Trotting for Turkeys

Until this week, I've always perceived that "trotting" is somewhat of a jazzed up leisurely stroll. When my husband signed me up for the Houston Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving I heard the word trot and immediately associated it with leisure. A luxurious 10k course of leisure. No problem! A few weeks before the race I logged a 10k to make sure I could still go the distance...and called it good. End of training program. Steve was more diligent in his preparation, which makes sense to me now after having endured the most brutal 59 minutes of "trotting"--aka "going at a quick, steady pace"--I've ever done. Steve finished in 50 minutes and two days after the race glides smoothly, alongside his hobbling wife.

Us, pre-pain:
Somewhere after mile 6... and finally the end!Thanks to Steve's dad for cheering us on!

"Crafting for Money"

Yesterday my sister updated me on this year's Thanksgiving craft she's heading up without my assistance. For a few years now my sisters and I have done a Thanksgiving craft for each place setting at the grand feast. Before, during, and after the craft...or anytime it's mentioned...we sing the accompanying song (to the tune of Tina Turner's hit song "Private Dancer") "I'll be your private crafter, crafting for money, I'll craft what you want me to craft." Much of our crafting inspiration has come from Big Martha.

The top left is our first craft from 2005. Next to that are the disheveled pom pom disasters from last year alongside what they were supposed to look like. The bottom depicts the 2007 beauty, next to the Martha interpretation. If I've learned anything about holiday crafting, it's stay away from the pom turkeys!

$99/lb

It's November and our garden is finally bearing fruit. This picture is about $50 worth of Broadbent Gardens produce...and it's not even organic.

I Doodled...

A couple weeks ago I took an interesting 5-day class at work about corrosion engineering. Each day, the class started at 7:30 a.m.--slightly earlier than I usually start my day (cough, cough). On day 2 I was battling an extreme case of heavy eyelids and resorted to these to stay awake:

Can you guess who they are? I'll give you some clues: one is a "Higgs", two are teachers from the class, there's a husband and wife couple in there, a random lady, and my very own husband. If nothing else, I stayed awake!

Deals

And now...a post by Steve:

I decided to try out some offers so that I could get a free gift card. I had to pay a couple of things so it ended up costing about $15, but I still got my $100. Probably not very time effective though. It took a couple of hours to make sure I canceled everything, and I wasted a bunch of time fiddling around with a trial e-music subscription.




I needed some new work type shoes so I was searching for a deal when I noticed on slickdeals that 6pm.com was having a sale. $20 for each pair of rockport shoes + $6 shipping. The only time I have gotten that good of a deal on decent shoes was in the black friday sales at Kohls, but I had to wait through a very long line for that. So I used some of my gift card money to buy 3 new pairs of shoes. My old ones are in the picture for comparison. They have more good deals, but the super sale is over.

Hike Surprise

Steve checked this book out from the library a couple weeks ago. 60 hikes in Houston?! bah. Makes you wonder what the author's definition of the word "hike" is...

Nevertheless, Steve took me on Friday after work on one of these hikes from the book...about 2 miles from our house! There are many more [beautiful] trails at Memorial Park than I thought. It was a fun refreshing Friday night date activity.

And it should be noted that "hike" as it's used in this book is more like "beautiful nature walk" where I'm from.

Steve impressing me with his gladiatious strength.

Houston Fall, or at least the digitally enhanced kind.

Seasonal Evidence

I took this today outside Target--a little hint of Fall right here in Houston, TX!

Halloween Recap

For Halloween this year, we were...


Or at least some of them. As usual, the whole costume thing was last-minute. I've secretly always wanted to do a couples costume and Steve insists that Halloween is for kids (and consequently didn't want to dress up), so I found something that worked for both of us. I bought a stretchy tank top dress with sick shoulder-padded jacket combo (you know what I'm talking about) for $3.50 and spent a few hours on Halloween cutting the whole thing apart and refashioning it into Morticia Addams' wardrobe. Steve let me spray-paint his hair and paint on a mustache. I was really digging the couples costume! Another plus for marriage! ha ha

Our friends threw a great party where we socialized with pirates, witches, wild things, skeletons, bacon robots, and the like. Every husband had the same disclaimer about his costume: "this was my wife's idea." Sure it was... The best part of the party was when the men huddled up to talk business. Real hard to take any business convo seriously when the dress is "character/scary casual".

Boo on the Boardwalk

This weekend we took our friends with us to Kemah, TX for Boo on the Boardwalk. It's something like Frightmares at Lagoon, only with way fewer rides, more restaurants, a boardwalk....okay, so they're not that similar.

We dined at Cadillac Bar--for the first and last time--before strolling the boardwalk. We stopped to feed the hungry catfish non-traditional foods e.g. a candy wrapper and wad of hair Steve found pictured below. (Don't ask me where you find a SICK wad of hair on the boardwalk...) The men of our group rode the Drop Zone, and I joined them for the Boardwalk Bullet rollercoaster, Steve's favorite. It was a fun prelude to Halloween!