So I Married an Axe Murderer

Obviously, I didn't actually marry an axe-murderer, but we did catch this funny Mike Myers movie last night at the Regal Arbor cinema (a fun artsy theatre near our house). They've been doing a "retro rewind" series each Wednesday for a few weeks. Judging by the attendance last night and when we saw "Dr. No" about a month ago, it's not super-successful (but then again, how many people do they normally get at 7pm movies on Wednesday nights?)

My movie-watching-experience was enhanced primarily because there were other people there to laugh at all the jokes, including a few people (like me) who laughed *before* the jokes. I'd totally forgotten about Michael Richards cameo (he played Kramer, and his role in this movie is quite Kramer-esque).

They did trivia before the film and Matt won a free Chick-Fil-A breakfast sandwich for knowing that Charlie's dad (Mike Myers plays Charlie & his dad) didn't like KFC. Matt even answered the question with a quote from the film, done in character. Yes, this proves that my husband has an amazing memory for trivia! He gave it to me (thanks, dear) so maybe I'll head that way tomorrow morning. Mmmm... Chicken Biscuit...

In two weeks, we'll be back at the Arbor for "Better off Dead." If you're in the Austin area, hope to see you there!

Fantasy Smackdown 2008

I think I came up with the best Fantasy Football team name ever: "The Deadliest Catch."

I came up with it after Matt took "Mythbusters" (which is my favorite show). I'm actually rather pleased now that he did, so I could come up with something even better. The smackdown starts soon!

I'm looking forward to games later this year - I have to imagine that teams with names such names as "The Dundies" (that's Steve in the Elitist league) or "Green Eggs and Ham" (that's a colleague's husband in the work league - cute name but not very tough) won't be able to come close to "The Deadliest Catch."

(though, bonus points go to Steve for coming up with the cool Office-related name of the year)

Advice to Quilt Shops

I've had a few days off from work and have spent them catching up on sleep, doing a little house-cleaning (a very little!) and finishing some quilt projects. Finishing one of those projects required me to buy some fabric (I needed some purple fabric for binding -- and purple is a color I just don't have much of in my stash!). So, yesterday, I visited a local quilt shop, and my experience there reminded me that I've intended to write up some advice to quilt shops.

I worked at a quilt shop one summer during college (ran the shop a few days each week including quite a bit of time when I was there solo), have visited tons of shops (even in other countries!), been to International Quilt Market in Houston twice, and my mom is a professional quilter. When I think about my favorite shops as well as the shopping disasters, here are a few other things I'd suggest:

• Remember that a customer's appearance or age and knowledge or likelihood to buy a lot are independent factors. Just because I'm young does not mean I'm clueless.
  
• Remember that not everybody likes the same fabrics you do. You may totally love batiks, but it's nice if you can offer a little something else for those days when I want variety. If you're in a larger city and want to specialize in one type of fabric, that's fine -- but be prepared to send me to another shop to get what I want (accurate directions help!)
  
• It's nice when you have a chair or sofa where the non-quilters can sit, but it's also OK for them to browse if they prefer. Basically, have a chair available, but don't go up to my husband and joke with him that he needs to use it. He actually is helping me pick out fabrics and I may buy more because he's with me!
  
• It's great when you label display quilts with a pattern or book. And, this may just be me, but I also think it's fun to see a quilt done in a different color-way than the pattern or book (though if you kit it up really differently, give me a color photo so I can remember how you did it).
  
• Treat people kindly. If I hear you gossiping about the customer who just left (for her hairstyle, fabric choices, or relationships), I'll presume you're going to gossip about me, too -- and this may lead me to not coming back.
  
• Give yourself enough space for cutting fabric. Even if your shop is tiny, remember that 99% of all you sell crosses over that counter, so it's probably worth the investment in another 9 square feet for a decent cutting surface. This space can also double as a place for me to set out my bolts to decide what to buy. If your shop is especially large, multiple cutting stations are great -- so customers don't have to wait as long (as I did yesterday... waiting about 15 minutes to get a clerk to come cut my fabrics!).
  
• Not everybody loves your shop pet (especially if it's a cat or anything else that's more prone to causing allergies than a goldfish).
  
• I probably don't want to sign up for your frequent buyer program, give me your email address, nor get your mailing list. Let me say no, then don't hassle me about it. (this is especially true when I'm out of town).
• List your hours and good directions (for both people who know your town and tourists) on your website. (That presumes you have a website. You don't need to be able to sell me fabric on your website, but a static site with hours/directions/class schedule/basic info is cheaper to maintain anyhow.)
• Be able to recommend a good machine-quilter - one with experience and with good equipment (i.e. not just a domestic machine on a rail system). The best machine quilter, of course, is none other than my mom. :) (www.goldenbellsquilting.com)
  

Applique Design

My mom and I shopped for these fabrics while in Illinois on the Cornerstone trip. She apparently has a kit to make something out of the same fabric line. I grabbed just a few fat quarters and freehanded this design (while sitting at a show at Cornerstone). I'm not totally in love with it - debating if it needs anything else to feel complete. It's about 9" square, and I figure we'll make it into a pillow or something to match mom's finished quilt. Right now, I call it "fireworks flowers" because the abstract flowers look a bit like fireworks to me.


The technique I used is needle-turn applique, using basting lines to mark where to turn the fabric (rather than templates -- I'm really not a template kind of person!) I've been trying to get better on sharp points (the above design has lots of them) - I can definitely tell which of the petals I stitched first and which came last. :) I think my next project needs to feature something with inside points (like a daisy, perhaps) because those have always been really hard for me to needle-turn correctly.

Adventures with masa

Twice this week, I have tried new recipes made with masa. I realized that most of my extended family has probably never heard of it (funny that the midwestern US is pretty much covered in corn fields, but masa, a corn derivative, is basically unknown there).

Masa is primarly used to make corn tortillas. Imagine a raw tortilla chip that's been ground up, and then had a little water added and you've basically got masa.

My first adventure with masa this week was to make sopes. Imagine little boats or bowls made from ground up corn and you've basically got a sope. We tried them for the first time last week at Frontera Grill in Chicago. I then managed to make them at home earlier this week. Mine weren't quite as good as those at Frontera (then again, how could they be... our house isn't exactly known as one of the best Mexican restaurants in the country), but they turned out pretty well.

Last night, I tried another new masa-based receipe: huaraches - oval shaped masa cakes. These were definitely more complicated than the sopes, and I'm not sure they turned out as they were supposed to, but they tasted OK. Ours had queso cojita (which is a bit like feta cheese), salsa, and a tiny bit of chorizo (which is a type of loosely ground pork sausage) on top.

We took a great class last fall about how to make tamales. I see that they're offering it again this fall at Central Market. If you're in the Austin area, I'd highly recommend taking it. Their classes are a lot of fun and this particular course is really practical and yields you a bunch of tamales to take home. Tamales are basically a wad of masa wrapped around some filling (beef, pork, or even dessert ingredients like chocolate). The little masa package is then wrapped with a corn husk or banana leaf, and steamed. The result is a moist & flavorful package that you get to unwrap. They're a ton of work, though, so traditionally tamales are made for special events, or as a special event (gather everybody together to do the work).

In Chicago

This blog post comes to you from a coffee shop at a church in the Chicago suburbs. I'm here for a conference - today was a women's leadership event, and the next two days are a general leadership event (which will be viewed by tens of thousands of people world-wide).

I had a nice time today at the Willow Creek Association's Gifted to Lead Conference. This morning, I sat around a table with 2 women from South Africa, a woman from the Chicago area who coordinates international events, two women from Arizona, and a woman from Los Angeles. I ate lunch with a woman from Denmark, then settled in after lunch with a table of other 30-something women (oh, how I wish this conference had been a few months ago so I could have still sat with the 20's!) who were from all over the country. It was nice to sit with these women, from different backgrounds as well as different places, and be inspired together about leadership. It was a nice mix -- not too girly (in fact, not very girly at all - thank you for that!) with times to listen, times for quiet reflection, and times to talk and laugh with others. I found the courage to be vulnerable about a few things, but mostly listened and tried to absorb it all. Like any good event, this one will be fueling my brain for months to come.

Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to more of the same -- but on a larger scale. Rather than sitting around tables, we'll be in a large auditorium here (live -- the feed of the event is them simulcast to locations around the country, and tape-delayed to various international sites). But, I know it'll be a simliar mix of people from diverse backgrounds coming together with a common interest -- how the local church is the hope of the world and it's future rests in the hands of leaders. I'm looking forward to a great time at this event, the Leadership Summit.

Tonight, I'm looking forward to picking Matt up from the train (he's been to the Cubs game downtown), and going for dinner together. Maybe we'll get some cheesy italian beef (or something fancier - I'm not picky). Tomorrow & Friday after the seminars conclude, we're considering taking the train into downtown to eat dinner (Frontera Grill, please have space for us!!!) and maybe going to the Chicago Institute of Art.

Dr. No on the Big Screen

Last night, we had a rare treat - the Regal Arbor Cinema (not far from our house, towards the Arboretum area of Austin) showed the very first James Bond film, Dr. No, as part of a summer "Retro Rewind" series.

They did it well -- started with trivia and two staff dressed up in suits that were kinda like something Bond might wear. The small audience had a few total Bond geeks who won all the trivia contents (so no free tickets for us). The film itself was 40 years old and showed some wear (changing color at one point and having slight audio inconsistencies), but that just seemed to add to the charm. I was reminded again that honestly, Dr. No isn't that great of a movie -- it's just too slow and has a bit of bad dialogue (and badly-delivered dialogue). But, still, it was a lot of fun to get out and see it on the big screen.

Next week, they're playing Hudsucker Proxy. I've never actually seen it, and won't be going (we'll be out of town). Later in the summer, they're playing So I Married an Axe Murderer and Better off Dead, two of Matt's favorites which I enjoy a lot, too. We already have our tickets for one of them (which, I can't recall right now -- too tired).

So, if you're in the Austin area and looking for a cheap night out, check out the Arbor's series - Wednesday nights for the rest of the summer. Tickets are just $5.

We came home from the movie and did something even more exciting - ran a load of laundry thru our new washer & dryer. Never did anything more fun. haha.

Turns out, you can multiply time

I've been working a lot of hours lately. Today, I did the thing which everybody has told me not to do (or at least everybody I know who has recent experience working long hours). I counted how many days I've worked without a break, and how many hours I've worked on those days. In doing so, I realized that yes, you can multiply time. I added up how much I've worked, and over the past 3 weeks, I've worked the number of hours I normally would in 5.

This is really not normal for me -- our office doesn't have a culture where you work crazy hours no matter what the cost -- we are actually quite good about slowing down. But, slowing down is a luxury I don't have when I'm facing a huge deadline. I'm sure at some point in my old job I hit a higher record of hours worked per week (I remember times when I logged 80 hours over 6 days) -- but this is far more than I've worked at any point in the past 6 years. And, it's way more hours than I've done since we got married. Matt's been great -- cooking and helping around the house -- and I'm very thankful for that (especially at a time when he has his own huge deadlines).

And, though I'm sleep deprived, let me try being thankful for some other things...
1. I'm thankful for my friend Lisa. It's her birthday today, and she & her husband's anniversary. We went out on Saturday night to celebrate. I made her a sock monster! (she has a pic of it on her blog -- I have another one that I need to send her)

2. I am thankful that we have a new washer & dryer coming. Our old one died last week. Matt said I had a huge smile on my face as we walked out of Home Depot yesterday after purchasing our new front-loaders. I hope I'm still smiling come Wednesday when I have to get caught up with all the laundry!

3. I'm thankful that we get to go to Chicago next week, and thrilled that Matt gets to see a Cubs game while I'm at a women's leadership event.

4. I'm thankful for my family, far and wide, though I don't get to see them that much.

5. I'm extra thankful when I get a good night's sleep, which I'd really like tonight.

The past few weeks

During the past few weeks we have:

• Driven more than 2000 miles, round-trip, to Illinois and back to attend Cornerstone Festival.
• Blogged for millions dozens of people to read about the festival!
  
• Stopped at 6 different QTs on 7 occasions (which makes it a very good trip).
• Taken communion in a crowd that could have numbered into 5-digits (10,000+ wouldn't be too hard to believe).
• Heard hindi-language Christian worship music at the same event as hearing a funk old-school celtic punk band cover "Amazing Grace."
• Hung out with some of the coolest people in the world, laughing late into the night.
• Visited with both Becky's parents and Matt's dad (Becky's brother is among some of the coolest people in the world, as referenced above).
• Saw a concert and heard a chapter from the new book from a super-talented songwriter we've appreciated for years.
• Carried a half-sized piano into a dorm, then back out of a dorm, then squeezed into a car, and finally out of the car into the house.
  
• Stopped for Andy's Frozen Custard in Springfield, MO twice. Of course, Matt got the James Brownie Funky Jackhammer both times I tried the Ozark Turtle the first time, and it was great. The next time I tried the choco-rocco (marshmallow creme and almonds in a chocolate frozen custard base).
• Slept on the world's hardest and most uncomfortable bed.
• Lived like college students, staying in a dorm at Western Illinois University (home of the fighting leathernecks!).
  
• Been happy over the healthy arrival of our new nephew.
  
• Discovered just how annoying it is when a soft-top convertible top starts to go bad.
• Craved vegetables after eating way too much fried junk food - elephant ears - yum!
• Chatted with a friend who's currently in Taiwan.
  
• Worked on huge projects at work (both of us are in the thick of big projects & changes at work).
• Laughed heartily over Snake Patrol (click on Rodent Emporium video - guaranteed to make you either raise your eyebrows in wonder or laugh your sides off).
• Bought new shirts and music from Anberlin, The Urban Sophisticates (fair warning - site plays music), and more.
• Craved Tex Mex. I suspect a trip to Chuy's is in store for our weekend.
• Taught a relatively new quilter how to tie a quilter's knot.
• Did some needle-turn appliqué while listening to loud music.
• Worked too much, despite taking vacation.
• Celebrated meeting each other 10 years ago this week. :)
  

Delicious Cupcakes

Has the cupcake-bakery phenomenon hit your town yet? This seems to be a growing trend in Austin, and I like it!

We tried one place down on South Congress a few months ago (they make cupcakes & serve them out on an old airstream trailer). Today, I tried another: Cupprimo - which is located just down the street from my office in a little strip mall (just a few doors down from Sambet's - excellent for Cajun). It was wonderful -- I had a white chocolate mocha (which was sweet-but-not-too-sweet, not at all bitter, and had ample whipped cream which I love), and a double-chocolate cupcake. It had excellent frosting and was just really well done. Top it off that I was served by a woman I know from church. Far friendlier place to get a cup of coffee than the local Starbucks.

It's a little strange, admittedly, to have a coffee shop & bakery specializing in cupcakes, but I like it. Cupcakes are small enough that you don't feel stuffed or guilty afterward, but instead are just nicely satisfied.

Way Too Hot

Just to let it be known that it's WAY TOO HOT outside right now! I got out of the office (needed a break from the huge project I'm working on) and did a little shopping (when my brain feels broken as it did this afternoon, shopping somehow is a good escape). I nearly melted on my way from the car to the stores. Ugh. If this keeps up, we're in for a very long summer. Today's high at the weather station near me was 103 degrees at 5pm, and it only got down to 79 overnight.

Normally, we can count on it being comfortable, temperature-speaking, until we get back from Cornerstone (typically with tons of rain here while we're on the trip). The heat doesn't usually get unbearable to me until late July or August. Not so this year.

Anyhow, better get back to the huge project. I'll explain more what that is someday. :)

Lists

Things to Try:

• Pie-in-a-jar. Maybe this is a way to make pie and not pig out on it all ourselves (or have it turn nasty before it can be consumed).
• Revised iPhone. Of course, I've heard nothing about the monthly fee for data-transfer being reduced, so I can't see myself getting this anytime soon, but I do like how things are improving.
• Sunrise or just visiting Haleakala in Maui. We heard from some friends who had been there for sunrise recently - sounds like something I may want to do (after all) if we do wind up in Maui for our fall vacation. I had written it off thinking that a) it would require us to pack too many odd clothes and b) we'd have to get up too early. But, I think there are ways around both problems.

Looking forward to on the road to Cornerstone:

• Cardinals vs. Mets on June 30th. We're looking at tickets to catch a game on our way to Cornerstone.
• Family Force 5's new ep. Need to buy that and get it onto the iPod before the trip.
  
• James Brownie Funky Jackhammer. To the good folks at Andy's Frozen Custard in Springfield, Missouri (next to the Fazzoli's and the questionable-looking motel): get ready! We'll be visiting you soon and I know you'll need to make at least one of these.
• Just not being at work! Matt's been working a ton lately. He got to experience what his office looks like at 3:30am one day last week (not the first time he's done that, but the first time in a while). We're both really looking forward to a vacation. I haven't been working as many hours, but I'm still pretty tired and wanting vacation, too.
  

Liking:

• Mountain Dew Supernova. It's strawberry flavored energy-enhanced dew. I never thought I'd try an energy drink (and I kinda doubt that real energy drink enthusiasts would count a bit of ginseng as a real energy drink), but I like the flavor. I wish they sold Caffeine Free Dew here in Texas, but I haven't seen it in years (I wonder if it's available at all anymore). I also enjoy that both Rudy's (at least the Austin franchisee) and Mighty Fine Burgers has Mello Yello on tap. I never used to be able to get that in Austin.
  
• When We Left Earth. As mentioned previously, we enjoyed the first 2-hour installment and looking forward to next weekend's episode. We're 3-hours behind on Battlestar Galactica and still have the entire set of The War to watch -- so why not add another 12-hour set to the tivo?
• Getting a CD of wedding photos from Steve & Sara. A couple of those may be printed to replace a few outdated photos from around the house.

Not Liking:

• American Airline's new baggage policy. In the last 15 months, I think American has "delayed" my baggage more times than they've gotten it to arrive on time. They've also messed up a day of my Hawaiian vacation by late crew and generally not been the most friendly people to deal with (compared to Continental, for instance, which has given us quite good service lately). It's hard for me to justify an extra baggage fee when I don't have anymore confidence they'll actually get the bag to me than past record shows. And yes, I know they need to find ways to make money like anybody else, but there are other ways to do that! I think the unintended consequences of this new plan will be major. (I can see it now - waiting in line at security or in the aisle on board the plane as somebody tries to cram in their multiple large suitcases to avoid the fee.)
• Noise. Way back in elementary school when we had to write essays about what study environments we felt we did best in, I'd write that I didn't feel like I could study when there was a lot of noise. Turns out, I'm no different as an adult. I'm loving the noise-canceling headphones Matt gave me for Christmas, but even they don't cut out an entire office's worth of chatter. The new laptop for work is nice, too - I can get away when it gets too loud now.
  

2 more Chronicles

Over the weekend, I finished re-reading The Silver Chair and The Horse and His Boy. Both were enjoyable and easy reads, but I think I enjoyed Horse more this time thru. In it, Aravis and Shasta, two children from Calormen (a country south of Narnia) take an epic journey that includes escaping from a lion, navigating a big city, crossing a desert, and finding a passage thru the mountains. Through the journey, I like how Lewis weaves Aslan into the story in more unique ways than in some other books. In other books, we primarily know him as a lion, the son of the great emperor-across-the sea. In this edition, we not only find the familiar lion figure comforting, teaching, and correcting the children, but also that of a gentle cat keeping Shasta company among the foreboding-looking tombs, a fierce beast spurring the travelers onward, a creature with sharp claws punishing Aravis (when she deserved it). Though this volume doesn't really add a lot to the overall story-line (Shasta & Aravis aren't really mentioned in any other significant ways), but I think it serves the entire set well by developing Aslan's character a bit more.

I'm finishing up this re-reading presently with The Magician's Nephew. Reading the first few chapters, I was surprised by my reaction - I wanted to skip over the parts with the weird uncle Andrew. I guess I found him so annoying and evil (knowing how the story goes) that I just didn't want to think much about him - I don't know. Anyhow, a couple more nights of reading and I'll have to put these books back on the shelf (or really, give them to Matt, who's been reading them too) and find something else to read.

Matt suggested I read The Right Stuff after we enjoyed the first of the Discover Channel docu-mini-series When We Left Earth. Last night's first episode went thru the Mercury & Gemini NASA missions. So, I might just grab that from the bookshelves next.

Re-reading the Chronicles

Seeing Prince Caspian in the theater recently renewed my interest in re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia. Other than the (admittedly odd) choice to read The Last Battle first (why - well, because it was the one we had a copy of in the house before ordering a new set), I've been reading them in the order they were written. The written order is:

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
2. Prince Caspian (1951)
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
4. The Silver Chair (1953)
5. The Horse and His Boy (1954)
6. The Magicians Nephew (1955)
7. The Last Battle (1956)

(reference Into the Wardrobe)

I skipped The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe this time thru. Having spent many long hours during my senior year of high school playing Mrs. Beaver in the stage production, I know that story line too well -- and find that it's actually hard to read the book now without remembering classmates' voices and things that happened during rehearsal.

Just a few favorites so far (having re-read The Last Battle, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the past couple of weeks):

• The ending of Last Battle - I wouldn't want to risk spoiling it for anybody who hasn't read it, so I won't explain it. Just trust me that it's just about the best ending to a book ever -- I just can't help but smile every time I read those last few pages. I find this book a little slower-going at first than some of the others, but the ending totally makes up for it.
  
• The interaction between Aslan & Lucy in Caspian regarding how Lucy choose between following what she thought she saw and knew she wanted to follow (him) vs. following what she thought was safe (her siblings). It's just this great moment that captures something so childlike, yet also so very grown-up. I can't really explain it, but I like it.
• Edmund's transformation in Dawn Treader is always a great moment.
• Also Dawn Treader - Ramandu's Island. I love the image of the birds bringing a little live coal from the sun to the "retired star" every day. (I think this is a bit like Isaiah 6 and have always wondered if Lewis were inspired by that as well.)

More to come as I finish...

No More Clowns!

Yesterday, a major milestone happened at our house: all traces of clowns were removed. No, we don't have a clown-phobia, but we were tired of the cute clown border that's been up in our office (apparently the prior homeowners used that room as a nursery). We stripped the wallpaper border (which actually came off easily - a rarity in this house). Today, we've put up the first coat of "chocolate coco" (dark brown) paint. We'll put on a second coat after church. Gotta love the 12:30pm service on days like this!

Eventually, the office will have brown walls with white wainscot on the lower 1/3 of the walls and white trim. But, the wainscoting project will have to wait for another weekend - so we'll be living with a half-done room for a while longer.

Matt's been taking pictures as we work -- once we get the computers uncovered and the office is functional again, we'll upload them.

One other positive side-effect of painting the office - I had to clean it. Now if I can just keep it clean...