The List

After admitting that I have been in a rut (admitting is the first step, right?), I spent a good amount of time thinking about and researching things right here in my own back yard that I have yet to venture out and experience. Fortunately, Dallas offers a lot of great restaurants and ways to pass time. I'm actually pretty crazy about Dallas and am excited to get out of my stuck-in-suburbia-living-in-a-rut season and get into the groove (please tell me you hear Madonna singing when you read that... And if you didn't, you do now).


Check out the list and let me know your additions. I've purposefully left off the things that we've done in our past 12 years as near-Dallas residents, except for a handful of restaurants that are just so amazingly yummy, that every time is like the first time, and they should just stay on the "Spice It Up" list for all time, or at least until they close, as Dallas restaurants have a tendency to do.

I'll report back about our adventures as we cross things off the list. Maybe you can come up with your own list to share?

http://linebargercl.googlepages.com/spiceitup

a Rut versus a Groove

Do you know gadget people? You know, the people who always have new stuff. Especially stuff that plugs in or needs to be charged. Gadget people live to be the first to have this, and the first to have that.

We are not those people.

I still haven't gotten a Wii, and even though Chris works for the Kingdom of the iPhone, I still use a Blackberry, and I got my first MP3 player for Christmas.

The whole MP3 movement is conflicting for me. I'm an avid computer user -- perhaps even an addict -- and love the convenience of the MP3 download. But, honestly, if it were up to me, I'd still be playing vinyl. I love the somewhat-staticky-sound that it makes as the record goes around and around.

Reminisce with me. Remember pulling a record out of its cover, laying it down on the turntable, and then watching the arm slowly pick up, move to the right, set down, and begin to play.

Until the dreaded scratch. Where the needle would stick and that small section of sound would play over and over and over again. Grating. And everyone would wait for it to move on or for someone to pick up the needle and move it to a different spot.

I relate to the dreaded scratch right now. If I had to describe my life, it would be in the midst of a scratch. A rut. With the same blip of sound going on and on. The same routine over and over. Get up, go to work, come home, play with ChellBell, watch whatever the Tivo picked up for the day, log on to the computer, work some more, maybe blog, go to bed. Start over. o-o-o-over (hear the scratch!?).

I need to get out of my rut. In a bad way. Spice it up, so to speak.

Becca's Blog over at Texas Darlings has inspired me tonight. She's put together a list of things to do to get to know her new city. And I think that's exactly what I need to get out of my rut. A list of new things to try right here in my own beloved city of Dallas.

So my homework for the weekend is to put together the funnest things to do in the Metroplex that I still haven't done and the best places to eat. I'd love any suggestions you have.

And I feel the needle slowly being moved over even now...