for your viewing pleasure

To clear up any confusion as to why Suzanna, Emily, and I look as though we're 2 years younger and why my hair is short, here's an actual picture from this past Saturday night in Dallas (the other was literally from 2 years ago at creepy transvestite-who-is-also-a-Cher-impersonator karaoke). I didn't post it yesterday out of concern that you might not be able to figure out who the middle character was. Wait. Of course you would have figured that out, we all know Emily. In the midst of our random and fun evening out (it was actually our month-late Christmas exchange), we stopped by a cougar-themed 30th birthday party. Please do not ever throw me a cougar-themed anything. Needless to say, after a few beverages and looking at lots of people in leopard print, things appeared funny to us that might not be funny to the average viewer. Cases in point:

-Emily demonstrating an array of dance moves while wearing a lion mask (remember: cougar theme. Cougar theme is bad.)
-Jay wearing said lion mask pretending to eat brisket and a container of ice cream.

feels like home

breakfast goodness

Scandinavian Muesli
2 c old fashioned rolled oats
2/3 c rye or wheat flakes
1/3 coarsely chopped almonds
2 tb flaked coconut
1/2 c raisins
2 tb honey
1/2 t vanilla extract
pinch of cinnamon
1/4 c ground flaxseed

Preheat oven to 350. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray. Spread oats and rye/wheat flakes onto baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Stir in almonds and coconut; bake until fragrant, about 8 minutes. Turn off the oven. Stir in raisins.

Microwave honey for 10 seconds in a microwave safe bowl. Stir in vanilla and cinnamon and pour over muesli mixture. Stir to coat. Return the mixture to the turned-off warm oven and let cool completely, about 2 hours. Stir in flaxseed.

Store in the refrigerator and it will last for a couple of weeks.

My thoughts (now that I've made it more than once):
*It's DELICIOUS and filling...I mix it with vanilla yogurt.
*The "mix-ins" are sort of up to you...you could use any dried fruit and any amount you want...I liked the raisins so much (they really plump up) that I added more this time...along with about double the coconut.
*I prefer to add flaxseed to it when I eat it...it all sinks to the bottom of the storage container.
*If you can't find rye or wheat flakes, just add more rolled oats.

Enjoy! Especially my little friend who is a vegan for 21 days....no animal products in this recipe! :)

recap of the end

The end of 2009, that is.... My poor little blog hasn't gotten much attention from me this fall/winter at all, so I figured a little recap of all important/not-so-important events was due. 2009 ended by celebrating at dinner with friends, enjoying some bubbly, and just relaxed hanging out. It was nice and calm (minus a somewhat intense game of electronic CatchPhrase) and included nothing close to bottle service, which is always a plus.

On the work side of things, I got to be a part of one of my very favorite things to happen in my 5.5 years at Blue Haze. Our school was selected by the Marines to be a donation location for Toys for Tots. For several weeks families donated toys and the kids knew nothing except that a "plan" was in place one Thursday afternoon. At about 12:30 an announcement was made for everyone to begin heading out to the playground. At 1:00 (on the dot, just in case you thought the military might not be on time), a helicopter flew towards the school, circled the playground twice, and landed on the backstop. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen!! I was so thankful and so excited for our students that they got to be a part of something so special. I had chills as they landed and I'm pretty sure I wore a ridiculous grin the rest of the day.
Here are kids lined against the fence and the helicopter coming into view.

A 4-star general along with three other marines (one of whom is the dad of a Blue Haze kiddo) and the pilot walked up to greet everyone.

They shook EVERY kid's hand!!!

My sweet Character Crew kids who helped load all the bagged toys.

Once work/school ended for the break, things got a bit more busy. I left work Friday afternoon, went with Emily to deliver Angel tree gifts a family from school, and dashed to TCU to get my graduation stuff. Then it was time to head to dinner where "the parents" met for the first time. Success x 10! :) Saturday morning was my hooding ceremony nice and early at TCU...thank you, Mother Nature, for bringing the 40 degree weather in just in time for me to be sporting a very NOT windproof purple graduation robe. The hooding ceremony was really neat and special. And while I won't miss being in class until 10:10 at night and doing homework, I will dearly miss the people and professors I spent 2 1/2 years with. We all grew very close and the thought of not seeing them all every week makes me want to keep going to class just because. Graduation was a bit long...which is expected. We went to a delicious dinner that night to celebrate and then headed to a beautiful wedding reception afterwards.

After the weekend was over, I breathed, vegged a little, and then began my last minute Christmas shopping for almost everyone on my list. I will NOT be doing that next year!! The roads were insane and I'm sure I had way too many tacky thoughts in my head about drivers/people than I should've had so close to Santa visiting.

I got all my shopping done, however, and Bobby and I had our Christmas a few days early. In addition to other things, we both managed to get each other nearly the same gift....think we hang out much together?

And even though he will probably kill me for putting this on here, I couldn't resist. Thanks to some boredom and nasty weather in San Antonio, we opted to stay indoors and visited the museum which happened to have a circus exhibit. Now Bobby...I could have posted the video of you doing Super HulaHoop on the wii....

Welcome, 2010!

the best present under the tree...

...when she's not trying to eat it, of course.

let it snow

It might have melted by lunch time, but this is what it looked like when I walked into work this morning:
Score. :)

guest blogger

Bobby told me this story the other day and after I finished my laughing convulsions, I told him it was too bad that he didn't have a blog, because his story was so very blog-worthy. Then I did some more thinking and came up with the idea of a guest blogger, so....here you go:

The other day I went to go visit a client that I had never met at a nursing home. When I arrived the staff told me that my client was a lady in her nineties who had a reputation for being cantankerous. At this point I figured that my boyish charm could get the best of any old lady…this was not the case.

The nurse showed me to my client’s room and then left us to talk. When I introduced myself as her attorney my client immediately started yelling that she didn’t hire an attorney and did not need me. I politely explained that I had been appointed as her attorney and she was more or less stuck with me. My client than proceeded to tell me that there was no way I could be an attorney because I was too young. I could see how to someone in their nineties could see how someone in their late twenties could be too young to do much, so, once again, I politely explained to her that I was her attorney and I was here to help. As you can imagine she did not respond too well to this either.

At this point I figured I may as well proceed and talk to her about why I was there. I started off by trying to just chat with her to figure out how senile she really was. I asked her about her house and she immediately responded by saying”you are just trying to figure out if I know where I live”. That is exactly what I was doing but I wasn’t going to let her know that so I responded that I was trying to get to know her. This apparently set something off with her because she then grabbed an unopened can of Sprite off of her table and hurled it at me. Thank God she was old because her aim was about 3 feet to my right. However, when the Sprite hit the wall it exploded and got all over me! I never thought as a lawyer I would have an old lady hurl things at me…apparently I was wrong.

...and i learned to like shallots (a lot)

Israeli couscous with parsley and shallots
serves 4

Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 cup Israeli (pearl) couscous (I found it in the bulk section at Central Market)
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 shallots (about 1/2 pound total), halved and thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

In a medium pot of boiling salted water, cook couscous until al dente, according to package instructions. Drain, and transfer to a bowl.
Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Add shallots; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, until browned, 3 to 5 minutes. Add to bowl with couscous. Add parsley and lemon juice, and toss. Season with salt and pepper.

*I enjoyed this with some lime broccoli and sesame shrimp...I cooked Asian, go figure. :)

i wanna feel the sunshine shining down on me and you

yes...still here

Thank goodness for cell phones...otherwise some of you folks might think I had been kidnapped or fallen victim to the swine flu. Neither is true, luckily. Just trying to keep my head above water with the new job and all the scary unknown that it comes with.

I do better with lists, plus seeing as how I have so little time on my computer, I thought I'd run down the last month or so with bullet points. We all know I'm no good at storytelling, anyway.

~As stated above, my new counseling job is kicking my booty. One adjustment is that my time isn't my own anymore...there is always something that comes up that I have to do while in the middle of something else. I'm learning to navigate the ropes semi-on my own because there really is no one to guide you when you're the only counselor in a sea of 730+ small people. I love, love, love doing my guidance lessons! I am getting to know so many of the kiddo's personalities and I'm seeing the growth that happens from grade level to grade level.
~Haven't contracted the swine flu...however, I am in the midst of recovery from a seriously awful sinus infection. I thought my forehead was going to break out of my head while on a flight just last Monday...wouldn't wish that pain on my worst enemy...if I had an enemy, which I don't. :)
~I was on a plane coming back from visiting Ryan-from-the-train in Seattle. We've been friends for almost a good 10 years now. It was a gorgeous trip and it was really good to see him and catch up and shop at all the fun stores! We saw a lot of gorgeous scenery...stuff I don't get to see EVER here in the Lone Star State. Here are some of the pictures from my trip:

~Here are the sweet flowers my sweet Bobby left when I wasn't feeling well (thought I was dying) last week. I came home from work and saw them on the table and of course went into worst-case scenario mode for about 10 seconds before I realized there was no stranger lurking in my apartment trying to lure me with flowers. Turns out Bobby stopped by and dropped them off...which is a much sweeter story than a murderer hiding in my shower. (Do you like my candy corn placemats??)

~And finally, I got to go to this AWESOME concert a few weeks ago!! Taylor put on an amazing show and never stopped moving for the full 2 hours. She walked through the crowd twice, had all kinds of cool set changes, and finished the show by singing with the two opening acts. What a personable lady! I want to go when she comes back in March!!!