Bloggy Awards = fail

 

Lookee what Gretchen gave me! Thank you Gretchen!

I know I have another one around here somewhere but danged if I can find it. If one of you have given me one lately please let me know and I'll probably forget it again because I'm a dork get right to it. 

Every once in awhile I get one of these and I'm always so excited. I flutter around. I try to be all self effacing by saying things like, "aww shucks" and "I don't deserve it" (which I totally don't, BTW). Then things seem to take a turn for the worst.

I usually stick them into a folder on my computer for later display. I oh and aw over it. I feel completely unworthy. And, I agonize over who I will pass it on to. Then I take a look at the ways that I have to play them forward. That is the moment that my fears are realized. There is always some work involved in these things. Perfectly understandable. People work hard to make the button and think of ways to bring recognition to those bloggers they love. I get it. Only, some of these things get really complicated; e.g. mention the giver in the post, name 100 things about yourself, stand on your head, show the second picture on your camera, name 10 other bloggers to give it too, give them your first born (which if you can get him away from his wife you are welcome to him.) the list goes on. I'm totally deflated by this time. Because...

OMG people! 

I am so lazy. I barely have the energy to dress myself and if I was not the boss of people I'd go to work dressed like all the other students (tank top, shorts, and flip flops). There is some sort of sticky residue on my bathroom counters that would take all of 5 seconds to wipe off but do I? Nope, too lazy! Clean my bedside table, HA! Ain't gonna happen. Finish the 3 paintings I have started? Well, yeah, those will get done. Bad example.


So I gird my loins (no easy task, mind you), write a couple of posts in my head, half-ass type a half a post out, save it as a draft, and promptly forget about it and the award. Like this one. It's been almost 10 days since Gretchen gave this to me. Wait, 10 days? Is that all? I must not be as lazy as I thought. 

Anyone who's given me one that I have forgotten to put up in a post PLEASE accept my apology, it's not you, it's me. I'm lame. 

Now to the rules and regs of this one. I need to name 5 things I love about myself. Yikes! It would be a whole lot easier if I could tell you 5 things I hate about myself. Like that whole laziness thing.

Can I substitute like? 

1. I play well with others.
2. I'm loyal
3. I'm happy to meet and see most everyone   
4. I'm fairly creative
5. I don't lick faces, drink out of the toilet or wag my tail for just anyone. Oh wait, that would be what I like about Tripper.  hummm..I think it works for me too. 


Now, I'm not going to name 5 bloggers to hand this out to. I'd rather toss it into the interwebs for anyone who wants it. That way more people get a chance to play. So help yourself to this lovely award. Mi award es su award.


Thank you again, Gretchen. And, I thought of you as I was driving around Austin!


Love,
M

This is why I love Austin, Texas

A field of flamingos.
It just doesn't get any better than this.

Love,
M

Random bag of stuff but mostly produce

Keely. Random. Now!

This is my haul from the farmers market. I've numbered each thing (I'm not anal and food obsessed, sort of) but the numbers are so small I'm not sure you can see them. So if you squint real hard....
1. 3 different types of summer squash. (I've used most of these)
2. Patty pan squash. (roasted tomorrow for pizza with the leftovers for other equally yummy things)
3. baby beets. (roasted for pizza)
4. Grape tomatoes (pizza again)
5. Green beans (last night's dinner)
6. Chicken eggs (frittata and breakfast)
7. Duck eggs (breakfast this week with last night's mushroom ragout)
8. Tomatoes (general eating)
9. Jalapeno goat cheese (sprinkled on pizza after it is done cooking)
10. Baby and Japenese eggplant (stuffed on Thursday)
11 & 12. Assorted peppers (stuffed, roasted and general eating)
13. Peaches (baked in puff pastry)
14. Oyster mushrooms (last night's ragout)
15. Butternut squash (not sure but I'm thinking ravioli)
16. Sweet onions (general eating)

Now, my sweets your days are numbered. Mahahahahaha... Days are numbered, get it? Numbered.....I crack myself up.

Home Helps

The view from the Oasis restaurant at Lake Travis. JR and I sat outside, had a drink and chatted. Our topic of conversation was my NEED for one of these:

He wasn't buying it. Literally or figuratively.

War Time Cook and Health


The Dirty Dog tavern sign on 6th Street. This is about as classy as 6th Street gets.



The Kitchen Encyclopedia

I was feeling pretty smug about my personal sense of style until I recalled this photo. That goofy looking dork wearing a hat but no shoes is me. To see where I got my fashion sense just take a gander at the woman up front with the huge sunglasses and high-water pants. That would be my mother. My dad is not in this photo but trust me when I say, he was equally fashion backward.

I dare you to come up with a photo of yourself at the cocky age of 15. I bet my dorky trumps your dorky.

Love,
M

PS. Cookbooks care of Duke University. Who has the most exciting collection of cookbooks and advertising ephemera.

Heading to Austin, TX.

Yeah, I know, I never sit still.

I've got a couple of meetings in Austin that I'm not quite ready for so I'll be keeping this short.

The big difference about this trip is that JR will be accompanying me. He doesn't usually go because there is no one at home to take care of the animals. With The Boy at home we plan to take advantage of the opportunity to get away as often as possible.

By ourselves.

Alone.

At a nice hotel.
Alone
Where someone cooks for me.

Alone!
Someplace that when I walk in the door my greeting won't be...
What's for dinner?
It will be....
Welcome, can I take your bag?
(BTW, my answer is always "yes" or "why, yes you can" or "thank you very much" or "Gawd, please do".)

We have plans. After my meetings, we'll be heading to the following places:

The Oasis to watch the sun go down.
It will be so romantic.
I hope.

The Clay Pit for dinner.
We love Indian food.
Mmmmm....curry.
*drool*



The Alamo for a movie, beer and food.
But, only if the movie isn't Predators.
I'm a major wuss.
Maybe, just the beer and food.
Beer and food is good.
Not as good as beer and skittles
(nod to Julie *wink*)




JR will be spending a little time at Waterloo Records.
The man is an audiot and vidiot at heart.

I'll be taking my camera. I may even pass it off to JR to take on his travels. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with. Maybe, I can even convince him to post about his visit to the music store. He is a journalism major after all. You would think he could write something compelling.


I'm taking requests.
Is there any place you would like us to see and report on while we are there?
Someplace you've heard about?

Someplace you went to and would like to see what it looks like now?

We'll try to get there. Grab a couple of pics and post about it.

Love,
M

Random Tuesday Thoughts from our trip to Arizona

Random Tuesday Thoughts. The premise here is to post those of your thoughts that just don't make a complete post. That, of course, constitutes about 9/10ths of my thoughts making this easy for me.

I adore this building.
End of thought.

We took the dogs for another walk in the park in Tempe and look who was standing on the side of the lake. He was huge!


He let us come within a couple of feet of him before he flew off.

He could have been a she. I didn't check. So I'm using the pronoun he as a generic term.

JR and I weren't the only ones that got to visit friends and family on our trip. Nessa got to spend a little time with her sister, Izzy.


Izzy is the darker of the two. Her and Nessa met up for the first time in over a year and you wouldn't have known that they had been apart.

Doggie nose kisses.
Anything any cuter?
I don't think so.

I was due at a conference in Austin on Monday and Tuesday so we hightailed it over there. We drove from Lordsburg, New Mexico to Austin, Texas in one really, really long ass numbing day.

The next morning we took the dogs for a walk along the lake. Nessa liked the doggie drinking fountain.

The guys dropped in off at my hotel on Sunday afternoon.
Pretty nice huh?

This is the view of downtown Austin that Rachel and I will be enjoying until Tuesday afternoon. Then it is back to Houston for us.

That's it for me. Go visit the gang over at Keely's for more randomness.

Love,
M

San Felipe de Austin, Texas

Stephen F Austin brought 300 Americans to Texas to settle a Spanish land grant obtained by his father, Moses Austin. My great, great, great.......grandfather was one of those 300. Rather, ironic that I end up in Texas almost 200 years later.

Click on the picture to learn more about San Felipe.


Love,
M

RTT - Austin, TX, Stuffing Re-purposing, Rock and Roll and Yellow Snow.

It's the first Tuesday of the month. It is also the first day of the month. This does not mean that it is the first day of the rest of my life. It's not the day they draw the lotto so it has no potential to be the first day of the rest of my life or even the best day. What it does have is randomness on the Internet. And, really folks, that is good enough. Right? Click the purpley button for so much more.


JR and I have become devotees of our DVR. We've learned the joy of DVR rentership and don't think we'll ever go back to VHS or DVDs. They are so Old School. Saddest part of this whole deal is that we can name all the format changes in the last 30 years. (Oh gawd, first the depressing first paragraph and now this. Sorry. Let's move along) Our latest recording venture was the 25th Anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Awesome! Mick and The Boss singing together. Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy. We were in heaven. Now we need to figure out how to transfer that recording to a media device that we actually own and not rent from Direct TV. Nah, I'll probably let JR buy one and re-record it.




Anyone who wants me to figure out a way to send them some of the enormous amount of Thanksgiving dressing please send me your address. Seriously, I do not know what I was thinking. A 9 x 13 pan for the two of us? Sure it is really good. How can you go wrong with root veggies, stale bread, tons of butter, Herbs de Provence and black truffle oil? But, enough is enough. I've re-purposed this for almost a week now and I still have more. Beyond it's original food intent it has been used for; hash, bubble & squeak, pot pie topping, and filling for happy hour dumplings. Tonight it will be stuffed into green peppers, tomorrow will wrapped around hard boiled eggs for a vegetarian version of Scotch Eggs and God knows what on Thursday. Maybe I'll just freeze the balance. Then it can languish in the back of my freezer until I throw it out. That is really the only way food gets thrown out in this house. Don't ask me why. It just is.



We took a little day trip to Austin on Friday. JR had never been there. Me? I've been there a bunch. I've even stayed at that hotel on the very far right. That hotel, The one that is right on the water. The hotel that as a priority club member you would have thought I'd have a great view. Instead it looked like this:

Call me crazy but for some reason I still think their interpretation of priority and mine differ.



Austin is just a little offbeat (hence why I like it so much). This trailer sits next to a restaurant in town. Some friends of our had an Airstream trailer just about like this. Though they never lived out of it like this setup implies. While building their first house they lived out of a different trailer. Come on! You haven't lived out of a trailer while building a house? You just haven't lived. While building a house in Northeast Washington State, JR, the boys and I lived out of a 19 foot Terry trailer. Though it was self-contained (e.g. it had a bathroom) the shower in the bathroom didn't work so we went to the local gym to shower. The boys also learned the true meaning of the words pioneer spirit, yellow snow and trailer trash.

Now, it's off to work I go for another fun-filled day of meetings, putting out fires, and writing code. Yippee! You all have a great day and I'll see you on the internets.

Love,
M