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

Throwing Like a Girl- World Cup Preview

image

I did some purging of the DVR recordings tonight.

Why, you ask? Because the World Cup is starting.

I think it's safe to say that I enjoy watching the World Cup more than the Olympics. Bold claim? Maybe- but I stand by it.

No matter where in the world you live, the chances are that one of the many televisions you will pass in the next month will be broadcasting one of many World Cup games. Though not every game is an elimination game, each one, each goal even, is still critical.

The World Cup only comes around once every four years. This time four years ago I was taking finance in College Station. In preparing for the second half of my summer, to be spent in Europe, I decided to embrace a huge part of their culture: soccer. Or football, depending on which side of the Atlantic you grew up on. Fast forward a month and a half to mid-July 2006 and I watched in the most crowded bar of all time in Caen, France with one large screen showing the game, as France lost to Italy in the finals. It was one of the most heated sports-viewing environments I had ever experienced, and I knew I would forever be hooked.

Daily Candy sent out a great little snippet of a video the other day with a skimming overview of things to know and players to watch. It would be wise to heed their advice and not ask if one team or another is off-sides.

Personally, my loyalty is to the U.S., but I'll have a close eye on Christiano Ronaldo (see below- shirtless...) and basically all of the players from Argentina and Brazil (see above.)

image

This is the first World Cup that does not include any teams that are qualifying for the first time (all of these teams have competed in the World Cup before.)

Teams from 32 nations will be competing.

This will be the first time that the tournament has been hosted by an African nation. (South Africa)

The team of the country hosting the World Cup automatically qualifies for the tournament.

Until 2006, the defending champion from the previous tournament also received automatic qualification, but the rules were changed and that team has to qualify as well.

The defending champion from 2006 is Italy.

Brazil has won more World Cup titles than any other country.

The much-anticipated first-round match-up of the U.S. vs. England is this Saturday!

Feel free to read more on Wikipedia about how the actual tournament works- they explain the round-robin and the single-elimination better that I can (and I must credit them for some of these facts, but some of them I also knew on my own, thankyouverymuch.)

If you are first you are first. If you are second, you are nothing.

-Bill Shankly

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

What's Old is New Again

I spotted this little framed piece of greatness at an antique store in my hometown over the weekend:


I considered buying it, but I was already purchasing a few framed prints from other vendors for my newest home decorating project: my staircase. We just signed on for another year in our rental house and I'll be darned if I didn't walk into the newly renovated Kate Spade store in Northpark mall the other day and see this decorated wall and immediately decide to attempt something similar:


Forgive the poor iPhone photo- it was taken surreptitiously. You get the idea.

Oh and I bought this chair at an estate sale last Saturday. For $24:


Who wants to go look at fabric samples tomorrow? Nothing against the color pink but this fabric has seen better days. The better days were probably 40 years ago.

Have a great weekend!

A cheerful disposition is one that allows a tea kettle to sing while up to its neck in hot water.

-Unknown (from first photo)

Memorial Day {Photos}

I figured that the day after Memorial Day would be the best for sharing some of the photos I took when I visited Pearl Harbor last month...

I think it's one of those places every American should visit once in their life.

And this is actually a photo of Omaha Beach from my study-abroad trip to France. It has to be one of the most peaceful places on Earth.

Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic.

-John A. Logan

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

Secondary Comfort

It's just a fact of life you learn when you are a woman, that certain clothes were never meant to have a functional purpose.

When you were little, it was probably the tights your mother insisted you wear to Sunday School at church every week.

As you got older, you realized that while high-heels make for a more visually-appealing look, several hours in them at the expense of foot-circulation is a high price indeed.

I bought a printed sundress recently and loved the fit of it in the dressing room. Strapless, structured without being formal, interesting print, fitted from the top to the waist, then allowing for more movement and give from the waist down to where it hit right above the knees.

I put the dress in my closet where I left it to wait for warmer summer temperatures.

The other night I was at dinner with my parents, my mom's sisters and their families. My cousin KH and I were at one end of the table eating guacamole and talking about how irresponsible we feel for shopping when we have clothes with tags still on them, just sitting in our closet.

Then MK and I were emailing and she said that she needs a new hobby "other than, you know, spending money." And, again, I found myself agreeing.

So as I was getting ready for work yesterday morning I resolved to take a fresh look at my clothes and wear one of my recent purchases from the past few months.

I spotted the strapless dress and threw it on for work with a black cardigan and gray flats, then congratulated myself on a cute, work-appropriate outfit.

I wasn't paying attention to the binding nature of the top of the dress while driving, but after sitting at my desk and work, I became acutely aware of the boning in the top of the dress.

You see, this dress was not meant for the practical, everyday occurence of sitting down.

It's meant for a bridal shower, a night out with friends on a patio perhaps, or window shopping in a beachy locale. The boning makes you stand up straight and I would imagine it looks good with heels, therefore gives you a more flattering overall look.

It was not, however, intended for someone to wear while working on spreadsheets, sitting at a desk for 7-8 hours a day.

Hencefore I'll prefer my daytime, non-event dresses to be boneless.

The dress must not hang on the body but follow its lines. It must accompany its wearer and when a woman smiles the dress must smile with her.
-Madeleine Vionnet