Things You Wish You Knew About Your City

I have lived in this fair city for a number of years now, but I was not born nor was I raised here. Because of this, I typically assume that if I know about some little treasure in the city, everyone else does as well. It’s not always rational, but hey…life is full of incorrect assumptions.

In conversation the other day I made an offhand remark to the crew over at Rice2029, and was met with quizzical stares. Say what? You guys don’t know about the magic that is Heberts? My oh my. Let me introduce you to my friend: the deboned stuffed whole chicken. These things are a true lazy person’s treasure. They come magically deboned (I have no desire to know how that is done), and stuffed with a variety of goodness. After hearing that they had never had the pleasure of enjoying this Cajun oddity, I invited Mamma V, Em, Kwon, and THC over for a meal. We had the HS favorite of the Shrimp Rice Dressing stuffed chicken, and I took advantage of the company to venture into one of my favorites, the Broccoli Cheese Rice Dressing Stuffed Chicken. (The HSH doesn’t like broccoli!) If you live in Houston, I highly recommend this place. You simply open, put in baking dish, put in oven and about an hour later, you enjoy your dinner. Easy peasy. I go for the fresh, unfrozen, chickens at the back of the store. They do frozen too, but I’m into instant gratification. They have a variety of other things as well. Some we’ve tried and lots we haven’t. We’ve never gone wrong.

We followed dinner up with arts and crafts time. No really. I keep sidewalk chalk around for the nieces and assorted other kiddos who are at my house from time to time. Em wasn’t the only one who enjoyed it.

Everyone Needs A Friend Like This

This is what my daily Instant Messenger conversations with KK (the artist formally known as McD) look like.

ME: if you were a patio furniture grouping that was open on one side....
ME: would you be open twds the house, or twds the yard
KK: house
KK: cause then you welcome the folks in and enjoy the ambiance of the yard behind you...
KK: rather than worrying if the killer who is robbing your house as you blindly face the yard is going to get you before he leaves?

I don’t know which is more unusual. That she never said “what kind of question is that?” (duh. The kind I ask.) or that her logic totally made sense to me.

Here is how it turned out. The first picture was taken while the cushion covers were in the washer. It was a risky move (it said not to machine wash, but I was desperate) that paid off. Ok maybe not "risky" in the traditional sense of the word. More like wearing-white-out-of-season, or putting-potato-skins-in-the-garbage-disposal risky. (Don't try that last one, I have and let me give the preview: lots of dirty looks, and dirty words from the hubby, or who ever your designated fixer is).

Tap Tap Tap (repeat)

I have house anxiety. I feel kind of bad even admitting this. I mean, there are so many other things in the world to worry about. People have been telling me more and more I need a kid so I can worry about something worthwhile, and to them I say: shut it.

I’ve been mulling it over, and I think I have found the source of the anxiety. The previous owners of the Halfstreet had a style that was different than mine. I wasn’t in love with their things, nor with the places they had put those things. So when the HSH and I moved in, our stuff and layout felt like an improvement. Fast forward to the new house (yet to be named). The house had been professionally staged when it went on the market, and the things were really nice. It felt like walking into a catalogue. So now my stuff feels out of place, and not as nice as the picture in my mind. Add to this the fact that you could fit all of our current furniture into one room in the house, and the thought of picking out new things plus figuring out where they go, is causing me some anxiety. No, really.

One thing was for certain though. A rug for the new master bedroom had to be acquired IMMEDIATELY. I never thought I would rue the day that I purchased a home with hardwood floors throughout, but the last week has been a sleepless nightmare. The sound of Ripken walking around on the hardwoods at 3am could replace waterboarding at Gitmo as the preferred method of torture. Not that I’m in favor of torture. I’m just saying.

Anyhoo, there was the compounding problem that he couldn’t get enough traction on the hardwoods to jump into the bed (yes, my dog sleeps in the bed. Again: shut it.). So his new method of getting into bed consisted of placing his front paws about 2 inches from my face and whining until I lifted him into bed. (Somewhere in Indiana, Shannon is vomiting in her mouth). Yes, I know my dog is spoiled. I also knew that I could easily break him of the habit, if I was willing to part with approximately 2 nights of sleep, and just let him whine it out. But I wasn’t. What I was willing to do was hurry up and find a rug. Pictures below (sorry for the craptastic quality of it...its on my cellphone, as we still have no internet at home).