Weekend Activities in Austin

• La Condesa will be hosting a Pumpkin Carving Fiesta from 3:00 to 5:00PM on Saturday. This event features three very important Ps: pumpkins, punch and piñatas. All of which can be enjoyed on a very important fourth P: the patio. While we’re talking about La Condesa, have you been there yet? If you haven’t, you need to go. For brunch. And order the huevos chilangos. In case you haven't a short memory, I raved about them just this week here.

• Don’t you love the Downtown Farmers Market? Having it in Republic Square Park really adds something that you don’t get at the markets in the parking lots at Barton Creek and Lakeline Malls. Well, this Saturday morning is your opportunity to say a little thanks for that beautiful setting. From 9:00 to 11:00AM you can volunteer, helping to weed and clean up the park. You might as well pitch in while you’re there picking up your veggies and such. If you miss it this Saturday, note that they do it alternate Saturdays. Plus, if you take a cooler with you to keep any perishables fresh, once you’re finished with your shopping and weeding, you can head the couple blocks over to La Condesa and have those amazing huevos chilangos. Doesn’t that sound like a fabulous Saturday morning?

• If you scored like a good competition AND you think you have an awesome Halloween costume (please note, us competitive folk don’t generally like to enter contests we don’t think we’ll win so the second part of this equation is key), then Hotel San Jose is the place for you to be this weekend. They are having a costume contest both Saturday and Sunday nights (if you lose Saturday, my advice would be to get an even better costume together for Sunday). The drink specials will run from 5:00PM to 12:00AM each night, but the costume contest will kick things off.

• If you don’t have a fantastic costume, but your pooch and/or kid does, you’ll want to go to Howl-o-ween at the Central Market on North Lamar on Sunday. There, the pressure will be off you to come in first place and instead you can live vicariously through your canine or offspring. Even if they don’t win (which really shouldn’t be an option), you’ll still have gone out and benefitted the Austin Humane Society so it won’t be a total waste of an afternoon.
  

• Normally, we associate fireworks with July 4^th and scary costumes with Halloween. If you’ve ever wished more holidays had a fireworks component, you’re in luck because there is actually a fireworks display Halloween night. Planet K will put on a fireworks show over on the East Side starting around 9:00PM.
  

• Also, normally when you hear something like Tour de Fat, your first response isn’t “Sign me up!” But, that should be your response to New Belgium Brewing’s Tour de Fat as it’s actually all about the bicycle as the best mode of transportation. Saturday at Fiesta Gardens will include a bike parade and costumes are encouraged. It is Halloween weekend, after all.

~ So, I’m going to the Worst Fest this weekend!

· Why on earth would you go to the Worst Fest? That sounds terrible.

~ Not the Worst Fest, silly, the Wurstfest.

Don’t you want to go to the Wurstfest, too? This is the 50^th Annual Wurstfest and it promises to be the worst wurstest of them all. It’s running this evening through November 7^th so there’s plenty of time for you to go celebrate German culture with music, the Tour de Gruene Bicycle Classic, and other events like the Circle Arts Theatre staging of Harry Potwurst and the Order of the Opas (I’m pretty sure J.K. Rowling hasn’t given her blessing to that adaption but it’s all in good fun, right?).

Aquariums? Really?

Today, my favorite little house feature in the New York Times includes a house in Austin.

A house with an aquarium in not just the master bedroom above the bed but also in...

Wait for it...

The kitchen.

That's weird, right? It's not just me who thinks it's weird to stick a couple aquariums in an otherwise gorgeous house.

Right?

Let's Talk Turkey Tuesday

For my birthday we tried two new restaurants.

First up, La Condesa for brunch.

I'm sure you gathered yesterday that the key word for my birthday is awesome. And La Condesa was awesome.

Christian and I both had the huevos chilangos because house-made wild boar chorizo with poached egg, arugula, quinoa croquette and avocado salsa sounded too darn good to pass up. If you live in Austin, go. Eat this. This Saturday. If there are two of you, just order one, though, because this thing is huge. The only thing I wish was different is that they would just sprinkle the arugula on top at the end so it would maintain the crispness and flavor. As it is now, it's in the middle of everything else and you don't really get to enjoy the wonderful fresh peppery arugulaness enough.

For my birthday dinner, we went to Parkside. This dinner was heartbreaking. Everything we ate - the garlic shrimp with smoked paprika (much spicier than you think it's going to be), the marrow bones, the pork jowls with polenta, the brussel sprouts and the fries - was awesome.

But, there was a little miscommunication in the kitchen about when everything was supposed to come out and we got the pork jowl entree at the same time as the huge marrow bone appetizer. A word of warning: trying to eat that much meat product in a very short amount of time so your food doesn't get cold (even though it's not your fault there's all this food on the table at one time) isn't a good idea. At all. It made us a little sick. So, we couldn't even finish the marrow bones, which was incredibly sad because marrow makes me happy. And, we didn't have dessert, also incredibly sad because I love dessert and they are supposed to make awesome sweet stuff.

Our waitress and the manager were very nice about the whole thing and took the marrow off our bill and gave us a gift card. We'll go back and give it another shot.

Image via the La Condesa website.

Weekend Activities in Austin

• There are a couple very important birthdays happening this Saturday (MINE MINE MINE), including the Draught House’s 42nd. Their party is an all day affair running from 1:00PM to 10:00PM with plenty of beer, food and music. Don’t forget to bring your lawn chairs! Seriously, don’t forget them. There are sure to be a ton of people at this thing and you don’t want to be stuck sitting on the payment.
• Now, to stick with the beer-related activities, Austin Beer Week starts on Sunday. Beer Week will feature 30 happy hours, 9 dinners, 19 beer and food pairings and a whole lot more. There will be 107 events total in this week of hops and barley. You can even head back to the Draught House on Sunday for the 1st Annual Beer Olympics. Don’t forget your lawn chairs!
• We’re just a little over a week away from the best candy night of the year so it’s time to start ramping up the Halloween activities. First up, the Halloween Children’s Concert put on by the Austin Symphony at the Long Center on Sunday. In addition to the spooky music, everyone is encouraged to wear their costumes. And you know your kids are just dying to wear their costumes already. And, let’s face it, you are too.
• To really get in the Halloween spirit (hehe, spirit), you’ll need a pumpkin. So, head out to Evergreen Farms for their Pumpkin Hunt. Not only can you get a great pumpkin to take home and carve into the Star Wars character/death star of your choice, but they also have a real pumpkin hunt where you can take a wagon ride into the Christmas tree fields to search for mini pumpkins that are hidden in the trees. There are also activities like a pumpkin launcher, pumpkin golf and pumpkin spinner. I have no idea what any of those are, but they sound fun, right?
• Want something spooky? Pioneer Farms has a Haunted Trail that includes a walking tour with fortune tellers, ghost stories around a campfire, and even headless horsemen. The trail is only open this Saturday and next Friday and Saturday from 7:00 to 10:00PM. The scarecrows were already all booked up the other nights with Jazzercize and underwater basket weaving classes.
• Arthouse at the Jones Center is having an extravaganza of reopening events this weekend. That’s right, construction is complete and they are ready to show off their new space, which sounds amazing. There’s a super fancy (with corresponding super expensive ticket price) celebration tonight, but I’m looking forward to the Public Reopening Party on Sunday. That one offers free admission, plus part of Congress right by Arthouse will be closed that day and there’ll be some yummy trailers on hand.
• You'll notice that I'm a little obsessed with all the home tours that go on in Austin. My obsession perpetuates because I always forget about a home tour I heard about and want to attend until I’m writing my Friday Thoughts and realize I’ve already scheduled something that I can’t get out of so I’m missing yet another one. So, yes, I’m talking about another home tour. Sunday is the 7th Annual Downtown Living Tour. This tour is a chance to see some of those fancy downtown condo and loft buildings. Sadly, it does not include the Austonian. Or an explanation of why that building is named the Austonian since Austinites don’t refer to themselves that way. Also, sadly, I will miss this one because we're meeting my mom for a birthday lunch.

Let's Talk Turkey Tuesday

We're not actually going to talk about turkey. One of my 30 Before 30 resolutions is to try 30 new (to me) restaurants or trailers and I love food, so I'm now dubbing Tuesdays "Let's Talk Turkey Tuesdays" AKA let's talk about food I've eaten recently.

Since I made my 30 Before 30 resolution, I've tried one new restaurant: Foreign & Domestic.

I'd been wanting to try it ever since it opened but we just hadn't made it down there. I'm super happy we finally did - it's good stuff.

We had the gruyere popovers, the lardo and I had the mac and cheese for my entree (they had a fancy name for it "ditali and cheddar").

The only part of the meal I was a little disappointed in was the lardo. I had it really built up in my mind, which I totally blame Anthony Bourdain for given his constant praising of lardo. I thought it was going to taste like the best bacon fat I'd ever had in my life, but it didn't. It was still good, and it was still really rich, but just not the scrumptiousness I dreamed about.

The ditali and cheddar, on the other hand, was totally amazing. They use a mild white cheddar (always the way to go), put in oxtails and top the whole thing with a soft egg. Pure heaven. If you get it, don't look at the portion size and scoff as I did. It's plenty.

Sadly, we didn't get to try dessert, which was disappointing because they had a bacon root beer thing that sounded right up my alley. But, we'll save room next time. Clearly, we're totally going back.

Added bonuses: great service, cool space and decor, yummy drinks.

(Image via Foreign & Domestic website)

Weekend Activities in Austin

• This weekend is the Texas Book Festival at the Capitol. There will be more than 200 authors on hand and it’s free for you to get up close and personal with them. If you’re really excited about a particular session, be sure to arrive early as it is first-come, first-served and you may not be the only one who wants to hear, for example, Joseph O'Neill. I also would like to hear him as Netherland was really interesting. By the way, his session is at 10:30AM tomorrow morning. Or is it? Maybe I’m just trying to throw you off track so you’re one less person I have to fight for a seat. How will you ever know? Oh right, I gave you the link to the schedule.

• If running a marathon isn’t really your thing (too long and running shoes are so not fetch, after all), then the Stiletto Stampede for the Cure taking place tomorrow at the Hill Country Galleria might be more your cup of tea. The race starts at 10:00AM, it’s 100 yards and 2.5 inch or taller heels are required. This isn’t just an event for the ladies; guys, you can also run too. The 2.5 inch heel requirement still stands, though.
  

• I was saying earlier this week that there are few things I will run for – like that last cute top in my size, if someone’s chasing me, etc. But, I would run to this next event, if necessary. The 7^th Annual Lexington Chocolate Lover’s Festival is taking place this Saturday and will be held in the Lexington Town Square. Admission is free but there are fees for some of the tastings. Random activity also taking place at the Festival is the opportunity for your kids to “have a go” at milking a cow. There are also more run-of-the-mill activities for the kids like plinko and a bounce house (probably best to send them to the bounce house before they partake in all the chocolate tastings).

• Don’t consume too much chocolate on Saturday because that night is a really cool dinner you won’t want to miss. Amanda Hesser, author of The Essential New York Times Cookbook, Edible Austin, & Farmhouse Delivery will be hosting a picnic, potluck style tasting as Austin Chefs prepare their favorite recipes from Hesser’s new cookbook. The list of participating restaurants/chefs is quite impressive and includes Eastside Café, Perla’s (their French toast is to die for, by the way), Paggi House and Takoba. Tickets are $35 each, the dinner will be out at Rain Lily Farm and you’ll need to bring your own blankets and chairs. All of it benefits the Sustainable Food Center.
  

• On Sunday, Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop is celebrating its 2^nd birthday. They’ll be providing the free cupcakes (big surprise) and Tito’s and St. Germain will be providing the free cocktails. Like any good birthday party, there will also be ice cream, music, face painting and prizes. There’s also talk of a cupcake cannon but I’ve yet to figure out what exactly that is. But, I’m pretty sure I would like to have one of my own. If anyone’s familiar with cupcake cannons, please enlighten me.

Weekend Activities in Austin

• The American Institute of Architects Austin is having its 24^th Annual Homes Tour this Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 to 6:00pm each day. You can look all you want at the 12 houses but be sure to leave your camera at home; any photo taking will get you booted.
  

• Yes, it is officially October, which means Fredericksburg is having its 30^th Anniversary Oktoberfest this weekend. Key events, in addition to all the eating and drinking, include the parade around MarktPlatz today at 5:25pm, the chicken dance block party around the square on Saturday at 9:45am (sharp!, according the site), and a 42 Tournament on Sunday (if you’re like me and have never heard of a 42 tournament, it looks like from my intensive 30 second Google search that it’s a dominos tournament). Additionally, I will neither confirm nor deny reports that I started doing the chicken dance on my treadmill yesterday afternoon when I heard about Saturday’s activity.

Wait, did you just click that link thinking it was going to be video of me doing the chicken dance?

• The 2^nd Annual Austin Teen Book Festival is this Saturday and it sounds really cool. Like, you should definitely go. Especially if you have a teen who likes to read. The main goal of the day is to connect teens with authors of books written for teens. You and/or your teen can get books signed as well as attend all the free panels with various authors. Since this is an event for teens, seating preference will be given to teens at those sessions. There’ll also be Amy’s Ice Cream (we all know I love any event involving Amy’s), a photo booth (also love me a photo booth, especially when it’s free like this one is) and live music.
  

• OK, only one more festival, I promise. I can’t leave this one out because it sounds like it involves really yummy food. Tonight and tomorrow night head over to 408 East 11^th Street for the Saint Elias Mediterranean Festival. Stop on your way over at the Twin Liquors to pick up the $5 tickets so you won’t have to wait in line at the gate. Austin Chronicle ranks this as one of Central Texas’ Top 10 Food Festivals so be sure to bring your appetite. You’ll be treated to Lebanese, Palestinian, Greek, Eritrean and Romanian food as well as music and dancing. Don’t stay too late, though. Remember, you need to be up early tomorrow to get to the chicken dance in Fredericksburg at 9:45am.
  

• ColdTowne Theater is raising money for a new space and their latest effort to bring in the funds is a 24 Hour Sketch Brawl. Tonight, they’ll be giving 8 teams a string of suggestions and guidelines for their improv shows and tomorrow night those teams will all take the stage and battle it out to see who created the funniest routine in a mere 24 hours. If you like comedy or improv, this sounds like a cool way to spend a Saturday night.
  

• Now, have you ever wanted to own your own pub or brewery? I know you’re nodding yes (and probably doing the chicken dance). Well, now’s your chance. You can become an owner of the Black Star Co-op Pub and Brewery. This new co-op is located at the intersection of Lamar and Airport (that new Midtown Commons) and is now open. While you don’t have to be a member/owner of the co-op to eat and drink there, it’s probably the most economical way to fulfill any fantasies you might have of being a restaurateur (AKA the hardest word to spell EVER – why does the poor ‘n’ just disappear?).

• Oh, and I think there’s something big happening in Dallas this weekend. Cross your fingers Horns fans. And your toes. And your kids’ fingers and toes. And if you see a stranger who doesn’t have their fingers and toes crossed, cross theirs for them too.
  

Weekend Activities in Austin

So, every Friday I send out "Friday Thoughts from Julie", which are a compilation of activities going on around Austin and the surrounding areas to everyone at work. They seem to be pretty popular so I thought I'd post them up here as well.

• Do Friday afternoons bring the realization that you need activities to keep your child/children occupied for the weekend? If so, check out the Fall Nature Nights at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Once a month, for only $1, your kids can be occupied for 3 whole hours and learn cool stuff. Tonight’s session is on Plants & People and will give you a chance to make your own recycled paper.

• That magical time of year is upon us. The time of year when you can do more damage to your heart, arteries and any diet plan than all the winter holidays combined. That’s right, the State Fair of Texas starts today. In addition to enjoying anything fried you could think of, I’ve heard there are also lifestock shows, midway rides and music. Whatever. All I know is this year’s Most Creative food (?) prize went to fried beer.

• It’s also time for the fall edition of The Pecan Street Festival. Saturday and Sunday head down to 6^th Street for the largest art festival in Central Texas. Tons of artisans from all over the U.S. will be on hand as well as five stages of music and plenty of food. But, Julie, you’re not addressing my most important question: will there be fried beer? Sadly, I don’t think so. You should still go, though.

• Once you’ve eaten all that yummy fried food, you really should do something active. Or, better yet, go watch someone else be active. Ballet Austin’s season starts this weekend at the Long Center. That sounds like a good place to go watch other people burn calories. If these current pieces, Carmina Burana & Kai aren’t quite your cup of ballet tea, note that they also already have tickets on sale for The Nutcracker.

• The new Visual Arts Center at U.T. is having its grand opening celebration this weekend. From noon to 9:00pm on Sunday there will be plenty of tours, conversations and performances to introduce everyone to this new space. The Center is free and open to the public except Saturdays when U.T. is playing at home. Yes, that’s right, football trumps the arts once again.

• If you or someone you know loves horror, fantasy, sci-fi, or action movies, then you have to check out “the geek Telluride” (Variety’s words, not mine) AKA Fantastic Fest, which started yesterday and runs through the 30^th. In addition to classics like Spaceballs (which includes a quote-a-long), there will be exciting premieres like Sharktopus. Don’t even try and tell me you haven’t been waiting to see Sharktopus for months now. I know you all better than that.

• If your movie tastes are more traditional, you could always go see The Town (unless you don’t like Boston accents). That’s what I did last night and it’s a darn good movie with a really impressive cast.

• Some former lawyers get jobs at cool foundations (that’d be me) while others start their own delicious sounding food trucks featuring a fusion of Tex-Mex and Vietnamese (that’d be Eric Silverstein). His truck, The Peached Tortilla, rolls into Austin this weekend. Saturday, the first night of business, Eric will be in front of Star Bar starting at 9:00pm and he’ll have complimentary tastings. After that, he’ll be roving the city so check out the website for location updates.
  

House Perusing

One of my favorite features to look through on the nytimes.com is when they compare 3 houses in different parts of the country that are all selling for the same price.

Of course, I can never remember what day this goes up so I often miss it. Today, though, was a lucky day and not only did I find it, but they included a house in Austin. Sadly, $975,000 won't be in our budget anytime soon, unless we win the lottery. But, it's still fun to see what's out there in our new city.

Etsy Love

Once upon a time several years ago, I heard about this really cool website called Etsy. So, I went on not knowing what to expect and I quickly became totally overwhelmed and clicked right out of there. I'm a girl who avoids department stores like the plague because there are just too many things so stumbling upon Etsy without a thought in my head of what I was looking for was simply too much for me to handle.

Fast forward to the wonderful days of wedding planning. I started seeing items from Etsy sellers listed on blogs and message boards and I slowly crept back in. This time, I had a purpose and things to look for -- veils and fascinators and clutches and cake toppers and every form of wedding accoutrement. With this foray, I found a ton of great stuff, including our amazing custom cake topper from melabo.

After the wedding was over, once again I found myself a little adrift in Etsy world. Well, clearly, I found my way to the purses as evidenced in this post. Although, to be fair, I had a little bit of a headstart on the purse section since I bought clutches for my bridesmaids from a couple Etsy sellers.

Now, I'm starting to look at fun things with which to decorate our huge new apartment. In our NYC apartment, Christian and I had a huge picture wall with tons of photos that we'd taken of ourselves, our friends and our travels. In our new place, we'll have even more wall space and I really want to mix in photographs by other people along with our work. I've already fallen in love with the work of curioush (seriously must have this and just about everything else in her store) and triinity (how adorable would this be in the kitchen or dining room?).

I know I've only scratched a tiny, tiny bit of the surface of artwork available on Etsy and I can't wait to find even more gorgeous stuff.

Do you have a favorite seller on Etsy? Or something you're always searching for on the site? How much do you love those polaroids?

Waiting, uncertainty...

And a Guinness chocolate shake from Amy's Ice Cream. Most delicious thing ever. I just polished one off while waiting for my flight at the Austin Airport.

Now, on to the less delicious things that are going on right now.

There are few things in life that I am worse at than (patiently) waiting and facing uncertainty.

I am very much a Type A, loves to be in control person. So, waiting for that moment when uncertainty becomes a certainty is well beyond my typical comfort zone.

Today, I had final interviews for the job of my dreams in Austin. First, I had to wait for 3 weeks between the first round of interviews and today. I barely made it through that will all my hair in tact and I'm only exaggerating a little bit. Now, I'll be waiting until (hopefully only) Thursday to hear whether or not I've got the job. I know 3 days shouldn't seem like a long time but right now I'm really wondering if I can continue putting one foot in front of the other while I'm plagued by this uncertainty.

I'm trying to learn that uncertainty isn't a bad thing. It's a good thing. It means there are possibilities. It means different things can happen. It means things can change.

That's all well in good in my head. Sometimes. But, really, all I want to know is whether I can continue decorating our new apartment in my mind with all sorts of adorable things or if the only thing that will be in there is some ramen.

How do you cope with uncertainty?

Oh, I forgot, there is one certainty from today. If I have too many more of those shakes from Amy's I'm definitely going to need to buy some new pants :)

2 Months From Today...

Christian and I are moving to Austin!

We made the decision 2 weeks ago and I could not be more excited, scared, happy, terrified and excited again.

I spent three years in Austin for law school and I absolutely adore the city. Granted, I haven't been back to visit in a couple years, but I think this is going to be an awesome move for us.

Austin has a great film scene and Christian is stoked to get the chance to actual do film work that he's excited about again.

And, I'm hoping to get a job at a nonprofit down there while I develop my home organization business.

Plus, this means more space for a lot less money and, more importantly, bigger closets. Who wouldn't be excited about that?

Above, the Frost Bank Tower in Austin. I was totally obsessed with this building when I lived there. I wonder if it will have less of an effect on me now that I've lived surrounded by huge buildings for over three years.