Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

Missing Things

the outside lane

I am amazed at how much of the stuff we left behind, I do not miss at all. Really amazed. To date, the only things I’ve found myself wanting are:

1. My knives
2. My Le Creuset cookware
3. My black boots–how did those get left behind?!
4. A couple of makeup items that I went ahead and replaced
5. My electric fireplace

I have not missed a single other thing.

Before we left, really packing only the bare necessities to get ourselves started, I made a deal with myself that whatever I didn’t miss, didn’t ever come into the townhouse. I see a very large donation to Goodwill in my future. And I see a very large bag of makeup trash coming out of my bathroom.

Thing is, I’ve never had “just a little bit” before. I have tried to pare my world down to a minimum, but never achieved it until now. I think I’m at a minimum because I only have 4 pair of work trousers to rotate. Ha! I am still not at a minimum, unless you count my kitchen, but I am closer to it than I have ever been. It feels good.

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Good Advice

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Some of the best advice I’ve gotten from my family, usually from my mother or grandfather:

Don’t believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see.

Don’t run from trouble. It will always show up right where you land.

What comes around, goes around. So treat it like you would want to be treated. (This usually had to do with juicy gossip.)

When you’re faced with a hard choice, make a decision, don’t look back, and let the hairy side drag.

Admit when you are wrong, and move on.

Never be afraid to apologize.

Always tell people you love them. Always tell people what you like about them.

If you want to keep something a secret, don’t tell anyone. You tell one person, and you may as well expect that everyone knows.

Never say something behind someone’s back that you wouldn’t say to their face. Actually, say it to their face first.

If it’s your mistake, own it.

Always give things back in better condition than you borrowed them.

Listen to your mother.

Stand up for what you believe, even if it isn’t popular.

Count the cost before you act, then you are prepared for any consequence.

It’s okay to give money to family or friends, but don’t loan it.

Never get involved in a land war with Asia 😉

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Dreaming of Vacation

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I am at home today, nursing an ear issue. I took one too many direct hits to the ear canal at GWL on Saturday, and haven’t been the same since. To amuse myself (after having spent 45 minutes putting together a Lego monstrosity–attention all gift givers, if it says 7+, Thor can’t assemble it himself. I will end up doing it. I prefer Barbies. That written, I can hear him playing now, and it was worth every neck craning, ear canal throbbing second. Thank you, gift givers!) I have posted my review of my trip to Europe, and am now reposting my tripadvisor.com review of the Barcelo resort in San Juan del Cabo.

We traveled to the Barcelo through cheapcarribean.com, which worked out all right, and I would use them again, but only to book the hotel/air travel. I would not book any excursions or transfers with them. We brought a 4 year old, picky eater, and were prepared to feed him with snacks from home. The food here was great for all of us, and we even found a great variety for our son.

[The transfers we paid for through cheapcarribean.com turned out to be twice as costly as a taxi, and did not run during the hours we needed for our return flight. Boo!]

The Bad
Our flight brought us in early, and we arrived at the hotel by 1. Our room would not be ready until 3. That was fine. We enjoyed lunch at the first of many buffets, then settled down in the palazzo to wait. The sea breeze was nice, and the atmosphere was very lazy and good for a vacation. However, after sitting outside in the heat for so long, we were dismayed to have our room readiness delayed. We did not actually get into our room until 5. The front desk staff was fairly surly about it. [To be fair, by 4:30, so was I.]

Our room (in the Building 3 everyone talks about) was great looking, with a view of the adult pool area. The air conditioning never worked properly. It would blow, but the room never cooled below 25C. We put in three maintenance requests, then just gave up. It was not so hot as to be miserable, but was never so cool as to be truly comfortable to this AC spoiled person.

The a la carte dining was not good. The buffets were really, very good, full of variety and savory dishes. We ate at two of our a la carte reservations (now made in advance by the hotel, so you will not have any trouble getting them) and skipped the third. The food in those restaurants was substandard as far as I am concerned.

Not truly bad, but disappointing was the one big activity we had planned. We took our son on the advertised dinner cruise on the Buccaneer Queen. The cruise itself, and the pirate show were fantastic. The crew was great. The dinner? There was not one. There was a snack of mini croissants dressed with a single slice of ham, lettuce and cheese, carrot sticks, celery, and jicama, with a big bowl of guacamole and chips, slopped in the center of the deck for a free for all of the ship guests to grab. It was unappetizing, but our son ate two sandwiches, so he was happy.

My husband adds that the martini bar at the hotel sucked. He is correct.

The Good
As everyone has said, Building 3 is terrific. It is a good location, clean, quiet, and well appointed. The cleaning service was aggressive. Even after we hung out our DND sign, they still knocked to remind us that they would like to come in to clean the room. I wanted to nap.

Our mini bar was kept stocked. We had plenty of towels, and plenty of bath accessories.

Service in the buffets was excellent. Service in the spa was excellent. I had the best massage of my life in the Barcelo spa. [I also had the worst body scrub, but the massage was so good, I almost didn’t care.]

The swim up bar was nice, and the frozen piña coladas were tasty. They were also very agreeable to making kiddie drinks.

We came here to be lazy and just shut down, and it was the perfect place to do it. In spite of the little annoyances, we had a really good time. We slept, we ate, we drank, we swam, we went to the spa, we watched our son play himself tired in the kiddie area, and we slept and ate some more. It has been a relaxing, good vacation.

I would recommend this resort to people with families of small children. They do cater to the family, and the environment is family friendly on the whole.

Activities
We did the Buccaneer Queen dinner cruise and took a glass bottom boat out to The Arch. Both were well worth our time and we would do again. We booked through the resort and were happy with how quickly and easily we were able to sort out what we wanted to do.

Time Shares/Airport
If anyone begins a conversation with, “Let me give you a Spanish lesson,” they are trying to sell you a time share. Just say, “No, gracias,” and keep walking. Something important to know is that when you get off the flight, you will enter a room after baggage claim that is full of time share personnel at counters that look like rental car counters. Just keep walking. Your transport options are waiting for you outside.

Have fun!

Chef Lane, Uncategorized

Getting Cooking

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I am not much of a cook. I’m okay, but it’s real work. My greatest accomplishment of the year was not setting anything on fire, and I managed to fry chicken last week. Since we’ve moved into the new place, and since my commute and Thor’s school line up with it, I am endeavoring to cook at home every week night. I thought I would share my adventures.

We didn’t move our whole kitchen into the townhouse. Right now, I have a single pot, a single skillet, a baking square, and a le creuset dutch oven to work with. I won’t move my whole kitchen until we’re in our new place, but next weekend I’m going to go get the rest of my le creuset set, so I’ll have another skillet, and a couple more pots. Until then, my cooking is all about timing out what I need to cook first.

B doesn’t like to eat vegetables, but does like salad, so I served three of those last week. Ahead of time, I chopped up red, yellow, and green peppers, and carrots, and put those in baggies. I bought shelled pistachios, and bags of salad. I split out the salad into gigantic ziplocs, then, as I served, would add peppers, carrots and nuts, and B’s favorite salad dressing, shake and plate.

Tonight, I premade this recipe for grilled tilapia and mango salsa to cook tomorrow. The mango salsa too a hella long time to finish, and I’m not sure my mango was entirely ripe. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

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Let it Foam, Let it Foam, Let it Foam

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I preface the following with the understanding that Great Wolf Lodge was not built for adults, and that it is a for-profit business.

On the whole, I think GWL is a good experience. I would give it 5 out of 5 stars for delivering on its promises of entertainment and fun for children. I would give it 3 stars for value. I would give it 3 stars as a hotel

A few years back, as a Boys and Girls Club of America charity event, we got day passes to use the waterpark at Great Wolf Lodge. Thor loved it. We enjoyed it. We said to ourselves, “We’ll get these day passes every year!” Alas, the day passes went from $15 per person, to $35 per person, with so many blackout dates, we would not be able to use them. So, instead of taking a train ride on the North Pole Express this year, we decided our annual Holiday Family Outing would be a stay at Great Wolf. We were all looking forward to it.

You can go on their website and find the pricing. Trust me that we took the least expensive option available, and that we’ve been counting this in our budget since October. It still hurt my teeth a little to sign the initial paperwork with the cost of our room and breakfast package. For that amount of money, I expect Ashton levels of quality.

The room itself was nice. It was standard fare, with two queen beds, a sofa sleeper, and the all important coffee maker. The bathroom was very small–the same size as the bathroom in our townhome–with the sink and vanity outside, in the actual room, where you would normally find the closet space. Plenty of hot water, though, and plenty clean. This was one of the cleanest rooms I’ve been in. Everything looked brand new.

We put our things away, got into our swimwear, and headed to the waterpark. It was a Spring Break kind of crowded. Bodies everywhere. Little bitty tiny people, Thor sized people, tweens who were soooo over it, and grown ups who were chasing the rest of those bodies around. I mean it was packed. I assumed that the content of the knee deep kiddie pool was mostly kiddie urine, and that the rest of the pools were a mix of chlorine and tween eliminations.

(Aside: Most waterparks have these fountains that shoot up out of the ground now. The water pressure is pretty high, and the jets are pretty strong. Kids put their feet over them, aim and can spray you for miles. More precocious little girls… Listen, I have now seen five different little girls, in two different waterparks, straddling these things with glazed eyes and goofy smiles. Uncomfortable. Betty Draper would not approve. Sally Draper is another story entirely.)

Again, Thor had a blast, and B and I were enjoying ourselves. I did take one too many direct hits of water to the ear, and bashed my knee up (yes, same one) when our float capsized on a ride, but it wasn’t bad. Everything was fine until I got into the adult hot tub, which was so chlorinated, I got out in under three minutes. I have a weird sensitivity to chlorine, and it was downhill from there.

We stayed in a while longer, then went to dinner. Wow. Up front, I will tell you that dinner cost $50.19 without including tip, and consisted of a buffet. The buffet was in sections containing: Black eyed peas, turnip greens, and fried chicken, pasta, fish with sauce, and some other vegetable, and mac and cheese, peas and carrots, and chicken strips. Those were the only options. I chose chicken strips, which ought to give anyone who has ever met me great pause. The grown ups were not pleased. But this was Thor’s trip, so…back to the room for a rest.

Story time was supposed to start at 8, and it was going to snow in the lobby! All month, I’ve been hearing commercials for how it snowed in the GWL lobbies every evening. I was pretty interested in how that would work.

By the time we got back to the room, B was suffering from ear trouble, too. When it was story time, I took Thor upstairs and we both looked at each other like, “What is this supposed to be?” Chuck E. Cheese’s friends Moose, Racoon, and Boy animatronics were singing some song about how there was nothing to be afraid of in GWL, and how children should go to sleep and not worry about being eaten or something. It sounded like a song the old witch might have sung to Hansel and Gretel.

“Don’t be afraid lalalala you won’t even fit into the oven lalalala nothing here will eat you lalalala just be strong and relax lalalala…”

I don’t know about anyone else’s kids, but up until those lyrics, it hadn’t occurred to mine that there might be something to worry over. “What could eat me?” Thor wanted to know. “Nothing. It’s a joke,” I promised, wanting a distraction.

Score! It had begun to snow. Snow! Something you don’t see much of in Texas. But something that you do see enough of to tell the difference between actual lacy ice crystals and dishwashing foam. It was foaming in the lobby. Thor looked at me and frowned. I suggested we go get him a magic wand and do one of the magicquest games. He thought that sounded like fun.

We lined up to pay for his wand and game, another $32, and set off. If I hadn’t been having equilibrium issues, that might have been a lot of fun. I think this is a fantastic concept–a scavenger hunt dressed as a magical adventure. Thor was totally into it. But, since I was feeling like a seasick muggle, all I could really tell you is that we walked 8 flights of stairs looking for Thor’s quest items (elevators are not allowed for magicquesting), dodging unsupervised tweens who were doing the same. The only thing worse than a pack of unsupervised tweens is a pack of wolves–and only then because the wolves will eat you. Wild tweens might, but I got the feeling that these gentrified ones would just whine that we weren’t already cooked and garnished. That, Thor, is what you had to fear at GWL. Tweens.

Again, we understood that this was not a grown up hotel, so you can’t really complain about the free range children. I’m not complaining. I am reporting. I do hope that we are never the parents who give a child a wand and tell it to run free, though.

We accomplished Thor’s quest and returned to the room, where it was B’s turn to have magic fun. While they were gone, I considered ordering a pizza, but I was afraid they would charge me my firstborn, and he wasn’t available for barter at the moment. I made coffee instead.

The room’s coffee was fantastic.

B and Thor returned, and we paid another $7 for him to be able to play a video game on the television. Not the most cost effective weekends we’ve had.

By 10, we were settled in to sleep. This is good, because GWL enforces a quiet time from 11pm to 7:30am. So why was I on the phone with the front desk at 11:45pm?

I have no freaking idea what was going on upstairs, but it was loud enough to wake up Thor three times, and to keep me from going to sleep at all. And I have slept through a tornado in a campsite. I can sleep through anything. I thought.

We passed a miserable night. Because we were on the first floor, where the waterpark and game hall are, we could hear every sound as they cleaned and prepped after closing, and again in the wee hours as they started prep and opening procedures. Misery. I was a devil woman by the time our alarm went off. Devil woman.

I explained the problem to the front desk at check out, and was asked if I had called to report the noise. I said yes, and the girl said, “Oh…then I’m sorry.” She could not have cared less. I’m sure I looked awesome, all basset hound eyed and wild haired.

The breakfast buffet? Don’t get me started.

As I type, B and Thor are enjoying the waterpark again after driving me home. I am just that cranky. LOL. I got sent home.

On the whole, I think GWL is a good experience. I would give it 5 out of 5 stars for delivering on its promises of entertainment and fun for children. I would give it 3 stars for value. I would give it 3 stars as a hotel–if only because of the freaking noise. We will probably go again, but not on New Year’s Day, and not without budgeting even more. Oh, and we also won’t go because the snow sounds exciting.