Cooking Class

This year for Christmas, JMO got us cooking classes. Both of us could stand to learn a thing or two about making our own food. I’ve really enjoyed taking time out in the middle of the week (Wednesday nights) to spend time together and acquire a skill.

Cooking ClassJMO coated a steak in peppercorn and I made him show it off before he was allowed to cook it.

Cooking ClassMy steak was not so pretty, but pretty tasty.

Cooking ClassWe also stuffed a chicken, roasted it, and then someone else cut it up and it arranged it on this plate.

Cooking ClassI made Calvin (our teacher) take a cheesy picture with us. Calvin shared lots of neat tips, all kinds of things that had never occurred to me. I only took pictures the last night, but we made stew, steaks, sauces, homemade spaghetti sauce, and several other things that have slipped my mind. I am pretty much an amazing cook now. We took our classes at the Sur La Table at the City Centre, Calvin was our teacher, and it was overall a great experience that I would highly recommend!

Although this was not on my Life List, or a part of my Happiness To Do list, learning new things is a key element to happiness. I learned something new with the boy I love, there is definite happiness value there!

Fredericksburg, TX!

DSC03408

I have always heard that Fredericksburg is an adorable little town, but I never made it out there. My mom has made a few day trips, and I always seem to be not around when she does. Michael and Tranee went for the day once, I again, was somewhere else. So, I put it on my life list, and it has been sitting there waiting.

Tranee was kind enough to plan us a little girl trip. I went last Friday to San Antonio and spent a little time with the family. Then, Saturday morning we got up nice and early (like 8am!) and drove a little over an hour. The town is absolutely precious. Tranee booked a “Girlfriends Package” which included wine in our room and a massage. I had never had a massage, and I now I think I waited to long to experience one! We went to Fredericksburg Massage, an adorable little place owned by a lady named Marla. I liked Marla. She was adorable, spunky and had great life advice. Like I said, we chatted.

We had yummy food, we walked around, and we had great talks. Tranee is the only friend I have kept from high school, and I am very very glad I did. She is a phenomenal person, a wonderful mommy, and she has great insight on life. I am lucky to have her in my life and I am truly grateful that I got to spend a weekend with her.

DSC03405

Good friends, happy adventures, and doing activities that I have waited to do seem to be essential elements to my Happiness Project. I can check off a life list item AND my February mini adventure!

Visiting Lois

On Saturday, I got to meet the famous Lois. Lois is the corpse flower that bloomed at Houston Museum of Natural Science. The museum is one of my favorite places in Houston, my favorite part of all is the butterfly center. If you come to visit me in Houston, it is the sight I choose to show you. Lois has been a Houston sensation for the past few weeks, her twitter updates have been HILARIOUS. She has been on the news, she has a live webcam (which now shows her fallen state), has had updates on the museum’s blog, Flickr updates, and featured on the blogs of Houstonites (I enjoyed Chookooloonks love affair with Lois). Lois was fascinating, she was a great distraction for the past few weeks and she was truly a public relations sucess for the museum.

LOIS

After stalking this flower like everyone else in Houston, I was ready to see it. I was apprehensive about going because of the crowds and the intense stench of the flower. JMO works for Schipul, they are a web marketing company, and Kinetic Energy is a client of theirs. Kinetic Energy was volunteering at the museum and JMO said we would help. I have heard JMO speak fondly of the Kinetic folks before and I was excited when he said that we could see this flower without standing in a line. We met up with Tim and he gave us hats and shirts, and then a museum coordinator walked us around and showed us what volunteering entailed.

The Kinetic Look

This is my shirt.

My Spot

This is my sweet spot. My job was to stand by the waterfall at the end of the butterfly exhibit. At the beginning they give you a chart of all the types of butterflies that are in the exhibit and people deposit these in a bin at the end. My job was to stand there and then take these sheets back up when the bin got full. People liked to take pictures in my spot, so I would take pictures of couples and whole families in front of the waterfall.

My Friend

In my spot, butterflies land on me. It was clearly an awesome spot.

HMNS Web Cam Set Up

At the end, my spot moved. I held the door open for people leaving the room Lois was in. All of the setup above provided this great web feed of Lois. The new spot allowed me to hear the presentation about Lois a few times. Visitors handed their cameras off so the presenter could take a picture of the inside of Lois.

Lois getting photographed

It was a wonderful treat to get to see the behind the scenes at the museum. Thank you so much Tim for including us in Kinetic‘s volunteer endeavor!

*I included lots of links in this post, since I inserted them, you should probably click them. Gracias.

English as a Second Language

ESC CLASS

Meet my students. They are eight adults from Congo who had lived in Houston all of two weeks when our class started. My friend Sarah has been teaching ESL classes on the side since June and had spoken of not much else since then. On the first day of my class I had a stack of books and posters. I put the posters up and made a few of my own. I passed out notebooks and textbooks and they all looked at me like I was insane. They had basic vocabulary and some had a little sentence structure, only one guy was capable of having a conversation with me. The one guy who could converse often translated for his classmates and they would all go, “OH!”

The first few weeks were a struggle. I was shocked at all they had come from and how they wound up in southwest Houston. I was surprised at how their children were put in regular education classes with the rest of the English speakers. I couldn’t believe that they would be getting food stamps, but hadn’t gotten them yet and didn’t have any money. The more I learned about these eight Congolese transplanted in Houston, the more blessed I felt. I felt overwhelmingly fortunate to live in a country that I would never be forced to leave and never be scared for my family’s safety. I have never worried about where my next meal would come from. I’ve never seen a refugee camp, let alone lived in one. They have overcome so much and they are so happy and grateful to be here and to be given the opportunity to raise their children in America. There were days where I felt immense pressure, if they were going to learn to make it here; I had to give them a foundation to our language and life they could build off of. I was ready to talk about nouns, verbs, and directionally how to explain to get somewhere. I was not prepared for questions like, “How much should I expect to make at an American job?” “Will that be enough to support my family?” “How much money do you need a month?” I never expected to have people bring me their children’s homework, so I could explain it to them, so they could explain it to their child.

My last class was the week before Christmas and we had a party. We presented their completion certificates, which should help them in their job searches. We ate pizza and cake and exchanged handmade Christmas cards. Sarah came, her class was next door, and one of my students got a hold of my camera and they dressed me up and brought me presents. Overall, it was very rewarding and great closure for me.

ESL Party Dec 09

Some people brought music from home. Some people danced. Some of us laughed hysterically.

ESL Party Dec 09

The wrap around my waist was a gift and the one on my head was for the sake of pictures according to my favorite gal. Some people laughed hysterically.

ESL Party Dec 09

My favorite gal. She gave me a plant. And an unexpected friendship. She often laughs hysterically.

ESL Party Dec 09

I was given a fertility statue hand carved from a refugee camp, it says so on the back. I love these women. The one on the left is a single lady with three kids, we danced to Beyonce’s Single Ladies together. The one on the right is the mother of four. She was always very concerned with getting her kiddos homework right. She has high hopes for them.

ESL Party Dec 09

This is Sarah and some wonderful women. I can’t thank Sarah enough for welcoming me into her world and for the phenomenal experience.

The Pickerts take Pensacola

Pickert Family

This past week we visited the Pickerts in Pensacola, FL. My grandparents live there and we rented a house at the beach that all the families could stay at. We probably had less relatives than we had before, but we also have more college graduates than we have before. Cousins have real jobs and commitments and no longer have a holiday break. I got my own room because of this. I have never had my own room. There is usually a room with twin beds or bunk beds to be shared. Michael wasn’t there, I like it when Michael IS there. Overall, it was a great little trip. There was lots of walks on the beach, a lot of bonding with relatives, and an exorbitant amount of eating. Everyone brought the sweets they had been gifted by neighbors and coworkers so there was an entire counter space designated for holiday treats. My grandparents thoroughly enjoyed having us all come to them, and that is what it was all about.

Pickert Ladies 09Pensacola Beach 09Emily and Reade

On the last afternoon I realized I had not taken any pictures, so Emily, Reade, my mom and myself walked down to the beach. As a result I only have pictures of the four of us.

The Pioneer Woman Comes to Town

Pioneer Woman Shirt

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go the Pioneer Woman‘s book signing. It was originally going to be at a tiny bookshop (Blue Willow Bookshop) but the they weren’t going to have space in their 1200 sq ft store for all the ladies that came out to see the Pioneer Woman. It was moved to Georgia’s Farm to Market. It was an adorable local grocers that had dining room tables all over the place and teas, coffees, snacks, and foods to consume.

We got there a little after 11:00 and got our cookbooks and found our seats. The PW answered questions at 1:00 and then the cattle call began. The 500 or so women were broken into color groups and we were called by color. Mrs. Oswalt and I were part of the “PETAL” group.

Barbara and Meg

While we waited our turn, we drank coffee and looked around at all the interesting teas, coffees, herbs and foods to see. We also talked to these ladies. They were in the “LIME” group.

Sandra and Monica at the PW Signing

Sandra and Monica were on hand to converse with us. We talked about which recipes we thought we might try. Monica brought sticky notes and tabs so we could mark recipes.

Barbara, PW, and Meg

Then (several enjoyable hours later) Mrs. Oswalt and I met the Pioneer Woman. I told her about the dark chocolate cranberries we ate and she seemed genuinely interested. She truly was friendly and sweet and made an effort to speak to every single person who came. She also gave everyone who came to see her a T-shirt.

We got our cookbooks signed and then he seemed strange to leave after being there for so many hours. The cookbook has pictures of every step of the way, which makes me want to give some of the recipes a chance. The food looks delicious and the photos in the entire book are of her ranch and family. You should probably buy it.

P.S. Sandra and I made the enchiladas and guacamole in the book. It was hard work and my fingers burned from all the cutting. They were tasty!.