In Texas.

We  had snow. In March. Crazy.

During this snow, we decided to let the cats out onto the balcony so they could explore. Dante was very cautious about it all but dipped a paw or two into the fluffy cold-ness.

We couldn’t grab the camera fast enough, but Bella came out into the snow as well. She ran out after Dante thinking the 4-5 inches of white stuff was just normal and ended up belly-deep in snow. And then, of course, freaked out and ran back inside.

We have smart kitties.

Photo courtesy of Vic Cherubini!

Neil held a baby for the first time since he could remember this past weekend! We were all very proud.

Nicholas Lansdale Cherubini was born March 26th, 2010 at 6 lbs 2 oz. Neil and Vic worked together not too long ago so I got to tag along to the invitation to go see Vic’s new baby boy. And I’m not gonna lie, I was so super excited. I was feelin’ all emotionally charged that I cried on the way out of the hospital. Happy happy tears of course. Hormonally charged tears. Baby-wantin’ tears. You know the kind.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go tend to my baby urges by eating a lot of chocolate. You know the feeling.

This was our Haft Seen (spread with 7 things starting with the Persian letter “S”)

From the lower left and going clockwise, we had:

1. Sonbol (hyacinth)
2. Sekkeh (coins- they’re in that pedastaled crystal bowl, I promise!)
3. Somagh (sumac)
4. Senjed (dried fruit of the Lotus tree)
5. Serkeh (vinegar)
6. Sabzeh (wheat sprouts)
7. Seeb (apples)

Our spread was made complete with Chili, our maahi (fish), tokhmeh morgh (eggs), sha’m (candles), shirini (pastries) and Deevaneh Haafez for a subsequent fortune telling (for lack of better translation of the Persian word faal) from the poetry of Haafez.

My dad is the poetry buff, so he was charged with the task of taking the faal.

According to the Persian tradition, on Norooz (the new year), one will hold a question in mind and then ask Haafez for guidance through his poetry. The question is to be a broad inquiry to set the mood for the upcoming year. Traditionally, the first line that catches the eye of the reader will give the answer to the direct question (the poems are divided and labeled as good, bad, and neutral) and the rest of the ghazal will give further clarification.

At the start of spring here in Texas, it snowed. So we brought the tulips inside.

It was a great year for presents. There were tons of them!

I think it’ll be a good year. The spring started with snow and today there is a high of 65. Texas weather, you’re amazing.

It snowed quite a bit in Texas this year. It was a welcome change. But I’ve already written about that.

What I do want to share, though, is how talented my brother is.

He built a snowman. A really tall snowman.

A really tall snowman with a 3-D nose.

Awesome.

2010 has brought great changes for us: we both got new jobs, I have finally gotten a KitchenAid stand mixer and a Le Creuset dutch oven, and, two years later, I gave in and we bought a wedding band for me. Official married lady status: ACHIEVED.

Since it’s almost spring (hello Norooz in less than a week!!), lemme just tell you that it was an insanely snowy winter. And you know what else? My Texas-made boots are USELESS in the snow. I found this out the hard way.

Zahra Nourani in the snow. It happened.

They soak the melted snow right in and freeze my toes.

We had the awesome chance of being at the Grand Canyon when it snowed too. It was super beautimous. I apologize for the hugeness of the photos, but I thought they were way too pretty-ful not to share!

But you know, the best part of the winter was that we had about 2 months of down-time to enjoy everything. So hey, there are benefits to unemployment!

Pretty pretty benefits.

If you ever get the chance, do go see the Grand Canyon during the winter. It’s spectacular.

And then go eat a whole lot of broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. It’s the right thing to do.

Now that it’s almost spring, I will *try* my utmost to at least post regularly on the goings-on. Random, mundane, everyday goings-on. Doesn’t that sound riveting??

Here’s to the spring! Hope there are more pictures to document it than there were for the winter!

They were shocking.

Clinton, Bill Clinton.

In a fedora.

In my house. Weirddd.

And getting in the way. By sleeping.

Sometimes I do laundry. I have a System. Neil makes fun of my System but it works!

Occasionally. Every once in a while really.

See, in the System, you must do everything methodically. Whites are a separate load. Darks are a separate load. Reds are a separate load. Unmentionables are a separate load.

Do you see my problem?

No? Alright, I’ll tell you.

My mom raised me right. Oh yes she did. She taught me not to waste water and by golly do I live by that. So I will not do a load of laundry if it is anything less than full. And full on the “Large load” setting full. That’s a lot of laundry and only two people live here.

Two people and two cats. But the cats don’t need their underwear washed that often.

The System requires me to wash and dry, wash and dry, wash and dry, and wash and dry some more. And since the laundry has built up to such an enormous mountain, it takes quite a few wash/dry cycles to get them all done. All the while, I must be hanging and folding up the clothes between each wash/dry cycle since, if I don’t, the clothes will end up on the floor and therefore be “dirty” again. And have I mentioned how much I hate hanging and folding?

There are times that I have just had enough of the overflowing laundry basket and just wash them all. In these cases, I’m left with many many single socks between loads. The lonely socks are left wondering where their mates have gone to. Have they fallen into a pant leg only to fall out later? Has their beloved been mixed in with the darks? The reds? Or *gasp* the Unmentionables? Or have their other halves fallen *gulp* behind the washing machine?

Anything is possible when you live by The System.

Do the cats help when I lose socks? Never.

Not once has Bella offered to help me find the single lost sock. No ma’am. She just enjoys the warmth left behind by the freshly dried laundry I just folded and takes a nap.

Does Dante even care? Oh no he doesn’t. He’s more interested in becoming the next Cat in the Box.

Dante, it was a Cat in the Hat, not a box sweetie. Now get off the internet and back to sleeping on a chair somewhere.

Sometimes they even drag off the laundry with them. You know, to play with. Because that’s normal doncha know. But then they turn on the adorable-face and you just can’t help but be ok with their uselessness.

But it’s not my fault! It’s just that shoes in my size just seem to go on sale a lot. And who can resist a good shoe sale?

See, it just so happens that department stores and all kinds of shoe stores put out their smallest size (usually a 6 or 6 1/2) on display because they figure that not many people wear that size and they’ll have fewer display snatchers.

Oh but man oh man, do I snatch those display shoes up quick. Hm. That sounded criminal. I just snatch them up and put it on my feet to decide whether or not I should buy them.

Usually by the time I’ve decided to snatch a shoe and place it on my foot, I’ve also agreed to make it mine.

Anyways, these display shoes always go on sale because, let’s be honest, would you rather buy a shoe that hasn’t been sitting out and gathering dust for a few dollars more than a dusty one?

Not I said the Zahra.

I grab those deals like my life depended on them.

And that’s why we find ourselves here. Four shoe racks later (there’s one in the closet with shoes I don’t particularly care for yet will wear on occasion) and now have room to grow. Finally.

Since I took these pictures, I’ve bought only one pair of shoes. 3 weeks, 1 pair of shoes, I know what you’re thinking, my need for deals has gotten better.

So instead, let’s speak of this key rack I absolutely love. It was the first thing we put up when we moved because it makes the place feel a whole lot more home-like.

And then I commenced to decorate the apartment with my shoes.

But here we are, bored on a weekday night when I decide that it would be a good idea to sprinkle a good amount of catnip on the kitchen floor to see what the kitties would do. And man, they went caraaaaazaaaaay.

At first, it was just Dante. He figured out something funky was going down in the kitchen and was instantly mesmerized and started rolling around the floor.

Then, as he proceeded to see if he could eat all the catnip, Bella came to investigate.

That’s when Dante waged a war on the kitchen chair. It was on!

Oh how these cats rolled. They were absolutely covered in that stuff.

Then, things took a turn when Dante decided to abandon his battle with the chair and declare war on a more animate adversary.

It was brutal.

*No cats were harmed in the catnip-using household.

I’m just a little bit older than this. Yes, just a bit. But I can say with certainty that I don’t look a day over 12!

And you can bet your bottom dollar that I climbed the slide and took pictures in and through and by the tunnel.

I even took a photo of the handle! Oh how nice.

But that really isn’t the point of this post, believe it or not. Sure I took 100+ pictures with only a handful of actually good photographs, but the question I pose to you today is this:

What is this fruit?? Our complex has quite a few of these trees and these trees have given quite a few of this fruit.

See? They’re everywhere! And they smell lovely.

For you tree-knowers, this is what the leaves look like… and this is what the fruit looks like in the tree!

I would really like to be able to gather some and make a pie. Gross, I know. I mean who gathers their food nowadays? How archaic of me.

But seriously, I would like to save some of them if they’re edible. Because inevitably, they end up underneath the tires of some car and get squashed. And that is just oh so sad.