Man this past weekend was good. So much better than last weekend.

Friday night started out a bit rough. Julie wasn’t in a great mood and we were looking for a Mexican restaurant to eat at. We tried Casa Garcia, but they had a 25 minute wait. No good for our fading child. I suggested Bonitas, but by that point Julie had gone into full-bore pessimist mode. It’s kind of entertaining if you can put up with it. She had decided that there was no way Bonitas had margaritas, it would be broiling hot inside (even though it was less than 80 degrees outside), and they would let her eat her tortillas. Probably the anti-christ would be there too, and the sun would crash into the earth while we were waiting in the parking lot for their 1 hour and 45 minute wait. I just drove over there, because you do have to at least try to get something to eat.

Thankfully, Julie was 100% wrong. The temperature inside was nice. They had margaritas, and the food was great. I love the place because they start you off with 6 salsas and a monkey dish full of pickled vegetables on a double-decker lazy susan with the chips on top.

I gorged myself on chips and assorted Salsas. I tried to give Stella a pickled carrot. No dice. I tried a pickled mushroom. Yum. I gave her control of the monkey dish of pickled foods to root around in. She pulled out some onions and munched happily. Then she pulled out some sort of pepper. I figured that wouldn’t last long, but she took a bite. Then she took another. Then a third. About thirty seconds this look came over her face, and she started looking intensely unhappy. She started crying a little bit and squirming, trying to escape our grasp. I tried to put her on the ground, but she didn’t want that. Eventually we got water and it was clear that the pepper’s heat had caught up with her, and she was expressing herself as best she could. It was pretty comical in retrospect. It’s fun having a kid who can make decisions and learn from them.

We got our food. I the Tacos al pastor. Julie the beef fajitas. Both of us black beans and lime cilantro rice as our sides. Their rice is fantastic. It’s so different from typical Tex-Mex. So light and fresh tasting. Their fajita meat was fantastic. I was eating it plain and while it wasn’t the best cooked meat I’ve ever had, it was the best flavored. It had an actual taste. And my tacos were good too. We all gorged on each other’s food. It was a great meal, and Julie has decided it’s our new Mexican restaurant. Hurray!

On Saturday, we took Stella to get pictures taken. I almost said “made”. Julie is rubbing off on me. Although she says pajamas like me on occasion now too. It was not particularly productive, and we ended up babysitting another child name Jayden (I have no clue how this happened, but suddenly I was taking care of two kids). This picture is my favorite. Very Clint Eastwood:

We went out to lunch with parents at Galaxy Cafe. Then off to mail off the postcards for Slapdash Flimflammery 4 (get your tickets now!). On this trip I was the ass, and we ended up driving down Slaughter, then William Cannon, even though Julie insisted the post office was off 290. Which it was.

Baby being babysitted by grandparents, we decided to drive over to CompUSA to look at laptops. Julie fell in love with an iBook’s software (specifically photobooth), but after a lot of comparisons

I almost got blown away on the way to work today. Barely held onto my umbrella. The rain’s not so bad, but the wind’s wooly. I’ve decided that it’s a good day to listen to the Pet Shop Boys’ Behaviour.

We got the tape for Behaviour originally in the former Soviet Union. It was a bootleg from the black market. Kate, did Slava get that for you? How did it get into our possession?

Don’t worry, though, piracy foes. I’m pretty sure it’s now been been bought by our family several times over. Julie and I alone have both the tape and the CD.

It’s been a week since I posted? That’s just sad. I feel like I’m posting every day. I just don’t get it. So I’m going to do Austin Script Works’ 30/60/90 project. Hopefully, it’ll get me writing.

Last Wednesday I ran the Sunstroke Summer Stampede 5k. My whole fan section came out to cheer me on (Mom, Dad, Stella, and Julie). I thought I’d done horribly, especially since I’d only recently started running regularly again, but the time came in ok. I did 26:37, which looking back at last year’s time is a little slower. I find it frightening how consistent I am at running these 5ks.

So what happened this weekend?

I dunno it was a blur.

Friday, I worked from home. Stella and I got in a lot of quality time, as well as a run. That evening we decided to go check out a mid-century modern home we’d seen advertised. It was actually affordable which was a shock. A cheap MCM home seems to be in the $350-450 range. We checked it out. It had a fantastic living room and kitchen, but the rest of the house was just ok. And there was no garage, which we can’t do. Need somewhere to store the table saw, platforms, and props. We came home and I cooked fajitas for Mom, Dad, Christine, Brian, and Julie. It was a nice evening.

Saturday morning we got up and went over to Erin’s to help her move. This year was not as smooth as last time. Erin was far more prepared, and had pretty much everything packed up, but we only had 6 people, so it took about 3 more trips than last time. We vegged for a little bit and hung out, drinking beer and eating pizza. We got home, and got a shower, then went over and ate some fantastic filet’s that Christine made at my parent’s house. And mushrooms. Even Stella approved, and she’s been a bit finicky lately. Julie went to a theater party (you can see her blog post), and I stayed home and watched some horror movies on Netflix.

Sunday I slept in till 10am with Stella puttering around my prone body. She must have mostly slept or pounded on me, because she only pulled her blocks out. We got up and hurriedly got the house ready for our open house. The roses were blooming for it, so that was nice. We went over to my parent’s house for creamed eggs on toast with Christine, Brian, Katie, Ryan, Mom, Dad, Julie and Stella. It was a nice time. We headed back to our house, where we played with Stella and napped, then over to Anna and Sean’s for movie night. We watched DOA which was great fun. And I had to love a twist that revolved around rival writers. Yeah, a film noir movie about writers. Can’t beat it. Got home, did a bunch more chores and went to bed, where I slept horribly because I’d napped during the day.

I got up and helped to get the house ready, and jumped on the bus to work about 9am. What a weekend. We need a weekend just sitting around soon…

This weekend was a bit stressful.

Our house went up for sale last night. It’s a bit bittersweet. This is the house that Julie and I did so much work on. We bought a table saw and learned how to put in Pergo floors. Travis and I spent weekends knocking out the back patio and building the frame for our wonderful deck. And the entire gang put so much effort into putting on the decking. And of course, Stella came home to this house. And I will always remember lying on the floor of her room sleeping with her on my chest. Breathing in the smell of her hair. It has been a good house. The listing is here. You know you’re curious you Lookey-Lou:

http://www.austinhomesearch.com/ahs/GetResults2New.aspx?id=185807

We have our first showing today at 11:45. I have a feeling it might sell fast.

This weekend was quite a bit of fun. Friday evening we were going to go out to eat as a pre-celebration for Julie’s birthday. But Waterloo south had a 45 minute (!) wait and we didn’t want to even attempt to go downtown where all the bikers were (Republic of Texas rally was downtown this weekend). So we ended up getting a baguette and some beer and eating Chicken Picatta at home. It was a pretty low key night. We watched “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, which Julie hadn’t seen and which was actually somewhat comical. My parent’s used this as an object lesson in obedience and “How to Behave in a Foreign Country” growing up. It was nice to see it as an adult and not take it seriously. And experience someone else seeing that fantastic climax for the first time. Julie was making fun of Doris Day’s casting for the first 3/4 of the movie and when we hit the climax it was sort of like, “Oh, I get it…”

Saturday was a whole bundle of fun. I went running in the morning with Stella. Then we went over to her Baba and Grandaddy’s house and hung out on their porch for a while. Baba dug out a bunch of old wooden blocks for Stella to play with and we just sat out and enjoyed the morning. I ran back over to our house and woke up Julie around 10:30, so she got a nice long sleep on her birthday. We ate some chocolate muffins for breakfast and then headed out to J.C. Penny. Oh, I forgot. We had gone to Kohls the night before to look for a new shirt for Julie for her birthday party and came out empty handed. It wasn’t that nothing fit, so much that everything was just so ugly that you couldn’t get excited about anything. So on Saturday we headed to J.C. Penny at Southpark Meadows. It was as if the gods were smiling upon us. They had tons of nice stuff, Julie tried on a bunch, and stopped trying things on because she had too much, not because there wasn’t anything else to try on. I like having good shopping excursions with Julie. Stella and I played outside the dressing rooms. We’d stolen Julie’s sunglasses and were playing games with those. Stella was also standing on her tip-toes (which I hadn’t seen before), and attempting to do chinups on the shopping cart. We had a lot of fun.

After that we headed out to McKinney state falls to go swimming, but it was closed due to bacteria levels. Bummer. Then we went to Garrison Park to go swimming, but it cost $3 and we only had about 30 more minutes to swim. Bummer. So we went and got snow cones. Stella had her first tastes of snow cone, and I’m proud to say she prefers Root Beer (my flavor) over Black Cherry (Julie’s flavor).

We headed home and went out to an early dinner with my Mom, Dad, Christine, and Brian. At Waterloo South. So Julie got her hamburger. We came home and had Julie’s birthday party. The usual suspects came out and it was a lot of fun.

Sunday, I slept in with Stella until 10:30. Sleeping in with Stella involves me going into her room about 7:30, and lying down on a pillow and a blanket. Stella then proceeds to crawl on me, alternating with dozing off in odd positions for short periods of time. It’s all very cuddly. We got up and cleaned up after the party, and then went out to breakfast at IHOP. We were bad this weekend about eating out.

That afternoon we went swimming at Dittmar pool with Christine and Brian. Stella seemed to enjoy the water, but I think she was overwhelmed by the number of people in the pool (heck, we were overwhelmed by the number of people in the pool). But it was a free pool on a hot summer day. Better get used to it kiddo, that’s the way you’ll be swimming in Austin.

We got home, and I realized that our Realtor was going to be taking pictures of our house and that the lawn was shaggy, so I rushed out and mowed it. I got out of the shower about 5 minutes before he got there. We got our paperwork signed and he mentioned that he thought we had tile in our master bath, and that no one wants carpet in their master bath. We find that argument hard to argue with. It is just too humid in a bathroom to have carpet. So we’re going to go out and pick some tile at lunch today. We’ll get that put in as soon as possible. As long as we don’t sell the house first.

All in all, it’s been a crazy time getting the house ready to market, but we’re definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And it was a great weekend to boot. Stella has really started communicating with us, and really starting to stand up on her own, and toddle around. Plus she’d started using the “No” word. I really don’t like having to go into work these days. I’d much rather sit around and play with her. Ah well, this post is too long. I’ll let you guys know how the tile goes…

“What personal – professional attributes do you think qualify you for this position.”

The fact I don’t reply to spam.

Bill and I being manly at my birthday party. I think this picture alone gives our manliness a +10 modifier. The women swoon. That was a damn fine beer from Bill, and a damn fine birthday.

In other news we finished repainting the orange/cat/guest bathroom last night. It looks nice in a boring white room sort of way. We were both happy that it only needed one coat of paint.

Sometime in the middle of that Al came by to drop off some can lights.

He also dropped off tickets to see him compete in the “Funniest Person in Austin” semi-finals. We’re stoked. We’re going to a Pappa’s based restaurant (we have a gift certificate) and then to see Al on our 8^th wedding anniversary. It’s going to rock. And why are we able to do that?

Because my parents are moving to town this weekend. They’re going to move into an extended stay hotel as they wait for all of their paperwork to go through. They have promised to help us work on the house next week, so hopefully that will enable us to move up our date to get the house on the market. We’ll see. Hopefully there won’t be any patricide or matricide.

about a bike. I got some cash for my birthday and I want to get a bike. I’d prefer to pay less than $100 so I could buy one of those fancy bicycle trailers to tow Stella and groceries around in. Used would be cool, because goodness knows there are a lot of underused bikes out there for sale on craigslist. Anyone have any ideas of what type of bike I should buy?

First off, I’m really excited that Julie has expressed interest in my goofball widgets. I have no clue why I seek validation through coding. Anyway, I’ve created a page with how to put them on your website.

I had a pretty good weekend. I got to play pretty much all of Saturday and Sunday with Stella. Julie had a big honking birthday party for me on Saturday and I got completely soused and received great presents and a Oreo cookie cake. One of my gifts from Ashley and Tarv was a gift certificate to iTunes. Which rocks. I heard they supposedly have DRM free tracks now. Does anyone know how I’d find them? iTunes DRM doesn’t work particularly well with linux. I can always do the whole burn to CD, and then rerip route, but that’s kinda lame, and I want to support a DRM free iTunes.

Stella’s gotten big and silly. She makes all kinds of adult faces now. Plus she’s getting really good at communicating just by pointing. My favor face is when she’s clearly up to mischief and daring you to do something about it.

Ah well, back to the grind. And the repainting of the house so that we can sell it.

I’m not good at free association. Maybe chronological?

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