Melyssa-with-a-Y

More time-delayed photos, courtesy of AT&T. Here are our margaritas (his was top shelf, mine was sangria-margarita) at Matt's El Rancho . The waitress talked us into Bob's queso - queso with ground beef and guacamole in it - she really had to twist our arms, as you might imagine. Allyn practically licked the bowl. ;) The food at Matt's was good (his Tacos al Carbon was better than my Tacos al Pastor) but not great. Personally, I think Chuy's is better. We will be going there in November.

Unfortunately, my phone was having posting issues, so this took a while, but here's Allyn on the covered patio at Rudy's (did I mention that he loves outdoor dining?) right before we stuffed ourselves with brisket, turkey, sausage, cole slaw and potato salad. He liked it. Hm. That's an understatement. He offered to eat at Rudy's for every meal for the rest of the weekend, but I declined. :)

Someone pointed out to me last week that I hadn't been blogging in a while. It's true, I've gotten so addicted to Facebook that I post just about everything over there. But there's not enough room at FB to really delve into anything... I just post a link and make a little comment, and it's done. So back to Blogger. And you'll notice I've changed the design of the page a bit... I'm going to keep playing with it until I find a design that I really like. Comments are welcome. It's July. Half the year is over. Sometimes I really wonder where time goes. I know I go to work every day and get stuff done, and move forward... I just hope I'm making enough of a difference in the world. We read " The Next Thing on My List " in book club last month (good choice, Maria!) and it got us all to think about what would be on our "lists" -- like a bucket list, only with a slightly shorter time line. The list below was modified from Cassie B...

in the freezer section @ Costco... pre-made matzoh balls!

recipe from SmittenKitchen - yum! Next time, I'll remember the peanuts.

Living in Austin has given me a lot of things. A great job, wonderful friends, a nice house... and allergies. Ugh, the allergies. And apparently, as soon as the cold weather goes away (and it happened early this year), and the "cedar fever" starts up, I get bronchitis. Because, you know, it's not enough to just have the cedar allergy. I get the yucky green mucus (tmi? sorry!), the pain in my chest, the coughing, and the Barry White voice. Really pleasant. I could feel it coming on, so I made a pre-emptive appointment with the doc on Wednesday. He looked at his notes and commented that he had prescribed an antibiotic last February for bronchitis. This time, he prescribed a z-pack (more antibiotics) and cough syrup with codeine. wahooo! I haven't had cough syrup with codeine in probably twenty years. Needless to say, Thursday was not a day for going to work. I slept. I took my antibiotics and some cough syrup, ate some oatmeal, and slept. And slept. Ate some so...

4 lb pork butt, $6.29 BBQ sauce, $2.39 Root beer for cooking, $3.59 Making your own pulled pork: priceless. (and almost irresistible!)