Miso Happy

Happy belated Valentine's day! Adam and I had the best Valentine's this year. We engaged in our usual 'weekend sabotage', or WS as I like to call it. WS is all the junk we eat over the weekend and all of the hours we spend NOT working out. Basically we undo all the good things we do during the week and over Valentine's weekend I think we undid about 3 months worth of good doing.

We started the weekend with dinner at Zorba's on Friday with Shari. Zorba's is a local Greek restaurant that has awesome food and BYOB so you totally cannot go wrong. I think I ate my weight in pita bread.

Saturday started with homemade popovers and v-day chocolates. Adam gave me a popover pan for Christmas because I love the popovers at the Zodiac Room at Neiman Marcus so much. It is worth eating there just for the popover. So since Christmas I have been perfecting my popover making...apparently it's all about having a good pan, right Adam?

Adam loves white chocolate and I was sick of giving him the same box from Godiva each year so I ordered him sweet slopes from chocolate.com. Sweet slopes are almond toffee, dipped in white chocolate, then the edge is dipped in dark chocolate and crushed pecans. I don't like white chocolate or nuts in candy and I thought they were awesome! It's a good thing because some how I ordered 2 boxes of 36. I don't know if I submitted the order twice or they screwed up and shipped it twice but we received 64 for them. I see a whole lot more WS in our future. Adam brought me all my favorites: Godiva peanut butter cups, chocolate covered strawberries, and truffles, beautiful red tulips and irises, a teddy bear, and a v-day balloon. I was so surprised!  

We tell each other every year that we are not getting real gifts just candy.  Against my better judgement, I got Adam Shawn White Snowboarding for the Wii and he got me W.  I must say he must love me a lot because he has never been the biggest George Bush fan and he knows that I love him and think he is one of our best president's ever so he bought me the DVD.  I may end up watching it by myself but at least he bought it.

Saturday night we had made plans to go out to dinner but realized it was a limited menu most of which I did not like so we ended up cancelling. Adam decided we would try to make sushi and butter fish at home. After a trip to the Asian market (yes, Plano has one), Central Market, and William Sonoma for a sushi knife, we were ready to get started. I had no idea so much effort went into making sushi. I see now why it costs so much. First, you have to make the rice which takes like an hour, then you have to aerate the rice which takes like 30 min for it to be cool enough to make sushi rolls, then you have to figure out how to pile in your fish and veggies and be able to roll the whole thing up with out it going everywhere and ensuring it is small enough to even fit in your mouth. Not an easy feat.

Since the sushi was going to take forever, Adam made edamame, dumplings, and miso butter fish that was awesome...almost as good as Roy's! By the time he finished the sushi I think were both already full but we ate it anyway. Here is our first attempt of a tuna avocado tower and spicy tuna avocado rolls.

         

I'm honestly still full and it's been almost a week!

I'm a coke addict

The title for this posting could have been numerous things..."I'm turning into my mother", "Making a deal with the devil", "Drinking yourself to fabulosity", and the one I chose "I'm a coke addict"...only because it was the most dramatic and drama is my thing.

I'm a coke addict:
I know all addicts have a 12 step program and I'm not really sure what the steps are but I'm pretty sure one is admitting you have a problem. So here is the description of my problem: I have to have a 44 oz diet coke every day from Race Trac. It must be from Race Trac because they use filtered water so you don't get the weird metal/garlic taste from our great "Plano water". They also have crushed ice and thick straws which are both key to a good coke. Not to mention that Race Track is on the corner of Plano Pkwy and Independence which happens to be on my way to work and literally a block from my office. I have yet to get to the point where I stop on the way to work but I do leave to get one over lunch or at some point during the day if I'm too busy for lunch. I'm on a first name basis with my dealers "Chris" and "Tammy" and we have agreed to a set price of $1.07 including tax. Who knew there was tax on coke???

I'm turning into my mother:
My mother was an addict FOR YEARS. Isn't there something in the 12 steps about inheriting your parents bad habits? I don't remember my mom ever not being a coke addict. She has a slightly different addiction. Her cokes have to come from McDonald's and must be real coke not diet. She even drinks cokes for breakfast and has since she was a child. I vaguely remember doing this as a child as well. Maybe coke addicts were more accepted in the 70s??? She has completed rehab and claims she has been clean for awhile...though she falls off the wagon every now and then. The verdict is still out on this one.

Making a deal with the devil:
Since my mom is a recoving addict I discussed my problem with her. I told her I could cut back and ONLY get a coke if I had gotten up early to workout. That way the coke was a NEED as I would NEED it to get through the day since I had gotten up so early and physically exhausted myself first thing. She politely informed me that I was just 'making a deal with the devil'. I could justify it anyway I wanted but it was still an addiction. Ok, so maybe she learned something in rehab...

Drinking yourself to fabulosity:
I get really busy at work and can't make it out for lunch so I just eat something I brought from home and drink about 3 liters of water and my huge diet coke. I think I get so full on liquids that I don't eat as much as I usually would. Not to mention if you drink a gallon of coke a day you pretty much can just go, go, go to the point that you can't stop. I sometimes need red wine at night to calm myself down ;o) Since I've been on this water/coke/wine 'liquid diet' I have lost about 5% of my body weight. I think I'm on to something here...this could be the next fad diet. I have just enough 'scientific proof' to write a diet book so if you see a book entitled "Drinking Yourself to Fabulosity" on the shelves at B&N you'll know where it came from. The book might have a disclaimer that states "Diet works best coupled with a stressful job and lots of hours at the gym"

So I'm not really sure where to go from here...do I keep my addiction and stay on my liquid diet? Do I contact Dr. Drew to spend some time in Sober House...do you think Dr. Drew could help me?

Jinxed on NYE!

Should I consider it bad luck that almost EVERY year I am sick on New Year's Eve? Adam and I both had to work on NYE so we didn't do much on Tues night. I woke up at 1:30am completely nauseous and proceeded to throw up for the next 4 hrs. I ended up working from home on Wed. which I'm sure my manager thought I was totally faking and just trying to start my NYE celebration early. I went to the doctor and found out that I had a severe sinus infection and a possible stomach virus. While everyone else was kicking off their celebration, I was laying on the couch watching a House marathon. We ended up making it to my parents house about 15 min before midnight. My parents friends from Atlanta, Benny and Gwen, were visiting them. Here are some pics from NYE 2008.

           

To proved that I'm jinxed on NYE with illness here is the recap of NYE 2005...

Adam and I went to Napa shortly after Christmas and had plans to celebrate NYE in San Francisco. I was sick with a cold the entire time we were in Napa. I couldn't taste, much less smell, any wine but had a great time regardless. On the morning of 12/31 we were scheduled to drive to SF for our NYE plans...dinner at La Suite and then a party at the Bubble Lounge. We headed out of Yountville towards the bay bridge and literally saw cars floating down the road in front of us and a fire truck parked side ways across the road denoting that the road was closed. I was bound and determined that we were going to make it to SF in time for our plans that night and our flight on Jan. 2 to LA for the Rose Bowl, so I literally called the radio station 15 times trying to find ways out of Napa. They were reporting that all exits were being closed making it impossible to reach the other way out via the Golden Gate Bridge. Adam decided to try to find our way to the Golden Gate Bridge by going north to Calistoga and then coming back down to get to the Golden Gate Bridge. I have never been through such flooding in my entire life. There were literally waterfalls coming down across the road. On top of being really sick I was becoming extremely car sick by the moment and started to rethink my decision to encourage Adam to try to make it to SF.

Some how Adam got us out of Napa and into SF; though it took hours we made it with enough time to shower and get ready for NYE. We heard on the news that about an hour after we cleared the Golden Gate Bridge it was closed. We were staying at my family friend's, Travis, house and he had warned us that it may be difficult to get a cab on NYE and said if we got into a bind we could use his driver, Alex. Adam called cabs for 2 hrs and couldn't get anyone that would be willing to come get us. We had come this far and there was no way I was giving up even if we had to walk. With 10 min left before our dinner reservations we broke down and called Alex. This guy was amazing...not only did he immediately come get us, he drove through parking lots, over medians and curbs and got us to our reservations ON TIME!!! Dinner was awesome, Bubble Lounge was cool, and Alex returned to pick us up and take us home so all was good.

Well, until the next day when I woke up feeling like I was dying but wanted Adam to see the touristy stuff in SF since it was our last day before we were heading to LA. We had lunch in Ghirardelli Square and then walked to Lombard street as it started to pour down rain. We ended up walking to Fisherman's Wharf trying to find a pharmacy as I was getting sicker being in the cold, wet weather. Adam didn't want me in the rain any longer so dropped me off in a Starbuck's while I waited on him to go find some meds. He was gone for what seemed like hours and we finally took a cab home. By the time we got home my fever had gone up to 102 and I really couldn't do much of anything besides sleep.

Next day we flew to LA. We were staying at a hotel in Burbank. When we arrived the desk clerk asked if we wanted to upgrade to the renovated section of the hotel. We were only going to be there 2 nights so we said no. We got to our room and it was disgusting in general but truly gross when I moved the ottoman to put the suitcase down and there was a half eaten hamburger and a ball of hair (like when you clean out a brush) underneath it. I immediately broke down as Adam called to get us moved to the renovated section regardless of cost. The other section was MUCH BETTER. I had to fire off a phone call to Kari because I knew if the room was not up to my standards it would not be up to hers. She in turn warned her mother who immediately called the hotel to get both of them upgraded.

On Jan. 4 we went to the Rose Bowl. I was still sick and miserable, I had limited hearing and overall felt like crap but it was my Horns playing for the National Championship so there was no way I would miss it. I tried to get in the spirit of things by having one beer and some classless USC fan kicked it over while Kari and I were in the bathroom...god, I hate USC fans. Anyway, the game was amazing and UT won so I'm thinking that I may be jinxed only the actual day/night of NYE but good things sometimes come the 1st week of Jan. so maybe I shouldn't worry about it too much...

A few Rose Bowl 2006 memories:

      

What happened to the 12 days of Christmas?

I'm a firm believer in the 12 days of Christmas which starts on Christmas day and ends on Jan. 6 so I insist on leaving up our Christmas decorations and burning our exterior Christmas lights until this day. It takes weeks to lug all the decorations from the attic, go through them and finally putting them out that it makes no sense to me to undecorate on Dec. 26 or even on Jan. 1. I love the holidays and don't want them to end so why on earth would I undecorate so quickly? Not to mention, that it will take me weeks to get down the boxes from the attic, take down all the decorations, sort them and carefully pack them away for next year.

For some reason this year it is just not in the cards...
1. We have lost several dozen glass ornaments this past week that have tumbled off our quick drying live tree only to meet death on the terra cotta tile floor.
2. "Someone" keeps knocking over the buck reindeer in our front yard but politely leaves the stakes in a pile right next to him. The poor thing repeatedly turns his mechanical head into the ground looking like he has been shot and is moaning in pain.
3. We finally blew a strand of lights on the big tree outside so now it goes white, dark, white, then green. I must admit every time I see the dark spot it gets on my OCD nerves but I must stick with my principals and keep my Christmas show going until Jan. 6.
4. Adam got the boxes down from the attic last night and I politely stacked them in the corner until I'm good and ready to give in and start dismantling our Christmas creations.

Unfortunately, this morning we were awoken by a small crash that turned out to be 3 glass balls committing suicide at the same time so I may be willing to compromise. I may agree to take down the main tree and safely put the Santas in their bubble wrap so Adam won't have a heart attack if his beloved motorcycle Santa crashes on the floor...but the outside lights, including almost dead buck and burnt out strand of lights, and the Hello Kitty tree, and small tree are staying up until Jan. 6 at which point I'll happily pack them all away and wish you all a Merry 12th Day of Christmas!

Christmas, Ellington style

Every year we celebrate Christmas at my parents house starting Christmas Eve. When we were children we would open all our gifts from our family on Christmas Eve and awake early Christmas morning to see what Santa had brought. Even though we no longer receive gifts from Santa we keep the tradition of opening our gifts on Christmas Eve after dinner rather than on Christmas day. This year we decided to do secret santas. Secret Santas were supposed to be secret, as the name denotes, but my family isn't exactly the best in keeping secrets so everyone had figured out at least half of them before we exchanged gifts. Shari was the worst; she went around telling everyone who she had (Nannie) and who had her (me!) and any others that she thought she knew. It was fun teasing her that if she was so certain we should wager on it, as gambling is a favorite pass time in our family, especially because in the end she only missed about 2.

Normally dinner includes Christmas crackers, as my mom was a Brit in a former life and loves all things British, but she had trouble finding them this year. Crackers usually contain a paper crown and a small novelty, like toys from cracker jacks. Oddly enough, Adam and I found them at William Sonoma. Can't you just find everything there? Christmas makes us all revert back to being 12, whether telling someone who you think their secret santa is or anxiously awaiting the end of dinner so you can pop your cracker and find out what is inside, and that's why it is my favorite time of year. Here are some pics from Christmas Eve at my parents...crowns and UT santa hats included!

The Magic of Christmas

I have always thought Christmas was magical and loved the beauty of a decorated tree and the glow of millions of twinkling lights but each year I am amazed at how much work goes into preparing for the holidays. For the last few years, we have done 3 inside trees in addition to the outside lights. Between the two of us it literally takes us 3 weeks to get everything up and working. Here are some pics of our effort this year:

                                         

I thought 3 weeks was a lot of time to put into something you can only enjoy for a few weeks until I read about this man that plans his Christmas light show starting Dec 26 each year. This man lives in Deerfield in Plano, which is known for the entire neighborhood participating in the Christmas light show, and was even featured on Good Morning America http://www.deerfieldplano.org/.  Adam had never seen the lights in Deerfield so I convinced him to go on Dec. 23. There was literally a traffic jam to get into the neighborhood and a complete dead stop approaching this man's house on Old Pond. Once we got to his street there was a policeman directing traffic and you were not allowed to stop in front of the house to really get a good look. The house had a 'live' Santa sitting in the front yard collecting donations and a kid that handed out fliers that told you what radio station to tune to hear the music that accompanied his light show. There was so many people it took us about 3 hours to go through the neighborhood. The neighborhood had already handed out the awards for 2008 when we went on the 23rd and this house won first place. We really thought it was too busy and that the 2nd place house that had Santa with his sleigh and all the reindeer suspended in the air at an angle was way cooler. I can't imagine the patience and time it takes to create something like what we saw. We are doing good to not blow out a portion of a stand of lights on the house or in the middle of the tree. How do these people do it? The magic of Christmas I suppose.

Speaking of magical Christmas moments, we certainly have encountered a few this holiday season:  Shari will eat jambalaya if Adam makes it, even though she hates every ingredient except chicken; I'll drink milk if it has brandy and powdered sugar in it and served up as a milk punch; and Adam will even admit that I'm right...he FINALLY agreed that Braum's egg nog ice cream does not exist after 2 years of never seeing one gallon!

Braum's Egg Nog ice cream does not exist; there I said it!

I don't like egg nog and don't exactly want ice cream when it is 30 degrees outside but I have spent hours over the last few weeks searching for Braum's egg nog ice cream.  The only reason I can come up with is that it is now all about the chase.  It started last Christmas when my mom innocently asked Adam and I to stop at Braum's on Christmas Eve and pick up some egg nog ice cream.  We went to 4 stores on the way, only to be mocked and laughed at because it was in fact Christmas Eve and the Plano locations had been sold out for weeks.  So this year we were not going to be egg nog ice creamless and thus started our search right after Thanksgiving.  We just stopped for the 10th time since Friday and guess what NO EGG NOG ICE CREAM!  Every time we stop at any location we are told the same thing, "The truck just came in today, let me go check. Nope, there wasn't any on that truck.  We should be getting another truck in tomorrow. Yall should check back then."  So what do we do, we go back AGAIN and it's the same story.  Of course every time we stop we have to buy something even if it's just cheese from their market area and Adam has to spend at least 10 min talking to the teenage or grandma aged clerks.  This search has seriously been worse than some I've been on for a coveted handbag.  I mean really, I found Kate Hudson's charcoal gray Chole bag after only visiting 2 Nordstroms....how could it possibly take 10+ tries to find egg nog ice cream???  

So I finally think I figured it out...Braum's egg nog ice cream does not exist....it's just a ploy to get people into their new improved market area to buy a bunch of over priced dairy products and local Texas crap.  Adam asked me to add a disclaimer to this posting in case any Braum's employees are reading....he DOES believe that egg nog ice cream exists and he will diligently keep the search party going.  If anybody has an 'in' he wants 3 gallons - 1 for him, 1 for my mom, and one to auction on ebay!