I went to see Tron this weekend. I didn’t go because I’m a huge fan. In fact, I was bored to death watching the original… which I just saw a couple of weeks ago. I went because a bunch of my friends were going and I’m a good friend.

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.

This past weekend was the Texana Chili Spill down in Edna, Texas. I went down there Friday evening to meet up with Brenna and the gang because we were entered in the competition.

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!

I worked on my salsa again and I think it’s all ready for competition. I’m super duper excited! I’m ditching out of work at 3 to head down there. Tonight we set up and get everything ready and then tomorrow it’s ON!

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!

This past weekend was interesting. I stayed in Friday night and decided to do house stuff. I was determined to get a bunch of stuff done around the house. I spent Friday night and Saturday morning doing laundry, cleaning out my refrigerator and my pantry, organizing my linen closet, organizing my bedroom, and other stuffs. I also went to show a house for lease.

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.

Last weekend was Halloween and I had a super fun time. The lead up to it wasn’t so great though. I worked a lot on my costume and I had the idea to go as a cooky version of Corpse Bride with my BFF Brenna. I got inspired by a hat I found online and I was going to make the hat myself… because I thought I had that kind of talent. I was wrong.

I had bought really cool white vintage pants and a black vintage jacket. I had planned on adding zippers and diamond studs to both articles to make them look like the hat and fit the Tim Burton style theme of the party I would be attending.

The diamond studs were not nearly as easy to affix to the jacket and pants as I thought. The days before Halloween I was in a panic because my costume was not coming along as I had expected. I started working on the hat and it was a mess. I was freaking out! I talked with Brenna and told her I was having a break down. She was having issues of her own with her costume. The wedding dress she ordered never arrived.

She came up with the idea to go as sort of a punk rock version of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. I loved the idea and I could still use the jacket I had been working on, boots that I already had, and black jeans that I already had. All I needed was neck bolts and green makeup. DONE.

Friday night my younger brother came up to visit and hang out. We never got to celebrate his 21st birthday, so Brenna and I were taking him out. We started the night with dinner at Piranha Killer Sushi bar for some yummies and then headed out to the bars.

We stopped in at Rain to do a birthday shot, which Brenna and I loved, but made my brother a little queezy. Next stop was Fado Irish Pub. We sat on the patio and had ciders (because little bro is not a drinker), but even that was too strong for him, so it was waters for the rest of the night for him. I wasn’t going to let him get drunk anyway.

We stopped at The Townhouse for another cocktail (and water for Jimmy) and then finished the night at Rebels Honky Tonk with some dancing. Brenna and I dressed as normal country folk that night because we were trying to blend and infiltrate the cliques. I think it’s working!

We talked my brother into riding the mechanical bull, which was pretty funny.

Saturday we ran around town shopping and goofing off. We tried this new restaurant on South Congress, Hopdoddy, and it was pretty delicious. They make really good burges and kennebec fries.

We headed home early to start getting dressed and made up for the party at Eric’s. Getting dressed was interesting. We ran into some glitches with Brenna’s wig and ended up having to use her real hair. I had issues with my green makeup being to watery, but it all turned out fine in the end. You can click the pics to see them larger.

I had a great time at the party. I was upset that I had forgotten my camera, but luckily my sister brought hers. Sadly, I didn’t manage to get a picture of my brother, sister, and I together. I’m still annoyed about that. I didn’t even get any good pics of Brenna and I.

The costumes were great, the food was delicious, and the decorations were amazing… as always. It’s incredible how much time and effort Eric puts into these parties. I’m super excited because he’s having a Christmas party this year, which is the first time he’s done that. I LOVE Christmas parties!

This week I’ve been busy showing houses and trying to get things done around my own house. I’m taking this weekend off from going out so that I can get some rest and also take care of a bunch of things that I’ve been meaning to do.

This weekend Brenna and I celebrated our birthdays. Our birthdays are so close together (18th and 24th) that we decided to just celebrate them together on the weekend of hers. We planned a big scavenger hunt with our friends and a weekend of bar hoping.

We were kind of disappointed that not everyone (except Brenna’s sister) was as excited and into the idea as we were. The game plan was that we emailed out a list of items to do leading up to our birthday weekend. A list of fun things you to do. Some of the items required you to be with your teammate (2 person teams) and some you could do on your own. Then Friday morning we emailed out the second list, which was all things to do at the bars that night. We would all meet up and then split up and run about doing our lists.

Things started to fall apart though. One team broke up, another made us angry, and two team lost their partners. Brenna and I decided that we would still play but we would hook up with Michelle and David (both of whom lost their partners) and play as a group. If any other team was out there playing that would be awesome and a bonus.

We made team shirts for ourselves and wore them out. One of the items on the hunt was a bonus of 20 points for the person with the most signatures on their shirt. My sister was the only other person to get signatures, so she got the 20 points. We started our night off at Buenos Aires Cafe with David, our designated driver for the night. The food was delicious, as always.

You can click any of the pictures to see them larger.

My sister, Michelle, met up with us at the restaurant after dinner and we walked over to Cheer Up Charlie’s to get started on the hunt. First two items, 1) Drinking from an actual coconut and 2) Female teammate peeing at a urinal.

Next we headed off to Charlie’s, and this is where we lost a team due to an altercation. This team decided to write something obscene on my shirt, causing me to become enraged. That’s all I’m going to say about it. In the posted picture of my shirt, I have photoshopped out the obscenity.

We knocked off some more items from our list. Tipping a stripper with a dollar bill in your mouth. Brenna and I are VERY comfortable tipping strippers. The main reason we go to Charlie’s is to play with the strippers.

We got a free bottle of champagne from the bar for our birthdays and my friend Doug met up with us to celebrate. He also helped us knock another item off our list, “someone bound and gagged in the trunk.”

Our next stop was Rain so we could knock off two more items, “dancing in a cage” and “dancing on a stripper pole.”

We went over to Rebel to do some dancing and to get our t-shirts signed. That was the most fun of the night. We had an awesome time dancing and running around asking for signatures. I haven’t had that much fun an a seriously long time. We stayed at the bar longer than we have in ages. We were in the until they turned on the lights and started shooing everyone out the door.

Brenna and I started having a contest to see who could get more signatures. This didn’t end at the club. We accosted people all the way through the street and back to the car. We were chasing people down trying to get signatures. In the end, I had the most signatures, cuz I’m awesome.

Saturday night we went to dinner at Frank’s with Eric, Taylor, Tomas, Blayne, Jorge, David and Amy. We got some cute presents, had dinner and drinks, headed over to Oil Can Harry’s for cocktails, and then to Rebel Honky Tonk for dancing.

There were a lot of pictures taken, but not all of them are internet appropriate or should be seen by everyone. These are some of my favorite pics from the hunt that aren’t already posted above.

Entire Team riding kiddies bikes.

Entire Team jumping of the swings at the same time.

Entire team wearing vintage outfits in a thrift store.

Entire team wearing vintage outfits in a thrift store.

Team member eating donuts with a policeman.

Team member eating donuts with a policeman.

Entire team in a shower with a third person – extra points for someone being nude.

Team member choking a bitch.

Three Wal-Mart employees doing Charlie’s Angel pose.

Three Wal-Mart employees doing Charlie’s Angel pose.