Goodbye 2005

It's here! My favourite day of the year. New Year's Eve. The reason I love this holiday more than any other is because it's surrounded by positiveness. A new year signifies new beginnings and clean slates, and almost everyone is thinking about ways in which they can improve themselves for the coming year. It's a day full of positive energy and good intentions. Though I try to keep a positive attitude year round, I feel especially uplifted on New Year's Eve.

Today we finished off the year with a long run on Town Lake.

It's been a great year! Brian and I have been on three great vacations. I got to go home to England for a week on the company's money and spend some time with my famuly. Brian and I got engaged, we ran hundreds of miles together, I've learned a new language: I completed Spanish 1. We've learned how to do fakies on the wakeboard, and learned how to snow board. We've made many new friends and found out who our true friends are.

As I write this there is 35 minutes of 2005 left for my family in England. As is tradition, I'm going to give them a call at 6pm (midnight for them) and listen to Big Ben chime, toast the new year, and send lots of love over the phone :-)

I have no regrets for 2005 and I'm really looking forward to 2006. Here are my new year's resolutions (in no particular order):

- boldly go where I have never gone before (mentally, emotionally, and physically) ;-)
- sing every day
- continue learning Spanish
- be a wonderful wife to Brian
- become a mother ;-)

HAPPY HOGMANAY!

Lean, Mean Grillin' Machine...

Yesterday we picked up the grill from Lowes that Brian's parents bought us for xmas. Joan picked out the exact one I would have picked from the brochure, and it's awesome! Kev and I spent an hour assembling it on the patio while Brian worked. We were all eagre to grill on it so as I went to the airport to pick up Tiff, who was returning from xmas with her family in California, the boys went to the store to pick up things to grill. A side note: Tiff got 10 inches of her hair cut off, and donated it. Her hair looks great!
When I got back, the boys had made the most awesome garlic bread on the grill and had made burgers for them, and bought some Mahi-Mahi for me. We grilled some portobello mushrooms, too. Everything turned out delicious and we can't wait to grill some more stuff!

Reflecting on last year's resolutions...

Here's what I posted to my journal on January 1st, 2005:

1. Call my sisters more often
2. Pay more attention to my finances
3. Focus more at work
4. Be more organized at work
5. Be more consistent with my Kung Fu classes

One thing I really do need to change:
I need to accept that I'm in my 30's and start celebrating every birthday, rather than being depressed about my age and trying to direct attention elsewhere on my birhtday. So I will celebrate my upcoming 33rd birthday and be damn proud of it!"

So how did I do?

1. I added a calling plan to my cell phone, and I did call more often. I have noticed, however, that my family isn't calling me as often.
   
2. I have made an effort to pay more attention to finances this year. Brian and I have a joint checking account now and pay all our bills automatically out of it. Recently we added an additional payment to principal to the mortgage payment.
   
3. I am not sure if I focused more at work... I still get distracted easily, but I delivered on time, and within budget, so I guess it's not all bad.
   
4. I failed miserably at being more organized at work. I'll try again this year.
   
5. You could say I became more consistent with Kung Fu... in that I stopped going. They increased the monthly fees by quite a lot, and in keeping with resolution #2, I cut it out.
   

I did celebrate my birthday this year with a ski trip to New Mexico with friends. We had an awesome time, and I'm looking forward to my next birthday where, hopefully, I'll be skiing again.

I haven't given too much thought to my 2006 resolutions yet, though when I reflect on this year a couple of things come to mind. More to come on that subject later.

Post-xmas post

Xmas with the Baumans was good. The decorating of the xmas tree ritual started around 4pm on Xmas eve. In this ritual, Brian's dad carefully unwraps the xmas ornaments, one for each person, for each year, and hands them out in chronological order. Each person hangs their ornament on the tree and usually a short skip down memory lane accompanies it. The first year I spent xmas with them I got the free ornament from the buy 2 get 1 free offer, and this year we noticed that I didn't get an ornamed for my second year, so Kevin made me one from the tab of his Coke can. This is probably my favourite ornament on the tree now! This year's ornament for Brian and me was Shrek and Fiona. Fitting, n'est pas?
After the tree trimming Brian's parents' friends, Doug and Debbie Rambin, and Debbie's mum came over for xmas dinner. A feast of honey baked ham, garlic mash, sweet potato casarole, asparagus, and rolls was shared by all, along with wine. For dessert, Brian's mum made Chocolate Raspberry Torte. MMMMM!
After dinner we sat around the xmas tree and exchanged gifts. All were very thoughtful and fitting, but the prize for weird gift goes to Kevin, who gave Brian a skydiver tissue box cover. Very unusual. We were both surprised and overwhelmed by the gift that Brian and I received from his parents. A stainless steel propane grill, and grill cover. I can't wait until we get it and can start grilling!
Brian and I got up late on xmas day and lounged around for most of it. We opened presents by the fireplace that had been left by Santa. Brian's mum did a wonderful job of informing Santa of what we all liked. Xmas day dinner was great, we had salmon and even Brian ate it and said he enjoyed it. Stop everything and call the media! the pickiest eater in the world enjoyed FISH!
Boxing day was spent shopping at Katy Mills. I was looking for a coat but never found one I liked. I did, however, find some great trousers at Banana Republic. That evening we went to The Taste of Texas steak house and had a fabulous steak dinner. I had a filet with garlic butter and lemon pepper, and a portobella mushroom. For dessert we all shared a Guinnes Ginger Cake. After dinner I set off for the drive back to Austin. The cats were very happy to have their mum back :-)

As most of you know, xmas is my least favourite holiday, but I have to say a huge thank you to Brian and his family, who for the past 3 years have made it enjoyable for me. Maybe this Grinch's heart is growing a few sizes.

I'm looking forward to the new year, and all that it brings... including another birthday! ACK!

Season's Greetings!

I'm heading to Houston tomorrow to spend xmas with Brian and his family. Kev is home for the holidays and I know that more than anything, Brian is looking forward to spending time with his brother :-). Brian left today so he can spend extra time with Kev since he rarely sees him now. Meanwhile I've washed Ruby, and am now contemplating a quick run to help keep those extra holiday calories from sticking to my arse.

This evening I get to play Santa to Ethan and drop of a large number of Spiderman-related gifts. Ethan's very much into Spiderman right now so everything I got him has Spiderman on it, including the gift wrap :-) I can't wait to see him. Afterwards I'm heading over to Barbie's to hang out with her and her dad, Dave, who drove in from Iowa yesterday. I love Barbie's dad. He's delightfully inappropriate, unfiltered, and genuine. He always makes me laugh. I just wish Brian had got to meet him, too.

Last night Brian and I exchanged gifts after a wonderful home cooked meal, followed by two sumptious desserts at Freda's. We both got exactly what we had hoped for :-). We reserved one gift each to exchange with the family on Xmas eve.

To all my friends and family back home... I miss you terribly around the holidays, and I really wish I could see you. I'm sending you much love and high hopes for the new year!

Festivus for the rest of us!

Last night Tara and I started a new tradition. We joined forces to bring our friends a new holiday tradition. FESTIVUS!
If you've watched Seinfeld you might know that Festivus is a holiday made up by Frank Costanza. The Internet has this to say about Festivus:

Festivus is a non-denominational alternate Christmas-time holiday featured on episode No. 166 "The Strike" on the sitcom Seinfeld. Festivus was created by Frank Costanza after getting into a fight in a toy store when he and another man both grabbed for the last doll in the place. Frustrated at the commercialization of Christmas, Frank created Festivus.
Celebrated on December 23rd, the pseudo-festival had a traditional undecorated eight-foot aluminum pole (no tinsel, or ornaments), a father-son wrestling match ("The Feats of Strength") and the The Airing of Grievances, when each member at the gathering sat around the dinner table and insultingly counted down the reasons why other family members were such a disappointment throughout that year. The main Festivus meal consisted of spaghetti (or what looked like meatloaf?) covered in a red sauce.

No gifts are exchanged at Festivus. Mike supplied the traditional festivus pole and we added our own Festivus tradition, the wearing of the Ugly Christmas Sweater. Anyone not participating in this new Festivus tradition had to wear the Festivus Antlers of Shame.

Almost everyone was in the Festivus spirit, sporting their Ugly Christmas Sweater, or Festivus Antlers of Shame. Upon arrival, guests had their photograph taken with the Festivus Pole.
We drank wine and beer, ate the traditional Festivus meal of spagetti covered in red sauce, and of course aired our grievances with Mike's new Festivus Airing of the Grievances game, which was expertly duct taped to the Festivus Pole for the occasion.

After the last of our Festivus Guests left, Tara and I declared Festivus a complete success to be repeated on a yearly basis.

Happy Frickin' Festivus, Y'all!

Ski Trip Report

Our ski trip was wonderful! Here's how it went:

Friday, Dec 9th:
We left Austin at 6am and arrived in Denver around 10:30 after a brief layover in Phoenix. Our flights were uneventful, thankfully. We got an awesome deal on a rental car with our IBM discount and were shortly on our way to Keystone. The trip from Denver to Keystone was beautiful once we got into the mountains. I was really surprised at how flat Denver was, though. On the way to Keytstone we stopped in Dillon to buy some chips, water, and cokes for the room, and of course picked up some Crown Royal. We arrived at our hotel around 1:30 and I requested a room with a view of the slopes and on a high floor so we could get the best experience. Our hotel was in the Mountain House village. There are three main villages at Keystone. Our new room wasn't quite ready so we headed over to the next village, River Run, to pick up our skis. When we returned our room was ready. We had a wonderful view from our room, which you can see if you check out our photo album.

Because we couldn't ski on Friday, we decided to go soak in the hot tub, which was right next to our room. We met two guys from Hawaii in the hot tub and talked to them for what seemed like hours. After a few hours and a crown and coke in the tub we got ready and headed out for dinner. We went to the Bighorn Steakhouse, which was a recommendation in the Hotel's guide. It was just OK, though the prices were ridiculous. I had lamb and Brian had a steak. Afterwards, we headed to the shops to see if I could pick up some smaller goggles. The ones I had purchased in Austin were too big. We found some pink ones to match my outfit, afterall, looking good on the slopes is as important as how you ski, right? ;-)
After dinner we relaxed in our room and had another drink, and suddenly I felt extremely ill. I seem to have gotten food poisoning because the next few moments can only be described as a quandry as to which end to put over the toilet. A fine way to start the vacation. And it was going so well!

Saturday, December 10th:
We awoke to beautiful blue skies and the sun rising over the slopes. We got up and had breakfast at The Goat, which is a popular snowboarder's hang out right next to our hotel. Afterwards we got in our first day of skiing. It felt awkward at first. We did all greens today because we wanted to get our feet under us. After a while it felt as natural as running, it seemed. Though I did have a pretty bad fall early on, which looked like it would have broken my left leg, but it just gave me a bit of a bruise, thankfully.
We ate lunch at Edgewater Cafe in Lakeside Village then decided to take a trip into Dillon to pick up some groceries. There was a fridge in our room and we thought we would pick up breakfast and sandwiches. After we returned from the store we went skiing again. This was our first night to go Night Skiing.
I really enjoyed night skiing. It might have been because I was getting comfortable on my skis, but it felt peacful. There were less people. In some spots we were the only people on the mountain, it seemed. Depth perception is a bit off in the dark, so the slopes seemed less intimidating somehow. We stopped in at Fritz's Bistro in River Run for a drink and a rest before we continued our night skiing.
After a hard day of skiing we soaked in the hot tub for about 30 minutes and then got ready for dinner. We ran an errand in Dillon (to pick up new gloves for me), and the teller at Target recommended the Old Dillon Inn. We decided to take his recommendation. As we sat down and were served chips and salsa, Brian and I looked at each other and realized that our expectations for mexican food would make this an interesting meal. We ordered a "burritalada", which was best described as completely gross! After we left, Brian got ice cream at Cold Stone and we headed back. Thankfully, no food poisoning.

Sunday, Dec 11th:
Today we took our snowboarding lesson. We got up early and traded our skis for snowboards and made our way to the ski school on the "Discovery" hill. Our instructor was named Pete and he seemed really cool. Only one other person was in our class, Kristin, who lived in Hawaii (though had lived in Austin for 6 years prior to moving there 3 years ago). It seemed like a private lesson because it was just us three and Kristin had taken lessons 3 years ago and was just getting a refresher. We all seemed to catch on very quickly and Pete was really pleased. He taught us to get on and off the lift while strapped in to our boards with one foot, go down the hill both heelside, meaning heels facing up the mountain, and toe side, meaning toes facing up the mountain. Part way through our lesson someone else joined us. His name was Sean. He didn't seem to get the hang of it, though, and when we broke for lunch he decided to quit.
We ate lunch with Pete and Kristin at the food court nearby the slope, and Kristin asked if Pete would perhaps take us up to Schoolmarm for the rest of the lesson. He said usually they don't take new boarders up the greens but he thought we had progressed so quickly that he would make an exception. So up we went. The rest of the lesson was awesome, we learned to do S turns, Garlands, and Falling Leaf, and put it all together to get down a slope gracefully. We all fell many times and by the end of the lesson my tail bone was suffering so bad I could barely walk back to our hotel.

When we got back to the hotel I iced my tail bone for a while, then we got ready and headed for dinner. Piasano's in River Run was our choice for the night. Dinner was good, though I don't recommend the Lasagna at that place. Very strange. Brian's dish was awesome, though. He had the pasta aglio e olio. After dinner we went to Kickapoo tavern in River Run. They had some great microbrews. We took the free shuttle back to our hotel and chatted with the bus driver about snowboarding and snowbiking for a while. Afterwards in the hotel room I had to ice my tailbone and my left wrist, which was swolen. Ack!

Monday, Dec 12th:
We met up with our new friend, Kristin, and her parents at Starbuck's in Dillon. We had arranged to follow them to Vail. The trip to Vail in our Chevy Aveo was pretty funny. On the up hills I had to floor it and the car would drop down into 2nd gear and rev like crazy, but pretty much not do anything. We arrived at Vail around 9:30 and Kristin, Brian and I made a few trips down the learning hill at the top to get our feet under us on the board.
We all seemed to be doing really well, however, Vail doesn't have many (any) good green trails for snowboarders. Pretty much all of them had a ton of Cat Trails on them, which means you have to take a foot out of the bindings and scoot your board till you get back to a downhill. Somewhere on the way down Brian took a huge spill and landed right on his tail bone. When he fell he screamed in pain and it took him a few seconds to realize that it was HIM screaming. Needless to say that put an end to our day of skiing. Brian wouldn't let me call the medics to come get him down, though, and he struggled down the mountain and ended up in the fetal position when we got to the bottom. So today was his turn to ice his tail bone.

We left Kristin and her family at Vail and made the drive back to the hotel and iced down our aching parts. Later on we headed to Kickapoo Tavern for dinner, and later on Kristin and her sistyer Corey met us there.
We had an awesome time sitting by the fire and chatting. Afterwards, we drove the girl's back to their condo, after briefly getting lost, and made our way back to the hotel.

Tuesday, Dec 13th:
Today we switched our snowboards in for skis so that we could rest our broken tailbones, and after a run down Schoolmarm, our favourite green, we explored the other side of the mountain. There are no green trails on the other side of the mountain, but we both felt very comfortable skiing the blue trails, though some of the blue trails seemed equivolent to the Black trails we had seen in Ruidoso. Our final run of the day was NO FUN though. We went down Wild Irishman, with the intention of meeting up with Toads, which was a green trail, because I wanted to do an easy run for my last run, however, Toads was closed for grooming and it turns out that the Wild Irishman was ALL MOGLES! ACK! not just a few on one side of the slope. No, the whole thing, for 2 miles, was MOGLES! I kept falling over and finally got pissed and threw off my skis and walked till it eventually met another trail that was smooth. After that we headed back to our hotel and Brian poured me a stiff Crown and Coke and we went to the hot tub. We met two guys from Nebraska in the hot tub. They were so much fun, and kept refilling our glasses with cheap whisky and coke. We must have stayed in there chatting to them for an hour or so before we decided to go in search of dinner.

For dinner we tried the Summit Seafood Company, which was conveniently located in our hotel. Brian had a steak because he doesn't eat fish, and I had the Crab Stuffed Sole, which was awesome!

Wednesday, Dec 14th:
This morning we traded in our skis and got snowboards for our final day of fun! On our first trip down Schoolmarm, however, Brian took a major tumble and pretty much ended his snowboarding career. At least for this trip. I took Brian back to the hotel and prepared him an ice pack and we ate lunch.
After lunch I headed out to the slopes by myself. My first run up started off on the wrong foot. The gondola stopped twice on the ascent and we were left hanging for several minutes. After about 2 minutes on Shcoolmarm, I took a tumble that ended my snowboarding career, too. While going toe side, meaning I had my back to the downhill, the back edge of my board caught and dumped me over so fast that my head hit the ground with some major force, enough to pop the lens right out of my glasses. As I laid there assessing the damage, I had to check to make sure I still had all my teeth. My head had hit with such force that my teeth made the most awful cracking sound. Fortunately, they were all intact. And thankully, I was wearing a helmet. I dread to think how that might have turned out without it. After about 5 minutes of laying there I opened my eyes and realized I was missing a lens. I spotted it about 10 feet away from me up the hill, but a snowboarder went right over it. I scooted up to where I had seen it and dug around a bit and retrieved it. I sat on the mountain for a good while collecting myself as people whizzed by me. Nobody stopped to ask me if I was ok. I found that disturbing. I took a picture from my landing site.
After that, I gingerly started going again but the pain in my head and tail bone were too much and I decided to call it a day. It took me quite some time and a few more falls to get down the mountain. After that fall, all of my snowboarding confidence had left me.

I returned to the hotel around 2:30 and Brian made me a stiff drink and I iced my tail bone.

At 3 we headed out to Lakeside Village for our Sleigh Ride. A bus took us to Keystone Ranch where a sleigh with two huge Belgian Horses were waiting for us. There were probably 10 people on the sleigh ride and it was freezing cold and snowing, but the sleigh was equipped with fleece blankets to keep us warm. The driver was extremely knowledgable about the horses and the sleigh ride took us to a very quaint area of the ranch where we got off the sleigh and had hot cider and pet the horses. The horses were beautiful, though I couldn't help but feel bad for them because it was SO cold. The driver assured me that they were fine with this weather, though.

After the sleigh ride, we headed back to our room to warm up and relax for a while, then headed out for dinner at The Goat. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and watched TV and relaxed our aching bodies.

Thursday, Dec 15th: Today we are returning home. We got up and had a leasurely morning of packing and taking final pictures. We took some shots from the Hottub by our room, and then headed down to the river to take some shots there. The snow machine on the slope adjacent to us was causing a very strange looking cloud to form. I guess technically Keystone resort was making its own weather.

After we checked out we headed to Dillon where there are factory outlets. We decided to do a little shopping before we left. On the way to the airport it looked like we might run out of gas. It got a little hairy for a while and we had to put the car in neutral and coast down the mountains. We finally came to a gas station just in time!

We had a long layover in Phoenix so we settled in at a bar and had a beer and some dinner before continuing to our final destination. Austin. Home sweet home! Our cats were SO happy to see us. I finally slept. For the first time in a week.

This was an absolutely awesome trip! we got a great deal on the flight, hotel, car, and ski rental. We learned that snowboarding is WAY cooler and more fun than skiing, and we got to spend 7 days together, just the two of us. Sigh. The pefect end to a really great year!

Winter's Here!

Finally! it's cold! Yesterday I met an English guy in the elevator. He said "blimey, this weather's mad! two days ago I was in shorts and today it's freezing!" and I said in my best southern drawl "welcome to Texas". It's so true. Here in Texas the weather seems to have mood swings. There's no gradual change to get you acclamated. BAM! it's cold. Two days from now it will be back in the 60's. You watch.
Anyway, with winter comes winter activities. Tomorrow Brian and I are heading out for our ski vacation to Keystone, Colorado. We arrive in Denver at about 10:30 am, and will take a rental car to the ski resort. We've already got our skis and snowboards rented, we have our lift tickets, and we're staying in an awesome hotel that is only a few yards away from the ski lifts. Tomorrow night we will get to do some night skiing. Then on Saturday we will take lessons in Snowboarding. We plan to try snowboarding for the whole weekend because it takes a while to learn and the slopes will be quite packed on the weekend. The good skiing starts on Monday, when the slopes will be less crowded.
In addition to skiing, we'll be soaking our aching bodies in the roof top jaccuzis and of course, spending time at the local pubs. There's also fun activities like snowbiking, and tubing down the slopes. We plan to do it all!

I hope to get good at snowboarding so I can hang with Mike when we go in January.

I just checked the mountain cam... it looks like a beautiful day! http://keystone.snow.com/mountaincamslg.asp?camera_id=4

Broken

It's so silly how your mind and your emotions catalog a date and on it's anniversary all the memories of that day come flooding back. It's like I have some weird chronological marker in my psyche that makes me, on the anniversary of a traumatic event, relive it. This week marks a year since Ember's passing. I can't even count how many times I've relived the events leading up to his final trip to the vet. I'd give anything to have had one more day, hour, minute with him. Every time I drive down Anderson Mill (which is almost daily), I relive the drive to the vet, Ember in my lap, me sobbing all over him, and Em was being so brave, even though he was in such pain. I remember the song on the radio. Broken, by Seether. I've never been able to hear that song without crying since then. This Friday is one year since that drive. Thankfully, I'll be completely distracted because we'll be traveling.

"Broken"

I wanted you to know I love the way you laugh
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away
I keep your photograph and I know it serves me well
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain

'Cause I'm broken when I'm open
And I don't feel like I am strong enough
‘Cause I’m broken when I’m lonesome
And I don’t feel right when you’re gone away

You've gone away, you don't feel me here, anymore

The worst is over now and we can breathe again
I wanna hold you high, you steal my pain away
There’s so much left to learn, and no one left to fight
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain

'Cause I'm broken when I'm open
And I don’t feel like I am strong enough
‘Cause I’m broken when I’m lonesome
And I don’t feel right when you’re gone away

'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away

You've gone away
You don't feel me here anymore

Random posting

I can't believe I haven't mentioned this. Or maybe I have and I'm becoming senile. Anyway, recently there was a reorganization at work, consequently I have been transferred, yet again, to a new department.
I have mixed feelings on the subject. On the one hand it's great to be in a new department because change is good. I embrace change because it stops me from growing roots, and we all know I don't like to have roots. It also means I get a new manager. I haven't always seen eye to eye with my current manager, though I do like him. I think I would do better in a department with more creative thinkers rather than process and policy driven people. So I'm looking forward to finding out who my new manager and team will be. The down side, however, is that when you keep getting shuffled to new departments you're always having to prove yourself. It's hard to get a good review when you're being compared with people who are already established in the department as high contributors, and you don't spend enough time with your manager for them to see your contributions.

Anyway, in all I feel very positive about this change. Keep your fingers crossed that I get a good manager :-)

5 days off work!

Brian and I took a vacation day last Wednesday, then the site was closed on Thursday and Friday for thanksgiving. You can imagine that after 5 days of not working I'm pretty hooked! Thanksgiving went very well. Brian's parents arrived around noon on Thursday and Brian and Joan helped me with prep work for the Turkey. The turkey came out really well. The ginger was very subtle and the rosemary made the most wonderful aroma. I added pine nuts to my sage and onion stuffing and it was awesome! Also, adding a little orange zest to the cranberry sauce worked out well. It gave it a little, well, zest I guess ;-)

Jenn and Ethan came over around 4pm. By then Joan and I were well into our second or maybe third bottle of wine. I especially like to cook when I have had a few glasses of wine, though my knife handling skills go downhill a little after two or three. I'm happy to report, though, that I still have all my fingers. Dinner was wonderful and not too much left over of the side items. There was quite a bit of turkey left over but the thing was 15lbs. No matter... I love turkey sandwiches.

Joan made white chocolate orange surprise for dessert. It was kind of a cake with an orange sauce and chocolate on it, and a strawberry to garnish. It tasted wonderful! By the time Jenn left the effects of too much wine and food had hit me and I was feeling rather nauseous and had a pounding head ache. That's what I get for over indulging. But it's only once a year so it was worth it.

The day after thanksgiving, which is the biggest retail day of the year, Brian and his dad went to watch the football game at a bar, and Joan and I braved the crowds at Kohl's. But we left because it was crazy packed. The queue to the registers went to the back of the store on both sides! I did a little xmas shopping for my family in England at less crowded places. That evening we went to dinner at the European Bistro in Pflugerville. I have been wanting to try it for quite some time. I'd definately go back. I had the beef wellington, which was pretty good, but I think next time I'll order the yaeger schnitzel.

We babysat Ethan Friday night, but we were all so tired that we ended up passing out around 11pm, despite Ethan wanting to stay up and watch TV. He passed out between me and Brian shortly after laying his head down ;-)

On Saturday we finished our xmas shopping for the England portion of the family and spent a lot of time in front of the telly.

On Sunday we did a 10 mile run with Jen. Brian's knee started to bother him, though and we finished the last two miles walking. Sunday was spent in front of the TV as well :-) Now we're back at work and I'm trying to get my head around what needs to be done prior to the next holiday!

Giving Thanks

Well, it's that time of year again. American Thanksgiving. This year is a little different, though. In years past we've gone to Brian's parents' house in Houston for both xmas and thanksgiving. This year, however, we're hosting thanksgiving at our house. We're bot very excited becaue not only do we get to celebrate with Brian's parents, but we also will have Jen and Ethan over. The last time I had thanksgiving with Jen, she told me she was pregnant! Obviously it's been too long since I had thanksgiving with her.

I invented a new recipe for the turkey, which includes Ginger, Garlic, and Rosemary, and will be basted with Woodchuck Apple Cider. We will have blue cheese mashed potatoes, roasted rosemary potatoes, steamed broccoli, glazed carrots, sage and onion stuffing, yorkshire puddings, bread rolls, and today I made home made cranberry sauce with brown sugar, honey, and orange zest. It came out well, I think. For dessert, Joan is making white chocolate orange surprise, and for appetizers she's making spinnach cookies! I love those!

This evening I will make another batch of my Bailey's cookies for Brian. I'm experimenting with a low fat butter to cut down on the unhealtyness of them. Though the other day we observed that my cookies were healthier than Brian's breakfast cereal... now he thinks it's ok to have cookies for breakfast (sigh).

So things to be thankful for:

• Brian - Every day is an adventure.
  
• Nikki and Onyx - Unconditional love. Need I say more?
  
• My family - They're so far away, and I miss them so much, but I'm so thankful that they are the way they are. Wouldn't change a single thing about any of them.
  
• My chosen family - my mum always said "you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family". My friends have become my family, and they are so important to me. So in a way, you can choose your family.
  
• My new family - They're wonderful! and I'm gaining a brother. It doesn't get much better than this.
  
• My health - I'm in excellent health. Every check up for the past 6 years has revealed low cholesterol, low blood pressure, low resting heart rate, and well within ideal weight range.
  
• My job - It had to go on the list simply because it affords me the means to do the things I enjoy in life. Without it, life would be much, much different. Though it has to be said that I work to live, not live to work. I find people who live to work sad.
  
• Austin - Aside from the fact that it's surrounded by Texas, it's an awesome place to live. Running trails, world-class restaurants, lakes, biking trails, diversity. This city has everything (except proximity to the ocean).
  

one last thing... Hi Wassim. Brian tells me you no longer need to ask him how his weekend was because you read all about it here. I'll be sure to post any embarassing stories for you ;-)

IT hurts!

Sunday was the perfect weather for a race. I think it got up to around 55 degrees, but we started the morning at a very chilly 45 degrees, very little humidity, and a nice stiff breeze. The Motive Bison Stampede half marathon is a wonderful race with many challanging hills. I like to run hills because it uses muscles that I don't ordinarily use on my runs, and it seems that the hills give me a little kick of energy. The race went well, at least until the 8th mile, where I became aware of some pain in my right knee. I ignored it for a few miles because to acknowledge it means it's real. At mile 10 I complained about it but continued at our current pace. At mile 11.5 I started to slow down slightly. I encouraged Brian to go ahead and keep up with Jen and I'd meet him at the finish, but he wouldn't leave me. The last mile felt like the longest mile of my life. The IT band in my right leg was hurting so bad that I could barely run. And of course, when you're in pain you tend to compensate with the other leg so eventually my left hip started to feel bad, too. Brian and I crossed the finish line in 2:02:41, which is actually more than 10 minutes faster than I did the race last year. I'm happy about my finish time, though I secretly wished I could have broken 2 hours.

A big contratulations goes out to Jen, though. She did break 2 hours! WAY TO GO JEN!

After the race I iced me knee and relaxed for a while before we headed to the mall and to pick up some things for thanksgiving. The rest of the day was spent watching telly and eating bailey's sugar cookies. MMMMMM!

Busy week

This past week has been pretty eventful. On Monday night I went out with the girls.
On Tuesday Brian had a soccer game and I went to Barbies where we drank wine and spent entirely too much time in the hot tub.
On Wednesday Brian had dinner with Kendra, whom he hasn't seen in ages, and I had dinner with Renee and several friends in celebration of Renee's birthday.
On Thursday Brian and I saw the sneak preview of the new Harry Potter movie, The Goblet of Fire. I have to say that it was absolutely awesome. I was captivated. They did an awesome job of condensing the massive book in to a 2.5 hour movie and I didn't notice any glaring omissions, but that could also be because it's been a while since I read that book, and have read two more Harry Potter books since then.
Last night, Friday, we celebrated Jen's birthday. We went to Manuel's for dinner. There was a great turnout. After dinner we headed to Main Event and hung out at the bar for a while, then watched Jen and Aaron play Dance Dance Revolution. I'm awful at that game on account of my two left feet, but Jen and Aaron did a good job. The icing on the birthday cake, though, was the round of Laser Tag that we played. There were about 30 players and we were the blue team. It's hard to say how long a round of laser tag lasts, it seemed like 15 to 20 minutes. The blue team totally smoked the red team! GO BIG BLUE!
Today, Saturday, we are going to prepare ourselves for thanks giving, which is to be held at our house for the first time. Something funny that I have to share, though... This morning Brian got up at the crack of dawn and drove to San Antonio for autocross. About 8:30 he called me from San Antonio and asked me to check something on the web. It turns out that he went on the wrong day! HAHAHA! Hopefully not all is lost, though. Maybe he can go to the outlet mall and do some xmas shopping on his way back.
Tomorrow we are running a half marathon race called the Bison Stampede. It's a very hilly course and there is a competition for best water stop where each water stop team has a theme, and the runners vote on their favourite.

Meet the Weasleys

Many years ago Jen and I discovered that when we have had a few drinks our eyes kind of glass over lending itself to a very weasel-like expression. I think I was looking at myself in the mirror of a ladies' room at a bar upon first discovery. We immediately whipped out the camera and took a picture of my weasely look. It started a tradition that whenever Jen and I get together and one of us has a camera, we take a "weasely" shot. Sometimes we've been boozing, sometimes not. The results are always funny to us and nobody else. It's always been our little thing.

Last night we had girl's night at PF Chang's. We had the chef's table in the kitchen, wich I highly recommend as a one time thing. It was great to be back there, and it's a novelty, but honestly, it was a bit loud. Though I have to say we did a great job of drowning out the kitchen noise with our laughter. During the evening, Jen and I shared our weasely tradition with everyone and as we passed the camera around the table and captured everyone's weasely expressions we were rolling around with laughter. I imagine the wait staff thought we were nuts. Fortunately, at the chef's table, you don't cause much of a disturbance in the rest of the restaurant so we were free to act silly. Resulting from this, the gallery was born:
Meet the Weasleys

On a more serious note, though, I really had a great time with the girls. I think we all needed to spend some fun time together where our cares melt away. I can't speak for everyone, but for me it was mission accomplished.

More images from girl's night can be found here:
Girl's night at Chang's

Wurstfest pictures

Latest pictures can be found in the photo album. Here's a link to the Wurstfest album:
http://photos.brianandmandie.com/thumbnails.php?album=10

Check out the stain on Brian's shirt.... You can dress him up, but you can't take him out!

Winding down the weekend

It's been a pretty active weekend for Brian. Yesterday he played soccer in the afternoon. I framed my latest paintings and relocated some other paintings to make room for them. In the evening we went to Wurstfest, which is a ten day "salute to sausage" (their words, not mine), in New Braunfels, which is about an hour south of here. Mike, Tara, and Tiffeni went with us, which was perfect to only take one car. A small group of our friends were going and we made arrangements to meet them there. First order of business was the "Wurst Kebab", which consisted of 5 different kinds of sausage on a stick, and some beer. After much explaining where she was, and me not understanding, Jenny V came to find me in the main food court and took us back to the table where Aaron and Jenn's parents were sitting. Shortly thereafter, the rest of our friends showed up and hung out. We ate many more things that were bad for us, but oh so good! I got a Kartoffel Puffer, which is a potato pancake, and of course, Brian had to have Funnel Cake, which is best described as the stuff used to make doughnuts, but shot into the grease from a funnel, and then topped off with icing sugar. Not really my thing but Brian usually asks for them to leave a small area with no sugar just for me :-) (it's the little things he does that make him such a perfect [future] husband).

Thursday was an interesting evening. We went to dinner at the Iron Cactus downtown with several of Brian's co-workers, including an out of town guest, who was vising from Canada. It's not my first choice for good food, but it's a fun sample of Austin for out of towners because they serve Mexican food, have a great patio, and are right on 6th street. The chile rubbed pork tenderloin I had was mediocre, though I've tasted much worse. Wassim (sp?) let me eat all of the rasberries from his dessert, though, wich made me very happy! Many fun stories and a few margaritas later we made our way home.

In other news, Brian and I are doing well on patents. Brian has 11 and I have 10 that are being filed now! This year alone 9 of them went into File status! The patents we've gotten paid for so far have paid for our new bedroom furniture :-)

This morning Brian and I ran 13 miles on town lake. We did a 3 mile loop, then a 10 mile loop. The weather right now is unseasonably warm and humid. Today's high temperature in Austin is 88 degrees. It's November! Needless to say that the high temperature didn't do us any favors. This afternoon we're going to hang out with Ethan while his mum goes to an Ice Bats game. :-) I see some ice cream in his future ;-) (this is why he loves auntie and uncie so much - we bribe him with treats).

I've been thinking a lot about Ember lately. It's a year since his health started to decline. It's about this time last year when we found out about his condition. I can't believe it's been a year. I still can't believe he's really gone. Not a day goes by when I don't see his picture and run my hand over it. It's just amazing how the little buggers can get into your heart and stay there long after they're gone. I sure do miss him. I love Nik and Onyx with all my heart, but nothing will replace my Ember.
*sniff*

Bit of a lazy week

I've been a bit bone idle this week it seems. I didn't run on Monday because we rode bikes and wakeboarded, and we ran 10 miles the day before, so I gave myself permission to skip. On Tuesday I wanted to just laze about and watch House (very good TV show with Hugh Laurie), plus my body was aching from wakeboarding. Yesterday, Wednesday, we went to the gym in the morning as usual, and we actually did go for a run after work , then I went and got a massage. It was so relaxing. Just what I needed. My muscles have been really tight lately. Tonight I won't get to run because we are going to dinner with a work colleague of Brian's who is visiting from Canada.
I do plan to go to the gym as usual tomorrow, and of course dodance class in the evening, but that doesn't leave much time for running. I should get in a 13 mile run this weekend. I'm undecided on whether to do that on Saturday or Sunday. On the one hand I want to do it on Saturday because that might make me feel like less of a slacker for this week, but on the other, Brian has soccer on Saturday afternoon and I'm not sure if a 13 mile run is in the cards for him.

In other news, Jack, my office mate, and I have decorated our office. Instead of the awful flourescent lighting in our office, we've purchased a couple of hanging chandaliers. Nothing expensive, they're actually plastic and have coloured discs hanging down like mobiles. Mine's pink and Jack's is purple. I think we need one more because it's a bit dark. I also have my volkswagen beetle string of lights up, and my VW tiffany lamp on the desk (thanks to my former office mate of 5 years). I have hung the giant beach scene poster in front of my desk and a couple of scenic picures on the ceiling, so now I can just sit back in my chair and float away. Work can be very stressful at times... you have to create a work environment that can help you de-stress. All we need now is a fountain and some Japanese music. I think I'll go make myself some green tea.

Fun Day!

We live for the weekends. Let's face it, none of us really look forward to going to work every Monday after a fun weekend, so this weekend Brian and I decided to postpone the inevitable return to the daily grind and took a vacation day.

We got up late, ate breakfast, watched some TV and then went mountain biking on Walnut Creek. We had a great ride, lots of good hill work outs and I'm happy to report no cactus incidents. Afterwards, we ate lunch at home and then headed out for some afternoon wakeboarding with Mike, who had taken half a day off.
There was almost nobody on the lake and the water was really nice. Mike shortened the rope so that the wake would be thinner and Brian and I could more easily cross it. Brian actually landed on the down side of the wake, which is the goal, and he was amazed at how nice the landing is. I didn't manage it myself, but better luck next time. The water was not too cold, probably around 70 degrees or so, though I must confess to wearing my wet suit because I can't stand to be cold.
We think there will be a couple more opportunities to go out before the water is too cold, and Brian and I have several weeks of vacation to take.
For dinner we made chicken parmesan and watched short attention span TV, me with a glass of wine, and Brian with a whisky and coke.

What a great day off. Now we need to figure out when to go for our ski trip and where.

New art

Sunday was a day for creativity....

"First Kiss"

"Infinity"

"First Dance"

The lighting wasn't very good for these pictures, but I'll take more during daylight before I frame them. Notice that the female's gown has glass beads :-)

I LOVE to paint.

Dam good run

Today was Brian's first time to run the Longhorn Dam loop, which is 10.1 miles. We did pretty well. It wasn't my best 10 mile run by any means, but it nice to get it done and feel the sense of accomplishment. Our regular running group has dwindled to just a few and today everyone was otherwise busy so it was just me and Brian.

The weekend has been good so far. Tiff and I skipped our class last night because several of the girls couldn't make it and it's much more fun when we're all there. Instead we went to Mesa Rosa for happy hour and to celebrate Erin passing the State Bar exam. GO ERIN! Her cards have her name and "Attorney at Law". It's so official now! The pass rate for the Bar is quite low, but we knew she would do it. After Mesa Rosa we headed to the new bar at Parmer and McNeil, Little Woodrows. We were pleased to see that they had Brian's favourite beer, Stella Artios, and they also came in these awesome Stella glasses, so we hiested a couple of them to take home. Brian and Mike were pretty drunk by the time we all left. Tara drove all the way from her house to pick us up and drive us all home. So sweet of her.

On Saturday, it seems that Brian got "over served" because he was quite hung over. I called Tiff and we headed to the mall for some retail therapy. I got some great jeans from Gap, a skirt and two sweaters from Penney's, and a cashmir hoodie from Kohl's. When I arrived home, after stopping at the pet store to get cat food and ogle all the kittens up for adoption, Brian was feeling much better and was ready to go eat. We went to NXNW where Brian had his favourite burger and I had salad and chips. mmmmmmm. Americans think that's weird, but it's the perfect meal and no weirder than Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches (ick!).

Now we need to get to work on the rest of our plans for the day.

Trick or treat!

Last night was fun! I went to David's Bridal with Jenny V and the rest of the bridesmaids and we picked out our dresses. The first one she picked out was perfect! we all loved it and all looked fabulous in it. It's an awesome pink with a hue of champaign, and has a champaign sash at the waist. I LOVE IT.

Afterwards, I went home and Spiderman showed up to go trick or treating in my neighbourhood. We got a really good bag of swag! and Ethan was the sweetest and cutest spiderman I've ever seen. I felt like I would never get tired of hearing him say "twick or tweet!".

Everyone in the neighbourhood thought he was adorable. At one point we stopped at a house on Alvin High, and a car pulled up as we went to the door. A little girl all dressed in pink ran out of the car and yelled "awh! mommy! they're gonna get all my caaaandyyy!". I almost fell over laughing!

We went to about a dozen or so houses and ended the night by trick or treating uncie. You can see pictures of Spiderman here: Halloween Highlights '05

oh the irony

Texas pastor electrocuted during baptism:

(Full story)

If there is a hell, I am surely going to it. My only hope is to repent for all my mocking on my death bed, just in case ;-)

Graceful

I forgot to mention my latest dance class injury... I kicked my feet up to go upside down, and as I hung there my shoe fell off and hit me in the face! Keep in mind that the shoe weight about 1lb and it fell from about 5 feet above my face. I have a nice green bruise on my cheekbone. How embarassing is that?

Creative weekend

It's been a very creative weekend so far. On Friday evening I went to the cannibal party at the Austin Rugby club. It was so much fun and I met so many really nice people. One actually worked at IBM and knew some of the same people I know. There were many elaborate costumes and people tended to congregate around one of the two fires that were burning outside for warmth. I spent a lot of time around the fire meeting people.

On Saturday morning I headed to home depot with a pillow case in hand to pick out a paint colour for the bedroom. I chose a grey with just a suggestion of warmth in it to contrast the red. It was neutral enough to highlight our new furniture set. When I got home, Tiff stopped by to try on some jeans she was going to use for her halloween costume. Afterwards I got to work on the bedroom. It took about 4 hours of dedicated working, and it looks wonderful! so much better than the yellow, wich was overstated.

Afterwards I ate some chip butties for dinner and relaxed for a few minutes before Tiff came over in part of her halloween costume. She was Axl Rose and was pulling it of extremely well with her long hair. We looked online and found some close-up pictures of his tattoos and I drew them on for her. She looked totally authentic when we were done. While I painted my own face and got ready, Tiff made an appearance at another party, then we headed downtown.

6th street was full of people in creative costumes. The best part was when people figured out who Tiff was. Some people just approcahed us and yelled "oh my god! are you Axl Rose! that's AWESOME!" while others would nudge and whisper to their friends, "dude, check out Axl Rose". Most suprising was how many people recongized that the tattoos were accurate. We stopped in at the Ivory Cat where Jenn, Jaime, and Tammy were hanging out and stayed to listen to Jaimie sing a couple of songs under his stage name "Julio". Afterwards we went down the street to Coyote Ugly to see all the women dancing on the bar.

As we made our way back to the car we saw a guy dressed as Slash. We stopped to take a picture of him and Tiff together. Probably my favourite picture of the night.

Next we headed to a party in my old neighbourhood. Everyone was there, all the people I had been hoping to see, but thought were going to the other party were there! YAY! We finished out the night there, listening to many bad renditions of Garth Brooks songs and cracking up at everyone's costumes. I think my favourite was Mendy dressed as Corpse Bride, though Lahari came a close second as Foxy Brown.
We got home at 3am, thankfully the clocks turned back an hour so it was technically only 2am.

I got up and ran on town lake with Andi this morning. We did the Dam loop, which is 10.1 miles. As we reached the end we saw Jenny V running by herself and I felt bad because running 10 miles on town lake isn't much fun when you're by yourself. Hopefully it'll go fast.

Now I'm trying to motivate myself to go clean the house and make cookies for my honey when he gets home later tonight.

Flying solo

This weekend Brian has a driving class in Houston. He's really excited about it. It's a two day class where they teach you how to get the most out of your car, and you get to drive really fast! Brian's super excited about it. I decided to stay in Austin and try to be productive.

I plan to repaint the bedroom (this will be its third colour), clean the house, attend a couple of halloween parties, and hopefully end up downtown sometime over the weekend to check out all the costumes. I'm going to miss Brian, though. This is our first halloween apart in 3 years. Sigh.
On Monday, I hope to see Ethan in his Spiderman outfit. I don't usually buy halloween candy for many reasons, the biggest one being lack of will power to not eat all of it, and the fact that I don't like children ;-) But this year I will make an exception because I hope Ethan will show up and say "Twick or tweet aaauntie!!".

Executive decision

Brian and I have been thinking about having a wedding reception for all the folks in Austin that can't attend our wedding in the Dominican Republic. Barbie and Jenn have been helping me scope out some places. My top favourite was the Austin Museum of art at Laguna Gloria. Yesterday I started researching caterers and party rentals for chairs and tables and just got totally overwhelmed. I talked to Barbie on my way home and we decided this reception crap is not for me. It's too much stress and ridiculously overpriced and for what? the reason Brian and I chose a destination wedding was to avoid all this shit so why are we even considering it? I guess these stupid wedding etiquette web sites are filling my head with other people's rules and that just pisses me off.

NO! we are not doing a reception. Instead, we are going to break tradition and do something different. Screw ettiquette! We will blaze our own trail and create new traditions.

There will be an event for our Austin friends to attend, the details will be worked out some time in the future, closer ot the date, and it will be stress free for Brian and me. Afterall, why would we want to start our new life together with an event that causes a whole load of stress? the wedding industry needs a make over and America, home of the "Bridezilla" needs a large wake up call.

Better than crack?

My Baileys Sugar Cookies are the best cookies ever! And they're so easy to make you can even use the packages where you just add butter and an egg. Here is the recipe.
Brian stopped by my office today with one cookie that he had saved for me from his lunch! how romantic and sweet is he?

Note to self: Reward Brian by making more Bailey's Sugar Cookies

Jenn just noticed a typo on our web site. Instead of "Cooking with Mandie" where all my recipes reside, the link said "Coking with Mandie". hahaha! *snort*

Adventures in Mountain Biking

On Sunday Brian and I went for our usual long run on Town lake. We were supposed to do nine miles or so, but because of my foot injury. Andi ran with us. Considering my foot hurt a lot, we had a great run. Later, Brian and Mike went mountain biking while Tara and I went for a day of shopping. We went to a couple of stores outside the mall, then went to Lake Creek to see what was on Sale at Foleys. I had seen Jodi the day before and her mum gave me a %20 off pass for Foleys (thanks! Jodi's mum). Alas, there was nothing at Foleys that I liked. They've been letting me down lately.
There was something going on at the mall yesterday, a band called Click 5 was playing, though the whole time we were there there was no music, just some guy hyping up a crowd of teenage girls and a lot of teenage girls screaming. We spent a good 4 hours shopping before heading to our respective homes. Around 6pm (6 hours since our boys left to go biking) Tara called me to see if I'd heard anything from the boys. 6 hours is a little long for them to be gone. I hadn't heard anything either. Almost an hour later Brian called me to tell me the following "we're alive... everyone's ok, but I'm in a lot of pain". Great. What happened?

Well....

Brian and Mike had gone biking in Georgetown. The terrain is rocky and rugged and quite technical. It's easy to lose the trail there, which is what they did. Many miles in they realized that they were completely lost and in the middle of nowhere. They kept going hoping that they'd eventually come to a road, but they never did. They came upon a camp site but the campers were not there so they kept going. Finally, realizing that it might be better to turn back, they went back to the camp site and this time there were people there. They helped by providing a map and directions/advice on how to get back. It was several miles of trail or they could go by road but either way it would be dark before they got back to the car. Somewhere along the line, Brian fell in to a large cactus patch and ended his day looking like a hedgehog. Eventually, the boys hitched a ride from a nice man with a truck who took them and their bikes back to the car, even though it was in the opposite direction from where he was going. Whoever that man is, thank you for being nice to our boys.

Needless to say that my evening consited of tweezing undreds of cactus needles the approximate size of hairs out of Brian in various places. He looked like he needed some pampering so I made him a yummy dinner of Chicken Kiev and garlic mashed potatoes, followed by some home made Bailey's sugar cookies.

He slept like a baby last night :-)

Sigh.... If ever there were two people who were pefectly suited as friends, it's Brian and Mike. They always get into trouble, get out of it, and have a great story at the end. I'm so glad they are safe and well.

new tatts

"Dance" class was awesome last night, though we missed Julia. We can all tell we're getting stronger with each class, which is really cool. I always leave class with a new bruise and last night's class was no exception. It is, however, in a very strange place. It's on the bottom of my foot. I know exactly when it happened. I did an un-graceful dismount from my pole and landed mostly on my right foot, right on the ball. It hurt really bad at the time and took me a good five minutes to brush it off. When I woke up this morning, I noticed I have a black bruise on the bottom of my foot, and a greenish blue bruise on the top of my foot that lines up with it perfectly.

Today (saturday), Brian and I went to a few jewelry stores to check out wedding bands for him. He picked out a couple but none are exactly what he wants so we'll continue to look. We are looking at titanium and tungsten because they are more scratch resistant than platinum, and they weigh less.
After ring shopping we headed down to the drag (for non-Texans, that's the area around the university), where I got my tattoo on my shoulder redone. It's been 10 years (almost 11) since I got it and it was looking a little old and blurry. This guy Carlos at Diablo Rojo (www.diablo-rojo.com) did it. It looks so much better now. He gave the dolphin a better blue colour and added some more detail.

Now we're camped out in front of the TV and Brian is yelling at the TV.

YEAH! HOOK 'EM HORNS!!!!!

Dirty little secret

Ok, it's not much of a secret because several of my friends are involved in this new activity I've taken up. Some refer to it as simply "class", others refer to it as "aerobics class" or "dance class". The reality is that I, and several of my more daring friends, have taken up Pole Dancing. It's an absolute blast, too! Our teacher, Nicole, is a former "dancer" who used to make a living working at local "gentlemen's" clubs. I use the term gentlemen loosly, mind you. An enterprising woman, Nicole. Realizing that all good things come to an end, and men want to see barely legal women dancing in these clubs, she has adapted. Now she teaches girls like us how to dance around the pole, climb the poll in high heels, spin around the pole with a number of different techniques, and dangle upside down in various poses on the pole.

Why do we do this? you ask... it's quite simple... it's helping us gain muscle in our upper bodies (and lower if you wear high heels while you do this), which means we will burn more fat while just sitting. It also means we will have more tone and definition in our shoulders, back, arms, chest, and abs... what girl doesn't want that? it's already working for all of us! after only 3 classes you can see that people are starting to develop great arms.

More importanly, it's FUN! it's SO much fun! We crack up the whole time we're there. It's fun to talk about with your friends

Surprisingly, it is very difficult. If you've ever been to a club and seen a girl use the pole, you gain a whole new respect for her. Not only is it hard to just do the moves, it is also incredibly difficult to do them gracefully, nevermind provocatively, and to keep a straight face while doing it. Needless to say that none of us are planning to use this new found skill to entertain in the local clubs, but you might find us hanging upside down from stop signs occasionally to impress our friends and passers by.

Boredom has set in

As I sit here on the couch next to Brian, who is dilligently working, I find myself entertaining myself with memes, like this:

Your Fortune Is

Baby conceived on back seat of car with automatic transmission grow up to be shiftless bastard.

The Wacky Fortune Cookie Generator

And this:

Your Fortune Is

Better to be pissed off than pissed on.

The Wacky Fortune Cookie Generator

hehe....

I'm going to go make dinner.

Pervasive 10 Miler

Today was the Pervasive 10 mile race. This was my first time to run this race. It is a very hilly course going through some of Austin's nicest neighbourhoods and the scenery was great. The hills were steep but today for some reason I powered up each one of them passing people left and right. Jenny V ran with me the whole way. She's a fast runner and I really had no intention of keeping up with her but I guess today I was just in my groove and it worked out great to have company the whole race. Tiff did really well, too. She ran it a tiny bit slower, but not much! Brian wasn't able to run the race because his knee has been bothering him, but he did show up at the finish line to cheer us on and be supportive. What an awesome boyfriend :-)

The rest of the day has been pretty relaxing so far. I had some breakfast and hung out with Brian for a bit, then went to Costco with Barbie. I bought a pair of Lucky Brand jeans for $20!!! (online they're $98) what a steal! Afterwards we hung out at the house and had a whisky and coke with Brian (well, I had Baileys on ice), then after Barbie left, Brian watched three different sports on TV while I made some adjustments to a pair of jeans I had altered about a week ago. They had shrunk in length a little so I had to make them a bit longer.

Later today we're going to Salt Lick for all you can eat ribs, brisket, sausage, etc! I'm so excited. I have been eating light today to make sure I'm good and hungry for dinner. Right now I could eat a horse. Most likely I will eat a whole pig ;-)

Last night I went over to Jenny V's with Barbie and Tiff. She had just moved into a new house with her man, Aaron, and the place is just awesome! very roomy and a great floor plan. We drank wine, ate brownies, chips and guacamole, cheese and crackers, and popcorn (a good carb selection), and watched a movie in their media room. It's so cool to have a dedicated "media room" in your house. Barbie entertained me and Tiff on the way home with her musical ass.

Life's good.

Our new bedroom set.

These are pictures of our new bedroom set. We love the chinese feel of it. I am very drawn to all things Asian so this is perfect! We plan to change the yellow wall colour to a taupe colour that matches the colour in the duvet.

Turning Chinese?

Well, I'm still adjusting to several things that are causing me to have sleepless nights. One is new medication for my RLS, the other is a new mattress to replace the foam one we bought and both hated. Our new mattress feels great!

Our new bedroom set was scheduled for delivery some time in late November, however, we recieved a call from the furniture store on Monday and they said it had already arrived! great news. It arrived on Thursday and it looks awesome! I'll post pictures here pretty soon.

Yesterday (Friday) Brian and I took a vacation day and had a lovely day. We got up late and had breakfast, went for a 6 mile run, then went for lunch at my favourite sushi bar. Afterwards we went to see the new Wallace and Gromit movie. Afterwards I went to my dance class with the girls, while Brian went to happy hour with Mike, Tara, Tara's mum, Paige, and Jethro. After class we headed over to Rhino and Jock's to see Brian and Andrea play. Brian and the rest joined us shortly after and so did Barbie and Scott. A very good turn out. Later on, even Tiff's boyfriend, Brett, showed up. I thoroughly enjoyed my day off!

Weekend highlights

The weekend was great. Too much to go into detail on so here's some highlights:

On Friday the girls and I did our "dance" class. If you wear high heeled shoes you get a better work out, so we all brought shoes this time. She wasn't kidding! After class I met up with Brian, Jen and Aaron for an awesome dinner at PF Chang's.

Saturday was Brian's first party at what is now "our house". It was a large turnout and we had just the right number/combination of appetizers and munchies, though we did have a couple of things left over. Barbie and Jenn kept me company while all the sports fans watched the game, though Jenn is a huge Longhorns fan. Even Brian's parents drove in from Houston for the game. We ate so much food that after everyone left we all (Brian, me, and his parents) stayed home and watched movies.

Sunday's run was great. The weather was awesome and we did a very easy 7 mile loop around town lake. Afterwards we went to Rudy's for breakfast tacos with Brian's parents before they headed back to Houston. Then we had Ethan for the whole day! it was awesome. We took Ethan to the San Anonio Zoo on Sunday afternoon. He slept all the way there in the car and was nice and refreshed to see all the animals. For the most part he didn't spend much time in his stroller and Brian and I were constantly watching to make sure he didn't stray more than a few feet from us at all times. It's very tiring to be that responsible, but we enjoyed spending time with him immensely.
When we got back we had pizza for dinner and watched Star Trek. I read 3 Dr. Seusse books to Ethan and he was so cute when he came over with a blanket for us to snuggle in while we read. Seeing Brian interact with Ethan is the cutest thing ever. I have no doubt that Brian will be an awesome dad some day :-)

Insomnia

We bought a new mattress over the weekend. We went to 5 mattress stores and tried about 25 beds. We finally decided on a Tempurpedic type mattress made entirely of high-density memory foam. When it arrived it was vacuum packed and didn't look much like a king size mattress, however, as soon as the seal on the packaging was broken, it exploded into a king sized mattress!

Sadly I haven't slept in two nights. The first night was awful. I tossed and turned and my legs just wouldn't stop twitching. I thought for sure the second night would be better. However, it was equally bad. I can't figure out if it's the bed, or if it's the sleep disorder. I suppose it could be the sleep disorder perpetuated by the change of bed. The bed is definately something I'll need to get used to. It's a lot firmer than I'm used to, but not uncomfortable at all. Which is why I'm thinking it's the sleep disorder. Usually I can't sleep the first night in a strange bed, but the second night is ok. Today I had to leave work because I had nausea and a head ache. I hope I adjust to the new bed soon. We have 30 days to try it out and during the 30 days we can return the bed in exchange for another bed from the same store. The store we bought from had many diffferent models of bed so I am sure if we returned it we'd find something that works just as well.
(sigh). I feel like crap :-(

P Frickin' R!

The IBM 10K was a tough race for me because it was hot and humid. My previous PR for this race was 56:28.
I think we went out a litte fast at the beginning and by the 4th mile I
started to get stitch and my breathing was a little labored. Brian kept
encouraging me and giving me mini pep-talks as we went. It was
around mile 5 that Brian and I discovered we'd been running with the
Govenor for the last couple of miles. When I run races I like to pick a
person out of the crowd and keep them in my line of sight and try to
keep up with them. In this case it was a big bald guy in a red shirt.
It turns out he was the Govenor's protection. I had been wondering what
he had stuffed up the back of his shirt and when it finally dawned on
me that was the Gov. I realized the bald dude was packing. At
mile 6 I was ready to hurl and was starting to wish I could walk. Brian was
saying encouraging things to me and suddenly so was the Govenor and his
crew. He told me "come on, roll with it... you're on an island...." and
as I visualized my island I said "ohhh, I'm on a hammock with a Corona"
and the Gov. said "and your cabana boy is there", and I said "oh boy!
(clicking fingers) bring me a cold towel!" and the Gov. and his crew
laughed. I guess I must have gotten a momentary spurt of energy from
the visualization of B, my cabana boy bringing me a cold towel and sped
up a bit. Then the Gov. and his crew laughed and said "see how you sped
up at the mention of a cabana boy?" to which I replied "that's all it
took!" and off we went.
The Gov. and his crew passed us about 50 yards from the finish line, I guess he was thinking of his cabana boy, too ;-)

My race time: 53.34.

That's almost a full 3 minutes improvement!

A BIG FAT THANKS to Brian for all his encouragement!

Mentor meeting

At IBM we are encouraged to have a "mentor". This person advises you and guides you in your IBM career. They can't be in your dept, or your manager, and the realationship is one of trust where you can tell your mentor anything on your mind and your mentor will never discuss it with anyone else. My mentor, Danna, is awesome. She used to be my manager when I first started at Tivoli. She was the best manager I've ever had. As my mentor she also talks to me about personal things going on in my life. I met with her yesterday and we talked about some IBM stuff, and I also told her of recent events in my personal life. What I got out of the discussion was that people make friends on many different levels and it all depends on the person. I am the type of person who invests a lot of herself into her friends on an emotional level, and therefore I place a lot of value on these friendships. People who don't invest as much feel less of a loss when a freindship dies. By letting this situation continue to hurt me I am giving the other person the power to control me. She's right. I didn't see it before.

I feel a million times better.

Wedding Dress Alterations

It's been a while since I did anything Wedding-related. Today I took my dress to another tailor. The first lady I took it to had converted part of her home into a work studio and she came highly recommended by several wedding sites. She was, however, a little pricy. I guess the high-end Lexus in the driveway should have clued me in.

Jenn E had a friend who recommended this new one that I went to. I thought I'd go and get and estimate to see just how worth it the first lady was.

This second Tailor is a chinese lady who barely speaks English. I asked her for a sample of her work thinking she'd have a dress on hand that she'd altered, but I guess she didn't, so she went to her sewing machine and took a piece of silk fabric and made the most perfect rolled hemline I've ever seen. She looked at all the layers on my dress and then quoted me a price. At first I thought she meant that price for each layer of the dress, but she meant total. It was less than 1/5th the price of the first lady!

I decided then and there to just go with her, afterall, who's going to be paying attention to the bottom of my dress? I'm going to be dragging it through sand and all sorts of crap. Though judging by the sample she showed me, I have nothing to worry about.

She helped me get into the dress and then put some pins in it to indicate where she would take it up. It will be ready in 2 weeks!

So a big thanks to Jenn for recommending this place.

Weekend in review

It's about that time again. Sunday evening and the weekend is shortly coming to a close. Again I've had an awesome weekend, which started on Friday early afternoon. My department and the test department had a party at Dave and Busters, and so did the development team that I work with (Brian's dept.). So I had two parties to go to instead of working on Friday, which is awesome. Brian and I left around 2:30 and decided to use the extra time by going to the gym to work out. Mike met us at the gym and showed Brian how to use the free weights. I did abs and upper body in prep for my Friday evening "fitness" class.

One of our crew was unable to attend due to being out of town. We did a full review of last week's material, and learned a few more moves. I'm sure she'll be able to catch up very easily. Meanwhile, Brian and his parents met Mike and Tara at Mesa Rosa for happy hour, then came to pick me up and we went out to The Oasis to watch Andi's band, Third Language, play. They were awesome as always. Jenn and Ethan were there, which was an awesome suprise! We met Barbie and Scott, and Scott's parents, Ann and Milt, and later, Bob, Renee, and Jen showed up. The band played until 10pm so after that we decided to go to the Water Tank, which is a dive bar in our neighbourhood. They do Karaoke on the weekends but we didn't arrive in time to get up and sing anything. We had fun hanging out and listening to the bad renditions of songs by other people, though.

On Saturday I helped Barbie pick out paint colours for her office, and helped her figure out what equipment she needed. We also went to Target to look for curtains for her office. I did pick up an awesome pair of jeans from Target and a top from Kohl's. Brian and his parents headed down to the Pican Street Festival while I was out. Brian said it was really crowded. So much for the bad weather we were expecting. When they returned, we got ready and went to dinner at Macaroni Grill, then came home and watched Wallace and Gromit. Neither Brian nor his parents had seen it.
Brian's parents recently went to Greece and they had brought me an awesome bottle of wine back, so we drank that as we watched the movie.

Sunday morning came way too soon. I love Sundays but during marathon training season we have to get up at an ungodly hour. We met Tiffeni at the Starbuck's at 183 and Anderson Mill and made our way to Town Lake. The weather was sunny but not ridiculously hot yet, though the other day we hit a record of 102 degrees which is extremely hot for September. We did two Lamar loops which worked out to be around 6 miles.

After the run and dropping Tiff off, we went home and I made breakfast for everyone, which consisted of cheesy scrambled eggs, homefries, and English muffins with Marmalade. Tiff and Brett came over for breakfast and then Brett left and Tiff, Tara, Brian, and Brian's mum and I went out to meet mike at the boat (and made a trip to Wal-mart) where he was changing the oil. Brian's dad stayed home to do some work.

It was super hot this afternoon and not a cloud in the sky, but the lake was somewhat deserted and we had really good ski water. Brian's mum tried waterskiing and the rest of us did some wakeboarding. The lake was actually warmer than it was the last time we went.

This evening Brian's parents are going to try to head back to Houston so we're going to head out for dinner shortly. Barbie is going to join us for dinner and the current thinking is Outback, though Brett's not working tonight so maybe we'll save Outback for a night that he is working and go some place else tonight. Either way, I'm starvin' and looking forward to some red meat :-)

Storm update

Well, we're officially sitting here waiting for huricaine Rita to hit the coast of Texas. Last night Jenn and Ethan came over for dinner. We made pork tenderloin with garlic mashed potatoes and fresh, steamed asparagus. And of course, sugar cookies for after. Ethan wanted his cookies first so I made a deal with him that if he at 5 bites of his dinner I'd give him a cookie. He ate about 3, but we figured it was close enough since he can't count to 5 yet. At one point Ethan was following Brian around, tugging on his shorts and going "uncie! UNCIE!" while Brian was on the phone to his brother. Jenn and I didn't stop him because we figured Brian would need to get used to that ;-)

Brian's parents drove from Houston last night, which it seems is what everyon else did, too. They arrived around 5am this morning after spending almost 7 hours on the road of which should normally be a 3 hour drive. They were actually the lucky ones, though. A friend told me that she knows people who went 30 miles in about 5 hours. The south-bound side of the highway into Houston has been set up as a contra-flow to accommodate the thousands of people trying to escape before the huricaine hits.

I saw Brian's parents this morning. They looked in good spirits considering what they're going through. I just can't imagine how they must feel right now having to just leave their home and not know what they will go back to when this is over. It must be really difficult :-( I'm very glad they're staying with us, though. At least we know they're safe, and there's noting more important than life, not even you precious photographs and keepsakes.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store on my way home and people were panic-buying. They had already ran out of bottled water. While I didn't get into the panic buying mode myself, I did add a few extra non-perishable items to my cart just in case the power goes out.

It looks like we're expecting about 74mph winds here in Austin, which is the most I've ever seen. There's not much you can do to prepare for it, other than to move all your lawn furniture inside, trim any trees nearby, and just hope for the best. I'm both excited and scared. It's no secret that I love storms... this one could change my mind, though.

I just really hope that Brian's parents will find their house in good shape when they return. It's just so heart breaking.

RITA anyone?

According to the latest storm tracker forecasts, hurricaine Rita is headed straight for Texas. Voluntary evacuations have started in Galveston, and as a precaution, Brian's mum is coming to stay with us on Thursday because Houston is in the predicted direct path. Brian's dad, however, is going to stay and take care of the house. Usually hurricaines fizzle out before they reach us because we're so far inland... however, looking at the predicted path, it passes right over Austin and up towards Dallas! This is not good news for Texas. The irony here is that all those victims from hurricaine Katrina that sought refuge in Texas are now going to get hit with yet another one!

If I believed in god I'd think she was playing games purely for her own amusement. What a bitch ;-)

Here's a link to the local forecast: http://www.news8austin.com/Content/Weather/Tropics/Tracker/Gulf/?SatRadImage=TRACKER_GULF

So in the event that we do get hit, I might consider buying lots of batteries, flashlights, and bottled water, and perhaps put the futon matress under the stairs to make sort of a storm shelter. All our important papers are safely stored at the bank in a safe deposit box. Everything else is covered by insurance. Rest assured that in the event of a life threatening situation, there will be no higher priority to me than Brian and the cats. The rest is just stuff.

Courtesy of my friend Jay.... You are a Social Liberal (71% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (33% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

Home projects, etc

This weekend has been a good weekend for projects around the home, mixed in with fun with friends.
On Friday evening after work, gathered a group of girls to go take a class in "pole dancing". It was a total blast. Jenny V, Tiffeni, Renee, Julia, and Lahari all went. We now have a new found respect for strippers! The class was so much fun that we all signed up for seven more classes, except Lahari, who opted to give Hip Hop a try instead. Oh, and big news! My friend Jenny V just got engaged! I'm so excited for her.

After class I joined Brian and several friends, including Mike and Tara, at Mesa Rosa. Brian and Mike were pretty tipsy by the time I arrived. We had a light dinner there and then headed out to Austin's Park and Pizza to go race go-karts. I got my shoe caught in the accelerator of my go-kart and pretty much had to go with it. Thankfully, they don't go super fast and the only casualty was the heel on my purple snakeskin winkle pickers :-) Mike and Brian did a little rock climbing, then we went inside for air hockey before calling it a night.

On Saturday we got up pretty early and set about preparing to hang the TV on the wall, which involved cutting holes in the wall and running cables out through the garage, then back in again in a different location in the living room. This would enable us to move the cable box and DVD player off the mantel and pretty much out of the main living area. The wiring project went great. Brian ran to home depot several times to get the right wall plates while cut 4 holes in the walls and installed low voltage receptacles in the walls and ran the wires through. We ended up having to make the holes on the face plates bigger to acommodate the cables but it looks pretty good.

Somewhere along the line the drill battery died and we had to recharge it. While we waited for it to recharge we put in a new kitchen faucet. Also a bigger undertaking than we anticipated because it took us an hour of taking turns to try and get the sprayer attachment off the water supply. We eventually got the old faucet off and the new one was very easy to install, with a bit of creative thinking on which tools to use to do the job. The end result is that our faucet is no longer leaking, and it looks so much more stylish. Gotta love that.

We then attempted to mount the TV to the wall. This proved to be more of an indertaking than we had anticipated. The problem is that the instructions for the wall mount state that you need to mount the plate to two studs, however, to do that would cause our TV to be off-center in the alcove. We tried several ways, our calculations, however, were a little off and it proved to be impossible. So with many holes in the walls, we gave up for the day.

Saturday night we tried a new pub/restaurant called the Tilted Kilt. Was pretty much a waste of time. It definately wasn't anything to write home about. Might be good for happy hour. After our average dinner there, we, and Mike and Tara went to the Cheesecake Factory and split dessert.

This morning, Sunday, we got up early and ran 7 miles on town lake with the girls. It was a very hot day and it was tough going, but we made it. Afterwards we thought we'd take down the wall plate for the TV mount and try a different approach. Unfortunately, Brian had an accident that caused the cables to get damaged so we need to replace them before we can hang the TV.

In the mean time, though, I filled in the holes in the wall from our previous attempts, and painted them while Brian mowed the lawn. I spoke to a guy at Lowes when I was buying the filler for the walls and he helped me pick out some sheetrock anchors that we can use to hand the TV using only one stud and 4 sheetrock anchors. We're pretty confident that it will hold. That's going to have to wait until we get the replacement cables, though.

Brian was pretty bummed out about the cables so we went for a little retail therapy and a margarita and some nachos for lunch. Later he went over to hang out with Ben, while I finished painting over the wall filler and installed a new X10 switch on the dining room light.

Plans for the rest of the day are to avoid any kind of hard work. Watch a movie. Drink some wine. Eat sushi (well, I will. Brian's having quesadillas). And just RELAX!

As I've said previously, it's hard to be motivated to run when you have to run alone. Last night my two running partners were pursuing other sports. Brian playede soccer and Tiff played basketball, so I took off running our usual route by myself. At first I was bored and not wanting to run, but somewhere about 3/4 mile in I got this burst of energy that lasted the whole 4 miles. I felt like I was flying. I attribute it to the handfull of Gummi Bears I ate just before the run.

This morning I got up and went to the gym. Brian wasn't able to join me because his class starts early so he will go this evening instead. Tonight I'm heading over to Andi's house for some girl time. She's having a Southern Living party, which I'm really not that into, but I'm just going so I can spend some time with her and the rest of my girls.

In other news, Brian and I have 3 weeks of vacation left so we're looking for a Ski trip. I found a great deal on a trip to Vail the first week in December. I just don't know if they'll have snow there yet.

Happy Monday

I had a pretty good Monday...

Our project is winding down at work and there is not the mad rush that we've had over the past six months or so. We are now looking at our next project, though, which seems impossible. It's like standing at the bottom of a massive, sheer cliff, and all I have is one rope to help me get to the top. Sigh.
I had lunch with Tiffeni and Kerey at Tuscany. I'd never been to that place but I will definately be going back.
As I left work it was raining pretty heavy, and soaked me as I walked to my car... not that I minded because I love the rain, especially warm rain. The ironic part is when I got into my car, the rain stopped.
Brian was in a class all day, and I guess will be all week. We finished off the day with a 4 mile run in our neighbourhood with Tiffeni. She will be joining us for our evening runs to help in marathon training. It's always easier to feel motivated when you run with somebody. I always find that if I have to run alone, I feel less inclined to do it.

A rainy texas weekend

Despite the weather, though, I enjoyed it immensely.
On Friday evening Brian and I joined 20 of our friends to celebrate Sara's birthday at Ararat, which is a tiny hole in the wall restaurant that serves middle eastern food. They also have belly dancers. The food was excellent, the belly dancing was highly entertaining, and the company was awesome.

On Saturday we finished off our garage project by hanging the bikes and securing a hook and rope to the ceiling to provide more support for Brian's shop vac - it had been hanging by one hook and it looked like it might not hold. Later, Brian went to play raquetball with Mike down at UT and I stayed home and watched a movie and hung out with my sweet kitties. Brian had planned to come home at 7 to watch the UT football game, but ended up being home around 8:30, and feeling guilty for his lateness, took me out to dinner instead of watching the game. We went to the Cheesecake Factory. This was the first time we'd been there since we went with Paula, Steve, and Daniel when they were over last year. We split an entree and then split a slice of vanilla cheesecake. Brian actually did get to see the game a little bit.

On Sunday I got up at the crack of dawn and drove down to Town Lake to join the rest of my HARDCORE running friends for a run in the pouring rain. About a mile into it we had reached saturation. You know, the point where you are so soaked that you can't get any wetter... it was an awesome run, though. I LOVE running in the rain. LOVE IT! As a side note, Brian stayed in bed because he doesn't like running in the rain ;-).

A hot shower and a cup of tea later and I was feeling great. We had ran 6.5 miles, even though our training schedule only called for 3.5.

The rest of Sunday was spent watching movies and I made some awesome noodles with sesame and ginger chicken for dinner.

Today I almost burst into tears because I got an e-mail from the Humaine Society... I barely got past the first paragraph before I had to stop reading and just delete it. Heartbreaking!

They talked about how the animals left behind, especially at the shelters, had spent several days just trying to keep their heads above water while still trapped in their cages. This makes me so fricking mad that those selfish bastards at the shelter didn't spare a thought for animals locked up in cages! Why didn't they just set them free to at least have a chance? WHY? selfish pricks!

I guess I shouldn't stand in judgement because I don't know all the facts surrounding it. But it's so damn hard! I just wish I could go there and comfort all the animals and give them all baths and hugs and food and clean water and tell them it's gonna be alright.

Animals are a huge hot button with me. The easiest way into my heart and my wallet is to show me an animal who needs me.