I am typing this up on my phone, so it will be short, to the point, and chock-full of typos!
1. What are some of your family traditions?
We always used to cut down a Christmas tree on the Friday after Thanksgiving, then ate lunch with everyone. Some of my happiest memories about Christmas begin with a story about doing that!
I think we are ripe for some new traditions…
2. Do you know how to change a flat tire?
Do I know how a tire is changed? Yes. There is a jack involved. You remove 5 lug nuts, take off the flat, pray that the spare isn’t flat, and then screw the new tire on. Do I change tires? No.
3. Do you subscribe to any magazines? What are your favorites?
Just Real Simple, but Glamour shows up at the house for some reason. I donate it every month to the Magazine Monday Program at work, which provides reading material for patients waiting (for many, many hours sometimes!) at the clinics at Ben Taub and other facilities.
4. What are your top three favorite office supply items?
I think planners should count – that would definitely be both my most needed and my favorite to shop for! Since I’m in charge of the bulletin board at work, I also get to shop for scrapbooking supplies! I have the BEST JOB EVER.
5. Are you a good public speaker?
Well, I’m not scared to speak in public. It’s hit or miss: sometimes I think I’ve done pretty well, other times I know I didn’t. (I thought my speech at my brother’s wedding was pretty good until I started crying, a rehearsal dinner speech for my friend Jenny bombed.)
6. How do you feel about acronyms?
There are some great ones: WTF is a nice way to express dismay. I work for the Harris County Hospital District Foundation, so the acronym HCHDF is my friend.
7. What’s the most creative things you’ve ever done? (Bloggers, feel free to include pictures!)
That is hard, because I love getting creative and I have a poor memory. So the most creative thing I did this month: a storyboard recounting Mayor Bob Lanier’s influence on the creation of HCHD (see above). I’ll try to add a picture, if I can! It involved researching the county archives, old newspapers, and lots of paper cutting!
8. I’d rather jam a pen in my eye than…
- be required to do math problems
- shop all day in a mall at Christmas
- fold and put away laundry
- share the same room with a cockroach, live or dead
9. What company has the best advertising?
the fun theory from vw
The piano stairs! I posted on this previously, but it’s so so good!
10. When is your birthday?
August 27th, I am the typical Virgo!
I’m moving into a new house next year, and I’ve been trying to save money for travel next year anyway, so I can’t spend a ton of money for the holidays. I’ve mentioned this before: I LOVE picking out Christmas presents. I know plenty of women like me; there’s a thrill when you find the perfect gift, especially if you don’t have to spend a lot of money on it. I love wrapping something up that I know will make someone happy, especially if it took some amount of cleverness or insight on my part.
Of course buying something expensive (like a flatscreen tv or a Playstation) is guaranteed to make someone happy, and so that doesn’t count. An extravagant present can’t replace the warm satisfaction of thinking about, seeking out, and getting a good deal on the right gift. This year, I will be buying presents for my parents, my sister (who I drew in the sibling/significant other gift exchange), my boyfriend, the white elephant and ornament exchange at work, and then a few small things for my friends. I had one of those moments this weekend when I stumbled across a present I know my friend will love.
My mother and I attended the Nutcracker Market at Reliant Stadium. Normally, my mother and I are the world’s least enthusiastic leisure shoppers, preferring to employ the “surgical strike” technique: go to a particular store to get the one thing needed, locate and purchase said item, and leave. Spare very few glances for the other merchandise. The Nutcracker Market is not a surgical strike maneuver. They discourage you from leaving by charging a fee to park, an entrance fee (which benefits the Houston Ballet, so that’s a plus), and creating a rabbit’s warren of booths from which it can be daunting to extricate oneself. It is in this labyrinth my mother and I willing consigned ourselves to wander, along with thousands of other women, a few harassed-looking men and children, and several hundred metric tons of cheesy merchandise.
Our friends have a booth every year, so we went to support them and also to burn a few calories walking the miles of aisles. There are about 5 categories of goods for sale: Christmas decorations, clothing, gourmet foods, decorative arts, and crap covered in animal print and hot pink feathers. Stressed out sales clerks, often the relatives and children of the proprietor, attempt to keep standing upright amongst the pressing crowds of browsing women. Exclamations of surprise and declarations of love rise up above the buzzing of women’s voices and the local high school choir’s caroling.
Despite pawing through approximately 1,397 items, I only found the aforementioned item that I liked for a friend (the perfect gift! I wish I could show you, but she might actually read this!) and a simple gold necklace for myself. I did see some good craft ideas, but nothing I would want to pay someone else for. We got caught up in the moment and almost bought some Christmas morning pajamas (a Hurst family tradition), but the woman working the booth took out her stress and frustration on me by snapping at me when I picked up a package. She apologized right away, but it was so startling that we just put down the things we’d picked out and walked away. I hope her chosen career path isn’t in sales, as she was struggling pretty early in the game to hold on to her composure.
After about 3 hours, when we’d covered nearly every booth, we left and went straight to Target, where we employed our “surgical strike” technique to end the day of shopping on a satisfying note. I took a few pictures to try to capture the madness.
The theme this year was something about dogs, hence the giant centerpieces filled with dog bones. Was the theme "Dog Eats Dog Shopping Experience"?
Full body fake tattoos. No, really. Sorry the picture's so unfocused; I kept getting run over by slowly moving, bag laden browsers.
This made me sad - the vendor's accessories featured on the cover of LIFE from 20+ years ago, now featured in a booth at a craft market. Also funny, because his stuff is still pretty eighties-looking. And not in a good way. Notice the howling coyote hammered silver earrings?
Out of control. (For a 3 day market!)
Here are some of the ideas I liked for crafts:
Cute gift for kids of both genders, and super easy. Buy a box with a sliding lid from a craft store, and spray chalkboard paint on it. Decorate and personalize. I thought these were a little plain; I would paint the whole thing and maybe add a more interesting handle...
I loved these - and I think they would be easy and cheap to make. That could be a fun project to actually do with your kids, even down to picking out the fabric. Plus, you can make it a smaller size that can easily be stored in a closet when not in use.
Despite my snarky comments, we DID have fun (especially making fun of people – I tell you, we are just not nice.) I’m looking forward to my next holiday market, which represents a much different (and more to my tastes) set of goods. The Winter Holiday Art Market (WHAM) at Winter Street Studios will feature tons of local artists and craftsmen selling homemade, local paintings, sculpture, jewelry, accessories, clothing, and soaps. I’ll be bartending with Andrew on Saturday night, so I hope everyone reading will come if they can! It’s free, and there will be lots to see and do (and drink). Click on the picture below to go to the website.
Can we change people’s behavior by making the desired outcome more fun to reach? This is such an amazing experiment!
1. What gift are you most proud of giving?
This one is hard to narrow down, because I LOVE LOVE LOVE giving gifts, and I try really hard to find the “perfect” gift. However, the one that springs to mind is a Christmas stocking I made for my mom while I was in college. Mom made all of our stockings. They are beautiful, and I remember how hard she worked on them and how much time it took to make 4 of them (and then one for Chelsea, when she joined our family, of course!) All that time, Mom used a plain red velvet stocking. I surprised her Christmas morning by replacing her plain stocking with the new one I had made from a kit (the same company she had used for all of ours). I sort of forgot to check what size the stocking was when I ordered the kit, and so now my mom’s stocking is about 3 times bigger than all of ours, haha.
2. What’s the best gift you ever received?
Okay, so I read some of the other answers. Everybody said something sweet, like love and salvation, etc, etc. However, I’m clearly not sweet. The best gift I ever got was this computer I’m using right now. My parents got it for me, and it has saved my sanity. Second place? It goes to the dollhouse my dad made me when I was little. It was huge, intricate, full of beautiful furniture, and I loved it.
3. In honor of my husband: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?
I’ve never broken a bone (knock on wood), but one time I fell through an attic trapdoor headfirst and scraped my back all along the stairs. I wasn’t terribly injured, but it was scary!
4. They say everyone gets 15 minutes of fame. Who’s 15 minutes has gone on far too long? (The Gosselins are not acceptable answers, be more creative.)
New York, that chick whose real name is Tiffany from reality television. Ugh.
5. You have 20 minutes and $1000. What do you buy?
An art deco style vanity with a big mirror. Or a shopping spree at Target – it would probably only take about 10 minutes.
6. Tell me three blogs that I need to read.
Hmm, I read a lot of political blogs, so I don’t usually recommend them to people unless I know they would appreciate them! Here are some of the others I like:
a. Brooke Schwab’s Photography blog My friend from high school/pledge sister who also happens to be one of the most in-demand wedding and event photographers in Houston (and elsewhere!) She shares some of the “stories” of the couples she works with, as well as the best photographs from their sessions. I hope if I ever get married I can afford to hire her!
b. A Texas Girl’s Adventures in Canada A Houston girl moves to Canada, adventures ensue! A blogfriend with many of the same interests, and a fun writer.
c. Instapundit Fine, I couldn’t help myself – a mostly political blog. Glenn Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee (the other UT) who writes about libertarianism, politics, media, technology, and other interesting stuff.
7. Would you rather go without pizza or ice cream for the rest of your life?
Ice cream, hands down. I pretty much already live without it.
8. Would you rather go to a beach or a snowy mountain?
Beach. Snow is a good background through the window when you’re cozy next to the fire.
9. Are you a night owl or a morning person?
Total night owl. I’m writing this at 11:21pm. My brain doesn’t start to function until about 10am, after a Diet Coke.
10. What word do you always misspell?
I get “e” and “i” mixed up when I’m typing fast, but spell check usually corrects that before I even notice. I’m a pretty decent speller. I won the fourth grade spelling bee, even. I got third place the year before by misspelling “fittness”. [Yikes - don't kill me! The word "whose" is misspelled in Question 4. :)]
Yay, I’m so glad I finally got to participate! To read everyone else’s answers, including the originals at Chelsea’s blog, click the pic:
I moved back to Houston one year ago, and while I am constantly learning new things about this city, some of the best experiences are those that I’m finding again after being away for ten years.
In my junior year of high school, I had a wonderful art history teacher. Not only did she make a potentially boring topic interesting and fun, she organized a trip to Paris for our class. For the life of me, I can’t remember her name, but I am scouring my high school yearbooks as I type. I guess it’s a sad commentary on my memory/brain function it cannot recall the name of a teacher with whom I travelled thousands of miles for a week.
Another wonderful gift my teacher gave me was teaching our class about Dia de los Muertos, a Mexican holiday which honors the memories of family and friends who have passed away. It’s more a time of reflection and paying respects than the ghoulish and gory Halloween, though the two holidays do share a sense of fun. She taught us to create skulls from papier mache, taught us the history, brought us the candy skulls and other treats made especially for the holiday, and entered us into a revered Houston tradition – the Lawndale Dia de los Muertos exhibition.
Houston is a city with strong ties across the nearby border with Mexico, as well as an international port that brings us into contact with nearly every country in the world. It’s not surprising that there are plenty of diverse cultural experiences on offer. One of the best, and long-lived, is the Lawndale Art Center’s Dia de los Muertos celebration. This year marks the 22nd anniversary, and featured an open call for retablos (small tin boards which traditionally feature homages to the dead), as well as a subsequent retablo exhibition and auction.
Here are some of my favorite retablos this year:
There are other programs during the two weeks besides the exhibition. One night I was particularly excited to attend was the Sugar Skull Workshop. The last day of the exhibit is Family Day, which features candy skull decorating, so they have a workshop the Thursday before to make all the skulls needed.
Interested in making your own sugar skulls? Here’s how!
Materials Needed: sugar skull molds, 2 rounded teaspoons meringue powder, 2 1/8 cups granulated sugar, paste food coloring, 2+ teaspoons of water, and a small, firm piece of cardboard
1. Mix the meringue powder, sugar, and water in a large bowl. Best mixed with your hands. Mix until the texture is that of “moist beach sand”.
2. Pack the moist sugar into the mold. (Each mold has two pieces, one for the back and one for the front, or “face”.) Make sure the mold is firmly packed, then scrape the back edge with a straight edge, like a ruler or spatula. Pack again, and smooth all indentations.
3. Lay the cardboard on the back, then invert the mold to lay flat on a drying platform. Gently lift the mold away from the sugar skull. Dry for 8 hours.
4. After the skull is sufficiently dry, gently hold the skull in one hand, while scooping out the back with a spoon, until the skull is about 1/2 inch thick. (Avoid the neck area, as it is the most fragile part and might break.) Allow the hollow skulls to dry upside down on the drying platform for an additional 12 hours.
5. Once the skulls are completely dry, they can be assembled. Use a simple powdered sugar icing to fuse the two halves of the skull together. Once the seam has dried, decorate with food coloring, foils, feathers, beads, and whatever you feel like!
Visit Lawndale’s website to check out more of their upcoming exhibits!
Variety Fair 5 & 10, since 1948
My dad’s criminal career began and ended one day in the Rice Village when he was about 11 years old. He tried to shoplift some candy from the local 5 & 10, when he was caught by the proprietor, Mr. Klinger. I’m not sure what Mr. Klinger said to my father, but it must have worked. To my knowledge my dad was shamed and turned away from his life of crime.
Mr. Klinger greets customers in the olden days, while keeping an eye on that kid
What you got in there in your hands, son? Dad resisting temptation.
The old 5 & 10 is still there on Rice Blvd., all 2500 square feet filled to the absolute ceiling with the kookiest wares available for sale anywhere. In my post about Halloween shopping, I mentioned how we found the PERFECT wig there, and for $12 bucks it was a good deal!
I grew up in the same house that my dad grew up in, and while the neighborhood has changed quite a bit over the past 5 or 6 decades, the 5 and 10 is one little piece of continuity that hangs on amidst all the change. They’ve stayed pretty constant through the waves of gentrification and economic hard times. In fact, a shopping trip through the crowded aisles of the shop is like a trip through a pop culture museum. Every aisle has some artifact of daily life from previous decades.
Need a child’s Halloween costume/pajama combo from 1983?
from when children's costumes and pajamas were extra flammable!
Need toiletries even your grandmother finds outdated?
Fels-Naptha soap. The brand name you can trust.
Planning to rob banks, and want a mask of every presidential candidate since 1992 to protect your gang’s identities?
all sold out of Nader, I see
Did your favorite knitting needle company go under? Want some AUTHENTIC tie die, from 1973?
a campaign for the nascent green movement - color recycling!
Anything you can possibly never need nor want. All in one place. This is truly a Houston treasure.
plastic gavels and wedding rings are in this section, next to the sport ball charms. in case you were wondering.
you know you want this cap.
Andrew browsing. His first 5 & 10 experience left him breathless with excitement (possibly clausterphobia).
the old register, still in use. where Dad would have paid for his candy, had he not attempted to steal it!
Mr. Klinger is still greeting his customers.
There is a Variety Fair website. Before you get impressed about how terribly modern that is and congratulate them, you should know that, true to form, it hasn’t been updated since about 1998. I love this place!
UPDATE: I’m including this post in the Texas Photo Roundup at Wandering Off!
