A Great Giveaway in Dallas!

"Nest has been a destination for unique gifts and home accents for over a decade. The original store had two locations in Dallas before its owners moved it to University Park's Snider Plaza, where it currently lives. Two years after the move to Snider Plaza, Nest was ready to be sold.
Enter: Scott Alexander and Heather Wiese-Alexander, budding entrepreneurs, and soon-to-be new owners of The Nest. Nearly four years later, Nest has undergone a full transformation. Although the merchandise assortment is dramatically different, the heart of the original store is still quite alive. The original art concept inspired a full gallery in the upstairs catwalk surrounding the entire store. The hand-made crafts blossomed into hand-made categories in every "department" from gifts to linens, to home accents, to furniture. The merchandise assortment still has a very high percentage of exclusive musings, making Nest a destination for an array of unequivocally clever findings." excerpted from nestdallas.com

Have yet to visit this store, but it's on my bucket list for this spring! I went to college with Donald Fowler, their buyer and store manager, and his eye for style has been nothing but fascinating since the day I met him!! Check out the Nest Interior Design blog site........it's got great style and wonderful photos that inspires every persons inner decorator!!!

~Allie

Snow, bronchitis.....it must still be winter!

Mother Nature paid the DFW area an arctic visit this past Thursday and Friday. Around 7 inches of beautiful snow, power outages, and phone outages.

Wish I wasn't under the weather (ha!ha!) with stupid bronchitis. Have been down with it for a week. Antibiotics, steroid pack, prescription cough medicine, and a follow up cortisone shot that finally opened up the airways and I'm still coughing my head off and don't feel any better. Back to the doctor's office on Monday, I guess. I really can't miss any more work, but don't want this to get worse.

Anybody have any home remedies for the relief of bronchitis symptoms? I feel like I've tried them all. I'm making a pot of chicken tortilla soup right now. Stay warm and healthy.......

~Allie

Rounding Up Random Thoughts........

Downtown Dallas September 2008

It's been 14 days since posting......hmmmm.....partly because it's been a busy time and partly because I think I can safely say I've experienced my first spell of "bloggers block". Lots of random thoughts running through my mind.....but in no clear direction. How about a bulleted list? Let's see how that works :)

• Texas has made it through a terrible storm.....hurricane Ike. All of the evacuation centers in the DFW area are full but everyone seems to be taken care of well and there have been no major events of trouble. Why did so many people decide to ride the storm out in Galveston? It doesn't make sense.
• Would really like to get the scanner working. Asked one of the Cupcake Princess's friends if she'd set it up for me and happily I may be scanning by tonight :) Bringing in more pictures might break the blogger's block.
• Just celebrated 21 years of being married. Wow! I can't be that old!!
• Sarah Palin sure is getting a lot of press.
• One of the Cupcake Princess's friends from elementary school just turned 18 last week and this past Friday night we got a midnight call that she had been in an accident. She was driving her vespa home Friday evening and somebody hit her. Chipped teeth, road rash, stitches in her cheek, and surgery yesterday to put two plates into her leg. Horrible. She is like our adopted daughter. Couldn't sleep after the phone call. Was like the floor had just been pulled out from under me. She just called from her hospital room and sounds good. We're all going to see her this evening. It's scary when your kids go off for their first day of school and you think that when you get through that, things are good and you won't be experiencing that feeling again. WRONG! Now they are 18, driving, and your heart skips a beat every night that they are out and you don't relax your shoulders until they are home safe and sound. When does THAT feeling go away?
• Have been enjoying the new episodes of Gossip Girl. Am I too old to be watching this?
• Why does it always rain right after you give the dog a bath?
• Downtown Dallas is actually beautiful.

Southfork visit....but no J.R. Ewing!

So it's back-to-school time for teachers already.....aargh! We had our yearly district Instructional Leadership meeting yesterday. Of course we had to be there at 7:45 am (I'm still on my summer sleep schedule!), but the district holds the meeting out at Southfork Ranch every year, so that's not so bad. You may be thinking, "Southfork? I've heard that somewhere before.", and you'd be right. Remember in the late 70's the big t.v. hit DALLAS? The Ewings lived on Southfork Ranch. The outside shots were taken here and all of the indoor footage was on a soundstage. Through the miracle of Hollywood, the ranch looked much grander than it really is. Today, the ranch is a tourist spot and a place to have large meetings, parties, and weddings.

I've been going to these leadership meetings for six years now and although it's alot of work and digging through student and test data and planning for teacher staff developments, it is fun to catch up with friends that I haven't seen for a few months....and of course, catch up on the latest gossip :) Southfork also puts on a great spread of "grub" for us, too. Our breakfast buffet was platters and platters of fresh fruit and warm, country biscuits with sausage and eggs inside. Of course there was salsa, too! mmmmm! For lunch, another buffet spread of Texas BarBQ. Every year they rotate from BBQ to Fajitas....have to admit I was crossing my fingers for fajitas! The BBQ buffet was awesome! Fresh cole slaw, new potatoe salad, spicey pinto beans with tomatoes and chilis, corn bread muffins with cheese, whole corn and jalepenos inside, and the best shaved briscuit that just melted in your mouth. Texas fare at it's best!

While the food was great, we still had lots of work to do yesterday. I took this picture of my principals yesterday afternoon........they look tired. But wait! There's MORE FOOD! Just when you think you're done for the day and your brain checks out........warm apple cobbler arrives with bowls and bowls of whipped cream!! If you gotta work.....this is the way to do it!!!