Husband Stories – I like your hair

I came home last night from getting my hair trimmed and Taylor told me he just loves how flat and stringy my hair is.

He tells me something similar pretty often, and he doesn’t mean it as an insult at all. He really means it looks smooth and straight, but he just doesn’t always use the right words. He particularly doesn’t like how big some girls try to make their hair (we do live in the land of big Texas hair) and prefers a simpler look.

He makes me laugh.

New York City

At the beginning of September I went to New York City for a conference. I was there for about 5 days, and had plenty of time outside of conference sessions for sightseeing. It’s crazy seeing all the stuff on tv about the hurricane damage up there, when I was just there so recently. Even though I feel like an old pro at hurricanes, it’s always surreal seeing other places going through what we’ve gone through a couple times in the past few years.

Anyway.

Going back through my pictures, I realized I didn’t take as many as I normally do. But don’t worry I’ve still got plenty to share. Hope you like pictures of food and drinks.

What to See

Times Square
The conference hotel was right in the middle of Times Square, so it was an awesome location for sightseeing.

It was also excellent for looking down on while drinking (savoring slowly!) the most expensive glass of wine ever( $18!!)

Times Square is also great for people watching. This was Naked Cowboy 2 that we saw. The other one is younger and more attractive, in my opinion.

Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway
This place is awesome with its 18 Miles of Books. They have tons of t-shirts, gifts and tote bags, so it’s also a great place to pick up souvenirs.

9/11 Memorial
Right now since the memorial isn’t finished, you have to reserve a free ticket and go through security to see it, but it’s totally worth the effort. Reserve and print your ticket at home, since I had trouble doing it from the road.

Brooklyn Bridge
I didn’t get many photos this time, since a lot of the walkway was under some kind of construction. This trip was the second time I walked the entire length of the bridge.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Tour
This tour was really great. Reserve your ticket online in advance. We went to the very first tour of the morning, and the lines were short and there weren’t too many people to battle. I think the ticket price was around $17 and included audio tours of both islands. It is well worth the price.

The Chelsea High Line
A friend of the colleague I was traveling with told us about the High Line and we were so  happy to have heard about it. It’s an old rail road line that’s been preserved as a park. The views of the city are beautiful and the high line would be a great place to go on a date or just to hang out for a few hours.

Where to eat

Grimaldi’s Pizza NYC
1 Front Street
We walked all the way from Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge to get to this pizza place. We’d probably have eaten cardboard after the hours we walked, but this pizza was AWESOME! It’s in Brooklyn, just at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Room Service Thai
690 9th Avenue
This wasn’t far from our hotel in Times Square and was delicious. The menus featured room numbers and the feature of the room was a huge crystal chandelier. The picture doesn’t do it justice.

Max Brenner
841 Broadway
Max Brenner’s fame is chocolate, but you’ve got to eat food too, so why not bacon macaroni and cheese?! The best part of traveling with someone else is that you can split and share entrees and dessert.

Banana Split Waffles.

And a White Russian with white chocolate instead of milk.

Junior’s Cheesecake
89 E. 42nd Street
We had breakfast here, no cheesecake.

The Spotted Pig
314 W. 11th Street
This place was really cool. We couldn’t make a reservation, so by the time we got there, the wait was over an hour, but the food was worth it. I had the burger because I’m not always terribly an adventurous eater (although I did try a tiny crunch of my colleague friend’s fried pig ear). The gazpacho made with tomato, purple basil and black mint was  incredible and their truffle deviled eggs, while a bit expensive, were so delicious I’m trying to figure out how to make them at home.

Gaslight
400 W. 14th Street
We stopped here before we walked the High Line. Their pizza and caprese salad, combined with patio dining reminded us of Italy.

See, there was even a statue of David near the restaurant.

Ed’s Chowder House
44 W. 63rd Street (At Empire Hotel)
We stopped here for drinks after my colleague friend finished a super secret photo shoot. It was kind of fun, because fashion week was going on, and a lot of people thought she was a fashion week model! I had the Upper West Apertif – with grey goose vodka, muddled orange, mint leaves and ginger ale.

Takahachi Bakery
25 Murray Street (between Broadway and Church)
This Japanese bakery isn’t far from Battery Park, but it’s not exactly on the way either. Their pastries were delicious.

Celebrity Sightings

One night we met up with one of my friends from college and walked right into Snoop Dogg and his entourage.

One morning instead of getting breakfast in the hotel, I wandered out and saw the Bachelorette.

We also saw Gwen Stefani and No Doubt practicing in Rockefeller Center, but couldn’t get any good pictures. And John Quiniones was a guest speaker at our conference. So the celebrity count was pretty good!

It rained a couple days while we were there, so we didn’t make it to Central Park and a couple other things we planned. I guess that means an excuse for another trip!

The state of the garden August 2012: dismal

So at this point it is safe to say the good stuff of the garden is done. The tomato plant is over all the heat, and the tomatoes that are actually growing are the tiniest things ever, and not even worth eating.

The basil plant is dead, as is the mint. The rosemary (in the background) is actually still trying.

Out of the 15+ onions I planted, only 2 produced the smallest red onions ever. I didn’t take pictures of anything else, but the succulents are still doing well, and the closet plant and the aloe vera just needed some water.

This was a pretty good year for the patio garden. Until next year.

Tales of the floor bed

Alternate title: Tales of the floor bed and other first world problems.

We bought a new mattress about 2 months ago. It is a gloriously comfortable, Simmon’s BeautyRest. With special coils and memory foam.

And better than anything, it is not the cheap mattress, turned back breaker, I bought when I first moved into an apartment by myself more than 6 years ago. (You served your time well cheap mattress.)

We haven’t slept on our new mattress in over 2 weeks.

It’s been hitting 82 degrees most evenings in our apartment since the heat of the summer really set in. We got a little respite from the heat when it rained for a whole week solid. But still, the master bedroom is the farthest away from the air conditioning unit, making it the hottest room in the house.

Luckily, we hadn’t gotten rid of our old mattress yet, so when we figured out the spare bedroom is the coldest room, we decided to pull down the old mattress and make a floor bed.

You see that futon up there. We slept on it a couple nights before we made up the floor bed. It’s actually got some kind of real mattress on it but it’s size makes it either a one night or a one person option.

The apartment management said there isn’t anything they can do even after checking it at least 3 times and recommended we just set our thermostat at 74 to try to maintain some kind of coolness (HAH!) So the air runs all.day.long. and finally shuts off between midnight and 3am. It also doesn’t matter if we do or don’t cook. Or if we do or don’t run the washer and dryer.

And in the mean time, the heat and the Olympics are making us lazier than normal, so all our clean clothes are making good use of the new mattress as a makeshift closet.

Seriously, so ready for the heat to let up.

Meet Me in St. Louis

A few weeks ago I went to St. Louis for  a sorority convention. I didn’t have too much free time, but I was able to see a few things in my spare time. The conference was at the Hyatt at the Arch, so the Gateway Arch was literally right across the street.

I have been to the Gateway Arch 2 other times, once when I was young and in high school, one of our band trips was to St. Louis. I even went up to the top.

I took the Budweiser Brewery tour. The basic tour is free, and at the end you get two free beers. Oddly, also went there on my high school band trip. Did not get to drink the beers then.

 

 

Did a little antique shopping on Cherokee Street.

I met Melissa d’Arabian one of the Next Food Network Star winners. She’s a member of the same sorority and she is super nice.

 

I even got to witness one of the most pathetic pick up attempts in the history of pick up attempts. This guy kept going up to various tables of girls offering things like private jet rides.

Since most of my meals were in the conference hotel, I don’t have too many food recommendations.

Pi Pizzeria I don’t have any pictures of my food from here, but it was awesome. I had a chef’s special with arugula, bacon and some kind of aioli. It was incredible.

The Mud House Is a cute coffee shop on Cherokee Street. Stopped for a break in shopping, so I didn’t have any food, but the decor was really cute, and all the food being brought out looked awesome.

Chili Macs Diner Great place for a cheap, quick breakfast.

The Brewhouse Historical Sports Bar This was one of the restaurants at the hotel. I was hoping to try some local beers, and this place didn’t disappoint. St. Louis has a lot of really great local beers. I recommend the Big Bison Ale.

Our 3rd Anniversary

Actually yesterday was our 3rd anniversary. I didn’t plan a post in advance, and couldn’t post yesterday since we left home at 5:30am to drive an hour and a half to take one of our cars to the dealership. (Don’t ask, major service, hubby who doesn’t trust the NEW local dealership, blah, blah, whatever.) At least we got to see a beautiful sunrise.

After the car was finished, we spent a glorious day in The Woodlands. We met up with my best friend, we ate pizza and had wine with lunch. We shopped for a little while before we could check in to our hotel. (If you ever need a place to stay, the SpringHill Suites in The Woodlands is very nice, and very affordable.)

Part of our (MY) motivation to go to The Woodlands for our anniversary was that the Trader Joe’s opened there last week. My dad’s happy anniversary message to us included a special message to Taylor that basically said “You’ve got it easy if for your anniversary all you have to do is take her to a grocery store.” So true. But Trader Joe’s was awesome, and I only bought like half of all the things. (We only brought a small-ish cooler, so I could had to force some restraint on myself.)

After storing all the goodies in our hotel fridge, we headed to PF Changs for dinner with my best friend, her little boy and her husband. We figured, we can have a quiet dinner alone any time, and we’d honestly enjoy spending the time with friends. When the fortune cookies came, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud because my fortune said

;

We spent the rest of the evening catching up on True Blood and watching various HBO miscellany at the hotel, before turning out the lights.

It was the perfect way to remember our wedding. Three years later, we still laugh together, a lot. This year, things are getting more serious with house buying talks, but we still try to keep things light. We hope we never lose the love and enjoyment we have for each other. I even love that our relationship typically looks a lot more like this

Than this. Here’s to another wonderful year.

State of the garden – 2011 vs 2012

So somehow last summer I missed posting this, so instead of a garden update from last year, I’m changing it to a comparison of this year vs last year, almost exactly to the day too.

Christmas cactus and unidentified succulent. 2011

2012

I really thought the Christmas cactus was a goner after last year but it is doing well.

Tomatoes 2011.

The tomatoes mostly failed last year, except for one plant that produced about 4 tomatoes.

Spinach. Didn’t last very long, not even long enough to make a proper salad. Not attempting this year.

Cilantro 2011- died shortly after this was taken. No attempts this year.

Jalapeno plant 2011. Got infested with some bugs and I didn’t want the infestation to spread to my other stuff so I threw it out. Didn’t buy another this year.

2011. Grew basil from seed. Had way too much until it started to get that chemical-y smell and I tossed it all out. This year I bought a plant instead.

Prayer plant 2011. I didn’t think it was going to make it but it rallied in the past year.

2012

Flapjack 2011. RIP.

Chives 2011. Still kicking it this year.

Lettuce 2011. Died shortly after. Like the spinach, barely enough to make a proper salad.