BeyondExquisite Blogging
12.31.2004
New Year's Eve in Lawrence!!!
My cold and congestion are putting a slight damper on being a celebrant this evening, but we will definitely stay up til midnight and enjoy some wonderful Piper Sonoma bubbley!!! I was amazed to find Piper Sonoma at Linda's Liquors this afternoon. Woo-hoo!
It turns out that MJ & Mark are having almost the same dinner that Wayne & I are having this evening: green chili beef stew and cream cheese roll-ups. MJ's recipe for stew is totally different than mine, but I called her for her roll-up recipe, so we'll be exactly the same on roll-ups.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
12.24.2004
Christmas Eve in Lawrence!!!!
Wow! It is the first Christmas Wayne & I have ever spent somewhere other than Albuquerque! It is kind of unusual to not be putting little brown paper bags with sand and a candle in each one out in front of the house. We are missing our luminarias this year, but we are quite happy just the same. We'll resume that tradition when we have a house of our own to put them out in front of. It's not quite the same in a condo.
Very mellow day, very mellow evening. Gonna go round looking at holiday lights on all the neighborhood homes later on tonight.
Fun fun.
Then wait for Santa....... :)
12.22.2004
We've got some serious winter temps round these parts!! It was only 16 deg today. Yowza!
There's no snow, but it sure does feel like Christmas anyway.
12.05.2004
It's our first holiday season in Lawrence. They put on their annual Christmas parade this Saturday. It was a bit windy, and a bit chilly, but sunny. They call their parade "Old Fashioned". It was all horse-drawn carriages, and people on horseback! I'd never seen a Christmas parade like it in my life. I kind of missed hearing the high school band playing Christmas music, but it was still exciting and made me realize how comfortable we are in our warm little townhouse, especially when the windchill factor is around 21 deg.
Last night, we drove into Kansas City to see the lights in the Country Club Plaza area. It was impresssive. It was also jam-packed with people and cars, as the weather was optimal as it could be on a December night -- 50 deg, very little wind, no precip. We had a nice time walking around checking everything out, after we found parking. Business was booming, and everyone was well-behaved, even though some folks decided to push the envelope for safety, walking in front of cars to cross the street.
We decided to stop at Set Em Up Jacks bar and grill in Lawrence after we got back to town, for a bite to eat. Luckily, they were still serving dinner, and it was just delicious. Unbeknownst to us, it was "kareoke night". It was interesting listening to amateurs singing songs. Some of them were pretty darned good, and some of them were pretty darned bad. By the end of the night, we had a renewed appreciation for professional singers. Our waitress was unsuccessful in trying to persuade us to sing. Maybe if we'd been drinking heavily, she might have gotten us up there, but we tend not to overindulge in alcohol these days. We like to wake up the next morning feeling good. We highly recommend the hot fudge brownie sundae for dessert!
12.02.2004
Re-cutting my haircut.
One of the scariest things about moving to a new town is finding a new hair stylist. I went back to a nice young lady named Keri last Saturday. I asked her not to take more than 1/2 in. off. Somehow she ended up re-styling my hair in layers, with the outer layer a full 3 in. shorter. It was a totally different style than before, but, being artistic in nature myself, I decided to let Keri do her thing. The result was interesting. My bangs slanted sharply from left to right. My hair wouldn't stay parted where she parted it when she cut it, so there were long pieces on the left. The stacking effect just wasn't working.
For 2 days, I wrestled with whether or not I should: A)start hacking on it myself to fix it, B)set another appt with Keri to let her fix it, or C)go to someone else to have it fixed. Good thing I chose B). That was the right thing to do. She was apologetic, fixed it very nicely, and refused to accept anymore $$ for the fix. I'm glad I kept my cool and didn't go off the deep end. My hair just has a mind of it's own, and is really hard for hair stylists to get used to.
I sure do miss my longtime hair stylist in Albuquerque: Leonardo. He is an awesome hair stylist. It will take Keri a couple more appointments to get used to working with my hair, but she'll get the hang of it.
12.01.2004
It's official -- stress is BAD for ya!
One of the objectives I had set for myself when hunting for a new job in our new town was to NOT get a job in I.T., and find something with much LESS stress than I had been dealing with for the past 6 years. I'm happy to say that I was successful in that endeavor.
Coincidentally, I just happened to have the TV on after I got home from work this evening and caught a medical "infobite" presented by Mary Alice Williams on the Discovery Health cable channel. It's now been proven as a scientific fact that excess stress affects cells in the body, prematurely inhibiting their ability to regenerate. The result: ya get older faster!!! Somehow I already knew that, but it was helpful to hear it explained with such matter-of-fact scientific aplomb.
I continue to listen to that little voice inside my head, and follow my gut instincts.
