Earlier this month went to Mongolian Grille at 2nd and San Jacinto with my new co-worker Emily. Our neighbor Carlos recommended it, and it was so delicious. I'm counting it as my 2 of 5 Austinite restaurants for my 101/1001 list. When we entered, I noticed a fish bowl with some business cards in it. Put your business card in the fish bowl and enter to win a free lunch for 10 people. Sounded like a good deal to me, so I contributed.
About 10 days later I get a call letting me know that I won the free lunch! It was for Thursday November 18th at 12:30. I brought 7 co-workers, and everyone had a good time. Apparently the free lunch is put on by a financial company, and we just had to listen to a brief presentation about long term financial planning. The guy talked about permanent life insurance, which sounded very interesting. I'd like for Marshall and I to talk more about it with the representative.
In the end--free lunch and about 90 minutes being away from my computer at work. Good deal!
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Signs all over the place!
Today I got to complete 2 tasks from my 101 and make progress in a third. Today we went to the Renaissance Festival! We were on the road by 8am and arrived at 10:50-ish. It was a little chilly, but the weather warmed up in the afternoon. While we were there, we watched the jousting, listened to some awesome Scottish music (it really made me want to dance), had lunch, watched a wench get drenched, saw dozens of visiters dressed up in costumes, got henna tattoos of our zodiac signs, oodled at jewelry, did lots of walking and got a couple's reading with tarot cards.
I had never had a tarot card reading. Apparently Marshall's mom use to do them too, so he had been exposed to them before. We opted for a couple's reading, and our reader even read our palms. He was very accurate when describing our characters based off our hands; I was impressed. For the cards, he divided the deck into three piles. Marshall and I each chose one, and the remaining stack was for our relationship. According to the cards, we are have a solid foundation in our relationship and 2011 will be very good to us. It's amazing how Marshall's cards representing September through December 2011 were emphasizing "nesting," and I ended up getting the Empress card, which can represent a lot of different things related to pregnancy and fertility. A year from now we'll be much closer to being ready to having children, but probably not starting in 2011. I was given a warning to stop internalizing so much. Also, that next summer I am going to have to face a tough decision that although painful, it must be done...very intriguing.
So, while I was at the Ren Fest, I knew I had to get a picture taken of me with someone with a great costume. I met a centaur and swore it was my lucky day! The title of this entry refers to how Marshall and I chose our zodiac signs for tattoos, I get a picture with the symbol of my Sagitarius sign, and it is exactly one month until my birthday. I'm thinking the rest of the year is going to go pretty well!
I had never had a tarot card reading. Apparently Marshall's mom use to do them too, so he had been exposed to them before. We opted for a couple's reading, and our reader even read our palms. He was very accurate when describing our characters based off our hands; I was impressed. For the cards, he divided the deck into three piles. Marshall and I each chose one, and the remaining stack was for our relationship. According to the cards, we are have a solid foundation in our relationship and 2011 will be very good to us. It's amazing how Marshall's cards representing September through December 2011 were emphasizing "nesting," and I ended up getting the Empress card, which can represent a lot of different things related to pregnancy and fertility. A year from now we'll be much closer to being ready to having children, but probably not starting in 2011. I was given a warning to stop internalizing so much. Also, that next summer I am going to have to face a tough decision that although painful, it must be done...very intriguing.
So, while I was at the Ren Fest, I knew I had to get a picture taken of me with someone with a great costume. I met a centaur and swore it was my lucky day! The title of this entry refers to how Marshall and I chose our zodiac signs for tattoos, I get a picture with the symbol of my Sagitarius sign, and it is exactly one month until my birthday. I'm thinking the rest of the year is going to go pretty well!
Sunday, November 7, 2010
What is in our future?
Anyone who knows us will completely agree that we are planner people. My mom says that she passed down her "make a list" gene to me (and now Rachael is showing signs of exhibiting the same trait!). I'm a firm believer that you can shape your future with positive thought projections, sort of like if you think about it so much, it will take form and come true.
We planned to come to Austin after I graduated college (wow! a year and a half ago) and Marshall was medically retired from the Navy. We made our plan come true. Marshall got into Austin Community College, and I found a job I really enjoy. We began planning for a wedding, and it turned out exactly as we had hoped it would.
We hadn't planned on buying a house in 2009, but once we realized that we could afford it, we started looking. We closed on our current house 2 months after we began our search. December 22 will be our 1 year anniversary on 7912 Marble Ridge Drive. :D
Our current plan is through December 2012, which will be the three year mark of owning our house, I'll turn 26, and the semester when Marshall can potentially graduate for TSU. By this time we want to have 20% of our house paid off, and have a nice cushion in our savings account thanks to the GI Bill.
We definitely want to take some trips. We'd be interested in taking a trip to the New Mexico Intl Balloon Festival if we could manage to get on a balloon. That would be a 5 day trip the first weekend in October 2011. Perhaps in mid-late August of 2011 we could meet up with Marshall's family in Utah and plan a trip to the Dawson family cabin in Wyoming. We'd really like to go to Washington DC together, but haven't put a realistic time frame on it. I'd also like to do Thanksgiving at my parents house within the next couple of years.
Marshall's stopped at ports along the Med Sea in southern Europe while on his two deployments, but he's really interested in seeing more of the continent. We're kicking the idea around of taking a short trip (maybe 10 days?) and focusing on three cities--Stockholm, Copenhagen and Berlin. The only time Marshall has a two week window of no school is between the spring and summer semesters, between summer and fall semesters, and Christmas break. Well, we wouldn't want to go during the winter... Maybe August 2012 will work out. If we wait until after he's graduated (cross your fingers for December 2012!), he may not be able to take that much time off from the job we hope he gets. Right now 2013 is reserved for expanding our family and how that will affect my job and our lifestyle.
After being in Austin for 10 years or so, we're going to reevaluate whether it's best for us to stay here, or move to somewhere new.
We planned to come to Austin after I graduated college (wow! a year and a half ago) and Marshall was medically retired from the Navy. We made our plan come true. Marshall got into Austin Community College, and I found a job I really enjoy. We began planning for a wedding, and it turned out exactly as we had hoped it would.
We hadn't planned on buying a house in 2009, but once we realized that we could afford it, we started looking. We closed on our current house 2 months after we began our search. December 22 will be our 1 year anniversary on 7912 Marble Ridge Drive. :D
Our current plan is through December 2012, which will be the three year mark of owning our house, I'll turn 26, and the semester when Marshall can potentially graduate for TSU. By this time we want to have 20% of our house paid off, and have a nice cushion in our savings account thanks to the GI Bill.
We definitely want to take some trips. We'd be interested in taking a trip to the New Mexico Intl Balloon Festival if we could manage to get on a balloon. That would be a 5 day trip the first weekend in October 2011. Perhaps in mid-late August of 2011 we could meet up with Marshall's family in Utah and plan a trip to the Dawson family cabin in Wyoming. We'd really like to go to Washington DC together, but haven't put a realistic time frame on it. I'd also like to do Thanksgiving at my parents house within the next couple of years.
Marshall's stopped at ports along the Med Sea in southern Europe while on his two deployments, but he's really interested in seeing more of the continent. We're kicking the idea around of taking a short trip (maybe 10 days?) and focusing on three cities--Stockholm, Copenhagen and Berlin. The only time Marshall has a two week window of no school is between the spring and summer semesters, between summer and fall semesters, and Christmas break. Well, we wouldn't want to go during the winter... Maybe August 2012 will work out. If we wait until after he's graduated (cross your fingers for December 2012!), he may not be able to take that much time off from the job we hope he gets. Right now 2013 is reserved for expanding our family and how that will affect my job and our lifestyle.
After being in Austin for 10 years or so, we're going to reevaluate whether it's best for us to stay here, or move to somewhere new.
Make-up Muffins
Marshall's still sleeping, but I'm up. Santa Ana, our orange cat, continues to poke at me to throw his toy mice or favorite string for him. I just saw Misti chasing Santa Ana, so I know she's up now. I'm making a tripple batch of banana chocolate chip muffins, which are absolutely amazing. Last weekend I bought a brown paper bag full of bananas that were in the last few days of ripeness from the grocery store for $2.99. I gave about 15 bananas to my neighbor Amy, which left me with 23 or so. I used 2 bananas in a pretzel/jello dessert, and another 12 for banana chocolate chip muffins, which I brought into work. I got rave reviews!
Now I had 9 left, so I decided to just make some more muffins since the first ones were so delicious. Undoubtedly Marshall and I will eat a few, but the rest I'll bring into work again.
Marshall wasn't feeling well on Wednesday, so he missed his speed reading class that evening. He's going to a make-up session today, which starts at 2pm. He'll be gone for at least 5 hours today. I'm sure tonight he'll work on homework, so I pretty much have the day to myself.
I still need to make my To Do List, but I'd like to do more painting on the outside of our house. On Thursday I did about a quarter of the triangular part above the garage. I need to generate a few more Christmas present ideas too. I'll do some chores, work on a little writing project, and do some exercise like take a long walk through the neighborhood or do my pilates DVD. We did our yoga DVD on Friday night, and whew, it was pretty obvious we hadn't done it in awhile. It was a challenge for both of us.
So, this is our Sunday. I'm glad it doesn't involve raking leaves. Our two trees still have plenty of leaves on them yet, so there's no point in raking the few crunchy ones that have already littered our lawn. :)
Now I had 9 left, so I decided to just make some more muffins since the first ones were so delicious. Undoubtedly Marshall and I will eat a few, but the rest I'll bring into work again.
Marshall wasn't feeling well on Wednesday, so he missed his speed reading class that evening. He's going to a make-up session today, which starts at 2pm. He'll be gone for at least 5 hours today. I'm sure tonight he'll work on homework, so I pretty much have the day to myself.
I still need to make my To Do List, but I'd like to do more painting on the outside of our house. On Thursday I did about a quarter of the triangular part above the garage. I need to generate a few more Christmas present ideas too. I'll do some chores, work on a little writing project, and do some exercise like take a long walk through the neighborhood or do my pilates DVD. We did our yoga DVD on Friday night, and whew, it was pretty obvious we hadn't done it in awhile. It was a challenge for both of us.
So, this is our Sunday. I'm glad it doesn't involve raking leaves. Our two trees still have plenty of leaves on them yet, so there's no point in raking the few crunchy ones that have already littered our lawn. :)
Awkward Wind Chimes
Saturday night we went to a new restaurant downtown, a recommendation from our neighbors Amy and Carlos, with my new co-worker Emily. We went to Mongolian Grille at San Jacinto and 2nd Street. The food was great. You put all sorts of veggies and meets in a bowl, then pile it on with noodles and sauces. The cooks put it on a large flat wok of sorts, and with giant knives, they move your food around to cook it. It started out with just one cook, then another showed up because a line was starting to form. Emily was beside me, and I made a comment that the sound of the two metla knives on the cooking surface reminded me of an awkward wind chime. She agreed.
Marshall said that he wanted one of those flat woks where the meals were being cooked. "Where would you put it?" I asked. He said, "We'd take out the island," referring to the island in our kitchen. My response was, "Maybe if they have a show called Pimp My House, then we could do it." Marshall being the jokester that he is replied, "Would that be on the Martha Stewart channel?" I laughed.
We were there for 2 hours and left because we noticed that they were closing. It was a nice night out. We came to the conclusion that we should go to downtown more often, even if just to explore. I'm counting the Mongolian Grille as my 2 of 5 Austinite restaurants for my 101/1001 list. Also downtown we saw a little restaurant called Le Cafe Crepe. I think we'll try that one next. :)
Marshall said that he wanted one of those flat woks where the meals were being cooked. "Where would you put it?" I asked. He said, "We'd take out the island," referring to the island in our kitchen. My response was, "Maybe if they have a show called Pimp My House, then we could do it." Marshall being the jokester that he is replied, "Would that be on the Martha Stewart channel?" I laughed.
We were there for 2 hours and left because we noticed that they were closing. It was a nice night out. We came to the conclusion that we should go to downtown more often, even if just to explore. I'm counting the Mongolian Grille as my 2 of 5 Austinite restaurants for my 101/1001 list. Also downtown we saw a little restaurant called Le Cafe Crepe. I think we'll try that one next. :)
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