Kids play

The boyfriend and I went to dinner last night at a neighborhood Italian place he likes. I'd never been, but it was definitely tasty. Of course, my opinion could be a little biased as I unintentionally skipped lunch yesterday, so I was starv-ing. The place had a few arcade games and after we ate he wanted to play Golden Tee.

As I waited for him to get change, I became intrigued by the Toy Chest game. What kid didn't love that game growing up? I mean you could win an actual toy! I think as a kid I won maybe 2. Well, now I have 3! After about 5, maybe 6 tries I walked away with this:

Southpark came out when I was in high school. At the time, Lufkin didn't get Comedy Central. One of my friend's Aunt would tape a bunch of the shows and then mail them to him and we would all get together and watch. We all adopted characters and had their stickers on our cars, because that's the sort of cool thing we did. It just so happens that mine was Stan, so my new toy is especially appropriate. Plus, the boyfriend liked this option much more than the Longhorn I originally sought.

Hopefully this means I'll have plenty of good luck this week! I could use it, that's for sure.

The Great Apartment Flood of 2011.

Texas experienced some really cold temperatures last week. I believe there were 4 days in a row where Austin didn't get above freezing. Because of this, my apartment complex warned everyone to drip their faucets and keep their apartments at 65 degrees and above. Of course, my stupid upstairs neighbors who I didn't like in the first place, did not do this.

I pull up to my apartment on Thursday evening after work and notice some vans outside of my building. I think oh goodness, someone's pipes have burst. I grab my phone as I go to get out of my car and realize that I've missed a phone call because I had my phone on silent. The phone call was from my apartment complex. This can't be good. I listen to the voicemail and I'm informed that my apartment has taken on some water damage. I call back to talk to the manager but no one answered. I decide to go see for myself.

I walk into my apartment and most of my living room furniture is shoved into my laundry room and my entry way. There are two guys with a machine that is extracting water from my floor. I walk into my kitchen to see three giant holes in my ceiling. Oh, boy.

The fans have been going to dry out my carpet since Thursday night. They are hoping that the carpet will be dry today and that the pipes in the ceiling will also be dry. From there they will have to repair the dry wall and then repaint. It will be most likely Wednesday, at the earliest, before I can get back in my apartment.

Thankfully, my apartment requires renters' insurance. There are three pieces of furniture (all my Ganny's antiques) that took on a LOT of water. Fortunately, they're antiques, so they may survive. I have to wait for them to dry before those assessments can be made. I'm hoping my television was damaged because it's really old, I'd like a new one.

The boyfriend has been nice enough to let me and the CAts crash at his place. He also cooked dinner for me the night of the flood AND got me a present (both of these were planned before the flood). Too bad the present makes me think we should break up. Just kidding...

My "holey" kitchen 

Dining room/living room water damage



Side wall damage

 My yummy post-flood dinner!

And my present: a Snuggie. Obvs the boyfriend didn't realize I was serious with my anti-snuggie rants. After all, it's just a backwards robe! And to top it off, it's not even that soft. Present fail.

Resolutions, Month 2

January's resolution was to run at least once a week. I'm happy to report that this goal was met! Sometimes I even ran more than once a week. I plan to keep this one up. It's a Session must.

February's resolution: no fast food.

This is a two-parter:
1) No fast food will lead to (hopefully) healthier eating choices.
2) No fast food will lead to spending less money on meals.

I'm super jealous of everyone who has gotten snow days this week. We've had the bitter cold, but absolutely zero precipitation. I'm tempted to get a few buckets of water and ice the roads myself.

That's how I roll...

Did you know that my nephew is a baby genius? Of course you did, because he's related to me, right? Check out his new trick:

Yep, my 1 month old nephew rolled over last night. Not once, but twice. So that means it's for real. And that he's super smart. And don't you love his rockstar hair? It's all natural, with no product. Ryan Cabrera is super jealous.

What's for dinner?

I cooked dinner last night. That's the second time this year! I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of impressed with myself. Plus, it was very tasty. I made southwestern chicken in the slow-cooker (love, love, love the slow- cooker), a salad, rolls, and picked up angel food cake and mixed berries for dessert.

There was improvement from the last meal because I didn't have to consult with anyone on how to do anything this time. That might have something to do with the level of difficulty of this meal (it wasn't), but improvement is improvement. Who knows, next month I might cook 3 times and may even venture out of the slow-cooker realm! Baby steps....

Six degrees of Lufkin.

I have long known that Lufkin is everywhere. For a small town, it gets around. It's very rare to meet anyone (at least in Texas) that doesn't know of the place or know someone from there. And you'd never believe how many people I've run into OUT of state that have some tie to Lufkin.

Last night I attended a happy hour for Junior League provisional members. I am a member of the largest provisional class the Junior League of Austin has ever had, there's more than 200 of us. So needless to say, I don't know everyone.

I sit down at the table and start talking to the girl that's sitting next to me. We are having the standard "get to know you" conversation, as we haven't crossed paths thus far in our provisional year. She's telling me about how she actually works in College Station at Texas A&M and her husband is enrolled in the MBA program at UT. Right now she stays with one of her best friend's in College Station three nights a week and is back home in Austin for the weekend. She asks me what I do for a living and I tell her I work at the Capitol. She then asked the question which almost always immediately follows, "Did you go to UT?" I tell her no, I went to SFA and that I'm originally from Lufkin. She then tells me that the best friend she stays with in College Station is marrying a guy from Lufkin, and maybe I know him? It is at that point that we discover that not only do I know the guy, but my twin brother is a groomsman in the wedding (and she's a bridesmaid)!

Talk about a small world. We go on to discuss this for a bit. I warn her about one of the other groomsmen (Jesse), and she tells me oh, yeah, she's heard. It's her responsibility to keep said groomsman away from the microphone because at the last wedding he gave a toast that was just senseless rambling. Yep, that was at my twin brother's wedding. And to tell another quick funny story, the bride and groom numbered their response cards so it would be easier to match up the responses. Jesse's card was #14. On his reply card, he listed the top ten reasons why he should be in the top ten. I would LOVE to see that.

My fortune.

We had chinese for lunch today and I just couldn't resist sharing my fortune. My apologies for the cheese factor.