Domestic Bliss...

We had kind of a ho-hum weekend.  Nothing too exciting, but after the weekends past, it was nice to just relax.  I decided to try some new recipes I'd picked up and they were all winners.  I made a brisket in my Martha Stewart "Le Creuset" knock off cast iron pan with onions, bbq sauce, and a Dublin Dr. Pepper.  It was wonderful!  Like always, I love cooking with soda when it comes to bbq.  It gives it such a good flavor and a subtle sweetness that you can't deny!  I also made a Quick Cheddar Beer Bread with one of Dan's Shiner Bock Frost beers.  It turned out very moist and yummy with butter smeared all over it.  Then I attempted some Spicy Pretzels that my friend Sundey posted on Facebook.  I had everything I needed for it in my pantry and it was wonderful!  I'll be making these for Super Bowl Sunday!

Dan and I made a quick trip to Stonebriar Mall to pick up a few things left on our wedding registry; a French Rolling Pin from Williams-Sonoma (for that pie crust I'm going to make....one of these days) and a Hot Air Popper from Macy's.  It was on sale for 19.99 and I couldn't resist!  Dan and I have been wanting one for so long and couldn't wait any longer. 

Let me say...I've been a fool for eating popcorn any other way.  It is so amazing and fluffy.  When paired with melted butter (wrong, I know, but fantastic!), Reese's Pieces, and a Dr. Pepper...I'm not sure there's anything else more wonderful in the world.  I'm in a blissful state right now....even though I'm watching my husband as he's got his favorite series "The Venture Bros." on the tv.  I don't mind watching it with him.  He smiles with a boyish joy that I find so sexy. 

To many more lazy Sundays with my husband......God is good!

Life these days...

My husband is great...let me just start by saying that.  He's a strong, thoughtful, kind, generous, witty, and giving man.  I'm proud to not only know him, but have him in my life every day!  I can't imagine going through the days we've had recently not having him there beside me.  I really believe we have come to the understanding that we belong together, we make each other better people, and we can't imagine our lives without each other.  

To say it mildly, our relationship and how we handle ourselves in situations have been tested.  I'm proud to say that we came together as a family (albeit small, but no less important) and prayerfully made decisions that were best for us and our well-being.  We have been blessed by God's grace and his mercy in all areas of our lives.  I continue to be humbled by people's generosity and love; and at the same time I'm continually surprised by people's ignorance, hate, and inability to communicate like adults.  Will life continue to test us in more severe ways than these past events?  Of course...I'm not naive to that fact.  But am I confident that we'll handle it the best way we know how....together with God?  Of course I am.  That makes me excited about our years to come. 

I am in awe of the man that sits in front of me now.  My husband, my partner, my lover, my beautiful future, my family. 

(I know this entire thing was really mushy....I'm sorry if you weren't prepared for that.  If it makes you feel better...he's sitting across from me in his boxers with Ruby laying asleep on his shoulder, wrapped up in a blanket watching Alton Brown.  A paragon of style and manliness no doubt!)

Large rockers and Dublin DP

Bevin has a friend on Facebook who spent Christmas in Ireland, TX. We didn't know there was an Ireland, TX and it got us to thinking, "Wouldn't it be great to tell everyone we've been to Ireland?" And then we thought, "What if we went to Dublin first, THEN Ireland?! We could tell everyone we did Dublin/Ireland this weekend!" Go puns! We looked up both cities on the map; it'd be a stretch to hit both in a day and see all the sights, though Ireland's designation as a ghost town makes the list of attractions shorter than usual. Since Dublin is closer, we decided to go there and save Ireland for later.

After a late start and a quick shot through Ft. Worth, we finally got to 281 and found our first stop of the day rather unexpectedly! About a mile south of the I-20/US 281 interchange is the Texas Hill Country Furniture and Mercantile, home of the Star of Texas Cedar Rocker, which happens to be THE largest cedar rocking chair in the world!

This place is a really cool find!  The owner/proprietor makes most of the furniture in the Mercantile, much of it from cedar and mountain pine.  There's even a bathtub made of solid mesquite that took nearly a 1000 man hours to complete.  It's fully functional and stands on hand carved horse hooves.  Too bad they don't let anyone take pictures inside...

Right next door is the Natty Flat Smokehouse, where you can get every smoked meat known to man, fresh cobbler with Blue Bell on top, and lots of different kinds of preserves/syrups/jams from all around the area.  We waited behind a few nice, old ladies out day-tripping across central Texas.  I sampled some of the jalepeno jelly while perusing the menu, fantastic!  Bevin ended up getting the pulled pork sandwich while I went with the smoked bolonga.  Before eating this sandwich, "baloney" was a cheap meat fit for college students and poor drunkards.  This thick cut slice of meat was no such thing!  It had been over the heat all day, soaking up all the woody flavor the old cook out back could throw at it.  I took it in with zeal!

We finished quickly, without desert sadly enough, but Dublin was calling!  There was a little confusion on my part about distances when we made it to Stephenville.  Bevin had done all the navigation work, and the driving for that matter, I was strictly along for the ride!  But it was taking too long.  What if we got lost, took a wrong turn?  This was a college town just after New Year's, if these savage bastards smelled fresh meat, anything could happen!

My fears were unfounded.  Bevin got us to Dublin in fine fashion, just 20 minutes before the next tour at the Dr. Pepper bottling plant.  That place was awesome!  It's the oldest DP bottling plant in America, putting out anywhere from 2 to 3 thousand bottles of the good stuff every other week.  Much of the machinery is from the 20's and 30's.  When something breaks down, they have to scrounge a part from storage or manufacture a new piece.  They still use bottles that people bring in to them from garage sales and antique stores, some from the 1960's even!  The tour costs $2.50 a person, lasts about 40 minutes and you get a free bottle of fresh brewed Dr. Pepper along the way!  Bevin even took picures in place we weren't allowed to, like the picture below...

Old Doc's Soda Shop is attached to the bottling company and housed in the original bottling room.  Bevin got all kinds of nice pictures there too!  Naturally you can get DP served up just about anyway you want it, even hot!  They also make nice sandwiches, PB&J, etc.  We bought a bottle opener, some DP Jelly Belly jelly-beans for my boss, a shot glass, a coozie, and a case of Dublin Dr. Pepper in 8 oz bottles!  Technically, since we brought the bottles home from outside of the bottling plant's 44 mile distribution radius, we're bootleggers!  But I don't think anyone will be chasing us down over it.

We then took in the Dublin museum, which had many great local artifacts from the town's history and visited Three Sister's boutique, a nice store selling all kinds of things any passerby could want.  We dined at Babe's in Grandbury and headed home to a very anxious Ruby.  All in all, it was a very good day!

Big Daddy's Flea Market

Bevin and I celebrated Christmas a little early with the family out at Cedar Creek Lake. Mammaw's lake house is picturesque being fifty yards from the water line. There are two bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, huge kitchen, sun room and a great back porch from which you can look out onto the lake and her boat house at the end of the dock. It's always a pleasure spending time there no matter how full the house gets, and it was quite full for Christmas!

After a day of gorging on cold cuts, mixed cheeses, fudge, etc., we headed home but not before stopping at a place called Big Daddy's Flea Market just between Tool and Seven Points. Yes, that's the name, Google it. Big Daddy's sits on about three acres of prime East Texas real estate along Hwy 274 and has the look of a converted Public Storage yard, only before there ever was anything called "Public Storage". The initial appearance of the place is deceptively small; it wasn't until we were through the first two buildings that I realized all the other sheds belonged to Big Daddy as well. The peddled wares though were pure white trash gold! Seriously, I've been to flea markets all over south and east Texas, as well as most of South Carolina and central Alabama. I know white trash gold when I see it.

And so does Bevin! She bought us a hot bag of roasted peanuts and a can of Dr. Pepper from a nice lady selling various cookbooks compiled by some of the local churches in town. We munched down while looking through voluminous libraries of old VCR tapes, ninja throwing stars, NASCAR collectibles- you name it! The highlight of the day was the basset hound puppies; Bevin was in love with a quiet one by the time I caught up with her. I'd been distracted by someone selling "books"... the largest collection of Nora Roberts and Danielle Steel I've ever had the, pleasure?, of wading through. (Anyone need a Dummies guide to Windows 98? I know where you can find one.) If we didn't already have Ruby, we'd have gone home with the little puppy! It was a 3 pound bundle of wrinkles and ears, very cute!

Too bad we didn't have the camera out. Some of the other patrons were very interesting and a picture would do them more justice than my faded memory. We came back to our car to find Ruby had thrown up in the back seat. The mess was cleaned up nicely and no one seemed to mind me letting Ruby pee next to our parking space. If you're ever out that way, check this place out and bring cash, you're going to need it when you find that rare copy of "Double Impact" in Betamax!