Hooked on Phonics

It rained yesterday and melted some of the snow in Virginia away. An entire world was revealed to me once the snow was gone. Before everything looked the same – white. Now I can see the houses and it makes driving around much more enjoyable. It’s not as cold as I feared it would be either. Overall, a great turn of events for this vacation.

Christmas with the Trone’s was fun – I missed being at home with my family (2 years in a row now I’ve been away!) but I did get some yummy and nice presents and ate some good food.

The best news is that this trip has afforded me lots of time to read – I finished one 270 page book already and just started another this morning. Both are by Tom Robbins and I like them a lot. Woohoo for reading. It’s been over a year since I finished an entire book and it feels good to be back in the swing of reading again. I hope I keep it up when we get back to Austin and have been thinking about how to stick to that resolution of sorts all week.

Considering these thoughts, we had an oddly appropriate conversation after dinner on Christmas discussing how we all learned to read. Was it phonics or simply a visual memory of words? Oddly enough not many of us could even recall how we learned to read (actually only one claimed that they did remember). I just found it funny because I know that most people in the conversation are avid readers and yet I don’t think many of us had ever stopped to think about how we learned this magical talent. I remember how I learned to ride a bike but not read. Such an odd thought to me. Anyway, I’m pretty sure it was phonics and the entire conversation started over one of those pens that kids have now that read the words for them. The idea is that they hear and see the word and will remember it the next time they see it?

Honestly, I’m skeptical. Sound it out, junior. Kkkkkk-aaaaaaa-tttttt – CAT!

There were a lot of great passages in the last book I read but this is my favorite. It’s from Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins:

“Who knows how to make love stay?
1. Tell love you are going to Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
2. Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.”

That’s all for now. Nighty night.

Eating Out = Better than cooking

If you know me at all you know that I LOVE to cook. I have literally only cooked maybe 4 times since we moved over 3 weeks ago. My cousin Molly mentioned that she saw I had been writing a lot of reviews on Yelp and I realized yikes…we’ve been eating out a lot! I counted…We have lived in this house for 2 weeks as of tomorrow and have eaten out 13 times. That’s once a day except for that one day that I made breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t even want to add up my receipts to see the monetary damage we have done. There's also the physical damage to consider – gained about 2 pounds at this point. Is it horrible that I think 2 pounds is good considering the BBQ, burgers, tacos and beer that we have been consuming? I am proud though – I have gone to Weight Watchers two times since moving back and faced the scale. I figure as long as I keep seeing my weight go up I can’t deny it? hahahah…Hopefully this method works when we get back from Virginia and I get off my butt and back on track. I did go jogging this morning…that’s got to count for something…

Tomorrow is my big family Christmas party that happens every year. I’m excited to see everyone and showing Max off to family is always fun...lol. After the party we are having official Christmas gift exchange at my mom’s house in Poteet. The next morning we wake up and drive to San Antonio for official gift exchange at my dad’s in San Antonio. Then (SIGH) we drive back to Austin and Monday morning we leave for Virginia for 2 weeks. I’m DEVASTATED because Clementine has to stay with my dad while we are away. The puppy plane ticket was going to be $300…WTF airlines? The dog rides in a container under a freaking seat where my FEET are supposed to go…how can you charge that much? It’s ridiculous when you think about it…my plane ticket pays for my feet to reside in that area but I have to pay more to not put my feet there? Ugh.

Anyway…signing off for now. Hope everyone has a great weekend and gets their Xmas shopping done!

I <3 Gruene Hall

Last night we went to Gruene Hall (in Gruene, TX) for a singer songwriter night hosted by this artist that I used to like a lot right out of high school. I actually learned about him while interning at a small publicity company in San Marcos, TX. I’m fairly certain that this was actually my very first internship in the music business…the summer after my freshman year of college. In fact, I saw the woman that I interned for at the show and spoke to her briefly. Crazy!

Anyway…so we went to see him (Adam Carroll) and a couple of other guys just swapping off playing their songs to a little crowd in the bar area of the dance hall. It was so fun! Max definitely had a great time as well – it was totally the type of thing that he loves to do. In fact, he bought a CD from each of the 3 guys and is downstairs this morning listening to one of them already. The show was free, the beers were $3 and the place was heated entirely by a wood burning cast iron heater in the middle of the room. The place has aged so perfectly – it’s exactly what I think of when I remember being a kid and going to rodeo dances with my mom, grandma and grandpa. The paint is peeling off the walls, not one single door or window fits in to its frame or can fully close and the main hall has walls made of chicken wire…and everyone likes it just the way it is. In fact, I’m convinced that it actually requires a lot of upkeep because of its age (built in 1878) but they only fix enough to keep it from falling apart. In summary, I love it. I hope we go back regularly…especially once we learn how to dance.

My funny family

I’m already having a blast spending more time with my family. My niece, Sarah, helped us move over the weekend and we had the best sing along to the Taylor Swift CD ever – I’m glad that I have channeled my 15 year old self through that album and can easily identify with Sarah who is 12.

The funniest part of the moving experience with her was when we arrived to the new house. She had already seen pictures and was talking about how much she absolutely LOVED it and once we got here her opinion did not change at all. She claimed the guest bed and bathroom as hers and decorated the bathroom for me. The most hilarious thing she discovered that day was what she called her escape route from upstairs. The living room in this house has a loft area upstairs outside of the master bedroom that will eventually be my full time office when I get a desk. There is a railing that looks down in to the living room and kitchen. While we were up there she said, “Aunt Ashley, I figured out a way for you to sneak out from up here if you ever need to!” Basically, this involved climbing over the railing and walking along the wall upstairs then jumping from the wall to the top of the kitchen cabinets. Once there, you simply walk across the cabinets and climb out the window. Your feet never need to touch the ground! Why I would need this escape route, I did not understand but Max later decided it was in case the stairs were ever on fire. Good job, Sarah!

Next up in the funny family stories is my wonderful mother. I was telling her that I want to go shopping during the day when work isn’t too busy but I’m afraid to get a phone call from a client and it be too loud where I am at the time. She solved this problem right away. I simply need to carry around a large paper bag with me. If someone calls I put the paper bag over my head and tada, the outside noise instantly becomes a less obvious. Genius really…but what would the people at Target think of a person standing with a paper bag on their head? Unfortunately, she did not have an answer for that. ;)

Here are a few pictures of Sarah's escape route and of our house. These are the only two rooms that have furniture and not tons of boxes filling them so until we fix that, this is all you can see.

New House

Working from home

I know that I have much more important things to report on however currently I am most proud of my morning activities. Today is only the second official day working from home and I woke up at 8am, drank coffee and ate breakfast, actually took a shower and put real clothes on (and deodorant!) and am now working. Well…clearly I’m blogging at this exact moment but I am at the desk taking a break from working. I’m so proud of not wearing sweat pants all day.

Though, I did just realize I forgot to brush my teeth. Baby steps people!