Birthday Round-up

Another Suicide Prevention Week has come and gone and it was, as usual, fantastic. (Here at SPWHQ we use the term "week" loosely.) I've already told you about one of the most fun things ever-the J.T. singalong. That would have been more than enough Birthday joy for most people. But, my friends and family are not "most people" so the action didn't stop there. Last weekend the Sr. Starks were in town and in addition to hot tubbing at their motel (hee hee) we did some high-brow activities like the Blanton Museum and Shakespeare at Winedale. On Sunday the Jr. Starks went on a movie date to Captain America and it wasn't too bad. (Mr. Stark loves a movie with Nazi bad guys) On Tuesday the Howell kids and I made some cupcakes and a yummy lasagna and then they gave me the gift of going to visit their aunt and grammy for five days :).

I know I go on and on about it but my sweet little husband is the greatest. He gave me a new camera! Your crippling hunger for cat pics can finally be satisfied:

Thanks for reading the crochet pattern for me, Hube! And as if the exact camera that I showed him at the store wasn't enough, s.l.h. also showed up with this, a GTL bouquet. Adorable.
Speaking of adorable (and things I go on and on about) the mind-bogglingly amazing Adriane made me this:
That's right, it's a Lee Chat MADE OF CUPCAKES! On my actual birthday (Wednesday) I was feeling wishy washy about what to do, so I didn't send out the Burnet Road Crawl alert text until at least noon but all of my friends showed up! Have I mentioned I have the most wonderful friends ever? Well I do. There are some pictures of the debauchery (there was planking and owling involved) on Adriane's camera, I think, but they have yet to surface because she is currently gracing the NW with her presence. Lucky NW!!

Thanks to Auntie and Grammy, I had yesterday morning off so we were able to something you can only do on Saturday morning: go to Snow's BBQ, supposedly "The #1 BBQ in Texas". Loyal readers (Aileene) will remember that a while back we went to Franklin BBQ, which I deemed the "best BBQ ever". How did the Snow's measure up? How does it look?
Here are the results of my non-scientific research study: "Snow's vs. Franklin"

• Snow's: you have to drive an hour and a half
• Franklin: you have to wait in line for at least an hour and a half, but it's in Austin
• Snow's: the guy with the mullet, 'stache, TX flag apron and permanent smoke smell-LOVE.
• Franklin: nerdy looking guy who started working at his parents' BBQ when he was nine-LOVE.
• Snow's: At the risk of losing my TX citizenship-I hate brisket. The brisket was delicious. I would be happy with a brisket-only plate. The ribs, my usual fave, not so great. Sausage? Sausagey.
• Franklin: At the risk of losing my TX citizenship-I hate brisket. The brisket was delicious. I would be happy with a brisket-only plate. The ribs? Delicious. The sausage? Good, but not as good as Luling City Market sausage.

Final Results:

Food winner: Franklin

Overall experience winner: Snow's, but the food is pretty damn good.

So if you're in Texas and you want some stupid good BBQ, here's what to do. Go stand in line at Franklin's on Thursday, hang out with me on Friday to give your stomach a rest, then get up on Saturday and drive to Lexington for yummy meat and a super fun after lunch activity-a real live small town cattle auction!!!! Sorry PETA types, I love love loved this. It was so cool to see an example of old-time culture (or should I say agri-culture, woka woka) still alive and well. Fortunately my sweet husband gave me a new camera so there are some pictures of our Saturday on the flickr. UNfortunately, when I got the new camera I put the old memory card in it to see if it worked and forgot to switch it out. The old memory card goes way back to the Galveston trip so it only had a tiny bit of space left. I wanted to get a movie of the auction, but it cut me off after only eight seconds. Luckily those eight seconds are pretty good.

Red Hot Summer!!

Hello from mid-July, y'all. Guess if I had one a them fancy pants phones, I wouldn't be so lazy about blogging. Yes, I do have a fancy pants computer, but the wireless do-dad is broken so I can only use it while tethered to the futon. Hmm, should get that fixed so I can blog from the fancy pants coffee shop.

Ennneeway....(yes I do watch too much Ellen)...in between bouts of profound sadness and insomnia-inducing anxiety, I've had a pretty bitchin' summer so far.

I looked through my pictures to remind myself what I've been up to since y'all took a good hard look at me in my motherfucking boat, and this is what I came up with:
Lavender Festival with the in-laws! There are more pics on the flickr. Very hot out, but super fun. Lavender is the only girly smell that doesn't give me a headache so this is a fest I really enjoy.
I went to my (unintelligible) year HIGH SCHOOL REUNION. No, I am not kidding you. Even more shocking, it was FUN. There are tons of photos of it on the facebook if you're into that sort of thing, but here is one of my favorites of the few taken with my (now broken!!!) camera. All of the girls I actually liked in school were there. I'm talking a beer for breakfast level of fun y'all. I know that my non-HS northwest peeps were sad that I didn't get a chance to hang with them and believe me, I wish I could have seen y'all, but I didn't even make it past Gig Harbor and I was only there for a couple of days. You know you can catch a plane up there in SeaTac that can take you right here to Austin, right? Just sayin'.
I got my hair cut, and I'm not grumpy about it. Amazing. Speaking of amazing, here's Adriane wrapping me up!
Still speaking of amazing, check this out: The Stuffed Burger. It's hard to see, but there's a bunch of stuff inside the meat. I will never make an unstuffed burger again.
We're in the midst of an epic drought here in TX, but we have managed to find a little water here and there. Do y'all understand how this photo illustrates what a completely different person I am now that I'm Texan? My head is in water and it is water that may contain fish, and those fish may touch me!! And yet, I appear to not be in terror. Plus I'm in swimwear. Again.

One of the places we found some water was Port Aransas. Loyal followers will know that Port A is one of the Starks' "special spots" and this trip did not disappoint.
We rode bikes! I'm pretty sure I haven't been on a bike since I was about twelve. And when I was twelve, I would have LUVED this bike. Hot pink and neon yellow? Rad. Bike riding is surprisingly relaxing. Even though it was 1000 degrees out and I was technically doing a physical activity, I felt great. Of course when we stopped at a waterin' hole, I saw myself in a mirror and I had the "Jen's been exercising" face which is a disturbing shade of purple.
There I go. Look, no training wheels! I guess you really don't forget. Unfortunately there are only a few other shots of me on the bike and a few random seagull pics from this trip because as I may have mentioned, my camera's broken for real this time. It's been acting a little wacky now and again, but had always come back before. I don't know what the life expectancy is for one of these electro-gadgets but I had it for almost six years and y'all know I am not exactly gentle with my possessions. Sad sad sad. How will I document important cat holidays? Luckily, everyone else in the world only takes pictures with their fancy pants phones so plain old cameras are not too expensive these days.

After a couple of Starks-only days in P.A. we headed over to P.O.C. (Port O'Connor, where the Howells have a lavish vacation home ;) HQ of one of the finest local newspapers of all time: Dolphin Talk, in which you can read hard-hitting editorials about the problem of "radical Chicano agendas") We had sooo much fun celebrating America's Birthday with our voluntary family. Thankfully, Adriane was there this year so my broken camera didn't stop me from getting a series of patriotic photographs.
Um, yeah, I know I got some sun. That is not the point. It's about America, y'all. Does it get more American than resting your bottle of Jack on your sunburned gut? I think not.

Speaking of Birthdays, Suicide Prevention Week officially kicks off on Wednesday, but I will be hard-pressed to top the gift already given to me by the aforementioned AMAZING ADRIANE: a trip to the Justin Timberlake Sing-Along!! It was magical. I hope you have a friend like Adriane, she's the greatest.

I reckon that brings up to near present day. Hope y'all are having your own red hot summers!

Poseidon look at me

That's right, I'm on a boat. And I'm putting a picture of myself in a bathing suit on the internets. What? I'm officially announcing that this is The Summer of Not Feeling Bad. (Hmm? It's not summer yet where you are? Well it was 103 here yesterday y'all. We're deep in it.) I am not tan or fit and I am afraid of water, but it is HOT and this is fun.(That's what I'm repeating to myself over and over in my head) This summer I am going to enjoy every anxiety-free moment I can. So far, I've done pretty well.

The boat adventure happened over Memorial Day weekend. We went camping at Bergheim (They have a super fancy website with sound!) and I discovered something shocking: I prefer more rustic camping. It was fun and all, but everyone was a bit close together for my liking. Who knew?

This past weekend, I broke the no-swimsuit rule again when we went to a really great swimming hole. No, I won't tell you where it is because we don't want it to get overrun. I also didn't pay attention when we were driving so I really can not tell you where it is.

The internets have been down for a few days here at the grove, but that's no excuse for not having posted since mid-May. Yes, I am quite lazy. I mean super busy Not Feeling Bad!!

I'll catch you up with a random bullet list:

• We went to an Express game and got a free upgrade to seats in the fancy pants part. Then the baseball announcer said our names in his silly announcer voice and they showed us on the screen! (Also of note only to E. Stine and T. Stark: we got to see Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz!)
• I went to the Renegade Craft Fair and I got the coolest thing ever. Ask me when you see me and I'll show it to you.
• I got a new record!! Love!!!
• We ate the BEST BARBEQUE on earth.

I'm sure I've forgotten something important, but this blog thing is so time consuming and I've got a swim date with Adaline. Hope all's well with all y'all :)

Polka, Nature, Wings.

After a brief hiatus, Superfuntime Weekends have returned. Friday night we had a low key Burnet Road Crawl to celebrate one of Adriane's co-worker's last day, John's last day of student teaching, and the general settling down of our life. Saturday we went down to the greenbelt, and low and behold because of that one day of rain, there was a little water. I took a silly number of tree/water/sunset pictures, and if you have spare time you can see them here. On Sunday, we went to Maifest at Anhalt Hall. If you still have more time, photos are here. You may remember that we went to Cajun Fest at Anhalt two years ago (yikes!) but we haven't been since. Superfuntime indeed. Polka.
Nature.
Wings.

Here's a little low-quality video of The Grand March.

Hope y'all had a Superfuntime Weekend too!

The rain rain rain came down down down...

Woo hoo! It's raining, and here that's news. Aw, Texas, I love you!

He knew I was coming so he baked a cake!

This past weekend, I had a lovely solo visit with The Starks. Here's my sweet father-in-law showing off his baking chops (and stylish hat!):

Needless to say, recent events have made me re-examine my feelings about what it is to be a mother. Luckily I was able to spend Mother's Day weekend with my mom, daughter and mother-in-law. Of course it was my intention to write a little blog-blurb about all the mothers I know and how great they are and stuff, but as you can tell I missed yet another boat. Hey moms! You're great!

Poor blog, it must have been lonely.

Let's see...what's been happening? It's springtime. Springtime here in the ATX is stupid pretty.

I'm still crochetin' like a maniac. I made yarn shoes. Yes, they're really slippers but Ace called them yarn shoes and I like that better. We went to the coast with the Howells. It was deemed "mope free weekend" and it was just what we needed. I didn't take many pics but here's a good representative of the trip-cooking with fahre y'all!

Downtube Shifter played a wedding (I mean, Emily's birthday party!) All covers of soft rock favorites of the '70's and 80's. Just kidding, it was a regular DTS show. You can watch a video of them from SXSW here. The sound is a little off kilter, but that's all the more reason you should come out and see them for real!
Love the decorations. This wedding made ours look fancy, but it was fun.

In addition to the crochet, I'm continuing with other out-of-character behaviors. I'm going to yoga at least twice a week. I LOVE yoga. Who knew? I've been running (well, walk/running, but still). Along the way I sometimes see one of these guys:

A Yellow-Crowned Night Heron. Cool! See, I'm still me. Birdwatching is a very in-character behavior. Another in-character behavior, this:

Yesterday was Lee Chat's 6th birthday. I made him some tuna treats with sprinkles. He and Hubert enjoyed them quite a bit.
Uh-oh, Lee took his eyes off the prize for a second...And boom, Hube's taken over his treat. Don't worry, Lee got more and he has a much smaller appetite than his brother anyway.
I'm sure I'm forgetting things, as usual. Think think think. We went to another Express game, I went to a super fun wine tasting with my ladies (I bought the WA wine, a rose with the tagline "you can drink rose and still be a badass"), Adriane and I tried to go to The Amazon Olympics, but it was shut down by the police. It pains me to even think about it.

I saw the best documentary. It's called Marwencol and it's on the NF instant. Watch it. Now. You're already on the computer.

Oops, guess I missed my chance to have a clever April Fool's joke post. Seeing as how March was one big prank from the universe you'll have to cut me some slack.

My new #1 coping mechanism? Crochet. I know!
Trust me, these look a lot more impressive in person. I'm doing the squares in this book in order. Hmm...feels like I've made more than this, maybe there are a few floating around in the car. The second Thing-You-Never-Thought-I-Would-Do: Yoga. I've only been once but today I bought a mat. Thanks to my friend Powerhouse for providing the motivation (free classes!) This morning I was going to go for a walk/jog but there was lightning so I ran on the treadmill here at the apt. complex. I ran on the treadmill, y'all. Who am I? Oh yeah, someone desperate for stress relief.

Last week we took the Double A's to an Express game because guess who came to Round Rock? The Rangers!! Look Erick, here's good ol' Wash on our humble little Dell Diamond field.
Uh oh, Ace is wearing the wrong sport sweatshirt. Better get this boy some proper Texas Rangers gear. Looks like he's having a good time anyway.
But of course no one can have more fun watching a sporting event than Adaline.
Oh yeah, yesterday I had a very pleasant sister date. We wandered about downtown and then went to a Sesame Street Singalong at the Alamo Drafthouse. Super cool. Take that universe!!