WEEKEND ADVENTURES

Had such a great weekend in Houston, hanging out with sonny boy Austin and his sweetie, Areej. We got there just in time for lunch on Friday, so headed directly to Beck's Prime, home of the best char-grilled hickory burger in the whole wide world! Since hubby is really-and-truly retired now, and we no longer need to stay close to his office, he found us a great little Sheraton Four Points hotel. Not only was it much nicer, but a good bit cheaper, than the businessmen's special where we used to stay, it sits right on the corner of my very favorite plein air shopping center, and just a couple of exits away from my favorite mall. Woohoo! We had some time to kill before Austin would be off work, so we headed to the mall after lunch, mostly just to browse and people watch. Having such a tiny closet really makes one stop and think before purchasing something. I'm not joking when I say that for every new outfit, purse, or pair of shoes I bring into this house, something of equal size and shape must leave -- which is a good thing, in my opinion.

That evening we headed down to have dinner with A&A at the new-to-them little house they have rented in the historic Heights area where I used to work. In fact, they have been making frequent trips lately to my old nursery, to get supplies for the raised beds they started building as soon as they moved in.

Not only do they have space now for growing all their herbs and a few veggies, the house even came with a good-sized grapefruit tree, a couple of Satsumas, and a bunch of big ol' pecan trees!

I'm not sure what kind of tree this is on the left, but if you zoom in you can see that the leaves hanging off of it on the right look different from the rest. Could those be grape leaves? Or is it poison ivy!

Of course, that means I'm back t' frettin' each time a hurricane heads their way. Big ol' trees can be very scary in a hurricane. But, just look at all these grapefruits!

Now all they have to do is figure out how to keep all the neighborhood cats from viewing those raised beds as their very own super-deluxe litter boxes!

More about our adventures in global eating tomorrow.