3 weeks in 3 minutes

We were on such a blogging roll for awhile, posting on a regular basis and then all of a sudden we fell off the band wagon.  I am frankly blaming it on the beautiful October weather.  It is way too nice to sit inside and blog.  So we haven't.  Deal with it (I'm feeling a little lippy tonight as Arthur says).

If I remember right in one of the last posts I was slightly disgruntled about work or all the tasks that were keeping me from getting work done.  This was further compounded by getting a new computer at work last week.  My love for new technology as also been discussed on recent posts.  For some reason the most important things on my work computer-- my favorite exercises and my dictation files can't be transferred from one to other.  This meant that for a few days all the exercise handouts I gave patients sported lovely stick figure drawings-- I didn't know in college that an intro to drawing class would be useful in my future.  Our dictation software, Dragon, tends to be the bane of my existence.  Being able to dictate does save a lot of time typing but accuracy is significantly altered.  With the new computer I had to train Dragon all over which is quite the process and I'm still working on a lot of fine tuning over a week later.

With all of this going on at work I decided to skip town for a weekend.  Actually not but we did take a Friday off to road trip down to Dallas with my family which was an adventure in itself.  We all were going to Texas to attend my cousin's wedding reception in the US.  He and his South African bride got married in January in the UAE and were finally back in the States for a few days so we could celebrate with them.  We loaded up in Burt, my parents' SUV and headed south.  Our three year old niece was in the back seat and she had been told we were headed to Texas where all the cowboys live.  She was excited about the idea of cowboys and horses.  When we arrived in Texas she wasn't thrilled that there weren't any cowboys or horses to be seen in Dallas rush hour traffic.  You could tell she thought the 8 hour car trip was a crock. The extended family went out to eat at a Tex Mex restaurant and it was a delightful evening.  Catching up with family and eating large amounts of delicious Mexican food was wonderful.

We shared The Whole Enchilada which was a sampling of an array of Mexican food on a ginormous plate-- it was soo good we clean our plate until it sparkled.

 Our niece was still on the lookout for some real cowboys but the waitresses wearing cowboy hats didn't cut either-- they were girls.  Outside of the restaurant they had a few of the mechanical horse that move when you put a quarter in to ride.  Some background information is needed about my somewhat deprived childhood.  Whenever we saw these mechanical horses outside of Wal-Mart my parents would let us sit on them but we never knew they actually moved.  On one fateful day when I was about 5 or 6 we walked up to a store and saw a kid riding on one of these horses and it was moving.  My brothers and I were in shock and the jig was finally up.  Keeping that in mind my same parents have transformed into completely different people-- grandparents.  "Pops" (my dad) was able to come up with a handful of quarters and even my aunts decided quarters was a small investment to watch a child's joy riding horse wearing her cowgirl vest and hat-- these are not the same people from my childhood at all.  This three year old was not fooled though.  It couldn't be Texas since these weren't real horses.  The next day we all went to see more "horses", the Mustangs at Las Colinas.  This is a series of horse statues and fountains outside of some office buildings.  Once again pretty cool but citified horses. That evening we headed to the party which was hosted by a couple that my cousin met in the UAE who now lived in Dallas.  The party was a their beautiful home in the Dallas suburbs and it was a gorgeous clear September evening.  It was a great weekend for sitting around and sharing with family.  In fact at home point Arthur and another cousin sat for about 2 hours at a table in the backyard in almost complete darkness discussing who knows what but happy as clams.  The next day on our drive back I was backseat buddies with my niece.  I think Texas was still a little bit of a disappointment to her since Dallas didn't have the cowboys (real ones, not a football team) as promised.  However when she found out we were headed back to Kansas she wanted to turn around and go back to the hotel to play. 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words but I wonder how many words it would be worth if I could share how wonderful this smelled.

On a completely different note, I have another kitchen adventure to report on.  I made yeast bread.  At the State Fair I picked up the Kansas Wheat Commission cookbook and decided I would try bread.  Arthur is the one in the family who decided we needed a bread pan on our wedding registry-- I had never used on for my limited baking.  I chose a Golden Apple and Cheddar Challah.  I had no idea what a challah was-- and actually still didn't until I googled it moments ago.  I was drawn to the recipe because of the picture in the book.  It was beautifully braided loaf.  My philosophy in the kitchen is that grand presentation can cover up a mediocre taste.  I'm more of an artist than a cook at heart anyway.  Amazingly on my first try everything seemed to rise appropriately.  Just smelling fresh bread baking throughout the house was enough to convince me to make bread more often, or at least for a second time.  I pulled the final product from the oven and I was pretty impressed.  Arthur and I sat down and ate about half a loaf at once.  One of the best pleasures in life is eating warm, oven fresh bread.  Omnia Vincit Amor.