It is hot here. I took my long run (19 miles) yesterday at 7:30am, and it was getting warm at the end (75° ), but tolerable. Today Ed and I went out to breakfast and were surprised to find Swiss Avenue blocked for a marathon. I didn’t know there was a marathon this weekend; the major Dallas marathon is the White Rock Marathon in December. Anyway, those poor runners. It was much warmer today, and windy. By the time the runners at my pace finished, if indeed any did, it was about 90°, with winds of 21mph. Ugh. We gave in Friday and used our air conditioner for the first time. Up until now we’ve managed with opening the windows at night when it’s cool. Other years we’ve been able to hold until sometime in May, but not this year. Ninety-five percent of the state is also already in drought.

Driven in part by our next-door-neighbors putting their house on the market, Ed and I have been on a yard improvement binge. We’ve been gardening and adding solar lights and furniture. Everything is looking great just in time for stay-inside-with-the-air-conditioning season. Here is part of the little zen garden I made in the back. It has a stone path through two beds of Lysimachia Nummularia, some rocks, some rusty things, and a Japanese maple.

Now that it is spring and asparagus may be in season where you are, you should try this recipe for Straw and Hay Fettuccine Tangle with Spring Asparagus Puree from the cookbook “Super Natural Cooking”. This asparagus/spinach sauce is really good and refreshing, much lighter than pesto. And, it freezes very well. I freeze it in a muffin tin just like pesto. Another way to use it is in risotto. I make my baked risotto, and then at the end toss in two pucks of this sauce that I’ve let defrost at least somewhat. Then I top it with some shaved cheese and additional roasted nuts. Easy! By the way, I use roasted blanched almonds instead of pine nuts because I like them better and they’re cheaper, and I also sometimes use asiago as the cheese. And note that only part of the nuts actually go into the puree, I sometimes forget that. Try it!

January

A year ago today we were in Big Bend, seeing a part of Texas we hadn’t seen before. The next day, New Year’s Day, we drove up to Fort Davis and went for a hike in the Davis Mountains. Then we visited the McDonald Observatory, which was unfortunately closed for New Year’s. But I still got to go into one of the big telescopes, because, well, it wasn’t locked. No lights though, and I didn’t want to start flipping switches. Before leaving West Texas we also visited Marathon, another quirky little old town. We had coffee in a little shop that had stacks of the Santa Barbara Independent (!) to read. Another surprise that day, I ran into my old friend Quinton at a gas station near Abilene!

We also made a quick trip to Orlando for Ed’s birthday, right in the middle of grapefruit season. Yum! And we saw manatees!

I attended a fascinating class taught by Edward Tufte.

February

After our wonderful trip to Taos last year, we decided to try skiing there this year. On the drive there, we got to see the Cadillac Ranch covered with snow, and a herd of mystery animals which I later found out were pronghorns (Texans call them antelopes, but they aren’t really). We saw another herd of these later – they really are beautiful.

This time we rented a house on the Rim Road. A great house in a good location for skiing, but the roads were snowy and Rim Road is called that for a reason. Did you know I have a phobia about going over a cliff in a car? We did not die though.

The skiing was fantastic, not crowded. We also snowshoed one day. While we were having lunch in the lodge one day, our neighbor texting me a photo of our house with snow falling furiously. It snowed 13 inches in Dallas! I was sorry to miss that even though we were enjoying even better snow in New Mexico. When we got home, every other house in Dallas had a snowman in front.

We saw John Prine in concert over at SMU; he was very good (and funny, as we knew he would be).

March

One of our favorite restaurants burned down.

I took Mia to Dallas’ St. Patrick’s Day parade, which is pretty raucous and fun.

April

Ed and I took a Saturday morning bike ride over to the lake, had a great 22-mile ride, but on the way back as he signaled a left turn, he hit a reflector in the road and went over the handlebars, fracturing his collarbone pretty badly. It required surgery, and still bothers him. Quite a setback, as he was trying to get back into shape.

But, I got an iPad!

May

Mom and Dad visited for the world premiere of Moby Dick at the Dallas Opera, and I think they would say it was worth the trip. How the heck can you make a stage set about a whaling ship? Well they did it, and it was spectacular.

June

So hot. It got up into the 100’s early this year. I was going to try riding my bike every day again this summer like I did in 2008, but gave up.

July

Ed, frustrated by not being able to exercise and continuing to gain weight, decided to go on a diet. I, who had gained weight in sympathy, agreed to join him. We cut out alcohol and most of the usual things you don’t eat on a diet, and lost weight rather easily. Who knew?

August

Still hot, so I went to California! It was great to see the Steeles. I arrived during Fiesta, which was something I hadn’t seen before. There were cascarones (confetti eggs) smashed everywhere. In Texas you only see those on Easter. We attended several dance performances and ate some great food. I also went kayaking one day at Campus Point (with Kevin), went to the Botanical Garden (with Aidan), biked down Gibraltar Road and at Ealings Park (with Nico), went on a few hikes (with Linda), saw the movie Inception and went climbing (poorly).

September

By this time it should be obvious that we really like Taos. We went back yet again for two weeks. This time we rented two houses for two different experiences. The first week we stayed in town, which was nice because we could walk to restaurants and into town. The second week we stayed at an isolated house up a private road in the foothills near the ski mountain. This house was phenomenal, we liked every detail. It had a little writer’s cottage out back, and we tied our camping hammock out there. One night we slept outside on the second-story deck under the stars. In the mornings we could see the hot air balloons rise and then dip into the Rio Grande canyon. The only downside of the house was it was a one-mile drive down a very rutted dirt road just to get to the road to town, which was another six miles or so. The road was not bikeable (up anyway).

So this trip we went on several hikes and one backpacking trip. It was cold backpacking, but we were well-prepared. We even brought our iPads and watched a movie in the tent (just to say we did it). We went biking one day, Ed’s first time on the bike since his accident. He had a tough time; it was windy and he didn’t feel stable on the bike. We tried to bike another day, but after driving about 45 minutes, we got out to start riding and he felt it was too windy for him, so we drove back and I rode by myself up to the ski area, which is now an annual tradition for me. We also both bought new climbing shoes, and went bouldering. I feel better about my limited climbing skills now; it had just been so many years since I had climbed anything.

Yesterday one of my friends on Facebook posted “When was the last time you did something for the first time”? Well one thing I did for the first time this trip was fly fishing. Ed has wanted to do this for a long time. I thought I would be bored to tears, but I actually loved it. It’s nothing like regular fishing. You don’t stand in one place for long, you have to be smart and use strategy and skill, and the scenery is beautiful. And, I caught a fish!

Last year I was successful in my attempt to get cheap tickets for this year’s Austin City Limits Festival. They give out a few hundred for $50 (regularly $185), and I snagged two by watching Twitter and refreshing the page constantly. The festival was fun, we saw Black Keys, Spoon, Beach House, Broken Bells, Phish, Flaming Lips, Mountain Goats, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Sonic Youth, Gogol Bordello, Pete Yorn, Lucero, Black Lips, Manchester Orchestra, Temper Trap, Deadmau5, M.I.A., Devendra Banhart, Portugal, the Man, Trombone Shorty, Robert Earl Keen, White Rabbits, Blind Pilot and Lance Herbstrong.

October

The two big October events here are the State Fair of Texas and Halloween, and we participated in both. The Phantom of the Opera was back on Swiss Avenue:

We were invited to Ed’s cousin Nicole’s wedding in Buffalo, so we combined that trip with a visit with Mom and Dad. I flew up ahead of time and spent some time with them, and then drove their jeep up to Buffalo and picked Ed up at the airport there. We stayed at the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, something Ed has wanted to do for a long time. The inn was built by the Roycrofters, and Arts and Crafts guild. Ed’s sister Colleen stayed there also since we were. She didn’t know anything about it, thought it would be a regular hotel. The funny thing is that it turned out she used to work across the street from the place and didn’t know what it was.

The wedding was nice and it was nice to see all of Ed’s aunts and uncles and cousins again. I hadn’t been to Buffalo for a long time. We also went to see the Darwin Martin house, a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The main house is still being renovated, but we got to go into two of the other houses on the property. House house houses.

November

We went back to Austin to visit our friends Mike and Carla, and we had a relaxing traditional Thanksgiving with just the three of us. Last year it was just Ed and me, and we decided to do South American food instead of turkey with the fixings, but I missed it, so this year it was back to the old standbys.

For Erica’s birthday we took her and four of her friends out to dinner here in Dallas, which was fun.

December

It was a good year (fractured clavicles notwithstanding) up until the first of December, when Ed’s stepdad passed away. We made another trip to Orlando for the funeral. We were glad we have been going there more often lately, and Ed will always treasure the trip he took to Ireland with Bud et al three years ago.

Unexpected travel in early December means a rather frantic holiday preparation season (at least for me, who procrastinates until December). But I (kind of) got everything done by Christmas, and we had another relaxing day. We had to laugh at all the winter gear we got each other as gifts. We had lobster pot pie instead of fondue for Christmas Eve dinner, and prime rib for Christmas. Yum.

I think that’s it. I’ll try to do better next year.

I have been moving plants around, pulling out things I don’t like, and planting new things. I am lucky because I do like a lot of what is here. We have a mature herb garden, including a 10-foot bay tree, and very large oregano, lemon balm, sage and rosemary plants. I have added “Texas tarragon” and annuals such as cilantro, parsley and dill (for cool weather) and basil (for warm weather), mint off in the corner where it can’t cause too much trouble, and various thymes, winter savory, and St. John’s wort in the brick area off the driveway (I removed random bricks to plant herbs there).

I was very happy to see that bay tree when we were looking at houses, as I left a nice one back in Houston. They are pretty evergreen trees, and fresh bay leaves are better than dried. I was also happy to see native (yellow) columbine occupying a large patch near the gate, another thing I left behind in Houston. This spring I watched to see what would come up as a surprise. There were some tulips, daffodils, quite a few peonies, and Solomon’s seal, lilies, iris, two hellebore (Lenten roses) and hostas in the shade bed by the carport. I hope the peonies bloom; our neighbor told me the man who lived here before was a big peony gardener and actually took some of the rarer peonies with him.

Our backyard is very pleasant right now. The dreaded (by Ed) pecan tree makes the backyard nice and shady. I’ve planted a few pots for the deck, and Ed bought some nice chairs and will add some more to match. We installed outdoor speakers so Ed is entertained. We have a few birdfeeders and a birdbath, so the cats and I are entertained.

Oh, and best of all, Dallas (unlike Houston) has fireflies, and they’ve started coming out at night!