Diggin' Colorado...

Here we are on our journey around Colorado. We stopped in Albuquerque the first night and ate great New Mexican food at some old venue on Central Avenue, the old route 66. Next night: Durango, where we camped at United Camp ground and it rained on us while putting up the tent. Corocita was not a happy camper, fearing another Argentina disaster. Strolled through Durango and wished I had lots of money. The next day, we drove into Mesa Verde park where we camped for two nights. Great camp site, friendly people, nice showers, grilled steak, saw cliff dwellings, hiked, and road our bikes. The weather has been fantastic and I learned two new constellations: I can't remember their names right now, but in any case, it's great to see the stars and I can now fine the North Star no problem! I'll never get lost again - hah!

Onto Silverton, where our Lonely Planet guide promises us a great meal at "Handlebars", then into Black Canyons to camp one more night before we take off for Denver...

The journey continues. (Thanks to Durango Joe's for providing us with great coffee and free wifi so I can let the world know my business.)

Is it worth it?

Just got home from my portable. My portable - sounds so funny - and after spending I'm-not-telling-how-much on paint and supplies, I ended up NOT using the colors I had purchased but some old-ass paint from the collection of cans in the art room and a color I found in our shed. I like the color combo. Stay tuned for before and after images. 

I just looked a some of my wedding photos the lovely LEAH MUSE took and I am just so - I don't even know what to say - they are amazing. I told her I've never looked so good in a photograph and I'm tempted to hire her full time so every time a picture is taken of me it will be by her and I'll always love how I look! I know I exaggerate but it's all in fun. How can a cute little 22 year old have such a great eye? I tell you that girl has it; she's a "natch", my friend Beth would say (short for natural) and I'm so happy we hired her. (and I'm not just sayin' that in case she's reading this!)

Here ye, here ye: here is my goal for the fall - to make 5 to 8 pieces of jewelry, NOT GIVE THEM AS GIFTS (sorry), and get that fabulous little Leah to take pictures of them to start an Etsy site. I've been instructed by someone to give myself 2 hours a week to sit and work at my bench and so that's what I plan to do. We'll see how it goes. I could use the encouragement and support if there's any out there to spare. Stay tuned...

Missin' all my family today - my dad, my brothers and sister, my mom. My good friend, Christian, my other good friend, Cindy. Must be the photographs I've been looking at. (sigh)

Hit or Miss...

Just sittin' here at the Bakehouse waiting for my egg to get well scrambled instead of runny. The Bakehouse is such a surreal place. It's also very hit or miss. And the wait staff are some characters, let me tell you. This morning my waitress is a cute little thing with a great bob haircut. I swear there's a new waitress every time I come here.

Mmmm, here's my egg! 

Every time I come here I'm reminded of the best summer ever when I was 16 and I worked at U Save Drug Mart, a pharmacy in the same little strip center as the Bakehouse. Donnie, my boss and pharmacist/drug dealer (not MY drug dealer, just a drug dealer!) would send me over here to get him a cookie from their bakery counter. I was always so jealous as I couldn't afford the cookies at the Bakehouse. The place seemed so fancy and a lot more expensive back then, but then I was only 16 making $4.00 an hour. This Bakehouse has been here since 1984 and they haven't once changed or updated the decor. The world globe lanterns are still hanging, the maps are still on the walls, the color scheme is still maroon and dark green. They have, however, built a deck/patio on the front, and that was just in the last year! But it's a faithful establishment, one that the foreigners haven't forced out of business, and one of the reasons I love South Austin.

Hit and Misses at the Bakehouse (but don't let them keep  you from coming here):

Hit - Free WiFi

Miss - the music; Michael McDonald then the Goo Goo Dolls? 

Hit - The breakfast; cheap and a lot of it! Puts Magnolia to shame

Miss - The coffee, but I drink it anyway

Hit - Their Mississippi Mud with vanilla ice cream, oh yea.

Miss - The Boston Cod; worse than airplane food

Hit - John Kelso frequents here

My breakfast this morning? The one egg plate with homefries and fruit and a natural pancake, coffee. The bill? $6.74! What a bargain! I should tell Rachel Ray to come here. She should do an episode on South Austin alone...

Time to round up Blake and put his "lotsa music" butt to work...

Playing lots of music...

The last couple of days have been pretty uneventful seeing as all I've been doing is trying to organize my new classroom at Crockett. Man, that lady left a lot of junk. Sean has been a sweetie, though, helping me go through and throw out much of it. He's the one who's made headway in that place and thanks to him, I feel like I'm on my way to getting my room set up. Today I plan to prime the walls so tomorrow I can get Blake (a 17 year old making up 90 hours by doing odd jobs around the school) to help me paint. 

Blake is a musician and has a band. Blake claims he spent a lot of time "playing lots of music" instead of going to school, hence the 90 hours lost. Sucks for him to have to spend his summer making up hours, but it's great for me, as I need help getting that place in order! It'll be fun having Blake around to keep me company. He's the kind of kid I like to talk to. He claims he's not an artist, but I had to remind him that you don't need to draw or paint to be an artist. That's how I found out he's a musician because I asked him if he played music (it was pretty obvious by the hair) and when he said yes I said, "then you're an artist. You consider yourself creative, don't you?", and he replied, "yeah, I'm pretty creative" (I'm sure he got real creative trying to come up with excuses for not being in class!). 

At the end of the day of throwing out garbage, Sean and I came across Blake in the courtyard, scrapping tape off of the ground. "You've gotta give me something more interesting to do!", he yelled at us. I told him I'll come get him on Monday to help me paint and he said, "I'll be here at 8:30 in the morning!". Poor guy.

Okay, this is too cool: Sam has learned to "knock" at the front door when he wants to come in. Seriously, I just heard the screen door creak and it was Sam pulling on it so I'd let him in. My cat it too smart for words (I know many will beg to differ with that statement). 

Gotta go get priming...

Tour de Austin

I love riding my bike at night. There's no better way to see the city than at night when there are few cars and the streets seem to be all yours and you can move freely about. We parked the car at the Congress bridge and road over into downtown. We went down Guadalupe, crossed over 2nd, up to 4th, back towards Lavaca then all the way down to 15th. From there we rode into UT Campus (or 40 Acres, as it's known, at least that's what Sean told me.) Somehow we ended up back on Guadalupe then headed up to Milto's for some Greek Grub, mmmm! Try their iced tea - it's damn good. From Milto's we headed back behind campus, past Spiderhouse, the Possey East, then back into campus. We stopped at that glorious fountain in front of the Geology building for a while, then headed out of campus back into downtown. It was rough climbing up a few hills, but we made it to the Capitol and stopped to watch the night hawks chowing down on some bugs. The Capitol is so peaceful at night. Finally we made it back through downtown and crossed the Congress bridge to the car. Came home, showered and watched a re-run of "Earth: The Biography". Great way to end the night.

We thought about riding again tonight but I'm pooped and need to head back up to Crockett tomorrow to continue trying to get that place organized...I'd rather be planning a wedding. I'm having fun being married to Sean, and glad to not have cried today!

My mouth burns...

Been a few days since I last posted, or at least it seems that way. 

Things I've done in the last 48hours:

Cleaned out four cabinets in my new art room at Crockett

Eaten at Thai Kitchen and burned the shit out of my mouth (that #25 is an ass kicker)

Watered my lawn

Watched "Earth: The Biography" on Net Geo in HD (AMAZING)

Kissed my husband and told him I loved him (he likes that)

Drank coffee with Sam and Lucas out on the porch in the morning (they like that, too)

Walked on Town Lake

Watched a clip of my wedding on YouTube and cried my eyes out

And for the last 48 hours I've had fresh squeezed orange juice with B-12, a strawberry smoothie, and whole grain waffles...mmm!

I love the summer...

Homebody

Sittin' here listening to some Whiskey Town while my husband lays on the couch reading "Stuff White People Like". (God, we are soooooo white.) Though I'd get a lot of stuff done in the home but all I've done is hook up the surround sound, decide on a shelf for above the TV, play around on the computer, oh, and I did get my nails filled. Ahem.

Now I think I'll head to Amy's for a tiny serving of ice cream - nothing like ice cream on a summer afternoon! Looking forward to our bike ride tonight...

Flash Back

Too much fun again last night with Cindy. That girl brings out the best devil in me and I have to admit being around her sometimes is so refreshing. The simplest things make us crack up and last night was no exception. What is it about seeing people fall or trip that seems so damn hilarious? Well, we're not sure either, but everyone who tripped over that sign post last night in front of Emo's sent us into hysterics. Watch for the video! It was good to see our old pal Rosanna last night. She hasn't changed much except now she's a mom. Sill funny as ever, and while I had good times with her, I have to say I'm so very content with my life today compared to the days when she and I were running around. It seems as though she's on the road to finding peace and I'm happy for her. Could Scott Barnes get any funnier with his skirt, his mid-nineties pacifier charm, and his eighties goth cross at the Peter Murphy concert last night? That boy makes any event a party and I hope he comes out with us on Wednesday. 

Felt honored to be at Cindy's mom, Dee's birthday din-din yesterday. Her grandkids are amazingly cute and so GOOD. I am still blown over by how Cindy's brother has changed and find it so bizarre that he's a dad (7 years now) and a good one, to boot. Life is so strange...

(destinations unknown)...

Ahhhhhh.....

I'M HOME!!! 

I'm sitting here looking at my wilted bouquet wishing it was still fresh. Just reviewed the photos on Facebook Ward tagged of me from the wedding. Everyone looked so amazing that night. Every time someone came up to me at the wedding I was blown away with how beautiful they looked. Everyone cleans up so well! I was so honored they got all gussied up for me...

We bought three movies in Argentina thinking we'd watch them on our 10.5 hour flight. We started one when I broke Sean's headphones so we didn't finish it for obvious reasons. Think I'll go watch one now in bed on my laptop as I lay against my NEW DOWN PILLOWS Sara and Amy gave us! (Thanks, ladies! Miss you guys...)

Got a lot done today. Sean and I decided on a flat screen TV (Christian, we're going with the Samsung:), ate the Chicken Taco Salad at Waterloo Icehouse, picked up my house keys, ate dinner with my sister and niece (such fun, those two), and pulled some nut grass out in the yard. I whooped! 

So glad to be home.

BA Airport...

Here I am at the Buenos Aires airport and I've got three more hours until our flight leaves. I was smart and asked for emergency exit seats (probably a bad idea, now that I think of it...) so we could have more leg room. It's an 11 hour flight - I'll need to stretch out the legs. We tried to get them to bump us up to First Class, but unfortunately "We're on our honeymoon" didn't help.

After running all over this airport I FINALLY found a plug to recharge the laptop, and, hey, I get wireless internet! Too bad I lost Sean. I wonder where he's wandering right now? I miss him.

I'm so hungry - that $10 dollar sandwich did not do the trick...

More later.

Bad hair day...

Like the states, hair salons aren´t open on Mondays in Argentina. I was really hoping to get my hair styled (washed and blow dried, really) before we take off tomorrow, but I guess that ain´t going to happen. It´s so cheap to keep your locks pretty here and I like to take advantage of that when I travel to Euro-type countries. Oh well.

Here I am on my last day of the first stage of my honeymoon. I say first stage because even though Sean and I are coming home early from Argetina, we´re already planning a road trip in the states when we get back!

Things I´m looking forward to upon our return home:

Seeing my friends and family and hugging them all!
Seeing my KITTIES! (I loves me some Samito and Luke-Lukey)
Watering my plants
Riding my bike at night with Sean
Eating the number 52 at Pho Thaison
Making some jewelry
Taking a road trip and doing some camping
Finishing up some art
Opening our wedding presents and thanking all the wonderful folks who supported us
Being married in my home...:)

See you all soon!!!

Wedding bliss and honeymoon blahs...

My wedding was magical, what can I say? I have the coolest friends and family and an even cooler husband who I adore. We´re currently on our honeymoon in Argentina but there´s no snow so we can´t ski. We´ve loved our little get-a-way in San Martin de los Andes, our cabin is cozy, our host, Diego is too cool, the food is wonderful, but we´re not diggin´the rain and unpaved roads, and our adventurous spirits have died for now. We´re longing to come home and be a married couple in our little house of love on Great Britain Blvd. (and I really want to see my cool family and cool friends...). Oh, and I miss my kitties so much.

Looking forward to a possible camping trip in New Mexico!

I love my life!