Texas Lou

I’ve not been very active on the blog and its mostly because I’ve been spending my free time thinking about wedding details and making wedding plans.

The love of my life and I will get married on Saturday, June 23, 2012 (the day after our 6 year anniversary) at the beautiful Clifton Inn in Charlottesville, Virginia.  The Clifton will provide much of the wedding party and out of town guests with rooms for the weekend, as well as catering, linens, and tableware.  I think having a venue that is a one-stop-shop for everything from the cake to the tents is going to make my life alot easier.

The only other official plans I have made for the wedding are arranging for a very talented, local photographer to be there to capture the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, getting ready for the wedding, the ceremony, and the reception.  Aaron Watson takes beautiful photos that succeed completely at capturing the mood and emotion of the moment.  He took family pictures for some good friends of mine and did a beautiful job at portraying the personality of their young family!

I still have LOTS to do…look for a dress, pick out the menu, find someone to make the bride’s cake (that’s right, I’m starting my own tradition:  a bride’s cake instead of a groom’s cake), officially ask my bridesmaids to be in my bridal party, register for gifts, etc.  The list goes on and on and it is quite overwhelming!  So if you wonder where I am or where I’ve been, hopefully June 23, 2012 will be able to show everyone where my time and effort has been going!

I try to go for a walk during my lunch break a couple of times a week since my office building is located in a semi-rural area.  There are some wonderful views and plenty of plant life nearby.

These are some shots of dogwood trees located near the property.   Dogwoods are Virginia’s state tree and flower and I think they are quite lovely when they are blooming in the spring.

Happy Easter from Virginia!

I am now subscribed to 431 blogs!  That’s insane!  Someone put me in rehab before I drive myself crazy trying to keep up with them all!

Halloween can mean lots of different things to different people.  For kids, Halloween is about procuring large amounts of candy and staying up late to enjoy their sugar high.  For many college girls, its the opportunity to get away with dressing like a slut for one night when it is socially acceptable.  For some, Halloween introduces the challenge of seeing how many people you can scare as a undead-like zombie or a 50 year old man dressed in drag (my former step-dad’s costume one year when I was in high school).

For me, Halloween is about creativity.  Since I began working at VGT in the Fall of 2008, I have dressed up for Halloween every year since we are allowed and even encouraged to wear our costumes to work.  We even have a costume contest where our coworkers get to vote for the scariest, most original, and funniest costumes.  I’m not really an extremely competitive person, but I do like to get reactions out of people so I usually try to come up with something that is going to accomplish that goal.

I know it is nowhere near Halloween, but I dressed up for work today (a dress compared to my usual jeans and a sweatshirt) because I am meeting my dad and my brother at some fancy schmancy restaurant in Washington D.C. for dinner after work that has a stricter dresscode than my workplace.  Wearing something “unusual” to work got me thinking about the other times I’ve traded in my casual attire for something intriguing.

*Halloween 2008* I dressed up as the farmer in the dell…box!  I had just bought myself a new laptop so I took advantage of its packaging!

*Halloween 2009* I was Mario from the Super Mario Brothers.  I was especially proud of myself for reusing the GIGANTIC overalls from my farmer costume I wore the year before.  I never knew how difficult it was to find overalls, especially in my size and these were the smallest I could find!

*Halloween 2010* I decided to go with 80s rocker chick mainly because I had just gotten over Bronchitis and didn’t have a ton of energy to go all out on a costume.  I couldn’t find real legwarmers, so I made my own by chopping the bottoms off of a large pair of tube socks.  I used my guitar hero guitar as a prop to give the costume that extra edge.

I have to say that I think I’ve had more fun dressing up for Halloween in the past three years than I ever did as a kid.  Soon I’ll start thinking about what my costume will be for next year.  I know Halloween is still 6 months away, but I’m going to need alot of time to come up with a costume that will top the previous three!

This is one of my favorite spots in the world. I’m spending a weekend at the Island House Condominiums in Padre Island, Texas. My family has been vacationing here most of my life and I’ve been swimming in this pool since I was 4 years old. I hope my kids will one day come to love this little piece of paradise like I do.

I know it’s been a LONG time since I’ve posted anything…I’ve kind of been hibernating for the winter.  However, today is April 1st and we are well on our way into spring so I thought it might be time to break out of hibernation mode.

If you’re reading this blog then you probably already know this, but just in case you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere, I’ll make the announcement:  Ben and I are engaged!  Finally after almost 5 years of dating, Ben proposed on Valentine’s Day.  So for the last two months, I’m been doing some wedding planning and venue searching instead of blogging.

We think we’ve found my venue and picked a date, but I don’t want to announce it until its finalized so I will leave you all with the pictures from our engagement night and a promise to update this blog as soon as our venue and date are official!

Over the past few weeks, I have developed a passion for a new salad that I can’t get enough of.

The ingredients are:

• Baby spinach
• Craisins
• Crumbled goat cheese
• Pecans (chopped, halved, or whole)

I mix them all together and don’t need any dressing to enjoy it, although I have a suspicion that a raspberry vinaigrette would go well with it.

The goat cheese totally makes the salad, but of course it would not be so tasty without the spinach, pecans, and craisins to complement its flavors!

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas!

I always get a little sad when I have to leave my family in Texas after Christmas and come back to work, but there was a little something waiting on my desk that brought the biggest smile to my face!

My friend Ashley MADE this Christmas ornament for me! I absolutely love it!

Thank you Ashley! Your gift will be cherished for many years to come!

There’s something I’ve been wanting to write about recently, but for several reasons, I don’t feel it is appropriate to write about in this forum.  It’s neither the right time nor the right place.  However, the constant consumption of my thoughts by this topic leaves me wanting to write about nothing else.

So technically I am writing about this topic right now, but in a very vague and foggy way…a way that does not reveal anything about the subject to my readers (if any do exist).

Anyways, hopefully my mind will soon find something new to obsess about and I can write all about it here.