An interesting turn of events...

*WARNING: Political Blog - Proceed at your own risk*

A woman? 44 years old? Alaska (aka oil fields)?

Touche John McCain....a very bold move. I must do more research on Sarah Palin. What are her stances on certain issues.

Interesting, McCain. I never saw this coming!

I have to admit, this has been the most interesting presidential race I can remember.

Creative Juices

My blood is starting to boil – I feel a project coming on. I’m sick of house projects, and my pocket book can’t afford them right now, so that nixes that idea. Instead, after hours of flipping through Flickr photos on random sites, I think I need a photo walk (is that the right terminology oh great Flickr Photogs?).

I’m headed to Fredericksburg on Saturday, which should offer up plenty of photography opportunities (let’s hope). I should really start taking more photos around the house and start playing with lighting, etc.

Ashley turned me on to a website: dooce.com. Aside from her witty humor, this woman takes THE best photos of her dog, Chuck, that I have ever seen. That dog has the most patience I’ve ever seen. And, oh to have these candid shots hanging around your house. It’d be awesome! Of course, every time I even approach Sonny with the camera he gets so excited he can hardly sit still. Therefore, I end up with blurred pictures or a gigantic nose close up.

Nevertheless, I am determined to take more pics, if only so that I can start framing most of them to put on my walls. Which leads me to another point.

I’ve started to resent commercial décor. Specifically, wall art. I’ve been up and down the rows of pictures and artwork. I’ve looked at every sconce in most large retailer stores. I’ve eyed a few sculpted pieces of art work that would add ‘character’ to my wall, but alas, I can’t bring myself to buy anything. Unless the piece has meaning to me, I can’t see why I would want to hang that in my house.

I want to be able to look at each piece and say “That reminds me of….”

All this being said, I’m eagerly looking forward to this weekend!

Widgets

I've reinstalled my Flickr badge on my sidebar! whew! And, I've uploaded Desmond's 1st Bday pics. I had to pick and choose, many of my shots came out blurry - argh! Low lighting on my part, sorry guys!

I also tried to reinstall the Netflix Widget my bro created - the one I prefer. However, something is jacked when I put in my RSS feed and his widget is not working (at least for me). Bro, if you're reading this. Help a sista out? I'm currently using one from Adaptive Blue, when I'd much rather be using one by jforsythe. :)

Drama Queen

I overreacted. About my eye. Okay? I apologize now to all who were at my house over the weekend.

I saw the doctor this morning. Apparently the silicon contacts he prescribed me become extremely dry at night (something I've been dealing with) and I've managed to pull off some cells on my eye (ew is right). So therefore, it was irritated.

I could of sworn it was pink eye, except for the nasty puss part. Ew, I hate that word.

Sorry everyone, I tend to lean towards the drama! ha!

M.I.S.E.R.A.B.L.E.

To all who were at my house over the weekend, I pose a question. Has your son/daughter/spouse/friend/mother/father/etc. recently had a case of the pink eye?
OR
Do you/they know of someone who has had pink eye lately?

I ask this question for one reason and one reason alone. I've caught something. In my eye. Go figure.

It's swollen. Red. 1/2 the size of my right eye. Red. Watery. And red.

It's causing a chain reaction of issues from my shoulders up (super headache, runny nose, etc.).

I've got an eye doctor appt at 8am tomorrow. Quite frankly, I'm sick of seeing my optometrist. I only recently worked out my new prescription.

1691

That's the number of miles Jeff and I drove from San Francisco to San Antonio.

28

The number of hours it took for us to drive it straight - stops included.

9

Unfortunately, the number of hours left until I have to go back to work.

2

The number of exhausted people in my household fixing to get some shut eye.

Day Three: Fisherman's Wharf

Today was our last day in San Francisco. Jeff and I wanted to take some pics around the wharf area and J.R. and Ashley needed to run some errands, so we split our separate ways and decided to meet up later for dinner.

This was going to be a test on how well Jeff and I could find our way around on the public transportation system. I'll admit, that because I did not grow using public transporation, it always intimidates me. But, I set my mind to it today and found it very easy. I mean, if drunken bums can find their way around on the MUNI, I guess I can to.

We took the MUNI bus from Noe Valley down to the Castro district. We then went underground and took the subway system down to the Embarcadero. We walked around the Pier 39 area for a few areas and took the MUNI back to the Castro district where we grabbed some lunch.

We had a bbq outisde on JR and Ashley's great looking patio - they've done a fantastic job renovating the back yard. It's awesome!

Now, it's time to pack and hit the sheets early. We're gonna try to roll out of here @ 4am. We'll be losing 2 hours on the trek back to Texas. Pray for Jeff and I that we don't kill each other on the ride home! ha!

Check out my Flickr site.

Karaoke @ Yet Wah

Oh My Goodness! What almost ended up as a night of ordering in took a completely different direction when we finally decided to go eat Chinese food at a local restaurant Ashley & J.R. have been to before, Yet Wah.

After many a mai-tai and some Tsing Tao, we decided to go watch the karaoke that was going on in the bar area. That's when we made the decision to join in - subsequently, J.R added all our names to the karaoke list!

J.R. sang "Green-Eyed Lady"(Sugarloaf), I sang "Maggie May" (Rod Stewart), Jeff sang "You Should Be Dancin'"(BeeGees), and Ashley sang "Sweet Caroline" (Neil Diamond). It was fantastic! But I think we were all trumped by Luis, an asian man wearing a Superman shirt (in which he revealed halfway through his last song) and Stan, another asian man sporting a Metallica shirt. Ahhh....good memories.

Did I mention we were having a good time?

I had a random thought during karaoke. There are are these fantastic athletes half way across the world peforming awesome athletic feats, and here I am, singing karaoke in a dimly lit Chinese restaurant bar in San Francisco, CA. Ahhh... life. It's great.

Day Two: Muir Woods and Muir Beach

We missed seeing Muir Woods on our last trip out to San Francisco. So I had it on the 'tentative' agenda for this round. This morning, after eating a hearty breakfast (lay off me, I'm on vacation) at Kookez on 24th St., we made our way out to the redwoods.


We spent about 2 hours hiking through the forest - the trees were huge, and impossible to capture in one frame on my camera. The day was beautiful with the temperature reaching somewhere in the low '70's, much warmer than the actual city. I loved how the sunlight filtered through the tree canopy.


J.R. and I joked a lot about gnomes. This relates back to our childhood when we watched The Gnome Mobile countless times. If you haven't seen it by now, I'm sorry to say you probably shouldn't. It's one of those movies that must be captured in your youth. Otherwise you're just not going to get it.


After we left Muir Woods, we traveled down (or was it up) to Muir Beach. All I have to say is "WOW" - the views were breathtaking, but the air was quite CRISP! These California beaches are ch-ch-chilly! We then headed to Stinson Beach to catch some grub at a local grill.


I got to test drive my (well, almost mine) 4Runner on the way back - and might I add it was suh-weet! The roads on the way back were extremely curvy! Let's just say I had to have my hands on the 2 and 10 position the entire time.



Now we're back at J.R. and Ashley's and ready to chill for the rest of the evening! Tomorrow, I think we'll head down to the wharf to catch some seafood for lunch and then we want to try to get some great pics of the city for our travel wall back at the house.


Check out my pics of day 2 on my Flickr site and pics from our FREEZING baseball game last night. It's crazy to see people dressed in parkas, scarves and mittens in AUGUST!

Day One: Relaxation, Mission District and SF Giants game

Our first day in San Francisco is coming to an end (well, after the baseball game tonight). The day has been eventful, but relaxing - if that makes any sense!

We started out by walking down to Martha's to grab some coffee on 24th street in Noe Valley where JR and Ashley live. I remember this street well from our last visit in October 2006. Bakeries, boutiques, flower and coffee shops. It screams urban living. My favorite part are the doors to the left or right of each shop that leads upstairs to someone's undoubtedly cute victorian apartment. Dogs are everywhere - tied to leashes outside a bagel shop. I glanced into the Starbucks on our journey and saw two small dogs on their owners laps. It's amazing the tolerance for pets around here - I love it! I did see one sign that said "Absolutely NO DOGS allowed" - judging from their patronage (zero) I'd guess folks don't take too kindly to that sign and I imagine it will be out of businss in the next few months.

On our return to their place, we grabbed Ashley and head to the Mission district to eat at Tartine, a trendy bakery that served tarts, quiches, cookies and Mexican Coca-Cola. We then walked up and down the mission distrcit looking into thrift shops and boutiques. Jeff and I snagged some cool tins to hang on our dining room wall. YES! We are finally going to hang things on the walls!

After we were done shopping we caught some lunch at Papolote on 24th. Back to JR and Ashley's where we crashed!

Next up? San Francisco Giants game tonight! Should be fun. Meanwhile, check out my shots on my Flickr site.

At the LAX

We landed @ LAX around 7:20 PST, only to find out our next flight was delayed 2 hours. I've never switched flights before (wierd, I know) but we managed to find our way onto another flight that was supposed to leave at 7:05 PST but got delayed till 9:10 PST - let's see if we actually get out of here at that time. AND, better yet, let's see if our luggage made the change.

Please let this next flight be quick - and painless.

And We're Off!

Jeff and I are in the airport as I speak (or write). Behold the power of WiFi - gotta love technology. You should see us. Half, eh, maybe 1/3 of us peeps waiting at the gate have laptops, the rest of them are reading good ole fashion magazines. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Jeff loaded my bag (of course) down with about 6 magazines for the ride up high - though he also downloaded some movies for us to watch. I'll let you decide which one we'll probably do. Did I mention how much I love technology?

Of course, considering I got only about 3.5 hours of sleep last night, sleeping on the plane ride seems likely to trump all. Of course, I have to get past that whole 'sleeping on a plane' issue I have, which comes hand-in-hand with my compulsive, controlling, and may I also mention sweet, nature!

Gotta run - must take advantage of this connection!

Next Stop: LAX - cue evil music - and then we're on to SAN FRANISCO! More soon!

Voila!

And we are THROUGH!!! By far the most productive weekend we've had so far. We finished the deck around 1:30 pm today, but I had a few more finishing touches I wanted to add, so we had to run a few errands.

These 'finishing touches' ended up causing the most problems of the entire project! yeesh. I've also taken a picture of the Texas Lilac that my parents gave us around Christmas as PROOF that we finally put it in the ground.

Here's some photos, and check out more on my Flickr site.

Aches and Moans

Wow, it was tough getting out of bed this morning. Jeff fell asleep around 9:30 - cute! And I tried to as well, but oh my goodness, the knots in my upper back had decided otherwise and were giving me a nice ache. I tried to use the super powerful massager we stole from my parents (shhh), but that was almost futile. Eventually I had to take a muscle relaxer that I got from my doctor when I visited him about my back a few months ago.

It was funny (kind of) when we rolled out of bed and both our bodies were popping. Man! We're getting old (and creaky).

Well, I"m off to finish our project. Check back later today for the grand finale!

End of Day 1

We're exhausted. And sunburned. We've finished the flower bed and we've only got a little ways left to go on the deck. It's looking good.

Total trips to Home Depot for day 1? 3.

We've already got an early morning run scheduled for a few more boards and then we are through. hopefully.

Check out more pics on my Flickr site.

Weekend Project #5: The Flower Bed

We spent a good part of an hour at Rainbow Gardens picking out plants for the corner bed. Whew, plants are expensive! I kept everything kind of small so that I can keep cost down, but at the same time, I got all the ones I wanted. I making the flower bed functional, so I bought some herbs (roesemary, oregano and mint! and some catnip for the kitties..). I need some manpower to dig up the dirt and planting shall commence after lunch!

Till then....

Weekend Project #4: The Deck

Here's a status as of noon today.

The deck is coming along. Leveling, the hardest part, is finished. The wood (bought last night) is all ready to go, I think things will start picking up pretty soon.

Trips to Home Depot? 2 so far....

Weekend Warriors

We've got big plans this weekend. I hope we're able to get it all accomplished.

Project #1: Build a deck. We've been wanting to extend our patio to the side fence since we moved in to the house. Our patio is a nice size and there isn't really much to complain about in that area, but there's a wierd space of grass from the patio to the side face that measures maybe 3 ft wide and 7 ft long (give or take a foot) and the space just isn't that functional. So that's why we thought the deck would be a more ideal piece for that area. Plus, we're going to build some benches to add more seating to the area. It should be fun (for Jeff, *snicker, snicker*).

Project #2: Corner Flower Bed. When I had a girls weekend back in June, Jeff dug away some sod so that I could plant a corner flower bed and it's been sitting in the same state ever since. It's time to plant the Texas Lilac my parents gave to us over Christmas and it's time to add more character to the backyard. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to put in there, but a trip to the garden in the morning should open up some ideas.

Project #3: Clean the House. A typical weekend chore, but the house is particularly dirty this week due to poor time management on both our parts. So it's going to take some effort on both our parts to clean up. We've got company this week when Jeff's Aunt Diane from Austin is coming into town with her granddaughter, Nina, to attend Sea World Camp.

This is the only weekend we have to take care of all of this. Next weekend we'll be in San Francisco visiting my bro and Ashley! And the following we're having a birthday party at our place for Desmond! Can't wait! I'll try to post 'AFTER' shots on Sunday.