Yes, I had to be apart from my sweetheart on Valentine’s Day, but I consider that a small sacrifice in exchange for some authentic Louisiana King Cake. I won’t make any comments about how good this particular King Cake was or was not, but let’s just say that Covington has nothing on Lafayette in the King Cake baking department. However, Jonathan didn’t go to Lafayette on business and since beggars can’t be choosers, I may or may not have eaten 3 pieces so far. God Bless Mardi Gras. 
While on our recent ski trip, our friend, Paul, mentioned that he is preparing to climb Mt. Rainer. Part of his training is climbing the 50 flights of stairs in their company’s downtown high-rise. Since I’m often complaining that running on the flat surfaces of Houston leaves my butt looking like its taking a nap, I thought this was a great idea for a workout. When Jonathan had to make a quick run to his office this weekend, I decided to tag along and do some stair-climbing.While we did accomplish climbing up and down 50 flights of stairs (giving my butt a much needed espresso shot), I didn’t realize that by going to Jon’s office I was signing up for a flashback of my 8th grade “take your daughter to work day”.
Now when I say that I married someone just like my father, it’s a bit spooky. While their personalities are quite different, they are both complete dorks when it comes to engineering. They work for the same company and even began in the same position.
Growing up, it was good to see my father truly enjoy his work. He so desperately wanted me to follow in his footsteps and would often take me to his office to show me geological charts and explain engineering techniques. While I could see his fascination with it and I definitely liked the idea of a steady, comfortable salary, math was never one of my favorite subjects which made engineering low on my list of dream jobs.
Seeing Jonathan in his natural habitat, I saw that same enthusiasm as he gave me the tour of his floor and showed me the graphs for his projects. He was like an excited kid on show and tell day. While I am so proud of both my dad and my husband, it’s hard to follow their conversations sometimes. I’ve learned that Jonathan doesn’t expect me to comprehend, but instead just wants me to listen to him talking about work. I really try to act interested, but as in childhood, I was definitely more captivated by the fancy coffee machines and vending machine options in the office than I was with the geological charts.
I think the greatest gift I could have ever given my dad was marrying an engineer. They are truly a match made in in-law heaven.
And it turned out well for me, because feigning interest was definitely worth the stair-workout. My legs shook for the remainder of the day and my calves haven’t been this sore since the long gone days of soccer tournaments. I just need to decide if toned legs are worth the hour long lecture that’s bound to accompany any trip to Jonathan’s office. The goal is to eventually get so toned that he’s too busy staring at my legs to talk about work. If that's the case, I better get to climbin’.
My Mom and dad just shipped us a rocking zebra from Nigeria for our "future nursery". The hints are not so subtle anymore.
After we'd been married a year, the occasional questions about when we were having a baby began. After our second anniversary, they became more persistent. As we approach our fourth anniversary they are straight up making demands for grandchildren. And not just grandchildren. In my mother's words, one grandchild would be great; two granddaughters would be better. I better get to work on conceiving girl twins.No pressure.
Here is a picture of Bailey-girl looking mighty sad that her dad’s suitcase is out. Yes, both of our pups suffer from mild separation anxiety and anytime we start packing, they start moping.When we first rescued Samson, we realized early on that he would cry incessantly anytime we left the house. While we were home, he was surprisingly well-adjusted for a rescue dog (well except for his licking the wall neurosis) so realizing how stressed he was when we left him was really heartbreaking. Bailey’s separation anxiety doesn’t manifest itself quite so cutely but rather usually results in the destruction of walls, furniture, shoes, etc.
Our main form of combat for this condition has been to lather them with toys and treats anytime we leave the house. They are conditioned now to be excited rather than stressed when we leave because during their potty break I will leave an Easter egg hunt assortment of chew toys, rawhides and cheese-whiz Kongs hidden around the house. While they are gathering up the loot, I’m able to sneak off to work unnoticed while they stay occupied right up until naptime. Once we figured out this trick, solving the dogs’ separation anxiety has been simple. I wish it were that easy to cure my own.
Jonathan has had a string of out of town work gigs lately, leaving me quite mopey myself when that suitcase comes out. My cure for loneliness is similar to the dogs as I plan projects and “me” time to distract me from the fact that Jon is gone. This time my treasure hunt of treats has included an at home facial, a new valentine’s day treat recipe from Pinterest (that’s right, he was gone for V-day), two Tom Hanks movies, overdue phone dates with girlfriends and a bottle of wine from the region of South Africa where Jonathan proposed.
That might have provided the necessary remedy had Jonathan been my only good-bye this weekend. Unfortunately, I had other goodbyes on Sunday. My sister and her family are in the process of moving to Gainesville, Florida. She and her boys stopped at my parent’s lake house for the night on their drive out. I drove up to have pizza with my nephews and watch Breaking Dawn: Part 1 with my sis. They left at 8 am the next morning and it was so hard to end my goodbye hugs to each of them.
Usually I don’t say goodbye but rather “I’ll see you soon”. The only problem is that I honestly don’t know when I’ll see them again. They used to live a few hours away from Lake Conroe and so I would see them during my parents’ bi-annual U.S. trips. Now that they are in Florida, I know it won’t be so easy for them to make the trip twice a year.
To make it a bit more uncertain, Jonathan and I will be finding out in two weeks if we’ll be moving ourselves. Since he works for a very global company, we could be relocated anywhere. It’s starting to hit me that my sister will live in Florida, my brother in Texas, my parents in Nigeria, and soon Jonathan and I could possibly be in Asia, South America, Africa, Europe or even Australia. We’ve known for a while that this was a possibility, but as possibility quickly turns into reality, I’m starting to feel a smidge of separation anxiety.
It’s making me reflect a lot on my marriage vows, during which I promised to “live where you live”. Our whole wedding party giggled during that part since at the time Jonathan and I were in the process of moving to Midland, TX from our home in Louisiana, and I was not too thrilled about the change.
Looking back, the move solidified our relationship more than any other experience and it taught me that as long as I have my husband and my sweet pups, it doesn’t matter where I live. Even though it hurts and can be frustrating to be so far away from my friends and family, Jonathan is the one person that I absolutely refuse to be separated from. So if that means moving anywhere (other than Midland, TX), sign me up.
Last week I found a simple and cute recipe for Valentine ’s Day treats that I wanted to try. I knew instantly that it had the makings of a winning recipe because it a) had only 3 ingredients and b) involved melting chocolate. The three ingredients are square pretzels, Hershey’s hugs and valentine’s colored m&ms. Now I also love recipes like this because there are innumerous combinations to try. For instance, you could easily use dark chocolate Hershey’s with peanut m&ms. Or milk chocolate Hershey’s with plain m&ms.
Making them was seriously easy and therapeutic. I just turned on a Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds concert on TV and went to work. First you line a cookie sheet with wax paper and line up your square pretzels. Since I’m a perfectionist, I only used the unbroken pretzel pieces which meant Samson and Bailey reaped the benefits of this particular neurosis by eating broken pretzels for dinner. Once the pretzels are lined up start topping each of them with a Hershey’s hugs/kiss. 
While you’re doing this, preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Put the pretzels into the oven for 5 minutes. You don’t want the kisses to completely melt and they should still maintain some of their shape. Once they are out of the oven, smoosh the chocolate down by placing an m&m in the center.
Place the concoction in the fridge for about 10 minutes until they cool and then place in an airtight container. Viola: easy, adorable, delicious Valentine’s Day treats. You’re welcome, coworkers! 
And of course, these could easily be adapted to Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Mardi Gras, etc. simply by switching up the colors. See, endless possibilities! 
For example: This past Monday I took the day off to recuperate from my weekend skiing injuries and decided to use the time off to unpack and do about 15 loads of laundry. When I went to unload our suitcase, I saw that the zippers were locked together. I found this odd since we’ve never ever ever locked our suitcase before, but of course I still immediately blamed Jonathan. I called him to ask him where the key was and we quickly discovered that it was actually TSA that locked our bags.
Now over the years we have accumulated several hodgepodge suitcases most of which were hand me downs from my parents. This particular bag was one such item and therefore, neither of us had ever laid eyes on a key. I ended up having to wait for Jonathan to get home with his man tools in order to break the locks on our suitcase.
When we opened it we had a nice note from TSA stating that they inspected our bags and they apologize if they had to break our locks. But you know, if your locked bags are chosen for inspection, they really have no choice but to break in.
I totally understand that. Only thing is, our bags weren’t locked for inspection, yet were afterwards since TSA so courteously locked them for us. Therefore our locks still ended up broken. Alanis Morrisette has me permanently confused, but I am pretty sure that this one of those situations where there term “ironic” applies.
Silver lining: I had the perfect excuse not to do laundry and instead stay in bed all day reading Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Thanks TSA!
In the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwelll, I read that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something. Unfortunately, the only things I’ve spent a fraction of that much time on don’t help me to pay the bills. Over the course of my life, I guess I’ve become a a quasi-expert in 4 things: running, soccer, watching Gilmore Girls, and reading.I’ve made great strides in the reading department over the past few months since I set a goal in August to read 2 books a month. For instance, it’s February 10, and I am deliberately stalling the completion of my second February book. Mainly because I don’t have a library card and it’s becoming an expensive hobby. In an effort to cut back on book spending, I started scanning my bookshelves for books I haven’t actually read yet. I uncovered Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte), The Lost Symbol (Dan Brown), CrazyLove (Francis Chan) and Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen). Those four should theoretically keep me busy through April, but I can’t help feeling a bit uninspired by the list.
Other than CrazyLove and Jane Eyre to some extent, I am just not excited about another Dan Brown novel or Water for Elephants. I started reading both of these at some point and ended up getting stuck and moving on to something else. I’m on a streak of really creative, uplifting and beautifully written books and I don’t want to stop following new leads.
Maybe I’ll try reading CrazyLove and Jane Eyre next. The Water for Elephants movie is next on our Netflix queue so I’m hoping the movie will help to spark some interest. I’m actually one of those weird people who prefer to watch a movie before reading the book. In my eyes, the book is always better than the film so you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment to do it the other way around. However, if you watch the movie first, you're excited to uncover more details in the novel, rather than being perpetually disappointed when your favorite bits are left out of the movie version. In fact, that’s why I’m a bit excited to finally read Jane Eyre. I saw the 2011 movie recently and loved its haunting imagery, but definitely wanted more explanation on the love story. Like when I saw The Descendants, though I enjoyed the movie, at the same time I knew the book had to be even better.
As for The Lost Symbol, I’ll admit that there is a time and a place for Dan Brown books. I’m not going to act pretentious and say that I didn’t enjoy The DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons, because I absolutely did. The DaVinci Code actually changed my perspective on a lot of assumptions we make about Jesus based on centuries of unchallenged organized religion. I don’t necessary put any stakes in the theories he presented in the book, but it did make me go “So what if Jesus was married?” and realize that it’s okay to challenge and question even the most accepted religious ideas.
I’m getting off on a tangent, but the point is, maybe I should keep an open mind and give The Lost Symbol another try. I did just order Swamplandia by Karen Russell so I’ll be able to throw in something fresh if I get into a rut.
Also, I previously posted about using novels as a way to learn about geography and travel. I recently bought a book recommendation guide titled: “Book Lust: To Go”. The author, Nancy Pearl, makes reading recommendations based on geographical locations. I think it will be a good resource and help me with the constant nagging question of 'What's next?' in terms of both travel and reading lists.
Last week I also challenged myself to the goal of writing 5,000 words per week. I’ve adjusted this to 20,000 words a month just because it’s easier to keep track of and some weeks I overcompensate while others I’ll lag a bit behind.
Two weeks into February, I’m hovering around 3800 words, so I’m worried that my eyes are bigger than my stomach so to speak. I do find that writing has a snowball effect in that the more I write, the easier it is. Practice makes perfect. Hopefully one day I’ll add writing to a list of things I’m an expert in. At least that has the potential to generate some income.
