Two quick highlights of my holiday I left out before:
1. On Christmas Day, I saw my first preview for Notorious. Merry Christmas, me!
2. Pat's parents sent us 10 pints of frozen custard from Kopp's in Milwaukee. I freaking love that place. I also love that this gift was so creative and audience-aware. Coming home to a FedEx box full of dry ice and frozen custard was an excellent surprise on Christmas Eve!
Saturday, December 27, 2008
A Very Merry Christmas, Part 2
Christmas Day!
Christmas morning, Pat and I had a nice breakfast and opened gifts. Pretty standard Christmas stuff. Then, I made trifle for the first time ever. It's a good thing my trifle dish was free so I don't feel too guilty that I've only used it once in the two or three years I've had it. Anyway, the trifle had chocolate cake, butterscotch pudding, whipped cream (homemade, of course!), and heath bar bits and was topped with a little green and red sugar. I am pretty pleased with how it came out; I definitely should've taken a picture.
The trifle was for dinner at my friend and co-worker Julia's parents' house, which was wonderful. Some highlights include Left, Right, Center and Colorado Bulldogs. Both sound kind of suspect when you describe them, but L, R, C is actually really fun and Colorado Bulldogs are delicious. And a little dangerous, since they don't really taste alcoholic. I also have to give a shout out to Julia's family. They were incredibly nice and they were so welcoming you'd hardly have known we were strangers. It was really nice of them to invite us into their home on Christmas and give us a place to go while we're so far away from our own families.
After dinner, Pat and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire (more on that and the six other movies we've seen in the last week later) and then headed to 37th Street to look at the Christmas lights. I always love looking at Christmas lights, but being able to walk down the street in a light sweatshirt on Christmas night to do it was especially nice. Boy, was I in for a surprise when we actually saw the lights, though. Folks from not-Austin, let me tell you, this isn't your usual Candy Cane Lane or whatever neighborhood you have in your town where people go nuts decorating their houses and lawns with winter wonderland scenes. These were, in true Austin style, weird. One house had the Flying Spaghetti Monster depicted in Christmas lights; another had a giant shark made of tinfoil; one had a chandelier made of the top halves of nude Barbies; one depicted the economic and political landscape of the U.S. in the last year, complete with cardboard Obama cutout; and one had a display in which a plastic dragon was fornicating with a plastic armadillo. I'm actually not kidding. It was delightful! Traditionalist that I am, I do have to say that from a purely aesthetic standpoint my favorite was the house with the Austin skyline in lights, but they were all great. I'm still kicking myself for not bringing my camera, but this will give you an idea.
Christmas morning, Pat and I had a nice breakfast and opened gifts. Pretty standard Christmas stuff. Then, I made trifle for the first time ever. It's a good thing my trifle dish was free so I don't feel too guilty that I've only used it once in the two or three years I've had it. Anyway, the trifle had chocolate cake, butterscotch pudding, whipped cream (homemade, of course!), and heath bar bits and was topped with a little green and red sugar. I am pretty pleased with how it came out; I definitely should've taken a picture.
The trifle was for dinner at my friend and co-worker Julia's parents' house, which was wonderful. Some highlights include Left, Right, Center and Colorado Bulldogs. Both sound kind of suspect when you describe them, but L, R, C is actually really fun and Colorado Bulldogs are delicious. And a little dangerous, since they don't really taste alcoholic. I also have to give a shout out to Julia's family. They were incredibly nice and they were so welcoming you'd hardly have known we were strangers. It was really nice of them to invite us into their home on Christmas and give us a place to go while we're so far away from our own families.
After dinner, Pat and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire (more on that and the six other movies we've seen in the last week later) and then headed to 37th Street to look at the Christmas lights. I always love looking at Christmas lights, but being able to walk down the street in a light sweatshirt on Christmas night to do it was especially nice. Boy, was I in for a surprise when we actually saw the lights, though. Folks from not-Austin, let me tell you, this isn't your usual Candy Cane Lane or whatever neighborhood you have in your town where people go nuts decorating their houses and lawns with winter wonderland scenes. These were, in true Austin style, weird. One house had the Flying Spaghetti Monster depicted in Christmas lights; another had a giant shark made of tinfoil; one had a chandelier made of the top halves of nude Barbies; one depicted the economic and political landscape of the U.S. in the last year, complete with cardboard Obama cutout; and one had a display in which a plastic dragon was fornicating with a plastic armadillo. I'm actually not kidding. It was delightful! Traditionalist that I am, I do have to say that from a purely aesthetic standpoint my favorite was the house with the Austin skyline in lights, but they were all great. I'm still kicking myself for not bringing my camera, but this will give you an idea.
Friday, December 26, 2008
A Very Merry Christmas, Part 1
While nothing is quite like being home for the holidays (especially when it's a white Christmas at home), Pat and I still had a very relaxing and wonderful Christmas. And we still have three more days off before we have to go back to work!
I think our happy holiday started with putting up a Christmas tree together for the first time, even though this is the fourth Christmas we've lived together (pictures here). Something about having a tree just got me in the Christmas spirit. I think that's because so many of my ornaments and decorations are from friends and family. When I look at that ugly plastic candy garland, I think of the first time my cousins and I snuck into our great-grandfather's house at night and decorated the tree and the rest of the house. We found that hideous garland, had a good laugh, and immediately hung it up. And, actually, I think it kind of works on our tree.
Christmas Eve we slept in and had Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. Heck, that alone makes for a good day in this household. And, even though I didn't get to spend Christmas with my family, I did get to talk to all nine of them while they were celebrating together at my grandparents'. With them all laughing and "fighting" and goofing around in the background, I get to feel like I'm there with them for a few minutes at the holidays. Hopefully I really will be decorating cookies, listening to the Oak Ridge Boys, stuffing my face, and laughing with them next year. And, at least I will see them all in January.
This next part is probably not going to sound like a holly jolly time to anyone else, but we also cleaned our bedroom, master bath, and walk-in closet on Wednesday. Not just cleaned, but deep-cleaned. The kind of cleaning where you take everything out of the drawers and off the shelves and get on your hands and knees to scrub the baseboards and go through all your clothes to get rid of what you don't wear. I love that kind of cleaning. We're going to be doing that to the rest of our apartment this weekend. I can't wait.
We wrapped up our day by watching movies (Diner and Kit Kittredge), eating a nice holiday dinner (ham for Pat, grainy mustard mashed potatoes, asparagus with toasted almonds, salad, and biscuits), tracking Santa Claus, and drinking homemade eggnog while watching A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa. Okay, okay, it's not the best Muppet movie ever, or even the best Muppet Christmas special, but they had me reeled in as soon as the first notes of the first song started playing and they sealed the deal with Jesse L. Martin and Sweetums, one of my favorite Muppets from my second-favorite Muppet movie: Tales from Muppetland: The Frog Prince.
I think our happy holiday started with putting up a Christmas tree together for the first time, even though this is the fourth Christmas we've lived together (pictures here). Something about having a tree just got me in the Christmas spirit. I think that's because so many of my ornaments and decorations are from friends and family. When I look at that ugly plastic candy garland, I think of the first time my cousins and I snuck into our great-grandfather's house at night and decorated the tree and the rest of the house. We found that hideous garland, had a good laugh, and immediately hung it up. And, actually, I think it kind of works on our tree.
Christmas Eve we slept in and had Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. Heck, that alone makes for a good day in this household. And, even though I didn't get to spend Christmas with my family, I did get to talk to all nine of them while they were celebrating together at my grandparents'. With them all laughing and "fighting" and goofing around in the background, I get to feel like I'm there with them for a few minutes at the holidays. Hopefully I really will be decorating cookies, listening to the Oak Ridge Boys, stuffing my face, and laughing with them next year. And, at least I will see them all in January.
This next part is probably not going to sound like a holly jolly time to anyone else, but we also cleaned our bedroom, master bath, and walk-in closet on Wednesday. Not just cleaned, but deep-cleaned. The kind of cleaning where you take everything out of the drawers and off the shelves and get on your hands and knees to scrub the baseboards and go through all your clothes to get rid of what you don't wear. I love that kind of cleaning. We're going to be doing that to the rest of our apartment this weekend. I can't wait.
We wrapped up our day by watching movies (Diner and Kit Kittredge), eating a nice holiday dinner (ham for Pat, grainy mustard mashed potatoes, asparagus with toasted almonds, salad, and biscuits), tracking Santa Claus, and drinking homemade eggnog while watching A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa. Okay, okay, it's not the best Muppet movie ever, or even the best Muppet Christmas special, but they had me reeled in as soon as the first notes of the first song started playing and they sealed the deal with Jesse L. Martin and Sweetums, one of my favorite Muppets from my second-favorite Muppet movie: Tales from Muppetland: The Frog Prince.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
These are a few of my favorite things...
I'm doing a blog for work right now for the Central Texas Library System's 23 Things program. Here's a link to a recent post I did on my favorite Google Reader feeds. Maybe you'll find something you'll like, too.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Best Weekend Ever
I don't generally like to do posts that recount my activities unless they are unique to my experiences as a grad student or Texas transplant or something else that my far-away-friends might find interesting. I don't want to bore anyone with the mundane. Still, this weekend was so great I think it bears chronicling for posterity. I'll keep it to bullet points of the highlights, though.
- Date night with Pat at Flying Saucer, the restaurant we went to in Houston after we got engaged. I love this place. Not only do they have hundreds of beers, but they've also got Rocket Tots, which are tater tots with queso in them. I'm telling you, this combination is the fried food equivalent of chocolate and peanut butter. Yum!
- Turkey Trot: getting a long-sleeved T-shirt, helping out a good cause, seeing different areas of Austin, doing a lot of dog watching, and having good conversation with friends. A pretty delightful combination.
- Multiple iterations of having friends over for food, fun, and games.
- Football victory over A&M. Too bad the BCS didn't catch on...
- Decorating our first family Christmas tree! (Pictures to come later this week.)
- Very lucrative shopping trips to the City-Wide Garage Sale and the Lakeline Mall. My Garage Sale take: a wedding ring, "antique" Pyrex mixing bowls just like my Nana has, and a 1943 map of Boston. Plus, halfsies on a gift for Allie.
- Beating Pat at Wii bowling. Ha!
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