Revelry unraveled

Dave and I usually don't go to wild and crazy parties. In fact, we never go to wild and crazy anything because most of our friends have kids, many of which are still in that weird, parasitic stage where they have to take them everywhere with them. So, on NYE we hung out with Dave and Christine at their nearby home, thus cutting the distance we would have to transverse in a less than optimal state (a few blocks, not driving thankyouverymuch). It was a good time, as is any party with gratuitous karaoke and lotsa booze.





We brought some crusty Italian bread, some good cheese and some prosciutto with us, and of course, a bottle of Asti. Christine is an amazing cook, and there were lots of great munchies, like fondue, stuffed mushrooms, stuffed endives, and other stuff containing beef that looked tasty but is off limits for me and my husband.

So, in between glasses of wine and champagne we chatted, sang, rang in the new year and generally got boozed up crazy-like.









If you couldn't already tell, I look like either a fish or a moron in all of the pictures we took that night. I have a tendency to do that when inebriated. Though, the best picture is child exploitation at its finest:



Cute baby holding a package of ... cock soup.

Happy New Year!

Lowe's: Our home away from home

If I haven't been knitting or yoga-ing or cooking lately, I've been working on the house. We've had a rash of home improvements lately, including new blinds:


Our bamboo shades in our three bedroom windows,


Top-down, bottom-up linen shades in the yoga room


and top-down, bottom-up linen shades for the living room.

We've also put in new lights:


New track lighting (awesome!) in the dining room,


new fixture for the baseball room,


fabulous new lights for the yoga room


and a new pot rack/island fixture for the kitchen. (The fixture is awesome, but now it's too dark in the kitchen at night. We're going to have to find a solution for this, fast.)

Also notable: I finished my first fingerless mitten (Fetching by Cheryl Niamath in Pure Merino by Berroco in the Ensign Blue colorway) and I've started on the second! I'm making two pairs; one for me and one for my awesome sister Kara.



I know I haven't blogged about my New Year's Eve escapades, but, yanno, it's TK.

Let's review...

Last year I was busy catching up while the kitties were busy breaking in their condo. Too bad I didn't record my resolutions.

In 2007 I was to:

1) Get into bikini shape before my Key West vacation. (check!)


2) Work on inversions, especially scorpion pose. (check!)



3) Run the 5k Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving. (miss!)

Two out of three ain't bad.

This year I'll:

1) Stay in bikini shape and make more trips to the beach this summer to motivate me.

2) Take my inversions off of the wall. (eek!)

3) Run the 5k Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving.

4) Keep up with my knitting.

5) Make a genuine effort to simplify and organize.

***************************************************

Christmas with the family was pretty freakin' awesome! Check out everyone in their cool hats!











(note: the hat on the left was just finished before it was handed over to the rightful owner!)

Hope y'all had a great Christmas and a fabulous New Year's Eve! We'll talk party later!

Subtle changes in temperature

I am loving this weather. It's brisk in the morning and warms to a pleasant coolness in the afternoon to then drop to snuggle-under-the-down temperatures at night. This weather is perfect for brewing a pot of black currant tea, lounging with the TV in the background and knitting up a storm. Dave and I had a nice little pre-Christmas exchange before our dinner of asparagus ravioli and rye crisps with lox and dill. This is what I got:



Le Creuset 4.5 quart covered casserole and piccolo teapot in red! YAY!!!!

I also decided that wrapping all of those hats was easy enough to do again, so I unwrapped almost all of them to take photos (not Dave's, b/c I know I'll see it on him)



This is for Vicki. It's a rolled brim cap made of novelty rainbow boucle. Never again will I use this yarn! What a pain!



This is the cap I'm going to attach a note with and then take the recipient yarn shopping. I just can't bring myself to like this hat. Poo.



This hat is super soft and knit in a double eyelet rib. I think it's cute and I really hope my sister likes it.



Finally finished the blue hat, so I can tick it off my list. Problem is, the recipient has a larger sized head, so I hope this ribbing will stretch enough to fit him. *fingerscrossed*

I started the decreasing rounds of my mom's cable hat and I'm going to start/finish my brother-in-law's hat today and tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Knit log

Hats needed: 10

Hats knitted: 5

Hats in progress: 2

Days until Christmas: 7

I am so screwed.

Olivia asked to see some creations, most are already wrapped for Christmas or given away already, so all I have are these shots of the Christmas Hats of Death:



This red cabled hat is for my mother, and it is in progress. It is the first hat I have knitted in the round. It is also my first cable project. I love cabling. The yarn was very inexpensive, but it knits up great and is super soft, which is great because my mother has a tragic disposition in regards to wool. The yarn is Caron worsted tweed in Autumn Red.



The multicolor hat is my hat, my first attempt at knitting hats, and is made from a bulky weight 100% wool yarn from Crystal Palace. The gorgeous royal blue rip knit section will be a hat identical to mine, but for my father-in-law, and is also made from 100% wool bulky weight yarn from Crystal palace.



This is a single eyelet rib hat knit in a large gauge with a 100% acrylic yarn that is pretty on the skein but I'm rather unsure of giving it away now that it's knitted up. It's got great texture, but not the elasticity or stretch I was looking for. I think it's all wrong. What I'll probably do is put the hat in a box and give it to the person I made it for with a note telling them that if they don't like it, be honest, and donate the hat and I'll make another one for them from whatever yarn they'd like. Sound like a good idea?

I've also made my last ever novelty yarn item (hat for my mother-in-law to match a scarf I made her last year). I made another really cute beanie in a double eyelet rib that looks 10 times better than the single one b/c it's actually the right gauge. Fancy that. Dave also received my first-ever earflap hat. I made another rib hat for my yoga teacher, Martha.

After all these hats I'll be begging to do socks and mittens.

Stitches for bitches

Saw this Web site and I immediately thought of Aubrey.

What I did last weekend: Illustrated version

After 20 kajillion trips to the hardware store, Dave and Mike finished piecing together our backyard deck.



I bought two-way stretch jersey for a new project: yoga leggings.



This is the Noro Iro (75% wool, 25% silk) that I'm using to knit fingerless gauntlet-style mittens. I started and ripped down and started again this weekend.

Days are getting shorter

I'm burning daylight under fluorescents these days. I'm here at my desk by 8 a.m. most days and I don't leave until we finish the issue, which is usually around 6 p.m. or so. I don't usually take a lunch per se, though during lunch time I can be found nibbling on crackers and slurping on soup while dicking around on the Internet. At my desk.

I've become fairly aware of my desks surroundings, though all that surrounds me is a four-foot radius of one-third of a wall. People can approach me on all sides. I am ambushed by needy people daily.

Because I'm a cubicle in a sea of fishbowl-like offices, people assume that because they can approach me over my one-third wall that I actually want them to. And because I'm hearing impaired, any time I hear someone around me I turn around to check things out because who knows, they might actually need to tell me something important, though its rare.

So, after 10 hours of basking in fluorescent lights and staring into a monitor I'd love nothing more than to walk out of the dimly lit building to wince at the bright sunshine and smell the acrid, exhaust laden air of downtown Dallas. But, by the time I'm out of here it's dark.

I like the cool temperatures of winter, but this daylight saving crap has got to go.

Variation on a theme

If there's one thing I took for granted as a teenager it was my ability to hear. By the time I was 16 I was already completely deaf in my right ear (I have no idea what caused it, but it was kind of gradual). At this time it didn't bother me that I was deaf in my right ear because I held my violin up to my left, and as long as I could discern pitch changes I didn't care.

I wasn't the most disciplined violinist throughout high school. I didn't practice as often as I should, mostly because I was also trying to be a varsity golfer at the same time, and by not choosing one over the other I was unable to practice as much as most golfers/violinists. I was trying to be OK at a lot of things instead of exceptional at one thing, which was a big mistake, I think.

Now that I'm going almost completely deaf I long to open my violin case and hear the music it once made. It was a crystalline, defining experience to master a techniqe or a piece. It made me absorbed in the moment, it made me want to strive for the next chance to disply my talent. It was for this reason that I joined four or five performance groups: I loved the limelight, baby.

But still, it faded, much because I didn't practice enough. I occaisionally played through college with a performance art group doing more loosely interpretive things instead of the technically exacting concertos, symphonies and themes that defined most of my training.

When I lost more of my hearing I found that I could no longer tune my instrument without a chromatic tuner, I could no longer discern pitch as well. It was one of the most depressing moments in my life: I wasn't a violinist anymore.

Still I am afraid to get hearing aids because I worry that it won't fix the problem, and they will only support a worthless facsimile of the vibrant music I once played. I just don't want to have that feeling of hopelessness, the feeling you get when you've tried everything and nothing works, the feeling of failing with your very last resort.

If I gave up hoping that I could one day go back to the violin I don't know if I could take it.

Only Mr. Magoo has worse mornings

While the tribulation is still fresh, I'll describe to you a morning that only the consistently klutzy might appreciate.

We were a couple minutes late leaving the house this morning because I coudn't find my tumbler full of hot coffee. I searched all over for it, only to find that it and everything else I was searching for were already in the car with my husband, who was dilligently warming up the auto in the driveway while I ran through the house like a chicken with its head cut off. So, I sit down in the car, miserable, thinking that I wasn't going to get any coffee before work this morning (a train ride in the winter without something warm to sip is a nightmare!) and there it was, nestled in the cupholder. *grumble*

I applied my makeup in the car on the way to the train station, finishing my lip gloss just in time. I grab everything and break to the platform to make the next train when I notice an official wearing an orange reflective work vest talking to a few human popsicles on the platform. I ask a woman who is leaving the platform what's going on, and she says that rail service to downtown is suspended. Yay. I call Dave and he does a quick 180 back to the station.

I drop Dave off just before 8 a.m. and head toward downtown, which is a nightmare from Dave's office. It took me 30 minutes to go maybe 15 miles. I kept hitting school zones, which slow traffic to 20 mph, a snail's pace, and every side-street was crowded with perpetual lane changers (you know the type, the lane next to them is inching along only a bit faster than theirs, so they move into it, and soon after they move the lane they were previously in begins to move faster than the one they just moved to, so they change again, ad infinitum).

When I FINALLY arrive at work, I'm pulling all of my stuff from the passenger side to the drivers side, and I think that my steaming hot coffee is lodged securely in the console cupholder, but as I drag my God-awful heavy messenger bag over it, the coffee tips into the driver's seat, dribbling all over, and I don't notice it until I am reaching into the car about 15 seconds later to retrieve it, which means that the entire tumbler of coffee is half spilled into the seat. Mumbling obscenities under my breath I grab as many cheap restaurant napkins as possible, making an effort to mop up as much coffee as I can, which is totally in vain. THis is the downside to insisting on freshly roasted dark brew coffee. Upside: my car smells delicious. I will have to skip yoga tonight in order to clean up my coffee mess, which will fortunately also give me a few minutes to hang my hanging plants in the yoga room.

1, 2, 3, 4 Meme

First one I've posted on here... Let 'er rip!

Subject: 4 Things You May Not Know About Me

Four things about me that you may or may not
have known in no particular order.

Four jobs I have had in my life:

1. [REDACTED]
2. Intern at The Real Estate Center at Texas A&M
3. Waitress at Kerri's Stacked Enchiladas
4. Gas station attendant at Diamond Shamrock

Four movies I could watch over and over:

1. Pi (or anything directed by Daron Aronofsky)
2. Amelie
3. The Client
4. Big Business (one summer my sisters and I watched this Bette Midler movie almost every day)

Four places I have lived:

1. Dallas, TX
2. Madisonville, TX
3. College Station, TX
4. Conroe, TX

Four Shows that I watch:

1. Iron Chef
2. Good Eats
3. Heroes
4. How I met your mother

Four places I have been:

1. St. Louis, Mo.
2. Key West, Fla.
3. San Francisco, Calif.
4. Santa Fe/Taos, N.M.

People who e-mail me and text message me
regularly...including myspace

1. Dave
2. Kara
3. Jack
4. Olivia

Four of my favorite foods:

1. Curry (any kind, really)
2. Smoked Salmon
3. Vegetarian chili
4. Salads with lots of healthy goodies

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. On a train in Europe
2. Tibet
3. Pune, India
4. The Pacific Northwest

Four friends I think will do this meme:

1. Sara
2. Ashlee
3. Anna
4. Sara again?

Things I am looking forward to this year: (the year is almost over - this one is hard)

1. Christmas and my birthday with the whole Jemison/England/Fraser/Williams Clan!
2. Recommiting myself to my yoga practice
3. Building the deck and putting up new shades
4. Finishing all of these godforsaken knit gifts!!!

Butter and yarn

I want to be a housewife. I shit you not. Stay with me here, becuase I know all us college educated ladies have been conditioned to think that housewives are the mailroom workers of the fairer sex. But, how can that be so when I, a Big XII graduate and a corporate ladder-climbing company shill, want to give it all up to stay at home? I'll tell you why: Being a cog in the machine is unfulfilling. I'd rather stay at home, freelance every now and again, bake bread, sew stuff, read philosphy, raise a rugrat and knit all the livelong day. Will I ever do this? Probably not.

The market of human resources has become conditioned to the availability of women in the workplace. Now it's almost expected that women take advantage of the wide array of jobs now available to them, and if a college educated woman were to ever shun the corporate life for one at home, she's a waste, and wasn't worth the educational investment in the first place. I disagree.

Although I've never seriously considered starting a family, I can see why a woman would want to stay home with their children. I'm not going to make any generalizations that it's in a woman's nature to care for kids, but I can understand why a woman would want to make sure that the only indoctrination their kids get is from their home. My parents did as much, albeit I'm sure it was a nightmare with five kids. My mom made sure we understood that there were people out there that were going to say things and do things we didn't understand or we didn't like. We could always ask my parents about that kind of stuff. We ate meals together, we did sports and clubs together. We were all active in eachothers lives.

So I was thinking about how this Christmas will be the first Christmas for all of us married kids to bring our spouses and all be together under one roof. We're so different, and our husbands/wives reflect that. But we're all a family. I don't know one kid or in-law that doesn't absolutely love one another. That's a freakin' family. I hope that we're always like this. That we're always involved, that we're always on good terms. And when someone finally squirts out offspring, I hope it doesn't poo/puke/pee on me and that I'll love it, too.

My life as Cathy

A coworker is going through a parallel struggle against fat, and we both extoll the days we've been "good" and haven't gorged ourselves on ubiquitous, easily consumed and seemingly pervasive holiday treats. Likewise, we both verbally flog ourselves with guilt and admittance when we've partaken of said treats. In the refrigerator at work you are faced with a blue pill/red pill choice: Will you go for the bowl of sliced fruit and be proud of yourself or will you sneak one of the brownies/cheescake bites/rasberry bars/cookies and feel remarkably guilty for it? Today it was fruit, but I only did it because yesterday it was a cheesecake bite AND a brownie.

If you've ever seen the long-running American comic strip "Cathy" then you see the obvious parallel between my struggle against my lard-ass genes and Cathy's own flab fight. Though, Cathy is such a poor example -- she hasn't lost weight in almost 30 years! She's gotta be like, a size 16!

Knit one, Knit one, Knit one ...

Year before last it was scarves. This year it's hats. Next year ... who knows! I'm trying to knit as many hats as possible for Christmas this year. If I don't make them all in time I'll just have to take a picture of the yarn and stick it in a box with a bar of chocolate or something. I always seem to get great ideas for Christmas gifts a little too late. I've already made three hats: the first one was for me, the next was for a yoga teacher and the third was Dave's. I'm making Dave's mother's hat, Dave's father, Dave's brother, My mother (hat AND scarf!), my father, my three sisters and my brother. That's nine hats. IN FOUR WEEKS!!! That's 2.25 hats per week! I don't know if I can do it (in fact, I'm almost certain I can't), but I'm going to try anyway. It's the thought that counts, right?

I just hope that knitting all of these hats doesn't turn me off to knitting like all of those scarves did. Granted, the scarves were all garter stitch with novelty yarns, which is really difficult to knit sometimes because they are so uneven and you can't tell if you've dropped a stitch or if you've accidentally increased. This year, with the hats, I'm only making one using a novelty yarn and that's only because it's going to match a scarf I made for the recipient last year.

I also hope that with all of these hats knitted I'll gain the confidence to try something new, like cables or interesting patterns with increases and decreases all over the place. I've also wanted to try sock knitting, but that looks so complicated to try right now, besides that, the yarn is so small and the gauge is so tight. I'm not a very proficient knitter as is, and I've never seen anyone else knit up close before. I'm entirely self-taught, which means that I have no clue if I'm doing something blatantly wrong that an experienced knitter would pick up in a second.

Anyway, wish me luck! If I knit like the wind I just might be able to do it! (And thank goodness for the three-plus hour car ride from Dallas to Houston!)

First Draft

It's finally chilly here in Texas. It's our first winter in the new house and my, my, my is this little sucker drafty. And the furnace sounds like there's a freight train going 80 mph in our back yard. And I don't have a decent set of slippers!

I've been through a cold winter here in Dallas. Last year we had snow that stuck for like, three or four days!!! But in the old drafty house we used to live in I had a nice set of shearling slippers and there were gas furnaces in just about every room.

Now that we have central heat and air conditioning I'm kind of missing the heaters. They were quiet. Heck, they were silent. Just imagine trying to get nice and toasty and curl up in bed only to almost drift off when all of the sudden it sounds like there's a semi on top of you.

The cats are having a rough time dealing with the cold, too. They're warming up by way of double occupancy.



This cold weather has also lead me to conclude that I don't have nearly as many cool sweaters as I though. I guess I should go out and buy more cool sweaters. Nod your heads, people... Thanks a bunch!

Also, I've been working on my scorpion pose a lot. Although it still looks like crap, I just have to take a look back at how incredibly far I've come. At one time I couldn't keep my arms under me, my elbows would always splay and my head would come to the floor, but look at me now!

Weekends (bombs) away

It's been approximately four years since I've seen Betzy. The last I saw of her was waving at her in the back seat of a car as she pulled away from her wedding. I was her maid of honor. I didn't go to the afterparty because I was the only person that couldn't tell that my then boyfriend was an asshole. C'est la vie.

Since Betzy moved to North Carolina (envious) she's settled down like I have: small house, too many animals. Except her husband isn't a bookselling poet. Her husband is a marine, who is now deployed overseas. I have so much respect for Betzy, mostly because she looks happy and blessed to people that don't know her. Most people don't under stand what an enormous accomplishment that is. Life has dealt her many opportunities to give up. Depression (not the rainy-day kind, but invasive, crippling depression)runs in her family. She's had more ups and downs than the roller coasters at Six Flags and now her husband is fighting a war that I've given up railing against because too many people I know have sacrificed to fight it.

Betzy and I were in Kindergarten together. She watched my back and stuck up for me. We always looked to one another for guidance, we went through some of the same struggles and we both played violin. I miss the midnight sessions we'd have laying in bed during sleepovers at her parents' enormous house, or how we'd sit on the bleachers during junior high and talk music and take risks. We were both the kind of people who were bound and determined to take the route less traveled. For that reason I admire her and I can't wait to spend some real time with her again.


Last night I came home after a very stressful day and did some yoga. I've been working on my Scorpion pose more and now I can hold it away from the wall for like, a second. My king pigeon pose now sucks, though.

Here's to back bends -- Because you're bending over backwards during the rest of the day anyway.

On the verge

Sometimes I have to take a step outside of my body, take a look at what surrounds me and ask myself, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" I'm beginning to wonder these days whether or not I really appreciate being the blanket that other people use to cover their asses. Strap me to a fucking post, people. I have turned into your accountability. I am young and susceptible, and you put me in a position to take 40 lashes in every direction? Is this leadership? Yeah, if you call leading a lamb to slaughter leadership, then call it like you see it.

Only time will tell if I can really take all this. I wanted to be in an environment with a lot of pressure a lot of drive to succeed, but it was only a matter of time before I looked for ways to relieve the everyday pressure of being the seive that filters other people's bullshit. The only thing this gives me is a guaranteed dirty feeling.

Personal space

Decorating a room is really hard. Seriously. If you're lazy (like me) and yet a perfectionist (guilty, too) you have to have things done right the first time so you don't have to do them over again, which is a frickin' pain. So, I agonized over my yoga room. I wanted it to be just the right color, I wanted it to be open and accessible but not too fussy. I wanted it to be a place where I can find solace but still have an explicit purpose. I didn't want it to be a room where stray furniture ends up. It is a yoga room, sparsely furnished and open to possibilities. The walls are minimal and the color should be airy. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be fun or playful though.

Besides hanging the shades, which are on order, it's mostly complete. We're planning on buying a rug to hang on the one blank wall for a foot rest during inversions. It'll be light and airy, too, probably a mix of green and purple, and hang above the chair rail. On the opposite wall there are stencils of lime-green lily pads behind framed photos of water lilies (one of my favorite flowers).

Stupid neighbors!

I am really warming to our neighborhood. It's small, middle class, has some great views and some really nice routes for jogging/walking the dogs. So far we've met a lot of our neighbors while walking Hornsby and Fitzgerald, one woman that owns a pug is very sweet, but because I can't remember her name for shit, we have resigned to call her "Pug lady." There's also a young pregnant wife down the street with a doberman. She's due on New Years, and her name is Shanna, or Shawna, or Shandra, or something like that. Real sweet gal. Two houses down there is a Mexican couple that doesn't speak any English and has an antique plow painted bright red, along with myriad other tacky yard art not limited to a flower box made from cinder blocks adorned with an orange painted fish. This house we have knighted "Casa de Pescados" or "House of the Fish." With all of this added flavor, we still don't mind the owners becuase they're genuinely nice and they don't bother us.

But, across the street is the Cat Lady. Besides the travel van permanently parked in her driveway with Oregon plates, the house looks normal from the street. But inside there are motives much more sinister. The woman indiscriminantly feeds unneutered feral cats, thereby fascilitating their breeding and their pest status. She scatters cheap cat food by the cupful into her lawn like a spinster feeding pigeons. The cats flock to her front porch for seconds every morning. She's fascilitating the spread of disease and cat poop on to neighborhood lawns. She must be stopped!

I contacted a feral cat service in Dallas and they will soon be working to send traps over to my house so I can trap the cats and have them neutered/spayed and release them. I hate to trap them, but it's for their/my own good. They can't procreate like bunnies and not expect to fall ill from rampant infectious disease. Besides, it's just a matter of time before they vector whatever crap they have onto my cats via their multitutde of fleas.

It is actually heartbreaking to see the litters these cats have that will shy from human touch and be resigned to an early death because one woman was irresponsible.

Stupid neighbors!!!

Dallas: Dumbass Central

I deal with skads, literally a force, of barely literate people who can't keep their moronic thoughts to themselves. Every day, as I read the crap spewing from panicked and angry people, I'm reminded of a saying: "Opinions are like assholes -- everyone has one and they're all shitty."

But what depresses me even more than reading these diatribes and bullshit is that these people vote. They vote without thinking, without reading and without knowing what they are voting for/against. They vote randomly, they vote haphazardly, and worst of all, they vote early and often.

It's people like this that often complain about confusing ballot language when so many websites, newspapers and magazines have spent so many hours and dollars spelling it out for them. If they would only pick up a copy, read about it and THEN decide ... This, however, is asking far to much from the barely literate people of Dallas.

I, on the other hand (that is attached to a body with feet firmly planted in reality), did so much research into my vote. I spent oodles of time looking into all of the state constitutional propositions, into Dallas' Prop. 1, weighing both sides and sometimes even debating with friends. I made my decision like it was a crucial one, one that deserved the respect and intention that our civic duty implies. In this case, I am rare. Shit, who am I trying to kid? I'm facing extinction.

As a matter of fact, I feel that uninformed voters, the confused ones that were unsure of how to vote on Dallas' Prop. 1, the Trinity Referendum, were the deciding factor. There was only a 6 percent margin in the election. If the vote-yes-against-the-toll road campaign had better informed 4 percent of the voters, if they had kept these morons from bubbling in the wrong oval, then they would have won.

Heck, I don't know if I really care about who won or lost in the Trinity vote. It was a poorly planned but well-executed campaign of confusion. The engineering group designing the contentious toll road that was to pass through the levees of the Trinity River (a dicey situation at best) hadn't even finalized the plans. Their estimates for what the road would cost had margins of error at 20 to 30 percent! That's insane! Why are we voting to approve a plan for a road that doesn't even exist?!

There is a chance that the establishment's preferred road design between the levees will never get government approval, and it might never be built. but by golly, we're going to spend $2 million that Dallas can't afford to have an election on a road that hasn't even been fully designed yet! We can't afford a $2 million election on a road that doesn't exist when we're spending so much money on administrative costs for a city council that can't repair the roads we already have!

I really wonder if any other cities are so frustrating. I wonder if there is anything such as common-sense politics.

Good news, bad news and just news: An update.

I've been away too long, folks, and if there are any readers left to wonder, I've been so incredibly busy at work. In fact, I'm still busy, which is why I feel guilty for posting when I should be working on some seriously deadline-sensitive stuff.

Those of you who've e-mailed me to make sure I still have a pulse, thanks. I mean it!

On to the news ...

Hornsby has made a full recovery, and much to our delight he doesn't mind being at the veterinary office, probably because he's already spent so much time there. We took all of the little bastards to the vet last month, which cost us almost $500. Everyone's healthy, and Dawsey surprised us by losing a pound (that's a lot to a cat!), though she needs to lose one more. You can do it, girl!

Speaking of weight loss, I've dropped a pants size! Finally I can go to a department store and look at single-digit pants! Now, I'll probably never be a size 4 or 5, but an 8 is great when you've been a 10 or larger for most of your life. My goal is to get down to a size 6, but that may not happen considering my insanely huge child-bearing hips. DAMNITALLTOHELL!!!

In yoga related news, I'm killing my inversions. I did a wall-supported scorpion last week. It looks like this, but my feet were against a wall, which kept me from falling over myself:



We're painting the yoga room this weekend, which will be fun because after the trip we took to St. Louis I got the most awesome idea for one of the walls, which was to paint large cirlces that represent lily pads on the wall and hang enlargements of some of the water lily photos I took at the Missouri Botanical Gardens on our trip! Should be fun!

Also, if you're wondering how awesome our trip was, check out our photos here. Just to be a tease, here's a sample:


a shot of Dave from his best side:



We're planning a trip to NYC, Boston and Chicago next year, so that's probably the last bit of traveling we'll be doint until then.

Also, Dave and I took my twin sisters and my brother in law Brent to the State Fair of Texas, which was a blast! We walked around, rode a few rides and ate tons of great food (and by great, I mean fried cheesecake, Fletchers corny dogs, fried guacamole and Cuban sandwiches!).

Anywho, there's been a lot more than that, but that's all I have time for, for now at least!

Update soon

Things are slowing down, and I really will update as soon as I can! Until then, admire the incredibly cute photos of the kitties!!!

Lazy Day

My brain is still fuzzy from the 3-day weekend. Yesterday was Labor Day, but it was raining through midday, so instead of just hanging about like we had planned, we cleaned the house. Bummer. The cats did this:



And this:



And this:



In case you couldn't tell, they love the new chair. Later that evening we went to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington to watch the Rangers get pummeled by the Kansas City Royals.





And now, I'm back at work... :(

Backyard trim

I've had my hair cut in a salon only a handful of times. The kitchen, now that's where business is done. I can remember the times I've spent training my eyes on my mother's tchotchke-clad walls easily. Her accosting me to stay still even though I had bits of hair in my nose, in my eyes and wedged between the cutting cape and my irritated neck. Only once has anyone besides my sister Kara and my mother cut my hair, and it was a disaster.

I was still living in College Station, waiting tables at Kerri's Stacked Enchiladas. I was poor (waiting tables does that to you) and one of my closest friends was also the spawn of a hairdresser. Her mom cut her hair, and it was cute enough, so I decided that just getting my bangs trimmed would be safe. So my friend and I stopped into the salon where her mother worked just for a sec or two and I left so incredibly upset, though I couldn't tell my friend because I didn't want to seem ungrateful for the butcher job her mom did on my hair. I swore after that that I would never again get my hair cut by anyone besides my mother or my sister.

Fast forward to 2007 -- I hadn't had a hair cut since February when my sister Kara came to visit, so I asked my mother to bring her scissors when she came up last weekend. My hair had become an unmanageable mop, my bangs were beginning to graze my lips and I had 3-inch long split ends. These are the perils of swearing off salons. But Sunday, just hours before my parents and I were to leave for brunch and their departure, my mother set up a station of sorts in the back yard on our deck and went to work on my tresses. The birds were singing and it was a rather pleasant summer morning, so I'd have to say that it was one of the more enjoyable hair cuts I've had. Maybe more salons should be outdoors...

Of course I'm balanced!

I'm a Balanced Yogi!

A Balanced Yogi You love your friends unconditionally and accept them for who they are no matter what their yoga style preference, religious beliefs, or spending habits. You focus on the good in people and would never try to change them. Almost everyone feels comfortable in your presence. You live your yoga. You are an inspiration to yoga students everywhere!

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A visit all too short!

Sorry about my absence. Liv is right, things have been kinda crazy at the House of England. Besides trying to go to all of the home games possible before the Rangers' season ends (like hell they'll make it to October), we've been burning the candle at both ends, taking puppies to the veterinarian, getting $650 tires for Dave's Jeep, working around the house and cooking, though not as much as I'd like. We're still figuring a lot out about this homeowner stuff.

Though, through all the hectic days, it was nice to take a breather when my parents came up to Dallas last weekend. They are so great, except when my father and I talk politics. As long as there is red wine, single-malt scotch and good food, we're a complacent bunch.

Mom and Dad mainly ventured up here to drop off an antique dining table that I'd been pining for. It's a low-back, hand carved mahogany dream, and fully expanded will sit around 10 people! It'll take some cleaning and dressing up, but it's a fine piece! We also got Dave an armchair this weekend, a nice plush, deep-seated job. I've been inhabiting it for the most part!

We had an awesome time going to a minor league ball game, having brunch at our favorite little cafe, and checking out some of our regular haunts. Dad might be up here for a spell this weekend, he's gotta pick up a rifle being delivered in Fort Worth.

I'd post pictures, but I'm a moron and forgot to put a card in my camera, so this weekend was stored on the internal memory, and I've no connector cord with me. But I'm alive, and well, and really freakin' tired if you were wondering!

I'll never leave home!

It is beginning to take so long to take care of everything and get out the door in the morning that I'm beginning to think that the house would rather have me there! Not that I'd mind, you know, staying home and tending house, freelancing when I can, but as long as I have to commute this is beginning to become very cumbersome.

Dave picked up Hornsby from his progress check-up at the Vet yesterday, and they prescribed him ANOTHER treatment. The myriad pills, creams and drops are killing me, and taking a toll in the morning which is when I have to:

-Make coffee
-Water the plants/lawn
-let the dogs out
-feed the dogs/cats
-get dressed
-do my hair/makeup
-pack my lunch
-give Hornsby whatever eye drops/ear medicine/pills the vet prescribes

IT'S ALL TOO MUCH!

Pupdate

So, Hornsby is a real mess right now. I'll have to take pictures of his mutilated eye. It's incredi-gross. He had surgery yesterday on his eye and he was neutered at the same time. Poor guy. He's getting along OK. We had to put the E-collar back on, which means that he can't navigate the house for shit. He takes more medication than a retiree.

They shaved his eye and he has some stitches around it, which doesn't look too appealing, but overall he's doing OK.

As far as I can tell he had some kind of kennel cough that has cleared up since I last hyperventhilated about it. He's out of the cough medicine and we finish the antibiotics tonight so we'll see what happens. It doesn't look as though Fitzgerald caught whatever he had, so I guess we're lucky in that respect.

Now, this past weekend I went to Houston to spend some quality time with my dear sister Sara for her birthday. She shares a birthday with her twin, Kara, who was vacationing with our brother and sister-in-law in the Rocky Mountains. So, I couldn't leave Sara to party without some kind of family representation. Boy am I glad I decided to come along! It was a blast. From hanging out with some of her good friends and people I knew like, forever ago, it was just a fantastic time! The copious beer didn't hurt either!