Dress Shopping

I got to go wedding dress shopping yesterday for the first time! I can't post pictures of the actual dresses (c'mon, I'd ruin the surprise!) but here's one of me just starting out. The gals who helped me were sooo nice! It was really fun to put on all these different dresses. I tried on about twenty dresses at 2 different bridal salons. I had three favorites at the first shop, but they all got swept out the door when I tried on a dress at the second bridal salon. My mom got teary and my two best friends and her wouldn't stop comparing every other dress to this one. I am so excited! I didn't want to take it off. Guess I'll have to keep waiting until October 2010! Eep!

Leaving

I am leaving behind:

-New Orleans crazies.

-Beautiful red bike.

-An old house.

-Hot humid weather.

-A crazy chef.

-A few neighborhood friends.

-Awesome co-workers!

-The Mississippi.

-Huge cockroaches you can hear.

-Magnolia trees.

-Real Southern accents.

I'm on my way back now and even though I am thoroughly exhausted, I am so excited! California, here I come!

Wordless Wednesday #9!

Happy Father's Day!

My dad is: a goofball. A real hard worker. A go-getter. A family man. Lover of baseball. Is constantly trying new, cool things. A surfer. I get a lot of my work ethic from him. I look up to him in so many ways. That's why he's my dad!

Lalu, Dad!

Mississippi Mud

At the time of writing this, I still have some Mississippi mud lodged underneath my fingernails from yesterday's gardening. 

Yesterday morning, I worked in the chef's garden across the street from the restaurant. It is in the back of a convent and the oldest building (supposedly) in The South. It is quiet and peaceful and I've discovered that I really enjoyed gardening, so I didn't mind waking up early to be there. My coworker and I cleared out two beds where I had planted corn, yellow squash, kabocha squash and sunflowers. Wow, those plants grew fast! We weeded about two or three weeks ago and already the weeds were back in full force. Here are some pictures of the growth:

It was hot! So I was sweating up a storm! I headed home to shower and relax before my shift at the restaurant would begin later in the afternoon. Then I got a call from Chef B, asking me if I'd rather work in the garden clearing a few more weeds instead of in the kitchen. I quickly ran through a list of pros and cons in my head:

Pros:

-Outdoors instead of indoors

-Birds singing

-Hearing live music in the distance

-Quiet and unsupervised

-Only work for a few hours

-A night off!

Cons:

-95 degree weather

-Less money

-Real physical labor

-Bad tan lines

-HOTTT!!!!

Well I decided to just go for it and said I'd show up at 3pm. I ended up working until 6:30. Whew! I was pretty tired afterwards, but glad that I had chosen the garden because it was a lot more fun and I was in the mood for it. I cleared two more beds on my own, worked around Lemon Verbena (ahhh smells amazing!!!), the beginnings of marigolds and some mint. Even the leaves of the nearby kumquat tree smelled good! Today I am sore but happy to have gotten the opportunity to spend more time outside.

And if you haven't ever had Baskin-Robbins' Mississippi Mudd ice cream, try it! Whoever named it was right on - that mud is dark!

Bike Ride

Starting out

Capturing a gained moment

Running an errand

Thinking. Interrupted.

Chain popping off

Fingers greasy

Continuing on

Gaining momentum

On the Esplanade

Sticky skin

Damp shirt

Mini Dakine

Hugging the back

Gulping breaths

By the sleeping cemetery

Celebrating life

Joining runners

In City Park

Whooshing along

Then

Sitting quiet

On a dock

Connecting

By written form

With those

I love.

Under Pressure

Big Daddy aka Chef B comes home today from his looong vacation. I have to say that it has been incredibly nice without him there! We've been productive and it has felt so relaxed in the kitchen during the dinner service. Ahhh it's been  like a vacation for us too almost!

I am interested to hear all the crazy ideas he has picked up from the various locations he's staged at, and I am sure that there are going to be very very many.

In preparation for his return, a few of us came in early this morning (6am!) to do some deep cleaning. This was fun, and not fun. Not fun because some things will just never come clean. We had everything pulled out of our dry storage closet and had to pull all the shelves away by the dish area, scrub everything and pressurewash! The pressurewasher was the most fun! It is so cool. If I had the opportunity, I would definitely own one, and maybe go around pressurewashing people's houses or something. Wash the dirt away!

I am tying up loose ends here and I cannot believe that I have one week left! I've changed my address with the post office and am in the beginnings of cleaning out things I don't need to take with me. Soon the pictures will be off the walls, things will go into my suitcases, and I will be on my way!

The pressure is building to finish up my modules. Lame! I have to force myself to sit down and work on them. I only have a few things more to do, I need to print them out, and print out my pictures as well. Yay! I'm hoping to turn it in either tomorrow or Friday.

Out!

Wordless Wednesday #8!

2W2G!

. . . aka 2 Weeks 2 Go!

Where is the time going? I know I've been busy lately, mostly having fun so I guess it's been flying :) I've been heading off to work slowly lately, haven't been into it much. I'm still doing a good job but I haven't been feeling too happy about going! I'm betting it's a combination of the heat (which produces laziness), my impending departure and the general feeling of summertime which is coming upon us.

Chef B returns from his NY travels in one week and I have done 0 work on the new dessert menu. This is partly due to the fact that I again got switched to nights. I have less time to experiment and I haven't even been working the pastry station that much. Plus I kind of need Chef B around to bug me, give me ideas and feedback, and I definitely don't want to feel used. And I am so lazy right now! I am really dropping the ball, but I don't feel like there is much I CAN do about it since I am leaving so soon.

The most important task on my mind lately has been to finish my modules. These are the weekly assignments given to us by the school to complete during the externship. Does anyone actually finish these weekly? On time? I'm not sure. I was ahead, then I got behind, and now I have bits and pieces to do. It's a matter of sitting down and doing it. Parts of it are dreadfully complicated and stupid. The purpose is to help you get the most out of your learning experience there and make you aware of what's around you. I get it, but I still don't want to do it! Thankfully the last two assignments are very easy (a thank you letter to the employer and a letter from the employer that says I did 18 weeks and 600 hours of work blah blah blah). I really need to start/finish the assignments from the past 5-6 weeks. Those have been bugging me.

The whole packet isn't due until I go back to school, but I need to have it finished by the time I leave here because each weekly assignment needs to be signed by the manager. Geez! Ideally, I'd like to have it done by next Thursday so I can just hand it over, get it signed, and cruise out of my last week. That'd be nice! We'll see :)

I took two roadtrips in the past couple of weeks and I'd like to blog about those soon and share some pictures. I'm absolutely convinced that America is beautiful and it's the land I love!

More to come.

Wordless Wednesday #7!

Wordless Wednesday #6!