Wednesday, August 25, 2010

August 25, 2010

Fashion Crisis.

Do these pants match this sweater? They seem to be a bit gray to me....but they are definitely the brown pants at Banana for this season. J Crew where I got the sweater doesn't even sell brown pants! What's up with that!?
August 24, 2010

Girls lunch at Gloria's in the Domain! I think I needed to take back lighting into account a bit more in this shot of Leighton and Robin.

'Cause the one that Robin took of me, Mandy and Sasha on the other side of the table looks loads better!
August 23, 2010

It's the first day of school for Austin ISD and all the school zones are in full effect. As I was stuck waiting for kiddos to cross my eye wandered to this gem. I don't know why, but at 6:55am the advertisement of "Runs Good" made me giggle.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Sunday, August 22, 2010

August 21, 2010

More recruitment at the house. The philanthropy night was broken into two days of parties - Friday and Saturday. We had a lot of alum support at the house and I'm sure the actives had lots of hard decisions as all the girls going through recruitment all looked cute as a button!
I love the energy of this picture - the girls are singing, clapping and chanting the PNMs out the door at the end of the party.
August 20, 2010

What the heck is this you ask? Why, it's how I spent my Friday night. Watching out for the fraternity boys across the street who were throwing water balloons at the PNMs as they were walking between houses for recruitment....I never did catch one in the act!
August 19, 2010

"Hold the steak - send the cowboy!" That's what you get when it's Theta dinner group and the waiter tells the table that the special is cowboy ribeye steak. Here are two of the troublemakers - Whitney and Liz.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

August 18, 2010

Getting excited for Jack's bday cake! I picked up some rice crispies and gold luster dust!
August 17, 2010

No rain today to cool us off from the 103 temperatures....let's not even talk about the heat index. I've got to cool down with something and this sweet summer wine just hits the spot. I don't think it tastes good until the temperature is over 100 and then it's the only thing I want to drink!
August 16, 2010

Temperature departing house for bootcamp: 103

Weather conditions at William Cannon:
Temperature at bootcamp off of Oltorf: 82. Ahhhhh, me likie.
August 15, 2010

Here's the problem with suddenly getting a hankering for peanut butter cookies on a Sunday night after dinner - you're the only person home to eat them. It sounds like a genius plan until about the seventh cookie and then you begin to regret.....I had to take the rest into work the next day because I couldn't look at them....

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

August 14, 2010

Summertime Sangria Madness!
Gettin' all the Blue Fish ladies (& honorary ladies) together for Summer celebration - oh and the boys too. Back row: Mandy, Angel, Leighton, Me. Front row: Jennifer, Cheryl (nice arm posing), Robin, and Sasha.
August 13, 2010

Happy Birthday Jack! Jack-a-doo, doodle, doodle-bug, nugget, bud! I can hardly believe that it has been six sensational years since you came into our lives! I think we're learning as much from you as you are from us!

Year one: Projectile poo. Heather, Bridget, you know what I'm talking about - I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life.
Year Two: Dude! You're talking!
Year Three: "Kid Archs"
Year Four: Soccer Star!
Year Five: "This is the part where you go through the metal detector Jack. You need to" - " I know Mom!"
Year Six: So grown up, you're killing me in PS3 and Wii
I wouldn't have missed it for the world - can't wait to see what you do next!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

August 12, 2010

Headed home! Sunset in Phoenix as I head home to Austin.
August 11, 2010

Oh yeah, this is why I don't live in Southern California....
Every time I come to visit and think, it's so wonderful, the weather is so nice, family's here ...I get reminded of why I don't live in LA!

Saturday, August 14, 2010

August 10, 2010

Off to client site today. I couldn't resist snapping this pic as I was headed out of the parking garage - who knew they had news vans?!
August 9, 2010

Lots of pictures out plane windows lately but that's what I've been doing lately. Here's Austin as I jet west.
And here are the cool mountains of California! I tell you I sure don't mind visiting the west coast when it's supposed to be over 100 every day of the week in Texas!
August 8, 2010

Family dinner up at Jim's house. While we waited for the Olsons to finish up dinner so we could video chat, Jim and I decided to go to Fast Freddy's for an ice cream treat. When the lady at the window saw the girls in the car she asked if they could have a treat. What a treat!!
Two big servings of puppy custard and a milkbone! The girls went nuts!
They were both very full and very tired when I took them home :)
August 7, 2010

New curtains! I finally got around to installing the remaining set of curtains in the kitchen area. Makes the whole place look downright homey.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

August 7, 2010

When I was growing up, Mom was always trying to make MeMaw's Patience candy. But after several years of attempts she finally gave up. The candy always seemed to "crystalize" and even though it was delicious, she claimed it was not the right texture. She was convinced that Marie was intentionally leaving out an ingredient so that no one would ever be able to make the magical Patience candy.

Fast forward 30 years. Have you ever worked with a Jane recipe? There is the classic Egg Nog pie recipe which lists all the ingredients and full recipe explanation only to have the last sentence say, fold in the whipped cream. Oh you mean the whipped cream I psychically knew to purchase, but wasn't listed in the ingredient list....that whipped cream?

Last night when I arrived into town late, I emailed asking for the classic chocolate chip cookie recipe. I was going to make some birthday cookies for a friend who likes chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate...I know and it's not even me!

Here's what she sent:
If you use butter, they are very much richer. I like the lighter, crisp Crisco version instead. You can double the chocolate chips, but I like having cookie in between for a lighter cookie. Light is all relative, you know. Writing this for outsiders by listing all the ingredients at once.
2 c. crisco
2 c. brown sugar (packed)
1 c. white sugar
4 eggs
2 t. baking soda dissolved in 2 t. water
2 t. salt
4 1/2 c flour
2 t. vanilla
1 c. finely chopped Walnuts
12 ounces Nestle's chocolate chip morsels
can cut this in half. Baking time 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes - depending on soft to crisp preference
Cream the crisco, sugars and eggs. Add the dissolved soda and salt and stir in. Add flour. Vanilla, nuts and chips go in last.
okay?
momee

Well that sounds simple enough! It was even written for outsiders, surely I should be able to follow that! Thinking this would make a lot of cookies, I decided to cut it in half and go 50/50 on the butter/Crisco. I knew that would make it spread a bit and I wasn't sure if I should add extra nuts to compensate for the chocolate chips but I forged ahead. Here was my first result:
I'm just going to go ahead and call that a fail. Good thing I was on the phone with the Madre at the time because she imparted this little tidbit: "Oh, I always add like a half a cup more flour". Hmm, don't you think this would have been good to share up front?

So I tried to add a bit more, but they still weren't right:
I finally just mixed up a second batch with all Crisco and a half a cup of extra flour and look what I got!
Cookie perfection.
Now I ask, was MeMaw holding back, or did Jane just inherit the "I can cook and bake wonderful treats, but I can't do a good job of explaining them to others" gene?
August 5, 2010

Show's over folks. I helped break down the booth with the guys and then popped open the laptop while we waited for our crate to pack up so everything could make it back to Austin.

Friday, August 6, 2010

August 4, 2010

Scenes from Tampa Bay:
You absolutely know there is a reason that the hotel had to put this sign on the sliding glass door....
We ate dinner in Tarpon Springs which is a Greek community where the primary industry used to be sponge fishing. Is that really fishing? Or is it sponging? Sponging sounds gross so I'll go with fishing. Now it's mostly kitsch shops and Greek restaurants. We ate at Mama's where we had FABULOUS Greek food. Totally authentic. Then took a stroll along the main drag after dinner where we ran across this boat tow away zone sign. I thought it was pretty funny....
August 2, 2010

On the road again! Out the window of my Continental fight to Houston where I caught another plane headed for Tampa Bay. The thing I like about this photo is that you can see the shadow of the plane on the little lake below.
August 2, 2010

We've had a death in our family. That's right. My trusty shredder has shred it's last. I had to kick him to the curb. Well not really, I recycled most of the plastic parts. Off to Target to pick up a new one!
August 1, 2010

I've been contemplating signing up for Mint.com for sometime now and finally decided to take some action on Sunday. It was a good reminder to look at everything - I sure do have a lot of little bits of money stashed everywhere....gotta consolidate those old 401Ks!

Sunday, August 1, 2010

July 31, 2010

Did you ever wonder what happened to those prosecco pops? Well after an hour gardening in the 100 heat of the early evening, I decided it was time to bust them out. Not as flavorful as I would have liked, but definitely quiet refreshing. Not over sweet, just right with the peaches. A bit icy which made for quick eating! I'm still working on what to do with the pan of the frozen stuff....I'll let you know what I come up with
July 30, 2010

Now this is an exciting picture isn't it?! It was a long work day and it turns out this was the only picture I took that day. I had to send it to one of our partners so they would know what came in the box.

We seem to have two types of Fridays in our office - those where everyone is there and it's busy, busy, busy - even busier than most days of the week and then those Fridays where it's totally dead. This was a totally dead Friday. I spent a bunch of time cleaning out the cube next to me so another person could move into it and then realized, crap! I still have to do all my work that I do on Fridays in addition to this. Ugh. It made for a late Friday departure which was particularly painful given that it was so quiet in the office otherwise....