Texas Lou

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Happy Thankful Monday!

Here’s what I’m thankful for today:

1. I’m thankful for a wonderful day Christmas shopping with Ben yesterday, and I’m very thankful and happy about our very first Christmas tree (pictures to come once it’s decorated).  I’m also thankful for a strong husband who is able to lift and move the tree and also knows how to take care of it (Ben wants to root the tree outside after Christmas is over).
2. I’m thankful for a wonderful weekend with family.  Friday night, Ben and I joined his parents and two nieces for our annual holiday trip to Richmond for the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens‘ Dominion GardenFest of Lights.  Then Saturday, I spent the day baking and doing Christmas crafts with my mother-in-law and nieces.  I made two terrariums that I’m very proud of!
3. I’m sooooo very thankful that I got to spend a day with my cousin Jennifer!  Her husband was in Baltimore for business so she came with him and drove down for the day on Wednesday.  We started off by catching up over lunch at Timberwood Grill, then headed to Monticello to do the tour since she had never been.  Then we went to the Downtown Mall, bought some Virginia Wine at Market Street Wine Shop, and met Ben for dinner at South Street Brewery.  We ended the evening by baking brownies at home.  Thursday morning, we had breakfast at Bodo’s before Jennifer headed back to Maryland.  I was sad to see her go but soooo happy that we got to spend precious time together.  I love my family!
   

   Jennifer & I at Monticello

4. I’m thankful for the wood stove in our house and for a husband who has been building fires to keep us warm.  Our heater broke again on Friday morning so we were forced to start using our wood stove.  Wow does that thing work great!  It heats the house almost well enough that we don’t need the heater!
   

   Eva checking out the first fire in the wood stove

5. Lastly, I’m thankful for the holidays and family to spend them with.  Last year I was somewhat of a scrooge because we couldn’t have a Christmas tree, I didn’t have much PTO saved up yet (and I work in retail), I was turning the dreaded 30, and I couldn’t go home for Christmas.  This year, we have a beautiful house to spend the holidays in, I can take a few days off of work, my family is coming to spend Christmas with us since we have plenty of room in the new house, we have our first Christmas tree together (after being together for seven and a half years), and I’m not turning 30 this year 😉 !

Have a great week and enjoy the this time of year!

Good morning and welcome to this week’s Thankful blog post…on Tuesday!  I was traveling all day yesterday so I didn’t have a chance to post my regular Monday morning Thankful post.

Here’s what I’m thankful for today:

1. I’m thankful for a wonderful long weekend in Cape Cod!  I’m grateful that I got to see a new part of the country I’d never visited, got to see where my husband spent his summers as a child, got to visit with family that we don’t see very often, and got to meet new family members.
2. I’m thankful to my in-laws for planning the trip, booking the hotel, renting the car, paying for way too much, and allowing us all to have a nice family vacation together.  They were more than generous on this trip and I’m grateful to them for the whole experience!
3. I’m thankful that our cousin Kimberly found her best friend and soul mate in Matt and that we were able to help them celebrate this weekend.  They both seemed so happy to be joining each others’ families and I am ecstatic for them!  And Kimberly sure knows how to pick them…Matt is a wonderful and funny guy!  They had an amazing and beautiful rehearsal dinner, fabulous wedding complete with ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception, and Sunday brunch at the beautiful Wequassett Resort .  It was a wonderful place to stay and to hold the festivities!  I’m also grateful that Kimberly and Matt gave us the opportunity to help them celebrate their marraige to one another!
4. I’m thankful that I finally got to meet Ben’s Uncle David and Aunt Dee.  They were both so hospitable and nice and shared many pictures and family heirlooms with us when we visited.  I probably learned more about Ben’s extended family in one weekend than I have in the seven and a half years we have been together.  I’m also so very grateful to get to visit with and get to know Ryan, Olya, Marcia, Kimberly, Matt, and all of their friends and family.  Family, friends, and relationships are the most important thing in the world to me, so I’m always grateful for the chance to nurture them and allow them to grow.
5. I’m thankful that we all made it safely to Cape Cod and back despite thunderstorms and winter storms all along the way.  We were lucky that we didn’t run into any terribly slippery roads or extreme weather conditions and I’m also thankful to be home now and see our kitties that we missed so much!

Have a wonderful week!

P.S.  Here’s a picture of Ben and I from the wedding on Saturday!

 

Considering that my job is tied to computers and the internet and my company does a fair share of marketing driven development, I thought this was an interesting infographic posted by lifehack.org:

 

I love dark beers, particularly porters and stouts, however in the summer, its usually just too damn hot to imbibe in them.  If I happen to catch myself out on a relatively cool summer night or come across a rare dark brew that I have been dying to try, I’ll drink it, but I usually stick to lighter beers when the weather’s hot.

I’m not a huge fan of winter as I’ve written before, mostly because I loathe the dark, short days and can’t stand the cold weather.  However, one great thing the cold weather ushers in is my taste for darker beers which also seem to be more widely available in the winter months.

One of my favorite breweries, Terrapin Beer Company, out of Athens, Georgia was recently featured in an episode of one of my favorite shows, The Walking Dead (also filmed in Georgia) and makes one of my favorite dark beers, the seasonal Moo-Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout.  My guess is that Moo-Hoo takes its name from the chocolaty milk beverage called Yoo-hoo due to its smooth, creamy texture and chocolate flavor that comes from the use of cocoa nibs, cocoa shells, and lactose in the brewing process.  In my opinion, Moo-Hoo is a thousand times better than Yoo-hoo ever was, but I am a bit biased seeing as I’ve become quite the beer snob.

Terrapin makes some really amazing beers including Pumpkin Fest, Hopsecutioner IPA, and a number of rare Side Project beers like the Liquid Bliss I wrote about last year.  In addition, they have some of the most creative and entertaining artwork bringing their labels alive!

I recently picked up a 4 pack of Moo-Hoo at the weekly free beer tasting we go to at Market Street Wine Shop.  I’m really looking forward to enjoying this thick, dark beer now that the days are getting colder.  If you are a fan of beer in just the tiniest amount, I highly recommend checking this brew out while its in season!

 

 

For the past six years, I’ve run the Charlottesville Women’s Four Miler, the most popular local race that raises breast cancer awareness and money to support local breast cancer research.  The race is overwhelmingly popular, so much so that it increasingly closes in record times.  Last year, it closed in 10 hours and this year it closed in 5!  I usually set my alarm to wake me up so I can sign up as soon as race registration opens so I can secure a much coveted spot.

This race is especially important to me because it is the race that got me started running.  I’d always been into treadmill running throughout high school and college but let’s face it, treadmill running and outdoor running are just not the same.  Back in the summer of 2008, I joined the Charlottesville Women’s Four Miler Training Program where they taught me everything from how to run properly to how to choose the correct type of running shoe.  Since then, I have run the Four Miler ever Labor Day weekend with my sister-in-law Sarah and many other amazing friends and women.  My sister even ran it unofficially a couple of years ago because she was in town visiting.  I’ve also gone on to complete 2 half marathons, the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in San Francisco and the Yuengling Shamrock Half Marathon in Virginia beach, the Charlottesville Ten Miler (hardest race I ever ran), and many other smaller races since I got my start in the summer of 2008.  I owe my love for the sport of running and my incessantly improving skills to the many people who have organized the training program and the Four Miler.  If it weren’t for them, I may have never found this hobby or shared it with my husband (we run together alot).

I’m so proud of myself and all of the other women out there who run this race every year. This year, the winner of the race even beat the 30 year old record, running the 4 miles in 21:39…AMAZING!  I can’t wait to run this race for many years to come and maybe one day, if I have a daughter or a granddaughter, she might run it with me!

This year, I beat my personal record for the Four Miler coming in at under 42 minutes.  Not bad for a 30 year old!

Here are my stats for the past 6 years:

 

 

Many strange things have been happening lately.

On Friday, a meteor exploded over Russia, an event being described as a “once in a decade” occurrence.  The meteor that damaged hundreds of buildings and injured over 500 people happened on the same day that an asteroid named 2012 DA14 came closer to Earth than our own orbitting communications satellites.

Then on Friday, I heard a loud flushing noise at work and blue fluid erupted from a drain underneath my desk.  The strong-smelling chemical was, according to the facilities manager at work, non-toxic and the result of air being unintentionally pumped into the pipe that connects the outside to this drain.  The blue fluid is a chemical used in place of water (due to its ability to evaporate) to neutralize sewage stench.

Friday night, I went to the grocery store and while I was there for less than 20 minutes, I encountered two separate people (they were not together) who were each missing a leg and walking with the aid of crutches.

Saturday morning, Ben was cooking breakfast and encountered this:

According to Google, the bloody egg was most likely the result of a stressed-out hen breaking a blood vessel as she simultaneously laid her egg causing the blood to become trapped inside the shell.  Unfortunately, Ben decided to eat it anyway.  A friend says the Chinese consider finding one of these good luck since they are extremely rare.

Then, after 9 months of searching endlessly for a house, and a day away from submitting an offer for a piece of land on which we hoped to build, we found the perfect house (for us) in the perfect location (for us).  Of course that perfect house is not ours yet but my fingers are crossed!

The odds of all of these things happening, especially within such a short period of time, seems extremely low.  Needless to say, I’m still waiting for something weird to happen!

Last weekend, our good friends Robert and Crystal invited us to spend the weekend with them at their time share in Washington D.C. .  We stayed at the lovely Wyndham in National Harbor which is just across the Potomac River from our nation’s capital.

The weekend started out Friday night with Robert and Crystal picking us up and heading to dinner at the Bavarian Chef, a delicious German restaurant in Madison.  Bavarian Chef, which is authentic German food in a traditional German atmosphere, complete with the servers dawning lederhosen, used to cater our lunches about once a month when I worked for VGT and their food was always spectacular.  I ordered the Karlsbadener Sahnegoulasch, “a combination of tender pieces of veal, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and fresh cream” with a German style beer.  Both were AMAZING!  After stuffing ourselves, we headed north to DC.  We didn’t get to our hotel until after 11 PM, so we got to bed so we could rest up for a long and exciting day in the capital.

Saturday morning, Ben and I went to the hotel gym for a quick workout while Robert and Crystal attended an owners’ meeting.  After getting showered and dressed, we headed to Ketchup for breakfast and then caught the bus to the city.  It was a beautiful sunny day, but the wind was blowing strong which made for biting cold weather.  At least we had the sun to keep us a little warm.

First, we stopped by the capitol to take pictures.

Ben and I in front of the capitol building

Crystal and Robert

Afterward, we headed to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, where we spent several hours viewing exhibits, artwork, and readings.  The lobby of the museum had this beautiful prism that reflected sunlight into all of the colors of the rainbow.

After touring the museum, we walked to the Washington National Monument which is still closed for repairs due to the earthquake we had back in August 2011.

I wanted to visit the Texas pillar of the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, so we kept on walking.

This sight brought me happiness!

Texas Represent!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We headed back toward where our bus dropped us off and decided to stop into the very crowded Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History to see the Orchids of Latin America Exhibit.  Our next stop was to grab some lunch and then a quick walk around Union Station as we waited for our bus.  Upon arriving back at the hotel, we rested up before walking to Harrington’s Irish Pub & Kitchen for dinner and drinks where Crystal tried (and LOVED) her first Guinness!

After dinner, I had some friends that just happened to be celebrating a birthday at Bobby McKey’s Dueling Piano Bar right across the street from our hotel, so I made the quick walk over to join them.  If you’re ever in National Harbor, I highly recommend checking out Bobby McKey’s and get there early because when I showed up around 10:45, there was standing room only!  The bar was a blast with several piano players singing some mainstream music as well as familiar tunes with their own creative lyrics.  They did an amazing 1980s-1990s rendition of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire” and a pretty hilarious version of “Hey There Delila”.  Toward the end of the night, what I assume to be a very drunk patron bought a round of shots for the ENTIRE bar!  I will definitely be revisiting Bobby McKey’s in the future!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I finally got back to the hotel around 2:30 AM and was exhausted from the full day of friends and tourism so I crashed right away! Sunday morning, we checked out of the hotel and had breakfast at a cute little diner in Old Town Alexandria.  After filling our tummies, we drove to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport.  This was by far the largest and most comprehensive collection of air and space memorabilia I have ever seen!  My favorite parts were the Discovery Space Shuttle and the Flight Simulator that we got to ride in.

A view of just a few of the historical airplanes that the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center has on display.

The flight simulator that we got to control/ride in.

It was an awesome trip and a very full weekend and we can’t thank Robert and Crystal enough for their hospitality, generosity, and friendship!  I can’t wait to go back and see even more!

Good morning and happy February!   Can you believe we are already in the second month of 2013?!?!  It seems like January flew by!

Here’s what I’m thankful for this week:

1. I’m thankful for an invitation to a Super Bowl party last night that gave me the opportunity to spend time with new and old friends!
2. I’m thankful for a mother-in-law Virginia Mom who is so crafty and planned a day with family to make Valentine’s Day Houses!  It was tasty, fun, and best of all, I got to be crafty with my family!
3. I’m thankful for a husband that enjoys running with me (and motivates me to keep from quitting).  Yesterday morning we ran 9 miles in preparation for the Charlottesville Ten Miler in March!
4. I’m thankful for the opportunity to get to spend time with so many good friends and family last week (running with Becky and Ben on Sunday, restaurant week  with Kristen, Tim, and Ben on Wednesday, dinner with Ashley and Dana on Thursday, Shopping with Sarah on Saturday, making Valentine’s Day houses with Peter, Phyllis, Ben, Robin, Sarah, Abby, and Elise on Sunday, and James’ Super Bowl party last night with lots of new friends and Kelly and Marian who I miss so much).  My life is certainly rich because of the wonderful people who are in it!
5. I’m thankful that for the past couple of weeks, I’ve finally started to feel like my happy self again with less anxiety and worry and more happiness and joy.  Maybe these posts are helping!  🙂

Good morning!  Welcome to this week’s thankful Monday blog post!

Today, I am thankful for the following:

1. I’m thankful for the fit body and sufficient health that allowed me to run 8 miles and walk another yesterday morning with my husband and a new friend.  We are all training for the Charlottesville 10 Miler this spring and we had a great training run!
2. I am thankful for the various free educational opportunities out on the web.  I’ve been taking online courses, lectures, and seminars from Code Academy, Coursera, and I Will Teach You To Be Rich since the new year started and I am learning so much valuable information as well as building my experience base, and it’s all FREE!
3. I am thankful for birthdays because they give us an excuse to celebrate and a chance to come together with new and old friends.
   

   Thursday night at the Melting Pot celebrating Kristen’s birthday with friends!

4. I’m thankful for Netflix and Comcast On Demand that allow me to escape my worries and stress temporarily at the drop of a hat by having thousands of movies available.  This weekend, I watched Total Recall, The Switch, Man of the House, and Insidious.
5. I’m thankful for the fresh start to do better and live fuller that Monday brings us each week!

Have a great week!

Saturday, my friends Sarah and Amy and I decided to have a girls/craft day!  Most of the crafts I’ve been wanting to do are household related and since Ben and I STILL HAVE NOT found a house, those will all have to wait.  So I decided to go with something that I could enjoy immediately… jewelry!

Ever since my sister was making jewelry and beading back in high school, I’ve wanted to try it.  She always made such pretty things that were very similar to items in the store that cost lots of money.  So I decided I’d make a very simple beaded bracelet.  We headed to Joann Fabrics for crafting supplies where I decided to go with copper wire and turquoise beads.

While Sarah worked on her amazing curtains and Amy created beautiful artwork for her home, I meticulously added bead by bead to my copper wire in a nice and organized pattern.  I was very happy with the result and think I’d like to keep learning and crafting jewelry   The finished product looks like this:

Can’t wait to make my next work of art!