Little Gardeners

Someone decided to be helpful with the melon harvest. Girls were outside all day, found this guy in the middle of the yard. Kirby danced around it several times, then tried to pick it up. Hmmmm... Someone must have gotten it there. See the teeth scrapes all over?

Brrr

You know it's cold in your house when your furriest and fattest dog is shivering in her bed, teeth chattering and all! Time to pile on the blankets!

Chandy

One of my sweet deals from the shopping excursion in San Marcos was a fabulous capiz chandelier from West Elm (here). After bargaining with the manager to get a more pristine shade piece, the chandelier which came in two pieces (shade with capiz shells and canopy) left in my hands for 64% off retail. Booyah. I had been eyeing this chandelier for some time online, but never wanted to pay retail for it. This find was HUGE!

So home I went and decided to hang this thing all by myself. No problem. Sure, I am not the electrician in the family and of course I hadn't hung a chandelier by myself before, but why not. As you can see, here is the before picture of my dining room. The builder-grade chandelier you see was the centerpiece of room and very uninspiring. Snooze and not my style.

I had many struggles with the new chandy, which included:

1. The ceiling hole from the old chandelier was wider than the baseplate of the new chandelier. Patch/tape/mud/sand needed.

2. Shade and canopy did not match. Nope. Luckily the outlet had the matching canopy, and they sent a courier to pick up the old canopy and deliver the matching canopy. Amazing!

3. It took over an hour to unfurl the carefully packaged, triple bagged and taped, extremely fragile capiz shell danglies. None broken, I'm awesome.

4. But the ultimate "struggle": I may have put a stepstool on the table (with the table runner still on it) since I was too short to reach the ceiling. I may have had the chandelier canopy hanging from my shoulder while I was sweating in the dark with a spotlight illuminating the ceiling, trying my hand at wiring the chandy. I may have had my pockets stuffed full of wire nuts, screwdrivers, and screws. I may have shimmied the stool too close to the edge of the table, the stool may have fallen off, I may have thrown the canopy to the floor and I may have, just maybe, done some parkour from the falling stool, to the table, to a chair to the foyer to save my stupid hide. ...this may have happened.

Good stuff.

At the end of several days, the new chandelier was hung and I love how it turned out. What do you think? 

Speaking of Weed...

I had Hemp-anadas and Hemp Brownies with my Grilled Salmon Pasta at Ruggles Green yesterday, mmmmmmm. They were delicious!!

Lauren and I chowed down, then saw the movie J Edgar at Studio Cinema Grill. The movie was good, I thought. Interesting man, interesting time, so many secrets!

I am going to see the latest Twilight movie at some point, but I'll be danged if I was going to see it on opening weekend. There were so many teenagers and well..."unsavory" movie-goers there, it was craziness! Also, since when did going to the movies involve dressing your hoochiest? There was booty and one-piece unitards and prostitute shoes and more booty!! It.was...fashionable? Egads. I'm old.

The Half Acre Weed

...okay, maybe that's too big a stretch from the "Hundred Acre Wood", but that's what I dealt with during yesterday's lawn-mowing adventure. 3 weeks+ of growth was a bit of a challenge. Good news: it's now done!

...and it appears some folks are already enjoying not having to high-step through the backyard jungle ;) can you see the wee ones?

Deals, Swollen Feet and Some VIP Action

On Saturday, us Strandmark Ladies hit up the San Marcos Premium Outlets. Let me tell you how excited we were to hit up the home goods outlets: Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel and ...the piece de resistance: Restoration Hardware Outlet!! OUT-LET people!! For anyone who knows, I'm in a total RH phase right now - I love the industrial, yet classic elegance of their style but whooo-weee! Are they expensive! So, you can imagine the pitter-pat of my heart when I saw they had an outlet...le sigh :)

Anyhoo, we hit the WS/PB outlet first and hit it strong! We all came out with fabulous deals and while I can't show my two best finds just yet (soon, my pretties!), I can tell you the best part:

West.

Elm.

Outlet.

Section.

What whaaaaaaaaat? You heard me. Zee outlet of zee Elm. A-booyah!

So we had a wonderfully successful venture at those first stores, then hit the luscious RH outlet where I will definitely go back if I ever want to get anything from RH. I drooled over this Kensington Upholstered Linen Couch...gaaaaaaaaaaah. Maybe next time :)

The next 7 hours were spent shopping, eating lunch at Johnny Rockets (Turkey Route 66 on a wheat bun - delicious!), commenting on passers-by, and enjoying each others' company. We took our weary and swollen feet back to the hotel with our bags and bags of spoils, rested for about an hour then headed back out to downtown Austin for some evening fun.

We first stopped at Parkside and shared a smattering of small dishes including their divine mac and cheese - a must try! Our delightful server Marissa (seriously attentive and so helpful) gave us some good suggestions for where to go that evening, including the Elephant Room and Cedar Street Courtyard. As we departed the restaurant for our venue of choice (the Elephant Room), we hit some topless, trashy folks just waltzing in a clump down 6th street....gross. Yes, ladies with boobs and no top. A few of them. Gross boobs - not the good kind. ...let's move on.

There was a line at the Elephant Room to get in, so we kept on keeping on. And thank goodness, because Cedar Street Courtyard was such a fun time! We got in to the venue free and were able to score some VIP seats on the balcony area with a private bar and a great view over the stage. Mom, Faith and I enjoyed the cover band Encore, I drank too many G&Ts and then we hit the hay around 1am. Woot woot! Late nite for Jaimers!

All in all it was a banner Saturday with gorgeous weather, gorgeous ladies and swollen feeties from shopping and dancing. Amazing!

Night With the Ladies!

Mom and Faith came to visit me this weekend for a little girl's weekend in Austin! So far so good! We picked Faith up at the airport (mom came in yesterday) and headed straight to Austin. We walked to the Capitol which is really pretty, if you haven't been, then went to try to see the Congress Bridge bats. Needless to say they had already migrated to Mexico this year, so instead we headed to Hank's Garage for happy hour drinks and duck fat frites...mmmmm. this place was goooooo-ood! Curry ketchup and dill creme fraiche dipping sauce, delightful! I did, however spill my drink, but the bartender made me a new one for free so yay! From there we went to BD Riley's Pub, had some drinks and grub, saw a bagpiper dude play fo reals, then the lady next to us went ass over tea kettle in her chair! Poor thing :) once filled we trounced up the street to a bar called Latitude, where I had a G&T (gin and tonic, obvy) and we listened to a good blues band. Loud, but good! I'm getting oldie moldy in my ears, so... Stuff is often too loud or too quiet these days for me, *sigh*.

I had a great time with mom and Faithie, tomorrow shopping!!

Who's Your Buddy?

DST

Anyone who knows me understands I target 9:30 pm for bedtime and anything later is often a miracle. I'm old, I likes me sleep - so sue me! Anyhoo, this evening as I was watching TV, I decided to congratulate myself for staying up so late. I was truly proud.

...then I realized it was only 6:30 pm.

Daylight Savings Time, you and your concept stink. "Fall Back" THIS!

I hope you're all coping better than this ol' bird :)

Sunday Part Two

So...I decided to tack on a few more tasks to today's agenda including a self-pedicure, baking cinnamon-chocolate chip cookies, and burgers for dinner. As usual, I did all of them simultaneously trying to maximize my use of time.

Good news: Cookies and burgers turned out well. Cookies are tasty! Pedi even survived the cookie fiasco.

Bad news: There was a cookie fiasco.

Oh! You don't know what I mean? Well, I may have accidentally bumped the Kitchenaid switch while dumping flour in the mixer. Let me show you.

Good stuff :)

Sidebar: Feet with the toe-separators in make feet look more gnarly than usual. The flour footprint, however, is bad ass.

Ruff Sunday

Reaping the rewards of a few miles biking and a couple running. I hope you are as at peace with the world as these jokers! Happy Sunday everyone!

Fall Baking!

To commemorate the beautiful Fall day today, I ran 2 miles with Sammie and biked a mile with Kirby. I am so thankful Kirby does well running alongside my bike...not perfect, but good enough that I don't fall off and she gets her exercise :) we make a good team I think!

Tuckered out, it was time for dog napping and Mommy baking! A couple weeks ago I bought a bucket o' pears at the Farmer's Market and it's time to finally use them. I googled pear galette and found a fab recipe on epicurious.com for an Almond-Pear Galette: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Almond-Pear-Galette-236924

It was pretty easy to make, but took a little time between steps; perfect for a Fall day! Give it a try, it turned out yummy!!