Things I Learned

I learned a few things over this past holiday. I was in NM with my family, and we had a great time. So, without further ado, let me share with you the things I learned.

1. Facebook is not only a great tool for connecting ONLINE with old friends, but it works great to arranging face-to-face meetings as well. An old horse buddy of mine was flying in with her daughter and it turned out that we both had layovers in Denver. We flew the last leg together and it was a great opportunity to catch up.

2. Children never run out of energy and they brighten holidays by their mere presence.

3. Nothing beats mom's cooking on a holiday.

4. Only 15 days until winter break!!!!

5. I love, love, love being out and about during the holiday season. I did a little Christmas shopping today, and it was so great to be out doing fun stuff. The crowds really don't bother me. Though I do feel bad for the kids whose parents are stressed and take it out on them.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and is looking forward to our next round of revelry.

Olives and Walnut Shells Anyone?

So I like funny blogs. I couldn't get enough Cake Wrecks for a while there. The reality is though that I am insanely busy these days, and Cake Wrecks takes a long time to read just because the pics take a while to load.

So, my current favorite is Catalog Living. Soooo funny. It takes all those random catalog pictures and makes comments about a made-up family that would live in that house. You should check it out.

Anyway, there is a compilation of several of their funny holiday posts. I seriously laughed out loud as I read them. Check it out.

Holidays

So my friend Alyssa just blogged about holidays, and I wrote this book about them in her comments section. I realized that it is basically a blog post of its own, so what the heck. Here is a C&P of what I wrote there. Alyssa, stop reading here. There's really no need to see my rant twice.

With my family in NM, it's not like we have to worry about going back and forth on the actual holidays. :) Also, DH hates to fly, so clearly he won't be attending Thanksgiving with my parents any time soon. It's just such a short holiday that the only option for travel is air.

When I am with my parents though, my mom does the vast majority of the cooking though my dad and brother carve the turkey. She used to do 100 side dishes (exaggeration,) but we've come to realize that it is better to have a few that we all love and can enjoy rather than so many that we try to eat a little of each. This year the menu is: clam chowder for appetizer, green salad with bleu cheese, candied pecans, fresh pears and a pear vinaigrette, turkey, suffing and dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, cranberry pomegranate relish, Brussels sprouts with procutto and pine nuts, broccoli casserole, rolls, pumpkin pie, apple crisp, and that may be it. I'm sure I'm forgetting something though. When I write it all out, it doesn't look like a scaled down meal, but you should have seen those tables when I was a kid! Everything is from scratch too.

To be honest, I hate holiday meals with DH's family. The biggest reason is that they don't do anything from scratch. I mean, they make the turkey, but the potatoes are from a box, frozen green vegetables, boxed pies. You get the idea. If they have wine, it is pink. Blech.

Last year we were in town, but his grandma, the matriarch, didn't want to do turkey and his sister didn't want to drive in, so we took grandma out for Italian (her choice) on Wednesday and then met up with friends on Thanksgiving. It was awesome!

This year I'll be in NM and he'll meet his family in IL for their dinner. I'll be sad to be away from him, but I will not miss their meal. I hope when we move houses and no longer have the cat that we can host. Then I can be in charge and control the processed crap.

Christmas is still to be determined. But let's just say that their boxed crap doesn't hold a candle to my mom's ham, homemade potato gratin, and red wine poached pears. We'll be in town, but they never have a schedule until the last minute. My folks come to town on the 26th, so we'll at least have a second shot at it if the meal blows.

So what?

I never blog for real any more. But hey. I think this is really funny.



Embarrassed by their premature arrival, Gary & Elaine’s decorative Christmas trees made their way upstairs to hide for another month.

Catalog Living

Friday Funny

My new favorite palindrome:

Dammit I'm Mad!

Dark Days

Warning. The following post is not happy and could be considered graphic in sections.

I thought my next blog post would be a happy one about the half and how I really felt pretty good throughout the whole thing. However, life doesn't always go how you expect. We had retired my horse last week in order to let him live out his life in relaxation. The first few days were great. His legs got a little sore from moving around so much but he was happy.

Then one day someone going by the property noticed blood from his nose. We had the vet out and she was worried. It wasn't normal blood. It was very dark and smelled awful. She put him on antibiotics thinking it was an infection. The symptoms looked better in day 3 so we thought we had turned a corner. By day 5 though thing were going downhill fast. Wednesday was day 7 and when I went to check on him things were obviously bad. I called the vet knowing we were at a decision point. I left work because my coworkers are amazing and covered for me. I met her at the farm and she immediately said our only option was to take his pain away.

O stayed with him and it was the hardest thing I've ever done. If that wasn't enough we had conferences Wednesday night and all day Thursday and Friday. All the while I was having to make arrangements for his move. It was horrific.

Tonight I'm going out to drink. A lot. So if you think of it, raise a glass tonSaint Lucas. He was one of my best friends and never let me down. He was the horse of a lifetime.

13.1

I did it! I did a half marathon. More details to come soon.

New Blog Idea

I think I should start a new blog. I could call it "Things I Love to Eat that Make Me the Fatass I Am." I could have a one line post every day.

Today I think I would post something involving pumpkin. Perhaps a Pumpkin Pie Blizzard. Mmmmmmm.

New Toy!

So I understand that there are many things to dislike about AT&T, however, I think there are also MANY things to dislike about Charter. So, in honor of the fact that I really hate Charter, we went ahead and switch to AT&T for our TV and internet. We'll end up saving a little bit of money each month and get more services like voicemail, caller ID, that kind of thing.

But let me comment on the U-verse TV portion. I LOVE IT!!!!! Already I'm loving having a DVR. I feel like I joined the modern world. In fact, I've already got some regular series scheduled. Tonight, I just tried out pausing live TV. I watch shows on HBO, but they don't show commercials. I love that normally, however there are times I just need to go to the bathroom or get a glass of water. Now, no problem!

Tomorrow I get to at least order my iPhone too. Aaaah. Technology really is one of my pleasures.

Gotcha!

Today, September 18, is Henry's Gotcha Day! One year ago, Henry joined our family.


Look at how little he was! Only 8 pounds.

He's all grown up now, and I couldn't imagine our family without him.


And of course, we never would have found him without Stray Rescue. So, in Henry's honor, I cut my teeth on taking a dog to an adoption event.


Whisper is relatively new at the shelter, but she is such a sweetheart. All she wants to do is cuddle.

Please, please think about adopting. There are so many wonderful dogs that need homes, and I know my life wouldn't be as full without the four-legged members of my family.

You may not know this....

But I grew up in Texas. And the things most people know about Texas are that we like things big (think hair, cars, and bugs,) and we view football as a religion. You know the scene in Friday Night Lights where the whole town empties for the high school football game? Yeah. That's realistic.

Anyway, I did graduate work at the University of Texas, and today is the first day of the season! Woot!

The only sadness I can express is that I have no one to watch games with. Last year, I did all my football watching in my living room, alone, with my husband trying to steal the remote to watch... BASEBALL. ::sigh::

My goal this year is to go out at least one weekend a month so I can watch games with other fans. I don't even care if I have to watch the Texas game on a secondary screen while Mizzou is on! I just need to be around fans. Football was meant to be a community experience.

So show me some good hits, long runs, and at least one Hail Mary. Also, if you want to catch some games, let me know. I'm your girl. Hook 'em!

Five Years

On this day, five years ago, Andy and I said our "I do's." It was really a beautiful day. There were mistakes, but you know, it just makes the day memorable. Who am I kidding? It really started when Andy proposed to me while I crutched around the Botanical Gardens with my broken hip. Ha!

To celebrate our anniversary, we went out to Mike Shannon's last weekend. It was a lovely evening. Last night we hung out, ate fish for dinner, and had cocktails while we spent quality time together. I gave him my phone upgrade early since his was on its way out. So his iPhone was part of his present. The other part is on its way: new inserts for his Ugg slippers. He loves those things, but I'm sure he has no idea what my parents paid for them and therefore why I'm so insistent that he get new inserts instead of just replacing the shoes entirely.

He got me his best present yet: a gift card to Talbot's.

Normally I'm very opposed to gift cards, but the fact that he knew I rarely went to nice stores for myself really meant a lot to me. That and the fact that he made a trip to the mall especially to get the card. Wow!

I doubt we'll do anything tonight. I'm working out, and he has art meeting. The first five years have been good though, and I look forward to what the next five might bring.

What up?

Yeah, yeah. It's been a long time since I've blogged. I've missed it, but with school starting, things have just been crazy. I haven't even been able to volunteer at Stray Rescue since then!

I did get to go down there today though and help get things ready for the Liberation Revolution Adoption Festival. The shift started at 6:00 this morning, but it was so good to be back helping the dogs again. I couldn't stay through the event though because I had a salon appointment scheduled.

A few weeks ago, Groupon was offering a GREAT deal on a salon package. Since I haven't found a place I love here, this was perfect for me. My appointment was today at Matthew Robert Salon on Manchester with Ruth. I loved it! The place was so nice, and Ruth did a fabulous job. My Groupon included cut, color, makeup application, and eyebrow waxing. It was a great deal. So here's the end result. What do you think?


Now that I'm all snazzy in the face and hair department, DH and I are going out for our FIFTH anniversary dinner at Mike Shannon's downtown. I think I'll have a martini to start and a glass of wine with my steak. One big dinner for this big event is worth it in my mind. Have a great weekend everyone, and I'll try to write more! I really do enjoy it.

Volunteering

I volunteered at Stray Rescue's new shelter today. It was a blast! I got there early in the morning and thought I would help clean the apartments. However, when I walked in, they actually needed more people to walk dogs, so I scored on the job front. Woohoo! I got to walk five dogs, and I thought I would follow Mary's lead and tell you about the totally sweet pups who are available for adoption right now.

This time I want to talk about Fuji. Look at that beautiful face!

She is just so sweet. She walked great on the leash and was a total lover. I'll warn you though that she is very free with her kisses. :) Another girl who was volunteering with me said she was thinking about fostering and might try little Miss Fuji. I hope she gets a home soon because she totally deserves one.

I also walked Jumper, Diamond, String Bean, and Missy. All were adorable, but Jumper totally surprised me. Coming out if his apartment he was wild and, well, jumping up and down. Once we left the shelter though, he was perfect on the leash. It just goes to show you that you have to give all these dogs a chance. Diamond was a black fluff ball who just wanted to cuddle. String Bean was a little too focused on walking as fast as possible to take much time to socialize. Missy looks so tough but really just wants to be loved.

You know that picture of a crazy cat lady? Well, if left to my own devices, I think I could become a crazy dog lady. So, the moral of this post is to tell you all to think about volunteering, fostering, and adopting so these awesome dogs can get a forever home. They deserve it.

Day Off in San Antonio

I was in San Antonio all week for a professional development conference. Overall I learned a lot and was super busy. Friday was a free day though. My flight didn't leave until later in the afternoon, and San Marcos is only 30 minutes away. In San Marcos, they have TWO outlet malls: Tanger and Prime. I'm not a big outlet mall shopper, but for some reason, these malls always seem to have great stuff.

I went to Eddie Bauer first. I got a pair of pants that were not on sale and 3 shirts, two for Andy and 1 for me, that were each 70% off. I also picked up a backpack. My laptop bag/briefcase gets so heavy during the year that I thought I would try this. All that for $100.

Next I hit the Columnia store and scored a University of Texas fleece for $15. My UT stuff wears out fast, so I have to grab more when I get a chance.

After that it was a trip to the Oakley store. I had my old pair of Diobey on my head, and I looked at the girl, said I love these, but they are getting old. She says, "The Disobey. Awesome! Try these. The lens is a little bigger, but they have the same style of wrap-around. PS, they are $70." Holy cow! I'm pretty sure I paid more than that for my first ever pair over 10 years ago. Sold.

The final stop was the Coach store and probably my best deal. Not only was everything at least 50% under retail, but they had a coupon that day for an additional 20% off. This included sales, clearance, etc. So, I carried this bag around for a while.


Then I wandered over to the Clearance section and spied a black Signature version. Hmmmm. It was the same bag that was in the regular section. I looked at the tag, and it said it had a problem with the zipper. I played with the zipper for a minute, and it was a little sticky, but not terrible. So I asked the girl how much it was. She pulled out her calculator and, once all the discounts were added, it was $59! What?! A $300 bag, brand new, for that? Sold.

I still think I'll carry my yellow one for the rest of August, but I am so in love with my new, pretty bag. I never thought I would buy a signature since I like to be a discreet label whore, but the black on black is subtle, and I love the shape of the bag. The light blue lining is also a plus. I wasn't really planning on spending $300 yesterday, but I am glad I got some good deals. I'll take some pics soon so everyone can ooh and ahh over it's beauty. :)

So Much for That

Remember here when I said this week was going to be a Blogapalooza? Yeah, well, that clearly didn't happen. Why? Well, let's review how this week went.

Monday- Over the weekend, we discovered that a student has Tourrette syndrome. The catch is that the parents don't want anyone to know or talk to the kid about it, so his teacher had been getting on him because of his singing outbursts. Well, as I discovered this weekend, making a big deal out of the situation makes it worse. So Monday was spent talking to other administrators and the teacher about the issue.

Tuesday- Report card update didn't happen as planned, so I spent hours on e-mail and the phone with the database people. Now, we have a full-time database administrator, so why was I the one making these calls? I have no idea but it still irritates me that people can't do their own jobs. The good part of today was that I got to have lunch with my friend.

Wednesday- We finally got report cards printed. Well, I did. My admin still couldn't generate them, so I had to print to PDF and then she physically printed them and took them to the post office. Unfortunately, on my way home I talked to my husband and he said Ginger had been throwing up all day. Oh no! I left a VM on the vet tech line, but by 10:00, they still hadn't called me back. So I called the office again, went through the front desk, and ended up at the office by 10:20. I was there until midnight and Ginger had to spend the night because she had something in her tummy. The x-ray couldn't tell what it was, and all the toys were accounted for. I didn't sleep well that night.

Thursday- I woke up at 6:00 and called the vet right away to check on Ginger. The tech said there had been no vomiting overnight, and that the vet would x-ray her again and call me soon. By 7:30 the vet called and it looked like whatever had been in her tummy had passed. Thursday was actually a normal day! There were some other folks from my department around, so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but I did get some work done. I also finally made it to the bank... something I've needed to do for days. I picked Ginger up on my way home, and we had a quiet evening at home. $600 poorer, but at least everyone was ok.

Friday- My day started with getting up at 5:00 to give Ginger her medicine before we started our feeding schedule for the day. When I walked into my office, I immediately got a phone call from a mother who was livid about her daughter's summer school grade. The kid got a B-. Um, hello. That's a good grade in the upper school. She even began threatening to withdraw her kid from school because clearly a bad grade in Ethics means her kid can only get C's in "real" classes. Let's not acknowledge that the course was taught by the head of the Upper School and was this child's first foray into high school classes and expectations. Then my afternoon teacher talked to me and said she thought she had food poisoning and might not be able to teach. I didn't have time to teach her class! I had to take care of a bunch of stuff because I leave for San Antonio and a week-long conference. Thank goodness she was able to keep it together so I could get out of town.

Saturday(today)- I have not really gone outside yet. It's way too hot. I think I heard the news say it was almost 90 a few minutes before 7:00! At home I've been doing 1000 loads of laundry, starting to pack for tomorrow, and just getting a little more quality time with all my furbabies. DH should be home soon too. I'm thinking about getting takeout from the Shaved Duck for dinner. He's been craving pulled pork and coleslaw. I've heard their mac'n'cheese is really good too. I also need to grab a few things from Target. While I've been working at home today, I've had Cake Boss on in the background. I've never watched that show before, but it is pretty entertaining. In one episode this crazy bride comes to the bakery the day before her wedding to see her cake. She HATES it, so what does she do? Grabs icing and starts putting random icing blobs all over it! OMG. I couldn't believe he didn't scream at this girl AND made her a new cake. When he dropped off the new cake, the bride wouldn't even talk to him. What a bitch. I'm amazed by how much they all fight though. It makes Charm City Cakes look sooooo calm. :)

Don't know how much I'll post this week, but hopefully I learn a lot.

Fifteen Minutes

I'm sure you've seen this face before.

After 15 minutes in the yard today, it looked like this.

Notice the distinct lack of white. Of course, a face like that meant an immediate trip here.

Which finally resulted in a very fluffy and indignant puppy.

It also resulted in a scrubbed bathroom since the tub was quite muddy and gross. I have no idea how Ginger managed to come in with just a little mud on her pads and a tiny bit on here ear.

Dreams

Randall posted this little glimpse into her desires today, and it looked like fun! Doesn't everyone have that list of things they would most like to have? So here we go.

Car
An Audi A4


Truck
Let's be clear. I've always wanted a truck, but it just has never been practical.


Furniture
For this dream to be true we would need a new house AND the TV, but it's still what I want. Something like this would be nice, though that plant is scary. (BTW, have you read Catalog Living? If not, I highly recommend it.)


Vacation
Greece. I was lucky enough to go to Italy and would love to go back. Greece is next on my list though.


Jewelery
Diamond studs.


House
I love big historic homes. This isn't my favorite of all time, but it's the best I could do based on what listed under current real estate. I would want an updated kitchen though. :)

PSA

I am co-teaching/TAing a class during this session of summer school. Basically I'm around to help with lab prep and classroom management. Well, that means I spend most of the 3-hour period goofing around on my computer.

BE WARNED!
This means there will be lots of FB wall posts, random blog entries, and many comments on your own blogs. Lucky for you, there are only six more days of this since I have a Professional Development conference during the last week of the session.

Sno Cones

So, I hadn't had a sno cone in years, but there seem to be stands EVERYWHERE here. Well, Angie was organizing a small group of people to go enjoy her new favorite stand, Murray's. If you are her friend on FB, you know that she has a new goal: to eat her way through their menu. Well, our mutual friends Kerry and Laurie wanted to see her handsome son Nick, so they all decided to go get sno cones. I saw these plans on FB and invited myself along with Henry and Ginger. What can I say, I wanted a sno cone and they were close to my house.

We couldn't have asked for a better night to hang out though. The temperature was PERFECT, there was a light breeze, and it wasn't so crowded. The dogs were very well behaved, though they did bark a few times. Overall, I was really pleased with how well they did especially since Ginger isn't really used to being out in public yet. Laurie agrees with me that she is going to be an awesome dog with more time and TLC. Check these sweet faces out after they enjoyed their doggie snocones. No joke! They had a flavor just for dogs!

Now I had a half banana half strawberry cheesecake snocone. Do you have staples that you have to try at every restaurant you try? For my husband, he always has the salmon. I love to try various Mac and Cheeses. (See my Mac'n'Cheese post.) In terms of snocones, I always LOVED banana, so that seems to be the flavor I have to try. Anyway, last night's snocone brought back all the perfect memories of too sweet banana flavor and super flavored liquid at the bottom of the cup. Mmmmmm. I will definitely check out Murray's again. It has to be better for me than ice cream, right?

A Fantabulous Weekend- Part 3

Sunday was also outstanding. I got up early and took the dogs on a long walk. Then I met Joline, Tami, and Sarah to go see Eclipse! It's true, I like the Twilight books and see all the movies. I thought the first one was pretty crappy, but they seem to be getting better each time. Thank goodness Edward doesn't look so much like a disco ball any more, but the eyes are getting pretty out of control. If it's not one thing, it's another. I enjoyed the action sequences though.


There's the trailer. In terms of the story, I was always Team Edward. However, in terms of the movie, I'm all about Jacob. I mean really, who could resist this?

And he's legal now so I don't have to feel skeevy about thinking he's sexy.

I think this movie was the best one yet. I really began to believe the characters more, and Bella actually seemed to have a personality. Shocking! As with the previous two though, Billy Bush, who plays Charlie, was probably the most dynamic character. He had some funny lines! Jacob did have the best one though: "I'm hotter than you." Now I am sure that some of the purists wouldn't like that some of these lines deviated from the actual book, but I was willing to overlook it because of the elevated enjoyment I experienced.

Also, there was lots of stuff with the newborn army that was all new to me. Apparently (and I know this from listening to Rhonda on the radio,) the newborn stuff is all based on the supplementary book The Short Life of Bree Tanner. I hope I can get this book from the library at some point, because I just don't think it is probably worth $10.

After the movie, we had lunch at TGI Fridays, then I ran a couple errands and went home to take a nap. DH and I had dinner, and spent a quiet evening at home. All in all, it was a very nice weekend. I have two weeks left at summer school, then a week at a Professional Development conference, then summer's practically over! Wow. I have no idea where the time went.

A Fantabulous Weekend- Part 2

Saturday was a big day for me! I got to go to Soulard Farmer's Market for the first time ever. I know I've lived here for like 8 years, but I was always busy on Saturday mornings. That's just kind of sacred horse time. Anyway, I went with my friend Joline and her husband. Her exact words were, "DH will be psyched because I hate to go there." I have to say I was a little disappointed. Lots of the produce did not look home grown. However, I did get some great tomatoes, a couple lovely yellow bell peppers, two kinds of delicious pasta, some yummy apple pie jam stuff, and this incredible Amish goat cheese from Baetje Farms. I cannot express how fabulous this stuff is. I got the Three Peppercorn and Herb de Provence. Mmmmmm. Looking at their brochure, I see that they will be at both the Maplewood and Webster Groves markets this summer too. That's dangerous!

Also on Saturday, my favorite local pet store, Treats Unleashed, was having an ice cream social for the dogs. I should have taken a picture of the ice cream cups before we started. They were dog cookies in the shape of a cup, filled with yogurt, and then frozen for their delight. The edges were also dipped in carob and they were topped with peanut butter chips and crumbled dog treats. What do you think? Were they a hit?


Finally, that evening I went to the grocery store. Now, let's be clear that I DO NOT like bugs. My general rule of thumb is that if an organism has fewer than two legs (i.e. snakes) or more than four (here is where bugs fit in,) I am not ok. However, there are some amazing things in nature that always make me pause and wonder at the amazing things evolution has given us. One example of this is the leaf bug. Isn't that cool?

Yes, there is a third part to this weekend that will be coming along shortly.

A Fantabulous Weekend- Part 1

Let's start with the biggest events first. DH let Quinn (now Ginger) come live with us! I am so happy. She is currently learning all kinds of new things from our other dogs. Right now they are telling her that french fries are awesome and she needs to learn some hard core begging skills. Let me tell you how thrilled I am about this education. :P DH has been feeding his dog, Doc, table scraps for years. Then we got Henry, and I told him not to feed the puppy people food so we wouldn't have the begging problem. Yeah, that didn't happen. I'm sure Ginger will be getting at least one FF tonight. What do you think will happen when we have kids. Ha!

Anyway, none of that is of particular importance because I really don't think he feeds them enough to cause a problem. It's more of an annoyance. The happy news is that Ginger is home and I love her. Henry loves her. She doesn't bother Doc and Jerry. Here we are with a cute attentive picture of my whole family, DH and the cat included.


Here are Henry and Ginger hanging out together the first afternoon.

Doesn't he look happy?!

Finally, here are a couple pics of the pretty girl with her snazzy new collar. I think it looks awesome on her. We also got a matching red Red Dingo leash that's the same as Henry's. I love these leashes because they are adjustable length but not retractable, and the handles are padded. Seriously, I love them.

Movie Review- The Last Airbender

Have you seen the previews for The Last Airbender?

OK, when I watched that, I expected it to be similar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

So, when I was visiting my parents for my mom's retirement, I suggested to my dad that we go see it. Plus it was in 3D,and I haven't seen any movies with the new technology. Well, he agreed to go, and I was excited. I was already a little taken aback when the opening credits indicated it was made by Nickelodeon films. Uh oh. What I had gotten us in for?

Well, let's just say that the dialogue is nothing to write home about. I think stilted is a generous description. The action scenes were slow too, but the general effects were pretty good. I will say though that I think the movie would have been just the same without the 3D. There seemed to be lots of opportunity to use the technology, but it was rarely employed.

The movie itself was written by M. Night Shyamalan. This means it wasn't based on a book or anything like that. It is very clear that this was a first installment in a series. I wish there were books though because I would just check them out from the library to find out how the story ends. Overall I'd give this movie a C+. I was entertained for the time, but it certainly wasn't worth movie theater prices. I might rent the next two just so I can see what happens, but I certainly won't go see them at 3D prices.

On a related note, the next Narnia movie is going to be in 3D. I suspect I'll see it in regular format, but probably not in the theater. I loved the books so much though, that I have to see the movies when they come out. It's like the Harry Potters even though the first ones were so poorly made.

Seen in the Airport

I saw a girl wearing this shirt in the airport today. I looked it up online so I could see the the image more closely. Very cute. I think I am especially drawn to it because I'm a chemist by trade. What can I say, I'm a geek!

I'm Embarrassed to Brag

But I must. I ran my first race(let) today. I'm not calling it a real race because it was only a mile, but I went! I was so chicken, but luckily my friend Alyssa agreed to go with me. Never having done one of these events before, I just had no idea what to expect. The distance didn't phase me at all, but I was worried I would be totally outclassed with all the real runners.

It was a fabulous experience! There were people there of all shapes and sizes, and I immediately felt more comfortable. I only made one mistake before we started: I went to the bathroom. I know that seems like a very innocuous decision, buuuut I had my ID, credit card, and car key in the back waistband pocket of my pants. Well, as we left the bathroom, my car key was gone! Crap. We looked and looked and left a message with the person working at the desk at the Y. No luck. Well, the race started and about 0.1 miles in I felt something on my leg and then heard a click behind me. It was my key! Who knows how I didn't feel it, but I didn't. Anyway, it made the rest of the race much more enjoyable.

We were just chugging along, and I felt like I was moving but not totally killing myself. With this being the first time, I didn't want to be a total loser. We ran past a bunch of houses, and lots of the occupants were out on their lawns cheering us on. It was really nice. We did a little "leapfrogging" and would walk a little and run a little, but we really did run most of the way. I think it could have been even more if it wasn't so sticky. Ugh, the humidity was awful. Before I knew it, the finish line was in sight, and we pushed hard to finish strong. The visible timer said we finished in 12:30 or so, but we knew it had to be under that since we weren't at the front of the pack when they said go. Later the result were posted online, and we actually finished in 11:59! Wow! For my first race, after having had a stress fracture, and just not being a natural runner, I was honestly pleased. In fact, I had so much fun that I am seriously considering the 3k that is coming up in August. It's an evening run, so that would be interesting. Who knows, I may get to where I don't suck yet.

And now, for photographic proof that I made it to the finish. Please excuse the very frizzy hair.

Shortly after this was taken, we each procured our free bloody mary and walked our way back to the car. Thanks Macklind Mile. I expect I'll be back next year.

Saturday Afternoon

Here's what my house looks like this afternoon.

Doc likes the basement.

Henry's favorite is under the living room furniture (in this case my chair.)

Jerry in his new bed.

And Quinn in her crate. Can that be comfortable?
You can see that I woke Doc up before I snapped the picture, but you get the idea.
ETA: Apparently for Doc, DH's bathroom (complete with dirty towel on the floor) is a reasonable substitute.

So Polite

Look at these guys as they wait politely for their snacks.

My husband was just as polite as he waited for his snacks.

I made fresh berry pancakes in honor of the holiday weekend and having today off! They were delicious.

WWE

It's Wrestlemania 2010 in my living room right now. We're doing Rent-a-Pet through Stray Rescue, and Henry is having the time of his life. Quinn is staying with us for the weekend. So far things are going great and everyone is having a blast. We went on a walk this evening, and the dogs have come back to play it out. I'll try to get pictures at some point.

PS, any good vibes you have to spare for me to help convince DH that Henry needs a friend closer to his own age would be greatly appreciated. I'm hoping that he just falls in love with her sweet face though. :)

Tired Puppy

I've said before that we send Henry to doggy daycare once a week. Well I guess yesterday was a BIG day at the Watering Bowl! This was Henry in the backseat within five minutes of leaving.

Gotta love a tired puppy! He turns 1 this weekend, so I guess I'll have to start calling him a dog.

Mac'n'Cheese

Yeah. I think mac'n'cheese qualifies as my favorite food. Maybe ever. Seriously. In high school, I even went through a phase where I ate it for breakfast. When I was a kid, you couldn't get me away from the boxed stuff. Homemade just wasn't going to work for me. Nowadays though, I'm all about the gourmet variety. In fact, I make a killer mac with smoked Gouda.

So, when I heard that there was a new place opening up that would just be serving mac'n'cheese, I knew I had to go there. I became Cheese-ology's fan on Facebook and began watching of news of their opening. Today was that day, and, I'm embarrassed to say, I was the first customer through the door. I went with my friend Joline, and the food was great! Here's the menu.


We decided to stick with the standard choices. Joline got the Classic and I got the Four Cheese. I was the clear winner in the menu battle. Her dish was good, but mine was much better. The goat cheese really added a nice tang to the whole thing. Plus it had long stringy pieces of real cheese in it. Her's was more creamy and the American cheese made it very mild.

Notice that you get your food in a real, cast iron skillet. It makes for a nice crunchy layer at the edges. I asked for breadcrumbs, but they forgot them. Oh well. Anyway, I ordered a large because the small was going to be too small for me, but I knew the large was too big. (I ate it all anyway though.) Overall, I'd give my dish an 8.5 out of 10. If you know me, this is a very solid grade. In terms of mac'n'cheese, I'd give it a 9 out of 10. I think it would have been perfect with breadcrumbs and curly noodles instead of elbows.

Now, like I said, today was opening day. If you've ever worked in restaurants, you know that this means that things are guaranteed to be a little bumpy. First of all, the girl at the front was still learning how to use the register. She also didn't have a pen for CC receipts. Ooops. Then, the food quite honestly took quite a while to come out. Because they make each dish individually, they put all the pasta and toppings in the skillet then run it through one of those conveyor belt ovens like at Quizno's.

Our food took about 10-12 minutes to come out. So less time than at a sit down place, but not what I would call fast. It looked like they did do call in orders to go though, so you could probably call ahead to pick up if you were in a hurry.

I suspect that things will run more smoothly as they stay in business longer. It's also probably good that they opened on a Tuesday so they can work through some kinks before the weekend. I'll be back, but I'll probably wait a little while for them to hammer out some details.

Story Time

When I was growing up in Texas you couldn't shop on Sundays. I think maybe the grocery store was open, but certainly the mall was not. Well, when I was in middle elementary school (maybe third or fourth grade?), the blue laws were lifted and the mall was open on Sunday. So, that first Sunday, I went shopping. What did I buy? This funny little family of toy rabbits. There was a story that went with them, and there were many accessories to be purchased as well.

What brings up this story? I was at the teacher store buying paper for a bulletin board (more on that later,) and what did I see? Those same rabbits! Ah, memories.

Confession

I am a teacher. Everyone thinks teaching must be so great because you get summers off. Guess what. I've never taken a summer off. For years I ran a horse camp. That was fun, but I just got tired of all the drama.

Now I run the summer school, and I am loving it! I was thinking about that as I drove to work today. What would I do with three months of vacation? I honestly can't say. I would like to think my house would be spotless, my husband constantly treated with gourmet dinners, and my butt finally kicked into shape because I spent hours at the gym each day. In reality though, I think I would probably just end up blogging a lot and watching many episodes of the original 90210. I'm such a loser. I just get a lot of pleasure out of my work. It really is a career for me.

The pace of summer school is definitely different though. Way more laid back, no grading, etc. Plus this week I've been working on getting all moved in to my new office. I'll take lots of pictures in the coming weeks to show you the finished product. I wish I had taken a few of the original state of affairs. It was disgusting. I bet I spent 12 solid hours just cleaning the place. ::shudder::

Summer Food

Anyone else love summer food? Man, if I could eat like this all year, I would be so happy. Well, maybe not. I do love my winter squashes (butternut, acorn, pumpkin.) Anyway, right now I am obsessed with yogurt and fresh fruit. I used to think I hated pineapple because I only ever ate the stuff in a can. Fresh is a totally different story though! So good! I hate cutting up whole pineapples though, and buying the stuff that's already chopped up is kind of pricey. I'll enjoy it as a treat though.

Mix that with some blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Yum!

I also tried a new flavor of yogurt today. I never buy the original stuff, but I had to try a couple new flavors.

Cherry Pomegranate. OMG! It's incredible. Next up are Blueberry Acai and Red Velvet Cake.



My goal for this summer though is to check out one or two of our local Farmer's Markets. Maybe I can get some more great produce for a little less than I'm paying at the grocery store. I'm also thinking about getting a Costco membership. My mom gets great deals on fruit there.