Texas Lou

Last night, I joined my sister-in-law/best friend, brother-in-law, and a friend for dinner at their house.  I brought the wine (of course) and Sarah did the cooking.

When I first arrived, Sarah announced that she was making Tilapia for dinner.  Upon hearing that, I thought that I would just eat mostly sides as I’m not a fan of fish at all.  I really don’t like the smell or the texture of it despite how good I know it is for me.  But I said I would try the fish at the very least because Sarah and Ian have raved about how wonderful it is plus I didn’t want to me a rude dinner guest either.

After lots of laughter and good conversation, dinner was finally ready and Sarah, Ian, Collin, and I sat down to tilapia with a creamy dill sauce, baked asparagus, and baked potatoes.  It was a delicious dinner and I actually LOVED the fish.  I even came home telling Ben (who is always wanting me to cook more fish at home) how wonderful it was and that I was going to make it for dinner in the future.

It just goes to show that if you try new things, you might just be surprised and find a new favorite!

A picture of the tilapia from scissorsandspatulas.com

If you’re interested in the recipe, check out Scissorsandspatulas.com.

I was reading an article titled Google Autocomplete Reveals the Fattest, Boringest, and Most Racist States in the Union on slate.com that explains how a researcher used Google Autocomplete to draw conclusions on the biggest assumptions about each state based on the most popular Google searches.  It’s a pretty short read and quite fascinating but what really got me excited about the article was the top most popular Google search about Texas shown in the interactive map of the United States in the article.

Screenshot courtesy of slate.com

“Why is Texas so awesome” was the most popular Google search about Texas at the time the research was done for this article!

Anyone who was born and raised there may not be able to articulate the answer to this question, but they can certainly feel it!

Ok, for those of you who don’t speak computer language operators (***nerd alert***), the title of this post translates to “House Hunting is not equal to House Shopping”.

My number 1 project and obsession that has taken over the wedding planning that not too long ago governed my time and thoughts is searching for a house.  Currently, Ben, our two cats, all of our weddings gifts, and I live in a tiny little one bedroom, one bathroom condo on the fourth floor that Ben bought 4 years ago.  Most of my furniture is temporarily living in a storage unit on the east side of Charlottesville and has been for over 2 years now.  Needless to say, we are passed the point of being out of room and have been for a while so we began our search for that elusive “perfect house” a couple of months before the wedding (I know we’re crazy).

For some reason, I envisioned finding our future house as an easy and fun task.  That most likely is due to the memories I have of house hunting with my parents as an adolescent.  I remember my parents would put us in the car on a Sunday afternoon, we would drive around looking for open houses, and when we found one, my sister, brother, and I would scramble through the open house or model home picking out our new rooms!  What’s not fun about that, right?  Well now that I’m an adult, I realize that finding a house that you will most likely be living in for the next ten years or more (especially with the housing market in its current condition) is alot more complicated than just picking your own room.  It certainly shouldn’t be considered shopping because shopping is supposed to be fun (unless your a teenage girl and 30 pounds overweight, but that’s a story for another day).

Ben and I have been hunting for this perfect house since May.  Every now and then, we think we may have found “the one” and get our hopes up, but then it turns out to be too expensive, too old, has too high of an HOA, has no closet space, has a tiny kitchen, is in a county with poorly rated schools, is too far away from our family, friends, and jobs, or just plain doesn’t look the same as it did in the pictures.  There are so many aspects to consider when buying a house and the decision is made even more stressful by the fact that a huge risk is being taken on our part to sign our lives away for a mortgage.  It also doesn’t help that Ben and I are both very picky and don’t like to make BIG decisions.  We have a really awesome realtor and sometimes I wonder if she goes back to her realtor friends after looking at houses with us and vents about how crazy we are because she’s shown us sooooo many houses and we’ve only found 1 that we were willing to make an offer on, but someone beat us to it.  I wouldn’t blame her if she thought we were the craziest and pickiest househunters in the world!

I keep reminding Ben that we just need to be patient and that somebody our house hunt will end with us finding that perfect place.  I know it will eventually happen, but in the meantime we are packed in like sardines at the condo and both obsessively checking the new real estate listings in the area every day.  I guess if I have to be cooped up in a tiny apartment, there’s no one else I’d rather be with than Ben.

This weekend, Ben and I drove 366 miles to FINALLY visit my brother Mikey in Columbia, South Carolina.  The drive wasn’t bad at all…we drove through Lynchburg and Danville, Virginia, Greensboro and Charlotte, North Carolina, and finally made it to the beautiful state of South Carolina.  We made the trip in under 6 hours and that was with two stops for gas, bathroom breaks, and snacks.

When we got to Columbia on Friday evening, Mikey took us to one of his favorite brewpubs, the Hunter Gatherer, for dinner and drinks.  We each had delicious gyros and many microbrews.  We also finally got to meet Mikey’s South Carolina entourage (or part of it).  Ross, Katherine, and Josh met up with us for drinks and shared lots of crazy stories!

Saturday morning, we got up and went for a run around the University of South Carolina campus.  I did about 4.5 miles, but couldn’t keep up with Mikey and Ben who at a much faster pace, ran around 7.  It was really cool to see the campus and I also got a taste of the USC Gamecock school spirit from Mikey’s awesome roommate Katherine.  After our run, we hit the farmers market in Columbia, but soon it started raining, so we detoured to the Cock n’ Bull for what Mikey deems the best burgers in Columbia!  He was right…we all had delicious burgers while we watched the Olympics.

Later that afternoon, we got dressed up in our Texans gear and headed to Charlotte with Mikey’s buddy Josh who was gracious enough to drive us.  We stopped for sushi once we got to town and then continued on to tailgate before the game.  Much to our surprise, we realized that drinking on the streets in Charlotte on game day is legal accepted by the local police so we met up with some of Josh’s friends and enjoyed a few cold ones.

Mikey and I tailgating in our Texans jerseys!

Mikey and Josh enjoying cold beer in a hot parking garage.

The hubby and I getting ready for his first pro football game!

The guys at the game.

View of downtown Charlotte from the stadium.

The game was great!  The highlight was in the first quarter when Trindon Holliday scored an amazing touch down!  The night couldn’t have gone better with the Texans beating the Panthers 26 to 13.  Even though it was a preseason game, we made sure to out yell all of the Carolina Panthers fans surrounding us in true Texas spirit!

Sunday morning, we met up with Mikey’s friends for brunch at the Thirsty Fellow where I sampled the bellini, mimosa, and a bloody mary (the Sunday brunch trio)!  Food was great, drinks were awesome, and the company was the best.  But like all great weekends, this one had to end, so Ben and I loaded up the car and headed back to Charlottesville.  The trip was so much fun and I was sad it had to end.  I love getting to spend time with my brother and it was really cool to meet his friends and see where he spends his time.

I can’t wait for another trip back to South Carolina.  Next time I’ll make it a three-day weekend (or longer) and we’ll check out Charleston!

There have been ALOT of changes in my life since my last post.  I was laid off from my job at VGT back in March.  I was so lucky to find a new job before my lay off date hit  so I didn’t have to worry about being unemployed.  I really like my new job and am learning so many wonderful and valuable skills and gaining new experience in the web programming field.  I’m also getting the opportunity to meet alot of really great people.  But with all of that said, I’m having a very difficult time adjusting to this new part of my life.  This is my 12th week at the new job (10th if you don’t count the 2 weeks I took off for my wedding and honeymoon) and I’m still waking up most mornings paralyzed with fear about my day ahead.  The work is difficult and challenging, but it’s nothing I can’t handle and I have already seen an improvement in my performance now that I have had time to pick up on some of my training and gain some experience.  Sundays are especially difficult as all I can think about is how I’ll soon be subjected to another 5 days of terror.  I know my anxiety is rooted in many fears:  what if I can’t cut it, what if they fire me, what if I never make any new friends, what if this new job takes over my life and I have to become one of those people who works 60 to 80 hours a week, what if I totally screw things up, what if they realize I have no clue what I’m doing.  It’s very scary.

In addition, I really miss my old job.  I don’t really miss the type of work I was doing…that aspect was fine and I could have taken it or left it.  I miss the people  and the culture and the environment so much.  I miss knowing most everybody in the building and being able to strike up a conversation with them in the hallway or while getting my morning coffee.  I miss the inside jokes and the teamwork.  And to make matters worse, so many of these great people that I miss are moving away from the area either to relocate to VGT’s office in Tennessee or to find new jobs in larger cities with more opportunities.  It’s been very difficult and sad to say goodbye to so many wonderful people that have filled my life with joy for the past 4 years.

I know I’ll eventually adjust and my current job will become the new normal, but its just been very hard thus far and I hope that by writing about it, I can gather some feedback and support from others and at the same time, get things off of my chest.

The other change that recently took place in my life was my wedding to Ben.  No complaints there…it was the most wonderful and perfect weekend of my life.  I was surrounded by almost every person in my life that I love which rarely happens and we all had a wonderful time celebrating the beginning of mine and Ben’s marriage to one another. I think that might have been the happiest I have ever been.  But now I feel like I’m on the downward slope of the roller coaster.  After all, when you’re at the top, there is only one way to go.  It took me a while to settle into the new normal of not always thinking about and working toward the wedding.  I’ve been trying to find ways to occupy my new found free time and free brain space.  I love being married to Ben and things haven’t changed much for us as a couple.  But I feel sad often thinking about the fact that the wedding is now over and all of my family has come and gone.  I miss everyone sooo very much and it’s very difficult living so far away from them.  I am thankful for my Virginia family and friends who live so close to me, but I also yearn to be closer to my family who live so far away.  They just make me so happy and everything feels right when they are around.  But perhaps I wouldn’t appreciate them so much if they were closer and it was easier to see them.

So I’ve been trying to push all of this anxiety and sadness out of my heart and head by focusing on finding a house and trying to find new projects and activities to get involved in.  I feel like I am making progress and the clouds of change are slowly clearing, but every now and then I have a particularly cloudy or rainy day and need to escape.  I’ve tried talking to my husband and talking to my self (as crazy as that may sound), so I thought I’d try talking to the blogosphere on this particularly rough day to see if it made me feel any better.

Greetings on this beautiful spring Mother’s Day!

First and foremost I’d like to wish a happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms out there, especially my mom! Since both mothers and spring give birth to new and beautiful life, I thought I’d post some lovely pictures of all the blooming flowers, fruits, and vegetables growing in my future in-laws’ garden!

Lovely Blooming Peonies

The Nederlander Theater on Broadway to be exact!

This weekend, a dear friend and I are making our way by car, by bus, by foot, and maybe by cab if our feet get tired, to see Disney’s Newsies The Musical on Broadway!  After a two hour drive to Northern Virginia, a five hour bus ride to New York City, and a short walk from our hotel to the Nederlander Theater, we will be seeing Newsies on Broadway after months of planning!

Attending a Broadway play is one of the many adventures on my very long bucket list.  You may be wondering how the fulfillment of this adventure has finally come to fruition.  Well, you’re in for a treat, so sit back, relax, and read on!

There once was a little girl named Sarah whose aunt took her and her cousin to see a Disney movie in the spring of 1992.  This little girl fell in love with the story and the characters and became forever fond of the film.  That movie was Newsies, starring the now famous Christian Bale!

Fast forward 20 years or so; that little girl happens to be all grown up and has become great friends and soon-to-be sister-in-laws with me.  One day, Sarah mentions the movie Newsies and after my response that I have never seen it, she exclaims that I HAVE to watch it and that it will be LIFE-CHANGING.  Well she was right!  I fell in love with the movie too and Ben even gave me the DVD for Christmas.

So imagine our excitement when Sarah learned that for a limited time only, a new musical based on Disney’s Newsies would be playing at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey!  So Sarah, our friend Wendy, and I bought tickets and drove more than 600 miles in a weekend to see the play!  It was definitely worth the drive and we even got to meet the up-and-coming Jeremy Jordan who just happens to be a Texan!

 

Jumping for Joy!

Me and my girls getting ready to see Newsies at the Paper Mill Playhouse!

Here I am meeting Jeremy Jordan who plays Jack Kelly and realizing that he is from Corpus Christi!

Here Wendy, Sarah, and I are waiting anxiously for Newsies to start!

We had an amazing trip and the play did so well that they decided to take it to Broadway!

So that is the story of how I came to see my first Broadway play!  Many thanks to Sarah and Wendy for the pictures above and hopefully I will have many more to share with you when I return!

My posts have been few and far between this year, but that’s mostly because I’ve been out experiencing life!  Since one of my goals of writing this blog has been to document all of the new and wonderful experiences I have as I make my way through each day, I figured I should share some of those.

Well in no particular order, here they are:

• Got engaged!
• Test drove new cars
• Bought a new car!
• Bought a wedding dress
• Planned and threw 2 baby showers
• Introduced my dad to my future in-laws
• Became a landlord (i.e., invested in a rental property)
• Successfully competed in Warrior Dash
• Found the only Alamo Drafthouse outside of Texas and watched a double feature
• Drove to New Jersey and back in less than 48 hours
• Saw a production of Disney’s Newsies at the Papermill Playhouse and met the cast at a local diner afterward
• Created a wedding website and registered for wedding gifts
• Got a promotion to Software Engineer II
• Learned how to play the awesome game of Dominion
• Planned a wedding (partially)
• Threw a Silpada party
• Got second place in a Biggest Loser contest at work
• Made a fall wreath
• Became addicted to Pinterest
• Went to Smith Mountain Lake
• Watched an elementary school production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Attended the Top of the Hops Beer Festival, met up with an old college roommate, and met a famous blogger
• Had engagement photos taken by an awesome photographer
• Made my own t-shirts for Shamrockfest 2011, the 2011 Charlottesville Women’s Four Miler, and Breaking Dawn Part 1
• Went to a bridal show
• Participated in Office Olympics
• Got my concealed weapons permit
• Attended Scrum training by one of the inventors of Scrum
• Spent a wonderful long weekend in Disney World with my dad, step-mom, little brothers, and my fiance
• Had an AMAZING girls weekend in the Outer Banks
• Helped plan an engagement brunch for a friend
• Attended the 7th Annual Pink Ribbon Polo Classic at King Family Vineyards and met the owner who attended my alma mater
• Watched the Royal Wedding
• Crowd Surfed during the Dropkick Murphys performance at Shamrockfest
• Saw a real live bear
• Experienced my first earthquake…SCARY

I’m sure there are a ton of things that I’m leaving out and so many pictures and stories to go with all of these experiences, and one day I’ll hopefully get them all up here on the blog.

It’s been an AMAZING year so far and I’m hoping 2012 will be even better!

Hope your 2011 has been as great as mine!

I just experienced my first earthquake.  At first I thought it was just construction going on in the building I work in, but those around me informed me that it was indeed an earthquake.  I’ve got to say it has left me a little shaken up (no pun intended).  I didn’t think earthquakes happened in Virginia, or at least not big ones that could be felt.  This one was a 5.9 and seemed to last for around 30 seconds.

Hopefully everyone is ok and there wasn’t much damage done.  Keeping my fingers crossed that there won’t be any more earthquakes here!

You can see details about today’s tremor here.

These trees look like they’d be perfect to nap or picnic under.  Don’t You think?