Baby on Board

Joseph and I are very happy to share that we are expecting a little baby Higley in the spring. Just a few months into our marriage we are headed for our biggest and most important adventure yet: parenthood. To say that it's been a busy year is putting it quite mildly, and there's no slowing down in sight.

I first took a pregnancy test on July 12, after an icky-feeling day at work. I really didn't expect it to come back positive because it was 8pm, but I didn't want to wait til morning. Much to my surprise, a faint line showed up pretty quickly. Ummm, ok, that's interesting. Joseph was working, so I didn't say anything and went to bed. The next morning, which happened to be Friday, July 13, (I've written about Joseph's love of Friday the 13th and how he often experiences very good luck on those days, so it was very fitting) was Joseph's 37th birthday. I got up early, took 2 more tests, and then did the only thing I could think of... wrapped the tests up in a box. We both had to work that day so we had celebrated his birthday already and didn't plan on presents that day. I woke him up and told him I had one more present for him to open.

His reaction surprised me a little bit, as he wasn't surprised at all. He just smiled a big smile, and said "This is the best birthday present ever, I'll never forget this day." And then he told me he'd thought about it the week before and knew that I was going to be pregnant very soon. Since before our wedding people had been asking impatiently when we were going to have kids, so I guess I am the only one who was surprised that 10 weeks into marriage and without actually "trying", I'd turned up pregnant.

I have not felt well. At all. So it's been a couple rough, hot, tired months. I didn't imagine my first summer back in Texas to be like this, where I have stayed inside every single day, only bearing the heat to run to and from the car. Poor Cooper didn't expect it either, but despite being stuck inside and getting very little exercise, he's still as sweet and good as ever. Oh, and he's very excited to be a big brother. I'm just starting to feel much better and rather than totally opposed to most foods, as I was for a while, I'm gradually becoming hungry for everything. It's still miserably hot outside but I'm patiently waiting for cooler temperatures so Coop and I can get out for long walks. For now I'm staying inside, doing some yoga and reading, reading, reading.

Our families could not be happier or more supportive. Baby will have cousins close in age on both sides (extra close on the Marsh side, Mike and his wife are expecting a baby girl in February). We are lucky to have experienced mamas in both of our sisters and my mom who is an expert in all things pregnancy and baby. We are surrounded by love and support, despite being far away from everyone here in Texas.

Last week we had our first prenatal appointment with the midwives we'll be seeing. We'd had the appointment scheduled for several weeks and I was very anxious, as I knew we would get to hear the heartbeat for the first time on this visit. As I got ready that morning, I put on Dad's watch as I do every morning, but I also grabbed the bracelet my sister gave me for Christmas last year. It's a silver slip on cuff with the quote "I carry your heart with me" etched on it. On the inside are dad's initials "DHM". I had always kept it where I could see it in the bathroom, but had never actually worn it out of the house before. It seemed appropriate to wear Dad's heart with me to go hear baby's heart. If you knew my dad or have read much of what Kate and I have written since he died, you know that he loved and found great comfort, symbolism and beauty in rainbows. Since he got sick, we have seen rainbows at some of the most incredible moments and situations. So imagine my shock and overflowing emotion when, on our way to Austin to listen to our baby's heartbeat for the first time, on a completely rainless, sunny day in August, we looked up and saw this.

Baby Higley is due in March and we will be surprised and ultra eager to meet our son or daughter.

24 Days to Go

Here's an update. We decided not to wait until June to get married. Instead our wedding will be on April 14, 2012 in Columbus. Yeah, that's just 24 days from now!

It's all coming together beautifully. I am planning the wedding here and finishing up at work by training my replacements. We have kept it simple and low key so the planning is easy and we're able to make it super personal and meaningful. My brother has been ordained and he will be performing the ceremony and the estimated guest count is 20. The wedding will be in my father's backyard and I am hope/pray/wish/begging for the weather to be as amazing as it has been this past week. Spring sprung hard in the middle of March this year and I'd like to believe that will work to our wedding-day-weather advantage. Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile, back in Horseshoe Bay Joseph has been setting things up for us so that all I have to do is show up with Coop and all my stuff. And he's doing the hard part of that too, flying one way a few days before and then "getting my wife and bringing her home" in a Penske truck, towing my stationwagon (which I will own as of May 1!) It's gone remarkably smoothly, he got a good job offer he wanted to take, changing our plans from living in Austin to staying in HSB. It's too far to commute to live in Austin and work in the bay so I have just accepted that starting our life over just where we left it is a good thing and I'll be happy and make the best of it. I have never been happier in my life than those years with Joseph is Horseshoe Bay so it seems fitting to start our married life by the lake out in the country. Joseph kept the PO Box I have had since '05 and my banking is still done with a local bank there. So really, it's like going home. Joseph has secured us a lovely home that he assures me will meet my criteria. I have yet to see photos of the inside but I trust his taste and I have no choice, so it's working. He will be moving in as soon as the people living there now move out, yeah, it's crazy, that's how country real estate works. No. One. Is. In. A. Hurry. Except me. I'll be there in 28 days expecting to have a place to live. (Calm down, Amy, I can hear Joseph saying.)

I am going to stay with my sister and her family the week before my wedding. Yeah, that sounds crazy too, but I guess that's just my style. I'll be there over Easter, which will be fun, and I plan to enjoy every minute of sweet baby cuddles I can get with my new nephew Max. I will fly home from Alabama on April 11, the same day Joseph flies in from Austin. We'll have a busy week... and then 10 days later we'll be newlywed Texans.

After all the pain and suffering and lost time and regrets and wishes we have experienced in this story of ours... we wouldn't change one thing. It has all happened for reasons we couldn't have known and brought us here to this point in time. We are in the absolute right place doing the right thing with the right people for the right reasons and we are both utterly thrilled to be living this dream come true together. Life is spectacular. We look forward to a long, full, happy marriage. We will eat well, enjoy simple things, see the world, have as many beautiful babies as we can and raise them to be kind people, love each other, love our families and work hard to be happy, healthy and comfortable.

I will fix up this little blog of ours and document the rest of our story here. We are Joseph and Amy. And this is our story.

It Was Never Over

Where do I begin? We are back.

Back where we belong. Back together.

What a story this has become! The last time I posted it was with a very heavy heart that I signed off at the end of the marshigley blog. It had been my method of documenting and celebrating our lovely life together in Texas... the food & wine, the trips, the outdoor activity, the dogs, our happiness.

After four years we came to a point where we needed to no longer be together. The love and respect never changed, ugly words rarely said, there were just two different courses we needed to take. I didn't focus much on what would come in the future and charged full steam ahead being Just Amy. It was a busy year after that. I moved to North Carolina, reconnected with a dear friend, lived in a mountain lake house in the woods for a spectacular summer, spent the holidays in Hawaii and then came home to Columbus after ten years away. Sadly, my time in Columbus was some of the hardest of my life and losing Dad shook me so, so deeply. But from great loss sometimes comes great wisdom, and I believe that's what lead me back to where I ultimately belong.

"It was never over", according to Joseph. He promised to wait for me. And that is exactly what he did. In the ultimate demonstration of undying, unconditional love, Joseph kept our life mostly in tact in Horseshoe Bay. We never lost touch and after nineteen months of patiently waiting and never wavering from his stance that we were meant to be together and that I would realize it and come back... It became glaringly obvious to me.

As of the late hours of Christmas Eve 2011 Joseph and I are engaged to be married. We have decided on Saturday, June 16, 2012.

We will finally be The Higleys.

The End

It's the end of an era, folks.
Our journey together has reached its destination, we're here. And now we must go.



Goodbye and Peace

The Last Time

Hello, if any even reads this. It has been quite a while since I have actively posted anything here and had pretty much accepted that I'd given up. I felt compelled to write tonight.

Hopefully not for the last time, like the title may lead you to believe, tonight I am thinking about doing things for the last time in this house. Last night we cooked a delicious Thanksgiving dinner in our colorful open kitchen in this spacious, quiet house. The dogs laid with their paws and noses on the line of the carpet and watched (and Coop waited for a drop of something, anything). It's a darling sight we've seen hundreds of times while we cooked. Most of our kitchen is packed up, and from the dishwasher into boxes the dishes went today. Just due to timing really, Thanksgiving was our final meal in this kitchen. For the lovers of food, it's a perfect finale in a house we have loved.

***Thanksgiving Dinner Menu*** (will add later, with pictures)

Tonight I shopped at the one small town grocery store in Marble Falls, for the last time.
Sunday I will drive that peaceful curvy 22 miles of country highway at sunrise for the last time. My commute will now be less than four miles, from the other direction.

The list of lasts we'll do here this weekend goes on. And the list of firsts we're facing is infinite. Our new place is a loft-style above a garage apartment, separate from a family residence on a wooded piece of land near Lake Travis. It's a little more than half the size of the house we're in now, which will be an adjustment, but definitely a good one. It's just been finished this month and we're looking forward to all of it's state of the art fanciness. I get to have a desk and laptop in THE PANTRY with a window!!!!!! and our washer and dryer fits inside the walk-in closet. We're downsizing quite a bit, leaving behind anything not worth taking, which for us is mostly everything. : ) Not entirely, but it feels that way. We are donating more than half of each of our wardrobes. Our dining room table, it's a piece of trash, literally now. And most noticeably, Joseph's 70" Monster Screen tv was hauled off into the darkness Monday night.

We'll replace the tv, the table and eventually the clothes. But we will never replace the years we spent in Horseshoe Bay. It's unlike any other place in the world and I can't imagine a more idyllic location to spend your twenties. We each spent ours here. It's the lake-side retirement community where Joseph and I separately, then together, grew up. Now we start our life... as grown ups, in Briarcliff.

Goodbye, Texas - Hello, Florida!

Will we ever be glad to fly the ^*%$ out of here on Wednesday morning!!!!! Yes, yes we will! We've been planning this trip for so many months and I felt like it would never get here. But it's here, finally!

Thank Goodness, because I don't think either one of us could work another week without going insane! You know when you just NEED a vacation? I have worked 17 of the last 19 days, which just about pushed me to the edge. Today was the last day of service at the club and tomorrow I have to work a few hours to close the place down for ten days. Feels like the last day of school for the summer! Seems like a rip off, ten days.

We got the first flight out of San Antonio on Wednesday morning. That means we will actually be leaving our house at 2:30am to get to the airport! I have a million things to get done on Tuesday, so I'm writing this post early.

I'm doing laundry, packing and cooking dinner with a bunch of random stuff, to try to clean out fridge. Joseph is working at Lorraine's on a Sunday, which he's only had to do one other time. A church band is playing and holding service there, at a bar...? He'll be home soon for a yummy dinner. (Citrus-soy grilled tri-tip, spring rolls, sticky fried rice and broccoli&carrots) There is a list of chores to get done that seems to be growing faster than I can check things off. Ugh. Nothing can get me down this week, though. We worked really hard to get here, I'm damn sure going to enjoy it!

The weather forecast hadn't been looking too nice, which had me a little concerned. I was trying my hardest not to bum out while imagining us irritated, stuck inside avoiding constant thunderstorms and hurricanes. But it seems to be looking up! Each day has a low chance of rain and a high of 90 degrees. That works for us! Lets go!!!

I'll post pictures throughout the trip on facebook from my phone. I'll write all about it when we get back. YAY!

PS... Get better soon, Dad. I love you.

Sorry, I suck

So I was a little lofty when I declared us as "back" into this blogging situation. Turns out, like most other habits, blogging is tough to get back into a rhythm of doing when you haven't in a while. Nothing seems exciting enough when it happens to go write a blog about, so I usually don't.

We have been keeping busy and there is plently of exciting news to report though, so here goes.

*We are leaving for Miami/South Beach in 8 days. Kick ass, we need a vacation! The weather report isn't looking super awesome and in our favor, but apparently that is because it rains every day in south Florida??? We are determined to have an excellent time and enjoy ourselves thoroughly, so we'll take whatever sunshine we can get. If it's rainy and nasty the whole time, we'll probably just get drunk a lot.

**I just blogged about Joseph's recent disc golf achievments. He's been playing several times a week, despite the record-high heat for the last 2 months. It's pretty dry and burnt up around here, so a little rain in green, lucious Miami will be a welcome tropical treat. You'd better believe that he plans to golf on vacation. There is a disc golf course a few miles from our hotel that looks so beautiful. He doesn't usually putt beside the Atlantic Ocean!!! Actually, Joseph has never been to Florida, or set foot in the Atlantic. He's a West Coast boy through and through. I will use that free time to go to the spa, so we both win!

***My job is going very very well. It is easier than any job I've ever had, because so much about it is absolutely natural for me. (Overseeing the kitchen and service, baking when I have time or someone requests something, organizing private dinners, day to day operations of a home-like establishment) It brings a new set of challenges for me at the same time, because my people-managing, department-running skills are still being developed. I can comfortably and effectively manage a group of people and get the results I want, usually, but there is always the "unpredictable" factor, and handling those situations is where most of the challenges occur. My standards and expectations seem to be a little high, and sometimes that makes working with people (around here) very hard for me. It is a perfect fit for me, the club in general as well as the position. I thrive on the challenges I face and look forward to "achieving greatness", as I was recently told I was certain to do. :) Aside from enjoying the work at the club, I have found myself fostering a genuine affection for a few of the members. They're all very pleasant and nice but a particular few are really great. We see the same guys day after day, and as Ben Crenshaw wished when he opened this club, the members get used to the same few of us each day, and actual friendships develop. It's kind of awesome and I'm happy to have met as many lovely people as I have so far.

****Our guest room is going to be full again soon! Mama Lisa was here a few weeks ago for a quick little visit. It was great to see her, we spent lots of time outside at the lake, ate way too much delicious food, shopped, went to the spa, typical Amy & Mama Lisa visit stuff. At the end of August Jim is coming out for a fantasy football draft! He's staying for a week and I know they will keep each other occupied the whole time. There's a lot of golf to be played and catching up to be done. They haven't spent time together alone in many many years. They're both looking forward to it. Less than two weeks after he goes back to NY, Elizabeth and baby Madeleine are coming! We have not met Madeleine yet and I can't wait to get my hands on her chubby self. Elizabeth and I will bake up a storm and cook some intense dinners. It will be wonderful to see them both.

That's it for now. I have tons of photos to post, but that's going to have to wait!

Catch up- Food Pictures

These are in no particular order and with very little description. I'm always willing to give up the goods, so ask if you want any recipes. :) These were the "pretty" dishes or just particularly good ones that we wanted to remember from February until May.

Grilled NY strip and shrimp scampi

Spicy shredded chicken, which we used in burritos, sandwiches and enchilada soup

Brunch! Waffles & berries, bacon, country potatoes and veggie fritatta

Massive (2000 calorie) baked potato, seared ahi tuna and a filet

Giant crab cake with lemon aioli

Red & green heirloom tomato & fresh mozzarella salad with pesto, basil and basamic reduction

Seared cod with grapefruit buerre blanc and green beans

Blackened chicken, white wine shrimp and dirty rice (that I finally got right after several not totally successful attempts to meet Joseph's description)

Mini banana bread loaves, with chocolate chips and almonds

Pad Thai prep

Spring rolls, pad thai and fried rice

Cousin Erin frying won-tons and shrimp rolls, and loving it!

Shrimp Pad Thai, ala Amy

Hawaiian Fried Rice

Chicken Parmesan

Cheese

Cooking Easter Dinner by himself, because I had to work. He always uses his butt as a towel when he cooks.

Easter by Joseph, smoked chicken, green bean casserole (with homemade mushroom soup, no shortcuts here), roasted potatoes & garlic sourdough

Spaghetti and Giant Meatballs

Making ice cream in the kitchen aid

Baked Spinach Artichoke dip

Marinated grilled tri-tip, rice, veggies and wine

Tres Leches cake and homemade strawberry ice cream

Pot roast for 10

We're BACK! (for real this time)

I am happy to be blogging from our shiny new laptop! Finally, it's been a really long time.

I don't even know where to begin, it's been months. In March we had a great time hanging out with my cousin Erin, who spent her spring break from college with us here. Sadly for her, it was actually warmer in Boston than it was in Austin so she didn't go back with much of a tan. It was awesome to see her and we enjoyed lots of good laughs, talks and great food. What else is there?

The cold rainy day that Erin left to go back to Boston, I went to work to find only 4 golfers on property and very little staff. Sad? NOPE, not when the golfers were the Wilson family, as in LUKE Wilson. Yes, Luke Wilson and his hot caveman-looking brother are my favorite members to see. (Not really, I like some of the other guys much more, but the old nice men don't give me goosebumps and make me nervous like Luke and Andrew) One of the many perks of AGC, so far.


In April I went to Columbus to meet my brother's baby, Austin. Man, is he CUTE! I fell in love with him instantly and didn't ever put him down, unless someone took him from me. My sister, Kate was also in Columbus that weekend with Ellie. She's pretty freaking cute too, seriously! I was in baby heaven and loved every second. I'm still a little sketchy on this computer so I don't know how to get pictures from my camera on here yet, but I'll play around tonight and figure it out. I have some great pictures of the two sweeties. It was awesome to see the rest of my family as well, but the babies were definitely my highlight. I had lunch with Rappa, made fish tacos with dad, ate at "my chinese boyfriend"'s new restaurant and got offered a job with mom, walked from mom's house to dad's house with my brother and sister, each pushing a stroller, which was completely bizarre and darling. We enjoyed lots of good food and I caught up with a few friends. It was a great visit.

In May we have been busy. The weather has been really warm, but with lots of thunderstorms, so things are as green as can be. It's beautiful. Our garden is putting out tomatoes now and all of our flowers are huge and bushy. Our orange tree has one orange on it, it's small and green, but it's our very first orange from our Easter orange tree. :) We've been kayaking a few times, had several lakeside cookouts, taken the dogs swimming a few times and are already enjoying our long Texas summer. Joseph has been disc golfing like a maniac and won his first tournament a few weeks ago. He's playing in another one next weekend, which he's psyched about. The Lucky Man is headed to Las Vegas with his brothers and my brother next week for a gross, male bonding/drinking/gambling weekend. I'm sure they will all have a TERRIFIC time. I just hope they all make it home in one piece, with money left in the bank.

I'm happy to be back and the blogs will keep on coming, if I have any readers left?

Quick Update

Hello Hello!

I am seriously behind on my blogging, obviously. I have six weeks worth of photos in my camera waiting to be uploaded and some stories to share. Our computer issues are almost solved, and then I will get back on track with this blog. Thanks for your patience.

I have been busy working a lot. The weather is getting to be absolutely awesome and the longer daylight hours mean longer golfing hours, and in turn, longer work hours for me. It's okay though, I like it there, I'm making progress and I'm getting to know the members. I enjoy the people I work with and a certain "road-block" that had been sitting in the way of real success there has just been removed. Kick ass. Also, the fatter paychecks are nice.

Joseph went a little crazy with the disc golf a few weeks ago and strained his throwing arm. He took a 10 day break from playing, which almost killed him, and focused on putting in the back yard with his new basket. Today he played for the first time and he was thrilled to discover his arm had healed and was better than ever. I'm glad he's all better and strong again. I think I will enforce an 8-Hour Limit rule so he doesn't hurt himself again. He's still hanging in there at Lorraine's. There's talk of a game room (pool, golden tee, darts, tvs) coming to fruition. That would be good news for Joseph and Lorraine's!

We are leaving in the morning to go camping!!! SO EXCITED ABOUT THAT! We have been waiting eagerly to begin our 2009 camping season since November when we camped last. We decided to go to Canyon Lake, which is our most favorite camping spot and lake of all the lakes around. It is about an hour away, toward San Antonio. It happened unintentionally, which makes it even cooler, that we camped at the same lake the first weekend in April last year. If you follow this blog, you know how we love a good tradition to carry on for our "family" (ourselves), so Joseph decided that we must, from now on, camp at Canyon Lake the first weekend every April. Works for me! I will take tons of pictures, it's really beautiful.

Cooper knows what we're doing by the piles of gear at the front door. He is sitting at the door looking impatient and hops in the car any time of the doors is opened. He loves camping as much as we do. He will be a happy boy with that great big, cold lake to swim in and cliffs and rocks to climb. I hope we have a great time and the weather stays like it is.

That's all I know for now. More coming soon!

Hey Sprint, Kiss Off!

A joyous day it is to finally be rid of that despicable company! We have been eagerly awaiting the end of our sentence (service contract) which seemed to last forever.

I won't go into why we so vehemently hate Sprint, but it has to do with seriously shitty customer service, mysterious and re appearing bill charges and a dropped call percentage of about one in four! Right, Mom? Think about that, every four to five calls cutting out, everywhere but mostly at home, for four years! You would have smashed a few phones or windshields too!

We haven't decided quite what we're going to do with our old p
hones, but it will be ceremonious and destructive! We are almost as happy to be rid of Sprint as we were are Bush.

Cheers to BlackBerries and Verizon and Sprint can suck it!

It's a Beautiful Day

Elizabeth recently asked me, after I complained about Texas, "when do you love it in Texas?"

I had a 45 minute business meeting driving around on a golf cart this afternoon. It was a sunny, glorious day that topped out at seventy-seven degrees! So lovely. (PS. The meeting was to plan the garden that we're planting at the club, to grow some vegetables and herbs, as well as a means to reduce our waste by creating a need for a compost pile. All things I am really really excited about getting to be involved in. More on that later.)

As I drove home about 4 o'clock with my windows wide open and my left arm hanging out, I realized that days like today are the reason that I live here.

When I have to wear sunglasses and it's almost 80 degrees on a day in the middle of February ... that is when I LOVE living in Texas.

It's offically spring. It may get cold again for a day, but as far as everything around me is concerned, it's springtime, which is my very most favorite time of the year.

When I got home we took a 3 mile walk (in tshirt and shorts) with Joseph, Cooper & fatass Marshall (more on that later too). It was A Beautiful Day. :)

21 oz. NY Strip

Here's how it works at Costco, I have a list of all the non food stuff we need, which we walk around together picking up. Then I leave him in the meat and wine section with a budget and occupy myself in other areas of the store. He likes to pick up every piece of meat and read every wine label, which kind of irritates me, so I wander around gathering produce, cheese, lotions, looking at cameras & jewelery & such. He always makes great choices, so it works better for us that way.

In the meat department he decided on $20 worth of tri-tip (Joseph's favorite cut of beef), four pounds of ground turkey and a 3-pack of Prime NY Strip steaks that weighed 4 pounds!, one of which we grilled "to perfection" last night.



I got home from work early so we were able to go up to spend 2 hours disc golfing before it got dark. I walked with him, occasionally putting or jogging, for 36 holes. It was nice, super quiet, beautiful sunny weather, a 4 mile hike. It had been several months since I had seen him play, and I was impressed. He is really good! He knew I wanted to get some exercise but was pretty tired, so he ran with me. We jogged up all the hills together and from baskets to tees, and even ran down a big hill holding hands. It was really cheesy, so much so that I pulled my hand away at the bottom of the hill and said that I hoped no one was watching. I really hoped that no one had seen us, but I knew for sure that if any one had, they would have been jealous.

We had worked up an appetite so... We used the remainder of the shrimp cocktail, that we made to take to the back ally shindig (I kid, I kid, it really was pleasant and the people were lovely), and added it to a salad to accompany the steak and shrimp. We drank a bottle of "Nob-lee-oh", which is actually spelled and pronounced Nob-il-o, but for rude and facetious reasons we call it Noblio or Nolibo or Nobilio. It was yet another memorable, delicious and happy meal shared at our table.




Before I left for work today I put 4 chicken breasts and the leftover quart of enchilada soup in the crock pot on low for 8 hours. When I got home it was this... Not really, it had to be shredded to look like that, but it only took about 90 seconds. Today we had it over white rice and tomorrow for lunch it will be in burritos. Nice use of leftovers, if I do say so myself. :)

Date Night

Monday has become our new date night. Every other week we go into Austin on Monday to run errands and have a nice dinner. Two weeks ago it was Ruth's Chris, this week we decided it was time for a Korea House fix... Mmmm, yeah! First we went to Old Navy so I could buy some $6 pants, then we loaded up at Costco. That store is still awesome, we love it. Next we stopped by the flying saucer for a cheese plate and some a few beers before heading to Korea House. We had beef ribs and pork on the barbeque, a Diana 2 roll and a seafood pancake. My last meal, should I ever have to request it, would include that seafood pancake and Diana 2 roll.

Superbowl Sunday

Last year we had a Superbowl party. I served crab legs with drawn butter, cheese and crackers and fettucini alfredo with chicken, bacon and peas. We drank white wine.

This was fun too. Seriously, it was fun.

Eating chicken wings out of a tailgate with a dead Christmas tree

Frying chicken wings in an ally

Serving chicken wings on an 80s tv tray

Watching Bruce in 3D

A patriotic garage

Naughty Dog

Cooper had an exciting weekend. I got a call from strange number on Saturday just as I was pulling out of work, it was some woman I've never met calling to tell me that Cooper was in her backyard! Oh shit, where's Marshall?

The latch on our fence had broken. I bought a new one and it was sitting on the kitchen table to remind Joseph to go put it on. Without the latch we had resorted to putting the grill in front of the gate to prevent it from opening. Not surprising that Cooper wasn't fooled by that. After all, this is the dog who jumped out a moving jeep window in the dog park parking lot, rolled down the same jeep window (not automatic, the rolly kind) and jumped out in an Albertson's parking lot, jumped over a six foot patio wall to follow me, snuck out of my condo screen door a million times to go hang out with the neighbors (and once that I know of to the pond to swim) and so on and so on...

I drove fast all the way home and was relieved to see little black Marshall sitting front and center on our porch when I pulled around the corner. Good dog. I put him in the house and drove to the house where Cooper was, about half a mile away on our normal walk/run route. Cooper was happy to see me when I got to the huge ass house where he was running around contentedly with the two frilliest looking blond cocker spaniels I've ever seen. The lady told me where they had found him and I thought she was mistaken. I had assumed they had found him near our house, or at least on our street! Nope, he had apparently felt like he was due for a walk, so he went for a walk! He was half way around the 2 mile loop that I take with them every day. She said he was just walking along when they came upon him, he turned around and walked with them to their house. They brought him in, fed him dinner and waited for me to get there. First, what nice people. Second, what a naughty dog?!? Thank goodness he's such a sweet dog, or I'd have a real problem. I can't have him getting out though, it's too dangerous out here. Rednecks in Texas shoot dogs in their yards.

Joseph put the latch on when he woke up on Sunday. But not before I caught Cooper sneaking out one last time that morning. Seriously! I put them out when I got up and then got ready for a run. It had only been about 20 minutes when I headed out in the yard to get them. I found Marshall but no Cooper. I ran into the front yard and called his name. I went around to the side of the house to just catch the back of him hauling ass around the corner of the fence, way down by the road. He was going to run around, sneak in the gate and pretend he had never left. I got him to come back to me and I did my best to make it known that he'd misbehaved. I pointed my finger and said his name as mean as I could and he laid on his back at my feet. I said no no no, you don't leave the yard. Then I took him inside, put his leash on and went for a run. My "punishment" was most likely, very unsuccessful and will in no way deter his out-of-yard adventures. Cesar Milan would tell me it's my own fault.

When Joseph Cooks

This week I had to work early in the morning on Sunday and Monday while Joseph was off. It was nice that I got to be home to have dinner together, but I was super tired and Joseph was in weekend relax & chill mode. Joseph was in charge of the grocery store this week, and therefore, what we had for dinner on Sunday and Monday. Check out what he cooked for us!

On Sunday afternoon we watched the Lakers kick the Spurs in the ass. Joseph cheered loudly and sent rude unsportsmanlike text messages to some local SA fans. He made shrimp cocktail and a little cheese. He drank Chimay and I drank Shiner Hefeweizen with a lemon. Yumm.

I could seriously get used to coming home from work to find him in the kitchen. For dinner that night he made some bacon, bleu cheese burgers. That's crispy bacon and bleu cheese crumbles mixed into the burger patty. He fired up the grill, even though it was kind of cold. Totally worth it, they came out completely delicious.



Monday evening I was even more lucky! I am off Tuesday and Wednesday this week, so Monday was like my Friday. Joseph had two bottles of wine for us to drink and made the most delicious fettucini alfredo with blackened chicken and shrimp I have ever had. Better than the last time I made alfredo. The wine was awesome. J Vineyard, in the Russian River Valley, makes some of our most favorite wines. The "champagne" has really special meaning to us, and we've enjoyed both the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay several times. I was excited to get to taste a 4th variety from J, the Pinot Gris. Fantastic!! My turn for the toast: "To taking that trip to wine country and visiting J Vineyard before I turn 30!"

He also made casesar salad boats for an appetizer and sizzler bread with the pasta! A-Ma-Zing!