Since I Last Blogged

The following things have happened (in no particular order):

1. HSH completed a half marathon
2. Total upheaval at my office, which resulted in me getting a new job/promotion
3. KK blogged 12 times (who can live up to that?!)
4. The halfstreet bid on, and won, the chance to feed a giraffe
5. BIL moved to Australia, SIL-B and nieces 1&3 soon to follow
6. Cafferty blogged zero times (my partner in slackerness)
7. I finished a blanket I had been sewing. Total time from purchase of fabric to completion: 1 ½ years. Total time working on it: about 1 weekend.

8. I started and finished a no sew tutu. Total time to completion: 2 weeks. Modeled here by its new owner: The precious Luci.

9. A sports franchise that had never won the biggest game in that respective sport, won. This franchise was not in Houston, but you would have thought it was from the reaction in the city.

Bed Time Stories

So the other day I started mysteriously receiving Martha Stewart Living in the mail. I love this magazine, despite this fact that I know that the vast majority of her projects are completely unrealistic for the average person without a staff of thousands. It just makes me warm and fuzzy to think that somewhere out there, there is a perfectly decorated house, whose garden is always in the appropriate seasonal stage, with a hot meal cooking in the kitchen, featuring some obscure ingredient I would never think to use like radishes or chanterelle mushrooms. In other words, despite the fact that it will never be MY house, at least I can dream of being invited to a house like that one day.

So in this month’s edition of the mag, there was an article about bedding. Different kinds, pro and cons, care, etc. I was reading through it to see how I stack up (I feel short, duh) when something jumped out at me. Pillows. Washing them. Now, what I’m about to say will probably elicit 2 totally different reactions, based on my straw poll so far. Half are you going to say “wait, I’m supposed to do that” and the other half are going to say “wait, you don’t do that?” My highly scientific research has taught me there is no in between. So, I’ve never washed my pillows before. (insert your response here) I wash the pillow cases, and the pillow protectors that they pillows slip into, but I’ve never ever washed an actual pillow before. Martha suggests doing it several times a year. Naturally. I immediately called my mom to see if I had somehow missed this step in her lessons on home care. She maintained that if you buy inexpensive pillows, you’re better off just replacing them because washing them will break down the filling. The problem with this being 1. pillows stick around my house for quite a while. I wouldn’t say forever, but maybe close. Throwing them away just seems weird/wasteful to me. And 2. I don’t buy cheap pillows! Back when I was traveling for work 5 days a week, and my closest friend was the doorman at the hotel, who always remembered my name and always told me he hoped I had an awesome day (and seemed to genuinely believe it), I got addicted to these pillows. I’ve tried switching back to the cheapies, but it just doesn’t work. So it looks like I’m going to have to start washing my pillows. A tip from Martha when drying your pillows: put a clean tennis ball in there and you’ll get a real nice fluff to them. Yes she has to specify clean for idiots like me who would have used Rip’s nasty tennis ball without even thinking twice. I tried this and concur. Of course I didn’t do a control run without the tennis ball so I guess I’m not very scientific afterall.

While we’re talking about bedding, can we talk comforters and duvets? I’ll take your silence as a yes. Anyway, it’s a pet peeve of mine when your comforter doesn’t fill your duvet cover adequately. I know there are wars going on in the world, a major recession here at home etc etc etc, but these are the things that weigh on me. All I’m asking is, why in heavens name are the most common (and affordable) Full/Queen comforters made square, but nice duvet covers are made rectangular. Even the rectangular ones, aren’t the right size rectangle! I’m sure it’s a conspiracy.

Some Things On My Mind

Wow. I’m the suck at updating. I don’t think this is a real shock to anyone any longer, so I won’t pretend. I also won’t make any sure-to-broken new years resolutions about posting more frequently, but I will do my best in the coming months. So here are some things I’ve been thinking about, in list form since they are all over the place and I don’t really feel like creating linking sentences to make this post coherent.


1. I really hope he doesn’t make me eat my words but so far I’m kind of pro-Mike Leach in this whole Texas Tech debacle. I seriously doubt either side’s version of the story is 100% accurate, but I like the eccentric Leach and for whatever reason its easier for me to believe that Craig James is a whiney, over bearing parent than to believe that Mike Leach is torturing his players. I’m sure my own prejudices are coming in to play here but whatevs. I think I’m mainly annoyed that Leach was immediately punished, based on the story of a player with a well connected father. If Craig James was a farmer from Nowheresville, Texas would the university have acted so swiftly? I don’t think so but maybe I’ve just gotten cynical since my last post. Please don’t prove me wrong Coach Leach.

2. Speaking of eating your words. (eeek! I can't help myself with the linking sentences) When the reports of the Tiger Woods traffic accident very first came out, I was at the office and all the guys on the floor immediately jumped on the “rumors” of what else was going on, and his wife beat him with a golf club, and affairs, and scandalous text messages, and blah blah blah. And I snickered and said ‘you guys would believe anything…It’s Tiger Woods, he wouldn’t be that stupid.’ In my defense, this was in the first few hours of the media frenzy but still, I don’t know who was more stupid…me or Tiger. HmmmmmmTiger. Definitely Tiger.

3. Christmas was very good to me. The HSH and I enjoyed our first Christmas morning in our house. I blasted Christmas carols through the house, made pancakes, drank mimosas and broke Martinez family tradition by not getting showered and dressed in between stockings and presents. Yes, I opened my regular presents while still in my PJ’s. (Somewhere my Mom is fainting.) We then went on to a fantastic meal with the Texas branch of the family and I loved watching niece's 1 & 3 open their presents.

4. The Hawaii branch of the family and the Houston branch of the family opened some presents together “virtually” on Skype (none of us were in PJ's though). I would have preferred if we could have all been together, specifically in Hawaii, but it was better than nothing. Niece 4 was pretty uninterested, but we managed to keep Niece 2’s attention for longer than anticipated. All in all though, I really missed all of them and decided being an adult (and having to work on Christmas Eve, thus preventing you from taking exotic Christmas vacations) is sometimes the suck.

5. Speaking of branches of my family, there is like 99% chance that Niece 1 and Niece 3, as well as their parents SIL-B and BIL, are moving to Australia. And no, unlike Paris (where some people think we need to be specific as to whether we are talking about Paris, France or Paris, Texas) there is no Australia, Texas that I know of. I mean the Australia on the other side of the world. No hyperbole required. And because the world is all about me, I’d like to point out this means that the time difference between me and all my nieces combined will be 40 hours. Don’t ask about my math, just trust me. All kidding aside, even though I am very very very sad to be so far apart from them, I am very very very very excited for the great adventure that is in store for the girls, SIL-B and BIL. And since that is one more “very” for the excitement than for the sadness, I guess I’m not as selfish as I thought. So I have that going for me.

6. And just because this post is now kind of striking me as dreary, here is a funny, albeit blurry, picture of me in my new Snuggy (thanks AKL). Ripken thinks the Snuggy makes me extra snuggy.

Table Talk

Everyone here in Houston is all a twitter about the weather outside. Yes, its frightful. (I went there. What?) But really I'm more excited about what's going on INSIDE. My house is all decorated for the holidays, and I'm pretty sure this is a new personal record for me. I am pleased with how it all turned out, but I seem to be incapable of taking any good pictures of it. I can't tell if i need a better camera, or if they don't look as good in reality as they do in my mind. Here is the one semi-ok picture I took of the tablescape on the dining room table (as opposed to the one in the kitchen).

Also here is a little peek at what the Thanksgiving table looked like, since I didn't post it earlier:

Off to wrap my pipes ...or whatever the heck you're supposed to do when it freezes.

A Note From The Peanut Gallery

I am not a parent. Nor do I profess to have any insight into what I think is probably one of the hardest jobs on the planet. Despite this, I found this article in Time to be really interesting. Since, as I stated, I don’t have kids, it was really some of the trends in older “children” that were the most shocking to me. This statement about made me fall out of my chair:

Employers like Ernst & Young were creating "parent packs" for recruits to give Mom and Dad, since they were involved in negotiating salary and benefits.

Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Several years ago, I heard some anecdotal evidence from friends who work in admissions offices at universities that parents were taking it to a new level. Phase one seemed to be mom/dad calling the university to check on the status of an application. I remember being in high school and being told by guidance counselors that any contact with the university should be handled by me, or else schools would think I wasn’t a responsible/capable young adult. Sure we consulted with our parents on what to say, questions to ask, advice etc. But that was really the time when you became your own spokesperson. But ok, kids these days…they are busy, you know? Maybe they just couldn’t get around to it. I'll let them have that one. Phase two wasn’t so much an escalation as it was rocket ship to space: parents calling professors directly to ask about projects and grades! Holy Hell! My parents were more likely to call the Pope than they were one of my professors! That blew my mind. But this?! Being involved in salary negotiations? This. … I mean. …. I don’t. … I mean. …

Nope. I’m at a loss for words.

Speaking of Not Timely

As long as I'm playing catch up, we had a fun Halloween season. First off we had the neighborhood parade. We had a pretty cute collection of kiddos. I had to take off early, so I didn't get a picture of everyone, but here are a couple:

We also had a Halloween dinner for some of the people from both of our offices. We all take turns hosting Grub Club, and I snagged a great date and got to use some cute Halloween ideas I shamelessly pilfered from one of my favorite sites.

The always evolving Halloween tablescape. This years addition was the large ostrich feathers in the vase.

This is pretty gruesome but it was too fun to pass up. It's just a simple syrup heated up to the "hard crack" stage, then the glass is dipped in it for the blood effect. We served our Pina Ghoul-adas in these.
Speaking of gross. These "eyeballs" are really lychee fruit stuffed with strawberry jam, and a blueberry. If you can get past the ick-factor, they are a pretty funny/yummy cocktail garnish.

Now that I've totally grossed you out. ..here is something a wee-bit more appetizing but still totally ripped off from someone else. The SIL-E's now famous Chocolate Bread Pudding. Overhead at the party: "I didn't even know i liked bread pudding!"

Clear Blue and 22 (Translation: It's a Beautiful Day)

This post is not in the least bit timely, but if I let that stop me, I would never blog at all!

Several weeks ago, Shannon (a.k.a. the person that’s known me since Christ was a corporal) came to visit.* The main purpose of the trip was a date with Bono. The side purpose was to prove to our husbands that we need to get on a regular schedule of visiting each other. Sadly The Barron of Blog was unable to join us, but I heard he was pretty jealous of all of our shenanigans. Highlights of the trip included but were not limited to:

1. Eating our way through Houston. Seriously people. Like I had to go back on Weight Watchers after she left. I’ve noticed that when I visit other people they plan fun outings at local attractions. My version of “fun outings at local attractions” is solely limited to taking out-of-towners on a tour of all my favorite places to eat in town. I’m not sure what this says about me or Houston, but I do know that it means I love hosting guests!

2. A really fantastic concert. I think anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time knows that I enjoy live music a LOT. I’ve seen all range of acts and feel like I typically get my money’s worth, one way or another. But this concert was really unparalleled. As far as bang for you buck goes, I felt like I wrung every dollars worth of enjoyment out of the price of admission. The staging, the song selection, the…well the everything. I know a lot of people feel like U2 is overhyped, but I really feel like even the most jaded of concert goers would have enjoyed this at some level.

Some of our concert group.

Part of the super cool stage. The lit panels expanded like an accordian.

When the panels were compressed they formed the video screen. Like I said, pretty freakin' cool.

3. Seeing Shannon really cut loose. I would say of the two of us, Shannon would be classified as the more reserved one (maybe?) but no one would have been able to tell it this trip. She really painted the town red, and I loved loved loved getting to witness it. Highlights within this classification include her helping herself to some Red Bull behind the bar, relentlessly hazing Schaife about his “skirt” drink and above all else, introducing her to the Marquis. For non-Houstonians, the Marquis is a bar which I have frequented on and off for the past 13 years (don’t do the math, Mom). I was catching up with someone who has been involved with Marquis for longer than I've been going there, and Shannon asked “Oh, how do you guys know each other?” Uhhhhh…from here, sweetie. I don’t think she was clear on exactly how much time I’ve spent there over the years. By the end of the night they were BFF.

All in all I would rate the trip a total success. I had a blast, and I’m pretty sure Shannon did to.


*my family uses a variety of vaguely military inspired sayings that I never think twice about, until I say them around people who have no idea what I’m talking about. This one is perhaps the strangest. It means a long time ago, in case that’s not obvious. As in, he’s the commander in chief now. As in…ok I’ll stop now. Other great expressions that I thought everyone used until I moved away from my family: Clear, Blue, and 22 (used to describe flying conditions…clear blue and you can see for 22 miles. It means the weather is perfect.) and The AO (area of operation). My dad used to use it like “we need to police the AO” which meant we had to clean up the area or “I’m going to scope out the AO” which meant he was going to go check something out.

Have you ever noticed how something can make perfect sense to you until you try to explain it? Yeah. I’m experiencing that right now.