Reasons to celebrate...

Austin and I have had lots of cause for celebration recently. I've been promoted to Designer/Office Assistant at the oil company, and Austin has been promoted in his job too. We're also on the hunt for a house, my parents are flying out next month, my friends keep popping out beautiful babies, and the charity book project is near completion. Phew! Or perhaps 'woo!' would be more appropriate. I'll combine them: Phewoo! I've just invented a new exclamation. I have no idea how you'd pronounce it, but I'd better copyright that bad boy. Anyway, I digress...

So, I move out of reception and into my new office on Monday. They're giving it a good clean for me as I type. There are even rumours of a brand spanking new desk! 

I'll be in charge of the monthly newsletter, any in-house advertising, office supplies, web maintenance .etc. Now, I have no idea how to do most of these things...shh!...but they have faith in me. I'm currently doing an online course for Corel Draw, which I love. My first job at work using this software was to create a 'bad battery' label for my boss's bad battery disposal box. He told me to have fun with it, so I did:

I'm excited to delve into creating labels for our company's products. Fun times ahead!

On the house front, we are looking for a house to restore, which may be daunting for some, but is turning out to be like Christmas morning for me. I'm one of those people that would go into a dog shelter and pick out the pooch with one leg, three eyes and a wonky tail. I love the idea of taking something that's broken and bringing it back to life. Jesus led the way with that one. I'll keep you posted with the progress. Once we have a house chosen, I'm sure I'll bombard you with photographs of the process, don't you worry!

As I mentioned, Mum and Dad are flying out next month. They will be staying for just over two weeks, and one weekend Austin and I will join them somewhere new, probably Washington DC. It will be my first time out of Texas since moving here. Finally I get to see more of the States! Again, you will be bombarded with photos. 

Now to the babies. At Uni, I lived with three girls: Gem, Shell and Lisa. Between last October and now, they have each popped out a sproglet. Jackson, Jordan and now, as of today, Scarlett. Congratulations to all three of you! Now I guess it's my turn to step up to the plate...

Finally, the charity book, Pay Attention to Black Thread. It's nearly ready!!! I've just finished proofing the final copy. The publishing date, although not set in stone just yet, is very close. You may remember me mentioning it a few posts ago. It's a middle grade book about a young carer, and all royalties will go to Carers Trust in the UK: http://www.carers.org/

Here's a sneak peek at the front cover, inspired by Renee Bel-Momodu (a young carer aged 11) and created by Katie Hopmann:

The book will be available to order on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle form. I'll keep you posted!

To complete the celebration, you can't go wrong with a good old Pixar mini-movie (slightly random, but I had to get this animation in here somehow!). I discovered this one the other day and thought you might enjoy it -

Partly Cloudy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6Pe1ovKHg

Some comical highlights...

Our friends from England left last Thursday *sniff sniff*. I hate goodbyes. I always think I'm going to be fine on the journey to the airport, but then it gets to the point where you actually have to part ways and this wave of emotion suddenly rushes up and I end up blubbing. Not big heaving sobs (they come a little later when I've watched an episode of Parenthood that just tips me over the edge) but those bit fat tears that fall really slowly and land with a plop. I've decided that I am allergic to departure gates and that I should avoid them at all costs unless I'm going on holiday.

Despite the weather (snow, sun, freezing rain, scattered showers, rain, snow, rain, cloud, rain, sun, rain, rain, sun, repeat) we had a wonderful two weeks with our friends.

Here are three comical highlights:

• Taking Lucy and Rex for their date night at Medieval Times (http://medievaltimes.com/dallas.aspx). I dropped them off at the door, first checking to see that they got in with no problems. The ticket man at the front greeted us with a fake but enthusiastic English accent. When Rex spoke, said ticket man obviously thought Rex was challenging him to a fake accent duel, and said "I can do five accents, Sir!" Rex stated back, "No, I'm actually from England" and the ticket man quickly retracted his challenge. 

• Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show at the Fort Worth Stockyards. Archie, who is 18 months old, lapped the show up from start to finish. With snack pot in hand, he mimicked the whip snapping with his hand, offered to share his snack with the 'moo moos', said 'Uh-oh' rather loudly during the national anthem, waved at the guitar playing cowboy ("Geetar! Geetar!") and kissed the horses. 

• Taking Archie to Chuckee Cheese. Now, I'd heard of this place from various films and American TV shows, but this was my first time inside. It's basically an arcade for children where the aim is to win as many Chuckee Cheese tickets as you can to claim a prize. Archie, being so tiny, was not interested in this at all. All he wanted to do was sit in a car ride next to a plastic Chuckee Cheese and spin the steering wheel like a madman, while Kensely, my lovely baby niece, poked his face. So the task fell to Lucy and I to win those golden tickets. We played and played, while also searching the machines for forgotten tickets that other kids had left behind (you'd be surprised how many there were! Amateurs!). 75 tickets later we managed to trade them in for a paper airplane (which Archie ripped within seconds) and a few Christmas Chuckee Cheese stickers. The success was small, but the fun was large. My favourite moment was when Mr. Cheese himself came out, danced for the kids and threw handfuls of tickets out for them to catch. I am not ashamed to admit that I grabbed some 'on behalf of Archie'. 

Lucy, Rex and Archie, we love you, miss you and can't wait to see you again soon! Thanks for giving us two glorious weeks of fun! 

Wine and Paint Parties

I had the best girls night last night.

Our wonderful friends Lucy and Rex are visiting from England at the moment in this glorious Texas winter weather (I'm being sarcastic - there's enough water on the ground to drown a whale). Their equally wonderful, if not more so, son Archie is here with them too. 

Last night Lucy and I decided to go on a date, so we booked ourselves into a Wine and Paint party.

The experience is exactly what it says on the tin - you paint and drink wine. Now this could be a dangerous combination. Picture paint and wine sloshing around, then chuck in some crab dip and crackers for good measure, and you've got yourself a fiasco. Or the next Turner prize. 

Lucy and I, however, were pretty tame and gentile with our wine and art evening, mainly because a) I was driving, and b) we were concentrating so much on our artwork that we forgot to sip. 

Wine and Paint Parties and other similar events (Painting with a Twist, Sip 'n' Doodle) are held in various places around the Dallas area. We ventured into Uptown to Max's Wine Dive (slogan, 'Fried chicken and champagne?...why the hell not?!'). It was a great environment, with about 20 budding painters/wine drinkers settled at easels. 

We created an impressionists view of the Dallas skyline, complete with Van Gogh inspired stars and reflections in the Trinity river. Our teacher guided us through the process smoothly, with the end result that we all had our own version of the scene (apart from one girl who decided that a forest would be much more fun to paint). 

The best part about it was seeing everyone's styles and personalities coming through in their paintings. We sent these 'who-painted-what' pictures to Austin and Rex part way through the process, and they both guessed correctly! 

Mine

Lucy's

At the end everyone had a little nose at the various attempts. The guy siting behind us had chosen his own very bright colour combinations and had created a masterpiece worthy of  his first grade self (his words, not mine). He grinned and told us that a lot of passion had gone into his creation, and we both agreed. He had definitely been using his paintbrushes with gusto.  

Here are our finished products alongside the original:

And here's a link to Wine and Paint Parties if you fancy a unique night out in Dallas: http://wineandpaintparties.com/ (Check out Groupon for some great deals)