard sells, no reason for me to be rude. They know there's nothing to say to that! I love it. Try it sometime!

Chinese festival

2007-09-24T23:42:00.000-05:00

Judy found out about a chinese shopping center that was celebrating its one year anniversary. The area has seven or eight asian restaurants and a huge asian supermarket. She wanted to see the lion dancers at 11am. It was really impressive. They had adults and children participating and the dancers took turns so no one got too tired. They were moving so fast, most of my pictures are blurry. But, here's a couple that give you an idea.

After the dancers we went to the asian supermarket. It was HUGE. I had no idea Austin had something like this. Everything was labeled in English and Chinese. Their produce section was awe-inspiring, and their meat area had huge tanks with live crab, lobster, catfish, clams, etc. We walked around looking at all the products. Now, I'm not one to make fun of another culture. I understand that each culture has its own taste palate and that they grow up eating different types of foods. But, here are two things that I just had to take a picture of.

I'm hoping this is just a bad translation....

I guess if you like basil and honey you'd like this? It just looks wrong.

Still going well

2007-09-24T23:33:00.000-05:00

I guess it's only been 10 days. Damn. That sounds so little doesn't it? Yes, things with MB are going quite well. We've been out/gotten together six times. He's the perfect height for me (no standing on tip toes) and he says all the right things (if you want details, give me a call). He's called me beautiful several times. I don't think I'd ever get tired of hearing that. No one's ever said that to me, so he gets brownie points for that. We're still getting to know each other and there's been no red flags so far. I feel really comfortable with him, which is a big deal for me. I'm happy and I'm just going to enjoy it. What do I know about being in a real relationship? Absolutely nothing. I'll just be honest with my opinions/feelings and see where it takes me. Sigh. I really like him.

just a note

2007-09-18T00:45:00.001-05:00

Hey. Just got back from dinner a little bit ago. Don't want to get too much into it, but yup, he's a good cook and I've actually found a guy that agrees that Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine is perfectly fine dinner music. Everything going well so far!

11 hours, 45 minutes

2007-09-16T22:44:00.000-05:00

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm letting you know what's going on. I don't see the point in keeping things on the down-low. I'm pretty sure everyone that reads this blog cares about me (at least a little!) and wants to see me happy. So, uh, here goes!

I had a date on Saturday! Woo hoo!

It was a co-worker of Melanie's. We had talked over the phone Wed night and ended up talking for over an hour! We made a date to meet for lunch on Sat at 11am - low key, no pressure, etc. He (I'll call him MB) had tickets to ACL (3-day music concert) and said he'd need to get going around 2. We both agreed 11am would be a good time. Figure 2 hours for lunch, and then plenty of time for him to go back home and get ready for ACL. My only expectation was to have a pleasant lunch and get to know someone new. Working adoption at the shelter for 4 years has really given me comfort and confidence when talking with new people. So, I wasn't worried about keeping the converstation going. And since our phone conversation went so well, I knew we had a lot in common. Ok...getting back to lunch. We talked, we ate, we laughed....we talked some more...and some more. I noticed it was 2pm and said 'Hey! You're going to be late to ACL! Don't you need to get going?' And basically he said that he saw some great bands the night before, his main bands to see were on Sunday, so he was perfectly fine with skipping the bands on Saturday and stay with me. Wow...that was really....flattering. So, uh, yeah, we talked some more! The place we were at was really cool and lots of people had computers and were studying. We were never bothered for taking up a table nor asked to order more. Cool place. By 6pm (yes, 7 hours into the date!) we were both getting hungry again so we went to Chuy's for dinner. During the discussion at lunch we realized we both order practically the same thing at Chuys, AND we order the exact same thing at Thai restaurants (and really, Pad See Ew is NOT something most people even know about!). Scary. So, after dinner neither of us really wanted it to end, so I invited him back to my place and we watched Stranger Than Fiction with Will Farrell. I had it on my shelf but hadn't seen it yet. I liked it, and MB had already seen it and liked it. The evening ended at 10:45p. And now I'm going to dinner at his place tomorrow (Monday). Uh, I guess we'll see where this goes! Just taking it one day at a time, you know?

At this point.....no I'm not telling him about this blog. We'll see how long I can keep my mouth shut about it and not slip.

Kickin ass at Trivial Pursuit!

2007-09-16T22:28:00.000-05:00

Party Game Night was loads of fun as usual. It ended up just being 9 people so we all sat around my dining room table. We had one new couple too. It's always nice when new people come. At first we played Wise or Otherwise. Before Mike left I grabbed this game and Balderdash from him to have at the game night. For some reason we don't play Wise or Otherwise that often, but it's my favorite game. You play by guessing the ending to a proverb. One person writes down the real ending, and everyone else writes down what they think it is, then everyone votes on which they think is right. You get points for guessing the right ending and points if someone votes for yours. I came in 3rd. Judy won and as her prize I gave her a plush Aflac duck I got at a seminar a couple weeks ago. When you squeeze it, it says Aflac...Aflac...AAAFFLLLLAAAACC! So funny.

Here's a couple examples of the proverbs:
There's an old Madagascan saying: If the hills are on fire....
real answer: the grasshoppers are roasted
There's an old Burmese saying: If a cock ruffles up his feathers...
real answer: it is easy to pluck him
There's an old Japanese saying: Practice the art of....
real answer: giving up

Crazy!

After that we played 90s Trivial Pursuit that the new couple had brought. We had 3 teams of 3, and my team kicked ass! A few months ago, we'd tried playing the 80s edition, and then realized most of us were 12 or younger during the 80s and we didn't remember anything about sports, current events, or politics! The 80s version is really hard! Too bad it's not all pop culture and music! But in the 90s most of us were old enough to remember more. Fun game.

Happy Belated Anniversary!

2007-09-13T21:15:00.000-05:00

Hey, just realized I've had this blog for TWO YEARS! Holy crap, does time fly by. I'm getting new glasses tomorrow/Monday so I'll probably load a new picture up. I'm getting tired of the one up there now. I do like the wood behind me, though, so maybe I'll pose there again. You'd be amazed how many pictures I have to go through to get one that looks good/cute. I'm really becoming a master at the one-arm-raised photo!

Shut up. I'm going to vacuum now. No, I haven't been wasting time on the internet! (well, ok, yes I have. Darn it, I can never lie to you!)

Gotta look good for my adoring public

2007-09-13T20:49:00.000-05:00

I'm hosting party game night tomorrow for our no kidding group. I've already received about 7 RSVPs and since most of the group have my address by now, I'm expecting about 12 total I think. Unfortunately, Mike/Annette/Matt are off on their three-week road trip so they won't be attending (http://interceptor2.blogspot.com/). They have posted many pictures and it looks like they're having a blast.

I like hosting every few months since it forces me to CLEAN the house. I keep my house 'tidy', but I don't CLEAN it that often. I just swept and mopped the kitchen and now I'm about to spray down the counters, dust, and vacuum the house too. I also have to make up a batch of my sought-after spinach dip which everyone raves over (http://www.twosistersgourmet.net/web/cwhittaker/products/catalog.do?catalogId=PRD33055,1)

I realized I haven't done movie review in a while...I'll post some stuff after I'm done cleaning.

Hey you! Down in front!

2007-09-04T21:29:00.000-05:00

blah blah blah blah

I'm in a pissy mood for some reason right now.

someone mentioned that my blog is just a listing of things i've done and not really a 'blog'. well, i guess that's true. i don't have a lot of 'i believe this' or 'i support this cause!' or 'i support this candidate!'. you know why?????? i don't like espousing my opinions when i don't have all the facts. i have heard too much from friends of my brother-in-law that were marines or in intelligence. there is so much about this war that we don't know about. i absolutely do not trust the media. they talk about only what they feel is sensational or shocking. you always hear about 10 soldiers killed! etc. yes, that's tragic, but how many people are killed everyday in robberies/drunk driving/accidents, etc. they choose what to report on, what to tell the public. i don't even trust the austin statesman after hearing some stuff from friends on the police force. they get their facts all wrong, they do whatever it takes to make an interesting 'story' and the public doesn't know the difference. i know bush is a big buffoon, and that's unfortunate. but, i don't have all the intel that he does. i can't make a judgement about this war and if it's necessary. i don't think americans really understand the living/social conditions of the middle east. i think we are spoiled by our liberties and freedom. i think american women, especially, choose to not think about the countries where a woman can't even go buy groceries by herself or the countries where widows are on the street, starving, because once their husband dies their family kicks them out. we just don't understand those societies. i don't support any candidates. they'll say whatever it takes to get elected and then do what they want when they get there. i have completely removed myself from politics. i don't want to discuss it.

i heard one of the war protesters on the news say 'nothing good ever came out of war!'. um, ok. what about america? what about the revolutionary war? AMERICA was founded through war. i think that's a pretty damn good thing. what about us fighting the germans and japanese in ww2? should we have just let them do whatever they wanted? sometimes war is the only way to stop bad people from doing bad things. it's just a shame when the leaders turn into pussies and don't finish what they started.

i was thinking about something on my way home. would we have won the revolutionary war or the civil war if we'd had the press/newspaper/internet like we do today? all the battles where we lost so many men, those that starved from insufficient supply lines, the towns that were damaged/destroyed. do you think if all that 'bad' stuff was in the news everyday that people would have just given up and stopped supporting the war? i wish i was a historian and could talk about all the details. i love watching the history channel, but i can never remember anything. i think at those times, the only people with real intel was the military and they made their decisions accordingly. if the public had all the info too and pressured the government to 'send our boys home!' or whatever, would we have stopped fighting the revolutionary war? i don't know. something to think about.

Everyone, Reverse Skate!

2007-09-04T20:02:00.000-05:00

Part of the Austin No Kidding group is the 'Enthusiast List'. It's a mass email distribution that people use to email out invites to events or to gauge interest in an outing. The thinking behind it is that since we don't have kids, we can do stuff at the last minute or on short notice since we don't have to find a babysitter. Anyone can throw out an idea.

A couple years ago I went rollerskating with some of the shelter people. It was so fun! I hadn't been skating in 15+ years, but it all came back to me! I felt like going out again so I posted it the group. There's a skating rink that has Adults Only on Tuesday nights and they have the old fashioned roller skates. So, I put that out as an event and we did it last Tuesday. Only a few people showed up, but the Enthusiast List events don't ususally have a huge turnout. Mike, Annette, and Lina came. We were there for about two hours and I think I skated for half of it. I didn't fall once! I also wasn't sore at all the next day, so yay! I'm definitely going to have to go again. It was busy, but not packed, so I didn't feel like I had to dodge people all the time. There were some people there that really knew what they were doing. It was fun just to watch them skating backwards and sideways. I used to take lessons when I was a little kid, but I've forgotten all the tricks. I'm just focusing on moving forward! I highly suggest if you have a skating rink in your neighborhood to go check it out! You'll remember how fun it is!

Beach #2!

2007-08-24T00:31:00.000-05:00

Sunday was spent with Kim and her husband Jeff in Concord. We just fucked around Concord for a bit, went to the mall, got my See's candy, and then went back to their place. Nice relaxing day. Sunday night I drove to Pinole (near Berkeley) to stay with Andrea. She had just gotten back from a camping trip in Mammoth that day. She took Monday off so we could hang out a bit. We ended up taking Hwy 1 to Stinson Beach near Sausalido. I had never driven that part of 1 before and it was really curvy too (fun!!). Stinson beach was so clean and beautiful. The sand was much finer than Santa Cruz and the wet part of the shore was easy to walk on - almost like cement. When the water came in it didn't disturb the sand as much so the waves were really clear and clean. For a Monday it was slightly busy, but we got some great pictures. Again, the water was ice cold, so we just walked down the shore. You can see our two sets of footprints in this pic.

That night we went out to Thai food with Andrea's roommmate Brandi and then went to Foster's Freeze for dessert. I didn't even know Foster's Freeze was still around! Cool!

Monday I left early for the drive back to San Jose and got to the airport in plenty of time. I left Andrea's around 8:30 and really thought I'd be stuck in traffic for hours. But, I guess their rush hour ends early. In Austin it's rush hour till at least 10am. I'm not going back to CA this year, and I'm not sure when/if I'm going next year. I really want to go see Kris in England and maybe take a cruise. We'll see.

Another wedding

2007-08-24T00:18:00.000-05:00

Saturday I drove from Gilroy (getting my In&Out fix for an early lunch!) to Stockton for Heidi's wedding. Heidi and I have known each other since first grade and although we weren't huge friends when we were young, we've become much closer the last few years. She and Bert are visiting me in December during their road-trip honeymoon.

The wedding was in a catholic church and was well organized. Amazing how all the prayers come back to you! The reception was in the hill town of Ione, about 40 minutes away. But, since I had talked to Heidi beforehand, I knew there'd be three hours between the wedding and the actual reception (time for pictures), so after the wedding I went to Panera and got my soup-in-a-bread-bowl fix. It all worked out that by the time I got to the reception they had just finished with pictures and were joining the reception. Heidi really lucked out with the weather. For mid-August it easily could've been in the 90s/100s, but instead was in the low 80s. It was so beautiful. I got a little pissed during the toasts though. It was open mike and several people were getting up and saying stuff. Everyone was talking about Bert! Even Heidi's dad told a story about him and Bert. Of course, everyone was mentioning Heidi, but no one was really focusing on her in their toasts. So, I got up and said a little something. I was really nervous, having never said a toast before and having nothing planned. I can't quite remember everything I said, but I got a couple laughs, so I guess it went over well. Her mom later thanked me for that, saying Bert's family are all passionate Portuguese and Heidi's family were 'quiet Norwegians'. Heh. Glad I could be of service. The reception started around 5:30 but by 8 they hadn't cut the cake or thrown the bouquet. I had to drive an hour and half to Concord to stay with Kim so I cut out early. When I left they were doing the money dance. I wanted to dance with Heidi like I did at Kim's wedding, but the line was really long and I had to get going.

Sleeping with the fishes (well, eating with them I guess)

2007-08-23T23:57:00.000-05:00

ok, just wanted to use that title. To continue with my CA trip: Friday was Monterey. I wanted to get out there early since I had to be back in Gilroy by 5:30 to go to Bingo with my Aunt and Nana. They take their bingo seriously and since there's 14 games with $250 jackpots, it's always fun.

Oh, and yes, I did go slightly out of my way just so I could take Hecker Pass again. I could've just taken 101, but where's the fun in that? Once I got to Monterey I had to make a pitstop at the coffeeshop Plume for my sister. She used to live out there and I guess has been dreaming about their coffee for 10 years. So, I had to get a lb of 'Sweet Italian' for her. Whatever. At first she was like 'find a yellowpages' and I told her to get her ass on the internet and get me directions if she wants her damn coffee. Luckily it was on my way to the Aquarium. I really don't know when the last time I was at the Monterey Bay Aquarium was, but it is worth the $25 entrance fee. I got there at 10:30am and it wasn't too busy. Here are some pictures of jelly fish and other crazy stuff I saw.

After the aquarium I had lunch at a restaurant on the water and got to sit outside. I was above the water and a sea otter was playing underneath me. So cool. Then I drove along the coast for a little bit and got these pics. Traffic back was a bitch since it was Friday, but I got back in time. I think next time I'm out, I'm going to Monterey again. Their downtown/main street looked really cute and I didn't have time to do any exploring.

Remind me why I moved from CA

2007-08-23T23:08:00.000-05:00

I can usually forget just how nice CA is. I mean, I'm from Stockton. Not the bay area. Stockton can get 105 degrees easy in the summer. I know the bay area is completely different. Well, I was reminded of that during my trip. As soon as I got off the plane, I could feel how cool the air was. I got in to San Jose Wednesday night and picked up my rental car. I only paid for an 'economy' but got a PT Cruiser. I was slightly excited about this since I really like the body styling but had never driven one. Ugh, what a crappy car. It only got 21 miles/gal, the inside was built for someone taller than me, and the stereo system sucked. I'd brought several mix CDs with me since I knew I'd be driving a lot and could really tell how crappy the stereo was. So, no PT Cruiser in the future for me! The drive from San Jose to my Nana's house in Gilroy was fine. For once, I didn't get lost in Gilroy.

On Thursday my nana let me sleep in till 10 which I really needed. By the time I got up and going to Santa Cruz it was 11. I told her I'd be meeting friends in Santa Cruz so she wouldn't worry about me traveling by myself. Heh. Bad granddaughter. I wanted to take the most scenic route possible, so I took Hecker Pass (152) to Hwy 1. Even though I've been to Gilroy countless times and have been on Hecker Pass, I've never DRIVEN Hecker Pass. Oh my god, it was so much fun. For 15 minutes straight it's one turn after another. As soon as you get out of one turn, you're going into the next, downhill and uphill. I almost turned around just so I could do it again! Luckily for a Thursday midmorning there weren't that many cars on the road and I didn't have to worry about getting stuck behind some asshole that didn't know how to drive mountain roads. Anyways, I made it to Santa Cruz with no incidents. And, I must say, I did not get lost at anytime during this trip even though everywhere I went I had not driven to before. Go me and my map-reading skills!!

Look how curvy it is!! I miss it already.

So I arrived at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk without incident. I hadn't been there since our Senior Ditch Day in '95. I was afraid it had become run-down or unsafe, but they've really taken care of it. I wandered the Boardwalk for a couple hours, played a couple of games (won a little crab for my nephew!) and rode the Giant Dipper and the Carousel. The Giant Dipper is a 1924 wooden roller coaster and damn, I'd forgotten how rough a ride that is! You can see the red and white coaster in this pic. Look how beautiful the sky is! Not a cloud in the sky. For a Thursday the Boardwalk wasn't too busy.

The Carousel is from 1911 and as cool as I remember.

Now you may be asking, what's so frickin cool about a carousel? Well, my friend, with this carousel you can grab metal rings and try to throw them into the clown's mouth! You can see in the picture the metal bar that comes out with the rings at the end. I was afraid they'd stopped doing it, cause c'mon, EVERYONE steals at least one ring (**cough**and sometimes gets in trouble with security for throwing them onto the roofs of buildings from the overhead sky glider. Andrea was a bad influence in '95!...and yes I still have one ring!**cough)

After fucking around on the boardwalk for a few hours I went back to my car and got my beach stuff. Since I was alone I asked a nice lady that was reading a book to watch my stuff while I went down to the water. Holy fuck, has the Pacific always been ice cold???? I frolicked on the shore for a couple hours and got a great tan. When I got back to my towel the people that had been in front of me left, and I started playing around with pictures. I thought this one was fun.

As far as amusement parks go, I really like Santa Cruz. It's free to get in so you can just have food or go to the beach without paying for the rides. If you do want to do rides you can either get a day pass or just pay for the individual rides you want. I really like that setup.

Pictures of rock climbing fools

2007-08-23T22:23:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's a little late. Here are the pics from the lake.

Here's a picture that Mike took while he was rock climbing on the cliff face. That's me, Annette, and Matt in the water. I love those styrafoam noodle things. They're so handy and bouyant.

Here's Annette showing the climbing. I know it looks easy, but really, it isn't.

Here's Mike jumping off the second highest cliff of the day. He climbed to the top but didn't actually stand on the top before he jumped.

Here's the really big cliff that Mike and Matt jumped off of. You can see Mike in his red lifejacket. I guess after further review it was only about 30 feet...but isn't that like three stories high? Whatever it was, it was impressive! You can see the kayak floating in the water at the bottom to give you perspective.

Ok, after further review, I am not posting the picture of me climbing. Although it's an awesome picture, it's not a good picture of me, and since this is my blog, I get final edit!

Rock Climbing Fools

2007-08-14T01:53:00.000-05:00

Friday night was Party Game Night for ANK and Mike hosted. He/Annette are doing Movie Night as usual, but also offered to do this month's Party Game, which was nice of them. I sent out an email to the group that I'd be having dinner at Domenick's and anyone was welcome to join me. Well, heh...it ended up being our 'usual' group. Gil and Mike/Annette met me for dinner and then Matt joined us later for the games. So, uh, yeah, it was like a normal gathering at Mike's. I guess people didn't want to drive all the way out to Cedar Park two Friday's in a row. Poor Mike! I've hosted 4 times and I usually get 13-16 people. Maybe they just like playing with my cats! Anyways, we ended up playing Wii for a couple hours - I LOVE Mortal Kombat! and then we watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Hadn't seen it in so many years, I'd forgotten most of it. It actually was still a cute movie. Party On Dude!

Saturday my dad took the family out to lunch and I was over there for a few hours. I had mentioned on Friday maybe going to see Stardust at the theater, but just wasn't in the mood to go out. Maybe I'll catch it in CA this week.

On Sunday Mike/Annette and Matt invited me to go swimming with them at Lake Travis. There are some coves where people go rock climbing up the cliff and then jump into the water. I really had no idea what to expect. I thought maybe there'd be a ledge or something to leave our stuff or to sit on, but nope. Mike brought one of his kayaks and two inner tubes to hold water and other stuff. Then, basically we were in the water for three hours straight. It was fun watching them climb out of the water and then fall/jump back in. They're all pretty experienced and they got really high! On one wall I think they got up 30 feet. I tried it on one wall and damn, rock climbing is hard! I couldn't find a foothold in the water to stand on or push myself up. I just had on my cheap pool shoes (you know the kind with mesh on top and hard soles) and I kept slipping on the algae on the rocks. Mike lent me his rock-climbing shoes and that was quite a difference! I was able to get myself completely out of the water and held myself up while Mike took a picture with his awesome waterproof camera (same one he took to Italy). I'll post pictures later. I tried going higher but just couldn't find foot holds, and then I fell back into the water. That was enough for me. It was really hard to find good handholds that my fingers wouldn't slip off of. The pads of my fingers are scraped raw from slipping. Later Mike and Matt found a way to climb up a 50 ft (estimate) cliff and then they jumped from the top into the water. Annette and I cheered them on from the safety of the lake. It was a pretty long jump!

Inevitably, I got really sunburned. Being in the water the whole time, I didn't have an opportunity to reapply the sunscreen. Luckily I wore an old baseball hat so my face just got a little tanned but not burned. I don't think my arms will peel. Hopefully it'll fade to a tan in time for Heidi's wedding on Saturday. I plan on going to Santa Cruz and Monterey while I'm out there, so I'll probably get tanner (more tan?) out there too.

Yes, I'm going to bed now. I'll hopefully get the pics from Mike tomorrow. I bought a nifty 4GB flash drive so I can just copy the pictures to that and not waste a CD.

Where's my wave, bi***!

2007-08-07T21:38:00.000-05:00

In general, I do not get road rage. But, there are two things that push my buttons.

1 - people that don't know how to drive on mountain roads or curves. Take your foot off the gas before you hit the brake! You do NOT have to ride the frickin brake down the whole time! I can't deal with that. Luckily, Austin roads are fairly straight and you don't encounter those idiots till you go out to the hill country (like the idiot we were stuck behind going out to the orchard.....aaarrrgghhh).

2 - People that don't wave at you when you let them cut in front of you. Now I'm not talking about general merging. I don't believe a wave is expected or warranted in that situation. I'm talking about bumper-to-bumper traffic and you don't move forward in order to allow someone with a blinker on to move into your lane. In that situation, I'd better get a frickin thank you wave. I strongly believe that if the wave is not offered, I should be able to lightly hit their bumper as a you're welcome, assshole kind of message. I am a very nice driver. I always allow people in if they have their blinker on. I'm never in such a rush that I can't take five seconds to let someone in. Same goes for if I'm at a red light and someone is trying to get out of a parking lot driveway. I usually let at least one car go in front of me. I feel it's building car karma. And hey, that came in handy when I did a 180 turn on the freeway and didn't get hit. It all makes sense now, doesn't it! And when I say 'wave' all I'm looking for is a raise of the arm. There need not be any side to side motion. Come on, is that too much to ask?

Road trip!....for pie?

2007-08-03T22:44:00.000-05:00

Texas is a frickin huge state! It's like an all-day drive just to get out of here! Last year Judy had mentioned Love Orchards in Medina which she had seen on the Food Network. It's that place that does 4lb apple pies. A couple weekends ago we had a sunny Sunday in the midst of all this rain so we decided to do a road trip for apple pie. Jeff/Judy, Gil, and I drove 2 1/2 hours to Medina for apple pie. The drive was so beautiful. It's the middle of summer but all this rain we've been having for the past three months makes everything look like springtime. We were worried about running into roads that had been washed out, but everything was ok. We did see some side roads that were blocked for flooding. We drove Gil's Prius and that has a reliable navigation system. We felt better knowing that if we did run into some blocked roads we'd be able to find our way around. His Prius got 45 m/gal on the trip! Pretty cool.

Love Orchard was fun. We had lunch there and then went shopping in the country store. They even had apple ice cream! It was REALLY yummy. Jeff and Judy bought a pie to bring back with us. I had a piece at their house and decided we should've bought more. I don't usually even like apple pie, but these were well done. The apple turnovers were good too. Outside the cafe they had little apple trees and other native trees that you could buy for your yard.

On the way back we stopped at a wildflower nursery that we've all passed several times and had wanted to go there. Look at how beautiful the sky is! It's been awhile since we've seen blue skies here.

Other than this field they also had a huge nursery of all different flowers. There were a ton of butterflies winging about. They really liked these plants and some landed long enough for me to get this picture.

crafty

2007-07-15T14:42:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while I feel a little crafty and get it into my head to make something. The coffee table has been on hold for a little bit since I lost my momentum, but I ended up making something else in the interim. Last time I was in CA Heidi and I did some shopping in stkn and I found a bunch of really cute costume jewelry necklaces that were on sale. I bought a bunch and found more at the same store when I got back to Austin. Well, I didn't really have a holder to put them on. Randy had bought me a beautiful metal wire and wood holder, but it was already loaded down with the stuff I already owned. This is what I came up with. The color is a little odd, but my bathroom is painted a sage green, so it actually matches really well. I painted on the silver squiggles with a paint pen and bought the hooks at Target. My faucets are brushed nickel and it all matches quite well. I took the picture of it on the floor because the mirror was reflecting too much. I found the two bowls at Target too and they're perfect for my bracelets. Now I just have to wear my jewelry more! .

btw..

After talking about it for some time I did end up buying a new stove. Sears was having a big 4th of July sale plus no interest for a year. I like the Kenmore brand so I thought I'd go and see if anything called out to me. I ended up paying a bit more than I planned, but my reasoning with appliances is that they last 10+ years, so might as well shell out some dough for a good one. It's got the extra burners in the middle and it came with a griddle iron that fits over that area. You can make pancakes or eggs, whatever. It also has a convection oven for baking. When my mom heard about it, she said 'but you don't cook!' Well, that's true, but it didn't help that once my oven reached 375-400 degress it couldn't be adjusted. Remember when I had Thanksgiving here last year and the turkey was done two hours too soon cause the oven wouldn't cool down? Hopefully having this shiny new toy will spur me to cook more. I like cooking. Just hate cooking for only myself. Maybe I'll have some No Kidding people over.....

Oh, and don't get suckered into this whole craze of stainless steel. That stuff does NOT wear well. Fingerprints and smudges show up very easily. I think it's a conspiracy between the appliance industry and the home-makeover shows that make it seem like only stainless steal is good for you kitchen. Whatever!

Empty nest

2007-07-14T11:40:00.000-05:00

All of my foster kitties are gone now. I dropped the black/white and calico off at the humane society on Sunday. I was afraid the black/white was still too small, but they said he was close enough to 2lbs that they'd take him. They either went up for adoption that day or Monday, but by Monday night the black/white was already adopted and was waiting to get fixed. I'm not sure if the calico was adoped yet. Probably, she was really cute. I named the black/white Bingo and the calico Hopscotch. I'm glad Bingo got adopted so quickly. It's harder to get the black and black/white cats adopted. They wanted to give me more fosters, but I need a break. I don't think I spend enough time with them. So much pressure being a mommy!

Here's a picture from the last time Jeff/Judy came over on 6/29. Bingo was having a blast trying to get a little mouse out of Jeff's shoe.

Real Tx bbq

2007-07-14T11:23:00.000-05:00

Last weekend my neighbors across the street had a 'smoker' party at their house with some co-workers. I had met everyone previously on the boat on several occaisions so they invited me too. Mike's co-worker Jim had a home-made smoker for cooking meat. Isn't this awesome! They made bbq brisket and bbq pork. It was so good. I love TX.

Probably couldn't have done this in an HOA neighborhood. Ha! fuckin HOAs...hate 'em.

2 down, 2 to go

2007-06-27T22:20:00.000-05:00

Forgot to mention.....I went to the shelter on Sunday to give back my foster kittens. But, only the two orange tabbies were over 2 lbs. I had to take back the calico and black/white. They both need another 1/2 pound. When I told the staff I named the tabbies Jam and Jelly they said there was already a Jelly and Marmalade. Fuck. So, I told them to use Scamp and Skitter. Thought those were cute. They went up for adoption today. I don't think they'll last long. Orange tabbies go fast. I'm meeting Jeff and Judy at Domenics on Friday and they're coming over to play with the kittens again. I'm thinking about changing the names of the kittens I have left. Suggestions?

I've been told the original picture I posted doesn't show how little they are. So, here are some pics from when Jeff and Judy were over on 6/12.

Why I hate email

2007-06-27T20:57:00.001-05:00

I've been ruminating on this post for awhile. I hate email. Now, I appreciate email in the workplace. It allows you to archive discussions so you can remember/prove who said what when and what was promised/decided. I support work email 100%. What I don't like is personal email.

It's one thing to email a bunch of people when you're trying to coordinate something. Or sending out an email to a bunch of people with an announcement, change of phone number, etc. Logistically, email makes sense in those types of situations. It all comes down to the personal, friendly, chatty emails. I hate those. I much prefer to pick up the phone and call someone. I have kept very good friendships going with people all over the country with phone calls every couple months. Sometimes those calls are 10 minutes, sometimes they are two hours. I hate how stilted and drawn out some emails are. You ask questions, you reply to questions, you make comments. And you wait to see if they'll reply and the conversation continues. And then if they don't reply you wonder if you should send another email or just let it die. Argh.

Just recently I got email on myspace from an old friend from college. We were in Filmboard together and he was in law school. We lost touch after college and later I found his profile on myspace. So, I emailed him a 'hi, is this who I think it is?' kind of email. Almost a year later he checked his profile and responded. We've emailed a couple times. I hate these types of emails. I don't know what to say. It such a horrible conversation. And the really sucky part is that I feel I'm a funny person. I am in no way a 'comedian' cause I can't tell a joke to save my life, but somehow, when I'm talking to people, I make them laugh. Tone of voice and sarcasm are my art. None of that comes through in email. And usually, the comments that make people laugh are completely spontaneous. Email is not spontaneous. It's scripted, edited, spellchecked, reviewed, and reviewed again before the SEND button is hit. Real converstations flow, evolve, and you never know what topics will be brought up. This is probably one of the reasons I haven't gone on match.com or eharmony. I've met several people that have had a lot of success meeting cool people on these websites, but it all comes down to email, doesn't it? IMing is fun, though. That's practically a phone conversation as long as both people can type fast.

For some reason though, I do like writing letters. Randy and I had been sending letters back and forth for years before he started blogging. Letters are fun - probably cause I've got a shit load of panda stationary to use! heh.

Love thy neighbor

2007-06-27T20:41:00.000-05:00

I clearly remember when I was thinking about buying this house I had my friend Mark come and take a look at it. I wanted to get someone else's opinion about it that wasn't already emotionally invested. He pointed out that the neighbors across the street had a boat in their driveway and that would bother him. I replied that I thought it meant I might get invited to go boating! And, that's exactly how it's turned out. I know I've mentioned before going out on the lake. Well, Marcia had already invited me twice this summer, but I hadn't been able to go. One Saturday was my sister's birthday party and the next Saturday was our Father's Day/Parent's 35th Wedding Anniversary party. Luckily, I didn't have anything planned for Saturday the 23rd. Marcia said as long as the weather held out they were going out on their 24ft pontoon boat. I love that boat! We were out for six hours. Some of Mike's coworkers came too and they were a hoot. Real Texans....had some good stories. I really needed that outing - so relaxing. I was in the lake for about three hours and didn't get burned at all. It was overcast most of the day and I put plenty of sunscreen on. I think I did get a little tanned. Even though it was really windy out on the main part of the lake, there's a certain 'party cove' that a lot of people anchor at. It's a 'no wake' zone which means you can't water ski/jet ski/drive fast in the cove. Mostly people just anchor their boats and go swimming. There's also a lot of people that rope their boats together and just hang out and drink. That's never been my scene, so I love that my neighbors prefer to anchor by themselves and just hang out and swim. Mike has a sound system installed with an MP3 player so there's music playing too. I'm sure I'll get invited throughout the summer. I get along really well with them, and I make these tortilla wraps with green onion, lunch meat, and cream cheese that Mike really loves. I always make sure to bring some when I go out with them as a thank you.

There's a whole nother world out there

2007-06-27T20:09:00.000-05:00

Let's ignore the fact that I've been piss-poor about posting and just jump right in, shall we?

Since Melanie had Ian so early she was never thrown a baby shower. Usually those things are in the seventh or eighth month. You want to wait to make sure there isn't a miscarriage, which typically happens early if it's gonna happen. Melanie had Ian at 25 weeks. But, now he's up to 5 pounds and it slated to come home in mid-July. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to throw it or not. In my experience it's been family that's thrown the shower. Well, I received an invitation for her baby shower being thrown on Sunday the 24th. I just assumed it was being thrown by friends/family. I really didn't think much of it. But, when I arrived it was all church people. I was way under-dressed. Several of the women were in dresses and others were in nice Sunday church clothes. Well, this being Austin, I was in jeans. Luckily, I did have a very pretty tank top on that I had worn at Sarah's picnic wedding reception. Unfortunately, it showed off my arm tattoo, so I got some strange looks. Everyone was asking me who I was (politely). I was the only non-church person there, and none of Melanie's family were there cause they're all out of town. It was even weirder when I realized Melanie didn't know everyone there. I guess a bunch of church people got together to throw it for them without really knowing Melanie and Dan. Benefits of being good church-going people I guess. Anyways, Melanie was unwrapping all the gifts and when she got to my HAND-MADE CROCHETED AFGHAN I just thought 'Ha! Suck it!' because you could tell they were a little surprised that I had made it. Sorry, Melanie...I was just a little out of my element there. Also, I realized how incredibly spoiled I've been with my No Kidding group (no one has kids). Everyone there were mothers and they were all talking about their kids and families, etc. Sometimes I forget that there's people out there like that! Makes me appreciate my group that much more.

guess I should post.

2007-06-16T02:13:00.000-05:00

Dude. Sorry about the long absences. Nothing too earth-shattering going on over here. Work has been crazy and the kittens are taking up a lot of my time. Jeff/Judy and Mike/Annette have all come to play with the kittens. They are doing great. I have an appt on Sunday the 24th to bring them back to the shelter. I'm a little worried about Molasses because he's turning into a picky eater. He hasn't gained as much weight as his siblings. I don't think he's sick though....just doesn't eat a lot.

I don't know why I'm still awake. I'm getting up early tomorrow.....later today.... to get an oil change and tire rotation for my car. I'm like a month overdue. On the bright side I only have a few more months before my car is paid off. Yippeee! After the oil change I'm going into the shelter and then meeting the family and Nathan/Tony at Logan's for dinner. My sister and I are extending my dad's Netflix membership as his Father's Day gift. His Christmas membership expires next month, so this is good timing.

I haven't been to the shelter much lately...just Orientation. I was planning to go last Saturday, but woke up to overcast, breezy weather and actually WANTED to do yard work. And really, how often do I wake up wanting to do yard work? I felt in the interest of having a less crappy yard, I should stay home and work on it. I was out there for a few hours and got a lot done. It looks a little less crappy now.

Spike got her teeth cleaned on Thursday. Not sure if you know this, but they anesthetize a cat for teeth-cleaning. I had to take the food away the night before so she'd have an empty tummy. Unfortunately that meant all three of them didn't have food after 7pm. They woke me up at 4am walking all over me begging for food. When I picked her up after the procedure she was still groggy from the drugs. I should have video taped it. She was hilarious. Her back legs weren't quite working yet so she was stumbling around and walking into things. She's better now and her teeth are pearly white. Luckily the vet said the other two cats don't need it. Pagan might need it in the next year, but Asher's teeth are actually pretty clean. That's weird considering they all eat the same thing. And no, I am so not brushing their teeth!

Kitty update

2007-06-08T00:08:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to let you know my kitties have come a long way in a week and a half. They've gone from hissing at everything to now crawling into my lap and purring. The black and white (now named Molasses) went from being the hissiest cat to being a complete lap cat! All he wants to do is sit in my lap and purr and rub into my hand while the other kitties play. They are all eating well and I think they'll all make it. I'll probably have them for two more weeks. Moving the TV into the room has made a big difference. Sudden noises and movement don't startle them at all - I think it's help desensitize them to voices and sounds. My parents and Gil have come over to play with them too so they get used to other people. Jeff and Judy volunteered as well so I'll probably have them over next week. I'll post pictures later.

Mother of 4 (for awhile!)

2007-05-31T22:19:00.000-05:00

On Monday Donna from the shelter called me to talk about Orientation on Saturday. Not sure if you heard in the news, but they found a dead bat in the dog running area and it tested positive for rabies (common in bats). The health department has put most of the dogs on quarantine to make sure nothing was transmitted. Unfortunately to get to the main cat room, you have to walk through a corner of the dog area. So, according to the Health Dept, the cat room is off limits to volunteers. This will be for about three months. Because of this whole thing they're cancelling the dog part of the orientation, but there are other cat areas to volunteer in, so we're still doing the cat part. Donna needed to talk to me about the changes and new rules. As the conversation was finishing up, she said 'hey, want four kittens to foster? We don't have any room for them and Town Lake (the pound) said they're out of room too and would have to put them down.' Uh, ok! I picked them up Monday evening. They're about five weeks old, and just need another three weeks or so to get big enough to get fixed and adopted (need to weigh 2 pounds). It's two girls and two boys.

They loaned me a cage to keep them in. I really have to work on socialization. They are so hissy. At first on Monday and Tuesday anytime I reached my hand in they would all hiss at me. Tonight I was able to reach in a few times to pet them and they didn't hiss, so we're slowly making progress. I wouldn't call them 'friendly' yet, though. They keep massing in the far corner. I'm a little concerned with the black and white cause he won't eat in front of me. I've walked in a couple times and seen him eating, but all the other kittens will eat in front of me, so I know they're getting food. I'm especially trying to get the calico pictured in the back to eat a lot cause she's the runt. I moved my little tv from my bedroom into their room and left it on all day today. I thought leaving the tv on with sound would help them get used to noises. It seems to have worked, cause they were a lot better tonight with getting scared at sudden noises and movement.

Now the big decision is what to name them. Once adopted, the new owners usually change their names, so the names I will give them are more of a marketing tool to get them attention and make people want to visit with them. What I mean is the names have to be cute and eye-catching. I was thinking about Jam and Jelly for the two orange tabbies. My boss suggested Hazelnut for the calico. But, I can't come up with anything for the black and white. I don't want to do Oreo cause that's been done so much. Any suggestions for any or all? Let me know.

Still alive!

2007-05-25T22:38:00.001-05:00

Damn, this month has flown by!

Here's a good story - I almost died last week! No joke. Wanna know more? Read on.

Last Tuesday I got my new tree in and also several of my trees were trimmed. I told my boss I'd be a bit late in the morning since I wanted to talk to the guys when they arrived, before they started cutting. It was 9 am when I was heading into work and traffic wasn't that bad. I was in the middle lane on the freeway, going 65. The guy in front of me merged to the right but the car in front of him was going slower. As I moved up, I thought I saw him starting to go back into my lane. Well, not really thinking, I kinda jerked the wheel a bit to the left to get out of his way. Bad idea. I completely lost control of the car, it swerved to the left and then to the right, and somehow I did a 180 turn to end up in the far right lane, facing traffic. My car was completely straight in the lane, just facing the wrong way. I just sat there looking at this car coming at me. Luckily he was able to stop in time and I had enough room to turn around and get going. (Surprisingly, I didn't cry....just went to work, though I was a little shaky.) Somehow, I didn't hit anyone or anything, no one hit me, and it didn't look like anyone else got into an accident. I really want to see video of what happened! I don't know if I hit the brakes or the gas, but I know I steered wrong. Isn't the trick to steer into a swerve? I just wasn't thinking and I know I was steering the opposite way. That probably is what caused the car to turn around. Over the next couple days I felt like a character in Final Destination. You know, that movie where they cheat death in the beginning but as the movie progresses the characters are killed in random but elaborate ways? I really was expecting something to happen. I went to CA for Kim's wedding from Thursday to Monday and I half expected my airplane to explode or something. Well, so far, still alive! Woo Hoo!

Anyways.....My trip to CA was fun. I flew direct into San Jose and stayed with my grandmother in Gilroy for Thursday night and Friday. My cousin just had a baby a couple weeks ago so I was able to see them, and her parents were in from Oregon, so it was also nice to see my Aunt and Uncle. We went to Bingo Friday night but no one won. Saturday morning I drove from Gilroy to Walnut Creek (about an hour) for Kim's wedding. It was in a restaurant courtyard in Walnut Creek (east bay area) and the weather was gorgeous. Jason officiated and did a wonderful job. It was the 10th wedding that he did! I got there a little early and crept into the girl's bathroom where Kim was getting ready. She was already in the dress and makeup, just waiting for everyone else to finish. Her photographer was busy getting shots outside, so I starting taking a bunch of shots of her, her mom, and her maid of honor. Got some good candids. I'll make a couple disks of them all and mail them. I don't think any are frame-worthy, but they'll be cute to have. She and her HUSBAND (!) Jeff are huge SF Giants fans and they had baseball cards made up of the two of them in Giants uniforms with bats and on the back of the card was the 'stats' of their relationship - when the met, were engaged, date of wedding, who was in the party, etc. It was adorable - and really different.

After the wedding I went to Stockton and Heidi, Andrea, David, and I went to the new baseball stadium they just built for the Stockton Ports (minor league baseball). Heidi and I got too scared so we left after an hour - all the balls were flying into the seats! The only previous baseball games I've been to were in St Louis for the Cardinals. That's a real stadium! Our seats were waaaay up. At the Stockton stadium it was just one level, so we were close to the game (good) and close to any fly/foul balls (bad). We were near first base, and there were A LOT of balls flying into the seats! You really had to pay attention. That just freaked us (Heidi and I) out. Also......baseball is kinda boring. So we left after an hour after making plans to go to San Fran with Andrea on Sunday. We were supposed to leave Stockton around 8am to get to Fisherman's Wharf early and get free parking. Thank God Heidi checked the bus schedule in SF cause Sunday was the Bay to Breakers Race (huge marathon that gets 100,000+ people). Uh, yeah, SF got scratched off the list. We ended up going back to Walnut Creek and shopped for a few hours. Andrea had to get back to her house in the Bay Area so we drove in separate cars and I went back to Stkn with Heidi. And yes, we got In&Out burgers on the way home.

Sunday night I just hung out with Heidi and her fiance Bert. They're getting married in August so I'll be going out to CA for that too. Heidi teaches 1st Grade and Bert has his own bailing business. He goes to farms in the area and bales hay, straw, alfalfa, whatever. It's a tough job cause the dew point has to be just right, so it's a lot of working in the early morning and at night. Most farmers pay to have it done cause it takes special equipment and stuff. Right now is his busiest time. Sunday night he had to drop his truck off at the next location he'd be doing. We followed him in Heidi's car and then drove him to where his tractor was (about three miles away on another farm). I took this picture and I think it came out really cute.

Drive bye

2007-05-07T23:20:00.000-05:00

well that's just a clever title. Just a quick note to say how much Fox can kiss my ass. They screwed me with Firefly. They screwed me with Wonderfalls, and now after three episodes they screwed me with Drive. It was a new mid-season replacement show created by Tim Minear - one of the old Buffy/Angel guys and starred Nathan Fillion from Firefly. Premise was an illegal cross country car race. I taped the first episodes and watched them all at once on Thursday. It was decent and I was getting into the characters, plot, and motivations. Then when I went to the latest one, it was a House repeat. Huh? I checked online, and yup, even though they made 9 episodes, they only showed three and already cancelled it. Why can't they give shows a chance anymore? Cheers and The Cosby Show and Seinfeld weren't that popular the first season! Sometimes you have to give your audience a chance to get into it! So disappointing.

If you can find it, check out Firefly and Wonderfalls. All created episodes are out on DVD and worth a view.

Oh, Randy...Netflix isn't pay-per-view...well I guess it is kinda....it's an online rental website where they send you DVDs in the mail from your movie queue and you watch them and send them back. It's a flat monthly fee and I get three movies at a time. As soon as I mail them back I get new ones. When I was really on the ball I was getting twenty movies a month. Now I'm down to about 10. I've been on it for a few years and am completely addicted. I've seen a ton of movies I'd never even heard of, and they have an excellent independent and classic selection as well as more mainstream movies and tv shows. I don't think Japan has anything like it.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

2007-05-07T22:49:00.000-05:00

Now that I have patio furniture for my back patio I wanted to get some potted plants and make it really pretty. Friday right after work I headed over to Garden Ridge using the new 45 Toll Road (love it! saves 20 minutes getting to RR!). On the way there Mike called to say they were meeting at Dominics (awesome local pizza place owned by a brother and sister from Italy) and then his place to play on his Wii. I couldn't make Dominics since I was too focused on getting some flower pots, but I did make it for the Wii. That is one awesome gaming machine. I guess it helps that we played it on his 10ft theater screen so everything was life-sized. We played the basic sports package that it came with. I've got to say - graphics really don't matter as long as the game is FUN. If you aren't familiar with the Wii their big selling point is you hold the remote in your hand and the game recognizes your movement - so it's not just hitting buttons, it's actually your arm/hand movement that plays the game. We played Tennis and Golf, and using an extra second-hand remote we played the boxing game. Jayne and I KICKED ASS on the boxing game. If you strap weights to your wrists you could really get a workout! I kept trying to do an upper-cut but it wouldn't let me. But, you could dodge to the left and right and the game recognized what you were doing and made your screen fighter match your movement. Jayne was so entranced she went and bought one on Sunday.

Saturday after Orientation at the shelter I met up again with Mike and Annette to head over to Pflugerville. We met Jayne at Chuys (didn't even know there was one over there!) and then went back to Jayne's house to help her on some house projects. She had a boo-boo hand due to some ill-advised in-air plane repairs. She said she should have learned her lesson from Snakes on a Plane and always send the co-pilot! Some of the stuff she needed done required more than one person anyways. So, here's what we got done: hung a curtain rod above a large window in her family room, hung two faux-wood blinds up in the kitchen after removing the old ones, installed a ceiling fan, fixed her kitchen faucet which was spraying out water by tieing a baggie full of CLR to the faucet head and dissolving the calcium build-up, and trimming a large hedge in her backyard. While Mike and I did all that Jayne and Annette made very yummy snickerdoodle cookies. I will definitely have to the recipe for those. After that we played a few games of pool and then called it in early around 8:30.

I always have so much more motivation when it's someone else's house! I need someone to motivate me on my front yard work. Any takers? Any one? Any one? chirp chirp silence....ok ok. I met with my tree guy today and the new tree will be in on Monday. I was hoping to have it before I host Party Game Night on Friday, but oh well. He's also going to trim some trees in the back that haven't been done in a couple years. I'm hoping once the tree gets in that will make me want to spruce up the rest of the yard. I still haven't decided if I'm going to put in sprinklers or not.

Sunday I met up with Jayne and Gil at the Alamo and saw Hot Fuzz. Loved it! It's from the same guys as Shaun of the Dead which is one of my favorite movies. I thought it was hilarious. I hope it does well in the theaters. Jayne mentioned that she read my blog. The whole thing all at once. I can't even imagine how long that would take! I felt very special though. That was sweet of her...or maybe she was just hella bored! Hee. Hi Jayne! After that I headed to my neighbor Byron's house and spent five hours putting together a coffee table. I think I mentioned before going to the gem and rock shows and buying a bunch of sliced agates, jasper, and other random rocks. I'm going to inlay it into a table and pour epoxy over it that will make a glass-like surface. The table construction is going well. It's made out of oak and we basically got the thing totally constructed from all the raw pieces of wood. Now we just have to sand it a bit more, stain it, and varnish the hell out of it before we do the center rock piece. I want to take the time to do it right cause hopefully it'll last a long time. And since I'm not very gentle with my furniture it has to withstand feet and whatnot being put on it. I'm kinda nervous about the center rock piece cause if that goes badly the whole project is ruined. We're going to have to do some test runs before the actual table pour. I'll post pictures when I'm done (of course!). I've learned a lot of carpentry tricks from him. Maybe I'll make some other stuff too. I'll think about it.

Oh, for those interested baby Ian is doing well. He's over three pounds and did end up having to have heart surgery, but everything went well. Melanie and Dan bought a house in Pflugerville that I just found out today is really really close to where Jayne lives - same exit, different side.

May 1?

2007-04-30T23:43:00.000-05:00

Ok, this month just flew by. I keep thinking 'oh, I should put ..... on my blog' or 'hey ..... was really cool, I should blog about it!'. And have I done it? No. I know my masses of fans are gnashing their teeth for the next entry. Well here you go: Over the past few weeks I have been hella busy. Work a couple weeks ago was crazy. My boss was at a conference for a week and one of our servers decided to crash. Luckily our IT folks are AWESOME and did a work-around until a new server could arrive. I was working 10-11 hour days trying to get everything done as well as try and help everyone else with their issues. My boss was so sorry for me she told me to take last Friday off. That actually worked out really well cause there was a lot of stuff I wanted to get done at the house and was needing to take some time off. Here's what I did last Friday:

Got up at 7am! (earlier than when I do for work! Argh!)

8:45am - carpet cleaner guys arrived. The carpets haven't been cleaned since I bought the house in Oct of 04. Luckily since they're so dark there aren't any visible stains, but they did need a cleaning.

9:30am - Sears Washer/Dryer guy came to do my annual maintenance - hey, I paid for the 5 yr contract - I'm using the damn thing! Oh, and I do really recommend those front loading washers. Love mine. It's like a jet engine when it spins. The clothes come out practically dry already.

10:30am - landscape vendor comes out to check my grass. Do I have a fungus? Bugs? Nope. Just need to water and fertilize. I was worried that I did have an infestation but now I know I don't. Just need to take better care of my lawn.

11:30am - Sears Refrigerator guy comes (see above)

1:00p - Where the hell are my plumber and electrician? They're late!

1:30p - Electrician and plumber show up. Electrician pisses me off by saying he's just there to give a quote and not actually do the labor. What the fuck? I made it clear to the dispatch lady that I was taking the day off of work to get all this done! He reschedules for Monday morning after I confirm with my dad that he can be here to let the guy in and supervise. (again I must say I love my retired parents that live 10 minutes from me!) I show the plumber what I want done. He quotes a price I can buy a used car at. Sigh. Fine, just get it done. (more on all this below)

2:30p - landscape vendor comes to give a quote for a sprinkler system....I'm just curious on what those things run

4:00p - Sears dishwasher guy comes (see above)

9:00p - Plumber finally leaves. Asshole.

During this whole time I was outside doing yard work in the back. I finally bought a cool patio set and I'm trying to get my backyard into some semblance of 'pretty'. A couple weeks ago my No Kidding group had a plant swap and I picked up some cool stuff. My backyard is definitely a portrait of Darwin's survival of the fittest. Those plants kinda have to take care of themselves cause I always forget to water. The grass is ok cause it's got so much shade from all my trees. I'm slowly finding plants that can deal with my practically non-existent level of care. I love 'drought-resistant'!

All right...about the plumber. Now, in the past I've mentioned how Nathan, my dad, and I changed my kitchen faucet. I know that plumbing is fairly straight forward, but you have to have the right TOOLS. That's the issue we had last time and it was really hard and frustrating to change the faucet. I've been needing to change the faucets in my bathroom and my outdoor faucets leaked. I decided to have a professional come in and take care of it all at once. My dad also talked me into changing the faucet in the guest bathroom too. It was kinda grungy and might as well do it all at once. The plumber that came really didn't know what he was doing and had to go to Home Depot twice. I finally went to Lowes, asked someone there, and got the part that we needed. The faucets looked ok when he left, but Saturday I could tell the two in my bathroom were leaking. Luckily they sent someone else out this morning while my dad was here with the electrician and they fixed everything.

As for the electrician...sigh....here's the story. My friend Gil from No Kidding had helped me last year rewire all the plugs and switches in the kitchen to accommodate the tile backsplash. (Damn, was that really a year ago???) He had done a lot of electrical work at his house and had all the equipment and I knew I could trust him. I wasn't planning on calling him (really I wasn't!) but I bought new faceplates for the bathroom and the damn screws were too long to fit in the old plugs. What the hell? Isn't that all standard? I guess my plugs were so old, they only worked with short screws. I've also been wanting to change the lights in my kitchen which were hideous and I finally found a style that I liked. I know how to change out light fixtures, but it's not something you can easily do by yourself. Anyways, back to Gil. Once I realized I needed new plugs in my bathroom I called Gil and bribed him with dinner in exchange for his help.

He put in the new plugs and switches in my bathroom and helped me put up the two lights in the kitchen. Ok, he was the main putter-upper and I held the fixture, but I could've done it! I had also wanted to change the light fixture in my guest bathroom. Hey, when I get in these moods I really go for it. The old light fixture was this old ugly bronze horizontal row of four lights. I was able to get the faceplate off to see the wires and didn't see any issues. As soon as Gil saw it, he was like 'wow....that's really bad'. That's not something you like to hear someone say about the possible fire-inducing electrical work in your house. What happened is that one of the previous owners (aka clueless lazy nimrod) decided to move the bathroom light from a ceiling fixture to a wall fixture. I knew it had been moved cause you can kinda see the patch job in the ceiling. I just ASSUMED they had done it right and put a new electrical box in the wall. Uh no. They ran LAMP CORD with DUCT TAPE from the ceiling box to the wall and then just duct taped everything together. Whimper. Sob. Freak out. Gil was industrious and went up into my attic to check it out. He found more duct tape and lamp cord up there. I was freaked out about him being up there cause the last guy that was up there (my roofer) but his leg through my bathroom ceiling cause he thought he was stepping on a secured piece wood instead of a piece of wood that was just laying there. At least he got it fixed and it looked fine. I was having flashes of Gil falling through the ceiling and impaling himself on a kitchen chair or something. Shut up - it could happen! So, anyways, Gil advised me to get an electrician out here to fix everything right and put up a new box in the wall. I've also been needing to change the fans in my outdoor patio so I had the electrician do everything at once. It actually wasn't that expensive. Now my screened in patio is awesome! I just need to get some potted plants to get some color. I'm hosting Game Night next week and maybe some people might like to sit outside.

Have I said this before? I'm getting rid of the tree in my front yard. It's a silver maple and it's a stringy piece of crap. Sure, it's kinda pretty and not diseased or anything, but it's not GROWING. It's been over two years and it's grown less than 6 inches. I need some shade for my front yard. The husband of one of the girls at work is a botanist and he's going to get me a kick-ass tree. He said that maples don't do well in Austin anyways - it's just not cold enough. I told him I didn't want lots of acorns and crap falling off the tree but I did want a nice canopy. He came up with the Lacebark Elm. It's really pretty, drought resistant (yeah!), resistant to most diseases that other elms have issues with, and it grows really big. I'm slowly taking down that limestone rock ring around the maple to save some labor cost for when the tree guys come with the new tree. They're just going to cut the maple down and put the elm next to it. I'm not going to bother with digging out all the roots. I think this will all get done in the next month. He also has a landscaper friend that I'm talking with about doing some stuff in the front yard...not sure what yet.

Yes, I know the lawn needs work. Stupid non-shading tree!
**PICTURE REMOVED**

been awhile

2007-04-11T01:30:00.000-05:00

ok, I know, I know, I know. It's been a while since I've posted. And hey, this is my 150th post! Crazy. Baby Ian is doing well. He's gained weight and is growing. There's a hole in a baby's heart (or near it?) when they are still growing and it's common for premies to need a surgery to close it. Luckily his is closing on its own. Melanie was put back on bed rest cause her blood pressure wasn't going down as fast as they hoped for. I saw him in the NICU when he was still around 1lb. He was so tiny and his hands and feet looked like a grownup - very thin and boney - not pudgy like a full-term baby's. I didn't expect that. Melanie sent out a more recent picture and it looks like he's getting pudgy now. I'm sure he'll be running around and getting into trouble in no time.

I finally got a TX phone number for my cell phone. I've been out here almost four years and I don't know why I waited so long. Just stubborn. My cell phone wasn't holding a charge so I decided to get a new phone and new phone number at the same time. If I haven't given you the new number let me know. Some of the email addresses I have were not working. Now I have to think of all the vendors that have the old number that I need to contact. Never changing my number again!

What's going on in my life you ask? Not much. I'm getting a little frustrated at work - we're trying to hire for a few positions and the doctors are being so picky about the candidates. Sometimes you just have to give someone a shot and see if if works out.

I have a ton of yard work to do. We've had rain followed by sun - which makes plants grow, y' know? Mike bought one of those robot lawn mowers and it is so cool. Maybe I'll break down one of these days, but for now I'll stick with my lawnmower - at least it's self propelled. I think I have to re-sod some of my front lawn. It's really really dead. It didn't help that I refused to water it last summer. Maybe I should rethink that policy for this summer. I just want to cement over the whole damn thing. And I saw more poison ivy on the side of the house. Not good. I'll probably be making another trip to the doctor after pulling it all out. I have such a bad reaction to it.

For my 150th post I was going to write about a bunch of stuff, but it's 12:30am and I really should go to bed. Maybe I'll save it all for the 200th!

Nothing goes as planned

2007-03-28T20:30:00.000-05:00

Sunday Melanie went home from the hospital on bed rest with directions to see her doctor twice a week to check her blood pressure and everything. I called her yesterday to see if she wanted me to bring over Casino Royale (awesome movie) that I just got from Netflix. But, I didn't get an answer on the phone. Hm...how hard is it to get a hold of a gal on bedrest? Well, just got a call from her. She's in the hospital again, at St David's. She went to the doctor's on Monday and he said yup, baby's coming today. They did a c-section and everything went ok. Baby Ian (see! told you she'd get her name!) is in the NICU now and was only one pound two ounces at birth. But, luckily she said there aren't any health issues - no upcoming surgeries or anything. He just needs time to grow. She said they usually keep babies in the NICU until their original due date, which for Ian is in mid July. That means he'll probably be in there for about three months. Yikes. I joked that she's going to have the million dollar baby. Thank god for insurance! Now I need to get my ass in gear with making a baby afghan. I started over the weekend and I'm about a third of the way done. Hopefully I'll be done by next week. I'll go see her tomorrow night after work. It seems like so many people nowadays are having premies. Crazy.

Don't do this, don't do that.

2007-03-27T23:57:00.000-05:00

It seems like anything you eat is going to kill you. Either you'll get cancer or heart disease or liver/kidney issues. It seems like you can't win no matter what. Just saw a new story on MSN how pregnant women that eat too much beef give birth to sons with low sperm counts.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17815402/wid/11915773?GT1=9145

What the hell? Don't they have something better to do? Like cure cancer? Already pregnant women are so freaked out about what they can and can't do. Don't drink alcohol, don't drink caffeine, don't have too much fish or peanut butter, etc, etc, etc. My mom used to tell a story about how one of my great aunts used to drink a beer everyday when she was pregnant for the 'vitamins'. People didn't have all these rules back then and we survived, right?

Society is getting so phobic. Let's have soft cushy playground equipment, let's not play tag or dodgeball (and I ROCKED at dodgeball!), let's not do anything that could ever cause a moment of stress or sadness or physical injury to our children. Getting hurt is part of growing up. Dealing with getting picked last is part of growing up. When these kids grow up and go into the real world there isn't going to be anyone to hold their hands. I don't think their parents or society are preparing them for dealing with life's hardships and obstacles.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17422250/

Dear lord. Now they don't want kids to read? Any incentive to get kids interested in reading is good enough for me. All these Save Our Kids! protests are getting out of hand.

300...six pack of abs

2007-03-27T23:41:00.000-05:00

Saturday I went into the shelter for a bit and then met up with Tony and Nathan down south. We went to dinner at Logan's Roadhouse and I must say that's got to be one of the best meals I have ever had. Extremely well priced and the steak I had was perfect and the grilled squash was seasoned exactly right. Wish I had one up here, but they said the closest was in RR...ok I guess that isn't that far from me. Need to take some of the ANK folks up there sometime.
After dinner we saw 300. We bought our tickets before dinner cause I'd heard how much it'd been selling out and I didn't want us to have to rush through dinner or stand in line. It's a good thing we did get tickets cause our showing completely sold out. Damn, was that movie good. I don't know if it was special effects, prosthetics, makeup, or just good old fashioned working out, but there was some major eye candy walking around in that movie. Every single guy playing a Spartan was ripped. And having them in tiny leather codpieces with a long red cape just helped sell the whole visual. Won't get into it too much since there's been a lot on TV about it, but I will say that I appreciated that the director stayed in one angle for a lot of the action. I hate a lot of the new movies where the camera angles keep changing and the frames are flashing during a fight/action scene. I don't know if they're trying to heighten the tension and drama, but it usually looks to me like they couldn't choreograph a decent scene so they had to just show quick cuts. I'd much rather have a scene where you can see the action play out. They did that quite well with 300. Ok, yes it's a lot of blood, but c'mon, it's CGI blood! And the sword/shield fighting sequences were just amazing. I don't think I'd buy it, but I'd definitely see it again. I don't know what the Iranians are fussing about either. It takes place in like 400 BC when it was Persia and yeah, they're the bad guys, but I didn't think they were portrayed that maliciously. They're just playing it up so the world can get angry at America again. Like they ever need a reason. It's all so stupid.

Sunday we had a pre-Easter dinner at my parent's house since they'll be in CA during Easter. It was good seeing everyone. I can't believe they have my 4 yr old nephew in therapy, but whatever. So glad I'm never having kids. He was acting up, and my sister mentioned talking to some other parents about how kids these days 'have no fear'. My mom replied that's cause she's not getting up and making him stop doing what she was asking him to stop doing. So many parents these days are such wimps. My sister said it's 'easier' to let him have his way. I really hope he doesn't grow into a spoiled brat.

Ian's already causing problems

2007-03-22T21:04:00.000-05:00

After getting off work today I was in the mood to do something so I called Melanie. I hadn't seen her in a while though we'd emailed a couple times last week. I called her and said 'Hey, watcha doing?'. She responds with 'Nothing much. I'm in the HOSPITAL.'. Ok, those are my capitals. Luckily she was at NAMC which is just a few minutes from my work. I got there in about 10 minutes and she gave me the scoop.

She's in her 24th week of pregnancy and has dangerously high blood pressure (possibly preeclampsia, though she was vague if it was that or just high blood pressure). She had her normal doctor checkup yesterday and the doctor basically told her to go home, pack a bag, and come back to the hospital - it was that high. They wanted to keep her overnight and test her again today. But, today she was still high and now there's a chance she might be on bed rest in the hospital for the rest of the pregnancy (3 months if the baby's brought to term). She'll find out tomorrow if it'll be bed rest. She has to stay in the hospital because if her blood pressure gets to a certain level, they'll induce the delivery of the baby immediately. The neonatal doctor said 24 weeks is ok, but 25 is better (and certainly any more time is always a good thing when growing a baby). They've given her steriod shots to develop his lungs in case he does have to come early. I was there for over two hours just keeping her company. She didn't want me to bring anything cause she didn't want to get 'comfortable' in case she can go home tomorrow. Uh yeah, I don't think that's happening. They took her blood pressure a couple times while I was there and she didn't want to know the numbers. I saw them, and they were really high. And since Melanie reads this, I won't say the numbers. She knows they were high. I told her to call me tomorrow and let me know what they say. I'll bring some books and stuff to keep her busy and she does have cable tv. The sucky thing is that her room doesn't have a wireless connection - only dial up. If she had wireless she'd be able to work on her laptop doing her QA testing. She can't do testing over dial up, so she's unsure of what her company is going to do if she is on bedrest for the next few months. And when I say bedrest, I mean BEDREST. No getting up and walking down the hall, only a few minutes for a shower, etc. They really mean you stay in bed the whole time. I would go stir crazy. At least it's really close to my work so I'll be able to visit a lot. As for the name, her husband likes Daren, she wants Ian. I vote for Ian. We were joking (rather morbidly now that I look back on it) that if she dies I'll make sure Dan names him Ian. That'll be her 'dying wish'. As it is, with all she's going through, I think she'll be able to guilt him into letting her name the baby Ian. She'll also have some good guilt-trip stories to play on when her kid's being a brat.