Knock Knock Who's There??

Tap Tap Tap....

I was blog exploding as usual when i heard some rapid fire tapping behind me. My first thought was, "oh, it's David working on the cattery", but then I remembered that I had just made him lunch and he was happily munching on a burrito and watching the news...

So I peek outside, only to see Mr. Woodpecker, pecking on my WINDOW!

In Malaysia, houses are so close together with motorcycles zooming about all the time or children playing in the streets loudly that birds of any sort would definitely be frightened off before they would venture anywhere near you.

Since moving here, we have had the pleasure of woodpeckers, cardinals, sparrows, roadrunners and even DUCKS on the property, partly because we've put out birdfeeders to entice them.

I just hope once the outdoor cattery is ready though, that the kitties will get along with the birdies.

Wishful thinking?

Wedding Planner Blues

My brother is an angel..

I talked to him today and we have decided that the date for the wedding should be June 19th to maximize the time I would be able to spend with my family without my dad driving me too crazy.

So, now that we have the WHEN and WHERE out of the way, I am sure I will find other things to agonize over, like....

Why is it that weddings are only the responsibility of brides and the guys have it easy? The bride has to plan everything and guys just pick out a tuxedo!

Well, David should thank his lucky stars i'm not going to torture him for that by making him wear THIS!

Well, THEY seem to be enjoying themselves!

Sunset over Abilene

I had never lived out in the country before..

and when we bought the 5 acres just outside of Abilene, I was rather doubtful as I had a rather warped perception of "country".

Back in the days when I was working in a certain rural hospital in a Malaysia, there were just 5 or 6 of us doctors in the main hospital servicing a community of about 85,000 (it's amazing, but i just looked up that statistic on the net! ), mainly comprising of indigenous people who lived in the interior as well as "town" folk ( we used to joke about it being a real cowboy town with its one main street ). Those were fulfilling but extremely exhausting times and THAT was my twisted perception of "country".

Our "country home" is just 7 minutes away from Abilene. It seems that when you're out here, there could not possibly be a city of 160,000 just a stone's throw away, what with all the jackrabbits and deer roaming the property...

and with THIS view from our front yard...

How divine...

The Human Spirit

With football on the brain,

and in the spirit of the playoffs, we watched Friday Night Lights a few days ago.

I'm such a sucker for movies based on true stories of human triumph and determination that, although I'm not a huge football fan, it had me glued to the tube for the duration of the movie.

THEN a few days later, I find out that the coach portrayed in that movie, Gary Gaines, had been coaching the football team at Abilene Christian University for the past 4 years!

How neat.

Food Facts

This may sound gross to some...

but when we Chinese eat fish, we eat the ENTIRE fish. Head, tail, eyeballs ( well, some of us ) and all. The same goes for chicken. We eat almost every part of it. Its head, neck and even its feet. When we were growing up, my grandmother would bag the pointy butt end of the chicken, saying it was good for your skin.

Nowadays when I go shopping at the local grocer's, all I see is skinless, boneless chicken and individually wrapped fish fillets in freezers....which is only the way David would have it, cos he says he could not possibly eat anything with a face on it staring back at him while he munched on its body parts.

*sigh*