Date Night

We had a date Thursday night.

It was a lot of fun.

We went to the Bayou Gardens and did the sip and walk.

That's where you walk through the gardens while sipping on a glass of wine.

Nice.

The hubby - he was carrying the wine while I carried the eats...

 I think the owners of the house were going for a European garden feel.

I liked it, it was a nice garden and a nice walk.

 There were also fountains.  I like this photo - it looks like a fake background.  But it was real...

My artistic photo.

And cupid.

A bridge - I liked it in black and white better than color.

It was a really nice evening out - we're doing more of this than we ever had before.  There are so many more choices in America.  What to do, what to be.

You just can't beat it.

More Americans should have to live out of the country so they can see how great our country is compared to the rest of the world.

I love being home.

I Still Have IT, but Don't Know if I want IT...

I'm at Starbucks.

I just met with a recruiter - I think he was more interested in how I could help him get a job in the Middle East than getting me a job here.

But that's o.k. he was really nice.

Anyway there is a guy sitting in a separate group of chairs across from me who has been winking and gesturing to a chair directly across from him.

I think he's trying to flirt with me.

I'm a little out of practice - after all I've not been single for about 10 years.

But I'm pretty sure he's flirting.

From what I can gather from his phone conversation he may be a life insurance salesman.

Which is about as attractive as a used car salesman.

I mean he's kinda cute, but not.

Like slimy cute.

Like probably married and has many numerous lovers on the side - slimy cute.

Shit he's coming over!

=======================

O.K. I was ignoring him - typing on my blog but the ignoring didn't work - he walked over and proceeded to have a 45 minute conversation with me.

He was trying to pick me up - even though I was wearing my wedding ring.

SLIME!

Oh and he is a insurance salesman - ick ick ick!

I screwed with him a little bit - until SP came in and rescued me.

I told him I didn't play for or with his team.

Told him that I preferred women and toys and he couldn't compete.

I've never laughed so hard in my life.

His face was priceless!

Food Crack

Yes I said Food CRACK!

We went to a restaurant the other day, one friends had taken my husband to when he was here in Houston on business.

It's called Lola.


http://www.eatlola.com/

I had a beef and cheddar sandwich.  I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.  

No lie.

The beef was delicious - no gristle at all.

And the bun.  The Bun.

It was so good it deserves to be capitalized.

It was a yeast bun that was lightly toasted on the inside.

It makes me shiver just to think about it.

And oh did I mention the Butter?

It goes without saying that Butter should ALWAYS be capitalized.  

I think they brushed The Bun with Butter.

I'm sure they brushed The Bun with Butter.

If it's not Butter on that Bun then I don't want to know.

If it tastes that good it MUST be Butter.

Of course I finished it off before I thought to take a photo.

But I took one of my husband when we were waiting for take out a few days later.

Because I couldn't stop thinking about my Food Crack.

Gracie Jane Comes Home!

Gracie Jane came home with us on October 16th when she was 9 weeks old.

We Drove up to Dallas in our new SUV, here's the big statue of Sam Houston.  Pretty good photo for going about 75MPH.

My hubby talking to me...he wasn't really expecting me to take a photo.

Here is Gracie Jane's Daddy.  I have a photo of her mother but I can't figure out which one she is!  They had 3 Adult American Mastiffs and they were all so sweet and cute.  Too bad we couldn't pick up Gracie earlier - I would have loved to see her brothers and sisters.

Here's my hubby meeting Gracie - she looks so small.

And here I am holding her - he paws are so big and thick.

This is Gracie on the drive home - she whined for about 10 minutes then slept the entire way back to Houston.

Isn't she so cute!?

Our New Apartment

Here are a few photos of our new apartment.

Here is the living room.  And no we have no furniture yet...it's currently on it's way to the Bahamas and is expected to land there on November 4th with no estimate of when it will arrive here in Houston.

Nice.  I hope my furniture has fun there...

I'm thinking of buying dressers from the 2nd hand store to put our clothes in while we wait.

Here is the kitchen - nice and open!  I missed that in Dubai and London both places generally have kitchens with doors.

Here is my nice BIG bathroom!  I love having drawers again!

Here is the court yard outside our living room.  It's green and growing...not sandy!

Life is good!

And We're Back...

I have internet again so I'm up and running...

Kinda.

Who knew moving back would make me so busy?  When I moved to Dubai I can remember being bored out of my mind getting depressed and having problems getting out of bed.

Literally.

Now I'm up at 5am and I'm going all day long.

I'm exhausted by the end of the day!

Between setting up the house, taking care of the puppy and looking for a job AND getting back in touch with friends I'm booked solid.

And I still need to re-connect with my friends in the UAE and UK.

I suck at keeping in touch when I'm in flux.

So I'm going to be putting up multiple posts regarding what has been going on....

Get ready...

Here it comes....

Oh and will you look at that location?  It's HOUSTON baby!

No Internet!

I have no internet right now so it's been a pain trying to keep in touch!  We should have internet tomorrow - fingers crossed!

Here is a quick summary of what has been going on...

We moved into our new apartment, we have no furniture but a good friend loaned us dishes and utensils thank goodness.

It is a pain and it's expensive to replace everything we had to get rid of when we moved from Dubai and I'm glad I don't have to purchase things we already have, but just haven't arrived yet!

We picked up miss Gracie Jane - she's soo cute!

I'm still looking for a job but have been really busy setting up the house.

I'll write more and add photos when we are back online...

Gracie Jane is Coming Home!

I received more photos of Gracie Jane!

Isn't she adorable?!  We're going to pick her up tomorrow morning!

I've bought all the necessary items except one...her tag.  I'm going to get that one today.  I got her a cute adjustable collar - it's grey and pink.

I also bought her a dog bed and it's a bit bigger than this one, but not as big as it's going to need to be!

She also has babies waiting for her to play with.  A pig, a chicken, and one thing that I'm really not sure what it is...

They are indoor toys - I'm not sure if she's going to toss her toys in the house - but if she does they need to be the soft ones.  Not tennis balls.  They break things.

The outdoor toys she'll get later, after we get an idea of what she may prefer.

We are so excited - need to make sure the camera batteries are charged up for tomorrow!

Job Hunt

I'm looking for a job.

I called 3 recruiters gave 2 my details.

Not sure how fast a job will show up.

Not really sure how soon I want to work.

Ideally it would be after our stuff arrived and we unpacked.  But I'm open to working faster than that.

I am so tired.

I need to take a nap.

Then I think I can be energized - active - in my job search.

SNORE!

Updates

I haven't been keeping in touch very well, neither on my blog or in my life personally.

I need to update my blog to reflect the fact that I'm BACK!

I'm going to keep updating this one until I'm move into our new apartment and our stuff has been delivered by the movers.

I think that's a good demarkation point.  I was there and now I'm here.

Then I'm going to start a new blog and link this one to it.

I've been busy getting things together and living with my bf SP has kept me busy.

Chatting

Shopping

Cooking

Hanging

And who knew kids were so time consuming?!

It's been fun, but I've been shit at calling my friends here and reconnecting, or keeping connected to my friends in the UK and the UAE.

It'll get better once I'm in my own place and have some sort of routine.  But right now I'm just trying to get settled in.

Yesterday we bought a new bed - since ours will not arrive until after the 30th and,

I've started the great job hunt -met with a recruiter and now need to get on the stick to apply and call etc...

Hopefully I'll be employed soon.

If not full time I'm going to go for a part-time job.  Maybe at Starbucks...

Anyway I'm going to make an effort to update more often, call my friends, and get my fricken Skype sorted out.  It keeps freezing up and not allowing me to chat or make phone calls.

Later!

What a Bum!

I thought I'd be:

Writing prolifically in my Blog.

Organizing my Kindle books in an excel spreadsheet jotting down the summary so I could tell what the books were about without opening them up.

That's the downside to an electronic book - if you forget the order they should be read in, forget what they are about, etc... it's a pain to open it up in the kindle to try and figure it out.


Madly looking for a job.

Calling all my friends and having lunch / dinner / drinks / coffee.

I can't figure out what I've been doing instead.

What have I been doing for the past week (can you believe I'll be home for a week this Wednesday?!)?

Well I did get some things done - I found an apartment, we bought a car, I set up the electricity for the apartment, arranged to pick up Gracie Jane, and I have an appointment on Thursday with a recruiter.

I also took AW to the doctor, and I'm running errands and going grocery shopping today.

Huh...I guess I've done a bit more than I thought.

But still nothing I thought I'd be doing.  I need to write a list.

Then I can mark things off.

Be productive.

I love being in America!

Foul Play

I just want to say I really like the movie Foul Play.

I'm watching it for like the 10 millionth time!

What can I say - I'm unemployed...for now.

Another Great Day

In the 'hood!

Ha Ha Ha!

I had an interesting experience today - I took my best friend SP's son to the doctor.

I've never taken a child to the doctor before (not really a child he's 13 soon to be 14).

Thank goodness he knew where he was going - I wouldn't have gotten him there in time if I had been navigating.

I'm directionally challenged - I admit it.

Anyway, they ask A LOT of questions.  Questions that I didn't know - questions that the answers, I would have thought, would have been in the computer.

 Like - are you allergic to anything, how tall are you, etc...

After all he'd been there before.

Good thing he knew the answers.  I sure as hell didn't.

So basically I was the chauffeur - he did all the talking.  I'm really glad it wasn't the 3 year old I was taking to the Dr.

I would have really sucked at that, and most likely they would have called CPS on me for not knowing the basics.  You know questions like, what's his birthday?

Anyway - it was a good time, he's a good kid and very capable.  Who knew kids were so very time consuming and costly.  That 3 hour visit cost about 250 in co-pays.  But it turned out he did fracture his thumb.

So the visit did last longer and cost more than anticipated.

New topic....

I still don't know what I'm going to rename the blog.  Maybe I'll have this as one page and my American experiences as another....

I'm thinking, I'm thinking....

Sunday Morning

It's my first Sunday back in America.

I LOVE SUNDAY'S!

We're doing what one should do on a Sunday.

Having pancakes.

Watching TV, relaxing in the living room.

SUNDAY!

The Move in Update

Well I've been back in Houston for not quite 3 days and here is my progress report.

1.  We've rented an apartment yesterday.  Move in date is Oct 16th, so it took me 1.5 days to find and rent a place

2.  We looked at and test drove a few cars on Thursday and Friday, then bought one this morning.

3.  I have a new phone that we bought today - I got a Samsung Android.

Yes, I've come into the 21st century with my technologically advanced android phone.

I'd say that was pretty good progress.  Quick and easy - and most of it done online.

Now what have I been doing the past 3 days you ask (other than finding a place to live and car to drive)?

I've eaten brisket at Phil's, Kolatche Factory for breakfast, Outback for dinner and of course we broke open a new bottle of whiskey that we bought from Scotland.

It was tastee....oh so tastee.

I LOVE AMERICA!