City Council Meeting Minutes - Ashlyville

The first city council meeting for the inaugural town in Sherryland - recented named Ashlyville- was conducted today. Below are the meeting minutes from the Ashlyville City Council Meeting.

The fiirst item on the agenda was the proposed expansion of Ashlyville.  The Development Committee met yesterday and approved the motion for expansion.  At this time, the approvals include a Whataburger and a Barnes and Noble.  Other structures were approved but have not been leased yet. 

A motion was introduced again by the Coalition for the Prevention of Ilegal Fornication to close the brothel located on the north end of Ashlyville.  The motion was not approved by a vote of 0-2. 

A petition was introduced by the Ashlyville Hookers for a liquor store to be opened in Ashlyville.  The petition cited the need for customers to be "more liquored up" to encourage incremental interpersonal commerce at the brothel.  The petition is currently under consideration of the Development Committee.

The Deacons from the First Church of Ashlyville presented a request for a permit to carol in the streets during the last two weeks of December.  This was unamisously approved.

The final agenda item was a review of the proposed railroad project through Ashlyville.  However, due to the absence of the railroad commissioner, there was no timeline to review or approve.  The hookers were outraged as they have no way in or out of Ashlyville and feel that the railroad workers present yet another opportunity for increased interpersonal commerce.  The Ashlyville Express Line has an expected completion date of December 11.  Hopefully, in time to bring presents from Santa for the little children of Ashlyville, as well increased client interaction at the brothel.  The Council understands that the railroad commissioner is currently recruiting for a safety engineer before construction can begin.

The meeting was adjorned, eggnog was served and Tiny Tim blessed everyone in Ashlyville.

I Need a Vice

I have quit smoking and quit drinking.  Right now I am regretting both those decisions - cause I could really use a Maker's Mark and a Marlboro Light.  In fact, I desperately want them both even though its 9 in the morning. 

This morning I found out that someone very, very precious to me is sick.  And I am not really handling it well.  So I've sat down to tell the cosmic void how I feel in the hopes that saying it all out loud will help me stop crying.

I am scared. 

I am trying so hard to turn to God, to pray for his will.  But my prayers keep coming up selfish.  I keep praying for her to be better - to not have to go down this road.  I am pretty sure that's not how I am supposed to pray and not what I am supposed to ask for... but its so desperately what I want.  I wish I could be unselfish enough to pray for wisdom, and patience... but I am not there yet. And right now, I wonder if I can ever get to that point. 

I am scared. 

In this moment, I have horrible regret that I moved away.  I just want to be with my friend.  Even if its just to sit next to her and do nothing.  I don't want to be here; I don't want to be in this place away from them.  I feel truly trapped right now.  I know that being there won't change anything but it would just make me feel better.

But for now, I am just going to sit here and pray my selfish prayers and cry.  A lot.

He's Just Not That Into Me

Yesterday I went to lunch with my handsome friend Jared.  He's super sweet too but handsome is the important part of this story. After lunch we decided to go up to my Starbuck's and try to make my barista boyfriend jealous.

I loved this idea and it was great for about the first 5 minutes.  First, Jared has discovered how to get to me to be quiet (he was very excited about this discovery)... apparently all you have to do it put me in the same room with the man I've had a secret crush on for a year.  I become mute.  So there was that.

And then, disaster struck.  I am still reeling from what happened next.

My barista boyfriend flirted with Jared.

Yeah, you read that right.

I am pretty sure it was the hunting knife in Jared's back pocket that did it for him.  It does it for me.  But kids, here's the rub, I feel so cheated, so wronged.  Its like my barista boyfriend has been lying to me for a year.  Like I was the only one in our relationship.  I thought I was reading the signs correctly.  I thought he was into me.  I thought my lattes were special. 

But Jared's latte was free. 

That's Just Geography

Today is my one year anniversary in Houston. For people that move around a lot, this may not seem like a big deal.  But rest assured for this Plano girl, changing jobs and moving was indeed a very big deal.  A year ago today I packed up my belongings and headed south on I-45.

I cried the entire way.  I played sad songs about goodbye until Centerville and then I switched to upbeat songs about making a new start.  But I still cried the whole time.  I unpacked, unloaded and moved in to Kathy's guest room.  Then I went to Madonna, because every new start should start with at least a Madonna song.

I was so scared.  Scared that I wouldn't be any good in another career, scared that I wouldn't make friends, scared that I miss my old life so much.

One of my friends Stephanie asked me on Friday how I've changed in the past year.  When I really started thinking about it, the change in me has been profound.  Some changes are small, like I have shorter hair and wear higher heels.  Some are big, like I am happier more than I am sad and that I try every day to keep Christ as my focus (somedays are better than others).

But the biggest change in me in the past year isn't about geography. I think its how I relate to other people.  Don't get me wrong, its still very much about me and I still very much love to be the center of attention.  I am just much more open to meeting and getting to know others.  But I am no longer defining my worth by what others think of me.  Instead I am finding joy in how they respond to me and in how those relationships grow and change.

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning but anyone can start today to make a new ending"

How true is that?  I cannot go back and change the mistakes I've made or the experiences I've had... but a year ago I started to shape a new ending and I feel like the story is just now starting to get good.  So to each of you that have been a part of my journey this past year - thank you.  Thank you for accepting me as I am, embracing my eccentricities, tolerating my idiosyncrasies, laughing with me, crying with me, participating in all my new hobbies, listening to my doubts and fears, and most of all celebrating all the extraordinarory moments of the past year with me. 

You'll never know how very much it has meant to me.

Forever 21

Tonight I went country dancing with some friends. Yeah, you read that correctly.  But that's not the point I need to make.  I lost my wallet about a week ago.  Its somewhere between El Rey's on Washington and my house.  But again, not the point.  The point is, I don't have a driver's license.

So tonight, I realize this upon my arrival at Wild West.  (Yeah, its called Wild West).  Again... not the freaking point.  Pay attention.  Here's how the deal went down...

I walk in.  I advise the women at the door that I lost my wallet and truly don't have anything with my birthday on it.  She stares at me for a second.  To which I say "Go ahead, tell me I don't look 21.  Please.  Make my day that way."  She doesn't pause, waves me in.

You know what, I think she's a bitch.

What One Wants

There's a line in the movie "Beautiful Girls" that I love.  Paul just randomly proposed to Jan in the middle of her shift as a waitress at a diner.  She says no.  He gets mad because she has a new boyfriend.  And Jan says, and this is greatness "One comes to a decision based on what one wants, Paul, not what one doesn't want" and then a few weeks ago my friend Jeana told me the same thing... and since then... I think I have said this to about 10 people. 

So, I've been thinking about what I want .... we've talked about what I believe on the blog, but I don't know that I've ever given you a list of what I want.  So here, for your reading pleasure, are just a few things that I want:

1. A great pair of high heels that don't hurt my feet
2. To not be allergic to everything
3. To smile more hours in the day than not
4. To hold hands
5. To not have to fight pimpils
6. To put my foot in my mouth less often
7. To feel a cool breeze on my face but still have the little sting of the sunshine
8. To someday have someone call me "Mom"
9. To be able to sleep at night
10. To find a bra strap that doesn't slip
11. To laugh at myself
12. To raise a million dollars for the Heart Association
13. To be challenged by my work and by people around me
14. To listen better
15. To demonstrate God's love in my actions
16. To learn how to tap dance
17. To run and not grow weary
18. To cook for friends and family
19. To keep my Christmas tree up all year long
20. To learn to focus on what I want and not what I don't want

Love Actually

My two favorite movies are Saving Private Ryan and Love Actually.   I know it doesn't make a lot of sense and I can't explain it either... but in SPR that part where Tom Sizemore says "what if the one good thing to come out of this whole, god awful, shitty mess is saving Private Ryan, well then, like you said, Captain, we all earn the right to go home"... it just gets me every time.  I always cry.

And Love Actually... I saw it 6 times in the theater.  I sent an intern to buy me a copy of the DVD at 10 AM the day it was available for sale. 

Its the best opening line of a movie that I know:

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around. "

I decided to watch it tonight to fall asleep and instead its started ideas a churning in my head... so I've come into the study to tell the cosmic void about them.  And hear's the rub, I just figured out that I am, indeed, surrounded by love.  That in my little life here in Houston, love actually, is all around. 

My friends who are mothers now show me love in a whole new light.  My friends who are newly weds or new couples show me the joy and energy of new love.  My friends who are new show me the beauty in learning about each other.  My old friends demonstrate the comfort of always knowing that you're there for each other - even if we aren't always around each other.

I love the line "its not particularly dignified or newsworthy"  ... how true is that, cosmic void?  The love that surrounds me here isn't newsworthy... its in my friends helping me set up for watch parties, in helping me clean up from watch parties, its in making a new Christmas wreath, its on the porch swing, its a slow dance even though no one else is dancing, its the reaction to Pumpkin ice cream, its in being called Sherbear by my Houston friends, its wall posts on Facebook, its in wanting to hold someone's hand, its in sharing secrets, its in Sunday afternoons on the sofa, its in the encouraging words when I doubt myself so often, its the hard core laughter, the belly laugh that seems to be wherever my friends are, and its in my prayers... none of those are particularly newsworthy, except to me.

So tonight, I find myself incredibly grateful for the love that surrounds me.  Incredibly grateful for seeing the love of Christ in my life again and incredibly grateful for each of you that show me daily how love is, actually, all around me.

La Bonne Soup (dedicated to Jeorjie, Steve and Serious David)

As you may be aware, I have been dealing with a little bout of blogger block.  My days just haven't been as dramatic as normal.  Maybe, at 32, I am finally getting it together.  But I doubt it.  But I've taken up a new hobby... cooking.  My mother is terrified, she believes me totally incapable of functioning in a kitchen.

But I'm not half bad at it.  I found the ice cream maker that Elizabeth and Eric got me and I've made Pumpkin Ice Cream, Cinnamon Ice Cream, and Peanut Butter Ice Cream.  I am gonna try to figure out Rainbow Sherbert to take home to Marla for Thanksgiving.  And next weekend I am going to try to master my mom's dressing for our church Thanksgiving.  And then I am going to make a Christmas Duck!  But there is one dish I am terrified to attempt.... French Onion Soup.

A couple years back I went on a quest for the best French Onion Soup.  I was travelling a ton, so this wasn't that difficult.  The Palace Hotel in New York has the best hotel French Onion Soup, though the Hyatt in San Antonio wasn't that bad either.  The Majestic in Kansas City's is pretty decent.  La Madeleine's is crap compared to the ones I tried.  I can't really explain it but I was obsessed with French Onion Soup.  I had it everyday... for months. Maybe because I knew it was safe at every hotel or maybe its the fact that comes with melted cheese on top.  I don't have the answers.  I just know I freaking love French Onion Soup.

So my friend David... serious David for those that were at the Bubble... he researched the French Onion Soup in NYC and when I came up for a visit... we had LA BONNE SOUP.  This place was crazy delicious.  The picture above is a whole bunch of soups just waiting to be eaten.  It was such a fun night and by far the winner of the Best French Onion Soup, EVER. 

I took out the back portion of the booth we were sitting in and made everyone sign it. So if you are ever in New York City, go to La Bonne Soup on 55th and 5th... ask for the back room and if you remove the booth back in the near corner... we're all there... Jeorjie, David, Yvette, Sherry and Steve.  I think that was the last bowl of French Onion soup I've had. 

So French Onion Soup holds a mystic place in my heart.  Its the pinnacle of soups.  If I make it and its not as good and the night isn't  as much fun as that blistery March night... will French Onion soup be ruined for me? 

I can't imagine it'd be that hard, onions, broth, and some cheese.  Dude, I wonder if you melt the cheese with a blow torch thing.  MOM - I need a blow torch and a rolling pin now.  Anyway, I'm gonna work on dressing, then a duck and maybe some French Onion Soup.  Oh, and the sherbert for Marla.

Its for a Good Cause

This Saturday in Houston is the American Heart Association's Heartwalk.  We've been working all year to raise money and awareness - yesterday we passed the $1.3 million dollar mark.  This is a huge accomplishment and I am crazy proud of my colleagues that have raised all this dough! We are shooting for $1.5 million - so we are still out there working to raise more money!

A few months back I bet one of our board members that I could raise more money than him for the Heartwalk.  I have lost that bet.  He's raised like $25,000 and I've raised $1700... I am ok with that, cause it got people excited about raising money. And he has loved torturing me.

The trouble is, by losing I have to wear an OU shirt for the walk.  I cannot think of a worse punishment.  Not the actual shirt wearing... but the fact that I have to purchase an OU shirt.  The fact that any amount of my hard earned money will be going to support Oklahoma's Athletic Department. 

So here's my message for today... first, its not to late to donate and I've included my link below.  Take a look at my page and you'll see that I am walking to honor my dad.  He ran marathons, so I am sure he'd be disappointed that I am only walking... but I am not my father... so I walk.  I wish you could have seen him run... it was hystercial - bird legs, big pot belly, and a half t-shirt... but he did it.  He'd run all 26.2.  So on Saturday I will walk 5 miles to honor him.  Maybe someday when my lungs have healed from smoking and my head can get past the idea of how freaking far 26.2 miles is... maybe, just maybe I'll run a marathon to honor him.  But I wouldn't hold your breath.

Second, if you don't have plans on Saturday morning come out to Sam Houston Park to celebrate with us.  Its a crazy fun event and you'll get to see me in an OU shirt.  This will actually be my second appearance in an OU shirt.  The first is when Texas lost to OU a few years back and I had to wear a friend's jersey from his playing days.  I threw up a little bit in my mouth when I put it on.

I hope to see any of you Houstonians out there on Saturday for the big event and if you aren't in Houston.  Do me a favor... get up, go outside and a take quick walk... for me... in a UT shirt.

http://heartwalk.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=302470&u=302470-257945121&e=2863611526

A Bipolar Day

Today is a bipolar day.  Yeah, I said it.  Today I experienced extreme joy and extreme depression within hours of each other.

Here is what happened... I found a gray hair.  And then I got a pair of purple high heels in the mail from Pipelime. 

If you are a girl, this entry requires no further explanation.  If you are a guy, you simply don't care and have lost interest by this point.

So that's all I will write for today.  Besides, I've got some shoes to break in and a hair appointment to make.

My iPod is Trying to Tell Me Something

Today when I was getting ready I noticed a trend on the shuffle from my iPod.  It kept hitting on the Christmas Carols.  So you know what that means... yup... the tree is going up this week. For years, I have been too consumed with football season to adequately prepare for the holiday season.  Last year I lived in two places during the Holidays...I lent my tree to a friend.

Not this year.  So get ready, Houstonians... Christmas Sherry is about to get serious.

I am about to try to put a 10 ft tree up in a one bedroom apartment.  I don't care if I have to walk around the SOB everyday for the next two months.  We are about to get some holiday cheer up in here.

I can't begin to express how happy it makes me that Target already has the Christmas isle up, or that my iPod knew that I need validation that it was okay to start Christmas. 

You see, this year is my first Christmas in Houston, my first Christmas to not be consumed by the rigors of football season.  I am thrilled that I won't be spending my vacation securing bowl tickets or November assigning 7000 seats for a Championship Game.  This year I make new traditions.  And I think that's a big deal.  What happens in the next two months could very well dictate years of my holiday celebrations. I cannot F this up.  The tree has to be just right, the egg nog mixed carefully, the packages decorated perfectly, the right pieces added to my nativity scene (you better get on that Mom).. the holiday party has to be the best, I have to see a Christmas Carol, I need to sing Christmas Songs and hear the Hallejah Chorus and most importantly my Christmas list has to be perfected.

My family will understand this, my Christmas list is a document that I carefully craft throughout the year.  Items are added and deleted with significant pondering.  Pictures are cut from catalogs, links are included on the list and there are always a couple of ridiculous items that I have no business asking for but I want them.  And my sister always delivers.  There was the Louis Vitton wallet, the Louis Vitton small clutch, and the ice cream maker.  Just a few of the items no one needs but my sweet sister has purchased for me over the years.  My mother will have no part of my frivolity, but Elizabeth has always given in.  I know this might shock some of you, but apparently I am somewhat animated when opening gifts.  Sweet Elizabeth loves my reactions to my gifts.  So she indulges me.  She's always indulged me.  So I still tell Santa (and Elizabeth) exactly what I want. 

I think you can expect to hear a lot from me about Christmas over the next two months.  This week I'll be focused on figuring out how to put my tree up without Scooter, Marla, or Holly and I'll be making my list.  Its gonna be a busy week....

It's Christmas time in the city... ring a ling.. here them sing...soon it will be Christmas Day.