T-Minus 2 Months!

Okay, sorry that I neglected the bloggity blog for so long, especially leaving on a random environmental story. I am sucky. But busy. And cutie. So it's excusable.

Much going on over the past few months. Life at the TCEQ is going well. Wishing that I get assigned an actual air quality planning project someday. In the meantime I have been busy with some smaller projects, and have been tasked with giving our website a facelift. Eh. I still like my job, at least in theory, and I like my coworkers, so I'm just gonna go with it for a while.

My other job is part-time SAT tutoring. I just finished up several months of tutoring my 2 students, so now I just have to wait and see how they did on their respective tests. I'm like a nervous mom!

Our house is done! We close this Friday. Oh, how joyful it will be!

Wedding planning is hitting an all time high. In conjunction with house closing and moving, this has proven to be pretty taxing for the Ewing/Naik clan (i.e. me and Aneil). We have the main stuff out of the way, but still have to edit the wedding ceremony (it is weird to have to do this), eventually get hold of the musicians, finish up the song list, and at some point, get presents/favors and finish up our craft projects. The details are exhausting.

All in all, things are going well, if overly busy. We have made time to camp at Pedernales, visit Austin Karaoke again, go to ACL, survive a health scare, and are still as cute as ever. I apologize to everyone who feels neglected or out of touch, it's just been crazy being me lately!

In other news, I am a little bit out of the pop culture loop, so I gots nothing to say on the topic of new music (I saw Travis a few weeks ago, it's like I'm living in 1999 on the music front). I also got nothing on TV...no Mad Men or even Gossip Girl lately for me, so you know I must be busy! I did watch a handful of Vampire Diaries episodes online, and was sort of intrigued...Boone as a vampire = hot stuff. Saw Where the Wild Things are...made me melancholy. Saw Whip It...made me giggle.

Not to be a weird sports fanatic (a la the rest of my family), but I am seriously excited about the PERFECT 8-0 Saints! Holy shite!

This week I love: my wedding shower, the fact that the guy at Best Buy called Aneil my "husband", and the new house! This week I loathe: the Austin FOX affiliate for not showing the Saints game...WTF?, the lack of more hours in the day with which to craft wedding favors, and the absence of key best friends at wedding events.

Love Canal

This is completely insane.  Also, I have no idea why I didn't already know this story.  

So Love Canal was a neighborhood in New York that was built on top of a hazardous waste disposal facility. Most of which were chemical byproducts from Hooker (now Occidental) Chemicals.  They threw some clay and soil on top and thought they were good to go.  Built tons of houses and an elementary school.

Around 1978, there was a lot of rain, and chemicals started leaching and moved to the surface.  i.e. kids were playing in pools of things like benzene.  Wowza, I can't even imagine it.  Apparently lots of sick people and birth defects.  Eventually the federal govt had to help relocate everyone.  

This was the start of "Superfund" sites, i.e. the EPA program to address abandoned disposal sites.

Find out more here:

The Love Canal Tragedy

This topic came up while I was talking at work about how I'm essentially going to be living over the old airport.  Lucky for me, my employer is the TCEQ so I was able to find out about remediation.  Mueller was part of the Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP) and they excavated 10,000 cubic yards (!) of soil, mostly due to jet fuel, plane maintenance areas, etc.  So hopefully we will avoid being a future Superfund locale.

Yikes.

Me likey

I really like sushi.  I appreciate the deliciousness of fancy, fresh, yummy sushi.  But it is pricey.  And sometimes you want the cheap grocery store stuff, just because you start to miss the taste of seaweed and wasabi in the interim period during which you are saving your pennies for your next fancy sushi meal.

I will sometimes eat HEB sushi.  It is gross, but I get desperate, okay?

But I discovered this place off of Mopac (I think the annoying shopping center it's in is called Arbor Walk) and Braker called Maki.  It's sort of like the sushi cousin of Freebirds.  You pick a wrapper (traditional or this crazy looking tofu stuff), you pick a meat (I like tuna), 3 veggies, and a sauce (I looove their spicy mayo),and they roll it in front of you.  And they have a magic sushi cutting machine.  I realize that purists may think this is a travesty, but the process engineer in me likes the efficiency.  Add a $1 bowl of edamame and a drink, and you can have a FEAST for all of $8.50.  Definitely better than grocery store, although you can't expect it to be gourmet.  Love the concept though.

Working Girl

Coincidentally, I got my first paychecks for both the SAT prep job and the TCEQ job today, so I am on an income high! Huzzah!

Sorry I have been blog MIA lately. Working 40 hrs/wk really takes up all of your blogging time. Also, I have been making lesson plans for my tutoring job, so it has been really nuts around here.

First, TCEQ is pretty good so far. My boss and everyone in my group seems really nice, so that bodes well for me. I have a cubicle, which isn't too bad of an adjustment since that's what I had when I worked downtown. Also, it is MUCH better than my ridiculously loud office at Channelview, so I am not complaining. The only sucky thing is that there's no lunch bunch, so I sit in my office and read or work on SAT stuff during lunch, which is stupid. It makes me miss the gals from One Houston Center, and our gossipy funny lunches. Boo.

I am trying to make friends, but have yet to make significant progress. I try to chat but am a little awkward about bothering people, since it's hard to tell who is working on something really important or not. I did get asked to be on the division softball team (Lord help me) so that's something. I will let you know how that turns out.

As for the job, as far as I can tell, I will be drafting the state plans for how we will comply with air quality standards. Seems like a bunch of reading and editing, so hopefully I will like it once I get started on an actual plan. I think I will be good at it.

In other news, we also had a pre-construction meeting with our house builder, and it looks like we are all set to start construction on July 10th. Oddly enough, July 10th is my darkest day, but maybe this will help to distract me and/or associate something good with that day. 

In wedding planning news, I became sort of crazy-efficient during my last week of what my mom calls my "engagement vacation" and got lots of stuff done. We found an officiant that we really like. His name is Sam, he is a Presbyterian pastor, he loves biking and rock n' roll, and the bumper stick on his car says "God Loves Everyone...No Exceptions." He was quite a find.

Also booked a florist. I tried to avoid this, but January isn't exactly the best time for flowers, so to get the look I wanted, this was the best bet. I also couldn't imagine doing flowers myself or getting my family to do it. At any rate, they are ridiculously expensive, so I can't really get as many as I want, but will try to make do. I told Aneil we can just throw rose petals and jars of M&Ms on some of the tables to save some money. Ha. The bouquets will have hydrangeas and orchids and irises and roses. I am so excited about them!

Also, Aneil is the best fiancé ever. He really took over the wedding favor project and the seating arrangement project. They will be seriously awesome.

Went and saw "Up" again. Still cried. A lot.

Aneil is watching "Lost" from the beginning, so I watch with him. Forgot how laaaaame Ana Lucia was. Boooo!

Saw Jenny Lewis when she was in Austin. Her voice and stage presence get better every year. Love her. Hate her. Love her.

This weekend should be awesome. Heading to Lake Charles for "Red, White, Blue, and YOU!" festivities. Fro is bringing his roommate (who is really cool) and allegedly we will see our friend Brandon. Plus I will have Aneil in tow. Mom is making pork roast on Friday and Jason is making steaks on Saturday, so it will be a meatza feasta. I am trying to brainstorm potential patriotic movies to watch and have come up with "Independence Day", "The American President", "National Treasure", and "Ghostbusters II" due to its use of slime to animate the Statue of Liberty. Am I missing anything essential?

This week I love peaches, red-haired chanteuses, and getting paid. 

Love to all and love to America!

Diamonds on the soles of my shoes

Hi lubs!

Much news.  First, I have too many jobs, and sadly have to give one up.  I am keeping the SAT teaching gig, because starting in August I can do that one in the evenings.  Also, my boss informed me that I will get to tutor a National Merit hopeful starting this month, so it should be fun and less overwhelming than teaching an entire class.

The big news is that I got a bona fide full time job at the TCEQ, working in the Air Quality division, which I start on June 22.  I am really excited about getting paid again!  And oh joy, health insurance!  Also, the job seems to be tailor made for my weird skill set, so I am looking forward to starting.  Will keep you posted on highs/lows of new career.

I have to give up the KMFA volunteering/internship, much to my dismay.  I hoped to work out an early bird schedule at TCEQ such that I could spend the afternoon at the radio station, but they are making me stick to 8 to 5.  It has been fun, and the people are really nice.  I have become obsessed with Vivaldi and the tofu sandwiches at Wheatsville Co-op in the short time I have worked there.  I am not sure public radio is for me, though.  The non-profit pace is a little too slow, or something.   Too many years of optimizing everything for profit has ruined me.  In the meantime, if you lub classical music, tune in to 89.5 FM or become a member or volunteer like I did!

Last night I went to volunteer orientation for Camp Fire Boys & Girls!  As some of my older friends might know, I was quite the little CF girl back in the day.  (My mom can tell you stories of having to sell hundreds of boxes of candy.)  Houston doesn't have a CF council, but Austin does, so I decided to volunteer.  My original intent was to be a Club Leader (i.e. have my own little group and meet with them every week) but I am worried my current multi-job schedule may be too much for that.  Luckily, there is a perfect job for me...Club Events Coordinator.  I basically get to make calls and set up large events and organize registration and advertising.  It sounds really fun, and I am very excited about it!

In the meantime, there is tons of activity in the Naik/Ewing household.  We are building a house in Mueller!  Our floor plan is called the "Oasis" and is apparently the top choice amongst single old ladies, so it really fits in with the Golden Girls aspect of my personality.  Sadly, no room for a lanai, but we will have an adorable front porch.  We are currently in the throes of home design 101 and we have lots of meetings and home depot trips to do.  Hopefully we will begin construction the first week of July.  We are crazy excited about the new house and have already started bickering about things like countertops and paint colors!  Like a real life married couple!  Ha.  

Alecia took me to Ikea yesterday to get ideas from their showrooms, and I found some color combos I really like.  Also, Ikea has terrific window treatment ideas, so it was really fun.  Luckily, I only have to obsess about home design for a short time before construction starts, then we are locked into what we choose.  I guess then I only really have to worry with paint colors and all the glorious little paint cards I brought home from Home Depot.  

Wedding planning is moving along at a snail's pace.  Aneil has been working diligently on the wedding favors (yes, we are freaks and are already making favors) and I think he has that planned for most of the weekend.  Concurrently, we took a dance lesson in an effort to improve our surprisingly terrible slow dancing technique.  Apparently I try to lead all the time (imagine that) and Aneil wiggles around too much.  We made an attempt at a box step with turns and I think we are going to take a few more lessons next month.  Our instructor, Darren, is the cutest ballroom dancer I've ever encountered.  He is small and British and looks eerily like Tim from "The Office."  Before he met us, he was sort of mortified by our First Dance song, but once he was convinced that we were being ironic he was totally on board.  He then spent half our lesson showing us funny music videos on youtube and entertaining us with stories.  Plus he loves "Freaks and Geeks" so he is automatically a winner in our book.  It was a shockingly fun and fast hour.  Can't believe I was dreading it so much beforehand.

I opted to go with the Austin Cake Lady for the wedding cake, because I fell in love with her Mexican Vanilla w/ Bavarian Cream filling.  (Get excited, everyone!)  Aneil was a lil annoyed that I sort of just wrote her a check and was like ok done and done!  But I mean, I was in a cake-daze, it was that delicious!  So I partially blame the cake and I partially blame the fact that I am only slowly getting used to making joint decisions.  Marriage is hard, y'all!

Okay, so lots of stuff going on, but if you know me well, you know that this is the pace that is most comfortable for me.  I am feeling more like myself and am excited about all the goings on!  I will be better about photos in my next post, but it is too much of an ordeal for today.  Much love to all!

xoxo.

Wedding Planning Sundries

So we have been wedding planning for the past few months, but I never manage to blog about it.  Figure I would get you up to speed on where we are in the process.  (Albeit I have to omit some of the cooler elements, else I start spoiling surprises!)

We have a cutie location all picked out called Creekside Pavillion.  It is indoor/outdoor, so hopefully the weather will cooperate.   On the January day we visited it, the weather was perfection, so here's hoping it is like that next Jan. The outdoor area is real adorable, and is adorned with lots of twinkle lights at night.

The indoor area is well lit and has tons of windows and feels really open and happy. 

They do all the catering on site, and we think it will be delicious!  Plus they provide everything, but will let us BYOB, so it is quite the deal.  Love this place!

We took some engagement photos, and although this sitting was just for funsies, they came out really nice!  I mean, Alecia did have to take something like 600 photos to achieve this, but hey, it was worth it!  Ha.  Lesson learned:  make sure you hire an awesome photographer for your wedding!  Now we have to decide whether we want another more formal (read: less sweaty) sitting, or if we want to make a video that sort of interviews us about our love.  We might annoy everyone (including ourselves) if said video turns out too precious, but it might turn out cool.  Vote in the comments!

Now to the fun part.  I chose some navy blue bridesmaid dresses at a bridal shop, but then the other day I was randomly shopping on Overstock.com and came across really pretty dresses at literally 1/3 the price of the other ones.  So I called up all the bridesmaids, and got them ordered in the same day.  I love bargains!  Plus the blue is exactly my favorite color (Violet-Blue for all you old-school Crayola fans...remember how Blue-Violet just wasn't as pretty as Violet-Blue?  Oh Crayola, how I miss the simplicity of the classic colors!).  So, yeah, I am extremely excited about the dresses!

I can't wait to see them in real life so I can start planning color schemes and whatnot.  Seriously, I thought I would hate doing all the girlie color/flower/lame stuff selections, but once you start researching, you start getting really into it.

I can't talk about my dress in this forum, as it is public (read: Aneil will look at it) so believe me when I say it is lovely.  I managed to buy it off the rack at half the price, so I stayed close to my budget, but feel like I got much better quality than I could have afforded at full price.  Brides of the world, buy off the rack!  It was sort of nerve-wracking to have to rush to the store to make sure they didn't sell it out from under me, but it was worth it.  I stare at it sometimes.  Also I MAY have tried it on for funsies a couple of times while no one was home.  It's fine.  If you're dying to see a picture, let me know and I will email you one.

I bought some cute flats to wear with my dress.  Mom told me to get heels, but Maria and Bree recommended the flats, and I'm thinking that's the way to go.  I just don't think I could handle heels all day.  These were on sale at DSW (bargains!  yay!), and even have a lil something blue included in the insoles, so I am happy.  Here they are being shown off by my Webkinz friend, Peter.

We are in the process of creating really cool favors and seating chart schemes (we are freakish planners, of course we have a seating chart!) but Aneil has made me swear not to reveal our secrets.  They will be awesome and totally us, so prepare yourselves for charm galore!

I still need a florist.  Alecia says she can sneak me into the June Bridal Expo (I will probably help out her booth as needed) so I can meet some flower people.  I found this bouquet photo on The Knot and now I am obsessed with having irises in January.  I hope I can make this happen.

Okay, that's all for now.  We have a cake tasting on Monday, and I'm really excited about the cake lady, so hope it tastes as good as it looks.  Wish us luck!

In the meantime, hearts and stars, and have a great weekend!   I will be back to non-wedding topics in my next post!

Sing it loud so I can hear you

So, as previously posted, Maria & Casey got married on May 23rd.  There was a lot of pre-wedding preparation and craziness beforehand, but it all fell into place and was fun and lovely.

Last minute prep, as Liz & Thomas scan photos for the slideshow.

And we transport the flowers to the hotel.

And Amee does Maria's hair for the rehearsal.  I like how Thomas got roped into helping with Maria's hair.

Later at the church, Aneil got some blurry pics of our practice walks.

Rehearsal dinner was delicious!  Steaks and salads and tarts, oh my!  Seriously, Cafe Eccell's strawberry tart is a thing of beauty.  Sorry in advance to anyone in my wedding party, as we cannot afford to provide you with a steak dinner.

Then on the big day,  I gave my digital camera to Aneil so all my preparation pics are on my Kodak Funsaver.  I will have to get them developed and get back to you.  We'll see how those turned out.  Thomas kept calling it my "old-timey" camera.

Here's the ceremony:

Seriously, Maria's nieces and nephew are the cutest kids around.

Liza & Julian.  Check out the look on the old lady's face to the left!

Liz & Brian.

Me & Matt.  My mom worries that I will be making this "silly" face throughout my own wedding.

Amee & V.  Amee looks real princess-y in Indian clothes.

Neha & Sean.

Bree & Travis.

The Bride!

And the newlyweds!

The reception was a 2-parter.  There was a lunch reception, with a full buffet, the couple's first dance, and the cake cutting, etc.  The highlight for me was Julian's charming best man speech, which included a lengthy discussion of the movie "Heat."  

We thought the 2 babies on the right looked like miniature versions of Maria and Casey.  Also, that's Leela on the left.  She is Maria's niece, and a dancing fool!  I love her so.

Best friend photos were mandatory.

Maria changed into a gorgeous sari, for what seemed like all of 2 minutes, then the reception was over!

We showered and changed and relaxed before the nighttime reception/dance party.  Aneil, Amee, and I went to the Freebird's on Northgate and it was extremely nostalgic.  Gig them!  Needless to say, we did not eat many hors d'oeuvres at the reception.

Dance party was awesome.  Started out as a baby dance off.

Lily won the dance-off, mostly because she did a crazy pull-up-the-skirt move.  Here she is in action.

Thomas actually did a dance very reminiscent of my brother's patented "squat and stick out your tongue" dance, prominently featured in our infamous dance-a-thon home video, circa 1986.  Apparently the classics never die.  Thomas just does it with more style.

Thomas won over all the ladies, including Neha.

The night eventually devolved into this (of course):

Our faces are nuts here.

Check out the color coordination!  Also, I am madly in love with Maria's dress.

We took Amee to Northgate for all of 1 hour, and all of her Aggieness apparently was reawakened.  She did the darling Shiner Tattoo move at least twice (that I remember).

I love how serene Aneil looks, as he is oblivious to Julian's shenanigans.

I feel like this photo sums up Maria and Amee's relationship.

At times we were cute.

Other times, not so much.

These two were cute entire day.  Lub.

Eventually we were drunk and emotional and gave the couple a mini send-off.  Note Julian's single tear.  Bye bye friends!

I continued crying for a good solid half hour (Aneil says it was an hour) after we got back to the hotel room.  I will miss my Maria and our constant hanging out over the last few years.  I know I already moved to Austin a couple of months ago, but after the wedding it really did feel like the end of an era.  The end of our single days of studying and shopping and missing boyfriends and chatting for hours.  New York is awful far away, but we've got to visit sooner rather than later!

Check out a million more photos at my shutterfly site.  It was a labor of love to upload those, so enjoy them or else!  

PICTURES!

Maria & Casey!

Just Married!



True Love.



More to come.

xoxo

M-A-L-F-E-A-S-A-N-C-E

Quick post before I head to Colsta.

I am 9 kinds of sore from the "Everlast Shadow Box" class yesterday.  I woke up making sad sounds and basically couldn't flip over in bed.  Plus I had to suffer the indignity of watching myself punch the air in 360 degrees of floor to ceiling mirrors.  I am no Rocky.  Aneil says the soreness is good because that means "it's working" but whatevs.   I am pathetic.  I hurt and no one was even punching me back!

Also, we heard about the Austin Chronicle Adult Spelling Bee from our friend Logan, and decided to check it out.  It's an annual event to raise money for the library.  Turns out there are some hardcore spellers living in Austin!  There was this one guy named Geoff, who was trying to intimidate people by wearing his National Scrabble Championship t-shirt.  And apparently he's won the Spelling Bee 3 times before!  It's fine.  We were way out of our league.

There were about 300 people to begin with, and we had to take little spelling tests where we identified the misspelled words.  Words like bellwether, pastime, liaison, etc.  Along with 48 others, I made it to test 2!  Then we got words like pulchritudinous, scleroderma, oeuvre, etc.  And along with 21 others I made it to the stage and the actual spell-out-loud bee!

I was really nervous.  And of course I messed up my very first word, MALFEASANCE.  Not particularly difficult, but after "M-A-L" I pretty much blanked.  Ha.  Oh well, Aneil got an exceptionally blurry photo of my making my be debut.

Look how scared I was!

Yet, excited (the beer probably didn't help my chances)!

I feel like the blurriness here really represents my state of mind in the moment.  Honest to God, I could not spell my name at that point.

It turns out I was way out of my league anyway.  Before we started there was a debate amongst contestants about which established set off bee rules we should follow.  And it turns out the Scrabble champion guy could deliver the goods, spelling ONOMATOPOEICALLY and some other weird word correctly for his 4th win.  Dude was amazing.

Seriously, this guy was a spelling machine!

All in all, a strangely fun night with a quirky word-loving subset of the Austin population.  Reminded me of the movie "Wordplay" which you should all check out if you can.  It's about the national crossword championship and it features all sorts of celebs and crossword lovers talking about crosswords.  Amazingly entertaining.

Anywho, peace out and enjoy the long weekend!

This week I love:  word nerds, salads from Wendy's, and imminent friend reunion.  This week I hate: VCRs, the SAT essay section, and the way I look punching the air.