iPad

I got an iPad today.

That's right.

Christian has a mograph job that requires shooting with an iPad so we had to get one.

For the first five hours, I was totally loving it.

But, I'm discovering that it doesn't work with some sites I visit a lot (including blogger, which is funky). So, now I'm a little on the fence. I was hoping the iPad could replace my laptop becuase I primarily use it for Internet-based activities anyway. Not sure if that's possible if it's not totally compatible with everywhere I want to go and interact on the web.

Anybody else have an iPad? What do you think?

I'm Ashamed...

That I got a little tiny bit excited when I saw this.

Yeah, we've already covered the fact that I have questionable taste in music. Now you know I also may have questionable taste in perfume.

For full disclosure, once upon a time I may have worn the Paris Hilton perfume for 6-9 months. I would like to blame it on youth, but I was at least 22 at the time.

Now, quick, someone else admit something shameful and take the focus off me.

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?).

Nice

Today, two of my favorite blogs collided. Tsh Oxenreider of Simple Mom was interviewed by Gretchen Rubin on her blog The Happiness Project.

I finished Gretchen's book, of the same title as her blog, about a month ago and it made (and is still making) a huge impact on me. I need to devote a whole post to it once I can get the words right. I may need to read it again before I write a post. Which is kind of a big deal because I rarely re-read books.

For now, go check out those two blogs if you don't already have them on your daily reading list.

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.

Awesome Birthday

Saturday was my 28th birthday. And it was freakin' awesome.

My awesome husband took me shopping for 8 hours. And bought me some awesome new clothes. And shoes. And jewelry. And fed me some awesome food (more about that tomorrow).

Here are some highlights of the awesome awesome clothes I got.

Wightwick Manor Dress from Anthropologie. Can't wait to wear this with my wide brown belt. I'm still undecided about whether boots will be too much with it. What shoes would you wear?

Tweedy Leaves Dress also from Anthropologie. So cute. I can't wait until it's under 90 degrees here so i don't feel like a crazy person wearing something that has a wool skirt.

Hot hot pencil skirt from J. Crew (my name for it, not theirs). Isn't that color just awesome?

Some TOMS. I'm dying over how comfortable these shoes are.

That's only a small percentage of all the stuff I scored. I had some major coupons, we found some great sales and my closet is looking a lot fuller.

Awesome birthday.