From Christmas to New Years Eve eve

Falling down on the blog job again...in spite of getting a new teeny pink pocket camera from "Blogger"  (who I think was really Santa or Mike).  Here are photos from the week.  Mike and I have been working partial days and staying up way past our normal bedtime.  Tonight (New Years Eve) should be really fun.  We have a cab picking us up at 5:30 and again at 1:30 a.m.  More on what happens between those hours tomorrow.  Really, I promise. 

Here is the group at Sandy's and Una's house for Christmas dinner.  We actually wore those silly paper hats that come in "poppers" through the whole meal.  I think we must have assumed that only the others looked silly in them.

See, Mike has his hat on as he helped himself to delicious turkey & sides.

We had Christmas pudding.  This was actually flaming but the flash didn't pick it up.

On Monday we went to the Trans Siberian Orchestra show at the Erwin Center.  It was good, but not as good as last year. 

There were laser lights, fire, fireworks, snow, etc. 

On Tuesday we had some friends over for dinner.  We talked and laughed a lot and it was really fun.  We drank too much wine which we regretted the next morning when we had to get the house ready for an early showing.  It all worked out fine.

Last night we met Stephen at Maudie's for dinner and then walked to the Saxon Pub to hear Monte Montgomery play at 8:00.  We've seen him on the schedule every Wednesday but this was the first show of his we attended.  It will not be the last!  Monte is an awesome guitar player.  He mixed in some covers (The Who, Jimi Hendrix) with his own material.  He was done by 10:15, it was perfect. 

I've got my camera all set up for tonight so I hope to get some good pictures.  See you tomorrow!!

a holiday tour

Merry Christmas Eve!

I can't even remember the last time I blogged.  I think it was some time in November around Steffi's birthday so it's been over a month.  You know what we've been up to....packing, moving, and packing more.  I am so glad that is over, at least for one house.  While I've been away from blogger they updated their editing capabilities and I am finding it much easier to upload and arrange photos. 

Just before the house closing we celebrated my umptyumpth birthday at Maudies.  Duncan and Steffi collected their Christmas presents from Gramma since they would be in the UK over the holidays.  Duncan's wallet is perfect for him - duct tape!

Steffi's is a classy green that looks very Christmas-sy with those red nails!

While Stef is away I am fish-sitting for Marcel.  He is very happy on my desk at work.  I thought about putting him by the window so he could look out over the Whole Foods parking lot, but then I thought he might have a fear of heights so I left him on my desk. 

On the 19th we went to the Paramount to see Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis.  It was a great show again this year!

Mike and I bagged groceries on Tuesday this week. 

After bagging I bought a new car!  She is gorgeous and although it is hard to see with the reflections, her color is black sapphire pearl.  It is a very pretty dark sparkly blue. 

It has lots of gadgets that will probably take me 3 years to figure out. 

I will miss Lila, but I love this new one.  Now I just have to figure out the right name.

Merry Christmas Eve!!

Someone is no longer a teenager!

We celebrated Stefanie's 20th birthday (wow!) last night. Several of her friends from college came with her (Kaitlin, Alli and Karena - I am sure some of these names are misspelled) plus we had Brandy, Meg, Stephen and Duncan over for a bbq dinner.
Choco and Boo performed their parallel dog trick

We had champagne!

There were presents to open

And finally, there was singing and cake!

Here's to you Stef! A teenager no more - say hello to your twenties!!

It was a good game, but....

This may have been my last time at the old Jets-Giants stadium. I didn't think about that yesterday or I might have taken more photos. The photo above I took after the game while we were waiting for the parking lot to clear out. It was a beautiful evening with an almost full moon shining high above the stadiums. Next year the new stadium (right next door to the old one) will be where the Jets play their games. The construction is complete and they are still trying to sell all the seats. Supposedly all those horizontal lines have lights behind them and it will light up green on the outside when the Jets play and red when the Giants play. I guess that works out well enough since the teams have to share a stadium.

We were in line to enter the parking lot of the Meadowlands at 7:45 a.m. on Sunday. Good thing we got the benefit of "falling back" and getting another hour of sleep this morning or that would have been really early.

Jimmy was the master chef, with cousin Johnny assisting. Peter and his two boys were there. And Mike and me. Patrick, one of Jimmy's sons came at the last minute too. As usual, we ate well and a lot - bacon sandwiches, pancakes, sausage for breakfast followed by chickenwings, cocoanut shrimp, crabcakes and burgers and onion rings for lunch.

The boys played football in the parking lot before it got too crowded.

We went into the stadium around 12:45, in time to see the players run out onto the field. Just like at the Longhorn games, when you see the steam you know that the players are about to run out onto the field. And when they do there are flames

and fireworks

It is always fun to be there for a live football game even if the score doesn't reflect the outcome we hoped for.

Le Sock

I am on the downhill part of my sock! It is really further along than it looks in the photo. :) I may even be able to finish it with only phone consultation from my personal kintting tutor (aka Stefanie). All I have to do now is "knit-knit-knit." You have to say that really fast like knitknitknit for the full effect. Italics make it look faster too. This evening was knit night at the Knitting Nest. I thought Stefanie and I were the only ones who said knitknitknit real fast but I overheard another knitter say it this evening.

In other news, how can my football team be SO bad? And what exactly were the Redskins cheerleaders wearing this evening on MNF??!! Not that I look at them, but omg not only is the play calling bad for the team and we keep dropping the football, but the cheerleaders outfits are too u.g.l.y to look at as a distraction from the game.

In still other news, I continue my moguldom as a seller on Craigslist. This evening I sold a piano keyboard and one of the side tables. I do have to repost some things that I had buyers lined up for and then they didn't show up. I am thinking of expanding onto eBay but I need to read up on the rules. Anyone with any advice for selling on eBay? Advice on pricing and best ways to ship?

Time for a blog!

It's been over 10 days since my last blog. I feel bad for letting this go so long. It's not that there is nothing going on in my life to blog about, maybe there is too much that it is hard to write it all down. And, I admit, it is easier to post things on Facebook or Twitter as things are happening than to write a blog after the fact. I like the blog though, because it is more permanent. Or at least stored on Blogspot until I exceed my allotted free storage.

So, what's been going on this past week you ask? Appropriately there is a U2 song playing in the background as I write this. Yes, we saw U2 this week! It was a fabulous show with a most incredible stage spaceship-like contraption.

Before U2 came on we were entertained by Fergie and the Black Eyed Peas.

Amy and me with the U2 stage in the backgroundWow! This was enormous. No wonder they could only perform in stadiums on this tour.

Bono

It was great fun visiting with Mike's friends, Dave and Amy who now live in Scottsdale. Before we left the next day, we went on a short hike. The weather was perfect, in the 80s.

This is a pack rat's "house." Yes, there are real pack rats that are not people.

Dave and Mike

Never paid attention before, but here is what a dead saguaro cactus looks like.
Dave and Amy

After Phoenix, I flew on to San Francisco for a very intense day of meetings on Thursday. I do like traveling west for the extra sleep in opportunities because of the 2 hour time change. What I don't like is that it took all day Friday to get back to Austin.

Did I mention that we have another contract on my house??? Seems like I get contracts only when I am traveling on business and have to inconvenience someone in the local office to print out things that I have to initial and fax back. Maybe I should have been traveling more often over the summer!!

Today is Saturday and since it looks like we don't have to focus on cleaning out my house to show that we can focus on Mike's house. Here we have outdoor planting and de-cluttering to do. Today looks like such a nice day we think we will work outside. I will take before & after shots for your enjoyment of our handiwork in a future blog. Oh, and to tempt you to check again tomorrow, I have made significant progress on my second sock that I will show you!