New Look!

Take a look at my new blog decoration!

Now, back to the US V CANADA hockey game of the century. Love me some hockey.

Then, more crafting. I hope to show some of my work soon.

And, an owl.

I have my voice recorder

and I'm ready to go. Today is my first in-person interview with a CEO. Chills. I hope I do well. Today will be a looong day, but after that, I have my first weekend off for the new year. That's exciting. Well, the first weekend I don't have to go out of town (noting the one other weekend I had off from work). I am here, and going to be a hermit! :) A crafting/reading hermit.

Midnight Shopping

Good evening. I can't sleep just yet, so I am Etsy shopping.

Mostly just adding to my Favorites list.

An item I currently want: Owl Apron by Boojiboo.

Or, if I can't have that one, this one will do.

Oh, and by the way, we're moving. To where, no one knows.

Dallas, of course. :/

Stuff on My Mind

 {All images were Googled and found through Images tab.}

Old Game, New Name

A while ago, I set up a trait-recognizing program for resume-building reasons. Today, I have chosen to re-evaluate, and see where I am now.

The way the Johari Window works is simple. One selects six traits they believe to be most descriptive of themselves. Then they ask their friends and family to select the six traits they think describe said person. The comparison of the two selections tells a variety of things. With that being said, here is the link to my Johari Window.

http://kevan.org/johari?name=Ashley+Oates

Feel free to make your own and send me the link. This exercise has the potential to tell you something you never knew about yourself or the strengths others see in you.

Owl of the Week

I only have time for a quick post, but I wanted to share two owls with you.

Maybe I'll start an "Owl of the Week" post. Too much?

America's Worst Driver Article

I've been working at D Magazine for several weeks now, and I'd like to share some of that work. I recently worked on a small journalistic-style piece for the website on the Travel Channel's new show America's Worst Driver.

Take a look at the story that was posted earlier this week:

http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2010/02/09/americas-worst-driver-comes-to-dallas/#more-31991

It's nice to finally be doing something again. It's a great feeling!

Dinner Party for Two

Tonight I came home to a wonderful meal. Michael made a south of the border soup spiced with all spice, dried chili powder, smoked paprika, cumin, cayenne pepper, and red pepper flakes. He also put a pyramid-shaped portion of basmati rice in the center.

Take a look:
Be safe tonight and tomorrow.

Winter

It's cold, beautiful, and spectacular outside.

It's almost a shimmer of something I could love.

Goodnight.

I got a container of these

for Michael for a small Valentine's Day present when I was in Central Market yesterday. They're a precurser to the fabulous dinner I'm making Saturday night. These candies are one of his favorite types at Christmastime (when they have little Christmas trees in the center). They're peppermint nougat hearts. Very yummy!

Camping in Austin Recap

(Don't I sound like I'm giving the SVP report of a project?)
We had a wonderful weekend in Austin again. Yet again I have failed you, and only have one picture from the whole weekend. I know, for shame. Maybe someday I'll get a camera, and fix all of this. Anyway, on to the wordy descriptions, which will hopefully paint some picture of our activities. This time we left later on Friday, and didn't arrive until close to 10pm. We ate dinner at Rudy's in Waco. A decent meal, but still very commercial.

The next morning we woke up to a wonderful breakfast, courtesy of my sister. Then we drove out to McKinney Falls State Park to hike around and check out the camping possibilities. After the 6 mile hike, we decided to check on the camping sites. We were told it was too wet to camp (it had rained all week long), so we called Pedernales Falls State Park to see what their sites were like. They still had a few sites available, so we decided to camp there. Before driving out there, we stopped by Central Market to grab some supplies. We got everything from fresh fruit to chicken thighs. Dinner was going to be amazing!

After we arrived at Pedernales Falls, we set up camp, and started the fire. This was no easy task considering it had rained all week. After the fire got going, we started to cook. Qas had marinated chicken thighs in a spicy yogurt sauce and was kabobing them on the grill. I on the other hand, chose to go the more wilderness/boyscout/Podunk avenue, and opted for Hobo Dinners. Now, what is a Hobo Dinner, you ask? It's a packet of foil, filled with root vegetables and a ground beef patty, to be sealed and thrown in the fire to self baste and cook to perfection. It usually turns out juicy and perfectly cooked. It was not meant to be this time. Either way, we had plenty of food and good times to go around.

The next morning we were woken up by the camp ranger, because we had to entrance ticket. We'd arrived too late (after the office closed) and read we were to register the next morning. Apparently they meant when the sun was coming up. So, we got our stuff together and registered on the way out. On the way back to Austin, we stopped at a roadside place that sold breakfast burritos. What a breakfast! I had a cactus and egg burrito, and a bacon one as well. Very yummy.

We got home, unpacked and hung out for a little while before somehow getting a sugar craving. To ease that craving we went to Quack's Bakery on 43rd. (http://www.quacksaustin.com/) We had about 467 desserts. Really, we had 6 between the four of us. Jamie and Qas got slices of chocolate trifle, blueberry pie, and key lime pie. Michael and I got a slice of cherry pie, a blueberry streusel muffin, and two oatmeal cinnamon cookies with icing in the middle. Talk about feeding a sugar craving!

They had cute owl cookies!



The need to walk was obvious. We chose to hitch it on over to the Round Rock outlet mall to shop and wear off the sugar. We shopped and made the mistake of going into the Le Creuset store...but that's another story!

Now, I am off to work. I still need to work off some of the food from this weekend! :)

Cousin's Birthday

He's the big 23!

Here are a few photos from his birthday party and his birthday in Sherman.
I believe this is what he calls his "Sleeping Bag Suit." I think it's hilarious.

A Close-up of his birthday desserts.

"Magnetic letters? Whaa? That's awesome!"

-A gift from his sister, Emily.

Then, I took Cousin's super nice camera and took 56 pictures of things around my Granny's house. I will spare you by only posting one, of a stein my Grandfather brought back from his time in Germany. We're German, ya know.

(You can tell which ones were taken with a Cannon and not my Blackberry, eh?)

The Update to End All Updates

So, here we are. We're at that point at which I said I was going to give an amazing update of my life thus far. Or at least of the last two weeks, or so. Firstly, Happy February.

Last Wednesday night (yes, we're talking January 23rd), Michael picked up my parents from Love Field and I met them for a lovely dinner at Gloria's on Greenville. I had eaten there for my birthday dinner and my mom wanted to go there after the retelling of the fabulous events that occurred there. I had a delicious fruit and grilled shrimp salad over mixed greens, and decided to mimic it later on in the week. Please see several paragraphs down to complete this story.

I will post about the 24th here in a few minutes. :)

Also, I am embarking on something familiar, yet new. I am planning on joining my first actual reading club, D Magazine's "Reading Room." (http://readingroom.dmagazine.com/) They're reading local writer Ben Fountain's Brief Encounters with Che Guevara this quarter. I'm a little behind, seeing as they've had two meetings and I don't have the book yet, but I'll catch up! I've been on Goodreads for a while, and I'm a part of a reading challenge there, but this is more of a challenge because I'm actually accountable! Wish me luck!

Thursday night I was so stressed out, the only thing I could think of to release some of it was to bake. Poof. Banana muffins. Not spoiled by crunchtastic walnuts. Just banana, cinnamon and vanilla. Check out this goodness.


Sunday night, after rescheduling because of the day from HELL (1/28/2010), our sweet neighbor, Ingrid, came over for dinner. We always plan in advance for our "Neighbor Dinner," and pick a cuisine we haven't made before. We've done Mexican, Italian, and American before, so this time we chose Asian. (Mainly because we wanted to use my new bamboo steamer! Man, I love that thing!) I made spicy pork dumplings (it's becoming a favorite!), a cilantro, peanut and cucumber salad, wilted cabbages, and a dipping sauce. Ingrid brought a yummy wine (what dinner would be complete without wine?!) and fried rice. Buttery fried rice. Mmmm. Anyway, we had a serious feast and a great time. I'm thinking Greek food next time?

To finish my story from earlier, I partially was successful in recreating my grilled shrimp salad from Gloria's Monday night for dinner.

Lastly, we are going to Austin this weekend to visit my sister and Qas. We're also getting to squeeze in a little camping! We're going to McKinney Falls to camp and hike. I'm so excited I might bust! I'll try to take a few pictures, or have someone take some with a real camera, seeing as I don't have one.
That's all I have for now! I'm off to get my car inspected (pesky yearly inspections...) and throw myself on an elliptical. Have a great Tuesday!