Since You've Been Gone

{Disclaimer: MG left for Australia a week ago and will be there, on an internship, for five months. We miss her terribly.}

Dear MG-

Hi! How are you? How's tomorrow going so far (since it's still 11 PM in Dallas)?

A great many changes have happened in the neighborhood since you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled; and one of my own daughters. I suppose you have heard of it; indeed, you must have seen it in the papers. It was in the Times and the Courier, I know; though it was not put in as it ought to be.

Oh wait, no, I think I stole that from someone.

So you emailed me to blog and update you on what's going on around our lovely home- I'm glad you did since it's forcing me to sit and write, which I haven't had the patience to do recently.

We have been readjusting a bit since you left- getting used to the extra 5'10, 25-year-old girl-sized space that we have to fill. KS is slowly but surely transforming the downstairs hallway where your bedrooms are into a suite for she and Ruby. Valuable air conditioning and closet space should never go to waste, after all.

We went to Northpark together to go shopping last weekend (I know- who let that happen?) and we did the most damage at Lululemon, of all places. There's nothing like skin-tight yoga clothes to keep you motivated and attending bi-weekly power yoga classes though, I will say that. I'm also mere centimeters from being able to touch my toes, which I consider an accomplishment since my hamstrings have the natural flexibility of a 2 X 4.

We saw Inception last Friday night- have you seen it yet? I thought it was great, but the most recent movies I had seen prior to it were Charlie St. Cloud (I know, don't judge me) and Eclipse, so the bar was embarrassingly low. We went with AW, KR, MK and CC- MK was the only one who has seen it already and she took a 30-minute field trip in the middle of the movie to go check out a shirt she wanted from J.Crew.

You'll be pleased to hear that the Rangers are still playing well, though I went to the game last night and watched them lose 7-6 after being up 6-1 over the Yankees. It was frustrating but still a good game and they're still playing well with a good lead in the AL-West. KS kindly lets me turn on the games seemingly every night, and the length of the 162-game-long season is not lost on her at all. She is a saint.

You should check the weather to give yourself a good laugh- it's unbelievably hot here. Snuggle up in your North-Face when the temperatures get into the 50's at night in Sydney tonight and congratulate yourself on migrating to another hemisphere. That was a brilliant move on your part.

Ruby is still alive and told me to send you her love and favorite tennis ball... though you could probably do without the tennis ball.

Tomorrow night I'm going out for our friend RM's bachelor party. Yes, you read that correctly: bachelor party. He's doing a bigger, more bachelor-y weekend in Norman next month with his groomsmen, but he wanted a fun night out in Dallas with his best girl friends as well. I don't really know what to expect, since in the words of MK: "For this night, if we are asking ourselves if it's too much, it's just right."

Wish me luck? I'll need it: I'll be in heels.

I miss you dearly, but I'm excited for you. I can't wait to hear more about Sydney very soon- do we need to start skype-ing? Hope you have a great Friday, M.

Love,

Amy

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore.

-Andre Gide

Weekend Leftovers

For all their transience, I still love having fresh flowers around the house.

One of KS's best friends from college, AL, got married on Saturday. KS hosted a brunch for her at our house the morning of the wedding (and gets top-marks for pulling it off as she was also a co-Maid-of-Honor and understandably busy).

As KS and I were up assembling tea sandwiches until about half-past midnight on Friday, we had to laugh at the number of late nights we've spent in the kitchen in the name of being good hostesses and wanting people to feel welcome in our home.

And we love it.

I sadly did not manage to take any photos at the wedding, but KS and our fun guest for the weekend, Dani (who flew in from England to attend the wedding) brought home about eight vases full of flowers from the reception.

Dani was darling to have around and even left us chocolate that she brought over from London as a gift.

In all my admiring of the flowers, I didn't look over to the couch in our front room until later in the evening, asking aloud: "K- is that AL's veil?" K: "Oh yeah, I had to grab it before she went into the reception- it ended up in my backseat."

And now it has its own couch.

And we have flowers and chocolate.

Everyone wins.

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nacogdoches, Texas

My roommate and fellow World Cup (ahem- Fernando Torres) lover, KS, invited all of the Community Group girls down to her hometown of Nacogdoches, Texas last weekend.

We happily obliged and left directly after work on Friday- piling seven girls in one Suburban and hitting the road. (And get this- we didn't. Stop. Once. It was a Christmas miracle.)

KS left on Thursday to prepare for our arrival and greeted us right at the sun was going down, at her parents' lovely home on the end of a one-lane road in East Texas, three little King Charles spaniels right at her heels.

Nacogdoches was the place to be this weekend because of the annual Blueberry Festival that was going on. There was blueberry pie, cobbler, ice-cream, lemonade and anything else you could dream of that would be good with fruit on it. It was fantastic.

Nacogdoches is also the proud hometown of US Soccer Team star, The Deuce: Clint Dempsey, if you've been following the World Cup. Apparently we brought him luck, since he scored against England to tie the game on Saturday afternoon.

We spent the better part of Saturday afternoon, evening and night next to the pool in the S's backyard- laying out, chatting, grilling burgers, corn and peaches that tasted burger-ish (but tasted great with Homemade Vanilla Blue Bell), then settling in for a great late-night chat until about 3 AM.

We had agreed to wake up and get going Sunday morning for the girls who needed to be back for church commitments- so we were up by 7 and on the road by 7:45 AM and once again made it home without stopping. Instead, we ate our body weight in pretzel sticks and listened to a WoW 2000 CD that MK's mom had in the car.

It took us back to the good old days of high school youth group- when four hours was considered a sufficient night's sleep and didn't cause you to collapse on a Sunday afternoon and be completely out of commission for an entire day... like it does when you're in your mid-twenties, evidently.

It was just what we all needed...

No errands to run or places to be but on pool rafts and patio chairs.

No people to worry about but each other.

The perfect little getaway.

It is only in the country that we can get to know a person...

-Cyril Connolly

Three-Ring Circus

Friday night around 8:30 PM, KS, MG and I were all home for the evening.

I mean, you know- we were painting the town red: dancing the night away, flirting with boys in button-down shirts and were dropped off at our house by a cab just before sunrise.

(No but seriously, we were all home for the night at 8:30 PM.)

MG finished up school last week and we were all ready to wind down and hang out, so we ventured into the backyard with Ruby and Michelangelo (our turtle).

Poor Mike lives a pretty limited existence because he resides in a cage with some rocks and shallow water, next to a tea light and a hoard of cookbooks. We've recently been letting him "play" in the backyard, but he has to be supervised because he's about the size of a pocket watch and can be easily misplaced.

A month ago we got three plastic Adirondack chairs for our little porch and have thus been spending more evenings outside recently, so while Ruby was running around and Michael was trying to flee (he's surprisingly fast), we sat down to sit and chat.

Soon enough, we saw something scamper across the fence furthest from us, and subsequently heard rustling in the tree in the far corner of our yard. Squirrels don't really come out at night, so we thought it was a little odd, and then we remembered the ominous words of a recent exterminator who came to assess our ant problem: "You need to have someone come and check the attic- there are a few holes to the outside, which suggests there might be rats."

RATS.

KS, who is fascinated by things that make me cringe, ran inside to grab a flashlight and investigate. Still in her work clothes, which included a floral-print pencil skirt and a ruffly cream-colored top (her four-inch Michael Kors heels were discarded by this time) she started creeping towards the noise with the stealth of her former life as a ballerina, holding the flashlight behind her back. MG was trying to make sure Ruby stayed away from Mike and that we knew where he was- lest we lose or step on him.

Not long after, KS and her flashlight indeed spotted a rat.

Then another, then another.

I was horrified by this point and MG brought her Mac outside and started Googling what to do when you have a rat problem. The idea of getting an outdoor cat was thrown out as a possibility but quickly disregarded because we decided that KS would probably secretly bring it inside during days that were too hot or too cold- feeding it warm milk and coddling it until it was fat and no longer had a rat-killer instinct.

Plus- can you even train a cat? That just sounds like work.

Because of Ruby, we can't just throw around rat poison either. She eats any and everything and while she has survived a harrowing Halloween candy-debacle, and trash and pantry raids, our neighbor told us that they attempted using rat poison once and their dog had to go to the animal hospital twice.

At some point MG went over to check out the rats and Ruby was cowering near the porch with me while I was trying to find the turtle, which I had misplaced. Poor Michael probably felt like Rick Moranis in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

Meanwhile, we had visitors arriving. Our friend AL came over with her fiance, and MG's boyfriend Z stopped by to see what was going on. I picked up Michael since there were way too many feet in the backyard at that point, and immediately Ruby became curious as to the edibility of the squirmy thing I was holding that was trying to swim through the air.

We took a tour of the perimeter of the house so that KS could show us where each of the alleged rat holes had been found.

Since there was nothing we could do about it at the time and KS "didn't have her BB-gun," we retired indoors for root beer and peach tea.

Because we all know that ignoring a problem is the best way to make it go away.

It is cheering to see that the rats are still around- the ship is not sinking.

-Eric Hoffer

The Birthday Girl

As is customary for a roommate birthday, I have dedicated a post to MG, who is 25 today!

It has now officially been a year since MG, KS and I moved in together, and about a year and a half since MG and I were talking after Community Group one Thursday night and she introduced the idea of us living together.

I remember someone once asking us about the worst roommate argument we've had, and we all looked at each other like "Argue? We don't argue." It's true- maybe it's the fact that we each have our own bathroom, maybe it's that we all agree on the thermostat or pizza toppings or maybe three really IS a magic number- I don't know.

I'm glad that whatever we have, works.

Once again, I have to note that there are funny things you'll never know about people until you live with them. MG practices what she has coined "preemptive pepperminting"- grabbing a handful of mints upon entrance to a restaurant and eating them on the way to the table. She does not own a pair of plain white socks- they are all colored and patterned and there are dozens of them. MG loves anything she can buy in bulk and will also buy anything Cath Kidston puts her name on.

Every night when we are sitting around, chatting and winding down from the day, all 65 pounds of Ruby will climb on MG's lap and cuddle like a child. MG is the sun around which Ruby's whole existence rotates.

It frustrates you, MG, that I will never battle you over riding shot-gun, when in fact I prefer the back seat because it relieves me of navigational duties, it means I don't have to crane my neck around to talk to anyone and it allows me to smile conspiratorially at the drive in the rear-view mirror.

I'm thankful to have a friend like you who seems to be always on my wavelength. It's good to know that someone else in the world who understands what it is to love friends, love family and still crave time alone. We took the childhood lesson of not talking to strangers to a whole new level.

I love that literature has had the influence on your life that it has had on mine- that we can talk about anything from our favorite childhood books to our recent favorites. I think that both of us reading The Fountainhead even originated from taking a walk together and saying how grating it is when people are discussing a classic we haven't read.

Music, on the other hand, neither of us know anything about.

I hope that the teenagers in your classroom will one day overcome their apathy and understand how much they can learn from you. You are so darn smart.

I have a tendency of saying: "Surely not..." and you always cut me off with: "Don't call me Shirley." It never fails.

Should you ever end up living in a foreign country for a while, you can bet that KS and I will be your first visitors.

I am thankful for that semester we spent saving each other seats in freshman history, even though we were both too reserved and serious to actually talk to each other. It could seem like an odd beginning to great friendship, but I think for us it's pretty fitting.

Happy 25th birthday to someone who likes to fly under the radar. You give and serve and love in a real and genuine way, but your faith is what I admire most about you.

Hugging you will always be weird.

I love you, MG!

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one!'

-C.S. Lewis

Team Players

I made pulled pork for dinner on Sunday night.

It was pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. I don't do a lot of slow-cooking for the sake of timing, but on a Sunday afternoon, it's completely doable.

Unfortunately for everyone else, the only photo I took was of the noble clean-up efforts by Ruby. MG, KS, BF and Molly's boyfriend Z ate the entire 2 1/2 pounds of it. Oh and myself, I may have helped a bit too.

With peach cobbler made by MG and homemade vanilla Blue Bell for dessert.

I plan to make it again soon, since it was so easy and delicious. I'll be sure to get photographic evidence and post the recipe since it would seem downright unfair to keep it to myself.

BF also had us over Friday night for a cookout- sliders with all sorts of burger-topping options and anything you could ever want to eat with burgers, so we were really just returning the favor.

I adore nights like those- I wish I could make them happen more during the week days, when a home-cooked meal is exactly what everyone needs.

Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.
-Walt Kelly

The Tarzan

image

There was a sale that started at Neiman Marcus today.

If a panic just set in and you're screaming: "Why did no one tell me?" please just know that I did it for your own good. Believe me.

KS has a radar unlike anything you've ever seen as to the goings-on at Neiman's. She already had a few things on hold a few days ago, when MG popped in last night with two dresses- one to keep and wear to a graduation she is speaking at for an elementary school that is uber old-school and requires a demure, non-pants-wearing dress code for their teachers. Oh and she's supposed to return the other one.

Right. Mhmm. I know that game- I've played it well.

So anyway, while she was trying the dresses on to get our votes, KS filled me in on the sale: today all of the new Neiman's merchandise would be 40% off. Shop early and find a well-stocked store waiting to take your money. Shop late and they'll have nothing left.

Equally frightening prospects.

I looked online and found that one Ali Ro dress I had spied recently fell under the umbrella of this sale. It's the only thing I allowed myself to consider purchasing because I knew if I started in with the Rebecca Taylor dresses and the Tory Burch sandals, then that would be the end of my bank account. The problem with ordering it online was that I hadn't tried it on- so I made my way to a nearby Neiman's location during my lunch hour.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I'm not sure which, they did not have the dress, period. When I glanced back at the online listing in my phone, I noticed that they were out of all but one size online and it wasn't mine.

Did you hear that noise? That was a sigh of relief from my checking account. It will live to see another day.

While scanning the racks for my elusive dress, I noticed one-shoulder dresses everywhere, or as my friend AS called them in high school: "Tarzan dresses." I would by no means make an entire wardrobe out of them, but I think one could make a nice addition to my closet this summer.

Particularly there is pink dress one I keep seeing on SJP in the SATC 2 trailers, which I believe to be the Halston Heritage dress I found on Net-A-Porter, below...

image

This one is aiming a bit high for me but I would love a more casual version of a one-shouldered look.

Particularly with the long sleeve too. It might not go so well with the backyard cookout I'm attending this weekend... but I never really need an excuse to wear a dress, anyhow.

If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?

Nobody.

-J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye

Danger & Pineapple

I think I could just write this post with the following message:

Bikram tried to kill me last night.

The end.

And if you knew what I was talking about, you would offer your condolences, maybe make a masseuse recommendation and ask me what I was thinking.

Because really, what was I thinking?

I would then post a photo of my roommates and I dripping in blood, sweat and tears- (did I mention the sweat and the sweat?) and those of you who previously did not know what Bikram entailed would NOW know the aftermath.

The brochure MG, KS and I perused after getting our cheap, one-month memberships informed us that an emotional response was possible when participating in Bikram. I was also trying to gauge the possibility of me passing out in such a setting.

Seemed pretty likely to me.

I wasn't wrong.

MG suggested we come up with a code word when once of us started feeling light-headed or blacking-out, since she and I have been known to do such things. She offered up the word "pineapple" while I went for the more obvious "danger."

In preparation for our first class, we all drank water all day. I drank three regular 16-ounce bottles of water this morning and then two 34-ounce bottles of Smart Water with electrolytes. I ate light and nutritious all day and didn't eat three hours before classtime. I thought I was ready.

Au contraire, mon frère.

The class was wall-to-wall packed and after about 20 minutes of poses in the heat, I could feel my heartbeat getting a little higher than it needed to be. Even sitting perfectly still, criss-cross applesauce style on my mat, I was completely out of breath and dripping with perspiration. The three of us were separated due to getting there on the later-end, and I could gradually see MG slowing down as we went along. I had less of a view of KS, but she powered through about 75% of the way before hitting a bit of a wall.

We all got plenty of practice with the corpse pose, let's say that much.

I left class what I thought was early when I just couldn't take it anymore, but what turned out to be exactly 90 minutes from when we had entered. The class ran about 15 minutes late, and MG clamored to get out the door into the breezy outside to be able to breathe again. KS appeared a few minutes later and her face was kind of frozen and swollen-looking, which I've never seen happen to her.

We dragged ourselves to the car and picked up Crystal Light Icees at a nearby 7-11 as a reward.

The silver lining in all of this was that I think I would actually benefit from these classes if they kicked down the thermostat from Sweltering Amazon Rainforest to Breezy New England Beach Town. I'm strong but inflexible, which Yoga is a great fix for, so I'm inclined to try it again.

In the air-conditioning, of course. Just wanted to be clear about that.

Bikram is one-and-done.

Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.
-B.K.S. Iyengar

More Than They Bargained For

Unfortunately I am no stranger to wardrobe malfunctions. They seem to catch me when I'm least expecting them.

On Saturday, after leaving the gym, KS received word from KR that she was inviting us over to make homemade pizza and watch the just-released Twilight movie, New Moon. Saturday was a dreary, cold day, so the plan sounded ideal.

We had some time to clean up and relax when we got home, and KS started searching for a good bruschetta recipe to make over at KR's house.

On our way to KR's we stopped at Central Market for groceries, and right when we walked in KS spied a promotion going on, where you could buy a pre-made family meal of baked ziti, salad and foccacia for $19.99 and receive a copy of the New Moon DVD with your purchase. A $20 dollar meal, a $20 DVD, together for only $19.99 while supplies lasted. I think our expressions went from wonder to elation at this discovery. We are incredibly easy to please.

The prepared foods section is at the end of the store from the produce entrance, where we began, and Central Market has a very windy design and is always as crowded as most grocery stores on the day before Thanksgiving, so we covered a good deal of space and dodged a lot of other shoppers while grabbing tomatoes, basil, bread and everything else we needed for bruschetta.

It was literally freezing outside, and so KS and I were both wearing coats. At one point I felt a little warm, so I unbuttoned my favorite plaid coat and kept walking. I had on a light blue button-down tuxedo-inspired shirt from J.Crew, belted across the waist with jeans and flats.

KS and I finally came to the complete opposite side of the store from where we found the New Moon promotional deal. I think we were about to high-five when I saw this girl looking at me like she knew me. (Please remember the part about me unbuttoning my coat, combined with the fact that this grocery store was very busy at this point in time.) As I racked my brain as to where I might know her, she approached me and standing right in front of me said quietly:

"I just wanted to let you know that your shirt came unbuttoned and your bra is showing."

Nothing squelches New Moon euphoria like public exposure, let me tell you.

I thanked her profusely while the guy she was with, bless his heart, stood a few feet back, looking absolutely fascinated with the ceiling. I probably turned the same shade of red as the tomatoes I was carrying, while I looked down and found that she was indeed correct. My shirt was unbuttoned down to that place on your stomach/chest right below your bra. There was nothing subtle about it. The patrons of Central Market got a little more than they bargained for... as if dinner and a movie wasn't enough already.

I am a modest and oftentimes reserved person, so laughing this off took some assertion of will, but I managed. I hope that my shirt wasn't like this for too long, since KS and I were together the whole time and she obviously would have noticed while discussing which of the artisan breads she wanted to use for the bruschetta.

This wasn't the same kind of embarrassment as the day I wore the exact same purple gingham shirt as one of the MALE publishers in my office in New York, but it was in the same league.

I was still in a bit of a daze when we left the store a few minutes later, but snow flurries, on the first day of spring, no less, had started to fall.

The things I do for food and Robert Pattinson.

We never forgive those who make us blush.
-Jean-Francois De La Harpe

Throwing Like a Girl- March Madness Begins

You might live under a rock, in which case you could be pardoned, but I hope everyone else is aware that the March Madness games started today.

I'm pleased to say that there are 18 ladies participating in my bracket tournament idea from two weeks ago and I have successfully made gamblers and college basketball-watchers out of all of them.

Granted, $360 in gift cards is also good motivation, but I received many nail-biting messages all afternoon regarding the close games and we had a full house over to watch more of the action this evening.

If you didn't watch basketball today, you missed out. I don't recall such an exciting opening round in recent years. Out of the first four games this morning, two of the games went into overtime (one game had two overtime periods) and the other two games were decided by one point each.

The Villanova vs. Robert Morris took a few years off my life- thankfully Villanova survived by three because I have them in my Final Four.

Georgetown, on the other hand, lost by quite a margin to Ohio. I had Georgetown in my Elite Eight, so I don't really want to talk about it.

Other upsets today include Old Dominion over Notre Dame, Washington over Marquette, Murray State over Vanderbilt, St. Mary's over Richmond and Northern Iowa over UNLV.

And this is just day one!

I'm sitting on a couch perpendicular to MG right now, who keeps picking up her laptop periodically to check her picks and her rankings in our tournament as each game wraps up. This is unprecedented behavior.

Also: Wake Forest and Texas just went into overtime, making this the third overtime game of the day.

Did I mention how much I love March?

MG: "I can't believe I'm watching this."

Me: "You can't believe you're watching basketball?"

MG: "...and caring."

A Better Understanding

(Photo credit to my aunt and uncle, whose ranch was covered in a lovely layer of white this week.)

My Gmail needs a good purging. I try to delete emails as I see fit, but I also don't like deleting particularly funny little exchanges between some of my friends. I keep the gems.

I ran across this email that I sent to MG last week as a follow-up to a discussion on pronunciation woes that we had had the night before. I realized that this email is so very me, it is such the perfect example of my personality and how my brain works, that it's almost comical.

Sometimes I capitalize words that need to be capitalized, other times I'm too lazy and use all lowercase letters. Sometimes I just find all lowercase more charming. When I run across a word or a phrase I don't know (I think I'm the only person who still wants to learn Latin), I look it up immediately, though I should probably pay more attention as to how to pronounce the word itself instead of the definition.

I realize that I'm strange. At least I embrace it.

from: Amy
to: MG
date: Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 8:56 AM
subject: pronunciation

remember the crudites conversation from last night? (side note: i don't always feel like looking for letters with accent marks and i don't know the short cuts, but i know one should be there. by now i could have found it and not been annoyed with it, but i still don't feel like it... just had to get that off my chest.)

okay so i was trying to think of a word that tripped me up in a similar fashion, and i found one!

"dossier"

i used to say, in my head of course, "dough-shur."

it is, in fact, pronounced "dos-ee-ey."

i won't even admit that it was an episode of gossip girl that revealed this to me.

we can't have these french words embarrassing us up like this, it's unacceptable. we are more cultured that this. our next continuing education class needs to be beginning french.

peace, love, appetizers of raw vegetables and a collection of documents about one subject,
amy

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
-Oscar Wilde

Let There Be Light

Early Thursday morning, it started snowing, which persisted into Friday. This would not be out of the ordinary in many parts of the world, which I realize, but in Texas that much snowfall is most unusual.

On Thursday night schools started canceling class for Friday and local weathermen were having a heyday because of the record-setting inches which kept falling. Emails started buzzing about snowball fights and huddling up indoors to watch movies and drink cocoa.

Friday morning I woke up and immediately attempted to turn on my TV to see what the traffic and road conditions would be for trying to get to work. No luck. I then tried turning on the lamp on to my left next to my bed. No luck again. I sat up in bed and brushed the top of my duvet, which was freezing.

We had lost power.

I washed my face and threw on jeans and a North Face because there would have been no way of drying shower-wet hair, nor was I having much luck finding anything in the darkness of my closet. I was even on my hands and knees feeling each one of my shoes as I would imagine a blind person reads Braille. Efforts at looking presentable were futile.

My roommates kept me up to speed with the power-situation throughout the day, which was that we didn't have any, and MG told me that we could stay with her parents who live five minutes from our house, until our power returned. I drove home after work to check our house and get what I needed to stay away from home for a night so that I could have everything settled.

Friday was my dear friend AVs birthday, and a group of us drove from Dallas to Ft. Worth to eat dinner at Joe T. Garcia's and then go to Billy Bob's for a Miranda Lambert concert. MK was driving us and while trying to park in a snowy field next to the concert hall for $5, her car got stuck. AV, CC and I hopped out of the car in our cowboy boots and started pushing while MK tried the gas pedal to get the car to budge. I was thankful to be wearing old cowboy boots that can withstand the elements, because we were sliding all over the place after falling knees to the ground into the snow and finally getting MK's car moving.

AV has had more white birthdays in recent years than I have, a fact of which I am supremely jealous because I also have a winter birthday but very few of my 25 have seen snow. We scurried inside to get out of the cold wind with our cold and now muddy tights, and MK threw a snowball at me as I told her to "walk with purpose" after she was offering up ill-advised piggy-back rides.

We had a great time and I returned to MG's family's home feeling like a teenager sneaking in after curfew. I woke up Saturday morning to find that the G's were also harboring MG's brother, his wife and their golden retriever, who live a street over from us and were also still without power. Seven people and three dogs under the same roof.

We made more trips to our house after coming to terms with the fact that we would need more clothing to survive the weekend, and somehow I ended up bringing five pairs of boots into the room where I was staying. Five pairs of boots and my own room and bathroom in the G's house... you can tell we were really roughing it, can't you?

MG and I were feeling both productive and a little helpless today after church and finally decided to face the carnage of our refrigerator before it got any worse. With the power still out, we opened all the blinds in the kitchen and filled four trash bags with the contents of both our fridge and freezer, save for the alcohol, which was unaffected. I ascertained during the purge that we have an affinity for cheese, hummus, barbeque sauce and frozen pizza at our house. On the bright side, our fridge has not been this clean since the day Home Depot delivered it.

KS and I went to dinner tonight (she was a lovely Valentine, I must say) and while eating I got an email beep on my phone that MG's brother had sent, telling us our power was back on. We bolted as soon as we could sign our checks at the restaurant, did a quick drive past our house to make sure he wasn't playing a cruel older-brother joke on us and confirmed the power was indeed on, then went back to pack our things. No one else was home and we left a note but otherwise I felt like we were thieves in the night, stealing away with bags of ours clothing, hair-dryers, boot collections and other essentials that had been brought with us. The G's could not have been better hosts- I think we were just thrilled at the idea of waking up in our own beds and not having to make anymore trips for those one or two things we forgot at home.

My immediate concern after packing up was the fact that we were now without coffee creamer at home. This may seem trivial, but when you can make the world's greatest coffee at your house and you've been without it for three days, your priorities change accordingly. Never mind milk and bread; I needed Original Fat-Free Coffee-Mate. I went three places to find it too.

Our refrigerator is now home to multiple bottles of beer, wine, prosecco, strawberry yogurt and Coffee-Mate, naturally. The freezer has ice-cubes and one loner bottle of Tanqueray gin.

Home sweet home... and happy Valentine's day.

He made the world to be a grassy road before her wandering feet.

-W.B. Yeats

Honey, I'm Home

My roommates and I have different schedules, making the time we do get to spend together restful and something we all look forward to.

KS is home at the most off times because her time is split between school and working for an interior designer in Dallas. For the first six months or so of living together, whenever MG and I returned home from work, KS was typically there. I became accustomed to returning home to lamps on in our cozy house and KS and Ruby there to greet me on the couch. She always asks how our days have been, and usually gets a cursory "fine", "good" or "it's over" from us.

We are such joys to be around, let me tell you.

Recently though, with Christmas followed by a trip to Jamaica, KS has returned to a full work schedule. This means she is working until about 7pm some nights and MG and I come home to an empty house. No lamps on, no news program on a low volume in the background, no KS and Ruby on the couch.

After coming home consecutive days to a lonely, empty house that looked much like it did when I left for work the same morning, I asked MG if it ever feels like something is missing when she comes home and finds herself alone. We laughed because we agree that KS is treated as the wife of the house and we have grown accustomed to having her there all the time, so when she's gone, we notice.

I always thought it was kind of funny when I was younger that my mom made a point to greet my dad when he came home from work. She still does it too- a hug and a kiss and dinner ready or in the works for him when he walks in the door. It seems like a simple ritual, but for him it makes coming home a welcoming experience every day.

As a working adult I now I see the value that having someone smiling at you on the opposite side of the door can have at the end of a long day. I think we all sometimes forget that enriching daily life in small ways can actually make it so much more enjoyable. You don't have to wait for grand gestures- a great opportunity lies simply in asking a question and sticking around for an answer.

"So how was your day, after all?"

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

-James M. Barrie

They Know Me Too Well

Last Friday night KS, MG and I celebrated roommate Christmas together. We had on Christmas music, we sat by the tree in our front room (complete with the PB couch, which arrived) and opened each other's gifts.

It was cute.

Anyway, sometimes I falsely assume that I notice things about other people, but they don't notice things about me. Like I have some personality shield that makes me impervious to observation. This is wrong, as evidenced by the gifts I received from both of them.

Apparently they've been watching me.

KS gave me a 2010 Kate Spade planner as well as some accessories from Anthropologie. I love both of those places and could outfit my entire life from either one, if possible. KS has a good read on style, both mine and her own, and her gift was a combination of both. Her gifts bring out my more girly side. Both of my sides are actually girly but KS appeals to the ruffles-and-bows- and-headbands-oh-my side. She also gave MG and I cute luggage tags with our first initials on them and Kiehl's hand cream. Every product KS uses smells good, feels good and makes you look good, so her beauty recommendations are heeded.

MG gave me a booklet of sticky notes for the kitchen and cookbooks, which combines so many things I love about cooking and note-making. Since adhering to the instructions and ingredients of any one recipe is apparently against my moral judgement, I will use them often. She also gave me a blue Martha Stewart ribbon box. Who could give a gift like that save for someone who knows how much you love the Martha Stewart aisle at Michael's, would recognize the fact that it is the perfect shade of robin's egg blue for your room and would have knowledge of the seemingly ridiculous quantity of ribbon you keep around?

It's been a great seven months with these two. They're the kind to which you can say "hm hm hmm hm-hm-hm" with a toothbrush in your mouth, and they'll respond back to you "yeah, let's do brunch tomorrow at 10" like it's totally normal.

Because it is.

Sweet hymns of joy in
Grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us
Praise His holy name!
-O Holy Night, words by Placide Cappeau

Moths & Cashmere

I don't have any sisters, so sharing clothes was never something I did growing up. I didn't really have to share anything because as soon as I was old enough to establish dominance with the bathroom counter-space for all of my pre-teen accessories and hair products, my brother moved into the third upstairs bedroom. We would steal t-shirts from one another during college, when he took hostage my Aunt Carrie's shirt for a few years (it's from a restaurant in Rhode Island, it's soft, t-shirty perfection) but I won the war on that one.

A few months ago I wore a cardigan that belongs to KS a few times and then took it to the dry-cleaner. I don't take things to the cleaner's very often and it's always a massive heap when I do, so when I started examining everything as I was paying, I saw the condition of the sweater and thought it was ruined. I panicked, thinking that the sweater must be the most important and pivotal piece of her wardrobe, and I would need to take her to J.Crew and pick out something she would love, just not as much as the yellow cardigan I had destroyed. Upon further examination, it looked like they had washed it and had knotted it and let it dry and it was just terribly wrinkled.

I don't know how everyone else's dry-cleaner operates, but wrinkled is not typically the look I'm going for. Glad we are on the same page.

Ultimately they fixed the sweater (after three attempts) and ironed it to within an inch of its' life so as to get out the wrinkles and I was able to return it to KS with profuse apologies of tardiness and she was nice as could be. That's just how she is.

Fast-forward a few months to yesterday as I returned home from work and found a cardigan of mine that KS had borrowed was hanging in the laundry room. KS and MG had been cooking for MG's family who were coming over, and KS said "I have something to tell you about your sweater..."

I saw the look of fear and worry in her eyes, the very look I had when I thought I had ruined her sweater. Before she could continue, I said "The little holes in the sleeve? I did that while moving a mirror." She looked confused and said that she thought they happened when she had been holding her dog Sadie, how she had been wriggling and thought that she snagged the two little holes and how she had fretted over telling me for months. I told her for first thing that the sweater had been gone for a while and obviously I was okay without it, secondly that it was not her fault in the first place and thirdly that it would have been okay had that happened anyway.

I realized it was completely true- it would be one thing if things just disappeared all the time but were never returned, but that doesn't happen at our house. It makes life so easy. In both cardigan situations, we both spent a good deal of time worrying about something that would have been okay either way. I have become more of an advocate of borrowing from each other out of convenience and in that it is non-budget-threatening way to wear something new. We have nice things and take care of them, but accidents happen.

Moths also happen, apparently.

Evidently a moth found my favorite blue cashmere wrap in my closet recently and decided to have a snack, leaving two finger-poke sized holes behind. I will not be so forgiving, should I find him fluttering around my closet again.

The culprit is still at-large.

I've got to get home - Oh, baby, you'll freeze out there

Say, lend me your coat - It's up to your knees out there...

-Baby It's Cold Outside, lyrics by Frank Loesser

The Birthday Girl

A privilege of living with me includes receiving birthday tributes, so let me tell you a little bit about KS, who started her next quarter-century of life today!

There are many things you will never know about someone until you live with them. I know that KS leaves her beautiful blue topaz Yurman ring in random places throughout the house, kind of like a big Where's Waldo game, but it can most often be found in the china cup in out kitchen that holds the Splenda packets. She has ninja skills like knowing how to change a tire, assembling furniture that involves the use of power tools, swatting bugs with precision and applying flawless eyeliner. KS loves YouTube- I never knew the greatness of David After the Dentist or Kittens Inspired by Kittens until living under the same roof as her.

Thank you KS, for thinking I'm funny on occasion and for asking my opinion on things like fabric samples even though you have impeccable taste. You make people laugh at the most unexpected times. You are a calming presence and I admire your ability to be frustrated without getting angry- it's very lady-like.

Thanks for baking MG and I delicious things like homemade strawberry pie and sugar cookies and for introducing me to Tanqueray gin. I can't believe I was of legal drinking age for three years before ever trying a Tom Collins.

I love that you had polka dot tea cups and curtains displayed in our house before we even had a refrigerator, microwave or washer and dryer. Your penchant for polka dots is rivaled only by your love of monograms.

I'm jealous that you get to sleep later than I do and I'm convinced that you are always trying to put me to sleep when I am in your car by playing Ray LaMontagne.

I'm glad that you both make and understand nerdy Harry Potter references.

I'm sorry that MG and I bought you a baby turtle thinking it would be a fun gift for an animal-lover such as yourself, only to find out it's illegal and could give you salmonella poisoning. Our bad.

Happy 25th, KS. I think you are just wonderful.

A true friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we take the least thought about acquiring.

-La Rouchefoucauld

Earlier Every Year

If you have had the slightest brush with retail since Halloween, you've seen that stores have their Christmas decorations out already. Everyone acts like it's so outrageous whilst secretly not skipping Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You when it pops up on shuffle in November.

My roommates and I ventured over to the Knox-Henderson shopping area of Dallas Sunday afternoon and watched it go from light to dark from the inside of Pottery Barn. Translation: we were there for about an hour and half with two detour visits to the Apple store by MG. KS was analyzing the sofa selection, seeing as we plan to have a Christmas party next month and still need to furnish our front room. KS is knowledgeable about furniture and knew to quiz the sales staff on how many times the covers had been pre-washed, how long each fabric grade would take to make, if the cushions could be ordered overstuffed, if the sofa came in other sizes than those on the floor, etc. I don't think I can ever make a major furniture decision without her again.

During her inspection I found new lampshades for my bedside table lamps (the ones they came with were cheap and dented) and ornaments with our initials on them for our impending Christmas tree purchase. While perusing the store I also came across bedside tables that I loved at first sight and momentarily deluded myself into thinking they would be a wise purchase. Thankfully MG was nearby affixing silver holiday bird clips onto various baskets and voice-of-reasoned me out of the purchase.

KS, while also getting her sofa questions answered by two Pottery Barn personnel, managed to find Christmas presents for both of her brothers and also something I can best describe only as bark hurricanes. Here is a picture of the candle version to give you an idea:

Time to spare at Pottery Barn is a dangerous thing indeed. MG and I inspected all of the holiday decor, she discovered little fur wine holders (I am terrible at naming Pottery Barn inventory) and I found oversized silver glass ornaments which I envisioned hanging from the ceilings with rich, red satin ribbon.

I looked at a bag of pine cones and automatically flashed forward to a month from now, thinking: Will I need these? Can I fill a glass container with them and set them on my mantle? We don't even have a fireplace, or a mantle for that matter. Where will the stockings go? How will Santa get in?

I think our prospective Christmas party might send MG fleeing for the hills after Thanksgiving. Her eyes get big and terrified each time she spots my copy of Williams Sonoma: Holiday Entertaining. I emailed the two of them last week about invitations and slid in MG's co-coaches and non-favorite people on the list just to see if I could get a laugh. Amusing, no?

It might be no accident if I slip some Peppermint Schnapps into her hot chocolate. That is, if it dips below 75 degrees long enough to warrant hot beverages at a Christmas party.

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.

-Hamilton Wright Mabie

Weekend in Photos

Lily!

Hometown football game.

RM's mom has her own box... we stayed for exactly half-time and one quarter.

Saturday DIY project: MG making a headboard.

Fetch with Ruby and her sidekick Murray.

Drilling is more glamourous when you wear Uggs.

Tennis ball.

Close monitoring... I was so helpful.

Chicken pot pie- homemade, of course.

Sharing.

I recommend you take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.

-Earl of Chesterfield

Weekend Update

I got my car back! Good as new. Literally, I mean new- I have had to reprogram all of the settings because apparently they had to take the battery out during the repairs, which resets everything. You know what's on 89.7 FM? Absolutely nothing.

I joined a flag-football team. Should be interesting and muddy, considering it will not stop raining or misting in Dallas for longer than 24 hours. I told my trainer about my new recreational adventure and being a former football player himself, he's super pumped and wants to get me in "football shape," which is frightening.

I got my chair from Crate & Barrel on Friday. Finally. I ordered the thing in July. I was concerned about the delivery people being able to get it into my room since I have the added complication of stairs, but I double-checked the chair's measurements and figured they would just have to pivot a bit. I Googled "standard doorway dimensions" on Thursday and found that people use ridiculous measurements like millimeters when describing doorways. Seriously? Save the millimeters for chemists who measure the convex meniscuses on lab-beakers. I don't have time for you and your tiny units, Wikianswers, give me feet and inches.

Diet drinks are back in my life. I think I needed a detox because for a while there I had Diet Sunkist at home and was averaging two a day. It's amazing my teeth aren't orange. I'm not drinking them everyday, but if I feel like it, I will. KR put it well when she said via gchat one day: "I don't do drugs, I'm not promiscuous... give me this." Amen.

I went to church by myself this morning and it was lovely. The sermon was on how people, us, we were made in the image of God. Our very worth is derived from this fact, and because of this every life has intrinsic value. How you treat/view/love others is inseparable from the way you treat/view/love God.

For probably over a year now some of my friends and I have talked about starting a book club. EM got on the ball and emailed a few of us to see if we would be interested, we selected a book, date and time and decided to go with it. The day was about a month ago and it came and went with no book club, but tonight we're actually meeting to discuss our first selection, The Friday Night Knitting Club. I liked it- it was not my favorite book of all-time, but it was a good read.

I think that's an important concept to learn; that not every book you read will become a favorite, but you can still enjoy it for what it is. Non-fiction, for example, is not typically a favorite of mine, but I still read it and find it interesting and informative.

To top off this random and unrelated post, MG just walked out the door to have dinner with her family and reminded me firstly that there is raw chicken in the sink and Ruby is home and secondly that there is a candle burning in the foyer, so if the house catches on fire it likely derived from said source.

Hope everyone enjoys what's left of their weekend!

It's a scary thing, when a person you admire is suddenly revealed to be absolutely, truly human."

-Kate Jacobs, The Friday Night Knitting Club

A different kind of foodie

My experience with Labrador retrievers was nearly non-existent until I started living with one.

My parents have a dog, Lucy, a 12-year-old Bichon who has been mistaken for a baby sheep by small children and Australian Shepherds in her lifetime. She's small and cotton ball-looking and not Lab-like at all.

I've mentioned before my roommate MG's black lab named Ruby who lives with us. Ruby is a two-year-old trained guide dog and she's great to have around. She is extremely active and likes to give subtle hints like "hey let's play fetch" by dropping a tennis ball into the refrigerator drawer when you're unloading groceries. She will carry newspapers, tennis shoes and even logs for firewood for you.

She also loves people food.

We have come home various times to find loaves of bread demolished, empty bags of tortilla chips and torn-open bags of powdered, white, brown and raw sugar. Anything left on the counter is fair game, but she can also get into some of the cabinets. One day she feasted on a pound of chocolate toffee, which was wrapped with a bow in a brown box, and there was also a bag of grape tomatoes squished and scattered throughout the downstairs area of our house. She likes rifling through the contents of the trash can from time to time too. She learned everything from her predecessor Belle, RIP, who was known to hide food throughout MG's family's house and once ate a squirrel whole while on a walk.

You heard me right- we're talking tail and all.

Last Friday morning I came downstairs to make coffee and found a new box of raw sugar sitting on the counter, unopened. I looked for the box I had already been using all week but it was nowhere to be found. Not up for mind games at 8 AM, I opened the new sugar and went about my day.

We spent the weekend at MG's family's lake house, and she realized she hadn't told me about the most recent sugar incident. Turns out, Ruby ate my raw sugar, a box of yellow packets of Splenda with fiber (yeah I know, fiber) and also managed to get some caramel rice cakes by opening the cabinet under our kitchen sink and pulling them out of a drawer with a small opening into the cabinet. I started calling her MacGyver after that.

Did I forget to mention that she ate a whole bag of Goldfish, a PBJ sandwich and a carton of yogurt while MG left her in her car while running an errand one morning? She also ate an entire bulk-sized bag of Frosted Mini Wheats cereal yesterday.

I learned at the lake that she's also a huge fan of swimming, seeing as she would drop a stick into the lake and launch into a full-speed belly-flop after it to get it. Her parents have another black lab puppy named Murray, who enjoyed waiting for Ruby to fetch the stick so that she could wrestle it away once she got back to the dock.

We also had a chocolate lab puppy, Sawyer, come to stay with us a few weekends ago while her owners were away for a weekend. Ruby was annoyed for a solid 48 hours and Sawyer gave my little basil plant a run for its money:


It now looks more like something in league with Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.


(This is actually Sawyer's sister Kenna, who belongs to a couple we know, but they look like twins so you get the idea.)

MG has taken some preventative measures and Ruby now has a shock-collar which works remotely, so we may or may not set her up for failure in the form of Halloween candy to deter her sneaky tendencies.

Can you really blame this little face for anything though?


"A dog has no use for fancy cars, big homes, or designer clothes. A water log stick will do just fine. A dog doesn't care if your rich or poor, clever or dull, smart or dumb. Give him your heart and he'll give you his. How many people can you say that about? How many people can make you feel rare and pure and special? How many people can make you feel extraordinary?"
- Josh Grogan, Marley & Me