spring!

I know that some parts of the country still have snow on the ground (sorry Delena), in Texas its finally starting to feel like spring!    Saw these lovely bluebonnets on my way into the office today.

I love the one random yellow flower in the bunch of bluebonnets.....be prepared for your social media to be taken over by blue bonnet photos.


What have we been up to?   lots of working, and lots of wedding party planning -- hard to believe my sister's wedding is less than 2 months away!    I'm excited to be her maid of honor (still calling myself maid even though technically I'm a matron - but matron is no fun....) and we have some surprises planned for her shower and bachelorette party!

Spring Break

Happy Spring Break!   to my husband and all the students at his school.  They have a different spring break then my school so we aren't really planning on going anywhere, but I know he'll enjoy the break from classes.

Now if only the weather would be more agreeable.  Just last week I had to leave earlier than planned from Dallas to make sure I got out of town before the predicted sleet, glad we got home safely and drove just through rain --- saw photos the next day of the hotel we were at covered in snow.

I haven't kept up with my listings of our adventures living in town, but had a first for me last week.  I had to pick up a rental car for the trip and was able to WALK to the rental place to pick it up, it was about a 20 minute walk and easier than trying to coordinate my schedule and K's to get me there :)   We wanted a walkable area and are able to do things we could only do on vacation before!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We decided to bypass the crowds and celebrated last night.   We had a great time checking out some new places in Midtown and had some delicious food.    Thanks K for being designated driver so I could enjoy a few cocktails :)

...I plan to come back and provide more details about our night out....AFTER I take Smokey for his morning walk :)

..oops, I never came back to provide details....we had dinner at Sparrow, a delicious dinner for both of us!   The menu changes each day based on what the chef thinks looks good at the farmers market that day.  I had short ribs with espresso based sauce (sooo good), K had hanger steak, and we split a side of mashed potatoes.  the desserts sounded so good, but we were just so full...i also had a drink made with rhubarb!

Kitchen hardware

We are loving our new place and did a fairly easy project in January that we can enjoy EVERY day.    We put in kitchen hardware.    Some cabinets had hardware we didn't like and others had nothing at all.  We were hoping to complete the project over the holidays but to get what we wanted we had to order it online, of course.....it was worth the wait, having only 3 large drawers we wanted substantial handles for them, and we got that -- they are each 13" long!     I am glad we have only 3 drawers since the pulls with 2 holes are tough to install, lots of measuring and it has to be exact.

All in all we got them all installed in one day, and are so happy to have them.  It really improves the look of the kitchen and its so much easier to open the cabinets.....

New Years

Happy 2015!!!    We planned to ring it in at home and did ring it in within our block.   We were surprised with 2 separate invitations from our neighbors to join them in their celebrations, next door was having a few people over and two doors down was having a full-on party.    We happily joined each of the groups - hanging out next door and then our whole group going over to ring in the new new year at the party.   We are so glad to get to know our neighbors a little better, we are much the same age and all in similar places in life so we hope to spend more time with them this year!

Our last dinner of 2014 was delicious, K had the idea to try to replicate a meal we'd had at union kitchen and we did a pretty good job of it -- a steak placed on top of a polenta cake and arugula.   It was our first time to make polenta and arugula and it all turned out great! We already have ideas on how to improve but not a bad first try!

Lessons learned (recipes we used are linked):

Polenta -- next time we want to pan fry it to make it crispy

Arugula - we way underestimated how much we needed, when it wilts it gets small.  I was not sure if the ounces were weight or volume, definitely weight (should've used the whole bag). Silly measurement system using the same unit of measure to mean VERY different things....

I hope you all had a great start to your new year!    Even Smokey had a better start since being in the city limits fireworks are not allowed, our last house would sound like a war zone for days and the poor guy would end up scared out of his mind....