Audrey's Blog

Christmas Carols already???

Because of this weird warm-cool-warm weather, I haven’t even fully gotten into fall yet (my absolutely favorite season of the year).  So, when I dropped into Kohl’s on Friday and my ears were assaulted with Christmas carols, I was in more than a little shock.  Then as I flipped through radio stations this weekend, I stumbled onto 103.7 Lite FM and they’ve already switched to an all Christmas format.  Holy crap!

Geez … what happened to giving Thanksgiving it’s due and waiting until after that bless holiday to start in on the Christmas carol marathon???

Its Audrey Way or the highway!

Having an unusual name had its perks and drawbacks growing up. 

PERK (sort of): I was never confused by another parent yelling at their child.  There simply weren’t any other Audreys around when I was young.  In fact, according to Baby Names World, the only time the name “Audrey” was less popular than it was in the 70’s was pre-1900.  So, if an “Audrey” was getting yelled at in a grocery store, it was always me.  I couldn’t ever hide behind “I thought you were yelling at someone else”.  Suck!

PERK: “Audrey” has a very cool meaning - “Noble Strength”.  Audrey was also a 6^th century saint and also a character in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. 

DRAWBACK: A little less fortunate but well know Audrey was in the Little Shop of Horrors both as a person and a Venus Flytrap. 

DRAWBACK: Living in a town that had an unusually high concentration of Andreas it seemed like everyone dyslexed when they saw my name.  It’s a freaking “U” NOT an “N”.  How hard can that be???

DRAWBACK: I could never find the cool name accessories that everyone else had.  No neat pencils with my name on them, no awesome little license plate to clearly denote my bike as mine, no cool keychain proclaiming “Audrey’s Keys” when I finally got my driver’s license.  How deprived was I???

So now, even at 32 years of age, anytime I see my name on something I still get tickled. That’s what made me slam on the brakes and turn around in a new neighborhood a few days ago … I saw my name! 

To truly appreciate this sign, you also have to know one other thing about me (if you didn’t already).  My maiden name is Allen.  So, seeing “Audrey Way” in the City of Allen is particularly amusing. 

I hope you've all enjoyed this little escapade through my psyche.  I know I did - and after all ... it's my way or the highway, right?  ;-)

Did you vote???

I did!  Yesterday was Election Day across the great state of Texas.  As I mentioned in a previous post, there were 16 constitutional amendments up for vote in the state wide election all of which passed (results) including the one I was specifically passionate about Proposition 6 (protecting small business owners from an additional tax on our vehicles). Additionally, I was extremely pleased to see that all 3 bonds proposed for Collin County passed.

Remember … If you didn't vote, you don't get to bitch! ;-)

Day 3: Livorno (Pisa & Chianti)

Our first day in Italy was gorgeous and amazing! (That word "amazing" keeps coming up. Maybe I need to check the thesaurus for another word, but it's just so right. Anyway …) This was our first day going ashore with some of our Keller Williams compadres - JR & Linda Russell, Jack & Donna Thomas, Randy & Amy Mosier, Joe & Alyse Cloud, and their friends Adam & Nicole.

We left the port in Livorno and drove inland to Pisa to view one of the Seven Wonders of the World - The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Dubbed one of the biggest architectural mistakes in the world, it was fascinating to wander around the grounds surrounding the Tower. It was definitely an oddity and snapping the requisite photos of Chris holding the tower up (cheesy - I know, but he insisted) was amusing. But, truly it was even more fascinating to get to see the incredible detail in the other buildings on the grounds. I'm really pleased with the way the photos turned out. We couldn't have asked for a better day for picture taking!

After hanging out in Pisa for a little over an hour, we headed further into Tuscany. Our destination was the Chianti region of Tuscany. We stopped for a few minutes at a little village called Greve along the way where I had REAL hot chocolate - oh, man was it good! I got some great photos of a local Catholic church and the cobble stone streets.

From there we were headed for La Locanda di Pietracupa, a small restaurant in Poggio, for lunch. I got to experience things like wild boar tortellini and grilled rabbit (sorry, Bugs!). Lunch was a long and drawn out affair assisted heavily by multiple bottles of wine. The food was incredible, the wine was excellent, and the company was stellar. I'm not sure if we ran off all the other patrons with our boisterous conversation or if we just outlasted all of them, but by the time we were finished, we had the whole place to ourselves. Hah!

As if we needed anymore wine at this point but our next stop was at the Casa Emma vineyard & winery next door for a wine tasting. I should be able to tell you the name of the very funny gentleman who conducted the wine tasting for us (he was very good and extremely amusing), but quite honestly I can't remember. Probably not surprising, right?

The only unfortunate thing about the whole day was that our drivers didn't keep us on schedule very well. By the time we finished with the wine tasting, we were probably an hour later leaving that we should have been to get back to the ship on time. Once the drivers figured that out and that they would be driving us to Rome if indeed we did miss the ship, they put the pedal to the medal. We were probably a reasonable hour and half's drive from the port. Their motivated driving got us back to the port in closer to an hour. Yikes! Chris and I were in the last seat of 10 passenger van, and let's just say it was a bumpy ride.

It really was a relaxing day filled with friends, food, and wine-enhanced-fun! Check out the photos at: http://www.audreyreed.info/photoGalleries/Day-3-Livorno/.

Day 2: Villefranche

Our first port of call was Villefranche - the port for Nice, Monte Carlo, & Eze.  We started off the day with a jog on the 12^th deck of the ship overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and the French coast.

Our plan was to spend the afternoon checking out Nice and Eze - (and, yes, we did say “nice and easy” and chuckled every time).  We took the tender to shore right after lunch and hopped on a local bus for the 10 minute ride to Nice.  We were off to a pretty good start, but that’s as far as it got.  We ended up getting of a couple of stops short of our final destination.  You would have thought it would be a simple task to get back on a bus and get back on track.  Hah!  As far as I can tell, nothing is that simple for an American in France - especially if you don’t speak a lick of French.  We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon getting back to the bus station so that we could get back to Villefranche.  Originally, we would have taken the bus back through Villefranche on to Eze, but we didn’t want to risk not getting back to the ship before it left port that evening.  The major complicating factor was that it was Sunday, and the buses run a shortened schedule on Sundays (which I guess is to be expected).  Ultimately, we got back to Villefranche with plenty of time to spare.  We did get to explore a little and got some nice photos.  And, we did get some great exercise! 

So, what did I take away from our time in France?

·         The parts of Nice we saw - not so fabulous.  I’m sure there are some great parts of this town, but we didn’t find them in our quest for the bus station.

·         The French really do see us as entertainment when we’re wandering around their country trying to figure out their bus system.

·         Europeans in general have no sense of personal space or of an orderly line.  When we tried to board the bus, we almost didn’t get on - even though we were the first ones there waiting for it.  As soon as the bus driver opened the door, it was a crush of humanity to get on.  NOT what we’re used to!  Thanks to a pair of super friendly Scotsmen, we finally figured out what was going on.  On the ride back to Villefranche, they clued us in to the way things are.  After that, I wasn’t afraid to shoulder my way in where I needed to be!  Grrrr ....

In case you missed the previous post, here's a link to the photos.  All in all, it was an interesting day.  Yeah - that’s how I’ll put it.  :-)

That evening was the 1st of 2 formal evenings.  We clean up pretty good - if I do say so myself. 

Check out this link for a couple more photos: http://audreyreed.info/PhotoGalleries/Day-2-Villefranche-Evening/index.html.

A low key Halloween

This year's Halloween festivities were pretty low key in the Reed household. The main attraction was the seasonal debut of my award winning chili (seriously, I have the awards to prove it!). When we found out the Chris' carpool partner, Paul - who happens to be Australian, had never had true Texas chili, we invited him over so that we could appropriately introduce him to chili experience.

We did get a little taste of Halloween in the form of a visit from our neighbors, The Nylecs, before they headed out for a Halloween gathering. We were more than a little amused with Darren's "costume". Here's a snapshot … can you guess what he is???

It took me a minute, too, and he finally clued me in after seeing the truly baffled expression on my face. He's a leaf blower! LOL!

Of course, whenever he's around, Jayden steals the show. Tonight, he made an incredibly adorable Tigger. All together now … Ahhhh!

After enjoying a hearty serving of chili followed up with Weight Watcher friendly pumpkin spice muffins and the fun visit from the Nylecs, we settled in for a scary movie classic - Poltergeist (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084516/). Too bad I didn't make it past the first 15 minutes. The comfy sofa and a full tummy were just too much to resist. It was off to snoozeville for me. (Chris gets so annoyed with me when I do that! Apparently, I've missed a number of good movies that way. <blush>)

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!