Melyssa-with-a-Y

In February, John decided we should go away for a weekend. Because of our schedules (mostly mine, sadly), we didn't get to go until this weekend. He chose a cute little B&B with individual cabins, in Fredericksburg, TX. Unfortunately, we waited a little too long to leave on Friday, so it took longer than it should have to get there. But, we picked up our keys and went to find some dinner. The food (and the beer!) at the Fredericksburg Brewing Company was just what we needed (maybe too much!), and John picked up a t-shirt that turned out to be perfect for our Saturday adventure. After dinner we went back and found our cabin at Barons Creekside . It was adorable! The cabin was originally built in Kentucky and brought to Fredericksburg. From what we could tell, it was sort of split in half, and they put the kitchen and bathroom area in the middle, between the living room and the bedroom. But it was just enough space for us. :) Saturday morning we got up relatively early and set...

Wow, it's been a year since I blogged here. But it's hard to describe a week-long trip abroad in short snippets on facebook, so I thought I'd write it out. I left on Saturday, June 25. John was nice enough to drive me to the airport for my 6am flight to Newark. (oy, I'm never doing that again!) Then I had five hours to sit around the airport to wait for my flight to Stuttgart. I watched a movie on Netflix ( TiMER ), watched some Wimbledon tennis in the Heineken bar, and even got a little work done. The plane was mostly full of Germans. There was one poor German woman on the plane whose son didn’t board in Newark… she cried half way across the ocean. (But he’s 24… he can probably deal.) I didn’t sleep much at all on the plane. I watched Rango during/after dinner, and then tried to sleep but couldn’t… and then with two hours left (at 5am), the guy behind me decided to play some kind of game on the screen on the back of my seat. UGH. No matter how many times I turned ...

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!)

I'm pleased to report that a) it's been sunny in London (doh! I probably just jinxed us!) and b) we've really had a blast in the past two and a half days. We arrived on Wednesday morning. It's chilly, but not nearly as cold as it was last year. Or maybe I'm a lot less cold because I brought my super-warm wool coat this year! We hung out in the apartment for a bit, and then Bryan and I went out to find some lunch. Then it was naptime. Wednesday is also the customary trip to TESCO to stock up on groceries. We stopped at a pub for dinner - had to have fish 'n' chips! - and then went shopping. Prices seem reasonable when you look at the number in pounds sterling... then you do the math and realize that it's $1.65 to the pound. (Which is actually better than it used to be!) Mostly we need breakfast food. Thanksgiving Thursday, Mom, Dad and I went to the antiques market at Spittalfields . Many of the people in the shops wished us a Happy Thanksgiving. W...

I thought I might be able to post more often while I was in Portland, but that just wasn't to be. Here's a quick synopsis. Sunday was spent at the Convention Center, putting up posters in the TACC booth. We had our share of surprises, successes and snafus, but for the most part, our booth was lovely (bigger than we've ever had) and very successful . Sunday night, mom and I went to the Intel welcome party at the Portland Art Museum . (Apparently I didn't miss very much at the craft market.) The food was very good, we ran into a lot of people we knew and had some lovely conversations, and they gave out nice fleece jackets as a parting gift. My only complaint was that we didn't get to see the rest of the museum. That was kind of a bummer. Monday, I moved to the Governor hotel where the rest of the TACCsters were already encamped. After staying in the tiny room with my mom for the weekend, it was a pleasure to have a nice big room on the top floor, complete with fi...

(I mean the one in Oregon.... apparently there are a lot of other Portlands around the USA!) Today was filled with dining and shopping and football-watching. But let me start with last night's dinner, which was excellent. The front desk person at the hotel recommended a restaurant up the street called Southpark . I admit, I had visions of Stan, Kyle and Cartman at first, but it's actually a seafood restaurant with a distinctly Mediterranean flair. I forgot that it was a Friday night at 7:30pm... the place was packed. I ended up sitting at the bar in the Wine Bar section of the restaurant. It was very nice. I had a glass of Apolloni Pinot Grigio, and a small-ish dinner (it was already almost 10pm for me by then) of warm flatbreads with hummus, and the Pacific Northwest version of crabcakes. I was starving. Everything was very tasty, and the bartenders were really nice (one had even grown up in DC!), but between the time difference and the wine, I was starting to fade. ...

(I refuse to use Larry the Cable guy's catchphrase. Bleh.) This weekend, I managed to finish a bunch of things that were just sort of hanging around in limbo. For starters, I finally completed the crochet caterpillar for Nicky W. I'm hoping to get to the post office on Tuesday to ship it off to Boston. I also finished re-installing (mostly) my printer/copier/scanner so I could use it to scan photos and such. (see photo, right --> ) More of those will be posted shortly. There are so many to choose from! And, I cleared out a ton of cardboard boxes that have been filling my garage... I need the space -- my new B&D electric mower is coming on Thursday! (it's so cute!) There are so many things I can get done outside, now that it's not going to be 104 degrees every day. I also started a few new things - a new pot of basil is growing, some new parsley seedlings are peeking out, and I made an apple granola crumbly-thing for breakfasts this week. I'm sure this bu...

A big ol' thank you to Auntie M, for the bounty of housewarming goodies I found when I got back from DC. In no particular order: serving plates, a turkey baster, loaf pan, giant knitting needles, decorative glass bottles, cheese spreaders, tomato saver, and 'Auntie Sam' poster. phew!

Ryan got us tickets right behind home plate! So what if the Nats could be handed loss #100 tonight... it's a nice place.

(Image taken from treppenwitz, created by his wife Zahava)

(and our nation's Capitol!)