life in texas: Hello again.

It's been a while, I know, I've been slacking. So while my baby is sleeping, and before I start my day of cooking I thought I would play catch-up.

The holiday auction went well. You may remember I donated a stained glass panel and earring/pendant set. The stained glass went for $100 and the jewelry went for $41. Iffy donated a curry dinner which went for $75. He has been feeling a lot of pressure to make something really great for that price, but yesterday found out that 6 people went in on it, so that makes it a little more reasonable.

We got snow up in the basin the night before I left for Chicago. The road up here was icy and was closed down for the night thereby delaying my departure by a few hours. It didn't make me miss the plane or anything, just spend less time in Odessa.

Chicago was cold of course. The night before I left there the weather guys were calling for 12 inches of snow and an inch of ice. I thought for sure that I would end up extending my stay, but amazingly, the plane was on time and took off only about 10 minutes late due to de-icing. Once we got up above the clouds it was sunshine all around. The clouds were amazing too. It looked like we were flying over a snow covered landscape. There seemed to be different levels of clouds and what looked like ice covered rivers cutting through them. Too bad I did not get a picture.

While in Chicago I did big city things like go to Joann fabrics, Borders, Costco and Target; eat Thai food and pizza and hit up the Indian/Pakistani part of town to stock up on some foodstuffs that we needed. Sara played with her cousins, and together the three of them made for a crazy-loud-crying-fussing-napping-crawling-walking-feeding-nonstop action house of babies.

The babies at Panera, there were LOTS of puffs on the floor after our visit.

The highlight of our travels was on the plane from Dallas to Chicago when Sara and I had three seats all to ourselves in the very back of the plane where we got to overhear the flight attendants as they looked out the very back window (think butt-hole of the plane) puzzling over "What is that??" "That doesn't look normal!" Then they went and got someone out of the cockpit and brought him back to look out the window too. Apparently whatever IT was must not have been a big deal. But it was not a very reassuring start to our flight.

Now we have our friend Doug visiting. Yesterday we went to the Hot Springs here in the park along the Rio Grande. As crazy as it sounds, after a year and 1/4 of living here, I still had not been there. It was really cool though, and definitely a place that I will return to again, especially when Sara gets a little bit bigger. It probably isn't too popular in the summer. Who wants to go sit in warm water when it is over 100 degrees outside. But yesterday was great. It was in the high sixties/lo 70's. And I got to see old grandma/grandpa tourists walking around in their bathing suits with black socks and pasty white legs. That was awesome too.

On our way back from the hot springs, we stopped at a grove of Cottonwoods in the middle of the desert, and walked around a bit. I plucked some mistletoe from an oak tree to hang up in my house (don't tell the rangers!) But I figure I was actually doing the park a favor right??

Well, that's all that's new around here. I am going to cook a turkey today. No pickled herring for me! (Traditional Polish Christmas Eve fare)

Here are some pictures, enjoy, and Merry Christmas!