MLK Day Recap

It's nice to think about the fact that America was progressive enough and respectful of Great Black Leaders at one point in time to declare Martin Luther King's birthday a federal holiday.  Kudos to you, Reagan Administration.

On the flip side, the campaign for the federal holiday began not long after his assassination in 1968, so it's really unfortunate that it took 15 years to actually be recognized.  Also unfortunate is that it seems like our country might take 30 years to recognize something of the same nature in the times we're living in right now.  I'm hopeful that this year or next or maybe some time during the Biden administration, we can get Juneteenth recognized as a federal holiday considering the impact it had on so many lives.  Unfortunately, to my own fault but also history classes' fault, I didn't really know about Juneteenth until this past summer. However, I'm determined to celebrate it in the future with festivals and recognition...you now, once we're all allowed to congregate again. 😊

Speaking of last year, this year's MLK Day looked a lot different than it did in 2020.  For starters, the Coronavirus/Covid-19 was something I was aware of and considered a possible threat (not near the extent it turned out to be), but it was still halfway around the world, and I mainly just joked about not catching it with my coworker Deborah or mentioned it here and there with Nathan.  

Shortly before MLK Day in 2020, I'd had two interviews for my job at the Dallas Doge, and I'd convinced them to hire me. 

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Nathan and I knew we'd need a place to put all of our crap once we'd arrive in Dallas, so we took advantage of the three-day weekend by taking an extra day off (the Tuesday after) to make a weekend trip to find a place to live.  We left New Orleans on Saturday, January 18th to make the 7.5 hour drive and stayed at the DoubleTree Hotel right off of 75.  We had a really great hotel room for the weekend, and we had a great and also surreal time checking out places to live in our future city.  I want to say we looked at 4 or 5 apartments, and it was fairly easy to decide.  We also spent time driving around the city, with Nate showing me where he used to live when he went to school here, as well as where he lived before he moved to those apartments (which were now torn down), and hitting up some yummy eats. 

Sadly, when we arrived back here in February and pulled into the Mockingbird Station to enjoy some Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom again with Burt (in town for the night after helping us move), it was closed down. :( 

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We'd had Old Chicago Pizza & Taproom the first time when we mini-vacationed to Denver in April 2017, and we really enjoyed it, so we had it again.  It did not disappoint again.   

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We also enjoyed this Texan beer for the first time, and fell in love with it after that first pint.  We couldn't wait to get back to Dallas to have it again (and again and again and again...).

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We also enjoyed quite a few Trader Joe's yummies and relaxed in the hotel room with fine hotel room movies on cable like Tremors!

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We also dredged through Bad Boys II, which was really really bad, but it was playing because Bad Boys III was near release in the theaters. 

WhichWich's Courtney Cookie!

Nice view 😉

Apparently good hotel bathroom lighting called for a photosesh

We had a really great time, but the best part was realizing that we had a nice apartment to lay our heads in when we returned in just a month.  We departed Dallas on the morning of Tuesday, January 21st, but not before meeting our landlord Pat at a fun two-story coffee shop to sign our lease and pay the deposit.  

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It's weird to think about going to Toasted now, because it's only a hop, skip, and jump from my beloved Trader Joe's on Greenville Ave, and both are only a 5 minute drive from our place.  A year ago they felt so far/disconnected because all of these streets were foreign and hard to map out in mah tiny little brain.

We rolled into the city again a month later on February 20, 2020, after saying goodbye to NOLA, and here we are 11 months down the road.

This MLK day was still really nice, but there was no traveling involved.  Also, there were no Tremors (sorry, Reba!), and not near the "yummy" intake of alcoholic goodies paired with desserts. ('cause you know, health.) BUT there was still a lot of fun.  There was relaxing and playing on our new Quest2 (mini golf and puzzle games) and also planning and plotting by me to get this place even more decorated.  I'm really excited to pick out some more artwork to frame (eyeing three or so of these, or these, or these to hang above our couch, as well as getting some frames for these that I got at Christmas!  

So yeah, not really any pictures taken, but pictures bought-en.  Except not really yet because I'm waiting on a few of the Etsy joe's to get back with me on customization.

What a week...!

What an eventful past week and a half!

I birthed (weird, but we'll go with it) the idea for this blog post a few days ago where this would have been started with "What an eventful past week!" but things got busy and my eyes and brain were tired after work, and so here we are on Saturday evening.

Monday, January 4 - Nate's official first day as an employee with his energy company here in the BigD!  Woohoo!  He's been working for them in a contractor-type position since April 2020, but then was made permanent by his headhunter guy as of October, and then shortly after asked to come on board as a true blue employee.  I don't know what "true blue" means, but again...we'll go with it. ALSO - this was the 12th anniversary of our first date on 1/4/09. ;)

Tuesday, January 5 - My employer (The Doge) informed me that we qualified for the first round of the Covid-19 vaccine, so I hopped on that gravy train and booked my little tushiie to Parkland to get my arm shot-up with who knows what the good stuff. This is pretty crazy considering only frontline health workers, people with pretty serious conditions, and a few over the age of 70 or so were the only ones authorized to get the shot at this point.  Considering I'm going into work either 2 or 3 days every week AND I don't want to risk getting the virus AND I don't want BigNate to get the virus, I didn't hesitate at the chance to go ahead and get it.  I did not feel the shot at all (like for-realz), but then after I got home, I had a little bit of a headache, so I went to bed a tad early.  I woke up mid-slumber with a sore arm, and my arm was PRETTY sore the whole next day.  But then I was back to normal on Thursday.  They went ahead and scheduled me an appt. three weeks later (on 1/26) to get the second dose of the shot.  

Discreet purse shot whilst waiting the 10 min. after the shot was administered to make sure I didn't drop dead.

Wednesday, January 6 - What we all hoped would be a normal, non-exciting congressional session to officially approve the Electoral College votes from the election on 11/3, turned out to be quite the opposite.  Here's a glimpse.  

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Unbelievable.  Saddening.  Sickening. Other wordly.  Before even hardly any of the pictures and footage were released and Nathan remarked to me while sitting at the kitchen table, teleworking (3pm our time) "Some people just broke into the Capitol," I still couldn't have imagined this.

Thursday, January 7 - My brother-in-law turned the big 33!  Still some joy in the chaos and confusion.

Sunday, January 10 - It snowed in the BigD!  Other parts of North TX (and Shreveport - go figure!) received a substantial white covering on the ground and trees and whatnot, but sadly, we didn't.  It definitelly fell and was really pretty floating down from the heavens, but it'd been rainy before that, so it just turned to water on the ground.  Still pretty rad, though!

Monday, January 11 - We signed a renewal on our lease on the ole Gaston!  Not that memorable, but it's kind of crazy that we're about to hit our 1-year mark in Dallas.  (I bet you thought I was going to say "The BigD" there. ;)) Cheers to the nexty year filled with (hopefully!) waaaaay more exploring, waaaaay more socializing, and waaaaay less social distancing, mask wearing, hospitalizations, and death. 

Tuesday, January 12 - My niece, and daughter of said brother-in-law turned the big 4! She's such a cutie! 

A PawPatrol-filled Christmas

Not much eventfulness after Tuesday besides just learning more about the Capitol Riots and Trump officially being banned from Twitter (thank God!), but everyone is worried about Biden's inaugurations, which is scheduled for Wednesday, 1/20.  They're sending in lots of National Guard troops to stand ready, and tons have already been deployed to the Capitol.

So wild.  I remarked to Nathan on Wednesday when he told me about the Capitol chaos..."what country are we living in???!? Seriously??"

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2021!

So this is the new year.     

On Thursday night, we rang in the big 2-0-2-1 with a bang! And by bang, I mean goofing around making pancakes in the shape of 2s and 0s and 1s.

Team work makes the dream work pancakes.

We attempted an "NYE," but that blasted N just didn't want to cooperate and stay n-shaped in the flipping process, so we opted for a smiley sausage to add a little extra pizazz!

Sopping in syrupy goodness.

Mandatory goof-ness

We also watched a few episodes of Taskmaster (the British version, of course), and toasted a little bit of sparkling wine grape juice in celebration. 'Cuz, y'know, this is the year of making it happen.

As I mentioned here, it was a cold, nasty day, so crawling into bed at 12:03am 'twas quite nice.  Also, no nasty hangover the next morning was a win-win-win.  (I feel like I've referenced this Office episode on the ole blogarony before, so if you know, you know.  And if you don't know, then you can get the hell out of here!)

Back to work it was today.  Or back twerk it. --whichever fits your fancy. (I swear I'm stone cold sober.  But it is 8:27pm, and mah brain stops functioning at about 4pm.) I remarked to Nate that this might be one of the hardest Mondays to go back to work since it's following all the many weeks of holiday funtivities coupled with practically no 5-day work weeks, but we survived.  Nay, perhaps even thrived.

Nah, just survived. :)