Ten on Ten - December 2010 edition

My friend Kelly has linked up to a monthly blog photo essay for several months. I've forgotten the past few months until it was too late, but I was prepared today.  The concept is to document a day in the life -- 10 photos over 10 hours of your day.  My photos are spread over a few more hours - mostly because I'm at my desk for 9+ hours each day. And how boring is that?  But I did take a few snaps through the workday, as well as before and after. So, here we go!

Up and at em....

Entrance to my office building.....the statue is called "Faces" and is by some fancy European sculptor

Mid-morning blog break....and a minute to smile as I look at my cutie pie niece, Emily

Yes, I do eat lunch at my desk most days. But I do usually pull out a book and read something completely unrelated to oil and gas accounting! Today it was a Nora Roberts trilogy-in-one book.

Pulling out the highlighters to color code a support document....channeling my inner creativity through my right-brained accountant!

View to the west as I prepare to leave the office. Sadly, this photo does not do justice to the pretty pink streaks in the sky.

Stopping to fuel my vehicle on the way home. I do wait often until the little light tells me it is time to refill the tank, though I try really hard not to push it too close to empty. This time wasn't too bad.

Organizing and reorganizing ribbon.....

I've been looking forward to Jamie's birthday dinner here....steak and a baked sweet potato. Yum!!

Holly and Beth serenading birthday girl Jamie. Fun times with sweet friends.

Click on over to the Ten on Ten blog to check out other entries!

Party debrief

The week before Thanksgiving, I bought a new toy - a Canon EOS Rebel T1i.  I had a Rebel film camera years ago and enjoyed taking photography courses in both high school and college.  I'm excited about picking up the hobby again.  And I love digital cameras for the ability to snap and snap and snap....and then delete, delete, delete!!

Here are selected photos of my decor .......

Last night was my annual Christmas party....the 10th annual to be precise.  I was thinking back over the years and though I was in my apartment for 7 years, I only had 5 parties there.  I've been in my house a little over 4 years, but due to the timing of my move, this was the 5th party in this house!  Kinda hard to believe.  

Because I'm a nerd, I've kept up with the stats from all the years -- I had 43 people in attendance last night, which tied for the second highest attendance year ever.  I've averaged 33 per year over the last 10 years and have had 140 different individuals in attendance. It is a lot of work, but last night I remembered why I do it -- I can facilitate community among friends and they look forward to the various goodies that I put on the table each year.

 Here is a peek at the table setting.....sans food.

  
Yummy sweets and treats

savory offerings, veggies and dips

and the aftermath.....

I managed to fix a huge plate of treats to take to the office and have leftovers of some of my favorites.....crab dip, sausage balls (they go so very well crumbled into a poached egg - as long as the yolk is still runny), forgotten cookies, puppy chow.  

Hotel comparisons

So, now I am at the Hyatt in Austin. A pretty nice hotel, with a fun feature in my room --- look at this alarm clock (iPod not included with the room)! They have done some upgrades in the past couple of year and now have sleek furniture and a flatscreen LCD TV that is probably 32". The beds are tall and soft. The valet and bellmen practically tripped over themselves to take care of me coming in. The bellman even remembered my name when I came back down to go out for dinner last night!





















I stayed at the Intercontinental in Houston earlier this week and couldn't even figure out how to reset the alarm clock so it would show the correct time! For a nice hotel, they could stand to do some of those upgrades that people have come to expect. The TV was an old-style 27" and their reception was awful. The beds were hard and low to the ground. The valets barely spoke English and I wasn't even offered help to my room by a bellman. The towels were nice and fluffy though.

Funny what you notice and come to expect when staying at different hotels.....of course, I am also very accustomed to staying at Holiday Inn Express and that is almost as good as these fancy schmancy places!

Rain....and a new toy

It has been cold and rainy here this week.....I'm glad it felt like winter a bit longer, I was already tired of the 80 degree temps in Feb!!  I finally went out to dump my rain gauge this morning.....over 3.5 inches!!!  Yay!  I hope the rain continues through the summer....my first summer in the house I didn't water my yard at all because it rained so much. Last summer was a wakeup call on lawn care because we had almost no rain.

I've also been playing quite a bit the last few days with a new toy.....can you guess what it might be?  

Yes, I have jumped on the Apple bandwagon just a little bit more.....and switched service providers as well......and now have a fabulous new iPhone.  I LOVE IT.  I've only had it for 2 days, but already have a ton of apps downloaded, my email and calendar synced and I'm so excited.