Fat Tuesday

As I write this, I just finished a walkjog and I'm eating some Greek yogurt, but I haven't been adhering quite as closely to the Smackdown as I was last month. I'm still managing to show up at yoga once or twice a week, and I even (gasp!) jogged on the treadmill the other day when it was raining, but otherwise, I've been eating tons of super delicious food. My SLH is both willing and able to make dinner (I know!) so who am I to stop him? His projects primarily involve pounding meat and cooking it with fire (I mean "fahre") and I've been too busy stuffing my face to get any pics. But sometimes, we work as a culinary team in our teeny tiny kitchen and the results are (usually) pret-ty pret-ty great. Two recent examples are this chowder, from The Homesick Texan cookbook we got for Christmas (and Hey Mom! I also got to use my new hand blender on this one).

It doesn't look like much in this photo, but Y.U.M.

 And these beer-braised short ribs with thyme roasted sweet potatoes. We did a little interweb research on rib braising and then just winged it: meat, carrots, onion, celery, can of tomatoes, chick broth, beer, and of course a jalapeno. SO good. For the sweet potatoes I used this recipe. The next day we threw it all into the crockpot and stewified it. Mmmmm...meat.

Meat and taters

It also didn't help that the first two weeks of February are "festival of love" (sorry, hope you're not eating), another in a series of my made-up holidays. This one is similar to Hanukkah in that it celebrates a miracle: John's transformation from random guy hitting on me at a Super Bowl party to guy I would actually date and eventually marry. We don't celebrate Valentine's Day since our "special day" is February 15 (our first date). This year for FOL finale we had dinner at Justine's. (Here is the Chronicle Review which is tame and nice, and here is the restaurant website which is slightly disconcerting and has some pleasingly racy video) We ate snails! They were surprisingly tasty, but isn't anything tasty when soaked in wine, butter, and garlic? Thumbs up.
 Did y'all know we're moving? Woohoo! For the first time in six years I will live less than 25 minutes from everything I want/need to do. As my NW peeps would say, I'm hella stoked. To say goodbye to our uncool 78729 zip code, we visited a few of our favorite spots and a new, very silly place called Senorita's Cantina. Klassy indeed. Giant Margaritas,

The hub looks a little silly in this one, but it was the better one of me, so...

 and the most insane restaurant mural I've ever encountered. JS described these mermaids as being "explosively breasted". Hee hee. You must click to enlarge. Wouldn't this be awesome airbrushed on your truck or van?

This is the most ridiculous mural I've ever seen

The rest of the most choice photos from that evening are on the FB, and if you're not on there, you're lucky (and smart!)
Guess I should comb my hair and stuff but before I go I'd like to send a shout out of C&D love to our uncle, a Dallas Police officer who was injured in the line of duty last week. We're so very happy that you're on the mend. Hope to see you soon. You can read about what happened here. Let me remind you again- love your people, enjoy every day (even the walkjog parts).

The Bitch is Back

Oh yeah, I have a blog. Seeing as how it's the first day of the month, seems like a good time to crank 'er up and see if she still runs. It's times like this we need a photo essay.

OCTOBER

First of Rocktober with my ladies

Stark puts the "rock" in Rocktober

Oktoberfest at Anhalt Hall

Anniversary at the fair

HALLOWEEN as Lionel the Lion Faced Boy and The Bearded Lady

NOVEMBER 

Wurstfest with the voluntary family

Carnival o' Pizza
(can you spot Adriane?)

Fried turkey, y'all

New packable jacket

Packable jacket, packed

DECEMBER 

Tiny Christmas tree

Decorations? Yes, that is my apartment

Crafty Christmas card clips

Baby Christmas cupcakes made with my new baby cupcake machine. Thanks, MIL! I mean, Mrs. Claus

Freezing on the ferry. Look, my adorable Mommy has her own packable jacket!

I'll take one second (which is one second more than it deserves) to mention that 2011 was a hell of a year. Illness and worry and sadness and anxiety and regret and tragedy and The Thing Which Shall Not Be Blogged About and all that, but also love and fun and happiness and sunshine and beer and delicious food and people who have your back. My sweet husband and I celebrated a very full first year of marriage at The State Fair of Texas (Full photo coverage on the flickr), we had a dee-licious Thanksgiving warm-up dinner with the voluntary fam (fried turkey!), then another yummy dinner on real Thanksgiving with The Starks, pleasantly low-key pre-Christmas in Denton, and a super fun Die Hard watching Christmas party at the Wilson's. We spent a jet-lagged New Year's Eve with our dear friend Adriane at one of our classic hangouts.  Everyone agreed that 2012 would be better. 

Well, 2012 has so far proved to be much of the same but in the spirit of my Don't Give A Shit Summer, I've decided to feel good anyway. I'm back to yoga and the infamous Smackdown walk/jog, I've read three books, and much to the delight of my friend the Ultra Runner , I got an iPhone y'all!

I took this picture on my new iPhone last Sunday during a much needed Stark Nature Nerd Out trip to the Pedernales River. At the park they have a fantastic bird blind which we got to see right at feeding time. Super super cool for a couple of bird nerds like us. But, while the iPhone takes lovely pictures of the river, you can't zoom in on little birds. I was so excited about my new phone that I forgot to bring the regular camera. Guess we'll just have to go again.

Oops, if I want this to actually post on the first of the month I'd better get on it. More later, maybe.