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.

Animal victims from Katrina

I've been trying not to watch the news when they talk about all the animals that are suffering as a result of the hurricaine. It just makes me so sad that I'd be in a constant state of crying if I read the stories or watched the news.

I can't imagine the horror of having to leave your beloved pet behind. They're so much a part of us that it would be like leaving a child. I just feel for all those people who have to live with the guilt of leaving their pets to fend for themselves. The water in the streets of New Orleans is toxic, there's no clean waterto drink. I know what this means for humans and animals alike, but humans have a choice. Animals don't.

Today I gave a donation to the Humaine Society Disaster Relief Fund. While it's just a drop in the ocean of what's needed, every little helps, and it makes me feel better knowing I did at least some small thing to help out. If I could have one wish right now, it would be that all those people get reunited with their pets, and that all the pets left behind somehow found a way to live through this. For those that didn't make it, I hope they didn't suffer.

There's a ton of focus on the human aspect of this disaster, I am so thankful that the Humain Society stepped up to the challenge of helping all those animals.

When I get home, I'm going to hug both my cats extra, and give them extra treats.

:'-(

Weekend of recovery

This past weekend was Labour Day weekend, so Monday was a holiday. I spent a lot of my weekend at home recovering from this awful illness, and a lot of it hanging with Barbie. I re-covered the dining room chairs with this awesome red fabric and made 3 pillow covers to go over the existing couch pillows. Then Barbie and I went shopping and I got some more fabric to contrast the red. It's kind of a gold silk. I made 2 more couch pillows. The house is coming together nicely... I might repaint the living room a different colour, though. I still like the red, but the sage colour is getting old.
Brian had a pretty full Sunday... He ran 6 miles with me and Jenny V on Town Lake, then he went tubing down the Comal River with Mike, Tara, Austin, and Andy, then I joined them all plus Jay and Erin for some boating on Lake Austin to listen to the Bob Schnieder concert at The Pier. After that we went back to Mike and Tara's for a game of pool and some hanging out.

Yesterday Brian and I slept late... I haven't slept past 9am for months so it was really nice. We then tackled the garage. Now that the waverunner is gone, it's realistic to think that we can put both cars in the garage. We just had to be creative about where to put things. So we moved out a table and moved shelves over. We hung a huge carpet remnant on the ceiling using a rope to hoit it up there. all that remains now is to hang the bikes, then we can get both cars in the garage. Of course, the trash can has to go some place else, and the stupid home owners association won't let us keep it outside where it's visible and easy to get to. I'm thinking about erecting some lattice fence down the side of the house to put the trash can behind.

Today I feel about 85% ok. Still got a cough and a bit of congestion, and a big sore in the back of my throat, but in all it's an improvement over the past week.

I'm finally feeling a bit more human. Last night was Jenn E's birthday celebration. We went to Iron Cactus for drinks and appetizers, then went to Graham Central. Jenn looked beautiful as always, and not looking a day past 25. Barbie and Scott met us at CGS and Scott's parents, Ann and Milt came too. We spent some time in the live music bar, but the band was awful, so we moved to Wild Cats to watch some booty shaking on the bar, then finished off the night watching some cheesy karaoke. I had to leave around midnight because my head was pounding, and my neck was hurting.

This morning Brian went biking with Eric, and I lazed about the house. Now that he's home, I'm going to drag him around more furniture stores because we want to buy a whole new bedroom set for our master bedroom and will be upgrading to a king size bed. Then I want to go buy some fabric to re-cover the dining chairs and make some cusions for the couch.

Sick as a dog

It started off with a sore throat on Monday, and a bit of an itchy face... you know, like sinus itchy, but it itches in your nose, ears and throat and you just wanna scratch your face off! Yesterday it got worse. It was accompanied by a sinus head ache and lethargy. Last night I got no sleep due to a persistent cough and an overactive mind. Today I feel like total dog shit. I went to the doctor, who prescribed some stuff for the cough, tooks some blood, and a culture from the back of my throat that made me almost throw up. I have a fever, too. Uuugh. I hate this because I can't go for a run or anything :-(

Weekend in review

I love weekends! This one was no exception. On Friday evening we went to Dave and Busters to celebrate our friend, Meneesh's birthday.

We had a somewhat productive day on Saturday - we had lunch at Rudy's with Mike's brother, Austin and his friend Corey. Then we went to Costco and got a $400.00 refund on our new TV because a coupon came out 2 weeks after we bought ours. Nice!

I think I have sold the Waverunner. A guy came over to check it out yesterday and made me an offer, which I accepted. We just have to work out the logistics now.

At 6 we met Eric and Reba and a bunch of their friends at Cheddars for Eric's birthday. We really only new Eric and Reba, but by the end of the night had met a lot of fun people. After dinner we went to The Main Event and did some rock climbing. I had so much fun, I just loved it! Brian did too. He did really well and got up some of the more difficult walls.
After we left Main Event, we headed over to Bob and Renee's house for Bob's birthday party. We were going to head out to GCS, but everyone looked pretty comfy in their bathing suits so we all decided to forgo the bar and continue to party at their house.

This morning, Brian and I got up to do our "long run" which was actually only 3.1 miles. Jenny V's marathon training group runs started today and there was a great turnout.

(Update posted on Monday 8/29)
The guy came over to pick up the Waverunner. The Garage looks so big without it taking up all that space. We plan to move stuff around next week so that we can park both cars in there. The only issue is that it has been sitting so long that it needed a new battery. So hopefully that's all that's wrong with it. I did tell him if he gets it checked out at Woods and he's uncomfortable with anything, I'd take it back. So fingers crossed.

We went shopping for a stereo cabinet to put our DVD player and Cable Box in. Right now they're sitting on the mantel next to the TV and it looks tacky. Later on we took the boat out on Lake Austin. They must have been letting a lot of water in from the dam because it was freezing. I made a couple of runs on the wakeboard, but since I'm trying bigger jumps and doing fakies, I crash more, which means more time in the water, brrrrrr!

We got home pretty late from the lake and watched a crappy movie called "Black Cadillac". I don't recommend it.

High road

When you feel low, it's really hard to take the high road in a situation. Your natural tendency is to stoop to the same level as the person who put you down there. But I won't. I'm better than that. I see the jockying for social position going on around me, but I'm not going to dignify it with a response. :-P

Last supper.... sort of

Last night Brian and I went to Papasito's for dinner with Kevin. Today, Kev is moving to Indiana :-( We're sad to be losing our brother, but we are also happy for him because he got a good job, and his best friend is also moving up there and they will be working together.
Brian helped Kev load his posessions that he had been storing at our hous into the U-haul. We'll miss Kev, and we're looking forward to a trip to Indiana to visit in the near future. We also talked about skiing and Vegas trips this year.

In other news, the auction for my waverunner is progressing nicely. It has only one more day till it ends and the price is up over $2,000.

Long post about weekend, etc.

My head is still spinning from Monday's drama. More on that later. The weekend was awesome! On Friday night we went to GCS for a little karaoke and some dancing. We met Eric and Reba there. Reba talked me into going up on stage with her to play a game like "Simon says". I got eliminated within the first minute. Apparently I don't take direction well. Later that evening, Mike and three of his friends showed up, and later still, Renee and her entourage also showed up. On Saturday, Brian and I went mountain biking with Eric. That afternoon, Brian took his brother to test drive cars while I did some things around the house.
Saturday night, Brian took me on a date to Eddy V's, which is a really nice restaurant downtown, then we met up with about 15 of our friends at the Light Bar on Congress Ave.
Sunday morning I went for a run with Andi. I love running with her. We have so much to talk about and it's always so positive. Never whining or complaining, just talking about life, ideas, fun, family. After that, we ran some errands, and later that day went to Salt Lick with Mike and Tara, Nick, Jethro, Kev, Mike, Joe, and Jen. Unfortunately, Tara's car broke down less than a mile away so we had to send Kev to pick them up, then arrange for a tow truck and a ride back into town. It all worked out, though. Brian took Mike's truck to pick them up from the Land Rover dealer downtown.
Back to the drama I was referring to. So someone who I considered a really good friend accused me of making up a story about something her fiancee said to me at a party.

Anyway, it's sufficient to say that right now I'm extremely angry. I feel betrayed, too. A reasonable man would have come to me and said "I hear you think I said this, and that's not what I said, let's talk". Instead, he called me a liar, didn't even bother to try to sort out any misccomunication, and then broke up a friendship. That seems a bit spineless. My friends say that people like that aren't worth worrying about. I need to find a way to just get over this and move on. But I'm so hurt.

Kicked out of the wedding

Today I got accused of lying and betraying one of my friends. Consequently, I got kicked out of the wedding party. I understand why she would believe her fiancee, rather than me. But I didn't lie. I'm sad because we were really good friends, but it's for the best if that's her opinion of me. It will make things a little awkward at work since we work in the same office.

So Long, Mr. Flippy

I posted my waverunner on Ebay yesterday. So far it's generating quite a bit of interest. Brian and I haven't used the waverunner at all this year, and last year we used it twice, and Barbie and Scott used it several times. It's just not enough use to warrant the amount of space it's taking in the garage. So we're selling it, and reclaiming our garage space. The extra money can go towards our honeymoon next year.

New telly

I love our new TV. We got a new High Definitaion (HD) cable box yesterday from the cable company. It makes a huge difference.

I'm feeling pretty good today... Going to the gym, eating more healthy foods and running regularly, along with taking my vitamins seems to be paying off. I hope I can keep it up. I had a great run last night. I ran by myself because Brian's foot still hurt from when he tried to rescue me from the waterfall on Saturday. I practiced all the things I'd learned to say in Spanish (en Espanol) as I ran, which made the run go by really quickly. And speaking of Spanish, I am on my final lesson in the set. Lesson 10. I've retained 99% of what I've learned in the previous 9 lessons. I think I will move on to Spanish 2 next. I'm actually enjoying learning Spanish. I wish I had this kind of attention span when I was in school. Who knows what I could have accomplished. I might have been an astronaut! Of course, then I might not have met my wonderful future husband... so I guess it all works out :-)

Action-packed weekend

I did so much fun stuff this weekend, I am not sure if I can remember it all...

On Friday, Brian and I took half a day off, and we, Kev, and Mike took the boat out for a bit of wakeboarding. This time, I tried wakeboarding with the wedge down, which causes a much bigger wake. I'd always been intimidated by it, but it was actually really good because it puts you in a better position to land your jumps. We taught Kev to get up on the wakeboard. It only took him a few tries and he got up. We're very proud of him. We went for dinner at the County Line. They do awesome peppered babyback ribs.

On Saturday we went tubing down the Guadalupe with a large group of friends. It was a lot of fun, except for one tense moment where the cooler tube got stuck in the waterfall. The bag of empty cans we had tied to the cooler tube got wedged between some rocks as I tried to take it over the falls and I couldn't get it free. A nice man who was just hanging out in the river drinking a beer helped me get it free. I got rope-burn on my finger. Brian and the rest of my group, meanwhile, had made it a little further down the river and were waiting for me. Brian came back for me. He was fighting the current to get to me, and people told him he'd never make it, but he did. He did cut his toe in the process, though. My hero. He got to us and helped me and the guy free the tube from the clutches of the waterfall, then we met our group and floated on down the river.

That evening, we went over to Bob and Renee's house for a BBQ, then we headed downtown.

Sunday, I got up at the crack of dawn to go running on town lake with Andi and Jenny V. We did a 7 mile loop. After that, I showered and went to meet Barbie for breakfast at Einstein Bagels, then we went shopping in the arboretum. We went to Express, Victoria's Secret, and Gap. I tried on (and consequently bought) the new Ipex from Victoria's Secret. It is SUPER comfortable. Next, we went to the mall. Barbie and I both need more tops. I have tons of trousers, and nothing to wear with them. We also found ourselves in the shoe dept, where Barbie found some great black stilletos for $10, and I got some purple snakeskin shoes for $16.

While on the way to the mall, I called my sister, Paula. My nephew, Daniel, answered the phone... at first I thought it was Steve, but then I realized that my little nephew's voice had broken and he was now sounding all manly! That was a shock, considering I just saw him in April and he sounded like a kid! He's grown up so fast! I told Paula how much I was looking forward to taking Daniel to do all the fun stuff like wind surfing and snorkeling when we go on our trip to Dominican Republic.

After the mall, I went over to Mike and Tara's to check out the new TV... Brian was there helping Mike hang it on the wall. We discovered that there was a problem with mounting it and the boys took it back to the store to exchange it. A couple of hours later the boys arrived at our house with two 50 inch plasma TVs. One for us, and the one Mike had exchanged. We now have an awesome 50" plasma in our living room! Yay!

Brian spent the rest of the day helping Mike hang his new TV, and I mowed the front lawn, cleaned out more room in the closet for Brian, and did the laundry, and of course, watched our new TV :-)

A very productive and fun weekend!

Every day is a gift...

Sometimes you have to step back from your life for a moment and give it a little perspective.
One key thing that I've learned recently, and I can't stress this enough, is that you only get one shot at life, so make it count.
Consider what it would feel like to be taking your last breath... I can almost guarantee that you won't say "I wish I had worked more". No, more likely you're going to say "I wish I had spent more time with the people I love, doing the things that make me smile".
Realizing this, and acting accordingly has improved my life so much. Now I find that things roll off of me, I don't bring work, or work's stresses home with me. When all's said and done, I don't live ot work... I work to live.

And with that in mind, I'm going to take Friday afternoon off with Brian and go wakeboarding, because that's what makes me smile.

Chicken

I made the yummiest chicken last night. I took two boneless chicken breasts and put them in a bag with some lemon pepper and juice squeezed from 2 limes. I let them sit in the fridge for an hour. Then I chopped some garlic and put it on top of the chicken, and put the chicken breasts onto their own sheet of tin foil and closed them loosly to make foil packs.
I baked them at 400 F for 30 minutes. They were awesome! so juicy and the flavour was fantastic. The garlic had infused into the chicken and the lime juice gave it a little tang.

MMMMM MMMMMM Good!

The Hippo Song

Mud! Mud! Glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me, follow
In to the hollow
And there we shall wallow in glorious mud!

Today was the Muddy Buddy. Brian's parents came into town for the occasion. They wanted to see their boys do their first race together.
We got up at 4:45 and prepared ourselves for the race. Fortunately we had done most of the preparations the night before. We set off at 5:30am for somewhere between Dripping Springs and Johnson City.
Brian and Kev's age group started first, then all of the other age groups followed in 6 minute increments. I got their start on video. My age group started at 8:12am. Jenn started off on the bike and I started on foot. The obstacles along the way were an inflatable wall (about 12 feet), with a cargo net up the side to climb up, a wall to throw yourself over, another cargo net, but this time free standing, monkey bars, and of course, the icing on the cake... a giant mud pit.
This race was definately more challenging than the last one we did, I felt like I'd had an awesome workout and I definately felt like I did a good job, I think my muddy buddy did a great job, too. . The best part of the race for me was the mud pit. I think the reason I like it is because I'm usually a tidy and clean person, and getting into a mud pit breaks away from that norm for a few moments. I feel strangely liberated and free as I wallow in the mud pit. I think of all the people in the pit when I was in it, I enjoyed it the most, or at least that's the way it looked. It was therapeutic for me. I accidentally flung mud right into Jenn's mouth... I was meaning to fling mud at her, just not in her mouth... she was a great sport about it, though... and flung some back.
We crossed the finish line and were greeted by Brian, Kev, and the family. After the finish we headed over to the cleaning area where a bunch of people were rinsing off with hoses. We had to wait a while for a hose, but cleanup was pretty easy. We all took a change of clothes so that we wouldn't get the car all nasty.
I'm not sure what our time was, because it hasn't been posted on the race web site, yet.
After the race, with mud still in my hair, we went to the Nutty Brown Cafe for breakfast on the way back into Austin. They had a fabulous brunch buffet that had all kinds of goodies. I highly recommend it!
Afterwards, Brian's parents headed home and we dropped Kev off and headed home ourselves for some movie watching and veging out on the couch.
I love the muddy buddy.

Do you hear that???

It's the sound of a Friday afternoon margarita calling my name...
"Amanda! Amanda! Soy delicioso! Aqui! Aqui! Es hora feliz!"
(I guess thos spanish lessons in the car are paying off.)

Morning storms

I woke up this morning to the sound of distant thunder. I got up with the intent of going to the gym for my regular morning work out, but I just couldn't resist the storm. Instead, I went for a run in our neighbourhood. It didn't rain much, just spots here and there, it was about 70 degrees and a light wind. The sound of distant thunder was my soundtrack. As I approached home after 4.5 miles, the rain came. This weather has been crazy. I don't ever recall this much rain and thunder in July.

Is it Friday yet?

This week has been dragging. We've just acheived some major milestones on our project at work so I'm not as busy this week as I have been over the past several months. When you've been going 100mph and suddenly you get to slow down, you almost don't know what to do with all the extra time.
Brian and I are doing a race this weekend... The Muddy Buddy. It's a really cool race where you and your partner share a bike, one of your runs and the other bikes. You get to an obstacle, such as crawling under a cargo net, and the person on the bike leaves the bike, does the obstacle, and takes off running, the runner gets to the obstacle, does the obstacle, and retrieves the bike... and so on. So we each get to run and bike... the grand finale, though is a 60 foot long pit of mud that you literally have to crawl through on your belly. Most people like to mud wrestle in it, too, which is always fun. This will be my third time to do this race. Brian is teaming up with his brother, Kev, and I will be doing it with Jenn, who has been my partner for the past two as well. This is my favourite race of all! we have no hope of winning, but I hope to at least leave with a sense that I gave it my best.
Brian's parents are coming in from Houston this weekend to watch the race. Since this will be Brian and Kevin's first race it's a pretty important event. That reminds me... I need to call and see if I can get a maid!

Hablo Espanol

I can't believe I forgot to mention that I started learning Spanish. I got a set of CDs from the local book store called "the Pimsleur Method". It uses a unique graduated interval recall method to help you convert what you have learned from short-term to long-term memory. I listen to the CDs and respond while in the car. It works out really well because it's about 15 minutes to work and back, and each lesson is about 30 minutes. I am supposed to do only one lesson a day to help maximize the process of converting to long-term memory.
Today is day 3. It seems to be working. I have retained 100% of what I learned in the first two lessons. Of course, it's very basic stuff, so it might become more difficult as I get further into it, but so far I'm feeling pretty darn clever.

Great end to a long weekend

Biking didn't go so well yesterday. The trail was more technical than I was comfortable riding, so we ended up goofing around on the roads and mike went for a swim in the lake, then we went home and made taco's at Mike and Tara's house.
When we got home we ordered our new plasma TV. You can see it by visiting this link: Our TV
We have to wait 2 weeks for it to be delivered because it's not currently in stock. We got an awesome price, though. We got an IBM employee discount that saved us over $2,000. Awesome! I can't wait for it to arrive.

Awesome day!

Yesterday (Saturday) Brian went biking with our friend Steve. Due to a slight whiplash injury I couldn't go so instead I met Barbie for Breakfast at Denny's. After breakfast we went in to the mall and shopped for a swimsuit for Barbie, and I bought a new handbag and wallet. I got home right around the same time that Brian did, and we spent some time just cleaning up the house.
Later, we met Mike and Tara and went shopping for a plasma TV. Brian and I are looking at buying a 50" plasma TV in the next couple of weeks. We found an awesome price on one at the Home Theatre Store, but need to do a little more research online before we make a decision.
After TV shopping, we stopped at Costco to pick up some things for dinner and then picked up the boat. We launched the boat at City Park and motored over to The Pier where Bob Schneider way playing. We had dinner on the boat, which consisted of salad, pizza, and wine, then we sat back and relaxed under the stars and listened to the music from The Pier.

This morning I picked up some Mineral Spirits from Lowes to clean our wood floors. I've been trying tons of floor cleaners but nothing seems to make them shine and they all leave a dulling residue. The Mineral Spirits did the trick, though. Now the floors are super shiny and clean.
Today we are going over to Best Buy to check out a Panasonic Plasma TV, then we're going mountain biking in Georgetown.

Fun day off

Brian and I got Friday off. A management designated holiday for our entire team in recognition of all the hard work we've done. We got up early and went wakeboarding on Lake Austin. I practiced my new trick, and Mike and I encouraged Brian to try it. He did it on his first attempt. I was so proud. I'm learning to cut across the wake with my board backwards now. I've found the more comfortable I get doing it backwards, the more confident I feel when I ride normally.

We got off the water around 1:30 and headed to Chipotle for lunch. It started raining really hard as we got there and we had to make a mad dash in the rain into the restaurant. It was entertaining, though, and I love the rain so I didn't mind too much. We had planned to take the rest of the afternoon and go to Rocky Hill Ranch out in Bastrop, but the storms were surrounding the area so we decided to go hang out at home instead, then meet freinds for Happy Hour at Shirlocks.

After Shirlock's we went to Mike and Tara's to grill burgers, drink, and hang out. All in all it was a great day off.

Today I got up with whiplash in my neck though from one of the crashes I took when we were wakeboarding. I felt it happen. It was about my third to last run and I hit the water face down and it snapped my head back. I remember thinking "that's gonna hurt tomorrow". I was right. I can barely move today.

Steaming good time

I bought a garment steamer at Bed Bath and Beyond today. It was around $50. I had read reviews about this one by Conair that said it was as good as a commercial one. So I tried it out on my dress, and it worked SO well I couldn't believe it.
When I went to the seamstress last week, she told me that I'd need to pay to get my dress steamed twice. Once before the alterations to make sure the fabric hangs properly while they guage the alterations, then once more afterwards to prep it for the day. Each time it was $45. It worked so well that I might never iron anything ever again!
Barbie came over this evening to strap me into my dress. This one is PERFECT. The corset back looked a lot more like the picture using the smaller size, and if I happen to lose a few lbs it shouldn't be a problem.

Update on Travel, etc...

We've added two extra days onto our vacation! YAY! so now we arrive on Monday and leave the next Wednesday! Brian and I decided to postpone our honeymoon to a later date because (this is really cute) Brian didn't want to be away from the cats longer than 10 days at a time. (awh.) Ok, it wasn't just him... But anyway, we are still going to Hawaii later next year.

We've also chosen a different flight, which goes through Houston. It gets us in to Punta Cana at 2:54, which is 2 hours earlier than our previous arrangements. That might allow for us to meet up with my UK family and share the bus to the resort.

My replacement dress arrived last night. I wasn't able to try it on properly because I need Barbie to help me, and she's going to come over this evening and help me. But I was able to put it on and lace the top two loops to see if it at least fit, and it looks like it's perfect! Now I just need to find another tailor to get a comparison price quote on alterations. It's about a foot too long at the moment.

Uh-oh.... potential bad news

I just heard from my travel agent. American Airlines has rescheduled a flight causing us to miss our connection for our flight to the Dominican Republic. She's going to try to find us a different flight, or we can spend a night in Dallas, at our own expense on the way back. Not good. We'll get it sorted, though. I think I saw a flight on Continental that goes through Houston.

We got up somewhat early today and went wake boarding on Lake Austin, it was just me, B and M. When we first got out there, the water was like glass. Of course, as it got later more and more boats showed up. We all had a pretty good run in the good water, though. M taught me to do fakies today. That's when you flip the board around so you're riding with your other foot forward. I crashed a few times in the beginning, and it feels really weird. Almost like learning to wakeboard all over again. But I got the hang of it and in no time was flipping fakies like it was no big deal. The flip isn't a problem once you get it, but cutting in and out of the wake is difficult. I didn't get the hang of that, but this gives me something to improve on over the remainder of the summer. I think if I just get more comfortable with my board, I'll be able to pull some pretty cool jumps in no time.
After wake boarding we went to a boat party on "The Arc". it was a lot of fun. A good combo of people were there and I enjoyed hanging out in the water, sunning myself on the rocks of the island like a gecko, and of course jumping off the top deck of the boat.
Next stop, Outback steak house with a bunch of friends. T's boyfriend works there so we're gonna go see if we can sit in his section. A good end to a fun weekend. It looks like a storm is coming. That would just be the icing on the cake right now!

Waiting for kylie

My new dress (the smaller size) was shipped 2 days ago. I'm anxiously awaiting its arrival. Every time I see the UPS truck, I wait at the window like a dog waiting for its owner to come home... sadly, it's always for the neighbour next door but one. He has an Ebay business that he runs out of his garage.
Hopefully it will arrive tomorrow and then I can take it to another tailor to see if they give me a lower estimate than the first lady. Another option could be for me to alter it myself. I'm not sure if I should be let loose on chiffon. It's very delicate.
Anyway, I can't wait for it to arrive!

I'm not sure if I mentioned that Brian also found his wedding outfit. We weren't really looking for it, but it just kinda jumped out at him. He got some navy blue, very lightweight trousers from Gap, and a white, short-sleeved shirt from Banana Republic. It's really cool because it has two lines of embroidery down the front on either side, and the embroidery kinda looks like the beading on my dress. He put the outfit on the other night and it was absolutely perfect. I wanted to marry him right then!

MOH

Well, I wasn't going to have a Maid of Honour, mostly because I have so many great friends that qualify for the job. Marie told me one major thing that has changed my mind, though. She said that one of the best things about her wedding day was being able to look over and see me smiling back at her, and she'd know, then, that everything would be ok. How sweet!

After that conversation, I realized that all of my friends will understand that I can only pick one, and that the one person I pick should be the person I can really rely on to support me and keep me sane both before, during, and after. So.....

I asked Barbie if she would be my Maid of Honour, and she said yes!

SWEET!

Wedding dress assessment

My wedding dress came with what seemed like lightening speed. What's weird is that local bridal stores claimed it takes 4 months or more for my dress to come in. This place shipped it within 5 days. They were extremely helpful. I sent them my measurements, which happened to span three different sizes, and they recommended the middle of the sizes. The dress is beautiful.
Barbie came over and helped me try it on. Because the top is a corset, you can adjust it to fit just perfectly. When I tried it on, Barbie laced it up and pulled it tight and it looked beautiful. However, if I lost even a few lbs. it would be too big. And given that I'll be running a marathon a few months before, I suspect I might drop a few lbs.

I took the dress to a seamstress to get her assessment. She recommended a smaller size. So I shipped it back yesterday in exchange for a smaller size. The seamstress I went to came highly recommended from several people on some austin wedding web site, however, she is pretty pricy. Wanted $250 to do the hem. Granted it's 4 layers of fabric, two of which are chiffon, but that seems a little high. When my new dress comes in, I will take it to another seamstress and see if they can give me a lower price. It's been my experience that you get what you pay for, and I'm really not looking for perfection since I'll be dragging the thing across nasty floors and sandy beaches anyway.

Check!

Hotel reservations - Check!
Flight - Check!
Wedding scheduled - Check!
Judge confirmed - Check!
Reception booked - Check!
UK family booked - Check!
Dress on it's way - Check!
Paperwork copied and ready - Check!

Left to do:
Find a tailor to shorten dress
Buy ring for B
Find beach wedding outfit for B
Finalize US family travel plans
Send paperwork to Dominican Embassy to be translated
Sit back and relax and look forward to my dream wedding.

My dress arrives tomorrow. Barbie is making me wait for her to come over to try it on. Our US family is working with the travel agent that a friend recommended. (THANKS! - she's awesome)

B and I are super excited now that it's all come together so perfectly.

For all of our friends who don't make it to the wedding, we plan to throw an informal reception after we get back.