galveston + depeche mode = happy bells

we had a weekend filled to overflowing with good times. we scored a deal on tickets to Schlitterbahn Galveston a few months ago and had been looking forward to stealing away to check it out. thanks to my frequent Super 8 hotel stays in the metroplex I'd accumulated a free night at any hotels.com participating hotel, so we decided to make it an overnighter and got online to book a room at the historic Hotel Galvez. it was really nice and a lot of fun (and even nicer to have gotten such a sweet deal). when we got there Friday afternoon, we took a little tour around the place and then crashed on the luxurious bed and turned off our brains for awhile. we had dinner reservations at Guido's Seafood Restaurant, which was wonderful, and then went back to the hotel to relax in their outdoor hot tub and watch lightning periodically light up the coastal sky. special thanks to the Bells for generously keeping our animals so we could go away and play this weekend.






that last shot somehow came out all hazy and dreamy like that... I like the old-fashioned vibe of it.


on Saturday, we headed over to Schlitterbahn. there's still so much of Galveston to be healed/re-built/developed, but I have to say when we drive around I can't help but notice all of the wonderful older houses and how much it reminds me of New Orleans... I hope what's there is able to be renovated and preserved, rather than torn down. the water park was super fun... a great size, plus it wasn't too hot or crowded. we liked a lot of the slides, tube, and raft attractions, but our favorite thing might have been the Torrent River. like the Lazy River, except not so Lazy. they smartly built the park so that there's a heated indoor season through December and then picking up again in March, and we'd definitely like to go back with friends/family.






we were back for church Sunday morning, then, last night, we drove up to the Woodlands to see Depeche Mode. my husband loves this band, and spent the afternoon eagerly preparing for and anticipating this long-awaited show. observe:





I offered him contributing writer space here to share a bit of his feelings about DM, so we'll see if that pans out. he didn't actually wear the above ensemble to the concert.

I can say that I enjoyed the show a lot - we staked out a central green space on the hill and Peter Bjorn & John opened. Depeche Mode had a sincerely awesome technical show... no joke, it was so flipping cool and really made the concert a totally different, visual experience. the best part, though, was seeing my husband completely enjoying himself. that's his good friend S.C. in the photos... this was their fourth or fifth DM show together. and I'm wearing an old DM concert t-shirt that Michael got from some chick back in the day. :)







here are some fun video snippets, to give you an idea of how cool the screens were. RAD. you can probably hear my husband happily singing along in the background.













that dude waving the cig was very nice, but I confess to gagging a little on his second-hand smoke.


since videos take awhile to upload, I wandered into the kitchen to figure out what we're going to eat tonight. we're not 'out' of food, but the vittles are thinned out enough that, outside of opening a can of soup or popping the last of my frozen waffles in the toaster, putting things together requires a bit more imagination and effort. at times like these, I tend to gravitate toward one of my favorite concoctions: the 'kitchen sink' soup. i.e., soup made of everything but the kitchen sink, or whatever it is you have on hand that needs to be eaten. today's version contains olive oil, a frozen onion/carrot/celery soup starter, an extra half an onion, two zucchini, one small red potato, 2 big cloves of garlic, half a head of cabbage, and chicken broth. it looks mostly green, pretty, and sort of Asian - aside from the little bits of potato - so along with salt and pepper I threw in some chili oil and a dash of soy sauce. I do love to make soup.

oooh, while I'm on the subject of cabbage and potatoes, I made this recipe for Ethiopian cabbage last week. it was incredibly easy and very tasty - the husband gave it his stamp of approval and went back for seconds. the ingredients are all common except for the spice 'turmeric', which I bought and vowed to use in other dishes (we've all been there, haven't we?). I didn't have any carrots in the house and was hoping to find a local option at the store (since I'm on that kick and the internet says carrots are 'in season' year-round in Texas), but all of the pretty carrots I saw were native Californians. so, I left and was resigned to substituting one of the garnet sweet potatoes we already had at the house. on the way home, I happened to think to stop by Kim Hung, a Chinese market on St. Emmanuel over here in the East End, and sure enough there were squat, fat local carrots. not nearly as pretty as the ones from California - I've been told that in this area they'll go bad if you leave them in the ground to grow long - but totally worthy of our Ethiopian cabbage dish. I bought two of them for 42 cents and felt really good about it.

I need to go stir the soup, remove the Nascar coffee cup from my hand (don't like Nascar, love this coffee cup), and clean some house. I'm dragging butt today. we got in a little after midnight from the concert and I boneheadedly stayed up way too late watching 'Dance School: Juilliard'. the cat had to be at the vet for her (hopefully) last checkup/sutures removed/etc. this morning, so I'm operating on less-than optimal energy. but whatever. it was a great weekend and I'm glad for today.

- m.y.

*edit* I'm sorry, but I'm loving this product so much I logged in just to say it.



EO Rose Geranium & Citrus hand soap. thanks, Marshall's, for letting me purchase it in a most cost-effective manner.

the great thaw... and other random biznizz.

the 'great thaw' is what's happening to my insides right now. I feel parts of myself softening up and letting go, or coming alive again. yesterday, I spent some time digging up old cds of artists I started listening to nine or ten years ago, when my life started getting turned upside down in the Good Way. I was dating a guy who took me to metro bible study at first baptist church, where I was introduced to various Christian artists like Ginny Owens, Watermark, Bebo Norman, the David Crowder Band, and Nichole Nordeman. it felt a little awkward at the time, because of my propensity to be cheezed out by contemporary, mushy Christian-singing-or-speak (something that still comes up), but the things they were talking about were so right on and needed... I definitely responded to the message of grace, forgiveness, and the transforming call to thankful holiness in the inner parts. neither metro nor the guy were ultimately meant to be lasting for me, but my somewhat starving faith was whetted and my spirit began aching for a place to belong and work itself out. I started to look for a church home of my own, and that's how I ended up with my family at SWC. this is a video someone made to a N. Nordeman song that I listened to over and over back then:



I'm not sure how the hardness, or whatever it is, grew up over parts of me during the past few years. the effects are easier to see... less depth in the things I've fed myself, less prayer, more fear and anger, less worship, less seeking to know God, less creativity and expression of love, less grace for others, and awkward prioritizing. everybody has their mountaintop experiences and valleys, I know, but as I find myself scaling the side of the a cliff again I'm reminded of how much more right this feels, to feel compelled to reach for something higher.

**********


I'm finding myself becoming more and more respectful of the plight of farmers in our country as I continue to work my way through B. Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. man, the work it takes to grow a big garden! I look forward to more hands-on learning in our future. one of the most apparent changes in my attitude continues to be a watchfulness for local produce and such, wanting to support the Texas agri-industry. I've been buying Lactaid for years - not that I know I'm lactose-intolerant, but I had a bad experience with a bowl of cereal on a hot day years ago, and since I don't drink a lot of milk anyway I just went with Lactaid and it stuck. this was the Texas milk option we found that also happens to be growth-hormone free and all, and so far I think we're happy with the switch.

I also baked up some eggplant fries last night, my desire for more of the vegetable fueled by ms. mcD's yummy eggplant parmesan - or is it parmigiana? - the other night. if you like eggplant, by all means give this a try as a fun snack or side. I just peeled and sliced up the eggplant, threw them on a baking sheet with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and baked away, flipping them halfway. I was experimenting a bit, but I think 400 degrees for about 30 -35 minutes should do the trick... ours were better when they cooked longer, 'til they were getting just a little crispy around the edges. tasty, no lie, and high in fiber!

there's a head of local cabbage in the 'fridge that I'm currently eyeing... what to do with you, cabbage-head... (kids in the hall reference, anyone?)

**********


I got the results back from my yearly physical, and am happy to know that the numbers show a physically healthy person. I won't lie, I would like to look a little different, but that's this year's goal - not to 'weigh less', but to move my body more. my eating isn't out of control, I just have a pretty sedentary life currently. even my work involves a lot of sitting for long periods of time, and the clues all point to my metabolism slowing down a little as I'm awesomely advancing in years. so, that means I need to move my bootie.

**********


I sometimes just delete the daily reflections that come to my inbox without even reading them, but I opened today's and thought, 'right on!'.

WHERE DID I GET THE IDEA that worship must always be restrained, quiet, and dignified?
Throughout my long life, you have showered me with blessing upon blessing.
Today I will not withhold the praise you deserve.
Awaken the passion that I’ve kept tucked away for a rainy day.
It’s all about you, Lord. Not me — but you.
Before I get out of this chair, I will lift my hands and say aloud the Lord’s Prayer.
Today I will consider what all those words mean.
I will sing a hymn of praise while I comb my hair and put on my socks.
I will not wait for another day.
I will make a joyful noise!

- Missy Buchanan
Living with Purpose in a Worn-Out Body

From pp. 19-20 of Living with Purpose in a Worn-Out Body by Missy Buchanan. Copyright © 2008 by the author. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission of Upper Room Books.

to whoever's reading this... I wish good things for you today.

-m.y.

ripley... and the mexican rock star

I think I post more about my dog than my cat, so this is her time to shine. Ripley - or Rippy-kins, or Pip, or Pippy, or Rips, or Ripsky, or Ripley Shanequa - is about 15 years old now. I found her when she was a very loud, teeny-tiny kitten in Baton Rouge at the beginning of my first year of grad school. I was making breakfast and I kept hearing something meowing, and when I went to the door there she was, a little ball of marbled fur. she looked at me and walked right into my house, and we've been together ever since.

here's Ripley pre-surgery:





and post-surgery (note the prominent vacuum cleaner in the background):





**********


we went to check out my dear friend C at cafe flores tonight... she has such a powerful voice, it makes me cry a little to hear it. I don't understand a lot of spanish, but I know this lady and she writes songs about things she knows and feels, and I somehow get the translation emotionally. and yes, she's a mexican rock star.

update...

thank you for the good wishes and prayers, everyone! all went really well tonight... no bobbles or missed reads, and I felt really good about it. yep, I miss the feeling of being up there, especially rehearsing with other performers (I had three great guys intermittently accompanying me on base guitar, banjo, and fiddle). I ended up ducking out of the gala after I was finished and came home to put on my pajamas, wash my face, and melt into the couch. when I finished reading and left the stage, as the adrenaline wore off the energy started to seep out of my body, and though seats had been reserved for us for dinner I chose to take off. which makes me feel a teensy bit guilty, because I don't want to seem ungrateful, but sometimes you've just gotta go. plus, M had to go pick up our cat late in the day (she came through her surgery with flying colors) and couldn't go to the gala, and without him as my plus one I just didn't think I'd make it chit-chatting through the night.

so... now it's pajamas, pasta, project runway, and bed. thank you Lord, for seeing me through this day, and thank you that tomorrow has a lot of open space.

*looks at clock*

so it's the middle of the night and I can't sleep... I'm in the office trying to be quiet while the husband is deeply snoozing away in the other room (at least, I hope he is - I mean, one of us should be getting some rest!). it's been a pretty full week so far. I got up early Monday to drive to Dallas and work all day Monday and Tuesday, finishing the last episodes of one of the shows I lend my voice to. my character in that one just happens to be sort of an undead assassin... family killed when she was young, then she killed, herself, the great resentment of it all 'bringing her back' from the dead and giving her supernatural powers to annihilate evil, pip pip cheerio all in a day's work. notably, she does a lot of yelling, blood-curdling cries while attacking and being attacked. I was hoarse by Monday evening, and finally got back into town Tuesday night. yesterday was largely spent narrating 5 hours worth of pre-calculus e-learning courses, and by the time I left the studio my voice was waaay fatigued and my throat felt like it was swelling up. far be it from me to complain about work, but it's so much more taxing when you don't feel 100%. I feel like I have to 'work' so much harder both physically and mentally to push through.

I'd gotten a call from my aunt earlier in the day saying that she needed a piece narrated/recorded for Houston's Birthday Gala at the GRB, so I drove straight there to knock it out. as it happens, the recording equipment wasn't optimal, so I'll be reading/performing the three pages live onstage. tonight, Thursday. I haven't been in front of a live audience like that in so long, and I confess that while I'm a bit nervous I'm honestly pretty excited to do it. I'm mostly hoping that I don't catch a heel on something and plummet to the floor, and I need to rehearse the piece some more so my head isn't buried in the script the whole time. my almost 15-year old kitty is going in for surgery this morning, too, to remove a lump that's getting in the way, and I'm pretty sure my sleeplessness is due to trying to work this day out in my head... drop off kitty, work on script, format it and sheet protect it and buy a cheap black notebook to hold it, head to an audition at 1p, one more chapter of pre-cal afterward, rehearsal at the GRB at 4, 6:30 call time for the Gala. pick up the cat somewhere in there and get her home, clean up all pretty-like, and co-ordinate with hubs so he can join me at our table at the Gala.

I have to laugh, because you just never know what opportunities God is going to drop in your lap. interacting with a live audience again will be a very good exercise for me, I'm sure, and that it's happening when I'm not feeling my absolute best is another exercise of sorts. it's not THAT crazy a day, really. everything will be fine, and I'm sure I'll mostly just have to police my attitude. that and try to overcome the fact that I'll be tired because I COULDN'T SLEEP TONIGHT. sheesh, it's really dumb. maybe I'll be able to go catch a couple of hours now that I've written it all down.

another thing, yesterday I turned six in twelve step years. one of the things I secretly feared for a long time is that I wouldn't know how to 'perform' live anymore, or that it would be so colossally different that I'd realize my mojo was somehow lost along with the other changes I've made in my life. this will be a really nice chance to dip my toe into the water of give-and-take with an audience again, and I don't even have to memorize anything. thank you, Father.

forty years together, feasting, and a farmer's market experiment

last weekend, my parents celebrated forty years of marriage. I almost wrote 'forty years of wedded bliss' in the title of this post, and reconsidered. I think it was probably more like forty years of some really great times, some good times, some not so good times, and some sincerely un-fun times... and choosing to stay together and forge a friendship through all of it. which, to me, is deeper and weightier than bliss.

my dad's birthday is a few days earlier than their anniversary so, knowing my parents' love of shrimp and after clearing it with my mom, we went to the fish market next door to M's office and bought them some fresh, jumbo Gulf shrimp to ice down and carry up to them. we grilled a bunch of them that night out at the ranch in Hico, and had grilled corn on the cob and fresh green beans with new potatoes to go with it.

my brother came up with the idea of commemorating such an anniversary milestone by taking them somewhere they'd probably not go on their own. so, we all met in Hico last Saturday and drove to Ft. Worth to Aunt B and Uncle G's house, where we changed clothes and bid Mo goodnight. my parents had no idea what was going on, other than the fact that they needed to sort of dress up and pack an overnight bag with their swimsuits. we hopped in the car and drove to Texas de Brazil in downtown Ft. Worth, which is pretty similar to a Fogo de Chao. the food was incredible... I truly think my favorite was the 'salad bar', if you could call it that. the variety of foods and antipastas was out of this world, and they served a sumptuous lobster bisque that had a spicy kick. it was so fun to watch my parents, and I really enjoyed being with my family that night as we tried new things and shared our favorites. we walked around downtown Ft. Worth a bit afterward, and then went back to B&G's to don our swimsuits and hang out in and around the pool 'til our eyes wouldn't stay open anymore. we so love being at B&G's. they've created such a warm, inviting, comfortable place to relax and enjoy one another, and we can't thank them enough for babysitting Mo and letting us crash at their house so spontaneously.







on Sunday, we drove back through Hico, picked up some of Grandma's homemade noodles and Christian Cattle Company beef to bring back with us, and headed home to Houston. we stopped at the farmer's market out on Hwy 6 @ 290, and bought squash, eggplant, okra, red and yellow peppers, dried speckled butter beans, frozen fresh peas, blackberries, lemons, and tomatoes. we still had to ask which foods were locally grown, as some produce that's not in season here is still transported in from other states, and we're trying to wrap our minds around the seasonality of foods and learn to eat what's growing where we live. we spent $35 dollars there, and brought home our loot to add to what we already had in our kitchen. another education was had at the computer trying to learn the right way to store everything to preserve it's freshness. here's how the week played out, without hitting the grocery store again (note, we already had a big herb mix of salad greens bought on that trip to Central Market):

Sunday dinner: Grandma's noodles with BLTs. I don't love fresh tomatoes yet (I'm trying), so I had red bell pepper instead. mmmm.

Monday dinner: boiled okra, peas with bacon in lemon veloute, and salad with peppers, feta, and balsamic vinagrette. the lemon veloute business came from this recipe for speckled butter beans, but when we began to prep we realized the beans needed to be soaked, so we put them in water and altered the recipe to use our fresh frozen peas. this is a pretty time-consuming recipe and was a little challenging, especially with the hot burners we have, but we loved the way the peas tasted in the end. I don't have a double boiler to cook the veloute over boiling water, so I had to get creative:




Tuesday dinner: Speckled butter beans with onion and garlic served with Pederson Farms Natural Jalapeno Smoked Sausage.

Wednesday dinner: ratatouille (eggplant, squash, red and yellow peppers, onion, garlic, the rest of the okra, and tomatoes) served over quinoa. I used this recipe as a base... again, it was a little more time-consuming than the one in my Betty Crocker cookbook, but I loved the flavor and, since I cooked it in the morning when I had more time, it kept well and tasted great later in the day.

Thursday dinner: roasted veggie, fresh herb, feta and goat cheese pizza.... we already had the pizza crusts and, though it was fine, we decided we'd rather start making our own again. it just tastes better. I need a new recipe though, the one I use takes a lot of time.




then we went to see Julie & Julia, which felt like another delicious meal in many ways. there were even enough roasted vegetables left over for me to eat them in an omelette this morning.

and tonight's menu: pasta with veggies and sausage with a salad of greens and goat cheese. I can smell stuff roasting in there.

SO.

do I post all of this to toot our horns? do I wish to bore you with food? not really, I promise. it's more to chronicle what's turning out to be a really interesting and hopefully lasting turn in our lives. I wrote last time about whole/organic food eating being more expensive than eating... well, whatever we want that's fast and at our fingertips. but in reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by B. Kingsolver, I'm starting to give it all more thought. granted, if you were buying organic free range chicken every day it could add up, but take this passage in the chapter titled 'Waiting for Asparagus'... she's speaking of chefs and individuals trying to cultivate a positive American food culture, based on our own ingredients:

"... to the extent that it's even understood, this cuisine is widely assumed to be the property of the elite. Granted, in restaurants it can sometimes be pricey, but the do-it-yourself version is not. I am not sure how so many Americans came to believe only our wealthy are capable of honoring a food aesthetic. Anyone who thinks so should have a gander at the kitchens of working class immigrants from India, Mexico, anywhere really. Cooking at home is cheaper than buying packaged foods or restaurant meals of comparable quality."

and because it's sort of great:

"The main barrier standing between between ourselves and a local food culture is not price, but attitude. The most difficult requirements are patience and a pinch of restraint - virtues that are hardly the property of the wealthy. these virtues seem to find precious little shelter, in fact, in any modern quarter of this nation founded by Puritans. Furthermore, we apply them selectively: browbeating our teenagers with the message that they should wait for sex, for example. Only if they wait to experience intercourse under the ideal circumstances will they know it's true value. 'Blah Blah Blah' hears the teenager; words issuing from a mouth that can't even wait for the right time to eat tomatoes, but instead consumes tasteless ones all winter to satisfy a craving for everything 'now'."

honestly, we're not sure how to quantify the cost of our food choices yet - it remains to be seen how much money will be left in the grocery envelope at the end of the month - and I wouldn't want our interest to become all-consuming or anything. but it's pretty interesting and there are a lot of benefits, I have to say, starting with the simple enjoyment of tasting the food and feeling a different kind of urge to cook whatever you have before it goes bad. web sites like localharvest.org and slowfoodnation.org are great resources, and we even found a local heritage turkey farm to contact about perhaps picking out a turkey for this Thanksgiving. plus, it's more fun and empowering to talk about food and farmers than health care, can I get an 'amen'?

have a great weekend everybody, and thanks for taking the time to read. feel free to throw out any thoughts.

-m.y.

gymnopedie and foodie thoughts

I'm home alone after a good day of work, waiting for the husband to come back from his evening. week mostly spent in Dallas, then back last night... audition and spots this morning, narration through the afternoon, an unforeseen bonus session at my agency, early dinner snack with M, finance team meeting at the church, loud iphone shuffling on the stereo all the way home. all in all, a lovely, blessed day in this lovely, hot city, praises and riches and there's no place like home. I'm listening to one of my favorite 'decompress' artists, Mr. Erik Satie. I actually heard a refrain from one of his pieces in an anime I was recording, of all places, and was so captured by it I went and found his music. which was called 'furniture music', if I recall, as it sort of blends into the background of the room. I used to think it was just 'autumn' music, good for leaves turning colors and the invigorating melancholy that comes with the onset of colder weather, but now I'm want to listen to it all year round to accompany different moods. the anime title in question, incidentally, just happens to be one of my all time favorite dubbing experiences... a really sweet, dark, lovely little show about ballerinas and talking animals. but that's not what I intended to post about, so click on the arrow below and let's move further down the page together, shall we, my people?



ah. it's better already, isn't it?

mellow.


we've seen quite a few movies lately, and here's my moviegoing scorecard: out of 5 stars, Harry Pott-ah, four stars. I've heard some not-so enamored reviews, but I thought it did what it needed to do and pretty well enjoyed myself. Food, Inc., four stars. Funny People, an expletive-laden 2.5 stars at midpoint (liked the cameos, and there were some really real-feeling, touching moments), which dropped to an apathetic and annoyed .5 stars by movie's end that was, like, a million minutes later. the movie was in desperate need of an editor. and maybe a tighter story. and the last half of it cut out almost completely, even though that would mean slicing up the bits staring the director's wife and kids. my opinion only, of course. take it or leave it, Mr. Apatow.. you know, whatever.

Food, Inc., was the propaganda piece you sort of expect it to be, and while I found it a bit long I thought it did a good job of getting across some salient points... like, you should probably know what's in the food you're eating. and maybe a bit about how the people who make the food are running their businesses. we were already into this topic, so it gave us the extra push we needed to really commit wholeheartedly to seeking out alternative food choices and elevating our opinion of the things we put into our bodies... to attempt to think about the bigger picture, to try to purchase local, organic foods when possible, and learn a bit more about companies that attempt to put out healthier, whole-food options. we agreed to allot extra monies to our monthly food budget and made our first trek to Central Market to get the lay of the land, as it were, and begin to replace some items in our pantry with organic or local options. I'll tell you, I was a bit daunted. I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't really know what foods are in season when, and if buying locally grown produce was better than buying organic stuff from another state (if there wasn't a local, organic option). this is going to be educational for me, and I'm glad of it. we're already dreaming of the hypothetical garden at Woodfin... the idea of inviting friends and family over to eat things we've grown and harvested in ground we've worked is massively appealing to both of us. I really hope it happens. in the interim, it's all about the baby steps. I've replaced my Aunt Jemima Lite syrup (like the 'Lite' part is making me any skinnier, c'mon) with organic pure grade A maple syrup, my Eggo waffles got chucked for all-natural, gluten and dairy free Central Market Blueberry Buckwheat Waffles (not a perfectly whole food, I realize, but still), and our bacon got an incredibly succulent upgrade to uncured smoked bacon from Pedersons Farms, a Texas outfit that sells natural pork products. Pedersons Farms makes this tasty bacon in Hamilton, Texas. where I graduated from high school. coincidence? I think not.


my husband, being a lover of food and a bit of an artist with the cooking of it, has made some really lovely meals for us in the last month or so. here are a few offerings:


tender pork with brussell sprouts:




the FANTASTIC meatloaf with braised cabbage and green beans with almonds.




and then, the evening after our Central Market trip, he threw down scallops on spinach linguine with cantaloupe:





acting the part of the waiter and pouring me a glass of bubbly sparkling water, which is a fun way for us to feel special and tastes so good and refreshing to me:



when I got home from Dallas late last night, husband had made me a delicious salad of cucumber and fresh mozzarella in balsamic vinegar & olive oil with sea salt and ground pepper... plus one of our favorite dishes of Randall's store brand cheese-stuffed shells and pasta sauce. we loooove their store brand frozen pasta and sauces (which actually don't have much of anything bad in them... try the vodka sauce! new discovery...). I don't know that frozen stuffed shells or asparagus ravioli quite make the organic list... but they sure are tasty. like I said, baby steps.

I realize that, for some people, making these sorts of food choices doesn't seem realistic, and I don't mean to come across flippantly or judgemental about these things. to eat well is more expensive, as the delicious uncured natural bacon reminded me, and it could easily be viewed as a luxury. for me, right now I think I might rather sacrifice in another area to be able to put better food in my body. I liked the parting ideas from Food, Inc... that we all get to vote on what we want to support three times a day, and I'm grateful to be able to make such a choice. plus, if I were really all that awesome would I have scarfed two or three fat cookies from Fudruckers or some such thing in the finance team meeting? seriously. the real trick for me will be to learn about local farmers markets and actually go buy something there.

-m.y.


p.s. speaking of food, we apparently had dinner with Mo last night... see us there, in the picture? God love this little girl.

scenes from a wedding shower

I was so happy to get to help honor Nat & Z this morning. the T's home was so lovely, and everyone seemed to have a great time. we did a brunch-style spread, and the two M's were on made-to-order omelet duty. M.T. found a fantastic recipe, and the omelets came out thin, delicate, and super-tasty. I've known Nat for a long time, and I'm so happy that she's found love.

our chefs:

cool hostess gifts!

-m.y.