Strawberry Cupcake Cocktail

90 calories or so.  0 fat.  Tastes just like a strawberry cupcake.

1 shot of Three Olives Cake Vodka (or more..)
3 strawberries, muddled
1/2 squeezed lime
A pinch of stevia sweetener
Club soda to taste

Cooompaaanyyyy...

As predicted, this weekend was fun.  We wined and dined and tried to spoil our guest as much as we could.  We ate alot.  And we smoked a sh!# ton of cigars, including me.  The boys LOVE cigars.  I normally don't smoke, but if you give me an "acid" cigar, I can't help myself.  It's like candy.  The only thing that I hate about it, is the name.  It's kind of awkward asking "Do you sell Acids?..uhh like the cigars...?".  Usually I end up insulting someone's intelligence or looking like a junkie. 

One of our first stops was Downing Street. A posh cigar lounge in River Oaks...Elliot loved his cigar. 

But...I loved my pineapple infused vodka martini even more so....I drank three of those suckers....!!!

A view of Downing Street's humidor...it's pretty cool, except they don't carry acids.  

And what did we do the next day?

We smoked some more.  For our Friday lunch we headed to Stogies.   Our lunch consisted of a smoke with an a drink.  Might I add that Stogie's owner is the definition of a "Gentleman".   Although we smoked our cigar at the next door joint, a restaurant called "Palms", the Stogies owner kept checking on us, making sure our cigars were still lit and that the restaurant staff was treating us properly.  What a Gent.  And his store is awesome.  It's sophisticated, charming, but very laid back and inviting. 

We also had to smoke and drink at the pool...with our proper Texan hat of course....

After much debauchery, we did manage to tourist around a bit.  Since my father in law had already done all the touristy Htown stuff (which are not much!), I decided that he should experience a culture shock at the Houston's Famer's Market.  From the herbs that alleviate hot flashes to the mango's on a stick, I wanted to show him what he was missing out in Rhode Island.  

We bought cherries, $2.00 for a cup.

And tomatoes, $1.00 per cup. 

And the grand finale, a $0.69 popsicle. Ross had banana, Elliot had watermelon, I had a rice popsicle...rice?! Yes.  Weird, but it was good.  

And then there was the peanut sack...

$60.00 for a sack of salted roasted Virginia peanuts? Not that bad actually....

Elliot really wanted to take a sack to Rhode Island.  

Another non touristy stop, Buchanans.  Who isn't into flower shopping?

Black eyed Susans..

And statues that made you feel in Zen....

A weekend full of cigars, Htown culture, beer and family

Until next time Papa in Law!

Productive weekend. More Yin than Yang.

If Yin is work and yang is party, our weekend was definitely more Yin than Yang. Our back yard is finally starting to look descent, and most importantly private.  This weekend Rossy and Ryan, his co-worker, turned a bucket of sweat into a beautiful back fence that I am very appreciative of.  Although the boys did the bulk of the work, I was not idle either.  I helped Rossy install about 6 boards, weeded a bunch, made a grocery run for food, and made sure the boys installed each of the board flush with the other fence.  


Here is Rossy just starting out.  For sure he must have sweated more than a bucket. 

The guys measuring their sticks against each other.  Rossy either looks confused or he needs sunglasses...not sure.

5 boards in....a gizillion more to go...

Looking good...!!!

Team work above....(Rossy you really needed glasses..)

And team work below...

Yeah buddy...

The boys giggling.   

Final product.  Awesome.  Thanks guys.  Now I can skinny dip in peace. 

And then there was the part where we had fun.  My favorite part, and the part that I excel in.  We took off our working shoes, got some towels out, and changed into our swimming gear ....

And cool down we did....

The celebration continues.  Ryan enjoying a Rocky Patel Maduro....

Rossy, REALLY enjoying his new smoke.  Making me jealous. 

Lounging and smoking in this over exposed picture. Photography...one step at a time.  

As it happens, not everybody was happy.  Miss Izzy clearly misses her Jungle.  Sorry my Amazonian princess...we will get you some descent foliage soon.

And while we were taking our break, the dogs started their favorite chore: bug hunting. 

And how did I celebrate? I made myself a delicious cocktail that I enjoyed with a cigar of my own, sitting in a chair that faced the fence so that I could admire it every minute....very happy.  Very Grateful to Ryan and Rossy.  Thanks dudes.  

Next weekend we get a break though.  Papa in law is in town!  Time to Paaarttty!  All Yang! 

A Photography Post

Yesterday after work I was bad.  I splurged.  I bought a EF 50mm f/1.4 lens (which means I will be able to take beautiful portrait pics), a polarized filter (makes colors pop), a gorillapod, and a flash.  Such an expensive hobby.  But so addicting...it's my only creative outlet. But, after looking over the pictures that I have taken of New England (NE) in the past couple of years, I think I should have splurged some more.  What I really "need" is a wide angle lens; a lens that will take in ALL of the beautiful New England landscape, of which I just can't get enough of.  Ideally I would get a EF 16-35mm f/2.8L lens....hey it's only $1,545 on Amazon...!!!!! Well, I can't splurge that much today, but I have my eye on it....it's on my Amazon wish list...I am just saying.   


Also, from now on I will only be buying EF lenses.  I sound like a snot, but I have my reasons.  EF canon lenses are compatible with smaller DSLR cameras, like my Rebel T2i, as well as "full frame" (35mm format sensor) cameras like the Canon 5D Mark II. However, the EF-S lenses are ONLY compatible with smaller DSLR cameras.  So if in the future I want to upgrade my camera body to a "full frame", my EF-S lenses are useless! I am glad I only have two EF-S lenses, although those are my only two lenses that I have, which came with the camera body.  Right now I shoot with a EF-S 18-55mm f/3.6-5.6 (a cheapy lens..), and a EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 (a telephoto zoom lens..which means you can zoom in on stuff).  I love my telephoto lens.  It has been a great starter lens for me.  


If you are interested in reading more about "full frame" vs "small" sensors read this and see this.  


In the future I definitely want to upgrade to a "full frame" camera, which will be awesome for my landscape photography of NE, but right now I am quite content with what I have.  The Rebel T2i has been a great little starter camera for me.  I think that from now on I will be "investing" on good glass and learning how to shoot well before even thinking of upgrading the body.  Unfortunately for my hubby, this hobby is here to stay :) So expect long hours at the beach and parks, and carrying around gear.  


Here are some pics that I have taken with my telephoto lens: 

Miss Izzy trying to escape from our back yard.  Muy mala.

Shaker.  Our super handsome wanna be super alpha dog. 

My dream home at Briggs Beach in Little Compton Rhode Island.  Why is everything in NE have to be son darn pretty?!  

New England rock walls.  Even the moss is beautiful...not a photoshoped image!  I swear! 

At Sakonnet Vinery during the winter.  This winery is located in Little Compton Rhode Island...a recommended stop if you happen to be in the area.  

I bought this orchid at Buchanans in Houston...it didn't last too long though :(  I unintentionally killed it. 

A New England sea gull.  

Houston Polo.  A match between Argentina and the US. 

Cool bug hanging out at our backyard. 

A butterfly on our neighbors plant.

I can't wait to post some pics up with my new lens!  

Ying and Yang Weekend

One of my favorite things is starting Monday knowing that our household had a fun and productive weekend. This weekend we set ourselves to complete just one task: getting rid of the Amazon jungle in our back yard.

Every time we opened the back yard door, Izzy and Shaker would make a run for the jungle where they would get lost for hours exploring. It was cute seeing their little heads poke out from the massive weeds when I called out for them. 

So the jungle was fun for the dogs, and actually some of the weeds were pretty too (my opinion..Rossy didn’t think any of it was pretty)...

...but, all in all, the Amazon jungle had to go; it made our house look trashy. And it was also attracting a massive amount of weird looking bugs, that often ended up in the dogs beards

Starting to weed at 11 am during the summer in Houston is a mistake. Yes, I procrastinated by cooking breakfast (which we normally don’t do…), petting Izzy and Shaker a little extra than normal, and trying to find anything else that would hold me back from starting the dreadful task. And oh how I paid for our mistake. I was able to pull around 3ftx5ft of weeds (which is about 1% of what we had to pull out) before I started to feel sickishly hot. I wish I would have had paid more attention at the heat stroke/stress training at work, because I definitely think I had the full blown symptoms for one of them. And then what did I do? I drank a bud light lime. Not a smart choice as Ross pointed out various times when he discovered what I was drinking underneath the canopy. Stupid, but delicious. The citrus, and chill from the beer was amazing; it went down quick. But just so that I wouldn’t piss off Rossy anymore, I switched to water. Which although not as exciting as the beer, it was refreshing and it felt right; my body definitely needed the water.

Ross starting pulling weeds later than me since he mowed the front yard first, and in less than 1 hour he had cleared half the yard. So Me: cleared 1% of the yard in 1.5 hours, Ross: cleared 50% in less than 1 hour. I guess I was just not meant for physically demanding work. As I told Ross, I was meant to drink beer underneath the canopy… "Insert here dirty look from Ross”. Tasks like these remind me of how grateful I should be of my job. How can people work in this heat?

Just last week at work, I was admiring how hard a crew was working at 1 pm, 94F, pouring concrete to make a slab where my project would be erected at. These men were incredible. I watched part of the crew carefully walk and balance themselves on the rebar support, where one wrong step meant ending up with rebar in between their legs (and probably ending up sterile). Luckily none of that happened. Then, they grabbed a giant hose that was hovering over their heads and pulled it down into the gap below them until it got filled up in its entirety with concrete. The other crew did the hard part. Their job was to level out the poured concrete with a rudimentary wooden plank. Two of the guys pulled and pushed each end of the wooden plank, trying to carefully even out the surface just like you would even out icing on a cake. Then another crew stuck vibrators into the concrete to get rid of any air pockets. And all this with while wearing long sleeve flame retardant clothing (FRC), clothes underneath the FRC (well..some of them probably went commando), a hard hat, knee high rubber boots, and gloves that were duct tapped to the wrist of their FRC. They all worked in sync and by the end of the working day, they were done. No one complained, no one took excessive breaks, and no one had a bad attitude. Truly an admirable crew. And I "supervised" the whole operation under a piece of shade that I luckily found, and I was exhausted.  So lame. 

So what did I do next? Embarrassed over my lack of endurance, I got up from my ass and started weeding again. Unfortunately, ½ hour later I was again feeling the probable symptoms of a heat stroke or stress. How do these men do it? Even Ross gave up. After extending our break several times, we decided to call it quits at 2 pm.  Struggling with defeat, we promised ourselves several times in between gulps of water that Sunday we would wake up at the crack of dawn and finish the job (yeah right..).

Since I felt pretty guilty that we were not able to finish the project (and extremely lame), I decided to start another project. After a delicious veggie and guac. Burger, I proceeded to empty the whole closet and organize. It’s a love/hate chore for me. On the one hand, I love re-discovering clothes that I thought had gone missing but had just been buried in between folded piles; it’s almost like I bought new clothes! On the other hand, I hate folding and stacking everything neatly again, which I usually do in between sneezes and grunts. Apparently I am allergic to this chore. After I folded and tucked away all my winter clothes in bags underneath the guest bed, it was awesome and surprising to find that I had a lot of more room in the closet than what I had anticipated. Extra space in the closet can only mean one thing for a girl…time for a shopping trip!

As Sunday rolled in upon us, we did manage to get up “early”  -however, not the crack of dawn- at 8:30 am, and this time we did not procrastinate one single minute. In a matter of 3 hours or so we managed to pull out the rest of the weeds, and apply weed killer all around the area. The challenge next weekend (or maybe the one after next  )? Fill up the area with soil and sod. I truly can’t wait until our back yard looks normal again. And I am looking forward to another Monday where I am just smiling and feeling good because I had a productive weekend. Weekends in which we solely party are fun, but I truly believe that a balance of partying and work is necessary for a healthy lifestyle; very in tune with the Yin Yang concept. Opposites only exist in relation to each other; for me partying is a complimentary opposite to work, a duality that when maintained in balance, keeps the psyche in good shape. Sunday evening we decided to make sure we kept our work/party balance in check by heading to Bixx bar on Washington Ave. for some crawfish. Crawfish season is coming to an end, and I am still craving it. I have eaten crawfish at least 8 times this season and I am still not ready to give it up until next year. So before the season ended, I really wanted to overdose myself with crawfish -up until an unhealthy point- just so that I could wave a satisfied farewell to crawfish season, kick all those mud bugs in their butts, happy not to see them again until next year. And that is exactly what I did. Bye bye mud bugs..until next year! A satisfied farewell.  It was a great closure to a productive and fun weekend, one which I hope I will remember and continue to emulate in future weekends.

Here is our weekend photo dump. Notice my face after eating crawfish  I walked all over the grocery with that face (thanks Rossy for NOT telling me...this will be remembered). No wonder I got such weird looks…