Gettin' settled in

The 4th of July weekend finished without much ado.  I feel like we went to the pool here at our complex that Sunday the 5th for some serious relaxation.  Leah may or may not have gone into work.  Your guess is as good as mine.  I know for a fact that she worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Long days and nights at Chuy's Fine Tex-Mex. 

On Monday I had class and then went out to Home Depot for some wood and to get some wood cut. Our bougainvillea has been growing like a weed so I built a small lattice work to hang above it and facilitate it's growth.  So far so good. The cut wood was for a shoe rack per Leah's request.

Leah did finally get together with the art director from Latinworks. They had a meeting last Tuesday and it went very well.  Now we're sitting with our fingers crossed that something comes of it.  At the very least Leah will have made an excellent contact within her field.

At some point last week Leah went shopping to Pier 1 and Target.  She got a nice looking rug for our living room and a couple of lamps.  The first lamp is freestanding and highly

functional.  The second lamp is really just a lamp shade.  It requires a cord, a fixture and some sort of device to hang it from the ceiling...  As always, everything matches beautifully and our apartment looks more comfortable than ever. Every time that Leah makes some sort of improvement to our apartment I am completely satisfied with the state that it has been brought to.  I couldn't possibly think of any way to improve upon it. And then she brings something else home that improves it. 

Thursday just came back to me.  We went to the Alamo Drafthouse for dinner and to see the movie Public Enemies. It's a new movie about the life of John Dillinger.  The movie was good. It was really long but didn't feel like it, usually a good sign. The food was quite good as well.

Friday night the Teaching Fellows had a social event at the Salt Lick BBQ.  I was starting to feel bad about my less than stellar attendance at their gatherings so Leah and I made an appearance.  We ended up having a really good time.  All of our BBQ experiences up to that point had been so-so.  The places always seemed to have something good and other things that were no good. The Salt Lick was good all-round.  Their "meat-pride" wasn't so astronomical as to prevent them from providing BBQ sauce. And their sides were good as well.

Saturday morning I woke up stupidly early and found that my trusty road bike had a flat tire. Fortunately we live in a bi-bicycling paradise and I was able to take off on my mountain bike for a couple of hours.  I had my standard uphill crash.  I was once told by someone much more skilled than I that if you don't crash occasionally you are not pushing your own limits. I will take that and make myself feel better.  There are a number of obstacles on the trails here that really do make me push my limits and I feel like I've bettered my technical skills significantly. Saturday afternoon Leah and I went to look at a house. It was north of here up by Lake Travis. The neighborhood was great and the house was cool as well.  Very small and low maintenance.  We are not serious about it at this point.  However, we do expect to

be here for a few years and at some 

point will want to stop throwing our money away in an apartment. Perhaps a house or maybe a condo.  Lot's of things to consider and plenty of time to consider them.  And there are of course other things that need to get settled before we take a step like that.

Saturday night Marie came over for homemade pizza.  Marie was dog-sitting for one of her friends and so she brought "Coco" over for the evening. Coco was an absolute glutton for attention and occupied most of our time. Both Leah and I miss our dogs back home so it was nice to have a dog around for a while. 

Marie came over again on Sunday morning for breakfast.  The three of us had breakfast tacos and a nice relaxing morning. We accomplished a whole lot of nothing Sunday afternoon.  We actually tried to watch Jerry McGuire.  We decided that it must have been the most over-rated movie of the 90's and gave up.  That evening we went grocery shopping and I really upped the day's productivity. Once home I got to work sewing an arm rest.  In the previous blahg I mentioned that I was mulling over ways of making our desk more comfortable.  Well, I made up my mind and went with felt padding covered with a heavy piece of navy fabric. It fastens to the desk edge with velcro and is exceptionally comfortable and appropriate looking if I do say so myself.  

Our patio garden is still going strong.  Our Trumpet Creeper's seed pods are growing at an impressive rate.  I've never had an up-close view of the growth of a seed pod.  Apparently sometime last week one of it's flowers got pollinated and out shot a pod from the ovule receptacle.  Very cool. We're going to try and germinate the seeds and grow some baby vines! By the way those are fire ants crawling all over the pod.  That plant produces nectar in abundance.  

That's really everything now.  We hope that you are all doing well.  From what we've heard Michigan has been having some superb weather lately. Wish we could be there to enjoy it with you.  Soon we will be heading to the cooler climes of the Rocky Mountains for some sight seeing and respite from the heat.

Good night.

Love Leah and Jay.