Speedy, speedy!

Posted on September 30, 2009 by Shayla

Back in March, I had my pool table re-done.  New felt, new rails, shimmed pockets, and even some work on the rails and slate.  It plays fantastic and possibly one of the best 9′ Gold Crowns in the city.

For the past 2 months or so, my good buddy, Rachel, has started to play pool again.  She’d stopped playing pool for a few years and I’m really trying to hard to get her back into it.    Rachel also has her own 9′ Gold Crown at home, so we’ve been having practice sessions once a week and alternating locations.

The problem with this is, the tables play completely different.  Mine is super fast and hers not so much.  She also had a couple of dead rails that usually haunt me.  I always forget about them, and she knows to play around them.

It always takes us a while to get used to the speed of each table.  It takes her longer to get used to the speed on my table than it does for me, not sure why that is, though.

Last week, I was in DC on a short business trip, but I still needed to rent a car.   When I got into my rental car, I immediately noticed the brakes were super sensitive.  I barely had to press the brakes and it felt like I slammed on the brakes.  I was a little worried because they were sooo sensitive, I thought maybe I wouldn’t get used to them.   It probably took me about 2 miles of driving the rental car before I was driving it like a pro, sensitive brakes and all.

Why is it so easy for us to get used to the speed of a new car and adjust very quickly to its sensitive brakes, yet takes us forever to get used to the speed of a different pool table?  Sometimes I don’t ever get used to the speed of a super fast pool table.  Why is that?   I would think I’ve have an easier time controlling something with my hands than I do with my feet?!  Why are these limbs so different?

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Gone, Baby, Gone!

Posted on September 30, 2009 by Shayla

This summer sure has flown by so fast!   Tomorrow is the first day of October already, and I can’t believe it.   The heat this summer was so unbearable, but we are actually have some fall-like weather the past week or so.  This week the high temps here in Austin are low to mid-80s.  Awesome weather!

With the summer being so hot, I didn’t do as much working out as I would have liked.  The heat just made it to unbearable to go out and ride my bike even at 7am.  So, I spent the entire summer eating healthy in order to lose some weight.   The good news is as of yesterday, I’ve lost 26 lbs and Corey has lost 27 lbs!   We’ve been following the Weight Watchers plan for 18 weeks now, and cooking for the entire week all at once has been very successful for us in keeping up with not eating more than our daily allowance of points.

It just dawned on me that we never took before pictures so that way we could take some pictures afterwards and compare them.   Oh well, I probably don’t really need to see myself that fat anymore, anways.  I hope to never get that fat again, and my attempt to thwart that in the future is once I lose at least 13 more pounds, I’m going go through my entire closet and throw out all the fat clothes.  I usually keep the fat clothes for ‘just in case’, but I’m tired of being ‘just in case’!    I hope Corey will be up to that challenge, too.    I estimate that with 13 more pounds, I”ll probably be getting rid of about 70% of my wardrobe!  I’m actually excited about it, even though I’ll probably spend a fortune buying new clothes, but it will be totally worth it!

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Change.

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Shayla

After getting married in 2008, I put on a little weight.  Well, not really a little, more like a lot!  In 14 months I put on 30 lbs!   Hit the highest weight I ever had.  A lot of it was contributed to the fact that I hurt my back last summer and that put me out of commission as far as working out went.   I couldn’t do anything physically, so instead I ate everything in sight.

Fast foward to June 2009 and I was at my highest weight and a new emotional low.  I finally decided to do something about it, so Corey and I started following the Weight Watchers plan online.  I hired someone to put together a couple of weeks of meal plan for me and hit the road running.  We’ve been doing really well, and haven’t really strayed off the plan at all.   I’ve been doing a lot of cooking as you can see from all the food posts here on the blog.

Its been 13 weeks now and I’ve lost 19 lbs and Corey has lost 22 lbs.   I still have another 11 lbs to lose to get back to where I was last year when I got married, but that is still 10 lbs heavier than I’d like to be.   So, I’m shooting for another 21 lbs, and Corey is shooting for another 30 lbs.  Hopefully we can get there by the end of this year.  That would be awesome!

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Pratice makes perfect?

Posted on August 24, 2009 by Shayla

Does practice really make perfect?   I don’t really think so, but practice makes consistency, something that I seriously lack!

I am actually going to get some practice in this evening with Cristina.  Its been a month since I did any practicing, and that was the day before the last OB tournament for a few hours with Bonnie.   The next OB tournament is this weekend, so I could use a little practice.

I really need to do as much practicing the month of September as I can since I will be defending my title at the Houston Open!  My first time to ever defend a title, and I just don’t want to go out in two! :)  I think that should be pretty reasonable, right?  Lets hope so!

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Chicken, Black and Corn Enchilada Casserole

Posted on August 23, 2009 by Shayla

This recipe is from the Weight Watcher’s website.  It looked good in the picture, so I decided to try it out.  The level of difficulty said moderate, so thats usually easy for me.   Turns out the level should have been hard because I was very close to screwing this one up right at the end.   I had to keep an eye on this one very closely, even though the recipe said you could do one thing while another thing was cooking.  Not so.

After all was said and done, it came out ok, I think.  I haven’t eaten it yet since I was cooking for the whole week.   There is a lot of cornmeal at the bottom of it, so I hope it doesn’t taste too terrible.  One serving is only 6 points, so hopefully its filling.

Chicken, Black Bean and Corn Enchilada Casserole

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Chicken Paella

Posted on August 23, 2009 by Shayla

This recipe called for a crock pot.  Luckily I had a brand new one that I bought a long time ago, but haven’t really used but once when I loaned it to a friend to use.  Unfortunately, the recipe called for a pot that was larger than the one I already had.   What a good excuse to go to Target!    I got a big, 6-qt crock pot!   (Anyone need a 3-qt crock pot?)

After 2 trips to the grocery store, I finally had all the ingredients and started it up so it could cook for 5 hours.   After it was done it smelled great!   I couldn’t tell you yet how it tasted, becuase when it was done, I portioned it all out into containers for us to eat for the week.  But, I do know it looks good!

Chicken Paella

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Oklahoma State Women’s 9-Ball Championships

Posted on July 25, 2009 by Shayla

Made the trip alone this year to Tulsa from Austin.   Decided to come up on Thursday instead of Friday to have some little relaxation time.  Hit balls for about 4 hours on Thursday night, and played sets with my friend, Bonnie, for most of Friday afternoon.

Got the the tournament this morning feeling pretty good.  I got in good hours on the tables, and even though they are pretty fast, and the rails are bouncy, I was feeling pretty confident.   The tournament started with 35 players, and my first match was against Janet Atwell, one of three pros playing the tournament.  I wasn’t really worried about it because I felt pretty good that I knew the tables more than she did.   There are only nine 9-foot tables at Magoo’s, only 1 of them was a Diamond table, which happened to be a coin-op.  Well, wouldn’t you know, out of 9 tables, my first match was on this Diamond table.  And boy did it play SLOOOOOW!    Neither of us played well, Janet just didn’t play as bad as I did and beat me.   We talked after the match and agreed we both hated the table and we played scared.

Oh well, I thought for sure I’d be going two and out this weekend.   I played my next match, finally on one of the Gold Crowns, and won that match.  Next match I had to play Michelle McDermott and lo and behold, we gotta play again on the Diamond table.  Oy!   This time I tried not to play too scared, but the McDermott’s own this pool hall.  I figured Michelle knew all there was to know about this table.  Well, she had some bad rolls and I sneaked by her to win.  I was shocked.  I went on to win 2 more matches for the day.

I’m still in the tournament and will return on Sunday to start play at 10am.  I don’t know who my opponent is, but since I’m playing the table, it doesn’t matter who she is.   There are only 12 players left.

Wish me luck tomorrow!

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Fast Eddie’s Austin – 5th/6th

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Shayla

Even with bringing back 128 players from the Open on Sunday, we had 30 women in the women’s event on Sunday.  This definitely was going to be a long day even with all the tables.  Since I only live like 2 miles away, I figured I would play anyways.  I got up early, lounged around the house and did some reading.  I got up at 11 and showered and headed on over to Fast Eddie’s right before noon.   I thought we had to be there at noon, but I was wrong.  We were supposed to be there by 11 and they were already doing the players meeting!   There were only a couple of byes left, so I got one of them, which was against Kyu first round.  Fun.

I hadn’t done any practicing at all since my last tournament, unless you consider 5 games of 8-ball a week at league practicing.  Surprisingly enough, I ended the tournament placing 5th/6th.  I lost my last match against Cristina hill-hill where I got myself tough on the 8-ball and tried to carom the 9-ball in the pocket and left it hanging.  Oh well, by this time it was almost 11pm and way past my bedtime.   I made a cool $75 for my efforts which wasn’t too shabby considering.

Corey had a great tournament where he also placed 5th/6th in the Open event out of 128 players.   I think this might have been his highest Fast Eddie’s finish to date.  I’ll have to double check.

At one point during the tournament on Sunday evening, we were playing a table away from each other.  I don’t think we’ve ever played near each other like that so late in a tournament.  It was pretty cool.   Very nice weekend, even for the long day on Sunday.   My back hurt a little on Monday morning, but all is good now.

Next weekend is the OB Tour stop in Tulsa, OK at Magoo’s!

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Fast Eddies – Austin

Posted on July 12, 2009 by Shayla

Got a tournament today at Fast Eddie’s.  I’m so thankful that it is only about 2 miles away from my house, but I have a feeling its going to last until the wee hours of the morning.   The men’s tournament started yesterday morning with 128 players and today they are bringing back … 128 players!   There will be no open tables for the women to play on until they at least get 2 or 3 rounds out of the way of the men’s tournament.  I predict the women won’t be starting until around 2pm.   Hopefully they prove me wrong.

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One Pot Chicken

Posted on June 27, 2009 by Shayla

Why cook something in a crock pot when it can be done just as well, if not better, in the oven?   I made this meal last week and we really enjoyed it.

This is the first time I have ever cooked turnips.   Actually, I didn’t even know what a turnip looked like, and completely forgot to google it before I headed to the grocery store.  Luckily the produce section was being stocked and after I looked all around, I finally asked for directions.  :)   One of the nice produce guys showed me where they were and didn’t even laugh.  Much appreciated!   It wasn’t until after Corey had eaten the meal that I told him it was a turnip.  He thought it was potato!  I think I’ll be using turnips a lot more in the future.  I really like the way they taste.

This recipe also called for white beans.  I must have spent a good 10 minutes in the canned bean aisle looking for this darn white beans.   There were these 2 older black women coming down the aisle,  and they had a shopping cart full of food.  By the looks of the types of food they had in their cart, I figured they must be pretty good cooks, so I just asked them if they could help me find white beans ‘cuz I wasn’t having any luck.  I figured 3 heads were definitely better than one, but they couldn’t find them either.  I was commenting to them how I couldn’t believe the grocery store didn’t have white beans when another woman walked by and told me they were the same as navy beans, and there they were!  Way up on the top shelf and only one lonely row of canned navy beans.    I’ve never asked for help so much in one day at the grocery store.  Who knew finding white beans was going to be worse than turnips!?

The other ingredients in this recipe are carrots and celery, and chicken with the bone-in.  Of course, I took the skin off before cooking, and what a chore that is, too!    But, we really like this meal, so I’m sure I’ll make it pretty often.

One Pot Chicken

One Pot Chicken

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