Fall in Flip-Flops

Fall in Texas is very different from NY.  Palm trees line the streets instead of maples and elms dressed in autumn colors.

At "Pumpkin Patches," you are unlikely to find growing gourds... rather, you discover a field with scattered pre-picked pumpkins, from which you can "re-pick" a pumpkin of your choice for fall celebrations (Pumpkin photo courtesy of "The Express-News/SA").






And, fall drinks like spiced teas and coffees come in more cold varieties than warm.  You might as well add a paper umbrella to top off your favorite fall beverage.

Despite feeling a little at loss in our typical fall traditions, Tony and I agree that the perfection of the weather more than makes up for it.  Most days are in the 80's, with beautiful blue skies, sun shining, and a perfect light breeze.  Outdoor sports are at their peak, and there are many opportunities for visiting parks and exploring festivals.  Flowering bushes and trees bring a different sort of color to the fall season.  And, trading in our heavy fall jackets for tank-tops has been a welcomed change.

However, an unseasonable "cold front" made its way to San Antonio this weekend, bringing with it chilly temperatures into the 60's.  Tony and I seized this opportunity to return to some of our favorite autumn traditions: fall foods and beverages

Feeling nostalgic, Tony and I crafted our first true fall Crock Pot meal: Irish Stew.  In Batavia, NY, there is a cute Irish pub named "O'Lacy's," a favorite and frequented place of Tony and mine.  We used to meet my parents there halfway between Albion and Buffalo on chilly fall evenings.  Most of us would get "the regular:" draft beers with their famous lamb stew, seasoned to perfection with ample helpings of Guinness for flavoring.

The smell and warmth of our own version of the stew filled the house throughout the day

Butters also seemed to approve of the Irish Stew.  He spent most of the day sitting dutifully next to the Crock Pot, ready to help us sample the food.  And, when the meal was finally served, he was first in line to try to get his bowl too.

We were so pleased that our first try at this recipe came pretty close to the perfection of O'Lacy's.  Tony added some cheddar cheese as a finishing touch.

Although fall beers are my favorite, Baby Bean made me have to skip out on that side of the fall festivities.  However, Tony graciously told me how great the Oktoberfest beer tasted with the meal.

And, the fresh-baked bread made a perfect side to the tasty stew.

To complete our fall weekend, we added the finishing touch: Warm Cider.  Adding mulling spices (something I learned from my mom), I warmed up some fresh apple cider as a special treat to end the weekend.

Butters also seemed to approve of the apple cider...

...as did Mummy

The weather is set to go back up into the 80's this coming week, but Tony and I were happy to make the most of our special fall weekend!  We are looking forward to Halloween celebrations this coming week.

It was called yellow...

At the beginning of our relationship, Tony and I were separated by many miles.  He was in his sophomore year at Clarkson University and I was a freshman at Cornell. We had spent our entire lives growing up in the same town, but it took 350 miles of distance to truly get to know one another.  After reconnecting through Facebook, we found ourselves talking night after night.  We would discuss many different topics, from books and science to pop culture and dreams for the future.  However, of all the topics that we shared, music was our favorite.  With the help of free iTunes codes hidden under Diet Pepsi bottle caps, we discovered songs together that grabbed our souls.  We would tear the lyrics apart and then piece them back together to find the meaning beneath the tunes.  And during the day, I found myself listening to these songs as I was studying and walking to class.  As I later learned, these songs lingered with Tony too. We fell in love to these songs. 

Of all the songs that we came across, “Yellow” by Coldplay was our favorite.  There was something about the feeling that the music left us with.  As we dissected the song, we identified with the lines.  The song seemed to capture exactly how we were feeling for one another: “Yellow” came to mean the glowing brightness of our relationship persisting despite the miles that stood between us.  It felt like this song was written about us, for us.  We fell in love to this song.

Years later, after Tony transferred to Cornell, we actually looked up what the Coldplay artists intended when writing the song.  It surprised us when we came across a 60 Minutes interview with lead singer Chris Martin.  In this interview, Martin tried to dispel to journalist Steve Kroft the meaning behind “Yellow.”  He laughingly said, "What's it about? F… knows… I've got no idea. I still think about that every day. I love playing it. I love the tune. I love the chords. I love the balloons that we use live. But I still can't quite work out what it's about.” 

To Tony and I, this couldn’t help but make us smile.  In the 7 years that we have been together, we have fallen asleep listening to this song.  We danced together to this song at our wedding, and we can’t help but hold hands when it comes on the radio.  To us, this song represents the times we share discovering and rediscovering it together.

This blog is about the “Yellow” things in life. I want to fill it with things that inspire me, stories to remember, and moments that catch me by surprise.  There certainly will be lots of photos (and probably a lot of them will be of my little doggie, Butters).  I have no idea what it is about yet, but I am looking forward to discovering it along the way.