Legally Blonde's Proceedings

I don't know about you, but I just love finding new places.  I always get so excited, but my expectations are apparently, well... high.  Usually, places measure up in some areas, but fall short in others.  I guess over time, I still have high standards, but my expectations have diminished, since I've dealt with disappointment more than once.  That being the case, I cannot express how elated I was last week when I came upon a new place in my beloved downtown McKinney, TX, and it not only met, but exceeded my standards in ALL AREAS! I went down to the square for lunch last week.  I love the square.  It kind of makes me feel like I live in Stars Hollow (Gilmore Girls reference for those of you deprived of that gem), and it was one of the main reasons that Money Magazine chose McKinney as the #2 best place to live in the NATION.  I don't go down there often enough.  While we have great restaurants, it's not always easy to pop in and out due to parki...

For Easter, we went to my uncle's house in Dallas.  I made a salad , deviled eggs, and some coconut cream eggs.  We had tons of food as you can see... My mom made the mini strawberry lemon pies from last month's Southern Living... This year I tried a new trick for boiling the eggs for deviled eggs.  AND IT TOTALLY WORKED!  Here's the trick:  flip your eggs over in the carton so that you are storing them "upside down".  Do it like a day or two before, and then the yolk will be in the center of each instead of all wonky in at least half of them!  Seriously, you can see how perfect they were... Pretty dining room and table too... My cousins... The coconut cream eggs were super good.  You could totally make them into candy balls instead of eggs, and then you don't have to wait until next Easter to make them! Here's the recipe: Coconut Cream Eggs 8 ounces of softened cream cheese 1 TBSP softened butter 4 cups ...

This weekend was my cousin Gracie's last middle school play, as she is going to be in high school next year. Just a side note :  I cannot believe she is almost in high school.  Makes me feel so very old!  My only consolation is that it makes my friends feel equally old because Gracie & her sister were born during law school... Gracie in our second year, and Maddie is our Bar baby because she was born early in July when we took the Bar.   Anyway, the final play for Miss Gracie's career at HPMS was a great one... and she got the lead and was Dorothy! Here's a little clip of a portion of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (she did such a great job!) ((and would you look at that adorable little Toto dog!!)) Here she is with the munchkins & Glinda The Lollipop Guild Breaking the bad news (of her sister's death) to the Wicked Witch of the West... Meeting Scarecrow If he only had a brain! Meeting the Tinman a...

After the Christmas tree came down, I decided to do a little sprucing up in the living room (and subsequently the breakfast room as I've already talked about).  In the corner of the living room, where the big Christmas tree goes,  I have always had a big fake ficus tree.  It was a really nice fake ficus tree when I got it back in 2003, but 11 years later, it had seen better days.  It was literally falling apart. While I would have loved to have found a large fiddle leaf fig to replace the ficus, they are (1) hard to find, (2) expensive, (3) take more light that I could give it, and (4) I would probably kill it ASAP.  But it would have been pretty... Image from pinterest, but I couldn't find original source After researching into, and looking for a fiddle leaf fig, I decided to change course and look for a chair.  I couldn't kill a chair.  I found a nice chair for a good price at Homegoods, and then one thing led to another and I was doing a...

A woman who is dedicated, assertive, tough, or persuasive = a woman who is bossy, pushy, shrill, or bitchy. I've been the recipient of this kind of thinking, but I must confess I've been the purveyor of this sentiment as well.  The  Ban Bossy  movement that has come about this week thanks to Sheryl Sandberg, Condoleeza Rice, and Ana Marie Chavez, is one of my favorite things in a long time.  LOVE IT!   It's something that women, in addition to not earning equal pay for equal work in this country, have to deal with.  It's something that I deal with.  It's also something that has been on my mind for a while.  I won't even start on the situation here in Texas, but I will say that I find it hard to stomach the fact that the Republican candidate for Governor, Greg Abbott, does not appear to support the Texas Equal Pay Act. But sometimes, you see things, that give you a glimmer of hope that times may be changing.  I saw this tweet by Ad...