Bigger than our other cousins...

Hee hee...I had to go out to the recycling to find DeMarcus's feet. 

I don't think he'd be very comfortable living in our house.  I hope he makes a whole lot of money in the NBA so that he can buy a big house with really really high ceilings and tall, wide doorways. 

NCAA Bracket

Important stuff: texting and driving is still legal in Kentucky. Probably not for long but it is for now. The whole Lenten texting while driving thing isn't going so well. Sorry. Not going to Target is going great though my children are starting to complain.

Even more important: I, too, have Kentucky picked to win the NCAA championships. Or, I should say Will and I have them picked. The boy and I are in the Bluegrass Sotheby's office pool now. Will and I made our pics together before school yesterday morning while sipping treats from Starbucks. It was fun! We were pretty much in agreement on every pick although we had to resort to flipping the occasional coin. We have UK playing some school in Kansas. Oh yeah...we have UK versus KU.

I have to thank John Calipari for making UK basketball fun again! Mary Rollins and Will now appreciate that we have UK basketball tickets. They didn't realize until this year what a big deal my lower arena tickets really were! Later today we're pasting together a big life-size picture of DeMarcus Cousins that came in pieces in the newspaper over the last four days onto the wall. I'll have to post a picture because I'm sure that doesn't make sense.

Tales from my minivan

Sorry for the lack of postings. I am spending lots of time in the car these days and I gave up texting and driving for Lent. Along with shopping at Target. Anyway, I'm sitting in my car at the moment waiting for track tryouts to be over having just dropped off the girl at a ballet rehearsal -- Peter and the Wolf. She's the bird. Big role. Very cool plus she does not get eaten. Did I mention that baseball season has started?? Go Rangers!

I've also been showing property, listing property and selling property like crazy lately which is excellent but definitely cuts into the writing time. On the bright side I did just discover that I can actually blog from the iPhone. All typos have to be excused though because my thumb/eye coordination is only so good.

Anybody watch the SEC tournament final yesterday. I love DeMarcus Cousins. Have I mentioned that? He's in my top five list of all-time favorite UK basketball players!!! If he were a dog he'd be Gus.

On the street recycling...

This is probably not worth blogging about but... have you ever been walking down the street and you had something in your hand that you just know you could recycle but there's nowhere to recycle it so you throw it away and then you feel guilty????  Look what we have now!!!  Downtown recycling containers.  How cool is that!

Can you tell that's a recycler?  It's not an only child.  There are lots of them downtown.  Yeah!

My Saturday...

Showed houses, houses, and more houses.  Got call on accepted offer negotiated last night at Rossi's.  Stopped by clients for some signatures on some documents. Showed more houses.  Stopped by listing to look at the circuit box.  Came home.  Made Bluecheese-Pecan wafers from Creating a Stir cookbook in my beautiful Christmas KitchenAid Mixer and remembered why I had to have that mixer.  Seriously, you can NOT make cheese straws with a hand-held mixer.  Heading out to a good-bye party for Morris and Rebecca Thompson who are moving to New Orleans to become the Bishop and Mrs. Bishop of Louisiana.  Looking forward to visiting them and staying in their new digs in the Big Easy. 

Big highlight of the day: my clients getting the house they love!  Mini highlight of the day:  all of the above accomplished wearing shoes (my black suede Me Too ruffle pumps in case you're curious) NOT boots!!!   

I love Spring, even if today was just a fake little teaser! 

A.P. Roots

While we're still talking about food...Here's another local spot we love...A.P. Roots.  Located on Romany Road in the heart of Chevy Chase, Roots is one of the best-kept food secrets in town.  And it shouldn't be a secret, it's too good.  They use lots of locally produced veggies, meats and dairy products, their food is really yummy, and there's rarely a wait. 

If you've been to A.P. Suggins next door, Roots is operated by the same talented folks but the menu's completely different the atmostphere's more upscale but equally comfortable and the prices are really great for the quality.  

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P.S.  Don't mind the snow in this picture.  I took it out my car window a couple of weeks ago and forgot to put it up here.  Snow is almost all gone, for now and hopefully forever, or at least until next December!  

Spring...

The sun is shining for what feels like the first time in months with the gorgeous golden hue that can only mean that Spring is really coming.  I even walked across a lawn at noon that had already started turning green and saw some daffodils peeking their heads out of the ground.  It's only 43 degrees but I feel hopeful that this incredibly long winter may actually come to an end.  Hurrah!!!  No more gray winter sky...I love Spring! 

Less than a month till Spring Break, one month until Keeneland Spring Meet, less than a month until Lexington's first half-marathon through the Kentucky countryside (but I'll be at the Cooper River Bridge Run instead).

More fun dinners

First of all, Isabug is nothing like Bridget Jones...really...if I were going to liken her to a fictional character she'd be much more like Elizabeth Darcy, nee Bennett.  .

Secondly, I think I write about food on this blog way too much.  Apparently, I've turned into a Mathews.  The Mathews write long letters about meals they've eaten and the food they were served.  Especially the little old Mathews ladies who fortunately don't use the computer much less read blogs so I can say about them here whatever I like.  They'll never know unless you tell them..

So anyway, I have been thinking about food a lot lately...both cooking food (lunch for the Presiding Bishop), and eating food --dinner with former Presidents of India, and next week if the stars fall into alignment, I get to have dinner with Academy Award nominee Mary McDonnell a.k.a. Stands With a Fist.  Am I bragging?  I don't mean to be but I am really excited.  I loved the movie Dances with Wolves!  In fact, I'm going to go change my facebook profile so that I have that listed as one of my favorite movies as soon as I finish this post. 

But also, I had dinner last night with Will Mathews at Five Guys Burgers...he had a junior bacon cheeseburger from Wendy's (long story involving 11-year old boys with control issues) but it was great.  My burger (not from Wendy's) and the fries from Shelly, Idaho were superb.  Why it's important for you to know that I had dinner with Will Mathews at Five Guys is that: A.   We have a Five Guys Burgers in Lexington!  B.  The queue no longer wraps around the outside of the building so you can get in to order food.    I was excited when they opened 6 months ago as I love their food but everytime I've been to Lexington's, including in pouring rain, people have been lined out the door to order and I have no patience or time for that.

A week of no blog posts....sorry...

Oh no!  I had no intention of leaving pictures of empty, dirty dishes up on the blog!  Hmmm...looks a bit like how I've left my kitchen sink for most of the day as well.  It's been busy busy the last week for me working with several buyer clients looking to cash in on the $8,000 federal tax credit that expires in 64 days, not that I'm counting. 

Also, I've been cooking chicken like crazy.  The Episcopal Presiding Bishop of North America is in Lexington for a Diocesan convention and I'm part of the lunch cooking team for Sunday when she is preaching at Christ Church Cathedral.  We're making Chicken Divan for 200+ people and I'm in charge of the chicken.  No, I do not have a commercial kitchen in my house.  I have two rather large crockpots.  My house smells decidedly like roasting chicken and the dogs are in heaven (or maybe that's hell when you can smell the chicken but can't have any).  They sit under the counter ever hopeful that someone might accidentally knock one of the crockpots onto the floor.  Meanwhile, I seem to have lost any appetite I might ever have had for chicken.

However, in April,  His Excellency Abdul Kalam, former president of India, is coming to dinner.  No, not at my house but for a special fundraiser dinner for the International Book Project.  I am on the committee though but fortunately Masala, a great Indian restaurant in town, will be doing the cooking for that and not me.  Want to know more?  Visit the International Book Project's website at http://www.internationalbookproject.org/ !   Tickets are limited and it should be a wonderful event.  How often do you get to have dinner with a former head of state afterall?

Oh look, here's a little dog now thinking about chickens (and looking very comfortable on my coat). 

Picture Challenge

Here's a little local flavor, picture challenge.  Can you guess what was in these dishes and where they were? 

snow + real estate = chilly sales

If you are checking here for the daily Lexington weather report, it is still snowing.  Yesterday's total was 5 inches although Will checked some drifts and reported back in with much higher accumulations.  And yes, he again shoveled sidewalks without being asked.  I continue to be amazed at his sense of responsibility toward this particular project.  Even more amazingly, he has asked for no financial compensation which is fortunate as I am discovering that blizzards make it extremely difficult to sell houses for two reasons:  A. no one wants to go out to look at my listings.  B.  none of my buyer-clients (or me for that matter) really wants to look at houses in the snow.  However, I did manage a walk-through yesterday of a new construction home and am off to take pictures of a new listing today!  Fortunately, I took exterior pictures before the big snow came so I only have to make it into the house and not around the outside of the house!

The hardest part is finding the road on which to drive!  I'm pretty sure there's a road under there somewhere. 

And, now I'm off to meetings and photo shoots! 

Stay warm!

Blizzard in the Bluegrass

As I sit stuck at home in the Bluegrass this morning, I'm beginning to think that my children may be in school until the beginning of July with add-on snowday makeups if the weather prognosticators are in any way correct.  As sad as that prospect looms for summer days better spent at the pool than in school, it's simply gorgeous outside today and I'm sure the newspaper will eventually get delivered.  This Kentucky weather reminds me of how I remember winter growing up in the Bluegrass minus the need to let horses out of the barn and break ice in water buckets. 

This picture is looking out my front door earlier this morning on my quest to see if the newspaper had arrived.  The gray quality is tribute to the thick flakes in the air and it appears that we have no roads in the neighborhood.  I can assure you that last night, I had not only a street in front of my house but a circular driveway about ten steps from where I am standing!  I can't find any of them this morning which could explain why the newspaper can't find its way to my house. 

To all of my relocation clients to whom I have extolled the mildness of the new Kentucky winter where snow is mandated to melt by the next day, I stand in apology.   We do indeed have Winter!  Snow can linger and accummulate.  And, it's lovely. 

Could someone please let Al Gore know that I'm rethinking the whole global warming thing?