Bicycle Mavens

In the words of the late, great, musical genius Freddie Mercury, "We want to ride our bicycles, we want to ride our bikes, we want to ride our bicycles, we want to ride them how and when and where we like..." well, it's mainly Freddie, we threw in the how and when.  Ever since Jenn got her bicycle on Christmas from her awesome mother-in-law, the wine mavens have been yearning to ride their bikes.  It took a few months (and the help of friends and neighbors all pitching in their valuable time) to get it put together and up and running, but we got it done. We consider ourselves very lucky to live in our little hood surrounded by the best neighbors. Recently we have gotten into pimping our rides and with every added touch, we are that much more excited to "get on our bikes and ride."  It started with something as simple as a basket - Richelle spray painted her wicker basket red while Jenn paid her friend in Guinness beer and a bag of snickers to beautifully sew a cute insert for her wire basket. Then we added bells - they are just pretty generic ones that we have painted, so we are still on the lookout for the perfect noise maker additions. We have some cute ideas but can't seem to find anything like what we have conjured up in our heads to buy, so we may have to get creative and make them ourselves.  Jenn bought a hands-free phone holder doohickey that is awesome!! She can have her phone attached to her bike instead of putting it in her basket where it could fly out and break or get lost and she can listen to music or make a phone call in an emergency situation. We don't recommend talking or texting while riding your bikes not only because it's dangerous, but it takes all the fun out of it. Then we added the "pièce de résistance" - our Texas License Plates.  OMG!!! Aren't they the coolest things ever?? Now do you see why we get so excited to ride our bikes? 

Not only is bicycle ridin' good exercise but it's fun and we must say,  we are stylin' as we pedal down the street.  It's so exhilarating to ride our bikes, especially at dusk, and feel the breeze blowin' through our hair. It's an honor to witness cool cloud formations, beautiful skylines and amazing sunsets as the birds sing and glide through the air. We feel at one with nature as cotton tail bunnies jump about and bugs and frogs take turns chirping. We wave at people jogging, walking their dogs or hanging out in their yards and most wave back or say hi - others are probably asking themselves, "who are those crazy broads?" But hey, we say it loud and proud on the back of our bicycles - Texas Wine Maven - whoop! whoop! We asked our friend to take some photos of us with our bikes so we could use them for this blog.  We wanted to pay her for her time but she said she was more than happy to do it and that it was fun for her, but we just couldn't let her kindness go comlpetely unpaid. So we paid her with a twelve pack of one of her favorite drinks (Mike's Hard Lemonade) and by hugging her neck real hard. As we are putting on our floppy hats for our shoot, Richelle says, "this is crazy! It's like 100 degrees outside."  Jenn says, "hey we waited until 7:30-8:00pm and it's nice outside for this time of year and there's a breeze, so come on it's gonna be fun." Well, as soon as we walk outside, Richelle starts complaining and rambling on about how she lived in Tahoe and the hottest it's ever gotten there was 85 degrees and blah, blah, blah. Our friend shows up with her two daughters in the middle of Richelle's rant and she says, "this weather isn't bad and there's a breeze." Jenn couldn't help but chuckle underneath her breath as she had just said this same thing and says "yeah, so suck it up." We all agree that there are three areas that may be the best background scenery for pictures and set out for the first -The Red Barn. As we are into our first, oh let's say ten pictures, Richelle starts up again and says "that's probably enough and we should go," to which our friend says, "oh no, we are just getting started." 

Jenn admits it's pretty hot and we are sweating when we should look cute, but that it's fun. She says, "I don't know how the supermodels do it"  and then laughs out loud as if she is one. To which one of our friend's daughters replies, "because they have make-up artists and lighting and fans that blow their hair back - that's how they do it." And we were like, "yeah!!! and they are super skinny and have half our body fat and are usually on tropical islands." We all get a good laugh and it helps Richelle - a.k.a. Debbie Downer - wha wha wha... get through The Red Barn shoot. Then we pedal off to the bridge and trail behind our house to wrap it up. 

Richelle really isn't a Debbie Downer, but we love to tease her because it's her first summer in Austin, TX and every single person she has come across has told her, "oh you haven't experienced anything yet - just wait 'til it's 110 degrees"- and so she gets tripped out just at the thought of it. Well that and the fact that she absolutely hates getting her picture taken. The rest of the shoot goes pretty smoothly as the wine mavens with their boxes of wine and big-ass straws pose for pictures. 

People along the trail stop and stare at us like, what are they doing and who do they think they are and is that a box of wine? The mavens say with a laugh, "you didn't know you had a couple of celebrities living amongst you, huh? - We'll be happy to sign autographs later after our shoot is over" and then Jenn bites the dust on her bike, but quite glamorously,  in true maven form - at least no wine was spilled. 

As we wave goodbye to all our non-existent fans that didn't wait around for us to sign autographs, we ride our bikes off into the sunset and, now that the shoot is over, Richelle exclaims that "it was indeed fun - sort of." So if you happen to live in our area you just might see us peddling down the street throwing our heads back, laughing, dinging our bells and waving at you. But don't worry, we won't have our big ol' boxes of wine with us - we'll save that for later after we get home - because two hot and sweaty mavens + two boxes of hot, shook-up wine would = one big crazy hot mess. 

"Are you gonna take me home tonight, oh down beside that red firelight, are you gonna give it all you got, fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round...get on your bikes and ride!" ~ Freddie Mercury

*all photos courtesy of Lorry Wilson Tuttle

Perla's, Pets and Painting...OH MY!!!

Summertime is upon us and we have been craving Lobster rolls in a big way. We were told by several people to go to Perla's because they make the best.  So an opportunity came up where we could "feed two birds with one scone" (we feel this is much nicer than saying "kill two birds with one stone," don't you agree?) because we need to use a groupon that we bought for Easely Amused (a painting studio that teaches art classes and no artistic ability is required, thank goodness!) before it expired.  Not only do they encourage you to bring friends, have fun and let your creative juices flow, but it's BYOB!!  How FUN! - and to us that translates into Bring Your Own Box.  You go online, pick a date and are told what type of class to expect. Our class happened to be Pet Picasso Night and that was "purrfect" because we LOVE pets, especially our furry dog children; so we were thrilled to be able to try and paint their portraits (try being the operative word). All we have to do is show up with a picture of our pet and our box of wine and they supply the rest. How cool is that? So back to Perla's... since we were going to be downtown for the paint class, we thought we would go there for an early lunch and eighty-six our lobster roll craving. We arrive at Perla's located @1400 S Congress Ave., Austin, TX and right away the outdoor patio is inviting, but it's hot so we decide to sit inside. As soon as we walk in it immediately smells of seafood and reminds us of being at an outdoor fish market. The decor is beachy, very cool and quite calming. As we sit at the bar, we can just about feel the sand beneath our feet and makes us want to kick off our shoes and run our toes through it. The only thing missing at this point is a fruity drink in our hand and the sound of seagulls. Our waiter comes over and introduces himself then insists we try the drink special of a frozen mint julep. Oh man, he's already got our number and of course we oblige.

Looking at the menu we immediately let our waiter know that we will be having the lobster roll, but are waiting on a friend to show up before we order. The frozen mint julep is very refreshing and going down nicely as we just sit and talk and enjoy our surroundings.  Once our friend shows up, he orders an appetizer of Oysters on the half shell that he and Richelle both really enjoyed (Jenn no likey oysters) and a second round of mint juleps. When our waiter returns we are surprised when two prickly pear margaritas show up instead

 

We look at the drinks, then at each other a bit confused, and say that's not what we ordered - but they are pretty and pink and look very tasty, so we say it's okay we'll drink them.  We don't want any cocktails going to waste on our account. Then all three of us order the lobster roll with shoe string fries ($28.00) - that's comparable to New York City prices.  We both used to live in NYC and miss our favorite lobster roll place called Mary's Fish Camp located @ 64 Charles St., NY, NY.  Their rolls are the BEST in our opinion and are a piece of seafood heaven.  Actually everything we have ever tried there is outstanding and we frequented this tiny establishment quite often. As we order the lobster roll at Perla's,  Jenn can't get Mary's lobster roll off her brain because that is essentially what she wants right now and is pretty certain that's not what she is going to get. She even asks Richelle, "should we split one?" to which she replies, "nah, let's just go for it and get our own." Jenn says, "what the hell, okay" and then asks the waiter,"are they really good?" and of course he replies, "yes everyone loves them, but we do occasionally get people from Maine and the East Coast who have said, they've had better".  Oh HELL, he just burst Jenn's bubble and now she knows for sure that she is going to be disappointed because she's one of "those people". One of those East Coasters, even though she was born and raised in Texas, who lived in NYC for 10 years and frequently ate at Mary's Fish Camp. She hesitates for a second thinking she may cancel that order and then decides to try it because that's the only way she's ever going to find out how good they really are or aren't. It comes out beautifully presented and actually comes topped with a good amount of lobster, but right away we notice it isn't really a mayonnaise based lobster salad, but basically just lobster meat on a bun with bibb lettuce and a side of drawn butter.

Then the first bite - drum roll please and........ no cymbals. Sadly, it just wasn't what we were hoping for but it was good and fresh. One of Jenn's favorite things to eat is lobster with drawn butter, but that's not what she was here for. She was at Perla's with high expectations of a Mary's Fish Camp lobster roll DAMN IT!!! and therefore, was disappointed; but now she knows that's not what she will order again. We decide to end our lunch with two more mint juleps and that's what is actually delivered this time. When our waiter drops off the check, he tells us he didn't charge us for the prickly pear mistake and we thought that was nice because we drank and enjoyed them. Our overall experience at Perla's was satisfying so we will definitely come back and give it another try, as the rest of the menu sounds very appetizing, the drinks were yummy and the staff was very nice. Unfortunately it seems as though our quest to find a Mary's Fish Camp lobster roll in Austin, Tx is unobtainable. We bid adieu to our friend and realize that we still have some time to kill before our paint class. Looking down the street we spot Guero's Taco Bar and swear we can hear it calling our name (red rover, red rover, wine mavens come over) so we sashay on down for a margarita.

In the midst of drinking we realize we've lost track of time and now are running late, so down the hatch goes our drink and out the door we go. Thank goodness Easely Amused - located @ 2324 S. Lamar Blvd. Austin, TX is close by and we arrive on time super excited to paint. We meet up with five of our girlfriends and take seats next to each other in front of a blank canvas. A paper plate is front of each canvas with the colors black and white. We are told to add at least five or six more colors that we would like to use in our painting and then our instructor, Bridget, begins to instruct us.

This is a "Picasso Portrait" so it's supposed to be an abstract cartoon-ish like painting full of shapes and colors. It's not supposed to look exactly like your pet, but be a representation of how you see them through your eyes. Jenn's thinking, "well thank god it's not supposed to look exactly like my dog because this is my first time at a paint class"- and as much as she lives in her own little unrealistic unicorn filled world and would love to believe she is talented enough to be able to sit down and paint a masterpiece on her first try (with the help of fairy dust - a.k.a. vino) she knows very well that this is not going to happen because, dare we say the word... it's reality.

Richelle has had art class in school so she's like, "I got this".  Jenn is nervous because she doesn't want to mess up. She really wants to do her beautiful, movie star pup justice, but knows she must shake the fear and take the plunge.

Meanwhile, Richelle and the rest of the girls are painting away at warp speed and doing a beautiful job. Their pup portraits are all looking fantastic - really fantastic!

Jenn is thinking, "how can this be? how can all my friends be so talented at painting and I suck?" She is happy for them because all of their paintings are amazing and look exactly like the colorful Picasso dogs that they are supposed to. While hers looks like, well, a pig-dog.

She even gets up and walks around the room to admire the rest of the class' work - looking for that one other person who sucks as bad as she does, but nope there's not one. Really? Wow! Well, good for everyone else that they have talent. Jenn sits down and continues to work on her piece as all her friends each offer words of encouragement and say how they love her painting. All she can think of is, "my dog is gonna kill me when I get home after she sees this monstrosity." At the end of class, we all take pictures with our paintings and vow we will do this again.

It turned out to be a blast and a great way to spend the evening with our girlfriends. So if you are looking for a fun, unique experience for yourself or with friends, give Easely Amused a call. You will not be disappointed (unless maybe you happen to be the one painting a pig-dog Ha-Ha-Ha).  Once we arrive home with our masterpieces, Richelle immediately hangs hers over her bed and rightly so, because it's that damn good.

Jenn unveils hers to her pooch lying on the floor by the couch and asks, "so what do you think?" Her pup raises it's head, cocks it to the side then raises one eyebrow before getting up and walking over to give her momma a big, fat, sweet, juicy, wet, kiss on the face. Awe, there's that unconditional love and seal of approval that makes everything right in the world. Jenn loves and appreciates her painting after that, because she now knows that her interpretation of the painting is no longer that of pig-dog, but wondrously human-dog with the soulful eyes.

Switching Gears

Wow!!! It's been a while since we last posted, but that's because we've been busy bees and have had a lot going on. We won't go into all the details but will tell you the Big News Flash: we've decided to throw in the towel on the slow carb diet. Yep that's right, we are waving the white flag. Sorry if we are letting anybody down, but after four months of trying Tim Ferriss's slow carb diet (based on his book, The 4-Hour Body) the sista wives have decided to switch gears.  We met in the kitchen one morning (as we were embarking on our fifth month of eating this way) and just decided that if we had to eat any more meat we were going to throw up.  Literally. We just couldn't do it anymore.  This is coming from two girls who were previously vegetarians for ten & twenty years before slowly starting to add meat back into their diet.  We still weren't huge meat eaters, just occasionally.  So why we decided to embark upon the slow carb diet is beyond us.  It sounded like a great idea at the time.  Oh yes, now we remember, it was the two glasses of red wine a night that hooked us. The eating healthy thing was just an added bonus. We hardly ever ate red meat on the diet, mostly turkey (which Jenn hates) and chicken but it just got old for us. However, we are very proud of ourselves for what we accomplished while on the diet. We learned how to eat healthier and do without a lot of bad foods. We also learned that we have major will power. Wonder Mavens Activate!!! Form of... what else? a nice box of vino of course - Ha Ha.

We absolutely had our moments when we fell off the wagon, but we have to say for three out of four months we were very strict and really motivated. It was one of the hardest things we have ever done. So for that we are really proud of ourselves because we now know once we put our minds to something we can accomplish a goal.  We never weighed ourselves, but did see results such as inches and could feel a difference in our clothes.  It isn't much considering how hard we worked at eating right, BUT... our downfall was, we hardly ever worked out which we know is very important if you expect to really get the results you want.  We did walk our dogs two to three times a day and did yoga every now and then, but it's hard to find the time when you work twelve hour days. We need to try and change that so we can get more exercise.  So on Sunday we decided to give up the Slow Carb Diet and on Monday we were on a brand new path, so are you ready for this? We decided to join Weight Watchers (WW).  Everyone at Richelle's office is on it and they told her that after the will power we demonstrated on our previous way of eating, that this would be a piece of cake for us. Cake? Hmmmm and guess what? We can have it and not just on cheat day, but any day. So we made up our minds at 10:00pm to join online. As we were inputting our information of course it asks the dreaded question of our weight and height which in turn determines how many points we will get for the day.  Well, we have no idea what we weigh, so Jenn runs down the street to borrow a scale. Once she returns, she sets it down on the floor and we both just stared at it like, what is this strange contraption?  It was some alien from another planet that we were both intrigued by, yet terrified of at the same time (can you hear the sci-fi music playing in the back ground?).

Richelle began to have a mini nervous breakdown, so Jenn decided to be the first test subject and stepped right on the scary scale praying it wouldn't electrocute her or explode. When Jenn opened her eyes, she was so relieved she was still in one piece that the number didn't even matter - Whew!!!  Now it's Richelle's turn; after hugging the wall, a few tears and a not so quick pep-talk, Jenn was able to convince her that it wasn't the end of the world and they would get through this just like everything else...together. Once the trauma was over, we could continue to register on line and determine how much we needed/wanted to lose.  Here's how it works:  All fruits & vegetables are FREE! You get a certain amount of points to use each day and are not really supposed to go over. But, in the event you do go over by a few or a lot, they give you an extra forty-nine points to use however you wish throughout the week.  You can also earn extra points by doing activities - for example, walking the dog for thirty minutes equals two activity points. The extra forty-nine points can be used daily, weekly or all at one time which is how we want to use them.  The reason we decided to use them all up in one day is so we can continue our "Cheat Day" tradition making Mondays (our weigh in day). The amount of points you get is determined by your height and weight. What ever we decide to eat comes out of our daily points allowance, so we just have to decide if we really want the cake or something else like cheese and crackers or lasagna. It will force us to really think about the food choices we make for the day. Richelle is allowed twenty-six points a day and Jenn twenty-eight - so it's time for us to get down to business... tomorrow, because it's late at night.  You would think that after a good night's sleep we'd be raring to go, but that was not the case for Miss Jennifer. Richelle had already left for work by the time she woke up so she was left alone to figure out her new eating habits all by herself. Let's just say it wasn't pretty because after all, we were going from one extreme to another. The Slow Carb Diet was like being in the military, very strict and having to learn to do without a lot of things - only the bare minimum. Weight Watchers seems much easier because we can have whatever we want as long as it's within our allotted points, but it's all about portion control. Well, since we decided on a whim to switch from one way of eating to another overnight, we hadn't done any shopping. There wasn't even one piece of fruit in the house because we couldn't have it on the previous diet but now we can, so Jenn gets agitated because she's not sure what she can eat. To top it all off, she doesn't know how to use the damn food calculator and the fucking scanner app isn't working either and... she's starving!! It's the ugly starve too where a girl can turn into a raving bitch.

She screams at the top of her lungs, "There is NO food in the house so what the hell am I supposed to eat? Oh woe is me!!" She was having a Crawford moment, but thankfully no silverware went flying. After furiously texting Richelle in a bitch fit manner that Joan herself would have been proud of, she made egg whites and was able to calm down once she had something in her stomach. However, she was still frustrated as she tried to get the hang of this new way of eating because going from one extreme to another was tricky. After work Richelle arrived home to still find a disgruntled Jenn, but she was able to talk her out of her tizzy (well, sort of) and the sista wives went grocery shopping to stock up on food, so as to avoid any more raging bitch moments. The flood gates opened while at the store and we were like Laverne and Shirley once again throwing everything into our cart. At least amongst all the food there were lots of fruit and veggies peeking out. Here are the results after one week - Richelle lost eight pounds and Jenn lost five pounds!! Whoop whoop!! So it does work. Here's the Slow Carb versus Weight Watchers:

Slow Carb Diet:

What you can have: Eggs, Vegetables, Beans and Protein (as much as you want), two glasses of red wine a night. And one cheat day a week to have whatever you want for twenty-four hours.
What you can't have: Sugar, Dairy, Carbs, anything white: Potatoes, Pasta, Bread

Weight Watchers:

What you can have:  Anything you want in moderation as long as it comes out of your allotted weekly points (twenty-six) plus an extra forty-nine points to use however you wish (spread out daily, weekly or all in one day)

What you can't have: Nothing - Hooray! but portion control is the key and wine is not free! What? Seriously?

The real downer here is no more "free" wine. It's gonna cost us four points a glass! And you all know how much we love our wine. So do we want to eat or do we want to drink? Well, hello!!!! Are we not the Black Box Wine Mavens? That should be a no brainer right? After all, we've built our reputation around wine. But we want to eat too. Hmmmm. Maybe we should re-think this WW thing. There's no reason to be hasty. Why should we jump from one diet to another so soon? That's kind of like jumping from one relationship right into another and never spending any time being single. You need that time you need to get to know yourself and see if you can function as a single unit instead of being co-dependent on someone else. So maybe we need to take a break before we jump right back into another life changing way of eating. You are probably asking yourself why?  Why would we give up so soon when we actually lost weight in the first week? We should be so happy and motivated to keep going.  This is true, but we don't want to get burned out like we did with the slow carb diet. We feel like we need to take some time to breathe and reassess so we can get our heads back in the game. We know WW works and when we decide to resume it, we want to give it our all - we don't want to go in half-assed. There could be pros and cons to our decision: the pros of course are that we can eat and drink anything we want (but we need to try and be conscientious of what we are putting into our bodies). The cons are that we could spiral out of control and turn into "Mavens Gone Wild!!!"  - having gained back all the weight and inches we have lost up to this point.

It could be sink or swim for the mavens, but we think we'll be fine. We will determine when/if  it's time to resume WW again, but for now we are going to enjoy our lives however we choose (on our own terms) while still continuing to blog about our zany adventures. Stay tuned...