A lot has changed in the past 7 months. First of all the day before my last post on here I went on a date. The date went very well and I’ve been seeing him ever since. His name is Hector and he’s an artist. He does amazingly beautiful art (www.boldoart.com) and he’s an amazing person. He’s the most amazing boyfriend I’ve ever had. I’m sure everyone says that about the current person they are with, but this is for realz!

I never thought that I would ever move someone into my house with me, or live with someone again and I really didn’t want to either. However, he did move in with me and I love living with him.

The other big change in my life is that I am no longer friends with my long time best friend, Kristi. It comes down to the fact that she is no longer the person she was when we met. Living in a horrible city at home with her mother, and some personal dramas in her life have turned her into someone that I was not compatible with. I was sad to see it end, but I know it was the right thing. Sometimes you can still love someone and care about them, but not be able to be friends with them.

My other best friend, Brenna, has found a man and become pregnant. She’s pretty much disappeared from my life due to being so busy in her own and I’m totally happy for her.

It’s odd to have lost my two best friends at about the same time. It was a huge change in my life, and thankfully Hector was there to fill the void. In a way, it was a huge blessing. It allowed me to spend more time with him and get closer to him.

I’ve been pretty busy with Hector, moving in together, making a studio in my house for him to paint in, building his website, setting up an online store for him, marketing him, and helping to promote him and get him art shows. I’ve been doing a pretty good job of it too! We had an amazing show earlier this month that has already resulted in him selling two pieces of art and two more just about sold.

This weekend we are going to this huge E.A.S.T Austin Studio tour. There are 145 galleries participating and we hope to make some great contacts to get his art more exposure.

Anyways, that’s all for now. Hopefully I’ll find time to update more often.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6zCNdEfm5w&feature=player_embedded

Last weekend was all that bad downtown because it was just the film and interactive portion of the festival, but this weekend is music. I’m going out tonight to see a show at Rebels Honky Tonk, just to be with friends. I’m not a fan of live music, so I’d really prefer not to go.

Saturday a bunch of us are going to a bar in New Braunfels to see Josh Abbott play. I’m down for that because at least they have a dance floor!

Friday is still up in the air. I think we’re going to run around to some new places and see what kind of trouble we can get into. Ideas?

Please go check out my page at http://lookbook.nu/tomithey, fan me, and hype my looks!

Thank you!

I’m getting much better at this 1step dance they do and the best thing about it is that it works different muscles in my legs, so my legs are getting even more toned! AWESOME! I’m even getting pretty good at the turns!

I still haven’t gotten any pictures on lookbook.nu yet, but I may work to rectify that this weekend. Brenna isn’t coming up this weekend and I don’t have a lot going on, so I should have some free time to play dress up and take some pics. I’m trying to think of who I know that might want to come play with me and take some pictures.

The Rusty Spurs is supposed to be reopening on the 3rd of next month. I have mixed feelings about this. It’ll be nice to have a place to go country dance with boys. The issue is that it’s being reopened by the same person, so I’m not sure if people will go back, or if it’ll be any different that it was last time.

The general reason I hear that people stopped going was because they never knew what to expect when they showed up. It might be live music, a drag show, a bear show, or closed for some event (ie SXSW). It’s a pain to drive over there and find/pay for parking only to find out you can’t dance and then have to leave and go find/pay for parking at another bar.

I’ll definitely go back from time to time, but I love being at Rebels and I love the people at Rebels. I will probably spend more time over there where I know I can dance every night and don’t have to worry about what I’m walking into.

I’m still waiting on my tax return! Once that comes in I’m going to work on getting some stuff in my house taken care of, possibly having the carpet taken out! I’m so freaking excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We’ve been hanging out at Rebels Honky Tonk a lot lately and our fashion has been suffering because of it. We’ve been trying to hard to be country and fit in, but we’re done with that. It’s back to be the daringly fashionable divas for which we are known.

I’m loving hanging out there and the people are really nice… now that we’ve broken into the clique. It reminds me of the good old days at Rainbow Cattle Company and Rusty Spurs. I’m also learning new dances and spins, so that’s a plus too. It’s nice to be able to go out and know people at the bar. Which is how it is any time I step foot in a gay bar. I’m used to that familiarity and I NEED IT.

We’ll be there again this Friday and Saturday and I’m super looking forward to it. We’re theme dressing, as usual. Tonight’s theme is punk rock and tomorrow will be some form of country and I’m sure it’ll have a funk edge to it.

I’m still working on fixing up my house and I’m anxiously awaiting my tax refund so I can rip out my carpet and seal my concrete. Well, actually I’m anxiously awaiting my tax forms so I can file, then I’ll be waiting for the return. I want to pull out all the carpet and vinyl in my house and seal the grey concrete. Then I’ll get curtains and maybe white slipcovers for my sofa and side chair. My house will be all blue with white and grey. I’m so excited about it!

I might post pics of this weekend’s outfits later.

It was ok. My eyes started to hurt a little while watching it. I don’t know if it was because it was the 3D or because it was mostly black with lots of neon. I wasn’t too impressed with the 3D, but then I’m not a big fan of 3D anyway. I don’t think it really adds much to the movie experience. At least not enough to warrant wearing those crazy glasses (do they sanitize those?) and being a little dizzy.

I saw Burlesque a while ago and I loved that. I’m kind of surprised by the bad press it’s been getting. I really enjoyed it and actually saw it twice in the theater. I went in expecting not to like it because it’s kind of a musical, but I LOVED IT. I usually can’t stand musicals or anything of the like.

I’ve done all my Christmas shopping. I finished it early last week. I did it all online and then waited for everything to come in. I don’t know why anyone actually goes out shopping in the stores these days. It’s toooooo crazy!

I’ve received some Christmas presents early and I’ve gotten some good stuff. I got a nice fancy wine bottle opener set, some wine, candy, an awesome skull rosary, some markers and a coloring book, Christmas ornaments, and MONEY!

I did a little shopping for myself this weekend. I’m really into sport coats/suit jackets right now, so I’ve been getting some of those. In the past two months I’ve gone from having NONE to having four and I still want MORE!

This is my new western style sport coat. You can click the pic to see it larger.

I want some vintage jackets, so I need to start checking out thrift shops and maybe hitting up my boss. He gave me a really cool vintage coat a while back. He’s old, so I’m sure he’s got to have some treasures in his closet.

Ok, that’s all for now. BYE.

Everything was pretty much set up Friday night by the time I got there. We were just hanging out and working on our dessert submission. The place was pretty busy all around us. People were blaring music, drinking, and partying.

We were next to a cook-site that had brough DJ equipment and lights. There were playing pretty good music and we were enjoying it… until the cholos next to them decided to start blaring their own music and a stereo war ensued. So we got a horrible mashup of cumbias and R&B. Until Brenna’s brother showed up and started blaring his music from his truck and we got to add country to that mix. You couldn’t understand anything being played. It was making us insane!

Our cook-site was pretty cute and well decorated. Click any of the pics below to see them larger.

We left the site pretty early and went home to bed. Brenna’s uncle Mike stayed to watch over everything and slept in the truck. We woke up at 6am Saturday and headed back out there to find a mangled mess everywhere. A cold front had blown in and tore everything up. Our two canopies were a mangled mess and everything was soaked.

While wandering around, I also saw this mangled mess over a fence. This is the front and back view of it on the fence.

Brenna’s mother went to Wal-Mart and picked us up a new canopy and we started getting everything set up all over again.

There were some pretty cool grills and sites set up around us. This gun shaped one was my favorite.

There was also some pretty horrible fashion going on all around us. Head to toe walking disasters. The worst thing I saw all weekend was what Brenna and I are now calling “Snookers” It’s a combination of a sneaker and a boot. Oh yes, someone was actually wearing these in public.

Saturday morning it was super cold at the site. We all had on multiple layers and were trying to huddle around and get warm by the grill. It was hard to get too close to it because the smoke was burning our eyes. It didn’t start warming up until around 12, I think.

Once the sun came out it was really quite nice. We took a great group pic in front of the banner.

Throughout the day we had to enter our different foods at assigned times. First was the salsa, and then beans, chicken, chili, ribs, BBQ sauce, and brisket. The awards for the chili, beans, and salsa were announced at 5 and we didn’t place in the top 10 for any of those.

The rest of the awards were announced at 6:30. We placed 6th for ribs and 10th for sauce. We didn’t place in the top 10 for anything else individually, but our combined food points put us in 8th place overall. We were super proud of that, especially since it was our first competition.

It would have been nice if they had told us how they were judging and what they were looking for. We were also disappointed to see that some of the judges were smokers. People that smoke should not be allowed to be judges in a cooking competition. Smoking kills your sense of taste!

After the awards we packed up and headed home and then Brenna and I went into Victoria to go dancing. Sadly, we picked the wrong club and it was a dud. We were too tired to do much else, so we just went home.

All in all, I had a pretty good weekend. It was nice to get out of town and to do something else for once. I really enjoyed myself and I made a fantastic new salsa that I love!

Even if I don’t win, I’m pretty excited about my salsa. It’s incredibly delicious. My favorite used to be the salsa from El Chile. I could drink that stuff, but not anymore. Last night, after I finished making my salsa, I sat down to snack and got out a jar of the El Chile salsa (so I could save mine for tomorrow) and I couldn’t even enjoy it. It’s not the same anymore. I’ve had super deliciousness and now I can’t go back.

I just hope that everyone else likes it as much as I do. I taste tested it at the office and everyone loved it and said that they were craving it shortly after tasting it. Karla asked for a jar for Christmas. Making I can become rich bottling it?!?!?

I’ve also become really good at making Frappuccino like drinks. I won’t call them Frappuccinos because Starbucks has that name Trademarked. I make them in Chocolate or Caramel and they are way better than what you can buy. SNAPS!

Brenna and her family were in town, so I met up with them later in the day and goofed around. Brenna and I came back to my place to get pretty, went to meet her family for dinner, then we headed out downtown. We did a lot of running around. We started at Rusty Spur, to Rebels Honky Tonk, Rain, Oil Can Harry’s, and then to Kiss & Fly.

We had a ton of fun at Rebels. It wasn’t as busy as usual, but it was still good. We danced a lot and I even got to dance with some other ladies. I think we might finally be starting to infiltrate the cliques.

This week I’m working on a salsa recipe for the Texana Chili Spill in Edna, Texas this weekend. I’m entered in the salsa contest and Brenna is doing the chili contest. We’re all cooking as a team, with her other family members doing brisket, chicken, beans, and a dessert. Our team is called Cinco C Cooking Company. Brenna had shirts and aprons made for all us and I’m super excited!

I think I have my recipe already figured out. I bought ingredients last night at Fiesta and tonight I’m going to try to make it.