I’ve been decorating my house for what seems like an eternity, since I’m not made of money and all. So far, I’ve purchased a new sofa, a new coffee table¹, a new dining room table², and two vintage mid-century modern mohair-covered chairs that I’ve already decided I no longer want. Easy come, easy go, I guess.

Clearly I’ve got the furniture thing down pat. Floor coverings are a whole different ball of wax, though. I’ve looked and looked for floor coverings but, to date, haven’t found any I felt I just had to have. In fact, I’ve ordered two and sent them both back. I’ve sweetly asked people much stronger than me to help me carry rugs I’ve taken out on approval up to my condo to try out. I’ve scoured the interwebs and every single store I could think of who carries rugs, but never found anything I liked. Or, let’s be honest, that I could afford. My “champagne taste on a beer bottle budget” mantra has reared its ugly head more than once in this process. But I digress.

Someone mentioned the possibility of having a skin as a floor covering, but since I’m an unabashed animal lover and don’t like being overly trendy or Texas-y, I shied away from the idea. I don’t have mad interior designer skillz, however, I know what I like when I see it, so when I saw this good quality brindle rug for a mere $225, I practically mowed down the people around me to ensure I didn’t lose out. And I am happy to report that I’m the proud owner of a new 8×6′ brindle cow skin rug!

The best part about my new cow skin rug is that I think my cat may or may not think she has a new “friend”. I was a little concerned she might freak out from the smell or texture, being that it was alive at one point and all, but she seems to have taken to it like the big-boned little trouper she is. I don’t have to worry that I leave her alone a lot these days³ since she has become one with our new cow.

So what do you think of it? I love it and, between the cow skin rug and my new gun, dare I say I’ve become fully re-ensconced in Texas life?

¹“Coffee table” has always seemed like such an odd name for a piece of furniture to me since a) I don’t drink coffee and b) I don’t put coffee cups on my “coffee table”.
² But for which I have not purchased chairs.
³ What?! Don’t Look at me like that! I have a life and stay really busy — what can I say?!

Old Nose

Exactly 46 days ago, I had a nose job.I know — it’s hard to believe, isn’t it? In fact, prior to the surgery, I told several people what I was doing and literally every one of them said “I really don’t think  you need a nose job.” I appreciated their sentiment but, trust me…I needed it.

Here’s why: anyone who has ever slept in the same city room as me knows that my snoring and I were pretty much single-handedly sawing down the Redwood National Forest on a nightly basis. I was keeping everyone else up but, mostly, I was keeping myself up. I was always exhausted, even after getting eight hours of “sleep” and was barely able to make it through my work day without falling asleep at my desk, much less through my busy social life post-work.

So I did what any smart girl would do and scheduled appointments to meet with three plastic surgeons. All three of them told me the same thing: I had a major deviated septum (read: I was physically prevented from breathing out of the left side of my nose and was only getting 25% airflow through it — 25%!). In other words, I was pretty much breathing through one side of my face. Hello…we all know what lack of oxygen does to the body and it ain’t goodness, that’s for sure! Plus, since it was a medical condition, the “inside” part of the surgery was all done for the mighty, mighty price of free (thank you, company for which I work!). Sadly, the “outside” portion was not, but no matter! I’m growing a money tree on my patio to take care of this expense — oh, and also pimping myself down on Main Street, but you don’t need to know about that part.

Four weeks later, there I was at St. Luke’s Hospital at the crack o’dawn being wheeled into the operating room with a nurse wearing an LSU hat. This, I thought, could only mean good things. Sure enough, three hours and one improved nose later, I was all fixed up. Once I was home, my amazing momma went into overdrive taking care of me — she cooked for me, cleaned for me, took care of Abby (my cat), made sure I wasn’t comatose from the copious drugs I was taking, and shoveled frozen peas into baggie after baggie so my black eyes would go away.  The bottom line is that my mom rocks!

I’m not going to go into the gory details because, really, who cares? But know this: it was all worth the wait.

New 46-day-old nose

My nose is definitely still in the healing stage, but it was worth it all. It was worth the not-blowing-my-nose-for-46-days. It was worth the tip-of-my-nose-is-still-numb-which-feels-oh-so-weird. It was even definitely worth the fact that my nose is still swollen and will be for several more months (well, maybe this isn’t so worth it), because the fact of the matter is that I can now breathe!!!

I’ve asked very good and reliable sources, and have been assured that I’m no longer snoring when I sleep. This, I can tell you, is worth every single thing that comes along with major surgery. What else is good? I no longer feel like an 87 year-old woman who needs to nap every five minutes at 10 am. Trust me — that’s  not at all good for work productivity…not good at all! I finally have a ton of energy and am sleeping like one billion times better. It’s made the people sleeping in the same city room as me happy, especially my cat who was threatening to register a complaint with animal protection about it. And, the cosmetic work I had done didn’t change the way I looked, a la Jennifer Grey, but reduced the projection of my nose by 1/2 inch, reduced the width, and made it smaller all-around (maybe one day soon I’ll actually get to see the final result…like when this freaking swelling goes down!).

The bottom line is that I’m happier than I’ve been in a long, long time because I can finally breathe…which is kind of a big deal. All I can say is I’ve seen god and it’s in the form of my plastic surgeon. Bless this man — bless him long time!

I’m in a college football pool and actually chose Alabama as this year’s likely national champion (for which I’ll get ten extra points if I’m right), and I don’t want to alarm you, but know this: if LSU wins the game against Alabama, anyone in a five square mile radius of wherever I am will hear me screaming at the top of my lungs and doing a major, major happy dance.

I don’t ask for much, but I’m asking today: at 7pm Central Time tomorrow, I’m asking everyone to send their collective good vibes for a huge LSU win from wherever you are to Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

All together now….GEAUX TIGERS!

The bottom line is that my old shoes were looking eerily similar to worn out tires — the tread was gone and when I did the penny test¹, I could see every single bit of Lincoln’s hat. So off I went to Luke’s Locker to procure myself some safe new shoes. I’ve even added a photo to show you how unsafe I was being by continuing to wear those unsafe shoes! Rebel yell, yo! And to make myself feel better about spending money on a “necessity” when I could have been out buying things like clothes, shoes, and purses.

Being that I’m not usually a creature of habit and am someone who will always try something new, it seems ironical that I got the same pair of running shoes I’ve been wearing since the earth cooled — my beloved Asics Gel Nimbus. When you find trainers you like, you stick with ‘em. I’m not crazy about the color I got, but I wear a 7.5C shoe (not an 8B like I normally have to cram my foot in) and Asics only sells that size shoe in this weird pinky-orangey-tie-dye shoe. Whatevs — they fit like a glove and what could be more important than running in shoes that actually fit and don’t make me feel like one of Cinderella’s stepsisters before the ball. W00t, indeed.

Now I’m pumping up my new kicks and going for a run!

¹ I always wondered how to do the penny test while I lived in Canada since the Queen (who’s on their penny) doesn’t wear top hats. Inquiring minds want to know.

Not many things, though, make me as happy as spending time with my girlfriends. There’s just nothing like sipping a cocktail; talking about shopping, work, and boys; and laughing giant belly laughs with really fantastic people, which is exactly what I did tonight.

What’s great about my friends is that we never sit around and turn into catty bitches like so many women I know; we don’t gossip incessantly or get jealous when one of us does well or lands a date with the super hot guy we’ve all been lusting over. Nope — my friends inspire me, support me, keep me grounded, and make me bowl over with laughter. They’re wicked smart and extremely successful in their professional lives. They care about their friends and families just like I do and, when one of us is down and out, they are the first person calling to be by your side. They also float me money for the valet parking I inevitably use but for which I never have cash.  Basically, my friends are amazing people.

We had a weekly Thursday thing until a couple of months ago when we all went through some big events in our lives; we didn’t stop talking, natch, but our “Real Housewives” Thursday night ritual¹  went on a bit of a hiatus. It had been two weeks since we’d gotten together, and we pretty much sucked up every bit of oxygen in the room catching up. Three hours later, with tummies full of good food, good wine, and soreness from the copious laughing, we hugged each other, kissed each others’ cheeks, said our “I love yous”, and made plans to get together the following week.

As we were leaving, three other women were leaving together. They were considerably older than us, but looked like they’d had as much fun as we had. They hugged each other, kissed each others’ cheeks, told each other they were loved, and went on their merry little ways. We just looked at each other, giggled, and said “there we are in 30 years.”

They say good people have good friends. I knew I was good…but I didn’t know I was this good.

¹And by “Real Housewives ritual”, I mean drinking a ton of wine and only getting through ten minutes of the show.

Someone in Toronto actually asked me if I was scared to walk around outside in Houston. I think my mouth may have dropped open from the absurdity. This may come as a surprise, but nothing could be further from the truth. Houston is the fourth largest city in the States with a population about the same as Toronto (~4M). We drive cars (mostly big giant ones because we have tons of space), work in concrete skyscrapers and live in air-conditioned pods nine months a year.

While we may not ride horses to work, we do have liberal gun laws. In Texas, you can own a gun (as long as you have a license for it) and use it if someone comes onto your property. We can also carry concealed handguns in Texas (as long as you have completed a Concealed Handgun License (CHL) course and have a license to conceal carry). I’ve never been a big fan of guns. I grew up in suburgatory where we were one step away from Stepford and the only gun my dad had was a .22 rifle he used to shoot the squirrels that would occasionally run on top of our roof. Guns were just foreign to me.

Do I believe private citizens should have the right to own an Oozie or some other insane sawed-off semi-automatic weapon? No. But does our Constitution give us the right to bear arms if, in fact, we want to own one? Yes. Yes, it does. So when I moved back to Texas, though, I decided that I have a right to own a gun, and wanted to learn to properly handle and shoot one. I started going to the gun range with some friends (side note: let me just say that the gun range may or may not be the new place to meet very hot guys shooting their guns. Just sayin. Ahem.) and found out that I was actually a pretty good shot. And because I’m never one to sit back on her laurels, I decided that I was going to get my CHL just in case I ever needed to carry a gun outside my house. So I applied with the State of Texas and now just have to practice shooting more and take the CHL course.

Not surprisingly, there are a ton of places in Texas to get your CHL. It’s a ten-hour course (eight hours of class and two hours of shooting to prove you’re proficient) and is only about $100. Seems pretty low key, right? Wrong. At least at Crockett Keller’s in central Texas.

Mr. Keller recently caused a bit of a fuss over his newly-recorded commercial touting his CHL course. It’s a short 1-minute radio spot that I’ve put here for your listening pleasure.

I know, right? The best part is that this spot was totally fo realz — seriously, who could make this up?! I’ll have Mr. Keller know that I voted for the current “invader-in-chief” as he so eloquently put it, but I’m pretty sure that, after sizing me and my blonde self up, he’d teach me the course. Some of it may be to incite people and get ‘em talking, which he most certainly did. But no one — not even me — should be surprised when someone in Toronto asks them if they’re scared to walk around outside, what with quacks like the Crockett Keller’s of the world.

I tried participating in #nablopomo last year and fell off the wagon after a mere three days. Then I got the crazy idea to blog about Texas, but I didn’t do any traveling around Texas and, ergo, had nothing to blog about. I’m keenly aware that this, my third attempt at reviving my blog, falls clearly into the “stop crying wolf” category, but because blog readers can be so demanding and because I continue getting comments like “I really miss your blog” or “your really have mad blog posting skillz” or “what the hell are you doing these days” or “dear god, please blog again, woman!”, and because, honestly, I miss it here, I’m going to give this the old college try again. 

I may not make it all the way through, but I promise you this: I’m going to do my very best to make this blog less about blogging and more about being seriously RAD!  So cue the trumpets and confetti tossing because I’m back…well, for 30 days anyway.You’re welcome.

By way of reintroduction, I’m Carmen and, obvs, “she” is me. In case you are just joining the party, I was lucky enough to spend three years living and working in Canada. While there, I traversed the country forward and backward; I learned new things; I met a motherlode of awesome people; I ate new foods; I saw things I’d never seen before (I’m looking at you six foot high snow drifts); and had the absolute time of my life. And blogged about it for all the world to read.

Once I moved back to the States, I stopped blogging. I missed it, but what was there to say? Houston is hot. You have to live inside an arctic cold blast-like air-conditioned bubble seven months a year. And, really, how many times can you talk about going to the Galleria without it sounding like broken-record time? Not that many. My momma always taught me that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. So I didn’t. Until now, that is. The tens and tens of you who have been begging me to blog again were very persuasive, not to mention pushy; blog readers can be so demanding that way. And, really, who am I to deny you your happiness?

It took a long time — nearly a year, in fact — for me to finally see that when life gives you lemons, you make a daiquiri. I mean, THIS IS THE SHOW, right? You can either live stuck in the past or get busy moving forward. So I pulled myself up by my bootstraps¹, got out there like I always have and decided to live an awesome life, Texas or not. I finally feel like the old Carmen again. The bubbly, witty, laugh-out-loud girl who wants to experience as much as humanly possible has resurfaced and just in time. I’m making copious good friends; I’m dating very cute and very smart guys; I’m saving copious tax dollars²; and am finally interested in learning all kinds of awesome things about Houston and Texas again.

I’ve also had copious conversations with lots of different people of late who constantly ask if I’d done “this” or “that” in Texas. And every time, I found myself pretty much saying “actually, no”. Don’t get me wrong — I’ve traveled a *ton* of places, but I hadn’t done “this” or “that”; I hadn’t been “here” or “there” in Texas. In fact, I’ve never even been west of San Antonio and, trust me, there’s a *lot* of Texas west of San Antonio. I realized that I knew waaaay more about Toronto and Canada than most of its own inhabitants, and yet knew next to nothing about my own backyard. Ergo, I’m officially blowing the dust off of my rusty old blog; I’m going to traverse my place of birth and blog about my amazing state — the places, the people, the foods and the crazy things I see and find. We already know everything is bigger and better here, so I’m going to go check every bit of it out because that’s how I roll. I’m preparing to shake what my momma gave me because I plan to have one helluva Texas-sized good time on my adventures!

Photo courtesy of Dave Triomphe on Flickr. Because really…what other state could possibly look as cool as Texas in Bud Light 12-packs?

¹ Because y’all know we all have boots down here, right?
² And when I say “copious”, I mean “a freaking motherlode”.

I voted early this year so as to avoid the horrendously lengthy lines that I knew would queue on election day and to avoid my vote not counting since I’d be voting absentee. When I went to vote, I didn’t have my voter registration card, so I used my drivers license instead. When I checked in, the precinct volunteer wasn’t able to find me on the Harris County rolls. She was elderly (by which I mean 95) and probably shouldn’t have been assigned to working the only laptop on site, anyway, but she didn’t know what to do with me and redirected me to the guy that was overseeing the voting at that location.

He looked me up and asked me if I’d had my federal ballot in the last election mailed to me and I assured him that, yes, I had voted absentee via a mail-in ballot because I was living in Canada. So he said “so you were living overseas?” to which I replied “well, I was living in Canada”. Long pause. He stared at me and said “right, so you were living overseas”. Longer pause. I stared right back and, in the sweetest voice I could muster said, “Well, I guess I lived overseas if you consider Lake Ontario an ocean”. Radio silence.

I don’t know if he got the point, but I got to exercise my right and he made me fill out some “Request to Cancel Federal Post Card Application” form in triplicate (!) afterward. Because, you know, I might have been trying to stuff the ballot box and you’re not really allowed to vote twice, at least not in Texas.

Stephen Harper chose the Metro Toronto Convention Centre — smack dab in Toronto’s downtown core — as the site of the G20, despite much ballyhooing from citizens, city government officials, and even the liberally-biased media (oh, who am I kidding — they loved it).  With guests such as President Obama, Prime Minister Cameron, President Jintao, Chancellor Merkell, President Medvedev, and a slew of other leaders, and their legions of delegates, and the additional invited heads of state from such economic powerhouses as Ethiopia, Malawi, Netherlands, Nigeria, Spain, and Vietnam, it goes without saying that Toronto turned into a police state. In other words, it was pure chaos.

I’ve done a lot of cool things during my time in Canada, but one of them now officially stands out among the rest. I don’t know if I mentioned it here, but I lived within one of the three G20 security perimeters, complete with a 5 mile, 10′ solid steel fence erected just for the occasion. To help chronicle the impact of the summit on ordinary citizens leading up to, during, and after the event, the CBC decided to invite ten community bloggers to write for their newly-created-just-for-the-summit G20 Street Level blog. Amazingly, I was one of the ten selected and, needless to say, I was totally psyched.

As I was fairly busy traversing a city filled with 15,000 police officers imported from every other province in the country and being trapped by scores of said police officers in their finest riot gear, I didn’t really have time to cross-post my articles. One day, though, (one day soon) I’ll add them here. In the meantime, though, you can check out my contributions on the CBC’s web site. You’re welcome.

Brace yourself for the best part, though: not only was I selected to write for the CBC (which was an absolute thrill), or to be interviewed on CBC Television during the summit (which I was — thricee), but our “little blog that could” recently received some serious props. We won a Canadian Online Publishing Award for “Best Community Feature” AND were named a finalist in the “Community Collaboration” category for the Online News Association Awards!

Let us take pause for one moment to discuss the Online News Association Awards. We’re talking about competitors such as the New York Times¹. And CNN.com. And the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, AP, and NPR², to name a few. We were nominated in the category of “Breaking News: Large Site” and, for our category, were up against such journalistic monstrosities as CNN.com (for coverage of Haiti), the New York Times (also for coverage of Haiti), the Seattle Times, and Boston.com. Ahem. We didn’t ultimately win, but we were the only Canadian finalists against all those big boys which, in my humble opinion, is eleventy-thousand kinds of awesome. “Journalism. Innovation. Excellence”, indeed.

While I certainly recognize that the whole “community blog” thing wasn’t my idea, but rather the highly intelligent and wicked smart peeps at CBC, I feel like, for the first time ever, I played an itty-bitty part in contributing to something seriously big. I’m happy for Canada, excited for the CBC, and super proud of myself. Rock!
 
 
 
 
¹To whom I bow down
²Marry me, Ira!