Texas Sarah
  • Home
  • Topics
  • _Travel
  • _Family
  • _Knitting
  • _Paris
  • _Fashion
  • Projects
  • About
Featured
Showing posts with label Featured. Show all posts
Featured travel Travel Hacking

How We Travel Hack

In 2023, we travel-hacked some pretty amazing trips, including a solo trip to Rome, a family vacation in Maui and we booked our first trip of 2024. This was the first year we really tried to take advantage of our points, and we're realizing that we've just barely scratched the surface with travel hacking. We first learned about travel hacking through the ChooseFI folks several years ago. With family all over the place, there is almost always a reason for us to plan a new trip - especially during those excruciating hot Texas summers.

Read more →
Featured Italia travel Travel Hacking

Rome for One

Aging is wild. It's incredible to think of all of the versions of myself that exist in the past. Young-and-totally-confused Sarah. Young-and-totally-fearless Sarah. Move-across-the-world-alone-and-live-with-a-complete-stranger Sarah. Convertible-Corvette-driving Sarah. Expat Sarah. Working professional Sarah. Francophone Sarah. Young mom Sarah. And, recently, I feel like I'd reached the version of myself that could either be old mom Sarah or scared-of-everything Sarah. This version of myself that doesn't quite understand how to be alone for long periods of time without kids and schedules and routines and a healthy dose of chaos. 

Read more →
à table Featured Food Holidays NYE

In-between times

You know that funny week between Christmas and New Year's Day, when not much is going on, but there's lots of time to spare. It's actually a really great (albeit slightly awkward) time. Despite Gui and I both having some work to do during this week, it felt pretty slow and sweet. We took advantage of some really spectacular, sunny weather while we could, too. Avienne and Loden made good use of their largest Christmas gift from this year - a 16-foot trampoline, and we biked around a bit in between coffee shop hangs and Christmas cleanup. 
Read more →
à table Christmas Featured Food Holidays

Christmas 2023

We're lucky to have had family visit us in Austin over the past couple of months, which made it a little easier to decide to stay put for the holidays this year. We normally travel for either Thanksgiving or Winter break, but we cozied up at home and made very few plans these past two months. It's made for a much-needed reset and I got to focus on spending some time making slower meals at home, which is something I don't ever seem to have time to do anymore.

This year, I made simple goals for meals and decided to keep my stress levels as low as possible by sticking to my tried and true comfort foods. I've also gotten better at setting reasonable expectations of my time when it comes to cooking. I remember getting so overwhelmed after choosing lofty menus and complicated recipes in years past, but I've finally decided not to over-complicate things so I only feel enjoyment from the time spent in the kitchen. It doesn't make sense to feel reluctant about spending so much time cooking if I don't want to be doing it. Last year, I made the decision to order a premade duck confit Christmas dinner, and it was all the rage with everyone. This year, I knew I'd have a lot of time at home, and opted to keep it more homemade. 

So, we did our usual smoked salmon, cheese and charcuterie board for Christmas Eve. We added a chocolate panettone to the mix this year for dessert because we couldn't get enough of one at a friend's house earlier in the week. For Christmas linner, I stuck to a long and slow braised beef short rib with grandpère's gratin and grilled red cabbage with mustard sauce. Avienne's gotten more curious (and helpful!) in the kitchen, so she helped me whip up a very rustic bûche de noël that managed to be tasty despite my missing a few ingredients. 

It was an indulgent couple of days, and we were all reminded how grateful we are for the food and gifts we all luxuriated in this Christmas. 

   

Read more →
Next >>
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • House guest
    While Gui's cousins are on vacation for a few weeks, we're keeping their cute cat, Mephisto at our place. He's really a lovely ...
  • The REAL reason French women aren't fat
    So, I'll just go ahead and explain this "phenomenon" to put to rest all the theories being tossed around by curious weight-wa...
  • New York, again
    About a month ago, I booked us all on a flight to New York for the first week of the new year. Gui and I had been thinking about taking a qu...
  • NYC...a month later
    It's been a little over a month since our family took a little trip with another favorite family to our mutually favorite city (New Yo...

Subscribe

BROWSE THE ARCHIVES

  • February 2024 (1)
  • January 2024 (5)
  • January 2018 (1)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • July 2016 (2)
  • January 2016 (2)
  • July 2015 (1)
  • March 2015 (1)
  • February 2015 (2)
  • November 2014 (1)
  • October 2013 (1)
  • September 2013 (1)
  • July 2013 (1)
  • March 2013 (2)
  • February 2013 (1)
  • January 2013 (1)
  • November 2012 (2)
  • February 2012 (1)
  • January 2012 (4)
  • December 2011 (1)
  • November 2011 (1)
  • September 2011 (2)
  • August 2011 (1)
  • July 2011 (1)
  • June 2011 (2)
  • May 2011 (3)
  • April 2011 (1)
  • March 2011 (2)
  • February 2011 (1)
  • January 2011 (5)
  • December 2010 (1)
  • November 2010 (1)
  • October 2010 (3)
  • September 2010 (2)
  • August 2010 (4)
  • July 2010 (2)
  • May 2010 (4)
  • April 2010 (3)
  • March 2010 (3)
  • February 2010 (4)
  • January 2010 (1)
  • November 2009 (1)
  • October 2009 (3)
  • September 2009 (2)
  • July 2009 (3)
  • June 2009 (1)
  • May 2009 (1)
  • April 2009 (2)
  • March 2009 (2)
  • February 2009 (4)
  • January 2009 (4)
  • December 2008 (3)
  • November 2008 (16)
  • October 2008 (11)
  • September 2008 (6)
  • August 2008 (14)
  • July 2008 (23)
  • June 2008 (21)
  • May 2008 (16)
  • April 2008 (10)
  • March 2008 (3)
  • January 2008 (10)
  • December 2007 (14)
  • November 2007 (2)
  • October 2007 (1)
  • September 2007 (2)
  • August 2007 (5)
  • July 2007 (6)
  • June 2007 (9)
  • May 2007 (10)
  • April 2007 (12)
  • March 2007 (14)
  • Contact
  • About

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Texas Sarah