Here's to 2011

So, here we are. Seven days into the new year, and I'm just now writing about my resolutions and celebration.

I rang in the year very peacefully. I spent the eve cleaning out my apartment. It took the whole day, but I loaded nine trash bags and a tv into my car and, with a huge smile on my face, took them all to Goodwill. The guys helping me unload my car were excited and I think impressed that I had so much to get rid of. It was cleansing to clean out my closets of old clothes and unneeded stuff.

For an evening celebration, the mr and I had a lovely italian dinner and came home to watch netflix movies. He had a small case of death so we decided against going crazy downtown. We paused our film five minutes til and celebrated with half a glass of classy Andre champagne. We fell asleep shortly after. I hope our lack of luster isn't a reflexion of how the year will turn out.

I've finally decided on some resolutions too.
1. I'm determined to pay off my car by September. That means it only took three and a half years to do so.
2. Going to yoga classes at least twice a week. Not only does it make me feel good all over, it also relieves a crazy amount of stress.
3. I also want to seek out greater opportunities in life--whatever and whichever company they may lead me to.
4. I'd like to go on a mission trip this year. Egypt was my last mission and that was two years ago. I want let God lead me anywhere he wants me to be.
5. Read more books! I already finished one this year and have five more in mind to read.

That'll do it.
Nothing too difficult to complete. It'll take care of my mind, body and soul--and finances. But I hope that I'm not the only one able to complete my resolutions this year. I wish you all luck out there, and love and light in your lives.

Holiday Season Craze

It's unfortunate that as I've gotten older, the glitz and glam that is known as "the holidays," is no longer as pretty and shiny to me. A friend of mine told be she watched a little kid go crazy over seeing santa clause and the mall. I miss the days of innocence and truth as far as the imagination would take you.

With that said, this holiday season has been a roller coaster of emotions. I had my two assistant managers quit, my regional manager blamed me and called my store a "toilet bowl for managers. You get one and flush them right down the drain" (though it was NOT my fault, might I add), I worked nine days straight with christmas as my one day off and am right back in the grind of work for a seven day stretch.

Aside from all the ugliness that December has brought about, I've had a lot of golden nuggets of happiness from it too. My sister got the change to spend a week with me in Austin. It was great having her around. We had a lovely photo shoot session, did some baking, shopped for gifts, and lounged around whenever possible.

I also had a really lovely christmas! My mr's parents were amazing enough to buy me a ticket to Dallas so I could spend christmas with my bf and his family. It was a great blessing. I flew out of Austin after work on the 24th. After they all picked me up from the airport, we all filled our bellies with dinner at Papaduex, then went to Deerfield to look at the christmas lights in the neighborhood. We listened to the Glee christmas soundtrack on the drive back to Sulphur Springs, TX (where the mr's from). It was so much fun!

Christmas day was relaxing. I got to sleep in! We had waffles for breakfast and opened presents. I truly wasn't expecting much because I didn't ask for anything, but I got the most fitting surprise gift: a Kindle! Originally, I was against the idea of an electronic device replacing the wonderful feel and smell of a book, but it's just so pretty I can't help but love it! I got a gift card to Amazon too, so I get to download all the books I want. The only problem was, I couldn't think of many. I got a couple of Kurt Vonnegut book (he's my new found author love), and a few classics including Alice in Wonderland, Aesop's Fables and Dante's Inferno. If anyone has any suggestion, please send them my way.

Phil got a Kinect from his parents. The family spent the whole evening jumping, jabbing and crouching to skiing, boxing and football games. I'm pretty sure everyone ended the day sore and realizing how out of shape they were--except for myself, of course :). The day ended early for me and my mr. I had to be at work the next day at 10am. I went to bed at 9pm so we could hit the road by 4am to make it back to Austin in time. Fortunately, I slept most of the way and got home in time for a 30 minute nap. That day was the longest day ever! I worked a 10 hour shift with no break or another manager to help. Pretty tiresome, but I survived.

I'm very much looking forward to the new year. I'm excited to see what amazing things 2011 will bring. I'm hoping for new friendships, lessons learned, memories to photograph and write about and many smiles and laughs. Cheers!

Football season sucks

Just a thought for today. I dislike football and the fact that every year it becomes number one priority to my bf--and I'm sure most other men. It wouldn't be so bad if it just happened every Sunday, but it's slowly infesting it's way into every day of the week. It's not just the game watching anymore, either. Fantasy football has become rampant too, so now guys are watching games they normally wouldn't watch because they have one of their players playing that game.
The only brightside to this situation is that 1. I get more alone time and 2. My own veggie pizza every night "the boys" come over.
Quit making me the third wheel in my relationship NFL!

Bested by fried food

Last night Phil and I had plans to watch the new Harry Potter movie. I'm a huge fan of the books and movies, and I'm dying to see it, but our plans were put off last night when one of Phil's friends needed his editing skills for a paper. The editing lasted until 10pm. Not only was I sad that I missed the movie, but I was also grumpy from lack of food in my belly. Phil picked up on that quick, and we bolted to Cheddar's, which is one of the closest restaurants to us. Our friend Kyle joined us.

I'd never been there and they didn't have much of a vegetarian friendly menu, but by suggestion from our server we started with fried onion rings. It came out as a mountain, and they were definitely tasty. I ordered fish tacos with fries--on the occasions that we eat out with no vegetarian meals, I opt for fish. And, if you really knew me, you'd know that I love french fries.  It's the only thing that I eat that's fried--and that's not very often.

We tore apart the mountain of rings, and I went to town on the fries. Huge mistake. My stomach was not built for that much oil. bleh! We got home and I quickly past out on the couch while watching a ridiculously adorable show on cute cats--that's how I knew I was bested by fried food.

Till next time!

It's about time!

I haven't posted in over a month now. Strangely, it's been a crazy time. The month's been filled with a small cold, an assistant manager quitting, an assistant manager moving, the gaining of an assistant manager and a manager in training. Eeps!

To put the stress at ease, my mama came to visit me for a week, from NM. I hadn't seen my mom in seven months--since our birthdays in March. It was so great having her around.

Mom got here on a Tuesday night. It was pretty late so we went to bed shortly after she arrived. I had Wednesday off, and was awakened by breakfast in bed--eggs and enchiladas (yes, I'm mexican). We attempted to be lazy, but mom wanted to go and do.

So, I took her to my gym (Lifetime Fitness). I wanted to have her do yoga with me, but instead we sat in the hot tub and steam room. It was like a little spa retreat. She loved it. Afterwards, I took mom to Driftwood Vineyard. I'm a wine member there and had to pick up some wine. Plus, I knew she would love the drive and the view at the vineyard.

We got a free wine tasting of six wines. Mom fell in love with the Viognier and ended up getting two bottles of it and one bottle of my favorite, Orange Muscat. It was nearing dinner time and were given a suggestion of the Mandola vineyard's restaurant Trattoria Lisina. Of course we took the recommendation.

We were so glad we did. It was incredible! We each had a glass of pinot noir. Mom had a delicious plate with shrimp, cheese and squid ink. My plate so flavorful. It was fettucini with eggplant, pine nuts and tomatoes. We were both in heaven--both our tummies were full of tasty wine and pasta, but mom insisted on sharing tiramisu, and I wasn't about to deny mom anything on her vacation. It was a wonderful dinner and perfect day.

I had to work on Thursday morning. When I got off of work, I came home to a completely clean home. Mom spent the day scrubbing and vacuuming. It felt good to come home and not have to worry about picking up. The place looked awesome and several more of the move boxes were unpacked. Mom and I ate Dog Almighty for dinner. She loved it. After dinner we watched Babies on Netflix. It's an adorable movie and sorta kinda makes me want babies--sort of.

Friday morning we went to Target. Mom wanted to get me something for my apartment. She ended up redoing my entire bathroom and getting me a new duvet cover. Silly lady spoils me.

Saturday was my favorite day. Since my sister and I won't be able to go home for Thanksgiving, my mom planned a Thanksgiving dinner for us. I worked in the morning, and around 1pm my little sister and mom stopped by my store. It made my day go by quicker.  I came home to my mom, sister, bf and my buddy Channon, with a turkey cooking in the oven.

Though I didn't partake in the turkey eating, the sides we delicious! All the good fixings were enjoyed: green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing and of course pumpkin pie for dessert. Ugh! I definitely gained weight that day.

We all slept in on Sunday. Phil went to his buddy's place to watch football and mom, lis (my sis) and I spent the day relaxing and putting up decorations. For an afternoon snack, I took the ladies to Mozart's. Lis went home in the afternoon and mom and I went to the movies to see the Hereafter. It wasn't the greatest movie, but I was nice hanging out with my mom.

Mom left super early Monday morning. I got up to say goodbye. She got home safely--9 hours later. It was difficult getting back in to the normal groove. I got used to waking up to breakfast and coming home to a clean home with dinner ready. Oh my mama, I love her. She's a great and loving lady.

Good friends. Great times.

This week was a week of fellowship. Some of my high school friends came into town for Austin City Limits this weekend. I had to work most of the time, but used every ounce of energy to make myself go out Saturday night. I was so thankful I did.

I started my night at my handsome friend, Boomer's dorm. Naturally, he took a couple hours to get ready. It worked out well because it gave the lovely Channon a chance to meet up with us too. We didn't end up getting downtown until midnight. Against all of our wills, we met up with my friends on "dirty" 6th street (against our will because we all hate being on the college side of 6th street. It's stinky and nasty). BUT we did find the best parking ever. We were a block away from the heart of the action.

I truly hadn't spoken to my friends, Amaru and Raul, since we graduated from high school. We were pretty close our junior and senior year, and we all ended up going to NMSU, but I spent my time in the college of journalism, while they were in the college of engineering. We just lost touch.

It's crazy how things hadn't changed much with them. They looked great and acted just as I had remembered them (with more of an adult air though). We had a couple drinks at Maggie Mae's and somehow ended up at the most ghetto place I've stepped foot in on 6th. I won't even name the place or go into the details of how gross it was, but "ugh!"  We closed the place down though. It was super hard to catch up because it was so loud, so we decided to meet up for breakfast before they left the next day.

Breakfast was at Torchy's tacos. We only got to banter for 45 minutes because they had a plane to catch, but after getting only a few hours of sleep, though sad to leave them, I was happy to climb back into bed afterwards.

After a three hour nap, I woke up excited because my management team was going over for dinner. I unpacked four more boxes and fixed up the living room, dining room and kitchen. I love hosting get togethers! I made pasta with capers for dinner. We had chocolate fondue for dessert with pound cake, strawberries and bananas to dip. Between four of us, we drank two bottles of tasty wine.

Though I hoped we wouldn't, we talked about work most of the time. However, we all had such a great time, it didn't matter the topic of conversation.  We've never had the chance to all hangout, so it felt good to get to know them outside of work. It was midnight or later before we realized the time.

I thanked God that night for such great people in my life, and for the amazing opportunities of fellowship. I felt very blessed this week--more than normal.

All moved in

I finally got all my belongings to my new apartment! The sad part is, everything is randomly thrown wherever it would fit. There are two tables in the living room, a dinning room chair in the bedroom, and clothes in the study. The bathroom is the closest to being in order. I haven't had a day off since I moved everything. I spent my last day off cleaning the old apartment. It took 5 hours to clean the entire place. That included scrubbing toilets/tubs, vacuuming, refrigerator cleaning, and patio sweeping/scrubbing. I was soar the next couple of days, but I made that place shine. Mama would be proud.

 So, I haven't had a chance to organize the new place. The upside is I have tomorrow off! I want to go to Ikea sooooo bad! But trips to Ikea should be taken with someone else, mainly because it's at least a two hour trek through the store, and that's if you walk straight through. Unfortunately, the few people I'd want to join me in this excursion are working. I may have to venture on my own, since I can't wait another week. Crazy thought: I wish I could take my cats with me! I'm sure they could find the best fit for the apartment. I only say this because of this video my sister sent me. It's a must watch.

As far as tonight goes, I'm taking it easy. I just finished watching Ponyo on netflix. Cute movie. Really out there, but japanamations can be pretty entertaining. Not to mention Liam Neeson is the voice of one of the characters. His voice is soothing. I also got to indulge in a candle lit dinner (solo). I ordered sweet and sour tofu. Any time I get to eat with chopsticks, it makes the food that much better.