Day 49 – Clear Lake, Texas – Indian Cuisine @ NASA Parkway

I haven’t been out much lately as you can tell with my lack of posts.  First, I wasn’t feeling well, and my chest was hurting for about two weeks (cleared healthy by the cardiologist, and was told to get over it).  Then a close aunt of mine found out she has breast cancer.  She was told on Valentine’s Day of all days.  On the day, two years ago my family gathered together and showered me with love, laughter, and gifts before I became Mrs. Nunez.  A day that I have always remembered being filled with lots of joy and love.  I had never felt so much love as I did on that day.  I can only hope my aunt is feeling the love and positive vibes we are sending to her, and will continue to do so everyday.

Due to my lack of motivation to leave the house, and also because we haven’t experienced that many good restaurant’s around the area we live in, we haven’t had the urge to venture out.   Thankfully, one of Luis’ co-workers recommended an Indian restaurant to us, that was said to be excellent, and it snapped us out of our funk.

Food = happiness.  Especially good food.

I had the Mulligatawny soup.  It is a lentil soup flavored with cumin.

We had two appetizer’s; vegetable samosas and chaat papdi, which has wheat rounds, potatoes, crunchy noodles tossed with mint and tamarind chutney.  The chaat papdi (pictured below) is very freshing.

We shared the Lamb Madras with garlic naan.  If you have ever had an Indian dish with Kadai sauce it’s similar, just less sweet.

Rus Malai for dessert.  Homemade cheese stewed in cardamon flavored milk.  I love it and can’t get enough of it.

We are planning on exploring some more parks this weekend, even though it is suppose to be in the 40’s.  Maybe we will swing by the BBQ cook-off as well, or possibly a rodeo.

No matter what we do, I need to get outside and enjoy myself.  All I keep thinking is I am next.  I have a mammogram scheduled for the second week in March, and I am making it my yearly goal.

I am thinking I should add it to my new year goals list (that you can read here) that I make every year.  It can help me not forget, AND it will make me feel good to cross off once it has been completed.  Is that odd?

I love you, stay strong!

Day 41 – Love From Home

My mom, er.. I mean our family dog, Dudley sent Luis and I a Valentine’s Day gift.

He sent us a message in a bottle.

I laughed out loud.

This is very cute, just look at his adorable face on the M&M.

“Woof, woof”!

Day 39 – Kemah, Texas

Happy Day of Love!

I did something simple for his lunch today.  Just a little “Hi, I love You”!

I also included a little note and my favorite pasta, butternut squash with a garlic, sage, and butter sauce.

Now I am waiting for him to get home from work for our dinner date at Joe’s Crab Shack.

I am still not feeling 100%, but better than last week and I am showing off my I have lost 10 pounds smile.  =)

I love you!

Day 28 – 30 in Austin, Texas and Chest Pains

We carpooled to Austin this past weekend with two other co-ops.  The drive was smooth and didn’t take as long as I thought, about 3 hours.

I am happy that I was finally able to see a part of Texas that is not ugly.  I saw green grass, small rolling hills, and lots of trees.  Yay! A part of Texas that was actually pretty.  I love seeing farms with rolling hills and cows on the tops of them, probably because it’s my dream to own a rolling hill farm.

I enjoyed 6th Street more than Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  If I had to pick a place to party, it would be Austin, which could change once I go to Las Vegas.  Until then, Austin it is.  The drinks were inexpensive (at least at the places we went to), and there were lots of places to step into and shake your booty.

We met up with the other co-ops from the Freeport location, we are at the Deer Park location, making the group 13 of us.  We started off our nights at a bar called The Library.  It was a fitting place since Engineers spend lots of time in them.   They were serving $3.00 Long Islands. I have never paid $3.00 for a Long Island in a normal sized glass, it was awesome. We hopped around 6th Street, darting in and out of bars, having whatever the drink special was at the moment, stuck around and danced for a few songs, and then moved onto the next place.  We met some pretty cool Austin locals and some out of towners celebrating birthday’s, graduations, and new job opportunities.  Oh, and a guy who was showing off his rock band, even though he had just quit the band.  At 2:00 a.m. the bars and clubs shut down, and the police and fire department do a sweep of the streets (a clean-up if you will), making everyone leave. Very interesting, but none the less a good thing since most of our group was done for the night.  On our walk back to the hotel, a cold front decided to wake us up with a down pour. A very cold down pour.  I enjoyed running in the rain until I remembered I had my camera with me.  Thankfully, after a few minutes of waiting underneath a shelter the rain lightened up, allowing Luis and I to continue our run through the rain. It was a good night.

The next day, Luis and I split from the group and went to check out some items I had on my Austin list.  We walked around The University of Texas, Zilker Park, Austin Nature and Science Center, the bats at Congress Ave Bridge, the Capitol Building, and explored some of the 1400 food carts Austin has.

I know I am only 28, but Austin kicked my butt, which lead me to believe that I am getting too old to rebound quickly after a few nights of drinking and dancing. Sunday and Monday my chest was tight with sharp pains. I called a doctors office to schedule an appointment, but was told to go straight to the emergency room.  The emergency room?  That freaked me out. I have never been to the hospital, and the thought of going to a hospital freaked me out.  It couldn’t be that serious.  So, being freaked out I called my uncle Danny, who has had heart issues and asked him for his thoughts. After a few questions to rule out a stroke or heart attack, I took some Aspirin as he recommended.  After a few hours the pain went away just in time for my mom to call me.  Now that I was much more calmer, I could actually have a conversation with someone.  Even though a trip to urgent care would probably not have harmed anything, I just really didn’t want to believe it could be something serious.  Monday evening did not help either, I felt like I was having an anxiety attack, a two hour attack.  Something I have never felt before.  I really think I just pulled something with all the dancing, plus being dehydrated, then the attack because I freaked out.  I still feel slightly odd, but much better.  I have a appointment with the cardiologist on Monday.  See what I mean about getting old? This is only the beginning, haha!

I really enjoyed Austin, chest pains and all.  Austin has everything I love; parks, food carts, cheap drinks, interesting people, and a great assortment of bands/music.

Day 26 – Kemah, Texas – Dessert Reveal

I made buttermilk blueberry cupcakes with maple brown butter icing, known as cupcake #19 from a website my friend, Angry Muffin forwarded to me.  The website is called Ming Makes Cupcakes.

They were delicious.

A snap of my breakfast this morning.  Leftover from the dinner I made last night.

Now we are off to Austin with the other co-ops.  I hope you are having a wonderful Friday!

Day 21 – Kemah, Texas

I forgot to press the Publish button on this post from this past weekend, sorry.

We had a relaxing weekend.  We didn’t drive anywhere far.  We spent most of our time at home.

We did a little fishing.

We tired to feed the ducks without the seagulls stealing it.

We enjoyed having drinks and Armadillo Eggs at T-Bone Tom’s (not pictured) located next to the marina.

We enjoyed a new dish for breakfast. Baked eggs in ham cups, found on Pinterest, tagged from a website called The Simple Delights. I am really enjoying Pinterest.  I love discovering websites with yummy food, beautiful homes, and great ideas for crafts.  Click on Pinterest to take a look at what items I have pinned to my boards.

Homemade Nam Sod, one of our favorite Thai dishes in lettuce cups.

We invited the other co-op students for a dinner tonight at our place.  Here is a sneak peak of what I am baking today.  I will give you a hint.  Those are flour covered blueberries in the bowl.

I will reveal the final product tomorrow.

If you are wondering what I am cooking for the dinner tonight.  I am introducing them to Cuban food.  I am slow cooking beef to make Ropa Veija, white rice, Cuban style black beans, platanos maduros, and tostones.

I am excited for tomorrow.  We will be on a four hour drive to Austin!  Hello food carts!