What's Your Thing?

How long will YOU live?

Life Expectancy Calculator

http://calculator.livingto100.com/calculator/

I'm supposed to live 98 years! That's too long. I guess I'd better start drinking...or smoking...That'll keep my age down :)

My boyfriend is a sleeper cell?

Doing research on American history can be eye-opening. I don't mean the American Revolution or the French 'n' Indian War. I'm talking about more recent history. Mostly I'm dealing with the Middle East right now, Iran, Iraq, and the Taliban. These are the books I'm reading:

Persian Mirrors by Elaine Sciolino



All the Shah's Men by Stephen Kinzer



The books I have next on the agenda are: Guests of the Ayatollah (Mark Bowden), Taliban (Ahmed Rashid), and What Went Wrong (Bernard Lewis).
I'm just against the idea of being told what I should believe. I have to learn about these events in order to get a clear view of where America stands today and what my opinion on current events should be. I'm reading several books because one should never just take ONE author's words as truth. A good opinion is formed by much reading and analysis.

I'm on a quest. Join me if you will, I would love the conversations.

Renewal.

As I sit here at 4:50am, fighting sleep, but not quite blaming the lack of such on insomnia, I'm updating my blog.

I have had a most sublime weekend. One of my top 5 came to visit, and every moment was red-letter. From the first moment:

The Lombard Twins at the Texas Salsa congress. Who knew someone would ever create a salsa, tap, and break-dance fusion style? They've done it, and it's AMAZING. I would like to learn how to do this. It seems as though every bone has a mind of its own!

After realizing at 12:30 AM that it was officially Pi Day (March 14) we sped to House of Pies for Brooke's first meal in Houston. It's more for the novelty of Pie on Pi day that we did this. The food at HoP is nothing to write home about.
Sleeping in a bit too late on Saturday, we then made plans with Ryan to go antiquing. That was a blast. We all got something that we couldn't stop thinking about. Ryan got his majestic teapot, I got my adorable red hat, and Brooke finally settled on some awesome bottles (one of which was a vintage Houston souvenir of which we were all covetous)



Then we took a short detour into the vintage store, Wear it Again Sam: http://www.wearitagainsamvintage.com/ . We made some, unique finds there. No purchases however. Maybe we should have bought these dresses? You be the judge.




We then met up with Lisa at IKEA. The three of us chose a most cozy living room, and welcomed Lisa into the home with open arms. Ryan offered her some tea, I showed her my Swedish communist propaganda, and Brooke cooked under her deceptively warm blankie. The other IKEA customers looked on confusedly as we made ourselves quite at home.

We had great fun with the camera at IKEA as well.




We played Food Network too. We waxed artistic with reflection shots. We were all OVER the place!
Then home for some IT crowd and Rooibos tea (made in Ryan's new teapot of course).

Monday was phenomenal also. I have no picture proof for this day. Kelli (kellinicolephoto.blogspot.com) took the pictures as my camera was out of battery! We had a brave little squirrel make friends (We named him Felipe) We had Pink Martini on an iphone, and flowers in a wine bottle as a centerpiece. Cold chicken, warm chicken, potato salad, and vanilla soda. Fresh fruit and friends. What more could anyone ask for? I don't know. It was the best picnic ever. I hope to have such a picnic again someday.
Thanks for coming, Brooke. You made this weekend one of the Top 5 best weekends I've ever had in Houston!