You mess with the bull...You get the horns

Or should I say "You mess with the pregnant lady... you get full-on bitch"? I'm so glad I have my blog to vent to right now. Let me set the stage: I have to park in a parking garage for work. The smoking area for the entire building is on the floor where I park so I have to walk past it every time I enter the building. Most of the time the smokers are on a bench a few feet away, but today it's really windy so two dub-T (white trash) middle-aged women (well, I say middle-aged, but Ann Richards looked like she was 105 when she was 60) were smoking right in front of the elevators so there was no way I could avoid them. I pushed the button to call the elevator and I'm highly agitated with the situation because I'm breathing in all of their second-hand smoke. How do address this? Do I bite my lip? Do I ask them to move? The fury was building inside me. Then I tell myself to be nice and settle down because these people obviously don't know where they're not supposed to be standing. I turned toward them and said in the nicest voice I could muster I said, "Would you ladies mind smoking on the benches? I'm pregnant and would rather not breathe in the fumes". There - that wasn't abrasive. That wasn't so bad. And for a split second I was proud of the way I voiced myself like a mature adult.

But that's where the maturity stopped. You know that scene in The Exorcist where Linda Blair's head spins around and her eyes are glowing yellow? They looked just like that. My words were like holy water hitting their nicotine-possessed bodies. So now I'm mad. I'm mad that these women are 1) looking at me like I'm the crazy one and 2) they're not moving. Just as my elevator arrived and before I could stop myself, the following came out of my mouth: "And you know what else?!!! I don't want to STINK!! I don't want to SMELL LIKE YOU!!!" What? Am I five years old? I don't want "to smell like you"? Nice. I was so articulate that I'm surprised I didn't add a "nanny nanny boo-boo, stick your head in doo-doo" to the end of it as I ran onto the elevator.

Moral of the story: I am a walking hormonal time bomb so don't make me nuts, because I will shame you. That's right - shame you.

P.S. - Merry Christmas, everyone! I'll be posting a joyous Christmas greeting once I download pictures!!

The Halfway Mark

Tomorrow, I will be officially be to the halfway mark of my pregnancy! It's gone by faster than I thought it would, but May 9 feels like it will never be here. I have been looking forward to this week for months since I knew that Week 20 would be the week that they would do "the big sonogram" where they confirm gender. Lee and I got to see out little dumpling on Monday and it was so much fun. She was moving around a lot. They measured the size of her head and chest and looked at her heart, stomach, kidneys, and brain. She's all the right size so that's good news. She's 0.77 pounds which is about 12 ounces. Here she is...

In the top picture, you can really see her spine, which is the white horizontal line. Her head is on the left side. The bottom picture is a picture of her butt. That's what they tell me at least. Because really, it could be her brain and I'd just have to trust them. They were looking for a stem on the apple, but the absence of one leads them to think with 95% confidence that it's a girl. Being an engineer, I don't like to leave the door open that there's a 5% chance I could paint the room the wrong color. We're going to have a 3D sonogram in nine weeks and at that point they'll look for the bell clanger again. If there's no hot dog in the bun, then Ellie it is. However, if a third leg is present, all bets are off. These are all sophisticated terms we will use in lieu of the word "penis" when our child gets here.

This sonogram calmed many of my fears. Most of these fears come from watching way too many Discovery Health programs. Due to my preoccupation with shows on midgets and transgendered people, I was afraid that I was going to have a transgendered midget. In 20 years, I did not want to be the subject of a special where they interview my daughter who is 2'6" has a beard and calls herself Larry. She's totally getting sold to the circus if that happens. You know what else I watch too much of? Oprah. The other day they had this story about this girl who was 9 months pregnant and this other woman was pretending to be pregnant by wearing maternity clothes and a faux belly so she could steal the pregnant girl's baby. So you're thinking I'm afraid that someone is going to steal my baby right? No. Before I was showing or felt the baby kick, I was afraid that I was the crazy one who was not really pregnant and I was going to have to steal a baby to cover my trail of lies. I've never stolen anything before so why would I start with a baby? I have no clue, but I've come to the conclusion I need to stop watching TV all together.

I felt that!

I've been working on a blog from this weekend, but I'm so slammed at work (day trip to Austin yesterday and big deadline Friday) that I just can't find time to finish it. But... I wanted to tell everyone my exciting news - I felt my little one kick for the first time today! I was sitting in a meeting and it felt like someone flicked me in the stomach. I wrote it off and then felt the exact same flicking in the same spot another three times in a row. She's 19 weeks today so I think she's letting me know she's in there! We have our big sonogram on Monday and I'm SO EXCITED to see her again. I've been counting down the days. I'll post pictures ASAP.

Pregnant, Pregnanter, Pregnantist

This weekend, I hung out with pregnant people. Well, okay - not all of them were pregnant. Anne Marie had a really beautiful baby shower at Jennifer's house in Houston on Saturday so Meg and I flew down to join in the fun. Debbie was nice enough to pick all of us up and cart us around for the day. I really like this picture on the left because it shows me at 18 weeks, Anne Marie at 28 weeks and Sarah at 38 weeks. We're all 10 weeks apart. I'm all "Sure! I'll take a picture!" now, but I'm waiting to see how I'll feel about being photographed in about 8 more weeks. It was interesting to go shopping for Anne Marie's gift because I had really never looked at baby items before. There are 10 different kinds of bottle warmers, bottles, walkers, high chairs, strollers, car seats... I don't know how I'm going to make my way through the sea of endless baby products whenever we have to register. I say "we", but I'm not sure how much input Lee will have on breast pumps.


Since we don't have many weddings left, I always cherish the time I get to spend with my college girlfriends (we missed you Kristine and Jenny!). It's strange to think that the same people I used to shotgun beer with and get random body parts pierced with are now having children. Since I was just there for the afternoon, Lee picked me that evening and took me out for dinner. He's spent all day working at the house and surprised me with some new Christmas decorations from Crate and Barrel.

On Sunday, we attended a brunch and finally took our Christmas card photo. I'm not going to give anything away, but I'm wearing the same dress in the photos above so act surprised when you rip open the card. My wardrobe is limited since Baby B has come on the scene so I have to work with what I've got. I'll be so glad when I don't have to come up with a Christmas card pose next year and Ellie can be the subject of our holiday mailings. Because really, after she's born, nobody is going to be interested in seeing us anymore. After the brunch, we headed out to purchase our 2006 Christmas tree. I love Christmas, but decorating is sort of a pain in the butt. I don't have that many decorations, but I know I'll slowly be collecting more as the years pass.

I'll leave you with a parting shot because this made me laugh this morning. Every Sunday is laundry day at the Bright house. Trudie loves to sleep in piles of our dirty clothes - I think that's weird, but whatever floats her boat. She likes laundry day because that means there are ready-made dog beds all over the floor. This morning, after I separated whites and darks, I threw all of the clothes back in the basket instead of piling them on the floor. I walked out of the bathroom to see this:


I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't actually seen it. She usually can't find her way out of a paper sack, but she managed to crawl into the laundry basket to take a nap. She was bound and determined to sleep in the clothes. I'm impressed with her skills because that dog can make a bed out of anything.

My Own Wisteria Lane

I wasn’t planning on blogging again until next Sunday, but Monday was sort of crazy. Actually, it wasn’t crazy until after I finished teaching aerobics at 7:30. I got home and found Lee resting on the sofa looking a little disheveled. He told me he’d had a good day but he’d had a “rough night”. Since he’d gotten home at 6pm, I was interested in what had gone awry in an hour and a half. According to Lee, he took all three dogs outside when he got home. The two big dogs went out to eat and Trudie went out to use the ladies room. In the middle of all of this, Lee received a phone call from a client so he had to go back inside to use the computer. Twenty minutes later he realized that he’d brought the two big dogs in but had left Trudie outside. He immediately went out to get her, but Trudie was not there.

There are two big problems with this situation – 1. Trudie can’t see and 2. she can’t hear so if you call her, she’s not going to come running. I can only picture Lee, flashlight in tow, running up and down our street and back alley screaming her name all the while trying to figure out how he’s going to tell me he lost my highly-immobile elderly dog that I am admittedly very weird about. He finally found her 15 minutes later in a bush, still in our backyard. Crisis averted, but I’m quite sure he’s never been so glad to see those little white eyes and hairless butt caused by a recent skin allergy.

Then weird thing #2 happened. Living in a big city, I pretty much never know anyone in the news. I got in bed to watch the ten o’clock broadcast when they went into this story about a murder-for-hire scheme where this man had hired someone to kill his 8-months pregnant wife. Then they flashed up a picture of the guy and I knew him. I was stunned. I’ve known Al for five years because I teach aerobics with him. I have a conversation with him every Tuesday night since he teaches the kickboxing class after my step class. In fact, he teaches the most well-attended class at the gym. I guess it won’t be now. I wouldn’t say I know him well, but if I called him, he’d know who I was. Allegedly, he hired someone he knew to break into his house and kill his wife while he was out of town. The guy broke into the house, but instead of killing Al’s wife, he told her Al’s plan. She’s fine and living with family. Al is now charged with two counts of criminal solicitation of capital murder – one for his wife and one for his unborn child.

It just goes to show you that you never know what’s going on in other people’s heads even though they appear seemingly normal. What strange thoughts are running through our co-workers’ heads? Our neighbors’ heads? What drove Al to do this? We may never know but if I had to guess, I’d bet Al hired a man to kill his wife because she lost his blind/deaf dog.

O Happy Day!

Let's start with the important stuff. Over the weekend, I took a minute to reflect and think about all of the things I am thankful for. I have a wonderful husband, a great family, and we are so lucky to be expecting a baby. But most of all, I am thankful that the AGGIES beat the longhorns!!!!!! I have been on cloud nine for the past two days. Finally the my Aggies stuck it to t.u. where it hurts - at home on Senior Day. I was still a little nervous that they'd back door their way into the Big 12 Championship if Oklahoma lost, but the Sooners won and now Texas will be sitting at home next weekend. I love it. L-O-V-E I-T.

Aaahhhh. Enough ranting and in-your-facing. A four-day weekend... what could be better? This blog was actually a little hard to write because all of the days have blurred into one long day with extended nap times. We started the weekend on Thursday by attending Thanksgiving festivities at Mom and Dad's house. All of the Brights and the Rogers were there. David and Lissa stopped by to have dessert with us. Usually, nothing says the holidays like turkey, dressing, two bottles of wine and occasional prescription medication usage, but not this year. I love my family and gladly gave up alcohol during my pregnancy, but will truly miss my happy-place maker during the holidays. I'llleave it at that.

Friday I watched my Aggies lay it down and then Lee and I went out to eat and saw For Your Consideration, the new Christopher Guest movie. We love Spinal Tap, Best In Show, and all of the others, but this one just wasn't funny.

On Saturday, hell froze over and Lee bottled the wine. This is big news. My living room is carboy free and I am so happy. It was an all-day process for him. He had to sterilize and sanitize the bottles, fill each one of them, and then cork them. I helped with the corking. The wine is still a little young so it needs some more time in the bottles. We'll see in a year. While he was doing the tough part, I stayed inside and took care of my sudden urge to bake by making some White Chocolate Cranberry Loaves. Very yummy if you're looking for a bread recipe. That night we watched USC and Notre Dame. I was pulling for the Catholics, but it just didn't work out for them.

I did hit the malls with my mom on Sunday, but we only bought things for ourselves because thankfully, I am 90% finished with all of my Christmas shopping. I think one more weekend should cover it. What made this shopping trip even better was that my hubby had cleaned the whole house by the time I got home. He's the best. I will leave you with a parting shot. It's all of our wine bottled and ready for labels!

And Introducing...

I would like for everyone to meet...

Marley.

NO - We did not get another dog. Three's company, four would make our house a dog ranch. This dog is Lee's sister's dog. Elizabeth was given a boxer puppy by her boyfriend for her birthday two weeks ago. She's really cute, but WOW - I always forget how much I appreciate older dogs until a puppy comes along. She looks cute posed in the picture above, but this is how she looks to Morgan, Lucy, and Trudie just before she attacks:

Our poor dogs have no clue what is going on when she comes over. Lucy just stands there looking at her with moderate amusement, but Morgan thinks that she's done something bad and this is how we're reprimanding her. Marley will run up to her growling and "boxing", and Morgan will stand there taking her puppy punishment with her tail between her legs. And poor Trudie - we just have to pick her up because Marley is no match for her. She'd much rather spend her Sundays as she did today... dog free watching Tivoed Oprahs on the couch. Oh wait - that's me.

Santa Fe

Since Lee and I only have six more months to be "just the two of us", we decided to spend a little QT (quality time) together and head out west to Santa Fe last weekend. I'll get to the rock on the left in a minute. Normally, I wouldn't include details of the flight to our destination, but this journey warrants a brief discussion. Since Southwest is having so many great deals, we flew to Albuquerque, NM. We were in Boarding Group B so we had decent seats (I was nestled between a nice old man who wanted to sleep and my hubby), but 30 minutes into our flight, we were told that due to a "strange noise", we would have to go back to the airport. I called "same seats" to the aircraft, but nobody listened to me. So we fly back, get off the plane, get onto another plane and Kevin Federline sits down next to me. Only this K-Fed wannabe smelled like a mix of bong water, armpits, beef jerky, and Corn Nuts. Well, who knows, the real K-Fed may smell like that too. Why me? Every time he moved, the smell wafted toward me and I had to choke down a little vomit. I wanted reenact the Jodie Foster Silence of the Lambs autopsy scene and stick some Vicks Vaporub under my nose to mask the smell, but I had none due to the liquids ban.

Eventually we made it there, rented a car and made our way to Santa Fe. We stayed at the Territorial Inn and Spa and ate dinner that night at Il Piatto. Great Italian food. The next morning, we did the tourist thing and saw St. Francis Cathedral, Loretto Chapel, and the Georgia O'Keefe Museum. We also hit some of the shops around Santa Fe Plaza and topped it off with lunch at The Shed. I was worn out, so that afternoon we just wondered around a little and then sat at the bar at the Inn of the Anasazi. That's where we had dinner that night.


On Saturday, we got up early and saw the cliff dwellings at Bandelier National Monument. It was pretty interesting, but I didn't climb up into any of the caves because I was afraid of falling off a ladder or something. Pregnancy has made me clumsy - I constantly drop things now. I was in CVS on Saturday and ran into two racks while trying to walk a straight line. Another strange side effect - when I try to hand people things, I let go too early and I wind up throwing it at them. It's really weird. So if I am handing you something, either 1) think fast or 2) duck. Back to my story... that afternoon, we went to Canyon Road where all of the art galleries are and there are a LOT. We found a Jamie Kirkland painting that we really liked, but we're still trying to decide if we want to take the jump. We had dinner that night at the Pink Adobe, a Santa Fe landmark. It was good for drinks (according to Lee), but dinner was blah.



On Sunday, we packed it up and headed back to Albuquerque because Lee wanted to see the Petroglyphs (or rocks as I like to call them). As we entered Petroglyph National Monument, I prepared myself to be underwhelmed. If you're unfamiliar with the PNM, as I was, it's a collection of "rock drawings" made by ancient peoples. However, upon inspection of the petroglyphs, I was uncertain that all of the drawings were made by ancient peoples since I'm pretty sure that neither the anarchy symbol nor a drawing of an extended middle finger were ancient symbols used by them. I'm sure some of them were legit, but you know what I say - you've seen one ancient dog petroglyph, you've seen them all. Just kidding, honey - I loved the rocks.

I'm almost ashamed to tell you what happened next. As many of you know, I've had the easiest pregnancy in history up to this point. I haven't been sick, I'm still teaching aerobics with great gusto, and I feel outstanding. We got to the airport, checked in for our flight two hours early, and for our efforts we were awarded Boarding Group C. Lee cannot deal with the news and has a meltdown at the ticket counter (sadly, this is not the embarrassing part of this story). Let's put it this way - Grey's Anatomy has McSteamy and McDreamy, and I have McPantiesinawad. McPantiesinawad and I go to the gate to await our Boarding Group C fate. At this point, McPantiesinawad says "I want you to try and fix this". I got up, walked up to to the agent at the gate, told her that I was having uncontrollable morning sickness and she handed me an early boarding card. When it came time to board, four people got on early: a 95 year-old woman in a wheelchair, an eight year-old traveling by herself, McPantiesinawad, and me. I've reached a new low point. Whoever said "getting there is half the fun" never traveled with us.

That was our Santa Fe trip.

Hey Baby!

Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged. I know I've really disappointed my fans, fellow bloggers, and the blogging community. So let's see what's been going on... we're still making wine, I got my haircut last week, the Aggies are 8-2, and... we're having a baby!! Very exciting. I am 14 weeks pregnant and we're due May 9. Preliminary data is suggesting a girl. I'm not very girly, but I'm going to try to fake it with her. I actually conceived the day before the Justin Timberlake concert (we think) so the good vibrations of Sexy Back must have locked it in. Here's a shot of the most beautiful baby in the world:

Can you see her waving? She's already a daddy's girl. I think she's beautiful. Lee and I saw two arms, two legs, and ten fingers. We didn't see ten toes because her feet were to the side, but if she's like Kate Hudson and has 6 toes, I'll be fine. You can see her head on the left and her leg on the right. This was the first of three shots we took. While I was laying on the table, the doctor got a funny look on his face and said "I think there's something you need to see". The following image came up on the screen:

She was doing math. And not just your crappy "2+2" addition - she attempting some pretty complex calculus including but not limited to Laplace Transformations, areas under a standard normal curve, and measurements of three-dimensional volumes. The doctor had never seen anything like it. We listened and heard her heartbeat and heard the following:

My girl was speaking Latin. I almost cried. The doctor didn't come right out and tell me she was a genius, but I can read between the lines. I have a couple of other shots of her reciting the first 50 decimal places of Pi and finding the cure for cancer, but you get the idea.

My goal is to start giving everyone weekly updates, but don't expect any belly shots. Really my weekly updates will be pretty boring because *thank God* this whole thing has been pretty easy on me. No morning sickness, no weird cravings... it' been pretty good. Our next sonogram is at Week 20 so that's just 6 weeks away! I can't wait to see my baby again. I'm going to try to blog again this weekend. We went to Santa Fe last weekend so I hope to have some pictures up soon.

Two weekends are better than one

We've been out of town for the last two weekends so I'm doing double duty. I'll start with last weekend...

Rollin' on the River:

What a fun weekend! I got to see all of my college girlfriends when we went toobing on the Comal River in New Branufels. For those folk who don't know what toobing is, you getcha an innertube, you get yer cooler of beer an innertube, and you float down the river with your cooler of beer. It's way more fun than it sounds, I promise. We were there celebrating my friend Meg's 30th birthday and her sister Molly's bachelorette party. I drove down after work on Friday and met the girls at our condo. We floated on Saturday. In addition to my group of friends being there, my company was having our "Texas Picnic" on the river the same weekend. Hold that thought.

About five minutes into our river misadventure, there was some drama on the high seas. We went through the "toob chute" (it is what it sounds like - lots of rushing water ejecting you into the river) and I flipped over. I lost everything I owned and was wearing. This included but was not limited to: my innertube, my swimsuit top, my sunglasses, my hat, and my beer in its commemorative koozie. So basically, I'm in the middle of a river with a swimsuit bottom on. To make matters worse, I couldn't get back up to the surface because people kept running me over. I'm a pretty strong swimmer so I wasn't freaking out about drowning - I was freaking out about the possibility of the "Texas Picnic" group seeing me topless and earning the nickname "Tits McGee" or "Nips" around the office. Because that's the kind of stuff that happens to me. Long story short - the picnic group was on a different river, the Guadalupe, and there was no chance of them seeing me in my waist-up birthday suit. After recovering my top, I was able to grab hold of my hat and scrounged up somebody else's tube. I was down a pair of sunglasses, but if that's all I lost, then it was okay.

After our river adventure, we had dinner at the Gristmill in Gruene (pronounced Green) and then saw Cooder Graw at Gruene Hall. Now that I'm writing the story out, I'm a tad embarrassed that I paid $10 to watch a man named "Cooder" sing. Anyway, lots of fun and we drove back to Dallas on Sunday... but not before I had a flat tire on I-35. Luckily, Jenny was following me and I have great roadside assistance so it wasn't a huge deal, but it did turn our three-hour tour into a six hour tour. On top of that Lee was in Chattanooga for the weekend and got stranded there overnight. So neither on of us had great travel luck that weekend.

Ben's Graduation Weekend:

The rumors are true:

Ol' Ben is a college graduate. This means he has to get a job. ARE YOU READING THIS, BEN? Rumors are he's moving to Dallas. We drove to Tyler on Friday night with our four dogs. No, you didn't misread that. Lee and I are taking care of Mom and Dad's dog, Abbey right now. From this experience, I've come to adopt a general rule: if you have so many dogs that you have to count them to make sure you've got them all, you've probably got to many. Anyway, we went to Ben's graduation with the family (Dora and Judy made it in from Chattanooga) and then went to dinner. We mostly goofed around on Saturday and ate way too much. This summer has not been good on my waistline.

So that was my two weekends. It's supposed to be over 100 for the rest of the week. Even by Texas standards, it's been miserably hot. Our house won't cool down so we just sweat. Hope everyone else is cooler than we are!

Barrel of laughs

Oh it's on. Have barrel, will make Big Dog Pile.



We receive the barrel yesterday. It looks bigger in the picture than it actually is. It only holds 5 gallons so that makes it about 18-inches tall. We're not going to put our Lucy Dog Cab in there since we used the oak chips that came with our kit on the first batch. Lee is thinking that we'll make a Chardonnay next and put it in the oak cask. Funny - if you'd asked me a year ago if I thought I'd ever be a barrel owner, I probably would have said no.

Lee and I are quitting our jobs

Well, maybe not quitting right now, but we've started a new business:




Can you guess from the picture? We're making our own wines. That's right - there's a full-scale operation going on at the Bright house. How did this all start? Last weekend, we went to a local winery, Nashwood Winery, just to taste and they had a "start-up" kit available for purchase. I can tell when Lee gets super excited about something because he gets this look on his face. It was the look similar to look he had on his face just before I agreed to buy the Vespa. I wouldn't have said "no" to the winemaking kit, but I need to practice my no's just in case he ever wants to buy something like his own island, a hot air balloon, a suit of armor, or a fourth dog.

Winemaking is fun, but I'm not sure where I rate it on the Dub-T scale. It's not like we're making moonshine, but we are producing alcohol. We're not making it in a bathtub, but it's still in the house. Here's how it works: We bought the wine as a mix. You have to clean and disinfect all of the parts and combine the wine mix with some water and yeast. During the first week, the wine stays in the primary fermenter (6.5-gallon plastic bucket) and is transferred into the glass 6-gallon carboy where it'll stay for the next eight weeks. I'm skipping a few steps, but overall there's not that much work involved. Lord only knows what bottling will entail.

What I love about Lee is that when he's into something, he is all in. Example: Lee bought his own Virginia oak barrel this weekend as a "surprise" for me. I was surprised alright. It's not a big one - just 5 gallons, but he's scaring me a little. Our first batch of wine is a mix, but Lee eventually wants to buy grapes and press them ourselves. He looked on the internet and actually found a vat that you throw the grapes in and then physically stomp them Lucy and Ethel style. I was able to practice my "no" skills on that suggestion. He's also toying with the idea of us growing our own grapes. I feel like one day I'll get home from aerobics and he'll be conducting tours through our wine-production facility (the garage).

So the question is - what do we call this new label? I suggested "Hair of the Dog", but shockingly, it's already taken. So I think we're going to call our label "Big Dog Winery". Lee has awarded me the task of designing the labels. Our first brew, a Cabernet Sauvignon, will be called "Lucy Dog Cabernet", and we'll probably follow up with "Morgan's Merlot". I don't know what kind of wine I see with Trudie. Maybe a "Blind Dog Chardonnay". It ferments 8 weeks in the carboy, so by my count, our first wine will be ready on September 23. We're hopeful that it will be drinkable because on a first attempt I think that's all you're really aiming for. I don't want to have to rename it "Big Dog Pile Winery". And if it's not drinkable, you all know what you'll be getting for Christmas - a big bottle of dog pile.

Happy Anniversary to me

Spoiler alert: No pictures or good stories on this post. I'm back to being totally boring. I feared that my life would be so boring that I could not substantiate a blog and my fears have come true. Here goes. On Sunday, I celebrated my five year anniversary with my company. They're actually pretty nice for anniversaries. You go to this website and get to choose from several gifts. The code I have to enter to access the website is "2058" which is funny, because sometimes I feel like that's the year I'll probably retire. It's their subliminal way of remind me that they own me. Anyway, I really don't want anything that's on the website, but it's still a nice gesture. There's a few rings to choose from, several watches, a Lladro polar bear, and a karaoke machine. I may get that since it doubles as a DVD player which we could use in the master bedroom. Because what marriage couldn't benefit from a karaoke machine in the bedroom? Next time I get mad at Lee, I can just stand at the end of the bed and belt out a little Alanis Morissette instead of having an ugly confrontation.

Weekends have been relatively uneventful since Texas has decided that this summer's climate will be similar to that of the sun. Holy Moses it is hot. We haven't even been able to enjoy our new outdoor furniture and all of our plants are dying. I did some lap swimming at the SMU pool this weekend but the water was even hot. The weather guys are saying it's going to stay like this for at least another week. I can't wait until fall. In an effort to beat the heat, we went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I guess I didn't realize that this was a sequel - I thought it was just another pirate movie. So I was a little lost because they just throw you right into the second movie. FYI if you're thinking about seeing it.

I did a fun thing Monday night with three of my co-workers. We went to Origins for a complimentary "Girl's Night Out" and had facials, hand treatments and makeovers. I love Origins. And they ladies in the store love me because they hug me when I leave. I like to think that it's because I have a winning personality and not because I buy enough beauty products to keep a small village in Africa looking fabulous for a year. Dr. Andrew Weil has created a new line of products for Origins and it's awesome. My face feels like a baby's ass right now. If you've never tried Origins, I highly suggest you start with this product. I tried to eat this when nobody was looking. I should work there. But if I worked at Origins, I wouldn't be getting my completely awesome karaoke machine for the bedroom.

Lee and I are back on the Weight Watchers hard core. I plumped up a little during the test taking, but it's coming off. We didn't eat out last weekend and we're going to try to stay in this weekend too. It's so hard to bring myself to turn on the oven when it's 115 outside. It heats up the kitchen so much. We've started going back to the church where we got married because we like it better than the church that's close to our new house. That means I get to go back to my old grocery store that I like so much. I can get my shopping done there in about 10 minutes since I've memorized the aisles and can write my list in that order. I've got mad skilz. Please don't start rolling your eyes - I told you at the very beginning of this post that my life is like watching paint dry. This past weekend, the seasonal aisle (Aisle 14) was filled with school supplies. I almost wish I was back in second grade so I could get new crayons, a new backpack, pencil box, lunchbox, and Trapper Keeper. I always started off the year so organized and then just fell apart as the year went progressed. Such is life now.

We'll see what the next week holds... I know you're on the edge of your seats.

Dog Days of Summer

Happy fourth of July! I hope everyone is eating hot dogs, watching fireworks, and attending their local parade. Lee and I celebrated by indulging in the latter. It rained so we never made it to fireworks. I really like parades - I've always wanted to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but don't know if I'll ever have that dream fulfilled. Every year, the Park Cities has a Fourth of July parade so we went this year. Right off the bat, I knew that it was not going to be an ordinary parade. The parade started off with a "bicycle brigade" and a girl in front about six years old was riding down the street on her cell phone. The brigade was followed by two squad cars on with their sirens blaring. For those of you who have spent any time with Lucy, you know that she loves to howl at sirens. This morning was no different:

I started howling first to get her to howl and then she wouldn't stop. It makes me laugh so hard because it's not even a good howl. About halfway through the parade, I saw something I'd never seen before - someone had entered their limo and the family was inside chunking candy out the windows. Not decorated or anything. I pictured Thurston Howell III planning the Fourth holiday with his wife (in his best Kennedy accent) "Lovey, you know what we should do this year since we won't be summering at the Vineyard? Let's enter the car in the parade. It'll be fabulous. I was going to give Jeeves the day off, but I'm sure he won't mind." Lovey responds "That's a wonderful idea, Thurston. And let's take some candy to throw to those hungry souls on the street." Maybe it didn't happen that way, but in my head, that's totally the way it happened and this is my blog so that's the story you're all getting. Central Market had a float and they were throwing out watermelons to the crowd. I caught one. Just picture that.

The Howell limo was followed by a military vehicle and it sounded like it was setting off machine gun fire. I have met many dogs in my life and none of them more like the Cowardly Lion than Morgan. Lee calls her "sensitive", but if she was in seventh grade boy, she'd get beaten up and have her lunch money stolen every day. So this gun fire starts up and she decided she'd had had enough. Enough bicycle brigade, enough of the squad cars, dogs dressed up like Wonder Woman, enough of the Howells and them throwing candy at her, so like a cat, she scurried underneath the Suburban that was parked behind us and stayed there until the parade was over. She's the only dog in history that will require years of therapy to get over a neighborhood parade.

We got to see our former downstairs neighbors, which I was very happy about. Caitlin has turned 4 since I last saw her and she told me that being 4 is a lot different than being 3. According to her, she has more responsibilities now. Four was my favorite year - I really feel like I peaked out in 1980. I told her to soak 4 in and enjoy it. When it was over, the dogs were hot so we got out their pool. It's not the lake, but it does the trick. We spent the rest of the day riding on the Vespa, watching the Italy-Germany World Cup game and Pride and Prejudice, and I worked a little. Getting the promotion was a really good thing, but it's been a lot more work, and I don't see it slowing down any time soon. Happy Fourth!

Sometimes you KICK

Sometimes you get kicked. And on Thursday night, Lee and I kicked it with my all time favorite band, INXS. I heart INXS. From the first time I heard Michael Hutchence's voice, I knew I could only be a groupie for one band (okay - there was my brief groupie stint with Brett Michaels and Poison, but we all need to forget about that). Scott Stapp, former lead singer for Creed, opened for them. I don't like his music, but he's strangely attractive to me for some reason. It's like when you're in the music store and you make a wrong turn and suddenly you're lost in the indie section and there's that slightly grungy-looking guy in there and even though it's in the middle of summer he's still wearing some piece of leather clothing. There's also some sort of a tattoo involved - but not a prison tat - it's more like a giant cross on his shoulder or something. He's like the male version of Watts from Some Kind of Wonderful. But you know that nothing will ever happen between you and indie-listening-non-prision-tat guy because I.L.N.P.T guys never go out with girls who have ever owned an N*Sync album. Plus, I'm married.

Back to INXS. I was really expecting my heart to leap out of my chest when they took the stage, but there was one thing missing - Michael. As most of you know, Michael died in 1997 and through a tragic series of events (a reality TV show) the band replaced him. Replaced him. Brings tears. Now they have this other kid, JD, singing and it's not the same. Music was still good and I wanted to love it, but it was a little hard not to notice that they'd done a quick switch-a-roo with the lead singer.

On Saturday, we got new outdoor patio furniture, a housewarming gift from Mom and Dad. We got two chairs, two ottomans and a table to hold the scrabble board and wine. Now our little sanctuary is complete. We're thinking about having cable wired out to the patio so that we can watch college football down there in the fall, but now that I'm thinking about it, I don't want our neighbors to hear Lee scream profanities when a Vols game starts to go south. I may just tell people he has Turrets. We also got our new Riddling Rack in straight from San Francisco. Like it? It's going to take some time to fill it out, but I think it fits nicely in our dining room.

On Sunday night, we hosted our friends, Mike and Shanon, for dinner. Since it was a special holiday weekend, I made ice cream. That's right - Martha is taking it to a whole new level and making her own ice cream now. Beth and Elizabeth gave me an ice cream maker for a wedding shower gift and I decided to put it to use. I made vanilla-lemon frozen yogurt. I was a little apprehensive making our guests our guinea pigs, but it turned out pretty good. My parents used to make peach ice cream on the Fourth so I think I'll start a new tradition.

Due to the extreme heat and shedding, we shaved our 2 big dogs. I couldn't make it up the stairs I was laughing so hard when I saw them the first time. Through the laughter and the tears, I said "Morgan, what happened to your hair?!!". Her ears slicked back and she gave me her best "why do you hate me?" look (that look is captured in the photo below). Then I told her that God punished her for being a bad dog by making her hair fall out. I don't know if she believed me, but it's fun to scare them every once in a while.

Two years

I don't know where all of the time has gone since I last wrote! Sometimes I have a free minute at lunch to jot down some thoughts, but not this week. As of Monday, my sweet husband and I have been married for 2 years. We reminisced this weekend about the past year and how it has flown by. That's one of the engagement pictures that we took in the Spring of 2004. Love you, Honey Bunny! Let's have a great year three.

Well, as you all may know, I turned the big 3-0 this weekend. I spend my 30th birthday exactly the way I wanted to - at the lake house with my man and my dogs. It's so relaxing out there. I could sit on the porch and stare out at the lake forever. I took a book of Sudoku out there and I think Lee is hooked now too. We watched an excellent Woody Allen movie called "Match Point". I don't usually like his stuff, but this wasn't his normal comedy thing.

We drove back on Sunday to celebrate my mom's birthday. For those of you that don't know, I was born on her birthday. What a great gift, right?!! Mom and Dad came over to the house and we went to Patrizio. It was a nice birthday celebration.

I just got my score from the PE exam and I found out that I got an 80. Passing is a 70. Considering about only 55% of people who take the exam pass it, I'm pretty happy with myself. That means I either really knew my stuff or guessing "B" was a good strategy. I think it would have been higher if I wasn't structurally engineering inept. That's the best thing about this exam being over - I never have to see another truss or beam again. EVER. Structural Engineering is my arch nemesis. To give you an analogy, kryptonite is to Superman as Structural Engineering is to Tiffany. Anyway, all of this lead to a feel-good moment at last Tuesday. A lady at the gym asked me what I did for a living and I told her I was an engineer and for the first time I really felt like one. It's been nice. And that's all I have to say about that.

PASS! PASS! PASS!

Just when I had sworn off the PE Exam and told him never to call me again, he goes and brings me a dozen red roses and a big box of chocolates.

I PASSED THE PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING EXAM!

How exciting is that? I don't know my score yet because they only posted "pass" or "fail". The actual scores come in a letter a little later. I honestly don't care what I made because 70 was all I needed, but I am still curious. This is a huge relief because I never have to take the test again and I can stop checking the website ever 5 seconds. The Board didn't shatter my dreams after all.

Happy Fathers Day!

That's me and my dad our Vespa! Happy Father's Day, Dad!! More of that later...

This is my last full week to be in my 20s. Sigh. This officially means I can't use word like "crunk" or wear really low rise jeans without sounding or looking completely ridiculous. Not that I throw out the word "crunk" or wear low rise jeans anyway, but if I wanted to, I'd really need to take advantage of this week.

This weekend was one of those weekends that I can't remember what happened because everything went by so quickly. On Friday night we took the Vespa down to Patrizio and as I got off the bike, I looked up and this little red-headed three year old was standing there giving me a thumbs up. I've still got it. We had a quick dinner and then tried to watch End of the Spear, but I can't make it through movies when we start them at 9pm because I'm almost 30 which means my movie-watching age is 85.

The next day I subbed a weights class in the morning and then proceeded to waste the rest of the day. Actually, Oprah sucked me into a black hole. When I start watching Tivoed Oprahs, I can't stop. If I'm ever in a coma, don't play Oprah in a hospital room because it will only make be drift deeper into the coma. I showed the downstairs unit to two different people and one of the ladies called me today to say she wanted to move in. She's really nice and she has a little girl so I think it's going to work out well. That night we went to dinner with our friends, Mike and Shannon, and then saw Nacho Libre. It was okay, but I didn't love it. It from the same guys who did Napoleon Dynamite so if you didn't like that then you won't like this.

Sunday, I got ready for the Father's Day Cookout. Lee's parents couldn't join us because they were in Vegas. I made spinach, artichoke, and crab dip for an appetizer and feta, black bean and rice salad, grilled corn and hamburgers for dinner. We used our grill and ate outside for the first time since we've lived here. Mom made banana pudding for dessert. I got dad a crunk new cordless phone for Father's Day along with a bumpin' service plan so that they can get a new battery every year for free. Right now when I call, they can never get a phone to work or the battery is low or some such nonsense so maybe this will solve all problems.

After dinner, it was Vespa time. Mom wanted to try it out so Lee took her for a spin around the block. This wasn't mom's first rodeo. When my aunt lived in Jakarta, their driver's personal vehicle was a Vespa so she had ridden on one before there.

Still no word on the Professional Engineering exam. I'm a member of this PE Exam message board (basically a giant nerd forum) and they said that results could take up to another 2 weeks. One of my goals was to become a PE before I was 30 and now it seems that the licensing board is going to shatter this little girl's dream. I'm so over the PE exam. It's like a bad relationship that I can't make end or that lazy cousin who says he's just there for a weekend visit and then stays for 8+ weeks. I want you out of my life, PE Exam. To quote Sandy during her dramatic breakup with Danny Zuko after the pep rally, "You're a fake and a phony and I wish I'd never laid eyes on you!".

Our Northern California Vacation

I finally have a free minute to blog all about our wonderful vacation. We spent June 4 - 10 in Napa, Sonoma, and San Francisco and it wasn't nearly enough time!! It's so hard to get back into the swing of things with work, laundry, grocery shopping, and cooking. I am now on a self-imposed detox and diet. Lee and I decided that if we win the lottery, we're buying a vineyard on Spring Mountain in Napa and I'm going to run a little B&B out of the house. The weather was wonderful and I was only cold our last day in San Francisco. I won't bore you with all of the details, but I'll go day by day and let you know what we did. If you'd like to see our pictures, you can click here.

Day 1 - Napa
We arrived in San Francisco around 10am, picked up our rental car and immediately headed north. Our first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge. We couldn't see anything when we drove up to it, but once we crossed the bay, the temperature warmed and the clouds parted. We headed north to Sausalito and stopped for lunch at a place called Fish. right along the water. Everything was fresh and delicious.

Then it was on to Napa. We actually stayed in St. Helena at a Bed & Breakfast called The Ink House because there really isn't that much in the town of Napa. All of the wineries and hotels are all north of Napa. Our B&B was made famous because an Elvis movie, Wild in the Country, was filled there. It was really nice, but the rooms were tiny since the house was built in 1884. We dropped off our things and headed to Beringer for a historic tour. By this time, we were getting pretty tired from traveling all day so we went back to the hotel to relax, play some scrabble, drink some wine and topped off the night at Martini House.

Day 2 - Napa (Spring Mountain)

The Ink House had really great breakfast in the morning. We ate and got an early start driving up to the Spring Mountain District of Napa. This by far was my favorite area that we toured all week. We went to Schweiger Vineyards, Barnett Vineyards, Pride Mountain Vineyards, and Terra Valentine. All of them were small and family-run. Barnett had the best wine and the best view. That's us there in the picture on the right. We took a picnic lunch and ate at the top of Pride Mountain. All of those tastings can really make you tired!! Interesting fun fact - Terra Valentine was started by this eccentric guy who invented curb feelers and the rust-proof tail pipe. Why can't I think of this stuff? We spent the rest of the day walking around St. Helena downtown and had dinner at a local Italian restaurant, Tra Vigne.

Day 3 - More Napa

We started off the day at Opus One. This was probably the most high tech of all of the vineyards we visited and gave the best tour. The wine is super expensive there and in my opinion, it is overpriced. Next stop was Frank Family Vineyards for more tastings and then we went to lunch in Calistoga. Next time we visit Napa, I would like to stay there because was a really cute town. We had a 3:00 tasting at Quintessa so we headed south on the Silverado Trail. This is our favorite wine. A few years ago, we won a 1999 magnum at a symphony party and drank it on our one year anniversary. It's so good. If fact, I guess you could say it's what really peaked our interest in wine.

That afternoon we went back to the hotel and played some scrabble and gin before dinner. Sometimes I found it hard to be on vacation because I'm used to going all the time. It was actually hard for me to relax! By the end of the week I was used to it. That night we ate a really late dinner in Oakville.

Day 4 - Sonoma

Next time we visit the wine country, we're going to spend more time in Sonoma. It's a lot more laid back. We only got to a few wineries and I really wish we'd seen more. In our quick day, we hit B.R. Cohn, St. Francis, Matanzas Creek, Ferrari-Carino, Preston, and Bella Vineyards along with the La Crema tasting room in downtown Healdsburg. Count 'em up - SEVEN . We had a lot of fun at La Crema, but that was probably because we had gone to six wineries prior to our stop there. Every winery we visited was so different. We really like the Matanzas Creek wines so we joined their wine club. We purchased wine from almost every vineyard we visited so it was a giant pain in the butt getting home on the airplane.

We stayed in a darling little B&B in Healdsburg called the Camellia Inn. It was right in the heart of downtown and that evening we had dinner at Willi's Seafood and Raw Bar. If you're ever in the area, I highly suggest it.

Day 5 - Redwoods/San Francisco

We woke up early and headed out to Korbel in the morning. Under normal circumstances, I would not be up for drinking Champagne at 10am... well, who am I kidding - yes, I would be. I would drink it at 6:30am instead of coffee if I didn't have to go to work every day. It was interesting because all week we'd learned about wine being made and this time we experienced champagne making. On our way east, we stopped at Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve. We were going to go to Muir Woods, but I figured you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all and this was closer. At this point, we made our way to coast to drive Highway 1 and I started praying to God and everyone that I wouldn't die. The windy road is about 500 feet above the ocean on this sharp cliff, there are no guardrails, and there are washed-out mudslide areas all over the place. When you pair all of this with Lee's driving and my car sickness, it completely shoots my nerves. Lee does this thing he'll put the car on auto-pilot while he points out something to you in the distance and looks at it at the same time. I totally thought we were going to wind up like Thelma and Louise. Only I wouldn't be holding his hand on the way down, I'd be hitting him and screaming "I told you to watch the road!!!"

San Francisco... I don't really know what to say about it. Wonderful food and shopping... but Dallas has that with a lot less crazy-eyed bums. Lee and I turned down one street and got caught up in a bum herd. We quickly realized we were near a soup kitchen. Anyway, San Francisco happens to be the time when our luck with hotels ran out. I made reservations on-line with Expedia at the Hotel Herbert. Looked cute online. We drove the block once and couldn't find it so we made the block again (which is not easy because we're in Union Square). The second time I spot it. See if you can find it in the picture on the right. See it? Look right above the crazy-eyed bum... there it is! Inside the Betty Boop diner! Not- kidding. There is an elevator inside the diner and you ride it up to the second floor where the manager who barely speaks English lives. The Hotel Herbert is also a residence on Floor 2-5 so when I took the elevator up, I could hear the daughter of one of the elderly residents screaming at her mother to quit calling her "so damn much" and there was a crazy-eyed bum in the hallway. To make a long story short, we stayed at the Hilton in Union Square. After unloading, we walked Chinatown, which is a place I've wanted to visit since I heard about it when I was a kid. Now this place would only be cool if I needed back scratchers and 4 tee-shirts for $10. That night we had an awesome dinner at Kuleto's. Another recommendation if you ever make it out that way.

Day 6 - San Francisco

We woke up early, had breakfast in bed (very fun!), and took the cable cars to the Crooked Street, Fisherman's Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, and the Ferry Building. The night before the bartender at Kuleto's suggested a good sushi restaurant in Castro. It was there that we witnessed the craziest bum in S.F. The restaurant was small and it was thin and long. We were at the sushi bar and the man behind us finished his meal and left. It was about this time, a bum walked in the front door, strolled up to the sushi bar and asked for some food like the guy behind the counter is going to throw him some toro or something. then we walks behind me and starts eating the food off the table of the man who just left. They shoo him out and he screams "So let me get this straight!! We can nuke you people, but I can't eat your food?!!". Check please.

We also saw the Painted Ladies (the Victorian houses) and then we bought a riddling rack from an antique dealer in town. Riddling racks were used to remove the yeast from the Champagne bottles before it went automated. Picture on the left. We're going to use it as a wine rack in the dining room. After that, we headed back to the hotel to walk about Union Square and then had our last dinner at First Crush. Yummy.

Day 7 - San Francisco

We felt like we'd pretty much done it all at this point. We went to Coit Tower and Pier 39 to see the sea lions. They are stinky. After a quick bite to eat at the Tadich Grill, we packed our bags and headed for the airport.

And that was it. It was so much fun, so relaxing, and while not entirely bum-free, it was beautiful. I would love to go out there again next year, so it any of you want some wine tasting partners, give us a call!!

Good news!!

I still have no idea if I passed the PE exam or not, but... I just got promoted! Yea!! However, this increases the pressure to pass the exam just a wee bit. What's done is done and there's nothing I can do but wait. And wait.

I worked on our vacation pictures and the blog for 2 hours last night and it's taking me a while. It took forever to upload all of the pictures to Kodak Gallery and I wanted to link that to the blog. So maybe I'll have it done tomorrow... Keep checking back.

Back home

Lee and I are back from our seven day holiday in Napa/Sonoma/San Francisco. We'll be posting pictures soon - here are two panoramic shots I took of the Golden Gate Bridge and Barnett Vineyards.