An Evening at the Theatre

I have a cousin who was in the Richardson Community Theatre production of Agatha Christie's The Hollow. The theatre was in a shopping center off of Custer. It was a small operation, but seemed to be well run. David & I paid for our tickets, got our playbills, and waited until it was time to be seated.

We told the usher our last name, and he showed us to to our seats. The theatre was very small, seating maybe 50-60 people. After a few minutes, the play began. My cousin was one of the female leads in the play. It was a murder mystery, set in the 1950s, in the South. It took me a few minutes to get used to my cousin talking in a deep Southern accent, but overall, the cast did a great job!

The basis of the story is a couple who is visited by several other people. There are a couple of love triangles and someone winds up being shot. The rest of the play was figuring out who had done it. Several people had a motive, but it really surprised me with who the killer was! It was a very enjoyable evening and something that we will definitely have to do again!

Unfortunately, we did have a minor snag as we were leaving. David's car wouldn't start. Luckily, we got someone to jump start our car (ironically, it was the murder victim, who did a great job of being a jerk in the play) who got us on our way. It turned out to be the battery, which David replaced today. Except for that, it was really a top notch night!

Neighborhood Movie Night!

A few months ago, I signed up to be on the social committee for our Homeowner's Association. We've had a couple of meetings and scheduled some events. Last Friday, we had our first ever event, a neighborhood movie night!

David and I went up early to had a swim in the pool. We hadn't been up to our neighborhood pool before, it was really nice! Around six-thirty, a grill was brought over and we started getting out the hot dogs to cook. I brought a veggie hot dog for me to eat, I threw it on with the first batch.

The social committee was in charge of cooking the hot dogs. Ironically, two of us are vegetarians. Needless to say, someone else cooked them. We wound up going through all of our hot dogs (a hundred of them) in about forty-five minutes. We wound up having to turn some people away, since we ran out. Oh well, we know now to get more for next month!

Some of the board members had set up a movie screen built of wood, with a sheet stapled down to it. It worked out great! When it got dark, they introduced the social committee and then started the movie, which was Alvin & the Chipmunks. It was not a movie that I wanted to see, but I stayed to watch it and was glad I did. It was pretty cute.

As I was leaving, I had some people come up and thank us for putting on the event. We're going to have these every month, and we're planning a mini-Olympics in the fall. It's going to be great!

Cooking for Two

I've been doing a lot more cooking over the past few weeks. I've used the stove and oven regularly! Two weeks ago, I went to Half Price Books to look at cookbooks. I came away with three, a book on Asian cooking, a vegetarian cookbook, as well as a Texas cookbook that has a bunch of recipes contributed by various celebrities.

Armed with those plus our other cookbooks, I've tried to plan out weekly meals on Sunday and venture to the store once a week to get the ingredients. Most of the recipes have turned out really well. I've decided to make spinach lasagna my new specialty, it turned out so well, and we ate on it for a few days.

Some of them were not so great, such as when I got a bit happy with the lemon juice on some veggies, or the baked macaroni and cheese. (Next time I'll cook the macaroni before it goes into the oven. The recipe said it could be cooked or uncooked, but it was hard to swallow.)

The best part about cooking is when David joins me! We've made grilled veggies together, and he'll often help in the kitchen. Last night, we made quesadillas together! I sliced the avocados and assembled them, while David was in charge of cooking them on the griddle! They turned out well, and it was a lot of fun working together. We're a great team!

Sadie Hawkins Date and New Furniture

I decided last weekend, since Friday was Sadie Hawkins Day, that I was going to take David out to dinner. We decided on the Spaghetti Warehouse, where we haven't been since our first anniversary. After Friday's yoga class, I quickly changed clothes and off we went to Plano!

They were quite busy, but there were only two of us, so we were seated immediately. I must say, the waiter and the service were great! The sourdough bread was amazing, I had to stop myself from eating any more than I did. I feasted on spaghetti and mushrooms in garlic butter sauce, while David had the lasagna. We got dessert to go, which was tiramisu, always enjoyable! It was definitely an enjoyable night!

On Saturday, we went furniture shopping! We had also been talking about replacing the couch, loveseat and recliner in our living room, and possibly new bedroom furniture. After an enjoyable lunch, we first started out at the La Z Boy store, where we liked a couple of things, but nothing really jumped out at us.

Next, as we were pulling into the parking lot of Rooms to Go/IKEA/a bunch of other furniture stores, David spotted the Leather Sofa Company, and suggested we look in there. I had my misgivings about leather, worried about the effects of dogs/children on them, but after talking with them, I felt much better. So, our new couch and recliner will be arriving in about four weeks! Woo hoo!

After we left there, we looked around Rooms to Go, Ashley furniture, and Anderson furniture company and looked at their bedroom stuff. We found up not finding anything that we loved at any of those places. We did find a dresser for David's side of the bed at IKEA this afternoon, so that's something.

All in all, a productive weekend!

Valentine's Day Recap

Our Valentine's Day this year was great! David surprised me with a cute card and a small box of chocolates in the morning. Then, when he got home that afternoon, we exchanged our gifts! I received the first season of Gilmore Girls, as well as a choice between an Ipod adapter installed in my car, or dinner and a Stars game/show!

For our Valentine's feast, we chose to order take-out from the Olive Garden, which we thought was a smart idea. Unfortunately, the city of Frisco also decided to do that, or so it seemed. David called me from the restaurant to tell me that it was an hour wait just to pick up the food! So much for that idea.

Once he arrived home with the food, we plugged in a movie and ate. Despite the long wait, the food was still warm and really good. All in all, our Valentine's Day was a success!

We Are Popular???

Tonight, David and I had a hot date at Palio's Pizza Cafe. As we were in line to order, I spotted one of the two year-olds from the preschool. She recognized me and announced my name to her table as she gave me a hug. It made me feel good to see her so excited to see me!

At the table next to ours, was a couple that we had previously met, the wife lived across from David's family when he was growing up! They live not too far from us, it was fun to see them again.

While I was saying hi to the two year-old, I looked over and saw a group of women from church! So I had to go visit with them, of course. I went back to our table, and we ate our food. While we were eating, we saw Billy, our pastor, walk in and pick up a pizza. Finally, we saw yet another family from our church come in as well!

I commented to David that we should have Grace Avenue night at Palio's. He replied that this was close to it. I agree! So we had great food and got to visit with lotsa people that we knew. What a great meal!

A Roaring Fire

Last night, after we unpacked our car from the trip to Abilene, I went to the store to get supplies for tonight. After returning home from that zoo, we ate dinner and were trying to decide what movie to watch. As we plugged in the movie, David decided that it was time to try out our new fireplace! He turned the key, lit the fire and ta daa! We had a nice fire in our fireplace.

I had surprised David with a copy of A Muppet's Christmas Carol, which I found at Kroger whilst looking for relish tray items. We chose that as the movie to watch, and curled up on the couch, in front of our roaring fire, to watch the movie. After that one, we watched Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, another Jim Henson classic. It was a very Christmas-y end to a fun weekend!