The Three-Day Weekend That Was

So I can’t lie:  I love random government holidays like Columbus Day that give me a three-day weekend in the middle of October when the weather is gorgeous!  This was pretty much the best weekend ever.  Or at least in a long time.

On Saturday we hit the Bayou City Art Festival downtown.  We’ve been looking for something to put above our fireplace since we moved into the house, but found nothing at the art festival last year or in the time since.  This year, we finally found something that we both liked and seemed to fit our personalities!  It’s a canvas print by Texas artist Chris Smith.  He creates hand-drawn maps and other historical illustrations.  I actually remember admiring his work last year because I LOVE maps — but I also remember thinking “if only he did some maps of something other than Texas.”  I wasn’t quite ready to put a giant map of the Texas Revolution on my wall just yet…

Apparently, I am now ready.  I’ve been living in Texas longer than anywhere but North Carolina, where I grew up.  I’m married to a native Texan.  I don’t see myself leaving Texas anytime soon, so my kids will be probably be Texans.  And Texas DOES have some truly crazy state history!

So now we have a giant map of the Texas Revolution hanging over the fireplace!  It really is a super cool piece of artwork, and reminds me a lot of a hand-drawn map of the UNC campus that my mom has hanging in the kitchen at home.  I loved looking at that.  Heck, I love all maps in general.  We were talking to the artist as we decided which print to get, and asked him why he decided to draw maps.  He said something like “well, as a kid I always loved looking at maps.  I’d spend car trips paging through the road atlas to follow along with where we were.  I couldn’t get enough, and drawing them seemed like a fun niche that no one else was filling.”  I totally understood what he was saying.

Once we got it home I was hesitant to hang it above the fireplace since at that height, you can’t get up close and personal to really appreciate all the detail.  But it does look pretty awesome.

I ran the USA 10-Miler on Sunday morning, and we spent that afternoon waiting for a man with a tree!  We bought a crape myrtle from Maas Nursery last weekend and arranged to have it delivered since it was too big to fit in the back of my Xterra.  They arrived on Sunday and 20 minutes later, we had a tree in our backyard!  It is actually a gift from my mom, so thanks Mom!  We went to the nursery over the summer when my parents were in town, but they said fall was the best time to plant trees around here, so we waited.  It looks great, although I don’t know if it will flower anymore this year.  It’s the “Tuscarora” variety, so it should have dark pink flowers; I can’t wait to see it in the spring!

Left: The “Before” shot        Right: Nursery guys digging the hole

After! New tree!

While at the nursery, we also bought a satsuma tree.  (They’re similar to mandarin oranges.)  We watched carefully as the delivery guys planted the crape myrtle so we’d know what to do with the satsuma tree.  We also bought a hibiscus, which I know will grow like crazy if the other hibiscus I’ve seen around here is any example.  We put the hibiscus next to the crape myrtle, and planted the satsuma in the other corner of the yard.  They said the satsuma will be more round, and we should plant it farther from the fence than the crape myrtle.  Hopefully that is a good spot for it!

I love our new plants!  As I keep telling people:  I don’t really have a green thumb, but I WANT to have one.  Cross your fingers for me!

We topped off Sunday with dinner at Maggiano’s for Jen’s birthday.  There was SO MUCH FOOD.  And it was all really good.  (Let’s just say it was a really good thing I’d run 10 miles that morning!!)

We spent Columbus Day flying to Brenham for a “$100 hamburger” at the 50s diner at the airport.  It was a great day for flying with lots of puffy, cottony clouds to admire.  Unfortunately the clouds meant that things were a little bumpy, and I didn’t feel very good on the flight up.  But with a yummy burger in my stomach, I felt just fine on the return trip — I even took a video where you finally get to see Jose actually flying the plane.  (Side note:  propellers show up really strangely on iPhone video.)  Jose passed 100 hours of flying time on the way up there!  And he taught me how to taxi the plane (difficult) and let me make a call on the radio (fun)!  It was the perfect thing to do on our day off work.

And, as if all those fun activities weren’t enough, Jose decided to make a pumpkin pie last night!  He found a small “pie pumpkin” at the grocery store on Sunday which actually proved to be enough pumpkin for TWO pies.  (If you would like some pie, please come to my house and eat some so we don’t get fat all by ourselves.)  It is a very tasty pie.

Husbands who bake pies?  Highly recommended.

Three day weekends?  Three thumbs up.