Adios South Austin Commute

Day: 349
High Temp: 97F

Yes, I am sorry. ANOTHER post about moving. I feel like I have been obsessing about moving since we got here a year ago, but this probably is not my last moving-related blog entry. I still don't have any pictures of the cute new Mint House to post. Did I mention the Mint House has dark teal trim? Only in Austin...

I think I have joked before that it doesn't take any longer than 10 minutes to get from any one point to any other point within the ACL (that is Austin City Limits to those of you not in the know). That may be an understatement, as my daily commute to campus, via Elly, is at least twice that.  It's a fairly easy and fast 20 minutes in the mornings (what, no one else but me has to be in the office by 8am??) By 5:20 in the afternoon, when I hit the intersection at Congress and Cesar Chavez, there is a full-blown, mini-urban traffic jam situation happening. I always sit through at least 4 light cycles at that intersection before I am able to make my left turn.  On a normal traffic day, it takes me about 30 minutes to drive the 3 miles home.

By most urban standards, it's probably not that bad. For Austin, it seems kind of ridiculous. The whole problem is that I have to drive THROUGH downtown to get to campus.

Well ladies and gents, after today's commute, that will no longer be true. You see, we are moving north of campus, and that means I only have to drive through quiet residential neighborhoods to get to campus! I drove the new commute last night afterwork because I had to go pick up a package at the Mint House.  I was in Elly by 5:12, and pulling into our new driveway by 5:19. I kid you not, in what should have been the full throes of rush hour, it took me only 7 minutes to get home.  In truth, the new house is only .2 miles closer to campus than our current place. But not having to drive through downtown makes all the difference.

There are lots of things I will miss about South Austin, mainly this, this and this.  However, spending less time in my car every day, and more time with Tom and the Home-doggy are worth being farther from my favorite tacos. I can always visit those places on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

Time Flies

Day: 345
High Temp: 93F

Good lord, where did the last two weeks go!? I was shocked to see that I haven't posted anything since July 12.  Part of this time lapse can surely be accounted for by the fact that Tom was out of town all last week. This meant not only did I have to (once again this month) play single mom to Homer, but I spent much of my free time running errands, packing and cleaning, all in preparation for our move next weekend.

It seems like yesterday that Tom and I got the good news from our friends Zach and Adrienne that they would be moving here at the end of the summer. Guess what, they get here NEXT weekend! And, I am getting married in two months.  Forget the last two weeks, where the heck did my 17 month engagement go?

So here is the deal, Tom and I are leaping our way closer to that year-anniversary mark, and despite time flying, I have had the opportunity (and inspiration) to think about where I am at, where I was a year ago, and all the excitement to come this year. It has been a really rough year in a lot of ways.  There was the 4 month stint of unemployment, the constant anxiety about my inability to make adult friends here, my frustrations with my living situation and just the general sense of feeling on the outside of life, while everyone else around me seem to be living in it.

I have already told you how excited I am to be moving into a real house (with a yard, no one above me, vegetable garden, etc!!!) With this exciting event impending, I have made up my mind about one thing: I will embrace Texas for all that it is, the good and the bad.

Today, I say, NO MORE moping.  I am going to embrace this change of living situation as an opportunity for an attitude adjustment. When my job is boring me to tears, I will just remind myself of the anxiety of having to pay rent several months into unemployment.  When I start to feel like a looser for my lack of friends in Texas, I will remember how much better it can be to have one close friend you can talk about anything with than many acquaintances you can't really relate to. When I am missing the snow of the midwest, I will just think of how lucky I am to not have to walk my dog in January wearing a sleeping bag coat, galoshes, mittens a stocking cap AND earmuffs. Missing those fall leaves?  Well, there is lettuce in the garden, and broccoli, and it's November!

Tom and I are getting married in two months, and just 3 months after that I turn thirty.  I have spent the last year of my life feeling sorry for myself and I am tired of it. I wished away this last year, anxious to get to the wedding, to get the heck out of the lame apartment and to be at a place where I just feel settled.  I am now realizing that settled is just as much a state of mind as it is time gone by. I am there, or at least I will try my hardest to be.

I saw a bumper sticker in the Hobby Lobby parking lot on Saturday that said, "I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as quick as I could!" And I just thought to myself, no matter how positive I am going to be about this whole Texas thing, I am not sure I will every be that person. I am just hoping for, "I wasn't born in Texas, but I live here now and that's not so bad!"

The Mint House

Day: 331
High Temp: 91F

Is it possible that come August 1, Tom and I will be living the Austin dream? Tom just got a phone call from Mrs. Maylene Bird who told him that she and her husband would like us to rent their too-cute-for-words, mint green 2 bedroom house in the Hyde Park/North Loop neighborhood!  I am going to pick up the lease tonight after work. I am so happy, and so relieved that I am near tears right now.

So, what does this mean?  Well, there are a lot of unknowns. We have never rented a house before, but I do know there are a lot of things to look forward to and be grateful for. For instance:

-We have just 3 more weekends in our current, little apartment! And because we are going out of town this weekend, that means just two more weekends of the drunk, douche-bag neighbors waking us up in the middle of the night! Also, did I mention no one above us? No one below us! No shared walls with anyone!

-Homer will have a yard!  A nice, fenced-in yard to run around, play fetch and chase bugs in!

-We will have a guest room! We have already had five sets of out-of-town visitors since February (how amazing is that?) Now, Tom and I will be able to offer our guests their own space, instead of our aerobed put up in the living room.

-I won't have to leave the comfort of my home to do laundry!!! There is a little utility closet just off the  living room, and it is equipped with a washer and dryer that come with the place! I have not experienced such a luxury since moving out of my parents home 11 years ago.

-I will have dinner parties!  The kitchen in this house is HUGE, and our dining room table will fit so nicely underneath the adorable little vintage chandelier in there.

-I will have a garden! The house is on one half of a double lot.  The owners have a garage/storage building on the back of the other lot, and there is also a raised bed garden. The other lot has it's own fence, but the owners said we can use the garden if we want. That means veggies for us on the other side of the fence from Homer! Did I mention that the other lot also has a fig tree on it? Jam!!!

-Austin Charm! This place is one of a kind, for sure.  It was originally two tiny houses that someone in the 1950's moved to this lot and put together as one.  The whole outside was re-done, so it looks cohesive, but the interior still has tons of vintage touches from the original houses. Aside from the chandelier mentioned above, the bathroom has an original claw-foot tub, and the whole house has original hardwood floors, nicely refinished. Did I mention the blue cabinets in kitchen and the glass door knobs?

-We will live in a great, safe, neighborhood that puts us even closer to campus than we were before. We are also within a 5 minute walk of: Flight Path Coffee, Foreign & Domestic, The Parlor and a trio of beloved vintage shops: Room Service, Blue Velvet and Hog Wild. And we are within a 5 minute bike ride to the heart of Hyde Park, and a few more great restaurants: Mother's Cafe and Garden, Julio's Cafe and Quack's Bakery!

When Tom and I were planning our move to Austin last summer, we had dreams of renting an affordable house with a yard. Those dreams were soon dashed by a few leasing agents, bad timing and our own lack of understanding of how Austin "works." This year, although we were learning as we went, we were determined to find what so many of our friends here have... A nice little house.  I personally think we got even more than we expected, and I am excited to sign the lease, and start making plans to move. And now, I am just curious about when y'all are coming down to visit!

Hello, my name is Lindsey and I am a blog-subscriberholic

Day: 327
High Temp: 77F (what?!)

It's true!  I have been thinking about writing a post like this for weeks now, but with the recent addition of two new blogs in the past 24 hours, I figured it is time to come clean. I am currently following 43 (!) blogs, and I keep adding more.  They break down as follows:

Wedding/Event Planning- 21
Family and Friends- 8
Crafts/Fashion/Arts- 3
Food- 3
Misc- 3
Professional (like non profit, entrepreneurial related)- 2
Theatre- 2
Celebrity- 1

The most recent blog I added to the roll is Food In Jars, a blog about canning.  I love to can and jar all sorts of stuff, and so I was really excited when Carol over at Alinea At Home turned me onto it. Yes, that is how it almost always works for me. One blog leads to another and another and another, and so forth.

My favorite wedding blog, by far, is Ruffled. And the only celebrity blog I am following is Jorge Garcia's Further Dispatches (which truly was amazing when he was still filming Lost, but is still nice as he is such a genuinely cool guy).

I have 45 unread items still in my reader today, even though I had cleared it out by the end of the day yesterday, and spent part of my lunch hour earlier getting through a good portion of today's posts. What do you think? Do I need help?

I, myself, am currently tending to 2 of my own blogs... There is this one here, and my wedding blog here. Who needs 2 blogs?!

It helps to have a desk job, where instead of taking cigarette or coffee breaks, I can take a blog break when my brain is fried. I also have a mandatory 1 hour lunch each day, and do a lot of reading and writing at that time.

And since I am a glutton for punishment, I have to know... what are your favorite blogs? Besides mine, of course!

The Job

Day: 326
High Temp: 89F

The cool thing about my job at UT is that it is one part Education and one part social services.  Having spent the first several years of my career fundraising in the arts, I thought this would be a great opportunity to diversify my experience and resume.  This position has allowed me to learn a ton about endowments and the funding of academic programming. It has also allowed me the special joy of fundraising to provide direct healthcare services to the under and uninsured of central Texas through our two nurse-managed health clinics.

Yesterday afternoon I had my first chance to visit the School of Nursing's Children's Wellness Center (CWC), which is located in a rural and poor area of Travis County called Del Valle.  Completely bereft of basic services (there is not a grocery store in Del Valle, and our clinic is the only primary health provider for miles) Del Valle almost seems forgotten by Travis County. It is also plagued by a special set of problems that must be unique to a poor rural community situated not 15 minutes from the "major urban area" that is downtown Austin (obesity, asthma, gang violence).

Every day, our clinic provides health services primarily for children, but also for their families if they have no where else to go.  We serve a population of over 1,000 children under the age of 18, providing physical exams, treatment of acute illnesses, social and behavioral interventions and hundreds of free immunizations.

I was at CWC yesterday in preparation for an event we are hosting there in a few weeks. The entire clinic used to be situated in two modular buildings, but recently the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (yes, that Dell) gave us a large grant to renovate a third building. This renovation allowed us to create an expanded lab and new nurses stations and most exciting of all, it doubled the number of patient rooms we have at the clinic. Of course, thanks are in order, and so we are all trucking out to Del Valle in a few weeks to show the people from the Dell Foundation all the good they did with their recent grant and to thank them.

Settling in to the School of Nursing has been hard for me, but this visit helped me reconnect with an important aspect of the work we are accomplishing every day (aside from educating all those future nurses which is also cool).  Certainly, I miss working in the arts. But also my boss and I are both new, and we are operating under an interim Dean. Everyone wants to move forward, but until a permanent Dean is appointed, it will be hard to do.  I have been feeling a little like I am playing a waiting game, anticipating the appointment of a permanent Dean, and the unveiling of new strategies and goals for the school. Until then, we are just sort of carrying on. The Clinics, however, are still growing and it is exciting to see that happening.

Lambert's Downtown BBQ, Take A Bow!

Day: 325
High Temp: 91F (Suck it Mid-Atlantic states!)

Hello friendly blog readers.  Before I jump into my glowing review of Lamberts, let me apologize for my extended hiatus from the blog. I try my best to blog at least once a week, but the past few have been an odd sort. Between my long weekend in the Bay Area, the fervent house search, and playing single parent to a demanding, high-energy pup for a week, I have been a bit frazzled.  I promise to be better in the upcoming weeks, and actually am cooking up something fun to commemorate our 1-year anniversary in Austin (just a month away). But now, with out further ado, I give you Lamberts Downtown BBQ!

Since arriving in Austin, Tom and I have become barbeque enthusiasts. Not only have we been blessed with many out of town visitors who must be introduced to the ways of Texas BBQ, but also, we just love the stuff.  We don't buy much meat for at home cooking, and we never buy pork or beef, so visiting our local BBQ haunts is a way for us both to satisfy our protein cravings.

I had not even heard of Lamberts when our friends Martin and Kelly suggested it as the destination for our evening out.  Martin and Kelly are, as I write this, packing up their lives here in Austin to move to my beloved Chicago (you know I am jealous!)  Kelly having finished her PhD here at UT this spring, has recently been hired to the theatre faculty at North Central College. This was sort of a going-away celebration, and perhaps our last chance to really hang out and talk before they head north.

Lamberts serves up what one might call "Fancy BBQ." You read that right.  Interspersed with the well smoked meats there are a lot of french-inspired preparations.  You can order a charcuterie plate for an appetizer, the mashed potatoes are made with creme fraiche and the asparagus served with bearnaise sauce, and you can order creme brulee for dessert. Some bbq lovers may scoff at this, but I have to ask you, do you honestly think that a classically trained chef could not improve upon your favorite old family recipes? I think there is something to be said for innovation, and frankly Lamberts' pairing of classical technique with homestyle southern cooking is one of the best types of "fusion" cooking I have ever experienced.

We all started with the yummy mini-corn muffins studded with jalapenos. Tom and I then shared a salad on the specials menu which included arugula, fresh Fredericksburg peaches (local!) and a yummy, soft and runny blue cheese.  It was divine, and a nice, light way to start a meal that would quickly turn into a gluttonous feast.

For my main course, I ordered the Cold Smoked Quail stuffed with rice, and served over two homemade cheese enchiladas.  The whole thing was bathed in a delicious ranchero sauce, and topped with two diminutive fried quail eggs. Oh my word. BBQ + TexMex at it's finest.  Tom had the Brisket, which he proclaimed to be the finest he had ever eaten. He went on for days about the tender, flavorful fatty layer, which enhanced the meat. He claims that most places just can't do fat like Lamberts. Most places it ends up more like gristle, chewy and unappetizing.

The table shared two family-style sides, the buttermilk potato salad (excellent, but not as good as my Aunt Christine's) and mac n' cheese (One of the best I have had in the city thus far.) And we ended, of course, with dessert. Tom and I shared the Chocolate and Chili Pudding. This was the only let down of the evening. As far as chocolate pudding goes, this one was actually quite delicious, however, when you advertise the presence of chili, you get me hoping there will be a kick, or even just a slight, back of the throat tickle. Unfortunately, there was not even a trace of chili flavor or heat in the pudding. And come to think of it, if I am being really picky, the texture was more like a Pots de Creme than an actual American-style pudding.

All in all, the place was really delicious.  While I would happily go back for dinner (or even to try brunch) any time,  I am really keen to try the happy hour, when the bar food is half off (including Spicy Deviled Eggs and Broiled Gulf Oysters) and the drinks are $2 off.

Read what I have said about Salt Lick here.
And I just looked back through my blog and could not find a single mention of in-town favorite Stubbs BBQ. I promise to write about it next time we go! They have the BEST side dishes of any Austin BBQ I have visited so far.