Month: April 2010

This past weekend we went to Hickory NC to visit some friends and go to special meeting.  While I was there I got to sew my first skirt!  My seamstress grandmother and my friend’s mom both helped me out.  The seams are a little (read: a lot) wobbly, but I’m learning!  It’s a pleated blue and white flower print knee-length bubble skirt.  Pictures will come soon.

Quick Update: Christian and I are working full time, Christian gets his braces on today, the PreCalc. CLEP is coming up soon, and Grandma and Grandpa from Mexico are visiting, so things are BUSY.

The other day I got an e-mail from an old friend that I hadn’t talked to in a while, then another one from another old friend, and one from a new one! All those letters set my mind on my friendships.

I have some good friends. Some I’ve known for half my life, some I’ve known for almost all of it, and some I’ve just recently met. Some friendships took a while to bloom, some I’m still working on, and some have been steady forever. Some are people I’ve known for a long time, but never took the time to become friends with. Some started talking to me, some I started talking to. Many I don’t see or talk to often, many I haven’t seen in years, a few I’ve never seen and a very few I get to see every single day. Many are related to me, many are not. A lot of them were born in the 90’s, a few were born in the 80’s, a few more were born in the 70’s, and a lot were born before then. Most share my worldview, some don’t. A few I can call up and immediately start conversing without any preliminary pleasantries or awkwardness. A very few I can have an conversation about serious things with. Sometimes I forget their birthdays, and sometimes they forget mine, but it’s okay. A few of them are the kind of friends I can stay up late in the dorms and gossip with. A few of them I’ve played pretend battles and Frisbee and capture-the-flag and freeze-tag and water-wars with for years and years and years. Some are grown-up and I’ve never played any of those things with them, but we’re still friends anyway. Most are girls, some are boys. Some I’ve studied the Bible with, many I have nothing in common with, many I’m sure I’ve annoyed, all of them have influenced me in some way or another. A lot of them I need to keep in better touch with, and I take too many of them for granted. I think some of my friends don’t even know that we’re officially pals, but we are. (: I love them all!

This weekend was a lot about food. It started early Saturday morning at Pam’s Farm House Restaurant. Pam’s is a cash-only establishment with an attached bar (The Goat) that is not open at any time we would ever think about going there. It reminds me of Lucy’s (with the King’s X attached bar) in El Paso, probably my all-time favorite breakfast joint. It is right around the corner from the Sun Bowl so I sent my buddy Warren there when Oregon State played there last year and he agreed with my assessment, but that is another story. Pam’s is high on the list, if not number two. They serve biscuits and gravy that are out of this world. One plate is enough for two people. Andrew, Troy, Christian, and I all met there at Troy’s invite. We owe Troy big time.

On Sunday, Lester and Esther invited us to Jasmine after meeting. Jasmine is a Middle Eastern food restaurant we like a lot, but it did not open until noon, so we ran down to Moe’s Mexican food. That was good, but then it was Mexican food and I never complain about Mexican food. We went to Barnes and Noble after lunch to see Giada De Laurentiis. You can read about that below. Lorena and Kelly watch her in the gym while they are on the elliptical machine. She was impressive. Not only is she very cute, but she was kind, upbeat, and very engaged with each and every customer during the many hours of signing books. Lorena and Kelly loved it. Lorena said something in Italian to her and even pronounced the names correctly. They are dying to try the recipes in their new book.

Three weeks ago we were at the local B&N and we saw a sign advertising the Giada at Home: Family Recipes from Italy and California book signing. We’re big fans.  Not like rabid fans, but big fans nonetheless because she’s pretty and she’s Italian and she cooks awesome stuff and she’s rich and she’s famous and also she’s pretty.  So today, after meeting and a leisurely lunch at Mo’s, we moseyed over to the aforementioned local B&N for the aforementioned book signing.  Mom and I got to chill out in the PINK balloon waiting area because we were in the PINK balloon group.  This made me feel happy! There wasn’t much to read in the PINK balloon waiting area though. Just a book about a girl with two daddies and another book about Herman and his truck so I went and got a copy of CLEP PreCalc, a Girl’s Life issue and a Triathlon for Women book to flip through. Guess which one was actually read. Starbucks kindly revived us with caramel frappe samples halfway through and cinnamon gum was consumed by the pack.  The totally-prepared-expensive-Nikon-camera-packing-my-daughter-loves-Giada-so-I-brought-20-of-her-books-to-sign-and-y’all-better-not-get-in-my-way lady next to us talked loudly on her phone about mermaid-themed cocktail parties and stuff. We (actually Christian) helped a sweet elderly couple turn off the flash on their camera. Bathrooms were made full use of. After two hours of waiting, they finally called on the PINK balloon waiting area group to go get our books signed.  And THEN!!!!! :

Seriously, how fun would it be to go on a book tour and smile a lot and wear big sunglasses and be doted on by adoring fans? I’m thinking extreeeemely fun.

It was so worth the wait (:

She was such a sweetheart! She was always smiling. Like ALWAYS. And she was really, really pretty 🙂  And the cookbook is amazing. It’s filled with gourmet recipes that are beggggging to be made.  I’m very tempted to put together a menu from the book and host one of those fancy schmansy themed dinner parties with a discussion topic for the guests and placecards with scrolled lettering and many courses of small servings of artistically arranged food-that-looks-like-it-came-from-another-planet on mostly empty white plates and classical music and decorative flowers and lots of Italian words. Lots and lots of Italian words.

March was another heavy month.  The kids took no tests, just worked through the daily routine every day.  The focus for the entire month was, and will continue to be test preparation.  In that way this year has been different from other years.  We believe Christian will have a similar year next year, but Kelly will be moving into a new era as she starts at the community college.  Our next tests will not be until mid May.  Kelly is scheduled for Precalculus.  Christian is to take Western Civilization I.  In the meantime, we will have to adjust our schedules because both the kids will start a three week stint working forty hours per week at Centice Corporation where I work.  I will write more about that a little later.  That should create a little bit of a challenge as we will need to keep up with test prep, Betty Blonde, musical instruments, and household chores.

Yesterday we changed direction and started reading On Writing Well aloud.  Normally, I read while Kelly draws Betty Blonde.  Christian usually draws, too, but is now the reader.  Although I have done most of the reading in the past, we went through a fairly long period when Kelly was the reader, so it is good that Christian now gets his turn.  He read the introduction and the first short chapter.  The theme of that first chapter is that there is not one right way to write.  We are all inspired now to write.  I was kind of burnt out on writing every day in my blog, but this has given me new wind.  Kelly promised she will jump in here, too.  Christian will spin back up his efforts at Nerdhow.  We want to read a little further in the book, then make a plan on how to do this most effectively.

Along that same line, my boss Andrew has been telling me about how much he enjoys Twitter.  I have been pretty skeptical, but then yesterday, Kelly told me about how she follows Adam Baldwin and Andrew Breitbart on Twitter and gets a big kick out of it.  Maybe there is more to this twitter thing than meets the eye.  I am going to have to look at it a little more closely.  Troy has a Twitter account for GaugeCam and I should be helping to posts some tweets there, too.

We are just back from a fabulous four day weekend in Dallas, Texas with our friends, the Larson family.  We did a ton of good stuff, saw a lot of old friends and ate way too much food.  Just one of the highlights of the trip was our visit to the Sixth Floor Museum of the Texas School Book Depository.  Of course, I remember where I was when I heard about the Kennedy assassination (I was a third grader on the playground at Harrison Elementary School in Cottage Grove, Oregon).  It has always been a bigger than life event.  The visit to the museum and the walk on the grassy knoll brought all that back down to earth.  The gun, the descriptions of the people, the boxes of books–everything about the whole event seemed so ordinary when viewed in this new context.  I was not expecting such a deep emotional response to the whole, especially after having lived in South Florida amongst the Cuban community who have strong feelings about the people involved.  It was interesting.  I am very glad we went there.

We also went to the “hands” exhibit a the Baylor Medical Center.  I will let Kelly tell a little bit more about that and the other things we did during our visit.  We thank the Larson family and all our other friends in Dallas for their remarkable hospitality and a memorable visit.