Exercise

I don't know if golf in a cart counts, but I know tennis does, which means I've worked out at least two of the past three days. Yay me. Sidenote: my former employer always spelled yay "yeah," but I think that is how you spell what is pronounced as "yah."

The new job is going well, especially since I found out I get to leave at 5. Even though my commute is a bit longer (10 more minutes), this gives me more than enough time!

Sent from my iPhone

Labor Day Vacay

We're in North Carolina, (not the coast, but golf country) at the rental house my parents got, get this - 18 years ago. I haven't been here in years, I think Mr. D has been here more recently than I have, for one of my dad's birthday golf trips. It was weird coming back, and especially weird since we're the only ones here (we invited J&R to come with us, but R's parents are in NYC to see his new nephew).

Earlier in the week, Hurricane Earl gave us a bit of pause, but we realized that we weren't going to be anywhere near close enough to the coast to worry about it, so here we are, relaxing in the gorgeous weather, the faint smell of grilling in the air as the UT vs. Rice game gets started.

Thinking about the hurricane makes me think of all the "recent hurricanes, which I have been lucky enough to avoid my traveling. I remember Hurricane Rita, which caused HUGE amounts of panic, as almost all of Houston evacuated to Dallas/Austin, remembering Katrina, which struck New Orleans just weeks before. Mr. D and I had just met that summer, and his friends were trying to get me to wait out the storm in Austin with him, but I was all set to go to San Francisco for my friend Sara's wedding - and was able to move my flight up a day. The window in my office overlooked I-45, and the road was completely bumper-to-bumper with cars, and the southbound traffic was non-existent, as they had closed the road so people could use that side for northbound traffic, too. My dad took me to the airport the next morning, and the streets were deserted (Mom and little sis had gone to Dallas, but Dad was staying with my uncle who had just had surgery). Later that afternoon, they closed the airport, but, as we learned from the news in San Francisco, the storm was not nearly as bad as had been predicted.

Two years ago, as we were spending a week at my parents' house after our honeymoon, but before driving up to NYC, my Mom actually made us leave early, so that we would miss Hurricane Gustav, which turned out to be a dud of a storm.

Two weeks after that, we moved into our apartment, and my brother and a couple of his friends came up to visit for Labor day before his second year of med school at UT Galveston. While he was up, Ike hit Galveston hard, and we just had to watch the news for word, while the boys realized what they had left undone back home. My brother realized he had left all of his textbooks on the floor, while we kept reassuring another that someone must have thought to get his turtle before leaving town (despite the fact that the frat house flooded, the turtle was fine).

We've been relatively lucky to have funny stories about what happened during the hurricanes and not stories of injury or destruction (though my brother did have a huge job to deal with as fraternity president that year).

Life of Leisure

My sister called me last night to see how my week of leisure was going (I finished up work last week and don't start the new job until Tuesday). My week has not been very leisurely. Monday we spent driving back from Mr. D's parents' house, then swapped out the TV stand. Tuesday, I went to the dentist (at 9 am), made sandwich bread (since I had time) and swapped out the old bookcases for the new ones - and it was hot in the apartment - thank you, heat wave (oh, and I made Alton Brown's spaghetti sauce, which probably didn't help the heat situation).

Yesterday I took the dog to the park, did some "fitness yoga" on the on-demand exercise channel, then collapsed, took a shower, and made some ravioli. The ravioli turned into a disaster; when I went to take the food processor bowl out of the fridge, the top popped off and half of the shrimp paste plopped in the refrigerator and then on the floor - fail. When Mr. D came home, we stopped by Eataly - which is basically an Italian food store/restaurant/theme park started by Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich, and maybe someone else - in the hopes that we would be able to eat there. Umm, the hordes of people (literally) and hour-long wait to eat in the pizza section led us to eat elsewhere (craftbar - yum). We did see Mario walking around helping the employees. He's kind of like part of the family - we did go see Avatar with him (or, his family was sitting next to us in the theater - same thing. If you watch MasterChef (of course we do - it's a reality show with food), then you know that Joe Bastianich is the token jerk on the judges panel who rarely has anything nice to say and throws food in the garbage.

Today, I plan to take the dog to the park, take some change to the Coinstar machine, order the last piece of the bookcase (we weren't sure we were going to get it), sell the books we don't need anymore, make red beans & rice, and make another batch of ravioli (chicken this time). Order the bookcase, done. Dog park, on my way so I can get iced coffee (we're out). In order of probability of happening today - red beans, ravioli, coinstar, and books - I still have tomorrow off, so the last two could happen tomorrow (except I remembered that I have to do laundry so we can pack for our trip to NC - not the coast, so no real Earl worries).

Things I made from Ratio this week: bread, mayonnaise (a bit of a fail, but I'm not sure exactly why), pasta for the ravioli, and filling for the ravioli. Have I mentioned I love this book?

Before and after (so far) pictures of the bookshelves: