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.