Snowshoeing and Sunrises

Just a collection of cell phone pictures from my mornings on the way to school and our weekend snowshoeing trip. No editing or fancy filters, kind of grainy, but I like 'em.

School is going well, teaching is great, and I've been reading a lot lately. All in all, life is good.

Happy New Year's!

This was Martinelli's Sparkling Apple-Cranberry. I highly recommend it for all the perennial DD's like me out there.

New Year's Eve was really the perfect kind of laid back but still fun and social night- exactly what I look for in a NYE experience. We picked up our friend, Matt, for a late dinner and then headed to a house party hosted by Bobby's co-workers. Lauren was one of those thoughtful hosts who made appetizers, put up pretty lights everywhere, and generally made sure we all had a good time. I only knew Bobby, Matt, and one of their co-workers, Christy, and it was fun to hang out with new people and talk to random strangers. We were up and out until 3 a.m. and unfortunately I woke up at 8:30 this morning, but if that's my only complaint I'm doing okay.

We spent New Year's Day eating a late breakfast at Whole Foods before getting a much needed pile of groceries to replenish the pantry that has been barely used all fall and early winter. Laundry and house chores and a 3 hour nap followed while Bobby picked up snowshoes- weird, this is a carbon copy of last year. It's 10:30 p.m. right now and I feel so terribly sleepy and fuzzy headed/dizzy that I can't even imagine how crappy I'd feel without said nap. I just finished making this soup on Jenna's recommendation, and I'm keeping myself awake by blogging while I wait for it to cool enough to food process- fascinating stuff, I know. Trust me, forming semi-coherent thoughts is about all I have right now, witty/interesting is a frill that requires more sleep. The first day of 2012 goals have gone well so far, but I'm much too tired to blog about that, so another time.

Tomorrow morning it's back to the grind with a 6 a.m. wake up before heading to school to plan and prep all day. I'm actually, in a weird way, kind of looking forward to getting back into a routine of school and teaching, if only because I'm looking forward to May when I will finally be certified. I have a feeling the next 5 months are going to be stressful, rewarding, overwhelming, and busy. They'll probably also fly by, if last semester is any indication.

Ok, off to food process and then drop from exhaustion. Merry fabulous 2012!

Christmas Plagues, Hurray!

I've been eagerly awaiting Christmas break for a good while now. I have an entire month off of my graduate program, and I have 17 days off of student teaching. Here's how I planned it out- I would leave school on Friday, December 16th, attend two Christmas parties, and then do some things for my teaching certification (I have to submit scads of paperwork and evidence, it's obnoxious). I figured I'd be disgustingly lazy on Saturday, sleeping in, screwing around on the internet, eating crappy food, reading books, squandering time like a champ. Sunday I would clean the house from top to bottom, do all my laundry, finish up my evidence submitting for school to the CDE, and then Mon/Tues/Wed I would do the semester planning, syllabus writing, lesson planning (a huge project). This would, theoretically, leave me with 10 straight days during which I had no worries, cares, responsibilities, or deadlines/projects looming over my head.

So, everything went according to plan until Sunday night. I went to bed, happy and tired from a productive day, ready to wake up early and hit the library. Instead, I woke up at 4 a.m. itchy and fuzzy headed. There was a huge welt on my elbow, and on my knee. I thought I had been bitten by something. Bobby told me it looked liked hives (which I've never had). I went back to sleep, only to be awoken at 6 a.m. to lumpy, swollen hives all over both of my arms, my side, and my leg. Here's an idea, just picture this, you know, all over-

I took this picture and sent it to my mom so she could tell me if I was going to die. I'm only kind of kidding.

 We decided to head to Urgent Care, which opened at 7 a.m. By the time we got there, most of them had faded. I chalked it up to the cleaner I had used the day before during Winter Clean-a-thon 2011, the doctor gave me some steroid cream, and I went along my way. Later that night, they came back with a vengeance, this time all over my upper body, with huge dinner plate sized welts covering my stomach. I chugged Benadryl and conked out, sleeping from 6 to midnight and then from midnight until ten a.m. Vacation was off to a GREAT start, lemmetellya. Tuesday I spent the day at the library in order to stay out of the house. I came home, and promptly broke out in the worst hives yet covering my entire body and making me feel like my skin was going to burst it was so swollen, prompting Bobby to say "I didn't know it was possible for hives to look like that". It was gross. At this point we decided that I needed to leave the house and go to a friends' place. In the time it took us to drive 10 minutes, half the hives were gone, and by the time I had been at their house for half an hour, I was hive free. Clearly, our apartment was trying to kill me.

Bobby spent about 7 hours re-cleaning the house from top to bottom to get rid of the cleaner, as well as buying new pillows/comforter/towels just in case it was some funky dust allergy. I came home to find our tree on the back porch, visible only through the safety of the sliding glass door.

Banished, for crimes against my skin and immune system

I was hive free, but I had wasted 4 nights and 3 days high on Benadryl, getting little to nothing done because my brain was on a puffy cloud of medicine, sleeping up to 15 hours out of 24, and being woken up two or three times a night by the return of the hives when the medicine wore off. To say it sucked would be a bit of an understatement. I was www.Grinch-fest.com.org.edu.screwchristmas after the first day, once the "this is ridiculous but what can you do other than laugh?" roll with it optimism wore off. Since Wednesday afternoon of last week I've been hive free, but, just to make up for it, I've had one day of a crushing sinus headache that lasted all day, and today I've been in bed after puking my guts up randomly this morning and then having chills and nausea all day. I am falling apart here, people! I read some David Sedaris to make me feel better about not having to work as a Christmas elf, and yeah, it helped a tiny little bit, but not much.

Good news is that the holiday weekend, including all day Friday, was great. Christmas Eve was spent with a good friend and Christmas Day proper was absolutely wonderful. So, I'm still grateful, if a bit bitter. It's like an 80/20 mix. I fully realize that having hives from a cleaning product and/or a totally unnecessary Christmas decoration in the form of a dead tree are pretty much standard first world problems, but hey, they're mine, and they tried to Grinch-snatch my Christmas vacation, so there it is.

The Way We Think Things Will Go vs. Reality

Getting to hang out with all of these lovely people over Thanksgiving break in Texas was a welcome respite from everything I'm about to whinge about below...

I had the idea that I would chronicle this year of my teaching internship right here on my blog. I envisioned it being similar to my first year teaching in Japan. I would share funny stories, insights, frustrations, and put it all in post form so it would be there to review in the future when nostalgia hit.

Of course, in reality, I've barely blogged at all these past few months. A lot of this can be chalked up to taking 3 grad classes while student teaching 30 hours a week and still volunteering, while trying to find time to hang out with Bobby. At first, I attributed my lack of time to being on crutches- it seemed a logical enough scapegoat. Then, once I was off the crutches and still stressed and tired and with no downtime to do frivolous things like blog, I decided it was because of all the homework I was doing, working ahead so that I'd have Thanksgiving week free of assignments- and yes, that was part of it.

But mostly, I think I'm  not managing my time very well. Not the majority of the time, but at least 25% of the time, I'll let my fear about not finishing a project/lesson plan/book in time get in the way of my being able to give myself some downtime. This happens, especially, when I'm procrastinating. 75% of the time, I can hit the library no problem, bang out 6 hours straight on Tues/Thurs, and then work all day Mon/Wed/Fri, and then do homework on Sat/Sun. And I'm productive, and it's good work, and I feel good about it. But then, say, 25% of the time- I just don't.wanna.do.it.dammit. And in those times, I don't just admit "you know what? I'm going to dick around on the internet for 4 hours instead of doing my homework because I'm just not feeling it today, so I should just put it away and go do something fun with Bobby, or blog, or work out, or go on a walk, and actually enjoy this time." No, what I do is live in denial about the fact that homework/lesson planning/reading that book on __________ just isn't going to happen, and instead I'll remain at the desk, frittering away my time. I'm not good about taking breaks, I guess is what it comes down to. Or I'm not good about building them in, maybe that's it. Either way, I have a tiny handful of assignments left in this semester, thanks to all my working ahead, and I'm currently sitting at a 4.0, so I know I'm doing something right. And my stress level has gone waaaaaaaaay down in the last few weeks. But now I'm feeling the crunch again, and I feel guilty about not "working all the time", which results in the stupid situation of not being able to let myself actively choose downtime, instead of just sneaking it in.

The problem is, I do have a lot, a LOT of work to do. And yeah, I'm getting the majority of it done. But I need to come up with a different approach for next semester, or else I'm going to go insane. This coming week I am sorting scholarship applications for the non-profit, planning a lesson and teaching it on Friday, writing a behavioral plan tonight and interviewing a student tomorrow, doing two other assignments for my courses, completing step 4 of an application for an international job which includes photocopies of my whole life and passport photos in professional clothes for visa applications, grading 17 incredibly long essays + character diagrams + background analysis work for AP Literature, reading a book called "Teaching with Love and Logic" and taking detailed notes as part of a SMART goal for my teaching internship, plus my usual commitments of my teaching internship. I'm also getting back in the gym and hitting up spinning classes today, Thursday, and Saturday, as well as yoga on Thursday and Sunday (skipping the gym "because I'm busy" has been an excuse for too long this semester; I've been this busy the whole time, that's never going to change, but what is changing is my ability to fit into any of my professional clothing).

All of the previous has to be done by Friday night, so I only have one day off from teaching (Thursday) and 4 evenings to work on all of it. This weekend the homework/lesson planning starts all over again with an equally packed schedule for next week. One good thing is that two classes will be FINISHED this Saturday, and my third grad class will be finished on Wed, December 7th when I reflect on the last lesson plan I have to submit for the semester. I really think this whole experience would be very different if I wasn't going to grad school full time *while* student teaching. Don't get me wrong- I love that I'm getting credit for my student teaching, and I love that I'm getting a master's degree out of the kind of education classes I have to take for certification either way. But it's intense, ya'll. F'real though.

I'm really hoping to be able to blog more consistently, if only as a way to focus my thoughts. I promise they won't all be navel gazing bitch-fests about being busy like this one is. Honestly, I'm really enjoying so many things about this year, I'm just not enjoying my schoolwork. The teaching? It's great. My school, awesome. The kids? So, so cool. I love 'em. And all 3 of my mentor teachers are kind and helpful and intelligent and I am lucky to have them supervising me. I just need a break from all of this damn homework. Then I can be a tiny bit less crazy.

Every little bit helps in that department, trust me.

Son of a...

A sunny picnic in Yellowstone National Park. This picture is not relevant until the second half of the post.**

 I just realized, as I was organizing photos from our most recent road trip (the 3rd, and last, of the summer), that I have yet to blog about our 2nd road trip- mentioned here- when we traipsed back up to South Dakota for some Memorial Day weekend fun. Damn. The Texas road trip- spread out over 5 parts, I don't think any of you find Texas or me *that* interesting, haha- took up so much time that I was just road trip re-capped out. And then, of course, I realized that after the Galapagos re-caps wore me out, I was over it and didn't start the Peru re-caps until a few months after, but... damn, now that's been a month ago. I have so many posts in the can- my garden is all growin' and stuff, and it's a joke how big those tomato plants are since they avoided dying, I did some around the house craftiness, and there is a whole grip of news on the school/work/internship/life front. Per my last post filled with excuses, it's just been crazy town busy central around here. Today is the first day since the day before our trip, way back on July 7th, that I have gone grocery shopping, for example. I'm also just now caught up on laundry/cleaning and random rat killin' (errands/to-do/it's a down South slang kinda thing) that it wasn't until this evening that I finally felt like I was truly home after the trip.

I'm about to reassess every area of my life- kind of like an activity/time de-cluttering project- in preparation for going back to school come August. Technically, I go to school this Sunday, to live on campus for 5 days, take a super intensive first course, and go through all my necessary orientation to start my masters program. So, yeah there's also that- it seems like I'm finally feeling a bit settled, and then it's off to southern Colorado for 5 days. I suppose the only reason I'm feeling stressed is because of the totally optional responsibility I have placed on my self of keeping up with my blog, but still, I feel behind because I'm, well, behind. About twice a year I'll go back and read through old posts and think "I am so glad I wrote that down. I totally forgot that happened until I re-read it just now". So I'm grateful to have a random online record of my life, if only so I can look back on it and feel a little reflected shine of nostalgia via my computer screen. I'm also grateful that I froze half of the raw brownies I made, because, while typing this rambling bit of navel gazing nonsense, I polished off a little guy smeared in all natural peanut butter and I was incredibly happy for how delicious it was.**Relevance activated!

I have a really good book waiting for me, so I'm not going to keep it waiting any longer. The windows are open, the hot spell is broken, and the fan is purring some old fashioned white noise into our bedroom. G'nite, kittens. See you on the flip side, whenever/wherever that might be appearing in the midst of this busy time.

Absentee Excuses

I been hangin' around (somewhere in Capitol Hill in Seattle)

 I had the best of intentions to avert such a long silence on my blog, but things got hectic, and here's why. My last post was on Thursday, July 7th. I then spent all of that day and the next cooking, cleaning, laundering clothes, packing, and organizing because on Friday, July 8th, we hit the road for a 3,000 mile/12 day road trip. I thought I'd have more time than I did, but I didn't, so my plans to blog a lot on Friday afternoon before we left were tossed right out the window. But I'm back! Here's where we went:

Summer Road Trip 2011

A night and a morning in Thermopolis, WY to check out Hot Springs State Park

2 days in Yellowstone:
Madison Campground reservation first night

Mammoth Hot Springs Cabin Reservation second night

Yellowstone to Seattle, WA- with a long visit to Helena, Montana- to visit friends for 3 days and check out their new place

Amtrak to Vancouver to visit our Canadian friends for 2 days

Back to Seattle for one last night out on the town

Portland, OR for one day/night

 

Portland to Salt Lake City (with a long stop in Hood River Oregon for lunch, and a stop in Boise, Idaho for dinner)to stay the night and visit my cousin before she leaves Utah for Texas

Home to Colorado

 

While we were gone, our friends stayed in our place for a few days to apartment hunt for their upcoming move, which is one reason I wanted it to be clean. We got home on Wednesday at 1 a.m., Bobby went straight to work a few hours later, and I got to work cleaning/unpacking/doing laundry. Thursday afternoon, our friends Brooke and Chris stopped by on their way home from a family vacation in Wyoming, and they were here until yesterday morning- a second reason I wanted the place to be neat and tidy. Bobby and I napped like professionals yesterday, an unexpected gift since the aforementioned moving friends had originally asked for our help in moving them in Saturday afternoon. The plan was to say goodbye to Brooke  and Chris and head straight over to Tyler and Amanda's. Turns out they got in a day early and unpacked everything. So we napped away the afternoon, met up with Jenny for some frozen yogurt, and crashed out relatively early. I wish I could say I continued catching up on sleep fest 2011 with a deliciously lazy sleeping in session, but nope, I woke up at 7:45 this morning without an alarm, just as I did yesterday.

 

But don't worry, it's 10:12 and I'm typing this in my underwear with an unwashed face and unbrushed teeth. Bobby just woke up and I'm going to convince him to go to Snooze for brunch. In random updates, my plants are still not dead, and they grew 6 inches while I was gone. Oh, and I barfed 30 minutes into a 3-D midnight showing of Harry Potter 7 in Canada (sorry, neighbors to the North!) so we're having a  re-do this afternoon with our friends Matt and Paige. I think first I need to put on some pants though.

4th of July Weekend, or, I Discovered the Filters on My Smart Phone

I cannot tell you how glad I am that Bobby and I did not spend 4th of July weekend in Santa Fe. We were crazy lazy, sleeping in and staying up late and I didn't cook one time. Thanks to all the local restaurants for feeding us. We played in the pool and local toy stores, read books, worked out a few times, rode our bikes a bit, and had an excellent 4th of July.

 These puppets were grossly over priced, and had the most condescending faces. At least Bobby's was funny.

 Mine was kind of terrifying. Like he's muttering "Don't MAKE me do something I'll regret". Got it, bunny.

 Here's another reason I'll never have thousands of followers. I had never been to a frozen yogurt- sorry, fro-yo!- place, so we went last weekend. It was tasty, but I'm still not understanding the fro-yo obsession. Maybe it's the adorable over lapping hand hold that makes it crazy delicious? Or maybe it's pretending to kiss it while having your significant other take a picture of your fro-yo love? Who can say. Was it good? Sure. Is it deserving of more than one picture on any blog on the internet? I would say no, but that's just me.

 On the 4th, we noticed that no one was at the pool. How did we get the place to ourselves on the 4th of July? Who can say, but we were happy.

  Yeah America, let's go cowboy hats. The pool was deserted the entire time we were there, and after a few hours we decided to mosey into some dry clothes and grab some grub. We had already decided that parking 2 miles from City Park and schlepping ourselves + any creature comforts to a park filled with 4th of July celebrants was not on the agenda. Here's why (the following is slightly sarcastic and tongue in cheek, but mostly just brutal honesty). 4th of July revelers usually fall into two diametrically opposite camps- drunken assholes who are way too loud, too drunk, and wearing far too few items of clothing, or harried, stressed families dragging a bunch of kids out way past their respective bed times to watch fireworks that will either a) bore them to tears or b) scare them to tears. Now, of course, I'm being a bit hyperbolic and over simplistic. There are certainly many people, drinkers and families alike, who do not fall into one of those two groups. But those two groups tend to dominate the energy because they are mortal enemies. So the sloppy drunk college girls piss off the parents who really don't want to have to explain to their 4 year old those kind of age inappropriate things, and the parents piss of the sloppy drunk college girls for trying to ruin their good time. On top of all that, it's generally hot, crowded, and there is an unacceptable port a potty to person ratio. Then, when the fireworks are over, everyone willingly takes part in an ungodly traffic jam that rivals any Wednesday morning rush hour situation, and we all sit in our respective cars in bumper to bumper traffic, listening to terrible music from said sloppy drunk college girls, watching people get arrested, and trying in vain to just get home because we're hot and tired. Don't get me wrong, I love watching fireworks. I've also had excellent 4th of July experiences in parks, with strangers, despite all of the previous. But we weren't interested in looking on the sunny side of things while ignoring the bad, so we decided to just skip the potential bad altogether and have our own little celebration.

We did drive around City Park, just to check out the situation, but it was already madness a full two hours before sunset. People were parking miles away, and it looked like a fireworks march to Mecca. This confirmed our plan to do our own thing. We changed course and drove out towards the reservoir. There's a convenience store at the base of the foothills that services the boaters and campers that are heading towards the reservoir, and it had a huge fireworks tent set up.

These took me way back. They were my favorite as a kiddo

 We snagged the hen and a box of colored sparklers and then continued on our way up into the foothills. A lot of other people had the same idea, but even with cars lining the shoulder the hectic, packed feel of the City Park celebration was absent.

 After the sunset (which was beautiful in its own right) the horizon started lighting up with fireworks. From the hood of our car on the shoulder of the road we were able to see 3 or 4 shows at once.

I spent my time watching, not taking pictures, so this is the best one I got.

 We also played with our sparklers, which was nostalgic fun. I discovered the filters on my smart phone, that night which created some neat images. I put them all into overexposed black and white, and I really like the way it turned out.

We left our shoulder side spot and headed back home right as a storm started up. The hen was shot off in the parking lot of our apartments, a fact I regretted a bit once I was reminded that it made a shriek (sorry neighbors!). The rest of the night was spent on the back porch, sitting by candle light and listening to the storm blow through the enormous aspens in the courtyard behind our apartment. We didn't plan one bit of it, and it couldn't have gone any better.

Movin' On

ETA: The captions turned out to be absurdly small, but there are some hyper links within them if you care to mosey around in my internet past. I'm also far too lazy and tired (see closing statement) to change anything about this post other than tacking on this very long and italicized disclaimer. Good night!

Before stepping into the future with smart phones I cleaned out the random, super old pictures on my phone that dated back to 2009. Here are a few in no particular order, chosen for no particular reason.

2010- Pig rocking chair picture taken for my good friend, Jess. She loooooves pigs.

2011- Bathroom art at New Belgium Brewery

2010- A classy wall decoration- yours for a steal at the local thrift store!

Early 2010- It snowed A LOT in Texas that winter

2009- I get all my nutritional advice from gas pump placards at convenience stores. Solid.

2009- Kate works at a nursery, and I told her about how my father used to do this with his construction boots. Officially creeped me out just as much at the age of 26 as it did at the age of 6.

2009- Binkus, cat of wonders.

Christmas 2010- You know you're in a sketch store when they have anti-theft tags on the baskets.

2010- A random bar in Brownwood, right before we moved up to Colorado

2010- Also right before we moved up to Colorado- this child is now 14 months old. He was a few days old here.

2009- Front porch of Jess' apartment in Hollywood, where I lived while writing my thesis.

2009- Halloween shopping. This sums up why I love Jess so much. We ended up going with these costumes.

2009- Last night in Hollywood before returning home to Texas to walk for graduate school.

2010- Bobby and I pet sat the creepiest cat in the universe. This picture says it all.

2009- My contribution to a Christmas potluck.

2010- My favorite gauntlets and a sparkle doughnut.

 I have a sore throat, so now it's bed time. Oh, sweet delicious bed time.

A Different Perspective

As seen at a big box store, while buying an emergency windshield wiper

My "Clutter Catcher" is called Goodwill, or, alternatively, any thrift store in town.

I'll stick with my method.

Cat Box

Sometimes you're just tired of thinking. Maru videos on the internet to the rescue.




In other news, I'm re-upholstering my second love seat today. Once that project is done, new apartment pics can go up. Per the sensational news, this will give a crazy stalker the chance to memorize the layout of my home and then come and kill me.

Get ready for the good stuff, crazy stalker. Home tour is on the agenda soon!

But for now... more Maru.




No, wait! For now I need to upholster that couch. Off to be responsible.

Last Week in Dallas: Clutches and "Bridesmaids" and Cinco de Mayo, Among Other Things

After a few days catching my breath and catching up with Mom and Granny in Brownwood, it was time to head back to Dallas for the last 5 days of my trip. I headed out early Wednesday. Halfway through the trip, my clutch started getting cranky. My car wouldn't accelerate that well. I hit traffic right as I got into Dallas, and during a stop and go moment under a bridge, I clicked on my lights. 20 minutes later, I was at Dad's house. I forgot about the lights being on. I was worried about the clutch. But mostly, I was hot. So I took a shower, called up Kate and Anna, and made dinner plans. Of course, as soon as I got in my car, it was dead thanks to the lights being left on. Bobby was flying in on Friday night, and we were driving back to Colorado together on Monday. I was pretty certain the clutch wouldn't make the trip, and after repeated tries the battery just wouldn't take a jump. A tow truck and a clutch replacement were in my future. I called Bobby, and he said  he'd do some research to find a mechanic. In the meantime, Kate and Anna came and picked me up and we had dinner as planned. I have to say, it was absolutely perfect timing. I had done all of my Texas running around, I had met up with all of my friends during the first  leg in Dallas, and all that remained for  the trip was a birthday party and a wedding, both of which I could easily get rides for.

We celebrated my clutch going out by eating at Twisted Root Burger Company. They have the best black bean burger I have ever had, plus made from scratch sauces and lots of different fried things on the side- green beans! pickles! And the standard french fries/onion rings. But the best part is their made in house root beer. They always have plain, and then some crazy flavor. I've tried their Irish Cream, Strawberry, and this time I had their Chocolate Peanut Butter. Just trust me, it sounds nasty, but it's so good.

Fun fact- my camera broke that night as well! That's why the pictures are all blurry

You probably shouldn't take me to restaurants...

 During my week jaunting between Austin/San Antonio/Austin/Brownwood, Kate had moved in with Brooke and Chris. I crashed at their house, and Kate let me drive her to work the next morning so that I could meet up with my friend Jess for lunch. Lunch with Jess was great. I wish we had more time to hang out, but she is a busy girl, always traveling, and she is spending the summer working at a breakneck pace so that she can pay for and take 21 hours of college classes to finish up her neuroscience degree. I told her she has to come to Colorado for some snow sports, so hopefully a winter meet up is in our future.

After lunch I headed back to my dead car to give it one more try of a jump before we succumbed to a tow truck.

 The thing is, this car has more than 160,000 miles on it, and clutches (and batteries) are bound to go out. Plus, this was the original clutch, so I'm not holding it against her. I love this car down to its bones, bad clutches and worn out batteries and all.

 Dad tried his best, but it just wasn't happening. I called Bobby in Colorado, and he called a tow truck to come get our lil' 'rolla. I took advantage of the "tow truck should be there in two hours" news by taking a nap on my Dad's back porch. It was beautiful Texas weather, there was a nice breeze, and the loveseat is super comfortable.

After the car was safely on its way I headed back North to Plano to pick up Kate from work. She works as a manager at a nursery, is a master certified horticulturist, and loves her job to bits. I always like seeing her in her natural environment.

Tomato plant aisle, AKA the snack machines for employees

 I had made plans to go out to the Church that night with my friend Daniel, but I just wasn't feeling up for going out. Instead we watched the Biggest Loser, I took some medicine, and crashed out. The next morning he dropped me off at the train station so I could ride the DART home to my Dad's house. On a whim, I decided to get off at the Mockingbird Station exit. I've spent a lot of time there, and one of my first few dates with Bobby was at the Angelika. Since I had time to kill and nowhere to be, I got off for nostalgia's sake. I walked around a bit, got some coffee, and then headed back to the train station. As I walked up the steps, I saw a man in a white tux, a TV camera crew, and about 15 to 20 girls in bridesmaid dresses. I recognized the man- we had gone out on a few dates back in the day, his name was Robert- and he called out "Hey, it's Cortney!" I waved and smiled, and then continued on my way, assuming he was busy and working. As I started  to get on the escalator, he ran around the corner, and told me to come join him for an pre-screening of the movie "Bridesmaids". He was the former host of Good Morning Texas, and he was doing a bit of publicity for it. It was pretty random chance that we would run into each other! I took him up on the offer, and joined him in the Angelika.

 They had to film some segments for the show before the movie, so I watched them give fake toasts...

  and hand out goodie bags. After the camera work was done, we headed into the movie. If you haven't seen it yet, I would highly suggest it. Afterwards I said my goodbyes to Robert, grabbed some lunch, hopped back on the train, and then walked from the station to Dad's house. J-Ben and I had dinner plans, so she came and picked me up and we headed out to Pappasito's. It wasn't until we got there that we realized it was Cinco de Mayo. Perfect.

 J-Ben, reflecting on the day.

Me, worshiping guacamole. Also, my bangs are totally telling the story of how I walked several miles from the train station to my Dad's house in some serious Texas heat. Don't worry, I had the option of showering before we went to dinner. I just picked napping on the back porch again over a shower. Priorities are important.

Bobby's plane landed that night, but he went straight out to his parents house. I spent all day Saturday celebrating Mel's son's first birthday party, and then I spent the evening with Bobby, his parents, and our friend Lindsay. Sunday was Mother's Day, but more importantly, it was Karin and Hermes wedding day! It was beautiful, the food was great, and we had a lot of fun. Lindsay photographed it, and when the pictures are done I'll be posting lots of them here.

Monday morning Bobby and I picked up our car, and then we set off for Colorado. We broke the trip up into two days so that, per usual, we could stop and visit with Great Granny in Kansas- she is perfectly halfway between Texas and Colorado. We came home to a house full of boxes, but I was instantly in love with the new apartment and was so glad to be home that the boxes didn't even matter. After being gone a year I'm so grateful I got to spend such a long time in Texas, and it couldn't have been better timing, with the two birthdays and a wedding. Even with the clutch going out, it was an excellent trip.