I’ve officially moved to tumblr.

<cue Debbie Downer music>

Why, you ask – well, tumblr is a better place for me to super quickly update my short, nonsensical ramblings. And upload pics and/or videos.

So – I’m moving… and if you want to continue following me, I’ll be here: http://deav.tumblr.com/.

WordPress has been nothing but great to me for the past 3 years (my 3 year anniversary was 2 weeks ago). I will miss my wordpress home :(

I’m out.

My time in Austin was WAY too brief.  As soon as my plane took off from JFK into the snowy skies, I knew I would have to treasure every moment in the warm Texas sunshine.  Luckily, it was in the high 60s/low 70s and sunny 90% of the time. Absolutely perfect.

The conference itself was a blast.  Despite crazy travel delays and half of the attendees not arriving until the 2nd day, people seemed to enjoy themselves and get a lot out of the workshops planned/organized by my team.

Me?  Well, I spent the majority of my days driving around Austin and my evenings bar hopping downtown.  It was mildly uneventful, yet eye-opening.

So, my major takeaways from 5 days in Austin:

1. Austin loves live music. Like, whoa.  I don’t think downtown Austin is without music in the streets between the hours of 5pm – 3am.

2. Austin also loves GIANT cars.  I was driving a Tahoe – thanks to the fine folks at Hertz – and I fit right into the Texan landscape.

3. UT girls LOVE tube dresses and 6″ heels. And I mean, girls of ALL sizes love the tube dress + 6″ heels combo (gross).  Walking along 6th Street last Saturday night made me feel super uncomfortable, because I felt like I was surrounded by whores.  I mean, it was a HOT. MESS.

4. Austin loves taco trucks.  And so do I… along with the majority of my Fellows and colleagues.  We ate tacos every chance we could get.

5. Never buy sausage from a sausage truck on 6th Street.  I paid $3.75 and the guy handed me what appeared to be a 7″ sausage on top of a 5″ regular tortilla, covered in ketchup and mustard.  It was a very upsetting sight.  I only had 3 bites before my friends forced me to get rid of it – out of sheer disappointment.

6. UT has a Potbelly’s, Mellow Mushroom AND Chick-fil-a all within one block of each other… which means I will be back in Austin sooner rather than later.

And that’s about it. I probably won’t end up moving there, but I surely developed a mini-crush on the city.  I will definitely return.

Sadly, I don’t have any pictures (it was a work trip) so I will try to be as vivid as possible with my words.

But not now… I need sleep so hard.

I AM SO SICK OF SNOW. I’ve been over snow since birth.

Anyway, I have a lot of catching up to do. Crap.

In other quasi-related news – I get to eat lots of delicious food this weekend:

1. Fort Defiance – yeah, I’m trekking allllll the way to Brooklyn to celebrate my cousin’s 25th birthday.  She’s so old.

2. Baked – of course this famous-ish bakery has to be down the block from Fort Defiance… Just in case my brunch isn’t filling enough, I can gorge myself with cakes, pies and brownies.

3. Perilla – the final stop on my culinary journey is for Ryan’s birthday.  I already know I’m getting either the steak or the duck. Dinner will probably also include a bottle of wine and maybe a dessert.  Also, I hear this place was opened by one of the Top Chef winners.  ALSO, my favorite Anthony Bourdain digs the place. That means I will enjoy it too.

Did I mention all of this eating is happening in one day?

I will need to hit the gym HARD after these meals. Get excited.

But how did I get to the delicious finished product?  Here’s the story (you can bypass this story to see the final pics):

First of all, mad props to bakerella.com for this awesome recipe!  Second, apologies for the horrible lighting in my apartment.

I had all my ingredients in front of me and I was ready to embark on my seemingly easy journey through cheesecake town.  Until I got to this point:

that's not supposed to happen...

I got the wrong sized cupcake foils.  Crap.

So I quickly, improvised (read: googled) and discovered a recipe for nilla wafer crust.  Basically, crushed nillas + melted butter =

nilla buttery goodness

This detour unfortunately added another 15 -20 minutes to my adventure, and I had to line EVERY SINGLE cupcake foil with this mush.  It was not a fun process… but as you can see, I got a bit lazy with some of them.

tedious work

FINALLY – I could get started on the cheesecake.  And this was the easy part.  I threw a bunch of ingredients into a bowl then mixed.

easy enough

Okay.  Crust – check.  Cheesecake batter – check.  I quickly scooped the batter into each of the cupcake foils and popped them into the oven for 17 minutes.

Then we had this:

After all of my hard work, I let these suckers cool for a while.  At some point later that night, I mustered up the strength to top a few off with some fruity goodness…

And I bring you the final product:

topped with blueberries!

yum.

PS: Adam and Ryan loved the baby (cheese) cakes.  Luckily, I have leftovers… so, my co-workers will be enjoying them tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I think I like it this time.  It reminds me of a jumbled mess.

Any time outside of that, my body is mush.  I’m useless.

In order to fulfill resolution #3 I need to get started on a new gym routine.  Rather than feel like mush and force myself to workout after work, I’m gonna try the early morning route.   This will also eliminate the annoying-ness of having to bring my sneakers to work.

Aside from the tiredness after work, I absolutely hate leaving work, running a few errands, heading to the gym, then getting home with only 1 hour of awake time.  I end up eating dinner later than desired and because my brain is super active until midnight (at the earliest) I stay up a lot later than I should.   Hopefully, with this new routine, I can leave work around 630pm and get home and NOT be 100% useless – then not stay up until 2am.

Don’t worry, this won’t be a daily thing.  Maybe every other day.  And NOT on weekends, obvi.

Wish me luck.

PS: I’m making this adorable dessert for Ryan’s birthday this week.  It’s gonna be awesome.  I’ll try take some pictures.

Super Easy Mini Cherry Cheesecakes

bakerella.com

Get excited.

Remember this post? scuba: part 2

Recap (parts 1 and 2): Scuba fail. Middle of Belize. Couldn’t take the breathing tube out of my mouth and put it back without half drowning. Dove anyway. Feared death the whole time. Vowed to learn how to put that damn tube back into my mouth underwater. Bought a groupon in July.

I got my ass in gear and signed up for the FINAL groupon eligible class: December 18th.

Long story short, I DID IT!

Of course, I was scared the first time I went under, but the instructor was mean enough to force me to get over myself.  I didn’t like her much, but she knew her scuba.

Anyway, once I got over that, I had to try it a few more times to make sure I was really getting it.  The trick – in case you’re curious – after taking the tube out of your mouth, don’t wait until you’ve run out of air in your lungs (never hold your breath while diving).  Put the tube back into your mouth when you still have some air left, then breathe out the rest of the air while pushing the button that releases the water that’s in your mouth.  Works like a charm.  I’m sure that’s what they told me the first time, but  I was foolish.

So yeah.  After figuring out the tube thing, I was rewarded with a swim to the deep end of the pool.  Not nearly as awesome as open-water diving off the coast of Belize, but it was good enough.

I still have my sights set on becoming some-kind-of-scuba certified, but that’s not an immediate goal.

That’s right.  I caved and asked the parentals for a kindle for Christmas.

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years and don’t know what a Kindle is – or perhaps you’re not a maniac Amazon.com shopper like I am – let me explain:  it’s an electronic-reader.  Every publishing company’s nightmare (more on this later).

I’m honestly surprised my parents got me a kindle over a new iPod (something I sorta need)…  but I can’t complain.  It’s awesome.  It’s great for my subway rides and my late night reading sprees, and I’m sure it’ll be great for vacationing and other equally enjoyable activities.

But I feel kinda bad for owning one.  First of all, I still dream of having a huge library in my future house with tons of books.  The Kindle ruins that dream of mine :(   This 8.7 ounce reader stores up to 3500 books.  Second,  this kindle will one day put lots of people out of a job.  The book printing companies are slowly going under – and my wireless reading device is to blame.   Shame on me.

This may seem silly (it probably definitely is), but in an effort to keep bookstores all over the world, from Barnes and Noble to Strand (I love this place), open to the public I will continue buying REAL books.  But only after I’ve read them on the kindle – and enjoy them.  I’m sure it will be my business in particular that keeps these places open.

Hey – every little bit helps, right?  Maybe…

I WILL have a huge library in my future home, dammit.

***

Anyway, it’s a new year – twenty-eleven – and I’m kicking things off with 3 brand spanking new resolutions.

#1: Blog more.

#2: Pack light.

#3: Continue eating whatever I want.

Booya.