Vampires?

I've been feeling extremely nauseous lately, and I'm pretty sure it's because everyone around me can't stop talking about vampires. It's beginning to drive me a little crazy. Vampires do not have the same effect on me as they apparently do on most people these days.
I don't feel like I need to explain the Twilight obsessions, this is nothing new. Every girl wants an "Edward" in her life, when in reality there is no Edward in anyone's life. But the newest sensation around me right now is this "True Blood" HBO show. I know it's been out for a while, but that's literally all any of my coworkers can talk about. Here are my problems:
1) HBO. You can show ANYTHING on HBO. This gives True Blood leeway to show just about anything. Let's be honest people, it's a soft-core vampire show.
2) Lame idea. Blood in a bottle!
3) The acting, accents, and people are terrible! They just took a bunch of good looking people, no matter what they're talents were, and threw them on set.

A client of mine, who is probably 50 or so is completely obsessed with this man who plays one of the lead guys in this series. And when I say obsessed, I really mean obsessed. She has over 300 pictures of him on her phone, she Facebooks about his latest news, she drove to the Austin airport the other day because he was flying in for a film festival here and she waited around for hours to see if she could catch a glimpse of him... and I had to sit and listen to a 45 minute rave about him just the other day while I was taking care of some inventory at work. 45 minutes! She also claims to have spoken to him over Myspace, but we all know that isn't true...except her. None of the celebrities on Myspace are the real people. Is it a little too much to ask for everyone to grow up? I'm tired of hearing about these oh-so-sexy vampires that sparkle or drink blood from a bottle!

Texas = Big, Nasty, Bugs

People told me before we moved here that Texas had a lot of big, nasty bugs. They were right. I guess I knew they were right, because everything is bigger in Texas, but of course the bugs wanted to make sure I saw them myself. Here are a few of my experiences:

1) Giant cockroach on our ceiling the second night we were living in our apartment. About as big as Ander's thumb. I used to have a picture of it, but I have somehow lost it. But just believe me, it was enormous

2) Huge, jet black wasps. One got into my house and I was pretty sure that Satan himself was hanging out on my window blinds. He was about as big as MY thumb (which is a lot smaller than Ander's but still...) I went down to the grocery store and bought wasp spray so I could take him out... in my house. I think I stood a good 12 feet away.

3) Crickets. Ander says I'm crazy, but the crickets here are gigantic. The ones in Utah were tiny, like the ones you feed to your pet lizard. A Texas cricket could feed a pet lizard for a day. And they're everywhere. Running all over our front walkway. AND I've killed at least 5 inside our apartment. May-May thinks they're awesome. I, do not.

4) Fire ants. Right outside of our dining room window. We got sprayed a while back and for some reason the other day they just decided they wanted to come inside. All of them are dead when I find them, but they're still all over my carpet.

5) Cockroaches. A lot of them. We decided to move my big stereo out of the kitchen the other day and into our bedroom and do you know what we found? I pulled the speakers away from the disc changer and lo and behold I saw a bunch of baby cockroaches crawling into the slits on the side of the stereo. Yes, folks, there was a family of cockroaches living in my stereo. Ander says it makes perfect sense... the stereo was right by the sink, and I'm sure the stereo was nice and damp and warm. Perfect place to lay a bunch of eggs. I then found more cockroaches behind our toaster oven.

Conclusion: I...HATE...BUGS. Although I have gotten braver and started killing them myself, I still hate the fact that I've found so many in my home. Your home should feel like a safe haven and mine does not. I am constantly afraid that I'm going wake up in the middle of the night and have a cockroach crawling on me. I love Texas very much, but I HATE the bugs. End of story.

Rain, Rain, Come and Stay

I've never been so happy about rain in my life. It rained ALL DAY LONG today. A good, steady rainfall. It was fantastic! Maybe now we'll start to see a light at the end of this drought's tunnel. There's nothing like a good, steady rainfall to turn the plants that were once scorched and yellow into little green living things. And during every one of my facials we could hear the rain outside my window. It was relaxing and wonderful. Hopefully our stake-wide fast worked! I just hope I don't run over any toads in the roads...

It's Been A Long Time Coming

Take a look kids! Me and Ander's combined project: curtains for our front room window! Now don't judge, I know they're really simple, but they took quite a while to make. We originally bought the fabric went we first got married, uh... a little over two years ago. We got the fabric cut this last April, sewed a little bit during April 2009 conference, and we finally finished them a couple days ago. I'm so proud! I actually did quite a bit of the sewing myself! And they only took us two years to complete.

Nature and Science

Ander and I decided to take a little trip without our puppy and go and visit the Austin Nature and Science Center downtown. I have to say, it was pretty cool. Plus, it was only about 89 to 90 degrees outside with a nice breeze, so we didn't have to worry about it being too hot since the center was outside. And Ander did a nice job of cutting off my feet in this picture and making me look like I'm standing in a ditch. :) As if I wasn't short enough already...

The trees were all extremely friendly... this was stamped in front of each one of them on the cement, so we obliged.

They host science camps for little kids in the summer, and we were excited to find a giant Tic-Tac-Toe board on the ground! So, naturally we challenged each other. Ander was X's I was O's... And I lost.

We came across in incredibly interesting sight when we looked into a Falcon's cage. You tell me what you see here: I see one beheaded chick. I thought it was really interested. No blood, just a body and a head. That falcon looked like it could do the same thing to both of us in the blink of an eye.

My favorite picture of the entire day. These lizards just couldn't get close enough to the light above them.

And what day trip would be complete without fish? Ander is just drawn to water, no matter where he or it is. He was desperately looking for bass in this pond here, but he didn't find any.

So after a good long while of walking around we decided to try the Freebirds World Burrito for lunch. Tex Mex food with a touch of rock and roll style. Famous for their burritos, Freebirds wasn't too bad, although I would have preferred a little less loud music.

My favorite part of Freebirds was the aluminum foil creations. Each burrito is wrapped in aluminum foil and people through the years have used their foil to make strange and wondrous things. They completely covered the inside walls.

And thus ends the adventure we had in downtown Austin. We've decided to start trying to do an "Austin" thing once a week. Wish us luck!