Busy Week

So, the past week has felt like a whirlwind. I have been so busy!! Here's what's up:

-- The Marriage Seminar that I'm helping our pastor with really got rolling this week...and it's NEXT weekend! Yikes! I'm a planner and waiting until the last minute isn't my style. I did all I could earlier on, but some things are out of my control. Anyway, we had one and then a second facility fall through. One of the downfalls of being a new church without our own facility. I've made tons of phone calls and sent lots of emails trying to find another location - this wasn't even supposed to be one of my responsibilities. Anyway, it looks like we've found something. I hope so!

-- I'm also in full swing with my leadership role in the Kids Ministry. I thought it would only take a tiny bit of time each month, but sending out emails can really add up and there are always more to send than I originally anticipate!

-- I began training for a half-marathon this week. There used to be one at the end of January, but I haven't been able to verify that it's happening in 2009. I hope so, but I'm starting to train anyway, because it's time. My friend Mindy is planning to train with me, which makes is so much easier to stick to it. I SO need to get back on a consistent work-out schedule and this should help. I may begin blogging my weekly schedule like I did for the 15k last year...it helps me stay on track!

-- Friday night, Halloween, I went to dinner with my friend, Mindy. We were lame and did not do the whole Halloween thing. It's never been one of my favorite holidays - maybe if I had kids or even trick-or-treaters! But, the pressure of finding a good costume is just too stressful for me! I don't enjoy it. I had been invited to go w/ some friends to a Halloween party. They sent me the invite and, randomly, the party was also a b-day party for a guy from Columbia, MO....the town I grew up in. I've never met the guy, but know who he is and knew his wife back in the day. Small world, again!! Anyway, Mindy and I debated for 48 hours about going to the party and even went to a costume store before dinner that night. Dinner was yummy and fun -- at a Greek restaurant on the UES. Afterwards, we were full and tired, and didn't want to pay the $30 for the cover at the party. So, we went to Mindy's and watched a movie. It was actually a really fun night...the kind of Halloween I prefer!

-- Saturday was a church members brunch, followed by Kids Teacher's training. Afterwards, I went shoe shopping. I got some casual brown winter boots and am still on the lookout for black ones! My brown and black leather boots from last year are still in good shape...if I can get casual ones, too, I can just wear boots all winter long!

-- Saturday night, I kept up with the MU/Baylor game on my computer. I was proud of BU for doing so well, but really would have preferred the game not be quite that close, for Mizzou's sake! Then, I watched parts of the UT/Tech game!! What a game! I have loyalties to all the Texas schools, so it's not always easy to choose. Two of my grandparents went to Texas and all my aunts/uncles (which is only 3), went to Tech! For this game, I was cheering for Tech since they're the underdog and it seemed better for Mizzou. Tech pulled it off in the nick of time and it was SO exciting!!

-- Sunday I did double-duty at church. Babysat in the early hour, then taught Sunday School during church. I am loving my little 1st-3rd grade girls (we currently have no boys). They are so spunky and SMART! We played a game reviewing some stories from the past month or so and they remembered much more than I expected! They know who Elijah, David, Samuel, and Jeremiah are, among others!! I was happy and impressed!

-- I was sort of stuck on the UES after church because of the NYC marathon. I walked over to watch for a bit, and then ended up walking alongside it for a very, very long time until I could get across town to a subway. It was slightly annoying, but it was also fun to watch the runners. So inspiring!

-- Sunday afternoon, I went to a Cowboy's watch-party with all the Texas schools. Baylor hosted it at our game watching bar and we had a pretty good turn out. It was fun!

--Tuesday, election day! I already blogged about my voting experience. After work, I went to get my free Ben & Jerry's! From there, I headed out to check out Election Plaza at Rockefeller Center. It was so exciting over there!! I went back on Wednesday so that I could see the map on the ice rink with all the states colored in. I watched the results come in at Christina's apartment. I left around 10, I think, when there was no longer hope that McCain could pull it off. I think they declared the winner while I was making the trek across town...cars were going crazy honking their horns. I saw an old man yell at a young Jewish boy wearing a McCain t-shirt. It was so mean and unnecessary...especially at that point when we all knew Obama was the winner. The old man, who I believe was also Jewish yelled at the boy "You've GOT to be kidding me". Then turned to his friends and said, "THAT boy is wearing a McCain t-shirt and he has a yamica on", in clear disgust. I don't understand why all these people are so rude and in-your-face! By the time I got home, I had a splitting headache and went straight to bed. After 1am, I was awoken to what sounded like a large crowd of people celebrating. I have no idea where they were, but I think people were out in the streets partying all night long.

Rockefeller Center...at the bottom you can see that

McCain/Obama still each had 0 electoral vote...they

worked their way up to the "270" higher on the building.

The Map of the USA on the ice skating rink,

before any states were colored in.

The map after it's almost all filled in (just NC remaining...

I guess they called Missouri and then retracted it. All

the other maps still have it greyed out today)

I have been really proud of the way most of my fellow Republicans have handled the loss...including McCain. Not Obama-bashing or hatin', but instead vowing to respect and prayerfully support our President even if his morals and values are far different. I am personally on day 2 of praying for Obama for 77 days until he is inaugurated.

-- Wednesday night, I tried a new restaurant with my friend Lucy. She's so cute and we have some similar interests, so I'm looking forward to hanging out with her more. We went to Bar Boulud. A French restaurant owned by a man who has another very well-known, exclusive restaurant called Daniel. This restaurant wasn't as expensive as Daniel is. It was good - interesting food and fun to try, but I'm not sure I'd go back.

I guess that's about it! I feel like I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut-off. I fielded church related emails all day long today...while at work. Got to figure out how to get my priorities straight there!

I voted today, and cast my vote based on Ecclesiastes 10:2:

The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.

Okay, kidding. But, I do like to think that God has a sense of humor, too! So, my voting experience was funny!!! My friends were not kidding when they said the machines here are OLD. Oh, my gosh. It was huge and involved pulling big levers and such. I felt like I’d been transported to Price is Right in the 1950’s. I couldn’t stop laughing when I was in there and wanted so badly to pull out my camera, but I was afraid that would get me in trouble. I found a pic of a similar one online.

See that red handle?? You have to use both hands to pull it all the way across the machine before you start and then back across when you are done. There are little lever things up top to turn next to each candidate you vote for.
So, I wasn’t really harassed for being a Republican. My card says I’m a Republican and the guy who checked me in read it and said “Oh, so you’re a Republican, eh”? Not necessarily harassment, but probably an unnecessary comment. I've decided that New Yorkers aren't just Democrats, they're ignorant!! The other day, I was behind two old women on the bus. They were chit-chatting and one of the ladies said to the other:

"I was walking down the street the other day and I saw a man wearing a John McCain t-shirt! A REPUBLICAN! Right HERE on the Upper West Side, I saw a REPUBLICAN." I was tempted to speak up and say "I'm a republican, too. And so is all of my family and the majority of my friends!" I felt like they needed to be educated that we not only exist, but there are a whole lot of us!!

Best part of voting? It took only about 10 minutes!!! Hardly any line at all! Worst part?? I didn't get a sticker!! I didn't even see them there or think about it until I got back to work. In fact, I haven't seen one all day. Do they not do that in NYC??

White House, Here We Come!

Brian has a work conference in DC next weekend and I am taking a bus down to hang out with him and Beth. Following is an email we got from the White House this week. Anna, who is mentioned in the email, is a babysitter for Ryder and Beau. She's an SMU student who interned at the White House and got us the ultimate hook-up!! (I've deleted any private information from the email).

Anna has told me that if I do not get you all into the West Wing she will no longer be friend so because of the fact that she is such a stellar person I have cleared my calendar to give you all a personal tour of the West Wing Saturday November 8, 2008 at 2:00 PM

Please arrive at __________ and ________ no earlier than 2 (no need to be early arriving at 2 is perfect). Show your IDs to the agent and he will let you in. Please call my cell at ______ when you arrive and I will come out and meet you at the second entry gate.

You must have your ID to enter.

The dress is business casual (no jeans, t shirts, flip flops, shorts etc.) cameras are permitted for pictures outside the West Wing.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Mr. __________
The White House
Office of Legislative Affairs

I am so excited!!!

Working for the Weekend...

Last weekend was spent helping others! It’s nice to do that occasionally, and I really should be able to do it more often! On Saturday, I spent the day at my friend Christina’s apartment. She moved recently into an apartment where every inch of the walls was covered in wallpaper. From the description, I thought the wallpaper was going to be awful, but it wasn't that bad, just a bit overwhelming. She is stripping the wallpaper and painting. We spent Saturday trying to get leftover wallpaper glue off the walls – not an easy task! By the time I left, we’d switched our method numerous times and had decided that scrubbing the walls with a very wet sponge seemed to be easiest and work well. I like doing big projects like that and it’s definitely more fun when you have someone to chat with while working.

On Sunday, I got to go to the coolest place! It is called the Bowery Mission’s Women’s Center. It is a home occupying an entire Brownstone on the Upper East Side and is for women who have been homeless and had chemical dependencies. The home was so awesome – it felt just like a house and was big and decorated nice. I cooked dinner in their awesome chef’s kitchen with 6 other girls from church. It was so fun! We made chicken enchiladas, black bean soup, and homemade salsa with chips (can you tell we’re almost all from Texas?) I was mainly in charge of the soup – it was a huge task as we were quadrupling the recipe. Tons of chopping was involved and we were working with pretty dull knives. By the time I finished cutting my 4th onion, I had to call for reinforcement. Some of the other girls each took a different veggie and before I knew it, they had chopped celery, zucchini, and green peppers while I chopped 16 cloves of garlic…by hand. Yeah, my hands smelled like garlic for at least 48 hours and I was even wearing gloves!! Then, I stood over the stove for 30 minutes watching the soup cook while I also cooked rice to serve with the soup. I woke up several times that night because I could still smell the soup…I think it was in every pore in my body and in my hair! I could smell it all the next day, too – after showering! Crazy. It was a great time, though. We got to eat dinner with the 21 ladies who live in the house – they were so cute and nice! I’ve been learning a lot about how I judge people by their looks and am finding out that I am often so, so wrong. These ladies looked very nice, were dressed well, spoke professionally, and were so sweet. If I had met them somewhere else, I never would have guessed that they were living in a home like this. It was a really neat experience!

I got to try 2 fun new restaurants this week. Tonya was in town for work again, so I met up with her on Monday night for dinner. We went down to the East Village – I really need to explore this area more often. It is so interesting, great people watching, and lots of restaurants to investigate! Our destination was Caracas, a Venezuelan Arepas bar. Tonya had seen it a while back on Bobby Flay’s Throwdown. It was great! A cute, tiny restaurant with very good food and great service. The wait was longer than they anticipated, so they gave us a free appetizer – their famous plantain/taro chips with their awesome guac. We split 3 different arepas that were all really good. I’d love to go back here sometime!

On Wednesday, I had book club and we met at Sala, a Spanish Tapas restaurant near Union Square. It was also a very fun restaurant with good food. We split about 5 different tapas, all of which were great, but my favorite was the Ham & Brie on toast. For our book, we read “Thousand Splendid Suns.” It was so good. Towards the end, I just couldn’t put the book down and ended up staying up really late 2 nights in a row to finish it. It is a really sad, awful story though, so don’t read it if that will bother you (Nicole...)!

To Vote or Not to Vote

Some of you are going to want to crawl through the computer and shake me silly when I say this....but, I've seriously thought about not voting next week. Why?

1) Just like I knew when voting in Texas, I know in New York who will win the Presidential election. I feel like my vote is pointless/worthless. I know there are probably other city/state campaigns that may be closer races that I should want to have a voice in, but honestly I don't have a clue what those are and can't seem to get interested enough to find out.

2) I feel irresponsibly clueless about even the Presidential nominees and the issues at stake. I need to educate myself better to feel confident in who I'm voting for. My sister DID come through her computer and shake me silly the other day when my mom mentioned to her that I mentioned to my mom that I might not vote. After listening to my mom and to Beth and then sitting at a dinner table in NYC with 5 republicans last night (not a common occurence in NYC, I assure you...but maybe it doesn't count since we're all Texas born & bred), I feel more confident about my vote...and like I've been brought back to my senses a little. However, I still feel bad that I haven't spent more time reading up on things myself and verifying the accuracy of those things (because I feel like almost everything in the media, on the internet, or in emails is distorted).

3) I have had 2 separate friends who do not know each other at all tell me the exact same nightmare of a story from their voting experiences 4 years ago. They are both Republicans and both had almost identical humiliating voting experiences. I preface this by saying that I have heard that the NYC voting booths are extremely old. My 2 friends each went into their voting location (on separate ends of Manhattan, mind you), came up to the desk and they were asked which ticket they would be voting. "Republican" was their answer. Then, they went into the little booth which was now supposed to be set to the Republican ticket. They scan the ballot and realize that it's all democrats on there. So, they poke their head out to alert the voting volunteers. At this point, the volunteers FREAK out and act like they are seeing an alien or something. Then, they proceed to exclaim things like "You're really a Republican!" OR "I've never met a Republican before!" OR "Really? You are the only one we've had today!" At this point, the volunteers are flustered because they don't know how to change the ballot from the Democratic ticket to the Republican ticket. If I vote on Tuesday, I will be confidently voting Republican and do not want to be called out like this. I need to start coming up with some clever comebacks in case I find myself in such a situation.

I will probably end up going on Tuesday, but I cannot say I am really looking forward to it.

Disclaimer: This blog post is in no way supposed to be political. It is only about me voting on Tuesday. Publicizing who I am voting for isn't the point of this post. Neither is convincing you to vote for a certain candidate. Basically, I am NOT here to start a debate. If your vote doesn't align with mine, I'm sure I already know. I'd rather not get comments telling me why you think I'm wrong. I'm probably not voting based on the same criteria anyway.

Celebrity Sightings

Last week I saw 2 celebs while out and about. First, I saw Mariska Hargitay walking down the street. She was in a small pack of people and I knew I recognized her from one of the Law & Order shows, but couldn't remember her name at the time. After passing her, I came upon many filming trucks, so I assume they were filming in the area. I've heard that all the L&O shows film a lot on the Upper West Side, so I may be seeing more of them soon!

The next night, as I ran through Central Park, I saw a huge film set up in Sheep's Meadow (one of the big grassy fields). I decided to walk over after I finished my run to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I couldn't make out who the actors were, but the guy calling all the shots looked like Steven Speilberg! I won't say I'm sure it was him, but I am 99% sure. Exciting!!

Bites by Bitches

I’ve noticed in NYC that ladies just don’t tend to bake and cook as much. I’m sure it has everything to do with the fact that our kitchens our minuscule and we have little room to entertain in our homes and when you’re taking it something somewhere outside of your home, you have to lug it for blocks and onto the subway. The gals in my Community Group take turn bringing snacks each week. Our snacks are almost always just store bought stuff – usually things like cheese, veggies, hummus, cookies etc… I found myself conforming to this pattern and buying my snacks at the store as well. But, this just isn’t my personality!! I love to bake and cook, try new recipes, and brighten people’s day with something I’ve spent time making for them. So, I’ve made the decision that my snacks from here on out will be homemade! This week was my turn and being fall, I decided that pumpkin dip was in order. It is one of my favorite fall recipes – so good and easy to make! I served it with graham sticks and apples. I’d never tried it with apples before, but decided we needed a little something healthy in there. It’s better with the sticks, but apples are a nice addition.

I also tried a new recipe. A recipe that seems to be taking the Southwest by storm. In the past couple of weeks, I keep hearing and reading about these new treats, most of the chatter is coming from Dallas. What is it? Cake Bites. And they are delightful. The recipe I had called for Red Velvet cake mix and chocolate bark. Due to tiny grocery stores in NYC, I couldn’t find that cake mix nor chocolate bark. Luckily, there are endless substitute possibilities. My bites ended up being white chocolate/cream cheese icing bites, dipped in melted chocolate chips. Chocolate chips are not the ideal dipping chocolate, but it worked okay. They were a HUGE hit at CG. So big, that the 7 of us that were there this week are working fast and furiously to create a business so we can sell these things through the Holidays this year. We’re tossing around names for our new company and “Bites by Bitches” is my favorite thus far. Not sure it’s practical, but people would remember it, right?? Anyway, here’s a pic from this week’s batch. I’ve got some work to do on my dipping techniques and there are all kinds of things you can do décor wise. Two girls in my CG are working on prototypes this weekend – can’t wait to see what they come up with!