A batch of my friends have been turning 27 this year. Aishah joined the club this weekend. Saturday night, I met her up with her little sister and another high school friend. It’s hard to feel old when you’re eating birthday cotton candy and sipping Prosecco.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
What a full weekend! Friday night (pictured above), I had a birthday get together at a Mediterranean restaurant and then a handful of us hopped over next door to smoke hookah and play chess over some beers. (I stuck to my mint green tea). Saturday, I spent the day in my fat pants with Jon and ate at all the places he missed while living in NYC. Then I gave back by offering my designated driver services and went out downtown Saturday night. Even rubbed elbows with Brittany who joined us. The last time I was downtown with Brittany was about 2 years ago. Finally, Sunday was spent doing chores, cooking, and recovering from a fantastically full weekend. I miss Jon already :(.
Now it’s Monday. I started my day off with breakfast burritos courtesy of a sweet boyfriend and then picking up coffee at a drive-thru, which led to me spilling it all over my white ensemble. Oi. Happy Monday.
Every Friday I post a 7 Quick Takes entry and was going to do the same this morning but realized I left my camera USB cord at home, making it impossible to share dance videos (not of me) and birthday pictures I was planning on sharing for 3 of the takes. Next week, it’s back on. I’m having a pretty happy birthday this year. Had a one on one birthday date with zee boyfriend at a DELICIOUS new restaurant in town. Last night was spent downtown after a night of comedy. Finally tonight, the last leg of celebrations include my birthday dinner with friends. I can’t wait to see them. Jon, my best dude friend is down for the weekend! He’s instructed me to put on my “fat” pants because he plans on eating Austin, Texas in 60 hours.
Being 27, isn’t that bad. I did have to do some reprogramming. I still feel young enough to think 28 is old. Must readjust my perspective. As my best friend’s mom said, we’re no longer spring chickens.
Summer chicken it is.
I was bummed this morning when I fished in my purse for my USB cord and couldn’t find it. What am I supposed to post now, I thought? I then logged on and saw that the lovely Suki @ Super Duper Fantastic gave me the Cherry on Top Award.
The award has three contingencies.
1) Answer this question that Tasha posed: “If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?”
I think I would become a Computer Science major instead of minor. Instead of majoring in Biology and Philosophy with a minor in CS, I would have tried: Double majoring in Computer Science and Biology and no minor. I enjoyed the taste of programming I had and think it would have been easier to look for jobs. But mainly because I liked the act of programming. The sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing and debugging a program and having everything work well was addicting.
2) Pick six people to pass the award on to. Their blog should be truly deserving.
ME @ Knitting for Bears, Brenda @ Numbered Confessions, Neville @ Neville’s Financial Blog (even though he’s probably not going to do it), Cindy @ Dorkyme.curious-notions.net, Martin @ This Rugged Life, A.J. @ Read A.J.
3) Thank the person who gave you the award, in the form of a comment on this post.
Done!
Today is my birthday. :) My birthday gift to you is this list.
The above image is from a blog I subscribe to entitled Thought Questions. I thought as my birthday is next week, it’s a perfect question to reflect upon.
5 years ago I was just about to turn 22. My first serious relationship that had lasted four years just ended minutes ago. It was an ugly breakup. I was feeling pretty raw, disillusioned, and exposed. Thus far, it was the hardest year I’ve experienced but the most rewarding. The next five years, I’ve reinforced the friendships I managed to salvage from that breakup and made some really great new friends. These strangers kind of rallied around me despite not knowing me and haven’t left ever since. I’m not as sweet as I was before but I’m nice enough. I do more of what I want even if it means doing it by myself. I speak up a little bit more. I try to not publish private happenings online. I’m emotionally tougher than I was at 22. I’m no saint but if I were, I’d be the patron saint of broken hearts. I have a new empathy for loss of first loves I didn’t have 5 years ago and have taken many a broken heart under my wings. In 5 years, I’ve grown to be more confident, despite being aware of more shortcomings, and more forthcoming, despite cultivating public reservation.
I wasn’t aware while it was happening, but in the last 5 years I’ve grown a lot.
Hope you all had a lovely weekend. I had a fantastic weekend and last night slept almost 7 hours which is amazing. Saturday I had lunch with an old friend and spent the rest of the day helping set up a surprise party for my friend Liliana. I’ve known Liliana going on 9 years now and have not once made it to her birthday. This kind of thing happens when you share a birthday with my mom. This year though, mom came up to Austin! Giving me a chance to finally celebrate with Liliana.
Sunday, I spent the day with my parents. We had lunch and Alan finally got a chance to meet them. Then we dillydallied and had dinner. My parents rarely have the time to come up (the last time was 2 years ago!) so it was awesome to have them. Sunday night was spent on the couch w/ zee boy watching True Blood and feeding my crush on Eric.
All in all it was the perfect balance between friends, family, sleep, activity, myself, boyfriend, etc. I’m quite pleased with myself. I close with pictures from the surprise party. Birthday girl claims she was surprised. :) We’ll take that as success.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
BBBB was the most stressful birthday party I’ve been to. I don’t know how the bingo pros /elderly do it. I had one sheet of 9 cards and that’s pretty relaxing and laid back but when I decided to take one of Brittany’s 9 card sheets to help her out, I felt like I was back in elementary school doing SPEED MATH. Minus the math… At the big bingo hall in Austin, on your birthday you can buy 27 cards and a computer game for one penny. I don’t think Brit’s doing 27 cards again.
How do you make bingo classy?
We managed to get Alan to come even though he swore after his first time, he’d never go back. This time he learned his lesson and stuck with a relaxing 9 cards. I love how in the following picture he looks like he’s going to stab the shit out of his bingo cards.
So you can buy yourself fancy bingo bags on the internet. For instance, this one I found on Amazon.
Or you can make your own!
Time to go to work :) I’m taking half a day today off so I can face one of my biggest fears. Kayaking. Wish me luck.
Linda | 
7 Quick Takes (Fridays), birthday, in passing, lists, on the nightstand, savory, silver screen, the not so single life | 
06 4th, 2010| 
5 Comments » 1.Last night had date night with zee dude. Alan was pretty sweet and accommodating to go watch a documentary on babies (aptly entitled Babies) with me. The documentary followed 4 babies from different corners of the world, San Francisco, Namibia, Mongolia, and Tokyo. It’s ALL babies, the documentary. No narration, hardly any other dialogue save the gurgles, baby coos, and baby teary outrages for an hour and 20 minutes. We laughed out loud a few times and I enjoyed it but it was a little slower than I was hoping. My rating is 3/5 stars. See trailer below. When we got home, Alan reattached his manly bits by watching first game of NBA championship series. ;) 2.Our fridge at work has pictures of current lab members. The photos have to be humorous and non-serious. I thought I could go unnoticed without a picture up but it has recently been threatened that if I don’t put a picture up, someone else will take one of me and post it. I value my autonomy so I cropped myself out of this photo taken from the weekend.  Photo courtesy of Jason’s facebook 3.I finished listening to Julia Child’s My Life in France (Ten fricking CDs). It inspired me to buy her first Mastering French Cooking book. I think I’m going to make my 2nd quiche from that book this coming week. If you don’t know how to read or speak French or even sound out French words, I recommend getting the audio book to listen to instead of the actual book to read. It’s fun to repeat after the reader and laugh at yourself as you drive to and from work. 4.
5.So last week’s 7 Quick Takes, I shared that I made my first lasagna and how excited I was. Lasagnas aren’t too terribly exciting but I’m not a skilled cook and the most mundane cooking skills (making lasagnas) are new and wondrous to me. Intimidating at first sight but fulfilling when accomplished. And I’m always surprised when things turn out well. I was surprised that the lasagna was edible and Alan’s even told me he could eat it again and wish he had more. This week’s mundane to others but intimidating kitchen skill I tackled was ZEE PINEAPPLE! I’ve always steered clear of buying a whole pineapple and cutting it myself. I’m a give it to mom to cut or buy it already precut kind of girl when it comes to this tropical fruit. Emboldened by my conquering the lasagna (and recently the quiche), I finally conquered my silly fear of cutting a pineapple. It’s not very hard. You cut off the top and bottom, and shave off the skin. Then cut in desired pieces. All that fear for nothing. The pineapple recipe I chose was from my Steamy Kitchen cook book. Involved grilling the pineapple, drizzling coconut rum chocolate sauce on the top and sprinkling coconut flakes on the chocolate. The combination was a hit or miss with our Memorial Day pot luck crowd. Brother hated it, Brittany loved it.  6.Recently, I’ve noticed I’ve taken an interest in nature and green surroundings. I credit this to working at a job that requires me to walk about 20-40 minutes from and to my car. The University has great landscaping. Also, I’ve never been the kind to take leisurely walks outside unless it’s an outlet mall but Brandi and I have been walking more in our neighborhood. 6 months ago, I wouldn’t ever think to myself, look at those leaves! Those leaves are different shape from the other leaves on the tree. Or lookit that flower! It’s practically the only flower on that tree! But it’s happening. I like flowers and leaves that are not delivered to me in a vase (those won’t ever get old, just to be clear :p).  cell phone picture from one of our walks 7.I always run out of things to share by 7. 2 of my closest friends turned 27 and 26 yesterday and today. So happy birthday Will and Jen T. My brother got accepted into a PhD program in San Antonio. Congrats to him. Happy Friday to everyone who reads my dribble. Thanks for that by the way. Reading. Say hi or something :). |
Linda | Austin, birthday, misadventures, mo' money, new thing(s) of the week | 03 15th, 2010| 4 Comments »
 I’m groggy. I’m cranky. So I’m trying to budget OUT 400 dollars a month to engage in a weekly activity I think may be beneficial to me. Hence the trying to bring lunches and dinners to work. Extra 400 is kind of tough with all the other miscellaneous expenditures (yes, I really needed those Conan tickets and yes, all weekend celebrating my roommate’s birthday IS necessary, dammit. Finally, I DID call my dentist to make sure they take my new dental insurance but they ended up charging me for that visit anyway.) Needless to say, I had to cancel next week’s appointment til further notice. On to happier things, some happy photos from this past weekend.  Blowing out her candles off the dilapidated cake I made her.  We went to the Bacon Takedown yesterday! As part of my birthday gift to her. Happy Ides of March, ya’ll. How was your weekend? |
Texas native. Living and working in Austin, TX. Twenty something. In hot pursuit of good food, adventure, and laughter. Dreams of owning her own place with a big giant library.
designed by: Joomla Theme for Top WP Themes
