For today’s VEDA, I managed to rope two food blogging friends into telling me why they food blog on camera. Today was the first time I’ve met Foodie is The New Forty in person and I’ve been tweeting at her and following her food blog for over a year. I have to admit I was a tad starstruck by her. Miss Julieboolietran is a new food blogger with an infectiously happy disposition and a deep love for Chilantro’s (a post from my food blog).
 1.Alan is taking me to my first NBA game tonight! The other night he commented, “How sick is that this will be your first NBA game and you get to see the Big Three?” I excitedly agreed but totally had to later google who the Big Three are. I knew only one by name and only because it was such a big stink when he left Cleveland for Miami.  LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh 2.I feel very blessed for the close friends I have. I feel beyond blessed to have my bestie as my surrogate sister. Earlier in the week I commented to her crabbily that I finished the last of my dark chocolate orange bar and wished I had some chocolate on me. Shortly after I walked away from my office for a bit to come back to a delivery from an Austin cake ball business (aptly named Austin Cake Ball). There were chocolate balls and (wait for it….) DARK CHOCOLATE ORANGE BALLS waiting for me!  What did I do to get so lucky to have such sweet people in my life? 3.We had our annual work cocktail party this week. It was my first since last year I missed out as I was still working an additional night job. Apparently they have a longstanding tradition of the ladies taking a photo sitting primly on the love seat in the ladies’ room. I don’t know about the previous years, but we did not sit very primly on that tiny love seat.  4.I love Steve Martin as a writer and am reading my fourth book of his. I loved this line: “In spite of their odd beginning, he was deciding not only that Lacey Yeager would make his life wonderful, but that her absence would make it tragic.” I want to be with someone who thinks the same of me. 5.My nervous smile:  6.I wanted to come up with a clever DJ name for myself to use as a caption for this photograph. Everything I came up with sounded cheesy.  Alas, I’d never be cool enough to pull off being a DJ. 7.This week’s moments of bliss: ♥ pizza for breakfast ♥ Board Game Night ♥ surprise deliveries ♥ free dessert at our downtown sushi joint ♥ doggy kisses ♥ making friends at food trailers ♥ food trailers Question: If you were to choose a DJ name for yourself, what name would you choose? |
1. One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to visit a new state. Well, we’re entering December and I haven’t done one lick of traveling this year. Abysmal since I vacationed twice in 2009 despite being unemployed for 5 months (Bestie gifted me her miles to visit her for one of those trips, but still!). One thing that impedes traveling by car in Texas is that you can drive a full day and still be in Texas. When Cindy emailed me about possibly helping her spend some vacation days, I immediately recruited her as a road trip buddy. We mulled over New Mexico or Oklahoma. Oklahoma won out because the two of us have horrendous sense of direction and it’s just a straight shot to Oklahoma from Interstate 35. Also, it’s a 6 hour drive as opposed to 9 hours. We’ll be road-tripping to Oklahoma on December 10- 13. Can’t wait! 2.It’s also decided we’re going to eat and drink at Pops. Located on Route 66 and has 500 soda pop flavors. I am EXCITED! 3.I told you in last week’s 7 quick takes, how I was late in the game in discovering This American Life. Well, my last night in Austin, Kim sent me a TAL episode about break ups and we listened to it simultaneously while online. It morphed into this virtual date of listening to sad break up songs just because. It felt very much like that Celine Dion’s All By Myself scene from Bridget Jone’s Diary. Except better because it was with a friend and was more funny than sad. Seriously, where’s the wine? Kim: 4.Tomorrow, I’m meeting up with the Kim for food and movie. I’m not sure where we’re eating yet but we’re watching Love & Other Drugs. Kim sent me a teaser interview that I surprisingly enjoyed. Anne Hathaway is adorable and my notion that Jake’s gay is wearing off. Also, Kim told me that in another interview, they asked Jake what his favorite love song is. His answer: Willow’s Whip My Hair. A crush seed has been planted from that answer alone. 5. I was under the impression that Texas trees do not do that pretty orange autumn thing and typically, they don’t. But this pretty tree stands outside my apartment. It’s kind of orangey right? I’m counting it. Anyway, it’s a pretty view that greets me when I walk out of my apartment. 6. Because I do not have internet access in Houston, I totally wrote yesterday’s blog post, today’s blog post, and tomorrow’s blog post ahead on Wednesday and scheduled them out. Magic! 7.I met up with Alan on Wednesday before the work day to do our see you after the holidays hugs and kisses when he surprised me with an early Christmas gift. :) He upgraded my camera.  Question: What is on your Christmas wish list? |
I just came back from Austin’s first Gypsy Picnic, a Trailer Food Festival. Austin’s really big on the trailer food scene and the concept of Gypsy Picnic is fantastic but it was WAY too crowded with lines averaging 45 minutes long and vendors running out of food. I ended up discouraging friends who hadn’t left yet into coming. But here are pictures! In honor of National Blog Posting Month – Day 6!
Hope you guys are having a lovely weekend so far! See you tomorrow for Day 7!
1.Tuesday morning, a library I spent many many hours in as an undergraduate made national news. A 19 year old student shot a few rounds from an AK-47 on campus, didn’t hit anyone, then ran into the library and shot himself. I work on campus. The university was terrorized the next four hours as SWAT and Texas Rangers searched for a possible second shooter. Everyone on campus had a lot of adrenaline and many unleashed their anxiety onto Twitter and Facebook (An apology to my twitter followers for flooding ya’ll). I remained cooped up in my lab with another lab member as she listened to the radio and I stalked Twitter. The university ceased lockdown when it became clear the shooter acted alone. We were left bewildered and a little emotionally exhausted. I have to say it jarred me and made me grateful for life. I currently have a bunch of books checked out from that library. Eek. 2.I finally cooked something after a month of hiatus from my stove. It was so therapeutic to create something delicious. When I make the time to cook something and actually am present through the process and not minding my long to-do list, it relaxes me and pacifies my mind chatter. What did I make? Bucatini All’ Amatriciana with Spicy Smoked Mozzarella Meatballs.    3.A girlfriend from Houston came up for a night on Wednesday and we had a sleepover. It always goes the same way when girls have sleepovers no matter the age. At 17 I remember having sleepovers with girlfriends and talking late into the next morning. Many declarations of, “Okay, for real, good night!” were followed with, “Oh, and…” At 27, it’s the same. I have a fantasy that when we’re all married and with families, we’ll steal away once a year to do the same til we’re 37, and then 47. And then, and then, and then. Here’s hoping. 4.Mister Bossman and his colleague and I have spent months organizing a regional conference. D-Day is today! I’m working the entire weekend and am hoping it all goes smoothly. This is the first experience I have planning a this big of an event and it was quite a learning experience. I gots new skills to hone! 5.Alan’s birthday is next week. I’ve spent a total of 6 hours shopping for him and still no idea what I’m going to get him. IDEAS are welcomed. He’s been really good to me. Least I can do is get him a gift for his birthday. Ha! 6.I had a very welcomed “couch and veg in front of the TV” date last night with Alan. I really needed it; my brain has been super mushy at the end of every work day. I had to run some work errands after work so it was perfect when I got a text from Alan. “I won’t be home til 8.” Relieved with more time I texted back a quick, “Cool.” I don’t know if my dear boyfriend was disappointed I didn’t question him on his whereabouts but his next text said, “I’m at the range, not at the whorehouse.” Dude makes me laugh. 7.Speaking of dude making me laugh. He called last night while I was girl-talk-ing with the girlfriend mentioned in Take 3. I informed him I wasn’t alone to kind of cue him it couldn’t be a long conversation. When he found out who was staying over, he told me to tell her “be careful sleeping.” “What? Why?” “Just tell her.” And then I remembered what happened the last time this friend of mine stayed over and shared my queen sized bed. In the middle of the night, I saw her back and just assumed it was Alan. I sleepily and very lovingly carressed her back. Oops! We all laughed and later that night just to be safe, girlfriend and I kept a pillow in between us. I came home to this note.  |
It’s not a secret that one of my biggest vices is junk food. Last week, in an effort to not eat out so I can pay off my credit card bill as I do every month (If you’re just tuning it, I had car trouble last month which threw a wrench into my monthly spending), I brought chips and sandwiches for lunch. My sandwich to chips proportion were equal. Then at home, I’d snack on Doritos on the couch. Luckily, it was a short week and I didn’t eat at home for dinner every night. Anyway, I totally overdid it on the chips all week. And aside from the salad Alan cajoled me to eat during our date night last week, I can’t remember the last time I ate something green.
This past weekend, I went to a small town with Alan for a wedding. We stayed up late Friday and Saturday night and small town eats do not cater to night owls. We ended up watching TV in the wee hours of the morning in bed and eating bags and bags and bags of chips. We even took a romantic stroll down the hall to the vending machine to load up at 2 a.m. It was fantastically fun in a juvenile and guilty pleasure kind of way at the time, but now my body is begging me to eat something good for me.
Instead of sandwiches and chips (one last month of tight purse strings), I bought bananas, yogurt, cheeses, and nuts to bring for lunch. I always know when I’ve gone too far in my terrible eating habits when my body is SCREAMING for something nutritional and/or unprocessed, and maybe even green. It’s really embarrassing that I let it get this bad. Once I over did it on the junk food eating (my entire diet for months was different shades of brown), that my body was craving nutrients as soon as possible. I was in the middle of a night time job and couldn’t leave, so I got the only thing nutritional we had in our vending machine, something I find absolutely disgusting normally. A V8. Tomato juice! I gulped that sucker down and couldn’t get it down fast enough.
Yuck. V8′s. I’m not that desperate yet, but I’m getting there.
I’m 27 years old. I should get my eating in control. This is unacceptable.
P.S. The wedding was beautiful. Here are a few photos.
Girls’ weekend was so good for my soul. Alex and Hillary left their towns to come spend the weekend with me in Austin. I will bullet point my highlights and then share snapshots of our weekend (save the food, I’ll save that for the food blog. Have you checked that out yet?)
In short, a wonder-full weekend and I miss them already. We made plans to do this one more time before the year closes. Next time, we’ll go to Hillary’s city.
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1.Two of my dear high school friends, Alex & Hillary are coming for the weekend. We’re going to camp out on my living room floor. On our agenda for sure: booty shaking. All else will be decided on whim. :) Cannotwait. Here’s a pic of the three of us from November. I think this is the last time I saw either of them.  2.I liked this voice mail I got from my friend Davey. Mainly for the mumbled, “I like you.” Shared with permission. I like him too. It’s not yet my birthday. 3.On the walk to my car one day this week, I saw a statue hold a balloon and it made me smile.  4.I’m on a SARK kick. Here’s my loot from the Austin Public Library.  5. Click for bigger picture I don’t know if I buy that a squirrel waved at her. I also don’t know if I buy that another squirrel waved at her previously disbelieving brother. I will admit, I might start discreetly waving at the squirrels on campus just to test it out. 6.My little from Big Brothers & Big Sisters of America has a boyfriend. She tells me they have a lot in common. For instance, when people fall down, they both laugh. They also both like to “do pranks.” 7. Beef Stroganoff Fail I made my first marinara sauce from scratch on Wednesday. It was decent. I wasn’t feeling confident with cooking because I royally screwed up my first attempt of beef stroganoff on Sunday. The recipe said to cover and simmer for an hour. I had no idea I was supposed to stir occasionally! The sweet thing is, Alan scraped off some off the top (the edible portion) and actually complimented it! Aww. |
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 :). |
Because I’m juggling 3 books at the moment and haven’t started my book club’s book for June yet, opening my copy of Eat, Pray, Love is not top priority right now. I was catching up on my DVRed Oprahs last week and saw Julia Roberts promoting Eat, Pray, Love the movie. The show has made me inch my copy of the book up a little on my list. During the show, Oprah interviewed the cast members asking them what their eat, pray, and love look like to them. It inspired some reflection and I thought I’d share with you my eat, pray, love.
My pray is gratitude and being present. It’s when things are calm and happy and I’m present enough to know I’m experiencing a beautiful moment, be it a field of bluebonnets, a shared cackle with friends, or a quiet squeeze of a hand. To appreciate and savour is my pray.
It’s hard to choose from my myriad of personal photos a handful of images that illustrates what love looks like to me. Simply put, it’s time well spent with my family and friends. It’s sharing life.
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