Easy Sunday

The ultimate easy going Sunday! It wasn't that I got up late, but we had nothing planned so I got up and went for my training run - just a little 4 miles today, but I was quite pleased as it was pretty cold this morning. Actually, there was barely anyone on the bayou this morning because of the weather - wimps!!

After many hours of skyping and phone calls, we headed off to see Laura stopping by recycling on the way. I haven't been around to Laura's for ages, well it must have been since Stuart arrived as he had never been. I wanted to check out progress on the garage apartment that Laura and I had started to paint in the summer. It was a lot cooler in there today, but the bathroom now looks amazing and the new kitchen floor is a dramatic improvement. She still has some work to do before March when she plans to have a guy move in but it is looking good.

Since it was not too much out the way we had to take a trip to Central Market - the posh supermarket with a great cheese selection. It took us over an hour to get around and as always I spent over $100 on nothing, but it a treat for us.

There was the most beautiful sunset on the way home after a day of clear crisp blue skies. Oh and since I didn't mention it - no, we had no frozen pipes this morning, however I know there were some others with not as much luck.

So I think you can tell, it was not a day much, but still good :) Back to work tomorrow boohoo!

Pedal, Pedal, Pedal ....

This morning I went to the bathroom and oh no! No water! We had frozen pipes. Yes, Houston did get below freezing and I forgot to put the kitchen tap to drip because I was sleepy and headed straight to bed. Stuart got up with my shouting. After establishing we had no water, we used the remainder of the 'hurricane' water to fill the kettle. Since we knew where the pipe was going to be frozen it only took a little bit of boiling water to get it all flowing again - thank goodness!

Today, was our big day doing the Guinness Book Of Records attempt - taking part in the largest spin class of 600 riders. Although we don't actually know whether we managed it because they didn't say anything at the time, from a quick search on the web it would appear to be the biggest cycle, as before us was 458 in Barcelona (or something like that). The guy leading the cycle was the founder and CEO of Lifetime Fitness (the gym) and he liked the sound of his own voice. By the end we all agreed he talked too much. However, we did manage 2 hours of spinning and based on my heart monitor that was a swift 1000 plus calories burnt. It was still below freezing when we started, but the sun was shining so we really couldn't complain. We both wore long sleeve tops under our 'uniform' cycling top. I opted for my thermal top and about 20 minutes in I wished I was wearing less as it was getting toasty. The 600 bikes were all squeezed into a small space so we were almost handle bar to handle bar - another reason why it wasn't quite as cold as it could have been. We had a DJ doing the music and unfortunately we sat close to one set of speakers - it was so loud and you could feel your insides shake. I have to admit I was quite pleased when the two hours were up. I drank near 3 bottle of water! They were filming and taking lots of photos so we will have to see if we get in the news!

I got my Christmas and Birthday presents from Laura today. One was some gel toe spreaders to help with sore feet - so this was perfect as I was feeling after wearing my cycling shoes for two hours and my other present was a 'beautiful' leopard print snuggie! If you are an avid reader of the blog you may remember I talked about snuggies and how ridiculous they look - blankets that you put your arms through. Well, it may look ridiculous but it is very snuggie with this cold weather we are having. I see Aberdeen is only 1 deg cooler than us and I think we will be back below freezing tonight.

On a final note, I have to say congratulations to Laura and Robert who tied the knot today!

My lovely flowers

First of all, I must apologise for not posting the picture of my beautiful flowers that were delivered on my birthday for M&D. They are giving the very white kitchen some colour. Thank you.I have a husband again tonight after days of feeling like I have been home alone! He is still deaf, but feeling much better in himself. So he had a busy day getting all the forms we need to fill in for letting the house back home. Let me tell you there are a lot of forms and hurdles to go through, but we will get there :) We were having debates on the type of people, how many of them and whether they can have pets!

Work has seemed to ramp right back up there - disappointingly. My colleague has just returned from the Christmas hols in New Zealand and she looks very healthy as it appears the southern hemisphere are having a lovely summer, unlike us in the northern hemisphere with the harsh winter weather. Even Houston has been issued a freeze warning between Thursday 9pm - Sunday 9am. We are all getting warned about freezing pipes since none of them are insulated and most are just beneath the ground level. I am more worried about how cold the house is going to get! I cant get over how cold it has been - I moved to a hot place.

This morning was hard to get out of bed when the alarm went off at ten to five. I stuck my nose out and it was very chilly. I was seriously debating getting up, however, eventually dragged myself out of bed to spin class. My new shoes are good and, as always, I was suitably pooped after the hour. Unfortunately, I still had to my run this evening but that was a struggle as I was hungry before I went to the gym!

Training - Day One!

Thank you to everyone for my birthday wishes yesterday. It was a normal working day for me but in the evening we went to the monthly wine dinner and there were two of us with our birthday's on the 4th! I dragged Stuart along, who is still unwell, and I have agreed I owe him 2 million brownie points! And he even drove, which was lovely. I wore my new cowboy boots and got lots of oohs and ahhs from the other girls :)

It was a struggle to get up this morning as it was after 1am before I fell asleep - I am near the end of my book and it is getting good :)

I did the first run on my 12 week training plan for the half marathon! It was pretty dull on the treadmill but I certainly wasn't alone as all the New Year resolutions have brought everyone to the gym. No doubt by February the numbers will be back down! I also took my new cycling shoes with cleats to go and practice getting them into the pedals before spin class at 5:30am. For my parents, you have a small arrow shaped plate on the ball of your foot that clips in to the pedal on the bike. Stuart explained the principle to me but it took me a little minute before I got it. But then t comes to releasing it - twist your foot outwards. That was not too hard. I only got to actually cycle with them for a few minutes (a class was about to start) but they felt really good and comfortable with lots of power because you can pull up the pedal as well pushing down.

We took down the Christmas decorations this evening but I notice the Christmas tree at the end of our street is still up I assume it will come down sometime tomorrow?!

I just have to make a little addition to the blog to tell you of our little electrical surprise this evening. I was sitting on the sofa when I could hear a funny noise from the kitchen. When I turned around I could see the plug socket (with nothing plugged into it) was sparking! I had noticed at the weekend it was a little lively, but this is just ridiculous. I had to get Stuart off his death bed to help. I sorted turning off the power and he discovered there was lots of fluff behind the face panel and one of the screws was lose causing the sparks. It appears to be fine now!! I should reassure you that we have a number of smoke alarms, that are all working.

What is your goal for the New Year?

When we woke up this morning Stuart had bad ear ache. So the poor guy has been suffering all day, even with pills. He has actually slept most of the day, I just hope he can sleep tonight. Right now, he is quietly snoring away on the other sofa as I type.

I went off to spin class by myself this morning and it was as hard as usual, next Saturday we are both doing a two hour spin class (rather than one hour) for a Guinness Book of World Records attempt - the most people doing a spin class at once - 600 bikes!!! I think we might both die :)

I went off shopping in the afternoon and only bought a few things:) One thing I did manage to buy was a Cowboy Boot calendar for Stuart. It is amazing that 3 days after New Year and all the calendars and diaries are already 50% off.

Tonight I have baked my birthday cake to take to work - a carrot cake. I just hope it is alright, I hate making cakes as it is not like you can taste test it before serving unlike biscuits! It looks good and I have my cream cheese and icing sugar topping to spread on tomorrow :) But talking of icing sugar, it is not known as icing sugar as I found out at the supermarket. After staring at shelves in the baking aisle I realised 'Powdered Sugar' is their equivalent. Just so you know.

Last night I signed up for a half marathon in Austin in March. I have exactly 12 weeks to train and I have convinced two other girls from work to take part :) I am also planning, in madness possibly, to do a second one two weeks later in Houston!! That is my first goal for 2010 and I know it is going to keep me busy. I just hope I am not going to be this stiff for the whole first part of the year :) No doubt I will be moaning in the blog :)

If the boot fits ....

We did a wee bit of shopping today - well, to get our Christmas presents for one another.

We first went off to this amazing shop of all things old - second hand. It is called the 'Texas Junk Company' which is quite an accurate description. It was in an old wooden shack of a building and stuffed with random items from picture frames, water skis, filing cabinets and so much more. But what we were going for was second hand cowboy boots. Stuart had a conversation with Eric and Cecelia on Hogmanay who said it was worth a visit as you can pick up good quality boots for very little. There were lots, actually they claim 1,000 pairs! There was a lot of choice for men - I guess more men wear cowboy boots, most of the ladies were too small for me not that I have large feet! We found some pairs that still had the horses poo on them! Most pairs were worn but some shoe polish would easily bring them back to life. So Stuart got his Christmas present (for a quarter the price I was prepared to pay)!

Since he had his pair, I needed mine. Unfortunately, I am going to have break mine in because I had to go and get a brand new pair. They are fantastic and I am so pleased - brown leather with blue bits. They are made of laser etched goat - sounds quite painful!! They are really quite comfortable - surprisingly :) Oh and I should say they are now my Christmas and Birthday present!!!

Both pairs are on the shoe rack at the back door. Yeehaa :) We will be line dancing before long!

Happy New Year!

Here we are on 1st January 2010 - it is the first time I have written it!

Last night Stuart and I went around to Danny's for a party. We brought food, well lots of home baked bread, drink and chairs:) It was going to be the last supper of 2009 as we had many courses thanks to everyone preparing a dish. There was nothing rushed about dinner, which was good as we were continually eating. We had guests come and go as they moved on or arrived from other parties. It was a very international party - there were Americans, Belgians, Scots, an Englishman, a South African, an Australian, and a German!

We realised it was nearly midnight and we were sitting at table, however, we had to sneak in a German (and Scandinavian) New Year tradition to watch a 15 minute comedy sketch called 'Dinner for One'. Danny was so excited when Stuart arrived with it and he was amazed he had even heard about it. The script was written by a Brit, but it was filmed and produced in Germany and never made it to the UK. It is extremely silly and the first 5 minutes are funny then it becomes stupid:) Anyway, we went by the tradition and all stood and watched this before going out on to the front porch to pop the bottles of champagne.

After some debate about who actually had the right time, we let the host tell us when! It was a lovely evening, a little cold but dry. There weren't many fireworks because you are not allowed most types of them (including firing pistols n the air!) within the city limits. I think we were all making enough noise to make up for that.

Let's just say the party went on to 4am and we managed a dip in the pool - the very leafy cold pool! All of just undressed down to our underwear and jumped in, about 5 minutes later Danny turns up in his swimming trunks and is really disappointed because we have already been in. Louise, Danny's girlfriend, and I took pitty and went in for a second time. The second time was much worse! I am now bearing a scar, having removed the skin from a portion of my foot - I missed the deep end! Apart from that we all survived. To conclude the evening, and warm up, the dancing started - well, I did!! I had to apologise to Danny this morning, as with any occasion of alcohol and music, I ended up on his dining room table dancing! For some reason I was dancing around the ceiling fan (it wasn't on), but I was spinning it and then going up and down between the blades!

We missed half of the1st, only getting up at midday but we had a great breakfast eating more of Stuart's bread with boiled eggs, cheese and meats. There was not too much mess at Danny's so the room was put back together in minutes. It was the most amazing day - blues skies with not a cloud to be seen. It was about 15 degC in the sun - it almost reminded me of days in Aberdeen going to walk along the beach on New Years Day.

This afternoon, after getting home, we managed a walk to the shops for provisions and then both of us fell asleep on the sofa. Yup just like it always is on the 1st!

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2010.