Eat, DINK and Be Merry

Seminar Season

Amber — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 03:00:25 +0000

My sister asked me if I were ever going to blog again. I’ve just been so busy attending and coordinating seminars hither and yon that every Sunday I’m either packing for the next one or recovering from the previous. I haven’t been to Toastmasters in several weeks and I’m going to miss another this week.

The seminar that I held was in Chicago. I never get seem to closer than Cicero when I go to Chicago, so since I was in charge, I booked the event downtown. Mark was able to join me after it was over and we walked all over the place, including two unsuccessful attempts at the Sears Tower (I called it the ‘Willis Tower’ when speaking to my Chicago-native officemate, and he pointedly said, “The what?” Now I really don’t know what to call it!).

I was surprised by how much I liked Chicago despite having to drag my cool-weather clothes back out of the closet and the fact that it’s impossible to have nice hair in the relentless wind. It’s clean and pretty, with flowers everywhere. If it weren’t for the whole winter thing, I think I could live there. I’ll definitely visit for leisure again.

Photo time!

I took that photo from the Navy Pier. The slogan for the Navy Pier is “Go a little overboard.” It should be “Great if you’re under eight.” Great views, but not much for adults except the beer garden and the boat tours.

More after…

We had to walk down to the Al Bundy fountain:

It’s pretty impressive when it’s on, but I only saw it on twice in my travels around the city for my seminar.

I was more taken with the fountains in the Chicago Art Institute’s South Garden. If I worked nearby, I would want to eat lunch here every day under the green canopy (except for the seven months of winter).

We moved on to Millennium Park, where we were surprised to find wall-to-wall flowers and a rabbit in the middle of a city. Mark’s uncle told us there are coyotes, too.

We visited the bean (I wonder if it annoys the artist that everyone calls it that):

And of course we took the mandatory reflection self-portrait:

I have some of Mark’s cell phone pics, too:

The end.

Bad bunny

Amber — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:11:01 +0000

The Easter Bunny set off our burglar alarm at 4:50 this morning and didn’t even bother leaving treats. Mark went to greet him with a shotgun, but found neither hare nor hide.

Easter is not a religious occasion in our household, unless you count my fervent devotion to Cadbury Creme Eggs and Mini Eggs, previously documented herein. We started the day at our usual Sunday service (now with fries!) and will be concluding it thusly:

A little-known fact is that the day after Easter is a more important day than Easter, because that is when all of the candy is 50% off. (It’s also a documented fact that Easter is the best candy holiday of the year.) Sadly, this year I’ll be unable to scour every Target and Walgreens in the Houston metro area because I will be riding with a colleague to San Antonio for a seminar.

Next year, Easter Bunny, I’m setting a trap.

Toasty in Texas

Amber — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 03:41:12 +0000

We had a long, mild winter, which has been followed by several weeks of the kind of weather that makes me want to stay in Texas forever. Sunroof open, windows down, not a care. With the flowers and palm trees you can almost pretend you’re in Southern California, except for knowing that soon the air will be hot and thick as soup until November. I got a taste of that Saturday when I ran an errand and came back to my car to find the black interior resembling a blast furnace. When I opened the door and the wave of hot air hit me I felt surprised and then dumb for being surprised; it hasn’t been that long since it was hot here! I suppose air conditioning season is nigh.

The other toast popping around here is good old Toastmasters. This past week was Toastmasters-intensive for me. Not only did my work club meet (I’m now the president of that club, and we have a lot of work to do to become a smoothly functioning club), but the next day I had the privilege of acting as chief judge at our area contest. A contest is like the old adage about the duck on the pond — if you’re sitting in the audience, everything looks pretty smooth. Only when you’re behind the scenes do you see how hard the feet are paddling! Fortunately for me, our area governor was the contest chair. She juggles an amazing number of things and she made it as easy as possible on me. (She has opened a lot of opportunities for me and I have made it a practice never to say ‘no’ to her. It’s served me well so far!) At the end of the contest she called up the functionaries to thank them and say excessively wonderful things about them. She presented me with a beautiful note and this book, which I am excited to read:

I take that photo a lot, I just realized. Insert book/tchotchke of the moment, hit shutter. Anyway, on Friday I attended the gallery opening of a Toastmasters acquaintance and ran into some other members there. On Saturday I attended another area’s contest (as a spectator) plus a couple educational sessions — one about listening effectively and the other about running productive meetings. Two of my favorite topics, for sure. One of the reasons I attend nearly everything I can — aside from my own edification, of course — is the opportunity to interact with some of the most knowledgeable and influential members in the district, and this event turned out to be a great one for that.

I feel like the pieces are moving into place for some really exciting things to happen in my little Toastmasters-nerd world. I can probably count on one hand the number of times in my adult life when an opportunity seemed limitless. I’d like to put this moment under glass so I can come back to it over and over.

Red velvet rodeo

Amber — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 01:46:49 +0000

This weekend we brought my sister with us for our last rodeo visit of 2012. I had a very specific food checklist and completed it in this order: sausage on a stick, fried red velvet cake, fried cookie dough. Yes, I did the cookie dough last time, but it was worth a repeat. Enough so to supercede fried oreos.

Watch for my friend Natalie’s take on fried red velvet, but here’s my assessment: solid 7 or 8, but not a game-changer. Would be better with more frosting, or a post-fry frosting schmear. Would eat again.

We minimized our visit to the livestock, but stopped to admire the chickens.

There was plenty of livestock at the actual rodeo events. It was the second to last night of the whole rodeo so we got to see some championship shootout rounds, which meant we got double the rodeo for our money! BTW, can you spot the amateur in this collage?

Obviously it’s the kid with the camera in her face, but the calf scramble is no joke. Torn shirts and torn jeans are common results!

This time the concert was Brad Paisley. I don’t know his music, but it was a pretty good show. I left my telephoto lens home this time, so my photos of his alter ego were better than my photos of him:

Also, did you know that ladies love Brad Paisley? It’s true. Every time he stepped from the stage onto the dirt, the fence instantly looked like human flypaper.

Ah, rodeo, I will miss you for the next 11 months. Why haven’t I bought a lifetime membership yet?

Springing forward

Amber — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:00:01 +0000

If you asked me, “Amber, how many of your rodeo photos have you sorted through since last weekend?” I would have to admit that the answer is 15. Those would be the ones from which I am posting tonight. After that, I am springing forward to the next rodeo day! If you guessed that I’m still going to take just as many photos, you’re probably right.

Anyway, the photos I have tonight are from the John Legend concert after the rodeo events. Of all the performers of the various rodeo weekends, John Legend was the only one I actively wanted to see, and he did not disappoint. In fact, the sound was uncharacteristically good for Reliant Stadium, which has made many a Grammy winner sound terrible. He opened with Adele’s ‘Rolling In the Deep’ and performed a great selection of his older hits and new material. This was not his first rodeo (literally and metaphorically) and he even dressed for the occasion. Maybe we’ll go see him again next year!

Rodeo, Rothko and fried cookie dough

Amber — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 04:12:46 +0000

My parents visited this weekend and we took them to the rodeo! If you have been with me a while, you know that I LOVE the rodeo and took a million photos while I was there — too many to sort through tonight. However, I can show you a photo of this year’s game changer:

Fried cookie dough on a stick. I’ll be eating that again! I had a longer list of must-eats than I accomplished, but I’ll get a second chance in a couple weeks. Anyway, it was fun to get to finally show my parents what the big deal is at the world’s biggest rodeo.

This weekend we took advantage of the last weekend to see the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. The two frescoes date to the 13th century and were originally stolen from Cyprus. The Menil Foundation paid the ransom and restored the 38 pieces for display as intact frescoes. They’ll be going back to Cyprus after this weekend.

We also stopped into a very famous Houston landmark, the Rothko Chapel. I apologize if you are an art buff, but I am calling BS on the Rothko Chapel. It’s an octagonal bunker with some enormous purplish-black canvases on the walls. I’m happy to let wealthy art patrons commission whatever they like, but the pamphlet makes a bit much of it for me:

“It is a place where a great artist, turned towards the Absolute, had the courage to paint almost nothing — and did it masterfully.”

Can someone show me a non-masterful example of painting ‘almost nothing’? Has anyone ever advised a student of art who has failed at painting almost nothing to go back, study the masters, and try again?

The works of the Rothko Chapel and a few other surreal about-town experiences made for a weekend replete with hilarious (to us) inside jokes and commentary. From this sprung my idea for my next blogging venture. I’m pretty sure it is destined for greatness.

Overbooked

Amber — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 04:30:10 +0000

Waikiki rush hour

Every Friday my coworkers and I provide our boss with a status summary for our projects. If the length of my status update for last week’s activities were proportionate to the effort the week required, my boss would still be reading what I submitted at 4:47 on Friday. What is for certain is that I’m still recovering from it. Every other week I work four days instead of five, and I have been so busy that I think last week was the first time I was glad to be there on a Friday — late for a Friday, even!

Some friendly folks from my Toastmasters district, including my home club’s VP of Membership, trekked out to my office in West Houston to put on a demo meeting for about 20 of my colleagues. There is a lot of enthusiasm for starting a club at my company, and I’m so excited to be part of that. I’m on the fence about volunteering for an officer role — I’m willing, but I don’t want to overextend myself to the point where I can’t do justice to my commitments. Meanwhile, I’m trying to coordinate judging for my home club’s speech contest this week.

Last week I spent two days with some customers, doing a mini dry-run for the three-day school I’m coordinating for April. There is a lot of work to do still, but I feel good about the team I’ve assembled. In April I’ll be putting on my own school in Chicago and attending one or two other schools in San Antonio. If I’m not smarter by May, it will be because I’m brain-dead.

Backyard Valentine vacation

Amber — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 04:00:03 +0000

Since we both had to work on Valentine’s Day this year, we decided our gift to ourselves would be a fancy weekend in a hotel right here in downtown Houston! It turned to be a perfect weekend to stay in one place, with incredible thunderstorms passing through on Friday and Saturday.

We checked into the Four Seasons on Friday evening and headed downstairs to dinner at Quattro. Truffled fries, veal cheek bolognese, lava cake, oh my! I was glad we didn’t have to drive home because I was so full from the amazing food.

Saturday we started with an amazing room service breakfast and spent the rest of the day in the spa, enjoying massages and having the fourth-floor outdoor whirlpool to ourselves. We finished the day with another room service meal. You can get 24-hr room service at the Four Seasons (required to earn a five-diamond rating from AAA), which is awesome — not that I can stay awake late enough to need it after a spa day. What is it about relaxing all day that makes me so tired?

I was probably most excited for brunch today, which was even better than I’d imagined. There was a breakfast station (eggs, bacon, french toast, etc), a dessert station and a savory area (it requires you to walk into the kitchen, which is interesting) that appeared to have some of everything offered throughout the hotel: seafood, Italian, sushi, meats, cheese & charcuterie. I usually like to keep to traditional breakfast foods before noon, but I had to try some grilled chicken, pasta and bacon-wrapped quail.

I would pretty much like to live at the Four Seasons now, please. The room was elegant, quiet and comfortable, and the service throughout the hotel was befitting of royalty. I wish the spa had a little more going on as far as relaxation areas, but that’s all I would change.

It was finally sunny and pleasant today, so after we brunched and checked, we wandered over to Discovery Green to walk around and sit in a butterfly garden. If the weather were always like this, I would never want to live anywhere else! Finally we made our way back to the hotel to get our car, but not until we wandered through the new downtown Phoenicia Foods and picked up a little something to take home.

It was an indulgent weekend, but we won’t be able to do this kind of thing when Mark is in school, so we’re enjoying the flexibility now. Hopefully we can squeeze in one more weekend like this before then!

What’s with the plastic baby?

Amber — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:18:49 +0000

So asks the king cake:

That’s the first king cake I’ve bought that included a bean. Maybe we’ll plant it.

It’s been yet another week of blog neglect because there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Right now part of my job includes being an event planner, which is interesting and kind of fun, but my head is swimming in hotel and food rates! I have a feeling this week will fly, because I have so much to do and so little idea how. Most of what I’m doing is not engineering, but the problem-solving required appeals to that side of me.

Mark and I both have to work on Valentine’s Day and I’ll be speaking at Toastmasters, so we’ll have some steaks at home on Tuesday and we’ve got something fun planned for the weekend. But between now and then…king cake!

About that weekly photo thing

Amber — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:39:21 +0000

You know what? I just don’t want to. I am not lacking obligations this year, and it’s barely February. Phew, that’s a load off.

Lots of stuff going on around here. My job is wearing me out and I’ve been missing my afternoon naps, so I sleep like a baby but I dream about work. This new job is more challenging than any I’ve ever had and I love that, but I find myself needing a lot more recuperation on the weekends than ever before. As for Mark’s job, he’s counting down until he leaves it this summer to start a full-time master’s program. This program is essentially the reason we moved to Houston, so it’s exciting for him to finally get started. For a couple years we’ll just be INKs instead of DINKs! (Dear anybody, would you like to sponsor my wardrobe during this time?)

What else…I decided I needed more to do at work (ha), so I’m trying to get a corporate Toastmasters club started. The feeler I put out through the training coordinator got a very positive response, so I’m working on setting up the demo meeting. At some point I will surely ask myself what the heck I was thinking, but for now I’m excited.

Remember the aluminum prints I ordered on Cyber Monday? Yeah, me neither. They’ve been sitting on the dining room table for a couple months and I keep forgetting they exist, but I finally hung them this weekend. The shot that is my least favorite ended up looking the best because of the way the light catches it. The image almost seems to jump out of the picture. I’m glad we ended up with the aluminum prints because the windowless bathroom they’re in was so dreary. Hard to capture that effect in a photo (had to turn off the flash for the first because they reflect so much light), but here they are anyway!