Welcome to 2010

So 2010 finally got here, I came in a flying car. Did you? Ok so maybe we don't have flying cars, but Claire and I do have our own business! So that is a pretty big step right. Rather than talking about our plans for 2010 I wanted to do a recap of 2009.

Our year started off with a wonderful week vacation in Amarillo where Claire and I got to visit with friends and family. In early February we took a tour of the Texas wine country with Howie and Jenny. March came along and I was happy. March is one of my favorite times of the year because of two things: my birthday and SXSW. For my birthday we went and visited friends in College Station. We played some board games, frisbee golf and ate German/Irish food. Then for the next two weeks life was all about SXSW. This is probably one of my favorite things in life. Tons of bands descend on Austin. Claire and I enjoy 3-4 days of free shows from our favorite bands and new bands we hadn't heard of. This year we were joined by Michael and had a wonderful time.

By the time April rolled around we were spending most of our time hanging out and planning things for Emily and Charlie and the arrival of their baby, Laith. We were also making a full blown plan for our trip to San Francisco in June. In early May Laith arrived and he was a precious little baby. He was Claire's first experience with birth and I think she learned a lot and was happy to have shared it with Emily.

In June we got to go on the vacation of our lives. Claire and I spent a week in San Francisco and the surrounding areas. We saw everything from the wine country to Berkeley to the trolleys to Golden Gate to nearly the whole city. Plus we ate some of the best food of our lives (see: Little Star Pizza, Genki Crepes, and Avatars).

By the time we got back we were completely worn out. At this point Claire and I had been working for Red Orbit and Bill Miller, respectively, for the whole year. I was sick and tired of the way Bill Miller was treating myself and the other managers and started the wheels turning in my head of ways I could get out. Of course nothing came of it until later in the fall. During the summer we got to enjoy a weekend with all of Claire's college roomies and spouses (minus Kam and David).

In Early september Claire and I came up with a solution to my work situation. Quit...that's right. When the rest of America is holding on desperately to their jobs I just up and quit. Didn't really have a plan other than this faint idea of a business plan. I think I just had it and said I'm done. I hoped for the best and well...so far so good. Soon after quitting Claire and I launched WholeNine Lifestyle Management. We got ourselves a bunch of goverment documents that said we were a business and went for it. I had always wanted to cook for people on a personal cook to family level and the personal chef side of WholeNine allows me to do that. Claire wants to design, decorate, and organize people's homes and this gave her an outlet for that. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around we had thrown our Launch/Re-Launch party at Obees and were officially under way.

We spent Thanksgiving with the Rajehs and enjoyed a delicious feast and some down time with our wonderful friends. Then it was all business in December. We handled a garage sale for some clients, did some Christmas card photo shoots, and did some small handy man work for another set of clients. By the time Christmas came around we had been on an emotional rollercoaster. Who knew running a business would be so fun but so tiring (I guess everyone knows that).

For Christmas my family came into town. We relaxed exchanged gives and generally did a lot of nothing, which was wonderful. For new years we kept it mellow with the White's and this last weekend we visited Claire's family in Tyler. Now with all that out of the way I wish everyone a wonderful 2010 and we plan on telling you our wonderful stories more often this year. Most likely we will transfer over to our WholeNine blog. We couldn't be more excited for what this year has in store for us. We are going into our 4th year of marriage and our first full year of business. I think it will be a great year!

out

Sorry for the long absence. I assume we will be back someday but for now you might just have to call or email us to get our attention. Work has been overwhelming for me and Claire is just trying to keep up with work and everything else that demands her attention.

We will update about our summer though, at least I think we will.

Also it's hot in Austin. 2 months of 100+ weather is no good.

and a week goes by

After churning out the blogs Claire and I got rather busy with real life. I guess that happens when you have friends in town for the weekend and you are organizing a three day trip, there and back, to Phoenix.

We finally finished up our detox diet last Monday, a week ago. We did have a splurge meal at Sushi Caliente to celebrate. We made it a light/sort of healthy meal though. You can read about it here. Anyways, both of us feel much better and can tell a noticeable difference when we eat "fatty" foods compared to when we stick with the diet's plan. After this weekend of eating out with friends, we both came away wanting to just eat vegetables. It's weird how that works. As of tomorrow we will have both gone 28 days without sodas, and for the most part without caffeine. If you knew either of us before we had a very high Diet Coke (Claire) and Dr. Pepper (Myself) consumption. We have challenged ourselves to stick as closely as possible to the diet, with a few splurges here and there. You can't just give up your favorite frozen yogurt place, MMMMM....Tomunchi. So far we have both lost some weight and I can't believe I am saying it but I would suggest the diet to anyone looking to feel better and have the extra benefit of losing weight. You can still cook great things like my own creation: eggplant stack. We used a chicken sausage from Whole Foods stuffed with spinach and feta. All you do is grill up your eggplant, cook the sausage, slice up some avocado, grill some thin strings of onions and stack it up. I served it along side some steamed broccoli and okra with crumbled feta on top and some candied pecans for a little bit of a sweet kick.


Claire also set out on a mission to re-organize our study closet. After visiting Ikea, twice, we had picked up enough organizational tools that she could get started. She set out on a weekend/week of organizing, sorting, adding new books, removing old magazines, and creating general destruction of our study floor. But in the end she did an amazing job and we now have a fully labeled and accessible closet. I am still of the opinion that Claire would make an amazing personal organizer for people.

After working most of the week Mark and Amanda came in town and we had the chance to relax and hang out. We ate at Kerby Lane, ate at Sprinkles (the arch-rival of Tomunchi) and we played Rock Band over at John and Sara Vershaw's apartment. It was a blast and who knew I could sing so well. Yesterday we had some free time after work and headed out to one of our favorite Austin parks with the dogs, Walnut Creek Park. We hiked around down in the creek bed, which, contrary to the picture below, is completely dry and barren due to the lack of rain this summer. Yet it made for a fun, 2ish mile hike as well as good exercise.


Brooke is coming into town this week and then we head out to phoenix for the weekend so hopefully we can get a few more updates in for you loyal readers about how exciting our suburban lives are.