December 19, 2011

My kind of holiday dinner party:  salad, pizza from Home Slice, wine, and sugar cookies.  Tonight we spent some time with Kate and Kevin to catch up, relax, and see each other before our holiday travels.  After dinner, and while the sugar cookies were baking, we watched Home Alone.  It was so interesting to watch and remember the parts of the movie I always disliked as a kid, the parts that scared me, and the parts I loved.  The movie is a bit ridiculous, but it went well with the evening!  Happiest of holidays to Kate and Kevin!  Thank you both for hosting our relaxing holiday dinner!  

December 18, 2011

Oh Austin, you're so cute:  an Armadillo Christmas Bazaar to showcase the best of Austin's creative talents just in time for holiday shopping.  We dropped in on the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar today to find unique Austin gifts.  Instead of walking out with arms full of goodies, however, I walked out with a list of vendors for future reference.  I was so overwhelmed with the offerings, I couldn't choose between one thing or another.  Instead, I will wait until I move out of this god awful apartment and into something more permanent, so I can develop a decorating style.  The Bazaar offered everything from photo coasters (Fleur de Stone), to wood working (Wolf Sittler), to hand-drawn maps of Texas (Christopher Alan Smith).  All of the booths were so inspirational, I could barely fall asleep as my mind was swirling with decorating ideas for every room in my future house.

December 17, 2011

I haven't been out on the trails since my 50 mile race at the end of October.  With the colder weather, odder hours, and studying for finals, I just haven't been able to get out to the Greenbelt, or any of the other trail systems Austin has to offer.  With finals behind me and a month of relaxation ahead of me, I set out for fifteen miles at the Greenbelt this morning.  As I slide past the "Trail Closed.  No Entry." sign at the Zilker Trailhead, I knew it would be a good, albeit challenging, first run back because the cyclists would be discouraged by the sign I presumed couldn't possibly apply to me.  As I began a warmup trot down the familiar path, the excitement began to bubble.  With the recent rains, I came across plenty of huge puddles, large mud patches, and the like.  With my dearth of trail runs, I also experienced some nearly twisted ankles and had to teach myself how to run trails again.  Running through a nearly deserted Greenbelt was worth it all, however, as I felt as though I was out in the middle of nowhere with no obligations, no appointments to keep, and no deadlines to meet.  This was the kind of Saturday morning I have been missing for weeks.  

December 16, 2011

Tonight was reserved for the true celebration of the end of the semester.  I met up with a handful of friends at TNT, Tacos and Tequila, for some tacos and unique margaritas.  Because I filled upon chips, I settled on a salad for dinner, but had my share of Asian pear margaritas to make the evening sufficiently celebratory.  However, with a long run looming tomorrow morning, I decided to call it a night after dinner.  Little did I know, it was only 9:30 p.m., which I found out only once I got home.  Regardless of my not-so-life of my own party shenanigans, it was a great evening as I was able to see and catch up with my dearest friends.  

December 15, 2011

There is no better way to end finals than with wine, pizza, and gelato.  After deciding an evening out was in order, we consulted my "Restaurants to Try" list and chose Asti Trattoria, a small Italian restaurant in Hyde Park.  It has been on my list for quite some time, so I was excited to check it out.  We were not disappointed in the least.  The waitress helped me pick the perfect wine to go with my tomato soup and margherita pizza.  The soup was fantastic, with dynamic and fresh flavors.  The pizza had a thin, charred crust, and resisted the temptation to become soggy from the moisture of the mozzarella, as margherita pizzas are wont to do.  Although I didn't try Ben's Italian sausage pasta, I took him at his word that it was fantastic.  Dinner was followed by a round of gelato at Dolce Vita, and a longing look into the window of Antonelli's Cheese Shop, all of which made for an evening successful in decompressing the mounted stress from the past few weeks.  Tres bien!