Freaky Food

I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. My stomach was hurting, and I couldn’t see, but tried to keep my eyes clear so I could read more. Every time I think of the miracle Urkel-O’s, it starts over again. Steve, Don’t Eat It! is hysterical, though if you are faint of heart you might want to be careful. And also? Warning: Language. It sort of reminded me of the Weight Watchers Cards which sort of circulated around a few years ago, but is worth a look at again. I love the warning for the bad little mushrooms, the obessive disorder meal and the magical pond. Sigh. So funny. What else is work “lunchtime” for if not to look and laugh at freakish foods?

Funiculars

I love finding these web museums of sorts and can spend hours looking at the home on the web for Drive-in Movie Theaters, or Abandoned buildings in Indiana. But this is my newest love is reserved for funiculars. Tim and I didn’t ride up the one in Montmartre in Paris, we toughed it out with the stairs up to the top of Sacre Coeur. But I did ride up this one in Pittsburgh on a freezing night with Pilar, Suzy, Joann and Newman.

Good times.

Its a Family Name

Must. Not. Let week go by without posting. In small news, I’m are work, on a “break” Friday mid morning. The weekend with all its possibilities looms large. In big news, Tim and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. It went fast, but also seems like it was so long ago. I can’t remember if the first year is supposed to be the hardest or the easiest. Anyway, it hasn’t been hard, but maybe because we had already lived together and bought a house together. It has been a wonderful year, and I can’t wait for what is in store in the future.

To celebrate our 1 year, we headed out to Sea World here in San Antonio. Tim has been wanting to go since we moved here, and it was on my list of things to do. The weather has finally cooled off a little tiny bit, so seemed like the perfect time to go. We had a blast. I love rollercoasters. The higher, loopier, faster, bumpier the better. I will scream like a little girl, and laugh uncontrollably. Nothing like making loops with tears running down your face. We also watched some of the shows, fed some birds (Tim got pooped on), petted and fed dolphins, saw a tropical fish feeding, saw some clydesdales, rode the empty moving walkway along the penguin path, didn’t get really all that wet in the water rides (thankfully), and wound up with having dinner with Shamu. Right next to a deep pool, we were treated to a buffet and ate while 4 killer whales played next to us. The trainers talked to us a little bit and learned that there isn’t just one Shamu…its a family name.

I am working on getting my holiday quilts done before the holidays. I’ve got two down and am in progress on other ones. I love looking at quilt books, websites and magazines…but I really don’t have any time to start any more projects. After I finish the holiday four, I have a few others conceputally lined up, and have the three I still need to finish. Recently I have started to feel a little like an outsider in my monthly quilting group as one of the few young people and seemingly the only non Bush supporter. Therefore it has been nice to come across a few quilt blogs of young women who are into quilting (and also oddly enough home improvement and book groups).

• Hip to Piece Squares
• Material Girl
• All Too Quilty

We have most of our halloween decorations up, but need to put the Grim Reaper back together, he needs a little repair. And almost time to buy our pumpkins! I love Halloween. Also finished (and have updated the book post…check it out) Middlesex, which was the SG Book Club pick for October. It was great. Really great. I started the November pick already…Locust. So far, so good…pretty interesting. Also back on my bike after a break in September…my goal is two rides a week through the fall/winter. It is still int he 90s here, so trying to do morning rides for a few more weeks!

Far Flung Friends

Check it out. The Snotty Girls Book Club is official. Sort of. We are deep into our October book, Middlesex and unanimously loving it. I don’t know why we waited so long, or thought it was going to be crappy. It isn’t, it is wonderful and has sucked us in. You can check out more about the SGBC and my co-founder at the official site.

Speaking of far flung…if you haven’t already, check out Amy’s travel blog too. She has just spent a few weeks in Peru and is getting ready shortly to move on. She will be traveling up to the winter holidays and then hit the road again. But let her tell her own story…she is good at it, and there are lots of beautiful pictures!

101 Tasks 1001 Days

101 Tasks 1001 Days…
Begin:
September 14th, 2004

Travel to
1. Mexico, if only for the day
2. Vegas, preferably with SLIS gang
3. Go camping
4. Austin (completed 11/13/05)
5. A fair or festival in nearby town (completed 10/28/05, attended the International Quilt Festival in Houston)
6. Outside the country again (completed 8/27/05-9/10/05 to Ireland and Scotland)

Cook
7. Bake a pie from scratch (completed 11/25/05>
8. Cook a whole fish (might have to come up with a replacement for this one….)
9. Bake a loaf of bread (completed 10/9/05)
10. Make chicken soup from scratch (completed 12/23 – 12/24/05)
11. Make pasta with homemade sauce
12. One recipe from each cookbook I own (started 10/01/04, see Cookbook blog post for details)
13. A cake (completed 10/31/06, made a Kitty Litter Cake)

Exercise
14. Ride Bike 1x week for at least 6 mo. (started 3/25/05, completed 9/30/05 more or less)
15. Exercise 3x week for at least 6 mo. (started 3/14/05, completed 9/30/05 more or less)
16. Ride with SA Wheelmen
17. Play 9 holes of golf
18. Do a charity walk

San Antonio
19. Visit and learn at the San Antonio Botanic Gardens (completed Oct 06)
20. Visit all the San Antonio Missions (completed 12/27/2004 and 12/28/2004 with my family)
21. Go to a Missions Baseball game (completed 4/9/05)
22. Place a bet at Retama
23. Go to SeaWorld (completed 10/17/04)
24. Go to San Antonio Zoo (completed 2/13/05)
25. Check out a Fiesta event other than Oyster Bake (completed 4/17/05, attended Fiesta Arts Fair)
26. Spend afternoon at San Antonio Museum of Art

Around the House
27. Paint office (completed 11/26/04)
28. Replace hinges (completed by Tim 4/15/06)
29. Create collage from Paris souvenirs
30. Paint garage walls
31. Clean and buff garage floor
32. Paint eaves of house (completed 1/2/06, painted entire outside of house!)
33. Reorganize bedroom closet (completed 4/19/05, painted and reorganized. May need some plastic tubs for seldom used wool sweaters still.)
34. Sharpen knives (completed 4/1/05)
35. Organize breakfast area desk drawers
36. Attack, simplify and purge filing cabinet (completed 6/4/05)
37. Check out how to change your name on the house
38. Frame picture of grandpa
39. Change name on cable bill (completed 7/3/06)
40. Play Bocce in our back yard
41. Repot plants (completed 9/18/04)
42. Frame Estes Park, Rocky Mountain National Park prints
43. Hang towel holder in bathroom (completed 12/22/2004)
44. Replace faucet in guest bathroom (completed 12/15/2004)
45. Hang b/w wedding photos

Purchase
46. New car (completed 8/9/05)
47. Spend Pottery Barn gift certificate (completed 9/18/04)
48. New sewing machine (completed 9/14/04)
49. Sheet pans (completed)
50. Something impulsively (completed 10/23/05, bought a Peeps Halloween purple cat plush pillow, that I can’t find a pic of online)
51. TV (completed 11/21/04)
52. Peridot ring (completed 8/4/06, in Birmingham, MI)
53. Earrings for yourself (completed 7/2/05)
54. An original piece of art
55. Multi-purpose black purse (completed 10/23/05)
56. Something at a flea market
57. Something at a garage sale (completed 3/19/05. Purchased two books, Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, and an old school Arts and Crafts guide for school teachers, for a buck)
58. an Atlas (completed 6/26/05)
59. Cycling shoes (completed 6/8/06 as a gift from my parents. Thanks!)

Read, Listen and Watch
60. Go see live music (completed 5/3/05, saw Razorlight and Muse)
61. Read To the Lighthouse by Woolf (completed 10/20/04)
62. Join a book group, even for one month (completed 3/15/06, attending at my local branch library)
63. Attend a book reading (completed 4/14/05, for Around the Bloc)
64. Read one sci-fi book (completed 6/30/06, Read Ender’s Game, recommended by Tim
65. Read something by Rushdie
66. Watch Casablanca (completed 10/01/04)
67. Read a book about Irish history

Learn, See and Do
68. Have a craft day at our house (completed 5/26/06, and it was so much fun!)
69. Volunteer at the Bexar County Humane Society
70. Meet at least 1 more neighbor
71. Take a knitting class (completed 6/15/05)
72. Start a retirement fund (completed 11/17/05 with a 457)
73. Touch up paint on Honda (completed 10/03/04)
74. Find 2 drinks to order out
75. Figure out what to do with pink pants
76. Go to a driving range across the street
77. Play tennis with Tim (completed 10/23/05, in the wind!)
78. Smack ‘em at the batting cages (completed 12/11/04)
79. Do some financial research
80. Send a care package to someone in need (completed 10/3/05, sent several smaller packages instead of one big one)
81. Attend an event at the library (completed 9/17/05 attending a knitting and crochet event)
82. Play putt-putt (completed 12/11/04) And I won! Beating out three other people.
83. Make something for Robert (completed 10/26/04)
84. Put book list on web (completed 9/20/04)
85. Put this list on the web (completed 9/16/04)
86. Update blog once a week for one month (completed late October 04)
87. No TV for one week
88. Learn 10 Russian phrases and how to count to 10 in Russian (complete 7/6/05)
89. Clean out clothes, donate old ones (completed 3/19/05)
90. Organize wedding materials, notebook and leftover stuff (completed 9/28/04)
91. Have wedding dress cleaned (completed 5/6/05)

Appointments
92. Visit the dentist
93. Go to dermatologist re: one red cheek (completed 5/11/05)
94. Oil change for Honda(completed 11/30/04)

Quilting
95. Sell a quilt (completed 12/18/05)
96. Finish 4 holiday gift quilts (Technically completed 12/07/04 with the washing, but the sewing has been completed for some time.)
97. Finish 3 quilts (tops are done)(completed 4/2/05)
98. Make a “horizons” quilt
99. Finish BOM quilt (completed 3/6/05)
100. Make a quilt for bedroom (completed 5/19/05)
101. 2 mini-quilts (completed 10/22/04)

@ the List

101 Tasks in 1001 days was an idea blatently stolen from other blogs that I have run across lately. As a total dork list maker, I loved the idea. The idea is to come up with 101 unambiguous tasks that could be reasonably completed in the allowed 1001 day time frame. Some are silly, some are serious, some are easy, while others are challenging. It was hard to come up with just the right mix, but after some consulting and discussions with family, Tim, Ashley and Regina the list is finished AND posted (see previous post for the actual list)! Its been fun so far, and I hope will continue to be fun. Or else I will have to add that to the list. 102. Have fun with list.

And I am so excited to have just chatted briefly with Amy who has begun her travels and is currently in Peru! I love instant messenger. I hope she continues to have a great time…we are thinking about her and wish her the best.

Today

So far I haven’t done anything really special to remember September 11th. I taught two classes today which always keeps me busy. As a cnn.com junkie, I went there first this morning and spent some time reading retrospectives and information about today’s remberance events. And while I hadn’t been there in a long time, I also visited websites like The Setpember 11th Digital Archiveand The September 11th Web Archive today to see how they have evolved as September 11th web information depositories in the past year. But it all seemed like research. Even reading the events from the cnn website that were taking place in NY, PA and D.C. all seem so far away from here.

So durning lunch I went back and read one personal account that I have come across that makes it all seem not so far away. Take a moment and check it out, but you have been warned, the essay is not graphic in terms of content, but the language used is. It is from the Tomato Nation website, run by a chick named Sarah who updates about every week.

Take care everyone.

Googly Eyes

Guten Tag

Greetings fellow web surfers. I am writing tonight to just say ‘Thank You’ to all the people out there who come visit our site, interact and make our lives fun. It’s nice to see people’s messages and comments on our site after their visit, it gives us a great sense of satisfaction.

We are in the midst of packing up all our worldy materials, setting up movers for the big day, making sure all the finances are in order, and just being excited about taking this huge step in our relationship and our lives.

We will continue to bring you news from down here in Texas and invite you to also utilize the bulletin board on this site to post little tidbits about your lives so we and all our readers also have an idea of whats going on in your small part of this big world.

I am reading a great book about Albert Camus’ life at the moment and have been thinking about how intelligent people evolve. It seems to me that by thinking and interacting and challenging other intelligent people around them, the smart individuals end up stimulating their own intellect. This is what I want to continue to do as I age, stimulate my intellect and continue to grow and challenge the ideals established in our society and world. There is no better way of doing that then having discussions about important and sometimes not-so-important aspects of all our lives. What better venue than the Web!!

Therefore I invite you to participate at your leisure in sarah’s tim’s discussion board and soon to be e-magazine. We will take all authors and hope to spark some good conversations, good laughs and good times. Thanks and enjoy.