Eating Out

The last couple of restaurants we ate at were Mexican (Jim LOVES Mexican food). The first one we went to was Curra's. We like Curra's food, but don't always receive the best service. We sat down right away (last Friday night) so that was a plus. We had a new server so we knew it would probably be less than stellar service. Crap. It always happens when we eat there. After a few snafu's with the drinks, we ordered our food and were pleasantly surprised. I went on a limb and tried something new, Cream of Zucchini soup. Mom, stop making those gagging sounds :) The soup was a little bland but once I added a couple scoops of salsa it was wonderful. It came in a huge bowl so if you order it, you probably don't want a full entree to go with it. I also ordered the blackened snapper enchiladas and Jim ordered some type of steak dish, both were flavorful and very good!! If they can just get some decent servers we would go back more often!

The second Mexican restaurant was Vivo's on the East side. We have eaten there once before for lunch and really enjoyed the food. I think my favorite part of the meal was their salsa. It was a smoky garlicky non-chunky salsa. Sooooo good! I'll have to play around with some ingredients to see if I can duplicate it at home. I ordered the shrimp tacos and Jim got a combination meal with a puffy taco and an enchilada and we shared so we could try it all. Our waitress was nice and prompt with our food and drinks. A cute twist that Vivo's does is give all the ladies a rose. I am sure we will go back to Vivo's again!!

Weekly Kid Pictures


Since the weather has been cooler and wet, we have kept them out of the back yard. We would love to let them out, but Chewie would be covered head to toe in mud. We have been taking them on walks so they have kept exercised. :) They like to lay in this corner so they can sun themselves.

New Recipe

Artichoke Chicken

Prep Time: 10 Minutes
Cook Time: 30 Minutes
Ready In: 40 Minutes
Yields: 4 servings

INGREDIENTS:
1 (15 ounce) can artichoke
hearts, drained and chopped
3/4 cup grated Parmesan
cheese
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 pinch garlic pepper
4 skinless, boneless chicken
breast halves
DIRECTIONS:
1.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2.
In a medium bowl, mix together the artichoke hearts, Parmesan cheese, mayonnaise, and garlic pepper. Place chicken in a greased baking dish, and cover evenly with artichoke mixture.
3.
Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until chicken is no longer pink in the center and juices run clear.

If you like artichoke and spinach dip, you'll like this recipe. I know this doesn't call for spinach, but it still tasted the same as the dip. I added about a half cup of chopped onion to this, since I LOVE onions. This was SOOO easy and really added a different taste to the chicken. I highly recommend it!

A butt load of rental movies

Between being on vacation and the ice storm, Jim and I watched a ton of movies last week. I thought I would give a little review of the movies....

Rumor has it- Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner: kind of your typical romantic comedy, but it was cute and worth watching

Crank- Not sure of his name, but it is the guy from The Transporter: A hitman is injected with a synthetic substance that will kill him in 24 hrs. He finds out that he will stay alive as long as he keeps his adrenaline pumping. The movie has him running around trying to stay alive and find and kill the person who pumped him full of the drug. Decent movie, and the perk is that you get to see his ass a couple of times :)

Firewall- Harrison Ford: This has been out and is on HBO now. A banker (Ford) has to rob his bank of 100 million dollars or else the robbers will kill his family. Typical Harrison Ford movie, but it is worth watching

Employee of the month: Dane Cook and Jessica Simspon: I was pretty disappointed in this movie. I thought it would be funnier than it was. I think they showed most of the funny parts in their commercials.

The Break-up: Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. A couple breaks up and fights over the condo but then Jennifer Aniston decides that she wants the relationship to work. So she tries different ways to get Vince back (being all girl like). I don't want to spoil the ending, so I'll just say that it was a good movie!

Before and After





I bought some new curtains for our dining room during the holidays and finally got around to putting them up today. I wanted to do it earlier but we had our Christmas tree there and I didn't really want to fuck around with it. So......... I took some before and after pictures for your enjoyment! Jim isn't a huge fan of the curtains, but I'm sure he'll come around to liking them :) It isn't really a huge change, but I changed the rod to a double rod so I'll eventually put up some sheer curtains behind the regular ones. I was so happy to find these on sale because I am very picky and only usually like things that cost me a lot of money :)

Before

After

Close up of the fabric.

The darker brown in the curtains match the wall color perfectly.

More pictures from the ice storm...

Keeping Warm

Since the weather outside is so damn cold, I'll give you a guess to figure out who has been under the covers..... :)

Day Two of The Big Chill

We woke up to a lot more ice and only 30 degrees this morning. I'm on vacation this week (more on that later) so I don't have to worry about going in, but Jim is supposed to be in at 10am. We'll see if that happens. Our drive way is totally iced over, but the street is fine (at least in front of our house isn't icy). I am about to venture out in our yard and take some pictures so I'll post them later!

BRRRRRRR

Austin is one cold city! When we went to bed last night it was 28 degrees, and it is only 30 degrees now. I love it! Jim has today off with me so we have been making the most of our day. We ventured out to get breakfast at Denny's and then head to Blockbuster to get a few movies. Maybe not the best decision but the roads seemed to be okay and we didn't have to go over any bridges. We called both places (which were less than 5 minutes from our house) and they were open so we thought why not :). After we got home (safely and without any issues) we decided to take the dogs for a walk. They have been cooped up for the past couple of days so we just went around the block. Once we got 3 houses down it started to snow on us :) The dogs didn't seem to mind very much, in fact Taylor kept running in the puddles. I can only imagine how cold that was, but she didn't seem to mind. The grass was frozen so it was crunchy and I don't think either dog liked to walk on it.

Here are some pictures from Tuesday:

Bring on the crazy freaked out drivers



Austin has been experiencing a really bad winter storm over the past 24 hours that will last until early Wednesday morning. I'm stuck at work for now but we are closing early. I still have about 3 hours to go, but if the weather gets to bad then I expect us to leave a little earlier than that.


I am a weather freak and I love to follow weather but the weather people and state officials are driving me nuts. They keep breaking into TV shows to tell us the bad weather is coming. Couldn't that wait until the commercial break?


I just checked outside and there is some ice on cars, but it isn't terrible, yet. Apparently there is a second storm coming tonight around midnight that will make the weather worse. Luckily I am off tomorrow so I won't have to worry about coming into work.



I don't have any weather pictures but I have one from my in-laws who live about 30 minutes north of Austin. (see below). They said that they have ice over most of their sidewalks, and it is very thick.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures of my own to post!!! I'll be the freak outside sliding down the street trying to get pictures :) Ha!!

UPDATE:

I made it home safe from work. Honestly, it was very easy and no ice, but don't tell my boss :) But about an hour after I got home it started to sleet which left a layer of ice on the ground and cars. According to the weather guys, another storm is on it's way and it will bring plenty of ice. I have tomorrow off already, but now it appears that my husband will get to stay home also!

Bring it Mr. Weather Man


My morning started with a very loud thunder followed by an extremely bright flash of lighting. I knew it was going to rain, but I had no idea it would be so severe. Instead of going back to sleep we decided to get up. It was early but the storm was making to much noise. After the rain stopped we walked down to the creek and were amazed at the amount of water that was flowing. We have seen bad storms, but we both agree that this storm made the creek come out of the banks more than any other storm. It is now around 4:40pm, and it has rained all day but luckily it is just slightly more than a light rain. The water has receded in the creek, but all it will take is another bad storm and I'm sure it will fill up again.







I took my camera out to take some pictures but some of them didn't turn out because it was still dark and the rain was coming down.

Before I played with the settings, but that is Jim on the left. This is mostly our yard, but the fence is our neighbors yard.

A better picture.... the water was probably 20-25 feet outside of the banks at this point

I took this picture about 2 hours later that the picture above. You'll notice how much the water has receded, but is still quite high

Chewie was looking out the back window with me

The view from the back window, you can actually see the creek from the window (normally you can't even tell there is a creek back there)

I drove to the end of the block to take this picture. This is Shoal Creek. Normally there is about 3-4 feet wide worth of water in here.

Pester, Pester, Pester

So every time I log into my blog I get blogger urging me to change over to beta, beta is wonderful, we'll break your legs unless you change over to beta. :) So I made the change tonight. I have no idea what exactly changed but I thought I would warn you guys :)

Oh what a joy!

I forgot how much I loved Thursday night TV. I think it might border on obsessive but damn, who can blame me? The Office was new, Grey's Anatomy was new, AND ER was new. Ahhhhh, the joy in my heart :) My whole Thursday night flys by. I'll have to remember to get my homework done at work so I don't have to worry about it on Thursday nights.. hehehehe. Just in case you missed Grey's Anatomy tonight, here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

Seriously!?!?!

A couple of weekends ago we hung out with some of Jim's friends from work. They are huge fans of the United Fighting Championship (yeah, I didn't know what the fuck it was either). So we walk into their house and there is about 20 or so people there, typical party. But then I started to notice that quite a few of the men have their hair cut into a mohawk or at least styled into a Mohawk. Hmmmmmm, quite the style choice for so many guys. After talking to some people at the party we found out that there were hard core fans who cut their hair to look like one of the fighters. Holy cow! We were the odd people because we didn't have a favorite in the fight and because we didn't know who/what these fighters were. The people at the party were play fighting with each other and talking smack about each of the fighters. I have never met people that were so into a fight and the fighters. While it was a.....different experience, I don't think I need to do it again.

I guess I'll just chalk it up to a life experience and something to make fun of in my blog :)

Here were the two fighters from that night:

Odd way to start the week

As I was driving to work this morning, I heard on the radio that Congress was shut down for 5 or 6 blocks due to an alarming amount of dead birds. Weird, right? So after some time they said they found 13 birds, and I couldn't help but wonder if the city was overeating. But a little later the news said that it was a total of 63 birds, so way to go city, that is weird! And then.... I saw on CNN.com that there was a strange offensive odor floating around in Manhattan.

Austin officials determined that were wasn't any toxic fumes that were floating around town killing all of the birds, so they allowed people to go to work and home in that area. They still don't know what killed the birds but they suspect poison. I am interested to see what the outcome is.

Not a good day to breath the air :)

New Years Eve Pictures

As promised here are some pictures from New Years Eve. We started the night eating dinner with Tomhave, Lindsey, Sarah and Orly at Bucca De Beppo. It was the first time they had met each other and it was a success :) I always worry a little if everybody will get along but conversation flowed and we laughed a lot. After dinner Sarah and Orly headed to their friends party (damn them for having another party to go to :) ) and the rest of us headed to John and Tammy's house for their party. We saw a lot of people we haven't seen awhile and we got a little tipsy along the way. And I must say thanks to Lindsay who took one for the team and was our designated driver. Almost everybody was well behaved at the party, no one was to loud or drunk. So it is a party so there was one person (who will remain unnamed, well unless you want to call then I'll tell you :)..... Anywho this one person got drunk really fast and was dropping his drink all over their house and was kind of being an ass. This isn't the first time (and won't be the last) he gets all belligerent when he drinks. He ended up passing out early but from what I have heard, he got up later (after 4am) and tried to play cards with the guys. He got through one hand before he started to barf all over the garage. I'm SOOOOOOOOOO happy I didn't witness that because seeing somebody barf would have made me want to barf.

Here are the pictures from the memorable night! :)

Dinner with Sarah, Orly, Tomhave, and Lindsay

Enoch, Jim and John hanging outside at the party

The self portrait (this was one of many)

We were sitting at table talking when Mark decided to lean over and totally tongue his woman, Emily. I mean seriously folks, that is a little dramatic. I had enough time to watch, be grossed out, then actually remember to get my camera, turn it on and then take a picture. Way to long to watch, I'm scarred for life.

Some of the girls hanging out in the kitchen

Tomhave showing us his New Years Eve style

Lindsay, me and Vanessa... another self portrait

Yet another self portrait... this was taken minutes after New Years Eve.

Overheard in a liquor store 2 days before New Years Eve....


A customer with a box of bottles ranging from tequila and vodka to various wines told the clerk behind the counter...."Amateur's go out for New Years Eve and experienced party people stay at home". This is so true!! :) As soon as I get some free time I'll post some pictures from New Years Eve!

I found this article on one of my local news websites (keyetv.com), and had to chuckle because we eat at Jim's every time we are in Philly! I think they have the best cheesesteaks in Philly but I'm not willing to eat 13 cheesesteaks in an hour and a half!

Pro Eater Devours Cheesesteak Record

(CBS) PHILADELPHIA A profressional eater took a bite out of a Philadelphia record that stood for almost six years Wednesday.Competitive eater "Humble Bob" Stoudt descended on Jim's Steaks in Philadelphia to kick the New Year off with a gastronomical feat, reports CBS affiliate KYW-TV. With his highly trained appetite, Stout began attacking the record of 12 cheesesteaks eaten in an hour and a half.The previous record was set in 2001 by Alex Friedman, who broke a 1977 record of 11 cheesesteaks eaten in 90 minutes by Linda Kuerth.Just eight minutes into his own attempt, "Humble Bob" showed the power of his chops as he downed his fifth steak.A small crowd watched in awe as the pro barely broke a sweat while finishing his 12th cheesesteak in 51 minutes. With time to spare, Shoudt added a 13th sandwich to the pile, creating a new record of 13 cheeseteaks eaten in just one hour."You want to take your time with a Jim's Cheesesteak, you don't want to rush these things," Shoudt said.Despite the mass of meat and cheese, Shoudt said his stomach felt fine and it was just like training for a marathon, except this sport is competitive eating.Shoudt's next challenge will be a soft pretzel eating competition in Miami.

What a whirlwind of events!!!

First and foremost, I hope everybody had a wonderful and safe New Years Eve!! :) We had a great time (more on that night later :). Between my job and all of the holiday events I haven't had the time to write in my blog but now that everything has calmed down I have time to catch up!

My first day of 2007 was spent sleeping and lounging on the couch with Jim, Tomhave, Lindsey and the dogs :) We didn't get home on New Years Eve until 3:45am or so. I have hopes of being more active in 2007 than I did on the first day of '07. :)

I don't think I am going to do resolutions, but I will have goals. I guess they are the same thing. I know my first two goals of the year are going to be the same or similar to the rest of the world: to lose the giggle in my ass and to manage my money better. Another goal is to finish our kitchen. We have talked about redoing it for years and it is time to get it done! We have been talking about different changes we would like to get done and in what order. My goal is to have our kitchen done within 3 months :) But who knows what we will run into once we start.

It is going to take me a little bit to catch up with the holiday photos but as soon as I get them I'll post them!

I hope everybody has a great 2007!!! :)