Weekends are always too short

Hello everybody! It's been a whole week since I've updated, if I want to stay in the habit of blogging I need to buckle down and just make myself write!

This past weekend was really great, the weather was perfection and it lent itself to all sorts of outdoor adventures. Anu's parents have been in India visiting family for the past 2 months, so he and I went down to San Antonio on Friday night to check in on their house and get everything ready for their homecoming in a few days. We went to dinner at Canyon Cafe with my parents, I LOVE their margaritas and corn crusted calamari! The entrees are alright, but that's not what brings me in. We had a great time just catching up and arguing about movies (they liked Gamer and hated Inglorious Basterds...I have no words...) and we all agreed that we are CRAZY excited for Anu's parents to get back. We all usually get together about once a month at the Sonterra Club and it's been weird to go so long without continuing the tradition.

On Saturday Anu and I went to Alamo Cafe for lunch because I'm obsessed with it. Every time I go to San Antonio I get the biggest cravings for their cheap, almost flavorless food. I have no idea why! The weather was beeeauuuuuutiful though, so sitting outside on their patio felt sooooo good and made for a workable excuse.

We got back to Austin at about 3:00 and decided that it was time we tackled the forest of weeds that has been flourishing in our back yard. The shade from the giant tree keeps the grass from growing very well back there, but apparently it's the bees knees for weeds because we had some 3' monsters living quite happily without direct sunlight. Anu bought this awesome weeding contraption and we had an indecent amount of fun using it. Seriously, it makes weeding exciting. Who knew? I made a video of it's use so you can appreciate the glory:



I also took some close ups of the before and after sides of the yard. Believe me when I tell you there is a veritable army of weeds out there, so we weren't able to do the whole thing in one day. We're still fighting the good fight, it just takes kind of a while to get through them all.

Before

After!

We went out that night with Yeh, Wan, and Maggie to see How to Train Your Dragon. You guys...it is the cutest movie in the universe. THEY MADE THE DRAGONS ACT LIKE KITTIES!!!!!! I'm a fiend for cuteness and there were parts of this movie that were physically painful to watch because they were JUST THAT CUTE. Oh my god. Go see it right now.

Sunday was just as perfect as Friday and Saturday in terms of weather, so Anu and I decided to head out to the Austin Garden Festival at Zilker Botanical Gardens. It was so much fun! They had live music, gardening talks, tons of awesome local vendors, and of course tons of beautiful flowers and plants. I took some pictures of the event and came home with SO many ideas for our lawn. I'm particularly excited about this one landscape display we saw that used colorful pieces of rounded off broken glass and Aloe plants, I've been meaning to rip the crappy bushes out of our front planter and replace them with something more attractive and low maintenance and I think this might be the way to do that!

Very cool!

The rest of these pics are just of things I thought were pretty. Enjoy!

The sun was in my eyes, ignore the crazy expression on my face!

After the festival we drove down Bee Caves Road a little bit to dream about our possible future in West Austin someday and spend some time relaxing at the shopping center on Bee Caves and 71. Then we went to Bombay Grill for our regular Sunday evening Indian food pig out and headed home fat and happy. Now it's Monday and I am grumpy about that, weekends that fun should be automatically extended to 3 days!

Alright my loves, I think that's all I have for now. My goal is to update 2-3 times per week, so hopefully there won't be so much time between this entry and my next. Have an amazing week!

Love and Kisses,

Dana

At some point I'll have to write about something else, won't I?

*le sigh*

Well, as much as it makes me grin like an idiot to see my post about David Gray at the top of my page, I suppose it's about time I wrote about something else.

Since my current gig is substitute teaching, I was able to sneak in yet another Spring Break. I graduated two years ago and I still get to have fun for a week in March, woo hoo! Take that, system! For the most part it was a really great break for me. I got to catch up with my friend Katye at Starbucks while I waited for Anu to come home and she waited for her husband to finish rehearsing. It's always so much fun to be able to chat with people who you don't get to see on a day to day basis, facebook and twitter are nice ways to keep in touch, but nothing beats an actual face to face conversation. I was also able to spend time with my amazing bestie Ms. Flanagan, she's a rockstar lawyer in training and as such leads a very busy life. She and I rarely have the time to sit down and have massive phone chats, so it's always a treat when we get a real visit in. I probably bored her to death by asking her a million stupid questions about basic legal principles, but she didn't complain. :-)

As per tradition she came down on St. Paddy's and we went to go consume some brewskies and have some good times. We ended up at Opal Divine's because there was NO freaking way I was going downtown to Fleadh since SXSW was also going on at the time. I just like living too much. I was able to convince the nice barman to sell me some beer even though I had managed to leave my ID with Anu the previous Sunday (you know, the 14th? The day I MET DAVID GRAY?!?!?) and as such had merrily skipped off to a bar on St Patrick's with no way to prove my 23-ness. We listened to bagpipe music, ate Irish nachos, drank beer, and gossiped like there was no freaking tomorrow. It was grand.

Unfortunately, that's where my good times decided to end. When we got home that night I felt like death, and by the time she left the next day I was sporting a full blown case of the flu. I'm over the fever/chills part as of Sunday, but I still have that really sexy death cough going on. I tend to get about 3-4 words in before I start hacking and dying, so it makes for short conversations and ruined jokes. Oh well. I should be well again before too long. I have the immune system of a champ for the most part.

I've spent today running small errands and trying to get the house back under control. You know how it goes, you're sick for a few days and then when you regain consciousness it looks like a tornado of Kleenex's has blown through the place. AAH, scary laundry buzzer just went off. More later!

Love and Kisses,
Dana

true love lasts a lifetime.

Well, I pretty much had the best Sunday ever.

Any of you who know me even a little bit know that I am wholly and irreversibly in love with David Gray, I have been since my junior year of high school when I heard "Be Mine" and took it as a cue to investigate his prior albums. To me, he is the ultimate lyricist and poet. He is a musician, not just a singer, and it shows so vividly in his arrangements. The hardest parts of my life have been eased and narrated by David Gray's songs. "Shine" in particular is my absolute favorite song and has been responsible for picking me up off the floor and getting me back on my feet more times than I can count. I think the best way to describe it is through the scene in Love Actually when Alan Rickman's character is chiding his wife (played by Emma Thompson) for still listening to her old Joni Mitchell albums. Her character replies, "It's because I love her. And true love lasts a lifetime."

Now, please understand that I'm not saying that I'm romantically in love with David Gray. I don't know him and I'm not interested in being a freaky stalker fan who irrationally transfers her love of the music to the person. I just love his music through and through. True love lasts a lifetime.

Last night Anu and I went to his concert at the Hogg memorial Auditorium and had an amazing time. Listening to David's albums is one thing, but his artistry is really showcased in his live shows where you can't help but be completely blown away by his wild energy and beautiful concert arrangements of songs you only thought you loved before. I've always thought "Freedom" was a lovely song, but once you hear it live there is no other way to hear it. The concert we saw last night was his fourth show in four days and he was still 100% on and gave us everything he had, he must have been exhausted but there's no way you would have known by watching him. He performed songs from his new album and revisited the classics that everyone loves the most, topping it all off with a five song encore that ended with an insanely energetic rendition of "Please Forgive Me" as per tradition. It was amazing.

In the weeks leading up to the show I had admitted (in a state of mild inebriation) that I had never met anyone famous before and that it was one of my dearest ambitions to someday meet David. I hadn't planned on pursuing that, though, because I had no idea how to go about meeting him and I really didn't want to be disappointed if I tried and wasn't successful. Anu insisted, however, that we at least give it a go because it meant so much to me. I spent some time looking at the forums on David's website (which I don't participate in, again, I'm in it for the music. Not to prove I'm the most obsessive fan in the world.) and the people who had met him insisted that he was the nicest person you could ever meet and that he would often stop and pose for photos/sign autographs for people who waited to meet him after his shows. I think that was what finally sealed it for me, so I decided I would do what I could.

After the show Anu and I lagged behind the crowd and took a seat along the sidewalk that went to the tour buses. At first there were at least 30 people who looked like they would be waiting too, but after 15 minutes or so most of them had moved on and there were only about 10 of us left. 30 minutes after the show had ended a few of his band mates walked by and kind of laughed (in a nice way) at the fact that we were still there. Anu thinks I probably should have asked them for an autograph to be nice, but I tend to think that would be a sort of douchey pandering move, they knew we weren't waiting for them. I'd say we waited about 10 more minutes and then we saw someone come out the back door with 4 security people. It was dark, so at first we couldn't tell if it was him or not but then a few of us recognized the widow's peak and started to mentally flip out. Anu and I happened to be standing closest to the door, so I stood up once I realized it was actually him and started grinning like a complete idiot.

The people on the forums really weren't lying, he is SUCH a nice person. He saw me stand up and sort of half smiled and started heading toward us. He shook both of our hands without us having to ask and was really quiet and humble when we couldn't stop going on and on about what a great show it had been. I asked him if there was any possible way I could bother him for a photo while he was there and he replied, "sure, sure, no problem at all". My camera's flash decided not to participate, so the first photo came out super blurry. At that point I was crazy nervous because I didn't want to be that girl who made him stand for 40 million pictures while I figured my camera out, but HE was the one who said, "uh oh, I'm not sure that one will come out." Anu took another picture, and while the flash still didn't go off the picture came out much better. He offered to stand for another picture, but I didn't want to take up too much of his time so I just thanked him about another 2 billion times and skipped off to the car.

I know, the amount of detail I just put into a 5 minute encounter is completely dorky. Still, it was an amazing moment for me. I am so blown away by how nice he is to fans and how approachable he was. It was also really neat to see the difference between his onstage persona (crazy energetic and completely shameless) and how he is in person (shy, reserved, quiet). Plus I got a picture! Aaaaah!

So cool. I can't wait until he comes back to Austin for his next album, I know it's in the works so it shouldn't be too long! Amazing man, amazing music, amazing evening. Thank you so much David, you have no idea, it meant the world to me!

Love and Kisses,
Daner

Johari

Jason and Padon recently reminded me of this neat little thing, so I thought the new blog would be a good place to post one of my own. Feel free to do it annonymously, there really will be no way for me to find out who you are. If you post one of your own, I'll return the favor. =)

http://kevan.org/johari?name=DanerMcCool

Love and Kisses,
Daner

The melting pot...I don't get it.

One of the many things I love about living in Austin is Austin Restaurant Week. It's hosted twice a year and consists of 2 three-day intervals during which you make reservations at any one of the many participating restaurants and are able to eat from a select menu at a price that is highly discounted from their usual rate. It's a great way to try out new restaurants that you might otherwise pass over due to their cost. Anu and I are always on the lookout for great new date spots, but without restaurant week it's unlikely we would be willing to risk the high cost of the food just for the sake of trying it out. After all, there's always the chance that it'll be terrible.

Last year we discovered Cru, and it has quickly become one of our favorite places for a little indulgence. It's a really nice wine bar that has great appetizers and desserts. The main courses...eh, not so much, but what better to pair with nice wine than cheese platters and chocolate fondue?

This past Sunday marked the start of this year's restaurant week, and Anu and I decided to finally give the Melting Pot a try. We know lots of people who swear by it and would never go anywhere else to celebrate their birthday or other special event, so we figured it was about time we went to see what it was all about. We knew it was a fondue place, and I think that's what has always kept us from going there in the past. Fondue is fun and can be tasty, but the Melting Pot is HELLA expensive for just fondue. This time around we thought we would see if it was really worth all the hype. I was also excited to finally have time for a date night since Anu's been working such insane hours lately, so I took the opportunity to give the new heels and dress a go:

Have I mentioned that I love my new pink heels? Because I love them. I adore them. They are so cute.

Also, I have to show off my handsome companion for the evening:

ANYWAY!

We made reservations and drove up to their location in the warehouse district. The ambiance was really neat, and the service was good. Our server was really friendly and showed us how to take full advantage of the restaurant week menu and how to...you know...cook stuff. 

We had the Alpine Swiss cheese fondue to begin with followed by the Mini Feast and Vegetarian main courses and topped off with the Dark Chocolate S'mores dessert. Everything was nice and the dessert was fantastic, but honestly? I still don't really see what the big deal is. The food was good, but not amazing. Fondue is fun, but not the time of your life and it's semi annoying when you're just plain hungry. Additionally, the prices are nuts. If it hadn't been for restaurant week pricing there is no way I would have left there in a good mood. Sorry Melting Pot fans, I just don't get the appeal. Aside from the dessert!

Which, if I have not emphasized this enough, was amazing. Mmmmm....(I apologize for the blurriness. I chose to indulge in some wine.)

We weren't able to do any other outings during the first part of restaurant week, but we're going to try and hit up at least one more place this coming week. Fogo de Chao, perhaps? We will see!

Other than that, life is good but not overly exciting. Anu is back to crazy hours after a 3 day respite. We are looking in to local gym prices and I could not be happier. My body is really bumming me out right now, I want toned Dana back and I'm not going to rest until I find her!

I hope life is beautiful for all of you. Go see Alice in Wonderland this weekend, you know it's going to be fabulous!

Love and Kisses,
Dana