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By Amber, on November 30, 2010, at 10:00 pm This is only our third winter in Houston, so I still find the seasonal changes here really weird and disorienting. We’re on the eve of December, and a third of the leaves are still green, a third are gone, and a third are changing colors. Mentally, I’m approximately here, season-wise:
 Not Texas.
 Also not Texas.
It was 50 F when I left Toastmasters tonight. I passed someone waiting at a bus stop, wearing a puffy, calf-length winter coat, a knit hat, and a scarf. (I’m not quite that wimpy, but I’m not that far off, either.) And yesterday it was 80 F. I was recently wondering where the heck all the hangers had gone and realized that they’re ALL in my area of the closet because I currently need both sweaters and short sleeves on a weekly basis.
I like our mild winters here in Houston, but as far as I’m concerned, the 80-degree days could give it a rest until March. I need the closet space and it would help me get in the mood for Christmas decorating!
 Definitely not Texas!
(If you’re curious, all of the pictures were taken in Holmdel Park, just a couple miles from where we lived in New Jersey and one of our favorite places to spend a Sunday afternoon in those days.)
By Amber, on November 25, 2010, at 12:00 pm I don’t have a picture of a turkey, but I heard a turkey in the hand is worth two owls in fake logs:
Today Mark and I will be hosting my side of the family and feeding them until they beg for mercy. I hope you are similarly surrounded by joy and loved ones!
By Amber, on November 23, 2010, at 10:55 pm All spring and summer, my casual go-everywhere bag was a pink- and white-striped tote with a butterfly on it. It didn’t seem right for fall and winter, so I asked the internet to show me what I could use to supplement it. I quickly found a bag that I loved at Zappos, but the price was more than I had planned on spending. I thought about it all day, then came home and tried to buy it. But by then some jerk had bought the last one in the color I wanted! Seriously? Of the trillions of bags on Zappos, someone had to have exactly the one I wanted?!
I was sad and mad, and suddenly ridiculously determined to find that bag, but more internet scouring than I care to admit to turned up only one other vendor, and the price was significantly higher. Resigned, I found a substitute bag that I liked a lot and which cost far less, and I ordered it.
Nearly three weeks passed, and I thought, “Huh. Wonder when that bag will arrive?” I checked the vendor’s website, which states that most orders go out within 48 hours, and it showed my order as ‘processing.’ I talked to a representative via their live chat and found out that the bag was discontinued in the color I’d wanted. I don’t know when or if they had been planning to tell me that, but I cancelled the order. I went back to Zappos…and lo and behold, there was the bag I had originally wanted! There was only one in stock and I snapped that sucker up.
Is there anything quite as satisfying as the triumph of a successful hunt, coupled with the knowledge that Zappos will have the item in your hands the very next day? Doubtful. Maybe I sound like a shill for Zappos, but I really do love that company. Brilliant customer service.
Anyway, here is the object of my affection:
It’s made of goat hide and it’s so soft. I love the subtle leopard pattern here and there that makes it fun but doesn’t take over the whole bag:
What’s your must-have item this fall?
By Amber, on November 21, 2010, at 10:00 pm 
The polar bear is buried somewhere in a box of carefully (and identically) wrapped fragile items, but this is the little donkey I told you about last week. He hangs out in the china cabinet (where else?) with some beautiful, cobalt Hungarian lead crystal glasses that used to belong to my grandmother and some amazing hand-painted table service treasures that Mark’s parents have brought us from Italy and Vietnam. I hope to one day be as well traveled as my kitchenware!
I spent the weekend cooking everything that can be frozen ahead of Thanksgiving. I’d tell you what that is, but my guests read my blog and I’d like to have some surprises! Now dinner is in the oven and I’m too tired to make my lunches for the week, but I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving — even if it doesn’t have its own candy like a proper holiday should.
By Amber, on November 18, 2010, at 10:00 pm …and something in my favorite blue:
Now that we have been in this house for over two years, we are finally getting our bedroom set up as something other than box storage. I want to share the finished room here, but it’s not finished. It’s starting to come together nicely, however, so I thought I’d share a few of the elements that make it home.
We decided on dark furniture, and I wanted white lamps on the bedside tables. I wanted a single white decorative object next to my lamp, and I spent an afternoon scouring antique shops for the right one. I found tons of treasures, but not the right white object. Then I saw something in a display case that made me realize I’d had my object at home all along.
On my bedside table (OMG I have a bedside table! We had overturned moving boxes for two years):
The lamp is new, but the pelican is over 50 years old. My mom got it as a birthday present from a friend when she was five or six and it’s part of a set — pelican, donkey, and polar bear. I have no idea why those things should go together, but I have them all. The pelican and the donkey have a little strip of fur glued to them, but the pelican’s has seen better days. I say it adds to his charm. Regardless, I’m thrilled to have ended up using an antique from my family rather than from some stranger’s.
His tag reads: PETE, FLUFFY PELICAN — TAKE FROM ME, I’VE A MOUTHFULL OF ADVICE
Being who I am, you know there have to be some creepy crawlies someplace in the room:
The spider was invited for Halloween, but I believe he’s won year-round status on Mark’s bedside table. I wonder if I could find a tiny Santa hat.
Oh, and the object in the blue box? Something I have wanted for years and finally have a place for:
By Amber, on November 16, 2010, at 10:00 pm I was good with my two regular sample sale websites (in truth, I belong to a few others, but I turned off notifications and I browse them only once in a blue moon). And then for some unknown reason, I went and joined one more. Why did I do that? Seriously. For now, when I do my rounds on all THREE, I can at least tell myself I’m scouting Christmas gifts. If I happen to see something I cannot live without, then oh well.
But I’m not going to kick myself too hard, because it almost immediately paid off. You know I sometimes like my jewelry a little rock ‘n’ roll, and this fit the bill:
This puppy sparkles. I wore it out to dinner over the weekend, and Mark’s first reaction when he saw it was to declare that if our car broke down or we got into trouble, it would be my job to signal the HPD helicopter.
The other thing I like is that it has a lot of heft to it. I’m not a small person, so I tend to like my jewelry to be in scale with the rest of me. This is a nice size for me (even if my wrist just barely fits!):
I was wearing an unusual amount of sparkle that night — sometimes you just feel like a disco ball.
By Amber, on November 14, 2010, at 10:42 pm A few final pictures from my birthday hike:
Mark wasn’t sure whether to let me include this next one. I think he made the right choice:
The required pretending-I’m-Ansel-Adams shot of the post:
This next one is a manmade cave that you can hike right by. I was a little shocked that there is theoretically nothing but your own integrity to keep you from climbing up and checking it out:
The sign said that there are benches carved into the walls, which you can sort of see below. You can also see soot on the ceiling:
After we hiked both of the short trails in the southern end of the park, we headed up to the northern end. You have to drive through private land to get there, and there is a noticeable difference in road condition, but our little rental Corolla survived. There is a veterans’ memorial at the northern end, but it was closed and we ran into construction at the overlook, so we turned around. It was worth the trip up to catch this view on the way back down:
After that we returned to the casita to get ready for dinner. We had our final dinner at Geronimo, which came very highly recommended — and for good reason. We both had the elk tenderloin, which was delicious and one of the most tender steaks I’ve had. I finished, of course, with chocolate cake.
Birthday dinner outfit (taken in our casita):
That’s it for the Santa Fe recap. I hope you were inspired to visit — I know we’ll be back!
By Amber, on November 11, 2010, at 10:00 pm The day before our anniversary, we had brunch at Chocolate Maven. It’s a bakery/cafe in an industrial area, and when you pull up it just looks like a warehouse shared with a Toyota repair center, but when you walk in it’s Wonkaland for the baked goods lover. There is an adorable bakery in front, and the dining room behind it sits adjacent to picture windows that let you watch the bakery workers as they make all sorts of treats. Well, we gorged ourselves on the brunch offerings (I had crème brulée French toast, turkey sausage, Mayan hot chocolate, and we shared garlic-rosemary fries) and then decided we would bring some baked goods back to the casita, including cake for our anniversary night since we would be having pizza.
However, after our anniversary morning gorgeathon, we could barely eat dinner, let alone dessert. So I had my piece of chocolate cake the next morning, in bed, to start my birthday. Cake for my birthday breakfast isn’t quite a tradition (yet), but let’s just say this isn’t the first time it’s happened. And it is always awesome. I’m thinking it really should be a permanent tradition. But I digress.
We drove out to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument to do some hiking. Our GPS led us slightly astray in the last few miles, but we saw tarantulas crossing the road during our detour, which was novel and exciting for us. I didn’t get a chance to take any photos of them, sadly — but I did take way too many photos once we finally got to the park and started our hike!
The tricky thing about this park is that it can make anyone think they are Ansel Adams. See:
The most exciting part for me was hiking my first slot canyon. Even better, nobody had to cut off any body parts to get to the other side.
Did you know that Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument is where they grow garden gnomes? Before there were ornamental gardens, there was no reason to harvest the gnomes, so some of them just grew and grew.
We climbed up above all the peaks to enjoy a view of Cochiti. It was windy up there!
Anyway, I have a few more pictures to share from that day, but I’ll get to them in another post.
By Amber, on November 9, 2010, at 10:00 pm Last year we were in Las Vegas for our anniversary, and spent the day eating decadent food and being pampered in a spa. We decided this year should be no different, except perhaps a change of venue (we will be going back to the Encore someday, though!).
Since we stayed in a little rental house, we had to take ourselves out for our breakfast. We opted for the decadent, multi-course Rancher’s Brunch at Fuego (in La Posada, a hotel constructed in the usual adobe style around an elegant 19th-century mansion which now serves as a bar). It was more food than any two people ought to eat at brunch — pastries and Devonshire cream, melon with Serrano ham, oats, an enormous entree (I had an omelet full of meat and cheese), and then churros with Mayan hot chocolate. We were happy and miserably stuffed by the end. And THEN they brought out dessert!
Now, neither of us is the kind of person who wants to be sung to in a restaurant for any reason at all, but we do tell restaurants of the occasion when we make our anniversary reservations, because sometimes an upscale place will do something neat like that for you. We tasted a little bit of the raspberry flan thing and asked them to pack everything to go. Then we waddled slowly down the sidewalk to our car and drove to the spa.
We received multiple recommendations for Ten Thousand Waves from leisure-loving Houstonians, and one look at the website was all we needed to conclude that we would be going. We initially had an insane day planned with something like 6+ hours of baths and two massages, but one of the baths was out of service and we scaled way back. We started with Waterfall, had a massage together, and watched night fall from the tubs at Ichiban. Their pictures are a lot better than mine, but I’m sharing mine anyway.
Ichiban is really more a bath suite than just a private bath — it has a sauna, a large shower for two (standing or traditional seated), a Japanese robo-toilet (with heated seat, gentle rinse, direct rinse, front rinse, dryer, small flush, and big flush), and a place to lie down if necessary (why you would waste your spa time lying down is a mystery to me).
The hinoki bath and body products provided throughout the spa smell AMAZING. I couldn’t stop smelling myself after I used the lotion!
I liked the eerie green glow of the tubs — Mark would have been as happy with the lights off, but they seemed appropriately ghoulish for Halloween so I insisted on leaving them on!
I really liked the ‘teacup’ tubs, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the parable of the frog in the boiling pot. Oh well!
Eventually we had to leave. So sad. But even the walk to and from the parking lot feels magical:
A lot of restaurants in Santa Fe seem to close earlier than we are accustomed to, so rather than rushing home to get dressed up and go out, we picked up a pizza, brought it back to the casita, and ate it on the bed while we exchanged cards.
It’s going to be hard to top this anniversary next year!
By Amber, on November 7, 2010, at 10:00 pm Yesterday I had my zillion photos from New Mexico open and I was narrowing them down to what I wanted to share next, and then somehow I lost all my progress. Doh! I don’t have the energy to redo that just now, so I thought I’d share some assorted snaps from the past week.
Who’s that reading my favorite book?
It’s Sammy! He was a birthday gift from my parents. He looks great on our bookshelves!
He came with a note from my mom:
Mark and I ordered burritos the other night for pick-up. There is a Freebirds just up the street and I think they put something addictive in the meat. The staff is young and cheerful, and we have long suspected that at least a few of them are having special smoke breaks during their shifts. Evidence:
I ordered two so I wouldn’t have to make lunch, and they made sure I knew which ones were mine:
When I sat down at my desk the next day, I noticed the bag:
Speaking of places with herbally-enhanced employees, we made a Whole Foods run tonight and I picked up some treats containing my own favorite herb:
I have a slight obsession with rosemary. I sort of have a personal theory that rosemary is the new bacon. You heard it here first. I’m very excited about these!
Also spotted at Whole Foods (it looked a lot better on my 1″ x 1″ cell phone screen!):
You know the holidays are here when the sock monkeys show up en masse!
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