Window to the Walkers

Demolition

2012-01-09T13:51:00.007-06:00

So, this is our front porch now.

We decided that since we have so much work planned for the house we might as well pay the extra money to have a dumpster that is emptied each week. Thank goodness we made that choice! What you see on our front porch is what is left after the dumpster was filled with a whole bunch of carpet. So, once the dumpster is emptied, we can fill it again with the stuff on the front porch. Unfortunately, we still have plenty more to tear up in the house. Oh well, we'll get rid of it week by week.

As you can imagine, all of this demolition is creating quite a mess. The carpet had plenty of dust in it, but the big culprit is the tile and it's concrete backer board. Andy chiseled up the tiles and then pulverized and tore up the concrete backer board that was under the tile. He had hoped that the backer board could remain down with the laminate laid on top of it. Several flooring people at the big box stores said that was probably the best way to do it even. But of course, that wasn't what I wanted because then the entry and our breakfast nook (the two places with the tile being removed) would sit about an inch above the rest of the flooring. YUCK!

Here's another picture of the layer of dust that is coating much of our house currently.

We have one "clean room" downstairs. Even with the plastic on one side and curtains on the inside, some of the dust still made it through.

Andy learned that the recommendation to use a sledge hammer to demolish concrete backer board should be followed. If you use a wood splitter rather than a sledge hammer, you might have a little too much force. You might go through the concrete backer board (including the metal mesh in the middle of it) on down to the plywood subfloor. Since it is not advisable to have big holes in your subfloor, you would have to cut out and replace the subfloor in those areas.

OOPS!

OOPS again (sigh - actually you might hear sounds more like a grizzly bear)

2012 New Year letter

2011-12-31T21:04:00.002-06:00

My goodness, another year has passed. I can’t really even remember what was happening at the beginning of 2011. We had just started to settle in to our house in Fort Worth. Andy’s boss had told him to settle in to his position because there wouldn’t be any shuffling around or transfers to other departments in 2011. We planted a vegetable garden in the back-yard; the squashes, cucumbers, and tomatoes were growing like gang-busters, and then… Major changes started in May when Andy was unexpectedly offered a new job at one of his company’s plants in California. So, in one month, we packed and closed up things in Texas. We drove away at the beginning of June with our Honda Civic packed to the brim with clothes, valuable, the two pets, and us. We were all so thankful to not get into the car after three days on the road.

We lived at a hotel for four LONG months. After a month’s delay in the purchase of our new house, we finally moved in with a borrowed air mattress and two newly purchased Adirondack chairs. Our household goods were delivered, and I got busy trying to dig us out of boxes. Things were quickly put away so that we can have everything off of the floor quickly and easily. We planned this so that the nasty carpet can be ripped out and new floors put down in January of 2012. Then we can put everything where we truly want it, making the house into a home. We have all kinds of renovations planned for the next few years, including a new façade, kitchen, bathrooms, patio, and an outdoor dining area. Now doesn’t that sound like a whole new house?

The new house is in a small town with one four way stop. The town considers itself a community of equine enthusiasts although we also have a local vineyard. Despite its rural location, Andy only has a 20-minute commute, and the stores we frequent are only about 10 minutes. Our property has over three acres, a small barn, and arena. The house is a two-story farmhouse with 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and a 3-car garage. Andy is thrilled that we have a wood-burning fireplace that we are using regularly since the temperatures are below freezing at night.

After about a month in our new house, our cat, Cappuccino, went out one evening to go potty one last time and never came home. We assume that he became coyote or mountain lion food. We still miss him quite a bit.

We’ve had a few other notable occurrences this year. Our laptop’s hard drive crashed while we were living in the hotel. We thought this wasn’t an enormous issue since we have a back-up hard drive that Andy is quite religious about using. Unfortunately, we discovered that it backed-up our applications but not any of our documents, pictures, or music. So, basically, we lost everything that we were trying to save. The folks at our local Apple Store managed to replace the burned-out hard-drive and restore the operating system. Apparently this was happening to everyone with our type of laptop (something to do with hard-drive vendor quality control). Recovering the data from the old drive will most likely require a clean-room (you know, the kind with the full-body suits and gas masks, where no dust exists) and a lot of time & money. The fried hard drive is the main reason that we can’t really remember what was going on at the beginning of the year.

Andy’s sister, Cici, had her second baby at the end of August. He’s very mellow and smiles a lot. The birth of Hudson Fritts brings the count to half a dozen nieces and nephews for us.

We both read/listened to the entire Harry Potter series this year. We also saw the final film in the series this summer. I enjoyed being able to go through the books one right after the other instead of reading each when it was published.

Andy is really enjoying the challenges that his new job is providing. He now does quite a bit of creative thinking and problem solving while working on lots of “cool stuff”. He’s fitting in quite well, and they saw fit to give him a promotion, despite having only been in CA for a five months. Sometimes his brain is quite tired by the time that he gets home, only to have to begin his schoolwork at night. Three courses and a written thesis are the remaining obstacles for his Master’s degree.

We hope that you have all had a lovely holiday season and are looking forward to many adventures in 2012.

Fireside Chat

2011-11-12T15:09:00.003-06:00

You're welcome history lovers ;)

We took this picture before our goods were delivered from storage. We had our stuff from the hotel, borrowed air mattress & linens, and two newly purchased plastic patio chairs.

We have quite a bit of cut wood on the property so we decided to have a nice relaxing fire one evening as we had very little else we could do (no tv or internet).

Snow!

2011-11-12T14:53:00.002-06:00

You can just make out the snow on the mountains in the far distance. We haven't had any snow at our house, but we did have some sleet a few days ago. It probably won't be long before our evening temperatures are below freezing, but the temperatures rise 20-30 points during the day. It will take a while before any sort of snow could stick around the house for long.

Our house

2011-11-12T14:48:00.003-06:00

Andy's birthday picture

2011-11-12T14:44:00.001-06:00

Renovation Projects

2011-09-03T15:56:00.002-05:00

At this point I figure I need to occupy myself and make a plan for what we will be doing to our house once we close. Previously, I've looked for images of rooms and furniture for inspiration. Now, I'm looking for diy projects to educate myself about what we can do ourselves...expertise and time required to complete each... I have found a blog that is AWESOME (is an exclamation point really needed after all caps...probably not but I am really tempted to put one).

Remodelaholic features projects, crafts, and recipes of big and small sizes. The author and contributing writers are so good about provided detailed information and pictures for all of the steps of a project. The blog also has buttons that link to other's projects. What a plethora of ideas! As I know very little about diy beyond what we've done (crown molding, installing laminate floors, baseboards), I appreciate all of the steps and tips. Before Andy & I got married, I'd never even painted a wall. I've learned a lot with our first house but am going to have to learn a whole lot more with this house. Here are some of my favorite projects:

Make your own curtain rods out of conduit pipe

5 year kitchen remodel - that's a really long time, but they did amazing work

Doilies as wall art

Make a garden out of a pallet - I'm thinking herb garden

Make children's bookshelves out of a pallet

Hanging pots and pans inside of a cabinet - can't wait to do since our kitchen doesn't have the big drawers that are so popular today

Remodelaholic also has had multiple posts on re-doing stairs and adding molding/millwork ( board and batten, crown molding, baseboards, archways, pillars/columns, built in bookcases) that I found very informative.

The author also gave a tip that I think will really help us figure out what we want to do in each room. She recommends taking a picture of all of the walls and printing those out on paper. Then use colored pencils to draw in what you are considering adding or moving. This is beautifully demonstrated here.

If any of you have any diy blogs that you really like, please pass them on to me.

EARTHQUAKE

2011-09-03T15:50:00.004-05:00

I feel like I have been initiated into California life now because I experience my first earthquake last week. Andy didn't feel anything at work though. It wasn't very strong; I just noticed the bed shaking a little bit. I thought that the dog was leaned up against the bed as he scratched.

Trying to buy a house

2011-09-03T15:36:00.002-05:00

So after waiting a month for all of the utilities to be hooked up, we've had all our inspections and appraisal done. There are a few repairs that we have to make (because the bank selling the foreclosed property won't do ANYTHING) before our loan can be funded. So that is happening in the next week. We'll do the other repairs once we close on the house. Our bank has told us that the closing date is September 26, but we are working with them to try to make it happen a little sooner. I think that we wrote our offer on the house on July 15...how crazy!

We would love to be able to move in a beautifully refinished house but have decided that will not be the case. Paying for just under two months of our time and the hotel and the unknown cost of the repairs to our house after the cost of purchasing the home means that our bank account won't be thrilled. So, we've decided to be patient for most of the renovations we would like to do to the house. We'll replace the carpet in the bedrooms before we have our good delivered, but the other flooring will have to wait a little while.

We will be very excited to be able to move in to our house whenever that comes to pass! The house will stay a diamond in the rough for a while but will eventually start to shine.

Gifts for new moms

2011-08-22T13:38:00.003-05:00

I've always enjoyed posts on this blog, but this post, Ways to Bless a New Mom, spoke to me since we will soon have a new nephew. We haven't lived close by many family or friends when they have had a baby so we haven't been able to these things for the mothers in our lives. But I have talked to several women who have had a baby. I've heard of wonderful ways they have been helped by other women...food deliveries, childcare, grocery shopping, pick-ups and drop-offs, laundry...

One of the best ideas I've heard was experience by my sister. The family moved to a new city and joined a new church shortly before the baby's birth. When they returned home from the hospital, the ladies of the church had a schedule so that someone dropped off food every other day for several weeks. There was always enough food with each delivery for dinner and leftovers for lunch or another dinner. I thought this was an amazing ministry for the ladies of the church to provide. My sister was able to get to know ladies in the church as well as have meals and fewer groceries to buy.

The author of the blog post, says her wonderful friends would also clean a bathroom before leaving her house. I never thought about how hard it might be get that done...finding the time or energy...and who cares about the dirty bathroom when the baby is crying... I also imagine that it is hard physically to reach all of the different places in a bathroom when recovering from labor. I'm definitely adding this one to my list of things to do for new moms. Sorry Cici that we can't do any of these things for you when Hudson comes home.

our house

2011-08-20T02:34:00.004-05:00

The house that we are trying to purchase is on 3 acres in the mountains. It is a farmhouse style house that needs cosmetic updates everywhere. There are some architectural changes that we think we would like to make at some point in the future mostly so that we could have a balcony off the second story (all four bedrooms are located upstairs). This is a picture from one of the bedroom windows, but all of the bedroom windows have a similar view.The views from downstairs are not quite this good, but you can see the arena and horse stalls. Just behind the house (still on the property) is a large hill that has an even more spectacular view. Ideally, we'd like to put some sort of patio up there so that we could enjoy the view.

Buying a house

2011-08-20T01:23:00.004-05:00

We put in an offer on a house a little over a month ago. Since then, we have waited for all of the utilities to be hooked up and turned on. Normally that process doesn't take very long, but the bank that owns this foreclosed property is dragging their feet. In an effort to speed things along, Andy has had the water turned on in our name. Although we haven't actually turned the valve to allow the water to flow into the house because when Andy, our agent, and the water technician showed up to the house, they couldn't get into the house. The bank had the locks changed, but the locksmith didn't leave a new key in the real estate lock box. Our agent let the listing agent know that this issue needed to be fixed ASAP. So, the technician left us the tool to switch the water on to the house whenever we want. Unfortunately, we can't do much about the propane. Andy spoke with the propane company a while back. The company was waiting for the bank to return a work order for the property. Finally, the listing agent met the propane worker at the house and couldn't get into the house. Apparently, the lock issue had not been resolved yet. So, another appointment was made with the gas company. Unfortunately, at the appointment, no one showed from the gas company. Who knows when they will get together. It is so frustrating that we can't do a home inspection or assessment until then. Once we are able to get the inspections and assessment done, we can proceed with the purchase; hopefully, that can move more quickly. Since our relocation benefits have ended, we are now on the hook for staying at the hotel and storage of our goods. There goes Andy's paycheck each week :(

I continue to look for new properties in case something goes wrong with the inspections. Unfortunately, I haven't seen much that has been interesting in our price range.

Andy's 30th Brithday

2011-08-20T00:53:00.002-05:00

He took off an extra day for his birthday weekend; he had Thursday - Sunday to do whatever he wanted. We went out for lunch on Thursday to one of our favorite restaurants in the area. As we were finishing off our appetizer, he looked up and saw his mother, father, and maternal grandfather walk up to our table. Mary Beth and I had been planning this surprise since before we left Texas. Andy had NO clue that they were coming. After lunch, we showed them the house we are trying to purchase. We met up with more family for dinner. We had a lovely time with them Thursday and Friday. They were able to spend time with other family and friends Saturday and Sunday morning before their flight home.

For his birthday he got some Bose earbuds (LOVES them), running shoes, and some clothes. He claims that 30 feels no different than 29. Hopefully, it not be a big deal for me when I turn 30.

Carmageddon

2011-07-15T01:20:00.002-05:00

This weekend is Carmageddon. I don't know if it has been talked about elsewhere in the country, but we hear about it every day. Sometime on Friday the 405 will be completely shut down. Everyone is talking about how bad it will be in LA. We are so thankful that we don't live in LA.

Poor Puppy

2011-07-15T00:44:00.002-05:00

Andy and Bandit go for a run most evenings. There is a large field behind our hotel that is perfect for them to use. Andy even lets Bandit off of the leash to chase rabbits. Bandit loves the freedom and the chase! They came home one evening last week and we discovered that Bandit was licking and chewing on his paw. We couldn't really see what happened though because the issue was between one of his toes. We watched it for a couple of days hoping that it would heal up on its own. It didn't. So, we went to a vet yesterday to get it checked out. It turns out that he got a good size cut. They packed the area with some stuff and wrapped it. The dog is not happy with a cone around his head and a back leg encased in bandaging. Since we are in a hotel, he has more small spaces to maneuver. Poor puppy whacks into and scrapes by things. Now his bandage has come about half off. It looks like he has a clown shoe on that foot. So, back to the vet we go tomorrow to get it re-bandaged.

Return of the Civic

2011-07-15T00:38:00.003-05:00

We got our car back after several weeks without it. It cost almost $6000 to fix all of the hail damage. We are so thankful that we have an insurance company that is easy to work with. The company that did the repairs even fixed a couple of dings and scratches we've lived with for a couple of years for free. The car practically looks new. Even better than that is having a vehicle at my disposal. Best of all, we now have a vehicle with working AC.

We found a house

2011-06-13T14:27:00.002-05:00

It seems like there have been so many times when I've been house hunting online that I see something I think we will love only to find out that it is not available still. Some of my least favorite things to hear are "pending" and "back-up offer". Sometimes the listing will still be "active", but it isn't. Not everyone updates their listings quickly. It's been disappointing to ask about 12 places to find out that only 4 of them are actually still available.

We saw several places on Saturday. It was a good day because there were several that had high quality interiors, lovely views, and space. One was fabulous though because it would only be 10 minutes to Andy's work (opposed to 30 minutes for the others), it is directly across from the largest, nicest park in town, it has one of the best elementary schools in the area, it is finished, and the price was good (our higher end but well worth it). Unfortunately, two offers below the list price had already been put in. Our agent let the seller's agent know that we would offer the list price. I just found out that one of the other offers then jumped at the opportunity to buy the house at the list price. We are disappointed, but know that we still have plenty of time to find something else. I think that it will be hard to find something we like as much so close to Andy's work again.

Back to the drawing board...

First Week

2011-06-13T14:00:00.002-05:00

Andy's first week at his new job went well. It was nice that he had an off Friday during this first week.

I tried to handle all of the details with moving, renting our house, and work on our car's hail damage claim.

We've got the ball rolling with our Texas house. Repairs, cleaning, and updating to code are being done. Hopefully, once all of that is finished, it will be rented quickly.

We were thrilled that our truck was delivered this week. That allowed us to drop our car off to be assessed. I don't know how long it will take but look forward to hearing what they think.

We were shocked to learn that it costs $4-5 to wash and dry one load of laundry. Four loads later, I'm really hoping that our temporary living stuff will be delivered this week. Beyond just more clothes, we will also have coats and cooler weather items. Andy was able to comfortably wear shorts and a t-shirt one day this week. Apparently, we are supposed to see 90 sometime this week. I never imagined that this would be the case when it is 100 degrees in Texas.

THE MOVE (parts 4 & 5)

2011-06-05T22:41:00.003-05:00

Saturday, we drove to Phoenix from Las Cruces. This drive felt like it took much longer than the previous two days.

Sunday, Andy got to take the dog for a good hike with the dog before we left for day 4 on the road. We drove the rest of the way to California today. Now, we are getting settled in at the Residence Inn by Marriott here in town. We have a 2 bedroom suite and are thankful for the extra room.

Andy will have a short drive to work tomorrow morning. He has to be there at 6:30 am. We will have to see if he needs to continue to start so early. I'll try to talk with all of our relocation people to coordinate drop off of our stuff and be armed with information for the next while.

THE MOVE (part 3)

2011-06-03T23:02:00.002-05:00

Andy worked magic this morning getting the stuff back into the car. However, there were are few hiccups along the way. He was supposed to stop in Pecos for us to have lunch. I was buried in a book, looked up to ask about how close we were to lunch, and he told me that we passed through Peocs 30 minutes ago. Oops! Thankfully, we still had Van Horn before the long way to El Paso. I was very happy for us to have some lunch and thought things were proceeding smoothly until he slowed down and pulled off to the side of the road. At first, I thought something was wrong with the car, but we were being pulled over by a police man. He was very nice and only gave us a warning for going 88 in an 80 mph stretch. After a some construction and traffic in El Paso, we made it to Las Cruces. We were able to meet up with my great-aunt on my father's side and some of her family. It was a lovely dinner and visit! We feel quite a bit more tired this evening than yesterday so we off to bed early (we've crossed into Mountain Standard Time).

THE MOVE (part 2)

2011-06-02T20:27:00.002-05:00

Today, I worked magic! I packed the car with an amazing amount of stuff with room for both pets and both of us. Pictures will come later.

We drove for about 5 hours from Fort Worth to Odessa. The drive was actually pretty easy. We gave the cat medicine so that he was sedated and didn't meow the entire drive. We are comfortable in our room at the TownePlace Suites by Marriott. There is plenty of room for us and our stuff.

Tomorrow, we are headed to Las Cruces.

THE MOVE (part 1)

2011-06-02T20:11:00.002-05:00

So, we are once again moving; this time to California. We had packers come on Tuesday, and movers came Wednesday to load the truck.

Tuesday took much longer than they anticipated. The packers arrived at 10:30 am and left at 11:30 pm when the job was estimated to be 4-6 hours. We would have been finished earlier, but one of the packers didn't label the boxes with the contents that he packed. This wasn't discovered until they were doing the final paperwork. So, the boxes had to be opened and inspected so that they could be properly labeled.

We also had the car's windshield replaced on Tuesday. For those who didn't know, our car got hit pretty hard while at the DFW airport when the storms came through last Tuesday evening. We will deal with the body's damage once we get to California.

Wednesday also took longer than expected, but thankfully not as long as Tuesday. The movers disassembled the furniture and loaded everything on the truck. We were a little concerned though because we didn't know when they would arrive. They finally got to the house at about 1 pm and left at 8 pm. Andy and I tag teamed throughout the day. We both ran errands prior to the movers arrival. I got to visit Mother. Andy got to go to work one last time. The truck was picked up to be shipped to California. After the movers left, we met up with Andy's parents and grandparents for dinner. Then, we crashed!

Fabulous Food and Freezing Finds

2010-08-09T22:20:00.005-05:00

FIND #1

We got a flier for Albertson's the other week that included some coupons. One of them was for pork loin for $0.99 per pound. Since the pieces were all quite large, I got $40 worth of meet for under $10.

FIND #2

Since there is no way that we could eat a 10 pound piece of pork even with several guests, we cut a little over half of it into several roasts to freeze. I used the remaining 4 lbs to make an apple roast pork recipe I had run across on the internet. The cooking method was nothing special; I cooked it in the oven and then shredded it. The gem of the recipe was how to freeze the leftovers!! The instructions are for freezing single portion sizes. Since I always struggle with there being way to much food for the two of us, this was the major attraction of the recipe. I sprayed a muffin tin with non-stick spray, filled the cups with the shredded meat and juice, and popped the tin in the freezer. Once frozen, the individual servings can go in a plastic bag, and Andy can pull them out whenever he likes.

FIND/THOUGHT #3

I think the muffin pan method will work well for chicken broth, among other things. As I was cleaning up in the kitchen, I realized that my mini-loaf pan would also work and be PERFECT for casseroles. Andy gets so tired of having to eat the same thing over and over because there is so much left over, even in a small pyrex pan. I can't want to put these to use again!!

To say the least, I was proud of each of my finds. By the time I'd finished, I was ecstatic!!

Soups

2010-08-09T22:08:00.002-05:00

Andy's cousin Emily came over for a few days to help me make him some soups. I like to make a whole bunch at once so that I am able to use up all of the ingredients like carrots, celery, green onions, and herbs. I had how I only need one of two of them for a recipe and the rest go to waste. Even when I plan really carefully for the weeks meals, we aren't able to finish off the rest of the stuff. So, I make a whole bunch of soups to use up most of the leftover vegetables. I hope that sometime in the next year I will be able to find a used upright freezer for under $200 so that I don't have to play tetris when I get something from or put something in the freezer. After a week's worth of cooking and many games of tetris, he has a freezer full of soups that should last him several months. This variety should keep him happy.

Carrot Soup

Blueberry Lemonade Soup

Zucchini-Potato Soup

Creamy Cucumber Soup

Tomato & Bread Soup

Delicious Sausage Soup

Minestrone

Hearty Bean & Vegetable Soup

Chilled Avocado & Mint Soup

Remodeling our great room

2010-08-01T00:44:00.011-05:00

Before moving back to our house, we had about two months to fix or change anything and move slowly. We made the decision that we wanted to change the flooring in our great room from carpet to laminate wood flooring. While we were at it, we switched out the baseboards for a larger and nicer design.

Since we wanted to spend less money on the project, we decided to do the work ourselves. We thought that we had tools we could borrow from others if we didn't already have them. Unfortunately, we found that many times what we had or borrowed didn't work as anticipated. So, Andy got a bunch of new tools including a table saw, reciprocating saw, (larger) nail gun, air compressor, and shop vac. Here are some pictures of his new toys that we are oh so glad that we purchased after getting over the sticker shock.

Those two were part of a package deal. He was really excited that the air compressor has a removable chest and is on wheels!

Do you see that big grin??

This buddy is my friend. I don't remember having used one but quickly found out that it was worth its weight in gold (well, maybe not at $1000+/ounce). I can't imagine our mini construction project with out it.

So, over many weekends, interrupted by other small projects, we put the floor in. I laid out the flooring pattern, Andy made the cuts, and we worked together to put in the pieces. Andy finished the quarter round and transition pieces once we moved in to the house.

Before:

During:

We removed the carpet, and Andy worked hard to rip up the carpet tacks and baseboards.

We readied the concrete foundation and laid down this black plastic with the help of friends.

Then, the foam underlayment went down and I started laying out the laminate pieces.

Finally, we are making progress!!!

However, each time we would make good progress, we would find that there was something wrong with a current or previous row. So, we'd have to remove that part to figure out what was wrong. It was two steps forward, one step back. But then finally we were finished with the flooring and moved in to the house.

Finished project:

Great room and kitchen

Living room

Dining room

And now that we've finished that project and have all of these wonderful tools, clearly, we need another project...can't you hear Andy groaning... At least the other projects on our list are smaller and are not immediately necessary.

I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth

2010-07-31T23:02:00.004-05:00

Since February, there have been quite a few highlights. I'll dedicate individual posts to the full details and pictures, but this list will give you the gist of things.

We've packed up, moved back to our house, unpacked, and decorated.

Before moving in to the house, we changed our flooring in the great room.

We've worked on the landscaping some; unfortunately, our wildflowers didn't come up. We're planning on planting a garden in the backyard.

I've been sewing and have more to do.

Andy is now able to telecommute at least one day a week.

We've had lots of family gatherings. Meg, my sister, has even flown in a few times; we've seen each other more in the last year than probably the previous five!

I've stocked Andy up on soups for a while. There is NO room in the freezer!

I am researching homemade and natural alternatives to some household items. Hopefully, I can save us some money and help us be healthier.

And maybe the biggest winner is that our cat now goes potty outside (unless he is sick). No more kitty litter mess in the guest bathroom! No more stinky odors! Less work for Andy!

SHOES

2010-02-01T16:29:00.003-06:00

My cousin, Beth, came down to Texas for the weekend. I met up with them in Lewisville to visit my mother. It was great to spend time with all of them. I was really excited that I wore real shoes for the first time since New Year's Eve when my toenail got flipped up. For several weeks, I've been able to wear tennis shoes, but Sunday I walked out in my black boots that have a two inch heels. While my feet were quite tired after walking through the mall, my injured toe didn't bother me at all. Yippee!!! Maybe after a few more weeks, I'll be able to go without a bandaid on my toe. That would be just in time for open toe shoe season. Here's hoping!!

Caramelized Cajun Chicken

2010-01-23T13:20:00.009-06:00

I found this recipe in Southern Living, but made some changes. We made it the other night and really enjoyed it. It is really spicy, but you could cut the cajun seasoning in half to make it more mild. As the recipe reads, I had to suck down a glass and a half of milk to cool off my mouth. Andy on the other hand just kept eating; he loves spicy food! I'm sure that a side of rice would help with the heat. It was really easy to make and didn't require much time or clean-up.

Caramelized Cajun Chicken

4 skinned and boned chicken breasts
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning (cut in half for mild heat)

1. Heat a pan over medium high heat. We used a non-stick grill pan. If your pan is not non-stick, you might need some olive oil.

2. Mix the brown sugar and Cajun seasoning in a small bowl.

3. Place the one chicken breast in a gallon sized ziploc bag. Use a heavy pan to beat the chicken to 1/4" thickness; it will thicken back up some when it cooks.

4. Rub both sides of the chicken breast with the brown sugar and Cajun seasoning. Put the chicken in the hot pan.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each chicken breast.

2010 New Year's Letter

2010-01-12T15:52:00.007-06:00

Happy New Year! It is hard to believe that it is now 2010; Andy has his 10-year high school class reunion this May!

This past year has been one full of celebrations. Andy’s paternal grandparents, Jim & Norma Walker, both turned 75. Mary’s maternal grandmother, Charline Rodgers, had a large party for her 80^th birthday. Andy’s parents had a party for their 30^th anniversary in which they renewed their vows during a ceremony at their ranch in May.

Mary has been feeling better this year. The doctors changed her medicines at the beginning of the spring. With the improvement from the altered doses, Mary has been able to slowly build up her stamina and strength. In addition to keeping the house running and Andy well fed, she has been able to do a little bit of tutoring this fall and winter.

The effort required for graduate school has ramped up Andy. He has to sequester himself away for a few hours each day to work on homework or research – even when traveling for work. As it turns out, hotel rooms make very quiet study halls. Andy will continue his research this spring and hopes to defend his thesis by the end of 2010. Since he has a few remaining courses, graduation will be around the end of 2011.

We had several short trips this year. When Andy went to South Dakota for some training, Mary visited a friend in Austin. At the end of the summer, we went down to Corpus Christi for a friend’s college graduation. Mary was able to show Andy around her college campus and visit with several of her friends who still live there. On our way home, we stopped off in San Antonio and Austin to say hi to family and friends. Thanksgiving was our major trip for the year. We drove a U-haul trailer to North Carolina where Mary’s sister, Meg lives. In addition to celebrating the holiday, we played with our niece and nephews, Teresa, William, and Peter, put up Christmas decorations, and sorted through Mary’s mother’s stuff.

For our fourth anniversary we went to a New Year’s Eve dance. The night was going great until Andy’s shoe flipped up one of Mary’s toenails. We headed home early but missed the ball drop since we were trying to get a nice picture while all dressed up.

We hope to simplify our lives this year by finishing some major projects, like Andy’s research and thesis and sorting through Mary’s mother’s things. We plan to enrich our minds through education, both at school and on our own and enrich our lives by making more time to spend with each other and with those we love.

Many blessings in 2010,

Andy & Mary

December - The Holidays

2010-01-12T14:37:00.004-06:00

We were snowed and iced in for Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we sat on our love seat watching Christmas movies on the TV and the snow come down outside our windows. It was amazing to see how large the flakes were and how much snow kept coming down. We really enjoyed having a slow, relaxing time together that evening.

Much of the holiday was spent at Andy's parents' ranch. We worked on lots of projects, spent time with family, and help take down Christmas decorations. We also made a trip up to Lewisville to see my mother. We made it a short visit as she had just gotten into bed.

Andy was thrilled with his presents. We were both very excited about going dancing on New Year's Eve to celebrate our fourth anniversary. We both looked fabulous as we headed off to eat a little bit of dinner before the dance. Everything went well until Andy went forward with his right foot and I went back with my right foot. The result was one of my toenails being lifted up. We didn't investigate how bad the injury was for fear of making it worse. So, we headed home early; my toe has been bandaged since.

We took this picture soon after my toe was injured and right before we walked out the door of the dance to go home. Fortunately, the adrenaline was running high enough that I wasn't feeling too much pain....that would come later.

December - lead up to Christmas

2010-01-12T14:10:00.002-06:00

We were back home from North Carolina, and there was more of Mother's stuff to deal with. We had to bring some stuff back with us from Meg's and of course there was everything that we hadn't taken. As I type this most of it is still left to deal with...one project at a time...

Of course, I had missed a few things that Meg wanted us to take to North Carolina with us. So, I mailed that off. Then, it was on to Christmas planning. I had a great surprise for Andy for Christmas. He wanted to hear wonderful music, and I knew that he would love to go dancing.

My plan was to find a fabulous dress so that I had a great outfit for New Year's Eve. His present was finding out that we were going dancing on New Year's Eve and the next day; then, we would go to a reenactment of a medieval Christmas celebration. I finally found the great dress and accessories after many shopping trips.

I also tutored during this time. It was great to have the additional income and someone to help. I also found some new soups for Andy; so it was great to restock the reserves in the freezer!

November - Thanksgiving

2010-01-11T19:41:00.005-06:00

We had plans to visit my sister, Meg, in North Carolina. So, we tried to gather all of my mother's stuff so that we could take everything to her in one trip. Andy & I took a trip to my grandmother's shop in Denton to get mother's remaining stuff; we took Andy's dad's truck and full horse trailer. We didn't think that we would need that much space, but it was available. With the help of my grandmother and one of my uncles, we got all of her stuff out of the shop. By the time we drove away, the trailer was packed, front to back, side to side, the bed of the truck was full, and we had stuff in the back seats of the cab. It was soo much more than I expected.

Once home and unloaded, the sorting process began. As I discovered more and more things, I realized that there was no way we would be able to take everything to Meg. So, I took pictures of a bunch of dishes, furniture (and other large items) and her holiday collections. I then uploaded all of the pictures to Shutterfly. Meg and her husband, Greg, were able to look at things through the Shutterfly album. We were able to cut down stuff by at least half; it made a huge difference.

The Thursday before Thanksgiving Andy packed everything in the U-haul trailer. We woke up Friday ready to begin our trip. As we checked everything and loaded the vehicle, Andy discovered that the evening rain had leaked through a small hole in the roof of the trailer. So, he had to repack things in the trailer and wrap them in plastic to protect them should we have to drive through more rain.

Finally, we were driving away from the house, and driving....and driving...and driving. The trip took 2 full days of driving with a stop over in Birmingham, Alabama.

We enjoyed spending time with Meg, William, Teresa, and Peter. We stayed incredibly busy all week long with kids, food, parties, sorting, talking, and decorating. We had a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner (thank heavens Meg knew how to cook a turkey; I knew nothing!). We set a beautiful table with crystal (from Mother's stuff that Meg inherited) and china (our great-grandmother's china that Meg has inherited). Here are a few pictures of our time there.

I grabbed Teresa and William for a quick hug and picture while they helped Andy get the lights ready to put on the outside of the house.

Andy and his diligent helpers preparing the strands of lights for the house

Andy, my monkey, is putting up the lights for the third-ish time. The first time there was a bit of a gap after the second or third strand; he started on fixing that before we asked him to correct it. Yes, my sister and I are both struggle with control and perfection issues...we think it's in a good way most of the time... It was great for us to be able to share some of those moments together while visiting. Thankfully, Andy was already aware of some of my tendencies and took Meg's as par for the course! The second time with the lights going up, Meg and I noticed that he hadn't started them right at the corner of the house (the one in the picture). So, he started over again.

We remembered to grab a picture of all of us right before we left. Andy is holding Peter (1.5 years). Meg is holding William (5.5 years). I am holding Teresa (3.5 years old).

November - my birthday

2010-01-11T17:35:00.003-06:00

I had a nice birthday. Andy got me several great organizing gifts. So, now we have more space in our coat closet and a kitchen cabinet. I also got some really cool bags from Container Store to use when I go to the store. They have a little pocket built into the bag that the bag can actually stuff into; it ends up being the size of a fist. They are so neat and convenient. I would recommend going by the store if you are ever in the market for any such bags; I haven't seen anything similar at other stores. I LOVE to organize, and Container Store is a fabulous place to go drool and dream.

Where Have You Been?

2010-01-11T17:29:00.002-06:00

I'm sure that you've all asked this question multiple times since I'm only a few months behind. I wish that I could say that one of my New Year resolutions is to blog regularly, but I knew that I would break that rather quickly. All I can say is that I'll try to give some updates....maybe even one a month.

We've been crazy busy!

I'll try to give you some idea of our whereabouts in the subsequent posts.

Letters and Movies

2009-11-02T13:06:00.004-06:00

Andy is off to work and finally leaving the laptop with me again.

I have a list of things to do that I thought I would try to tackle. As there was nothing on TV and I wasn't in the mood for a particular movie or soundtrack, I thought I would put something on Netflix as I worked to clean the kitchen. I looked at our watch instantly queue and decided on 84 Charing Cross Road. I added that to the queue a week ago without really knowing anything about it. I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher as the movie buffered and started. I was so quickly drawn into the story and characters that I'm afraid I didn't make it past the dishes; as a matter of fact, there are a few that are left to be washed by hand. The water running and brush scrubbing would have been too loud to hear the movie over. I love when you unexpectedly find a gem. This one had some sweet and some acid, my favorite combination! While this wasn't a film for the ages or a big Oscar contender, it was a beautiful reminder of friendship, generosity, and correspondence (primarily, letter writing).

I think there is something so romantic about letter writing. In these times of texts, emails, and instant messages, no one, me included, writes letters apart from the obligatory thank you note or Christmas letter. I think there is something really special about beautiful scripts, crossed out sections from misspelled words, and more words and care than fit in abbreviated, unpunctuated mass of letters and numbers that form our modern day correspondence. I wish I could say that my feelings would inspire me to send you all hand written letters, but the chance of that happening is slim as I bow to the power of convenience.

May you all encounter a gem in some aspect of your day.

Yea rain...nevermind, rain, rain, go away; come again some other day

2009-08-27T18:42:00.004-05:00

What an interesting day we've had!! Once again my sleep patterns are off - I wake up before Andy gets home, stay awake all night, wake Andy up, see him off to work, and then go to sleep. It's been great though to help Andy in the morning; he's a little grumpy and a slow mover in the morning. We also have a pretty clean house, and Andy has had lots of really good food to eat!

Here the story begins.

This morning I made fresh bread so that we could have warm bread to put strawberry jelly on for breakfast. We have several kinds of cheese in our refrigerator that are growing mold - apparently, it is the good kind. To me, mold means that I need cut that off and hurry to use what is left; Andy later said to leave some of the mold and let the cheese age...I raised an eyebrow to that... So, I wanted to try to use the havarti cheese that we have in the refrigerator. I decided that he could have a sandwich for dinner with havarti and gouda (yep, we have that one open as well...no mold though). In my search for something to do with all of the cheeses (yep, there are more). I ran across something that said that Edam cheese pairs well with melons. I perked up and thought we have honeydew melon. So, as the bread rose, I got the melon baller (thanks Correy; Cici and Mary Beth I knew you'd appreciate this) out and went after the slice of honeydew melon. Then, I sliced off some Edam cheese. I put these back in the refrigerator and baked the bread. I pulled the bread out of the oven intending to let it rest and cool for thirty minutes before waking Andy at 5:30.

I start the dishwasher and listen to an audio book while I rest on the couch for a little while. I hear some thunder which upsets the dog and notice a few minutes later that it has started to rain lightly. I suddenly hear some sort of tapping sound that is not from raindrops. When I look around for the source, I see that the cat is walking around the dining room table; he's probably batting at a milk cap. Several minutes later, I still hear the sound; wow, the cat is really going to town with that cap (they are toys for him). Then, I spot the cat, and he isn't playing with anything.

I looked around and quickly spotted water dripping from the ceiling....this is definitely not good! I grabbed a bowl and put it under the leak to collect the water. It was about 5:25 so I went to wake Andy up. I charge in to the bedroom, and tell him that he needs to get up because we have a leak in the ceiling. He jumps out of bed thinking that there is water all over the place and that the ceiling is collapsing in.

He investigated by among other things looking in the attic and turning the water off. While he was in the attic, I was able to hear two different sets of dripping only one of which was the water dripping from our ceiling. Our guess is then that water is coming through the roof. Nothing really seemed to help or explain the situation or that theory. I called and left a message for our landlords. Unfortunately, they only start answering their phones at 9 am. Knowing there was nothing more we could do (especially since the ceiling wasn't dripping anymore), we set about eating our breakfasts at 6:30. To my annoyance, the extra hour of cooling the bread meant it was a little warm but not much. I then headed off to bed while Andy worked on school stuff and waited to hear back from the landlord.

Some men come to check out the situation around lunch time. They see some little holes in the room that they try to patch. They told us that we would have to wait for it to rain again to see if that fixed the problem.

And here the story should end....

During the time that I've been writing this, it started to rain again. While no water has dropped from the ceiling. I could still hear tapping...it sounded rather like a metronome. I guess I was hearing water dripping in the attic from the roof to the ceiling. Oh boy! At least the water hasn't been dripping from the ceiling to the floor! But I'm guessing that the patch either didn't have enough time to set or just didn't work. It should be a fun night since there is a cool front moving through with lots of rain north of us headed southeast.

Sorry for all of the verb tense changes; the post is too long for me to fix them all....

Our Trip to Corpus and the TAMU-CC Summer 2009 Graduation

2009-08-18T17:23:00.005-05:00

For several months, we've been planning to go to Corpus Christi to see one of Andy's high school friends, George Mayfield, graduate. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to head back down to my alma matter. I haven't been down in a handful of years. I drove us down through the middle of the night while Andy slept. This allowed us to pick up a frame for my diploma, me to give Andy a mini tour of campus, and us to see some of my friends who now work for the school. I had hoped that we might make it down early enough that we would watch the sun rise on the beach, but we were on 37 just outside of San Antonio for that. So, we headed straight to campus. It was amazing how stagnant the air was when we got out of the car; it was supper hot! For our mini tour, I tried to keep us going from one air conditioned building to another. We didn't see all of the new buildings, but it was amazing how many there were and how they changed the landscape and feel of the campus. In one building, the CI, I even got to help a woman find the building she needed to be in; it did my heart good to jump into Island Ambassador mode all of these years later.

We stopped off at the Round Building and saw several of my IA buddies. We talked for quite a while, but made plans to try to see each other sometime after graduation the next day. I found out while there that one of my friends, Bryan Davis, was receiving his Master's Degree.

Then we headed over the bridge to Bob Hall Pier in Port A. I needed to sleep! We had to figure out a way to set me up so that I wouldn't be too hot. Here is the Walker Beachmobile that we came up with.

We had the car angled so that the breeze blew right through the back seat where I laid out. Unfortunately, I still couldn't get cool enough. So, we called up George and Lauren, who we stayed with. They set up their air mattress, we pulled in to their apartment complex, the guys picked up some pizza from B&J's (I love their pizza; they were one of my spots when I was working on my degree in Corpus.), and then we took a well deserved nap. That evening we headed to Snoopy's (a good seafood place in Port A) for dinner. I was really surprised how long the line was; they told us the wait would be an hour. I don't think it was that long though. The food was good, and it was great to sit out on the porch looking over the water as the sun went down. We hung out with the George, Lauren, and their daughters Samantha (3) and Evelyn (2) for the rest of the evening. When I was falling asleep, Andy decided we needed to head to bed again.

Saturday morning was relaxed. We got ready and headed off to graduation. It didn't start until 1:30, but George had to be there at 12. We knew that we would need to be there early for good seating anyway so we went all together. The girls were both raring to go and were not thrilled that they were being asked to sit! So, I suggested that Andy take Samantha for a walk. After 30 minutes or so, I called him requesting that he switch girls. Evelyn then got her chance to run around. Andy was great about helping the girls use up their excess energy!! The girls were then able to survive the 2 hour long graduation ceremony.

I was thrilled to find out that I knew several people who were graduating! The woman in charge of the Equestrian Team & Club, Catherine Swift, received her Doctorate in Education. As I said earlier, my friend Bryan received his Master's in English. George got his Bachelor's in Business. In the craziness after graduation was over, I ran into someone else who knew me. We talked, but I couldn't for the life of me recognize her. I felt so bad! She even remembered my name, and I couldn't even recognize her face! It wasn't until several days later that I could figure out who she was. Lisa was one of the other flute players in the school band. She was receiving her Master's in Counseling.

We headed back to George and Lauren's apartment for the party that they threw. Several of George's fraternity brother's came to congratulate him. It was lots of fun meeting and talking with these guys.

We packed up our stuff, loaded the car, and met several of my friends for dinner. I got to see Brenda, Bryan, Leigh Ann, Sara (Huerta), and Chris. I didn't get to talk that much with some of them, but maybe we'll see them again in the future. I had a fabulous time seeing everyone!!

We drove that night to San Antonio where we stayed with Cici & Logan. Unfortunately, we got there so late that we didn't actually get to spend time with them. We'll catch up over the Labor Day weekend.

Sunday morning, we met my father for breakfast. He showed us the house that he and his fiance, Margaret, just bought. It's a 1917 house that has some beautiful architectural details. They are cleaning the place up and working to bring the house up to the place they want. As with any old home, there are plenty of things on the honey do lists. They will have a wonderful time showing off the place at any stage though. Then we went over to Stacey (my college roommate) and Einar Phillips's house. We hadn't talked with them in quite a while so it was wonderful to hear all of their news. They have an adorable little puppy who would sit and wag his tail causing him to slide all over the wood floors; it was hilarious! Then, we were off to Austin to stop by Amy & Ricardo's to meet their new baby, Ricardo IV. He's so cute! After a very short stop with them (we stayed long enough for little Richy to fall asleep in my arms), we headed home.

What a whirlwind trip it was!! It was great to see all of these old friends!

Sickly Kitty

2009-08-18T17:01:00.003-05:00

At the beginning of the August, the cat stopped eating his food. We've had that happen before when he was sick. The vet advised us that wet food is easier for them to smell and therefore more appetizing. So, we assumed that the cat had a cold or stuffy nose and wasn't interested in the dry food. Off I went to the store to buy some wet food. Cappuccino was very excited when I opened the tin and added it to his bowl. He gobbled the stuff right up. After about two days of this progress, the cat started to throw up. We had noticed the nasty kitty litter but attributed that to him being sick and the change in diet. After the throwing up though, we made an appointment with the vet.

I dropped him off at the vet's office for them to observe him. He stayed there all day. When I arrived to pick him up, the people at the office told me what a cool cat he is. They always compliment our pets a lot. I'm sure that they do this to everyone, but I let myself believe that they really mean it with our pets.

By the time that I walked out of the office with the cat, I spent $240 and had 4 liquid medicines that the cat needed to take. So, no one was thrilled at our house. The cat hates liquid meds, and each of his meds was 1-3cc's. One of the medications was going to be twice a day too. When he had to take liquid medication before, he would foam at the mouth, end up with pink froth all over his mouth and chin, and shake the froth off so that it landed on the floor, walls, doors, etc. Lucky us; this time we had white, pink, orange, and yellow medications. I thought it would have been perfect if we had a canvas; we could come out of this experience with an interesting piece of artwork.

Thankfully, Andy was able to handle the medication administration better this time around. Only occasionally would the froth appear, but once it did, it was hard to stop it from getting worse. Here's a great shot of the outcome of frothing from the yellow medication. Unfortunately, you can't see his beautiful, plaintive blue eyes.

Now, the cat is back to normal and up to his usual mischief!!

Sheesh I'm tired

2009-07-30T17:34:00.004-05:00

Once again I became fixated on something...unfortunately, Andy did too. (sounds ominous doesn't it)

Andy has begun a new workout routine and diet. The diet calls for him to eat a ton of protein every day. So, we got a whole bunch of things that would provide that protein and not have him eat the same thing every day. Translation: lots of cooking and therefore lots of cleaning.

And somehow I ended up with several soup recipes to make too. Well, we bought the ingredients for these recipes. Now I need to make the soups before the fresh ingredients go bad. I'm happy to make food for Andy, especially since I know he really enjoys them. But why oh why did I set myself up for so much work...not smart Mary! I'm a few days into the work and have a few days left.

Here's what I've made so far:

Black Bean Soup

15 Bean Soup

Many Bean Soup

Blueberry Soup

Peach Soup

Cucumber Soup

Cucumber Fresca

Cucumber Yogurt Dip

+ food for our daily consumption (aka dinner)

Here's what is still on my list to make:

Creamy Bell Pepper Soup

Watercress Potato Soup

Minestrone Soup

Mashed Potato Casserole

Peach Tomato Gazpacho

Italian Spinach Soup

Spicy Tomato Sauce for a breakfast dish

Crazy, I know! I told you it was a lot of work. Are you thinking "where is she going to put all of this food"? I realized after the first soup or two that I really have to work on our freezer so that I can fit them all in there. Yeah, that's a looming task too.... By the time I'm all finished, I imagine that one of our two freezers will be completely full of these soups. I don't think that I'll have to make much else for his snacks. I'll only have to worry about lunch and dinner; that's two out of his six meals...

I Love Lucy moment

2009-07-23T23:45:00.004-05:00

I was making pizza dough the other day using a new recipe and method. It sounded easy enough to do; the recipe gave me the option of using a food processor or mixer. I thought that I'd use my fabulous food processor since it keeps everything contained; I always seem to make a bigger mess with my mixer which is also fabulous.

So, I combine the hot/warm water, yeast, and sugar in the food processor; it sits for a few minutes. I throw all of the other ingredients into the food processor too and start mixing. It seemed to be too wet still so I added small increments of additional flour and mixed. I was surprised how much extra flour I needed to add but kept going. After a little while of this process, I notice that there is dough seeping out of the bottom of the clear part that locks into the base. I promptly turned the food processor off and unplugged it. I was proud of myself that I thought to unplug the thing! After that self congratulatory moment, I thought great, this does not look good. I grab hold of the handle to unlock the clear container from the base. It normally is a little stiff but this time the clear container isn't moving. I thought great, I'm not able to unlock the two parts. I figured that if I wasn't going to be able to use it, I might as well use some elbow grease to try to unlock this and if it breaks I already wasn't going to be able to use it. But my strength prevailed; I heard this crack sound. Again, I'm thinking this is not good; I've broken it for good now. As I try to lift the clear container away from the base, I see that the base is covered in dough. Apparently, the dough managed to go up inside of the blade and down the hole in the center of the clear container. Since I couldn't see the middle of the base, I wasn't able to view the dough until it had coated the base and spread all of the way to the outside. So, I go through the process of cleaning up this HUGE mess from the clear container and base. I even make sure to thoroughly clean around the center peg of the base that actually rotates the blade.

Since this last round was done with what I thought was the dough blade, I said forget that I'm trying it with the normal blade. Everything starts well. The dough needs a little more flour again. After adding it, I start mixing it, and it almost forms a ball (like it is supposed to). I notice that the speed has dramatically slowed down in the past five seconds. I quickly turn the food processor off and unplug it. Does anyone feel like they've heard this before? We most definitely were singing the same song, second verse. I unlock the thing and lift the clear container up with bated breath. And there wasn't dough all over the place...YEA! But why would the speed have changed so much, so quickly? I investigate and find that there is some dough that has dried at the bottom of that center peg of the base. Could the dough have gone down into the motor? I don't know, but I am starting to smell something weird. After looking around, I notice that smell is strongest at the bottom of the base. Again, I'm thinking uh oh, I've broken my fabulous food processor. I waited to find out how bad this is; Andy didn't call me back for several hours. After explaining the like five ways that I might have broken the food processor, he said that this didn't sound good... When he got home, he pronounced that he thinks it's okay. I've not tested this theory yet.

I swore off electronics for the rest of that day since I had an earlier incident with another electronic/computerized device. I was able to make the dough the next day with my fabulous mixer and dough hook. It turned out very well!

Every time that I think about the process of making dough with my food processor, I think of the I Love Lucy episode where she bakes bread but put cups of yeast into the dough. Everything is fine until the dough has been in the oven for a few minutes. Unbeknownst to Lucy, the dough has grown. It suddenly starts trying to foam out the edges of the oven; then, it starts pushing the oven door open. Lucy attempts to keep the door closed, but eventually, the dough takes over the kitchen. I know that my experience pales in comparison, but I'll remember it as my mini Lucy moment.

Doing Dishes rather than Playing with Pictures

2009-07-14T23:23:00.004-05:00

After watching Cari do all kinds of cool tricks on Photoshop, I was excited to try it out on some of the pictures that we have. If you've been reading you understand that there might not be many of those, but I was going to pull some out of the archive. I knew that we had Photoshop on our laptop; I had looked at it a handful of times without really using it. Feeling so inspired, I even read some other blog postings about more cool stuff you can do with the software. While neat, I felt overwhelmed with all of the things that I was reading. I figured that I needed to get my hands dirty with it; that's really the only way to learn any new software in my opinion. So, I pull up a picture that I want to play with, right click to chose which program to open it in, and select Photoshop Create. The only problem with this was that it wasn't Photoshop but Photosmart Create - TOTALLY not the same thing! Now, I'm bummed that I can't so some of the cool basic stuff. I was always realistic that I probably wouldn't be making these mind blowing pictures (my pictures are better than they use to be but don't have the potential for mind blowing). So, there is the part of me that says oh well, you didn't really have any pictures to work on anyway. But dang I hate the teasing; I have to drop too much from the anticipation. On the upside, I won't waste hours tonight playing with Photoshop...haha...I guess I will finish washing the dishes before going to bed.

Maddy's 1st Birthday Party

2009-07-13T22:11:00.005-05:00

Logan and Cici's daughter, Maddy, turned one last week. They drove up from San Antonio to celebrate with family and friends at the ranch.

Cici and Maddy are checking to make sure that all of the food is out for the party. The girl is being trained early to help throw parties.
Maddy was not happy that we were trying to put a hat on her. It took three or four people to get this cute picture. Cari, you took a great shot and showed us all some of the cute tricks that you've learned in photoshop. So, this is shows how cute she was before the cake.
This is the after. Cici was really smart and had two cakes for the party. One was a small round one that we put the candle on; this was Maddy's cake - the one that is now all over her hands and face. The other rectangular one was for all of the guests.

Everyone had a great time! There were tons of pictures taken because we had at least 5 cameras. We were really fortunate that several people had there USB cords; Cici and Mary Beth got all of the pictures from several of those cameras before people left the party. I didn't get them, so the last two pictures on the post are stolen from Cari's blog. Thanks Cari for always putting good pictures up!

The photobook of Jimmy & Mary Beth's party

2009-07-11T16:52:00.000-05:00

Nicole Hager took wonderful pictures at Jimmy & Mary Beth's 30th anniversary and vow renewal party. Cici and I had decided before the party that we wanted to make them a book with these pictures. After scanning and trying to restore color to all of their wedding photos, I decided to incorporate them into the book for a bit of a "now and then" theme. I started with Shutterfly but wanted more artistic choices. Then, Cari recommended Mixbook. It really let me make an art book rather than just a scrapbook. Yes, it took me several days and many, many hours to get the book where I wanted it. (FYI: like all software, it does take a while to feel comfortable with the program) I think that it turned out really well! Sorry it doesn't show the full layout all at once; I didn't figure out how to do that.

| View Sample Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

Andy started the Clothes Swap Party early

2009-07-10T10:36:00.000-05:00

When Andy got home from work, I showed him the clothes and accessories that I set aside for the swap. He was able to find two pairs of my jeans that fit him. He loves being able to take jeans of mine. He already has one pair of my old jeans that I didn't love the way they fit. He would love to have my Lucky jeans that are too small for me right now. There is no way that I am letting go of those. He does look good in them, but so did I. And he has the habit of messing clothes up...I can't take that chance with my Lucky jeans; they are the best pair of jeans that I've ever owned!! Anyway, he found some clothes from my closet; he just missed the "Swap". No worries ladies, I still have another pair in my stack... Start making your own stack!!

So You Think You Can Dance

2009-07-10T09:24:00.000-05:00

We love So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) on Fox. I was checking the website for a couple of months before it started for the summer. I was so excited to see the premier; life got better when they announced that the show will be on in the fall as well...woo hooo!!! It's been on now for a couple of weeks, and I'm excited every Wednesday night when the dancers perform. Next week, it will be the top 10 performing. They are fabulous! If you enjoy watching dancing and haven't seen the show, you should check it out. There are all kinds of styles of music and dance. You get to see some of the best choreographers work with the dancers in practice as well as the performance by the contestants. Some nights there are a lot of good dances and one or two great dances. Other nights are really special with a lot of great dances. There are some dances that stay with you because they were beyond great - they were special. Here are some of my favorites from the past and present. I'm sure that I've missed a few so feel free to post any others as a comment. Some of these are so good that when I hear the song played I remember the dance; the two are forever tied together in my mind.

Bleeding Love

Sweet Dreams aka The Table Dance or The Boadroom

The Garden

Chairman's Waltz aka The Hummingbird and Flower (you can skip the first minute)

Calling You aka The Bench

Imagine

Waiting for You

Felt Mountain aka Crash Test Dummies

Mercy aka The Door (you can skip the first minute and a half)

Travis and Benji Finale (two white boys; there are lots of jokes that you get if you watched the whole season)

Black Mambo

Argentine Tango

Ruby Blue aka Jewel Thieves

Clothes Swap Party

2009-07-09T17:19:00.004-05:00

I've decide that I want to do a Clothes Swap Party. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks and get more excited about the possibility the more I think about it. I know that I have lots of clothes that I don't wear but are in good condition. I have a hard time donating everything that doesn't fit because I feel like I wasted money. Well, if exchange clothes or accessories with other women, then it wasn't a total waste of money. So, this is a heads up to all of the ladies out there who are in the area or will be in the area, that I am planning to have a party to swap out clothes and accessories sometime in September. I'll be asking that everyone bring at least ten items; more would be welcome, and probably, easy to find in every woman's closet. I've been going through my closet and have found about 50 items (clothes, shoes, jewelry, purses, wallets). There are some items that I don't really wear because I lack the occasion or the extra 10 pounds don't quite fit in them (I'll be fixing this before long...the rest of the summer should be less hectic). My plan right now is to donate any remaining items to charity - women finding jobs (they need work clothes for interviews and the weeks before the first paycheck) and battered women's shelters (they probably left with little so as not to arouse suspicion; their first priority would be children's safety). We'll have food, drinks, music, clothes, and accessories. I also will be asking for any leftover or unused perfumes; it would be great if everyone got to leave with a new scent that they like rather than keeping one that they are tired of or don't care for. If anyone is interested in attending or donating items, please let me know. I also welcome any ideas. I hope that others are as excited about free "clothes" as I am, and that this will go as I envision it. I see this also as a time of fun and fellowship because I will be inviting guests to bring along a friend with their items. The more people and items that walk in the door, the more possibilities there are for us to choose from.

Stayin Busy

2009-07-09T15:50:00.004-05:00

I'm back again! With all of the things that have been going on, I get ready for an event/gathering, have it, and then recover. This means that I've neglected the house, laundry, food, etc. I can't seem to catch up with all of this personal stuff before it is time to get ready for another event/gathering. I will try to be better about put up some short little updates. In the mean time, here is a quick run down of what we've been up to. Please forgive me if I forget some things.

At the end of May, we had Jimmy & Mary Beth's 30 anniversary and vow renewal party (they are my in-laws). Aside from the rain throughout the BACKYARD party, we had a fabulous time. I'll put up pictures when we have them. I love party planning!!! I was also able to make several cakes for people to enjoy; at our house, they don't get eaten entirely. Jimmy & Mary Beth did a ton of work on the landscaping at the ranch; it looked great! Thanks to everyone who helped setup, bring food, let us borrow things, gave ideas, listened to me go on and on and on (okay, obsess) about the party (primarily my partners in crime, Cici and Andy).

My cousin, James, got married in Colorado the last weekend of May. Unfortunately, we couldn't be there for the celebration. We send our love to James and Amanda!! I can't wait to get to know Amanda even better!!

My sister's family flew in for a quick trip at the beginning of June. Greg was home (North Carolina) on leave for about two weeks. They wanted to be able to see Mother, and getting to Texas from North Carolina with three kids is no small feat. So, Meg and Greg brought William, Teresa, and Peter to Texas for three days. They stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, TX. What a great place to stay with several kids!! There is a water park, restaurants, and other activities. Apparently, there are several of these hotels throughout the nation. I would highly recommend it to anybody traveling with kids. I would love to put a picture of us up, but the pictures are all on Meg's camera.

I immediately began organizing the tubs of stuff that we have out in our garage so that we have easy access to them when we go to North Carolina for Thanksgiving. Andy was able to bring in a few tubs at a time so that I could sort through them in the living room. Thankfully, I can send pictures of some of the larger items for Meg to think about so that maybe we don't have to take everything. Once we saw how much stuff there really is, Andy said there was no way that it would all fit in our little Civic; I had hoped that we might be able to consolidate enough. Mary Beth has kindly offered to let us use her vehicle for our trip.

The second week of June brought the heat; we moved into the high 90s and low 100s. I had been managing fine with the high 80s, but that week I could feel the change in my energy level and physical capability. On the other hand, I am so thankful that I am able to do things; I remember last summer and shudder.

The last weekend in June brought a gathering out at the ranch. That Saturday several people came out to work cattle. Doug and Correy joined us out there Friday night. Because Mary Beth is working full-time at TCU and taking classes for her PhD, see wasn't going to be at the ranch on Saturday. (She is taking two or three classes this summer. It's no wonder where Andy gets it!) So, I got to plan the menu; it was a little mini party planning. MMM...I made some great dishes including Creamy Basil Pesto Party Squares (appetizer) and Vanilla-Champagne Soaked Fruit (breakfast or dessert) and Peanut Butter Brownies with Strawberries (dessert).

This past weekend was the Fourth of July. My aunt, Janice/Meme, with the help of everyone in the family threw my grandmother, Charline/Nanny, a party for her 80th birthday. There was so much wonderful food, and everything was displayed really nicely! It was a great success!! Meme had so much that was already ready so that it wasn't crazy hectic. Johnny & Teresa brought lots of fabulous food! Some cousins from Louisiana surprised Nanny by coming the day before the party. They put together a great fruit dish and did tons of behind the scenes work during the party. I can't tell you how many dishes they washed when we were running low. I ran around doing all kinds of things like replenishing food, gathering dishes, cutting cake, and taking pictures. I took some really nice pictures (I hope) of the food, decorations, and displays on Meme's camera. Is anyone seeing a theme here with me not having the pictures...haha... Then, I spent some time with family up at Nanny's lake house. It was wonderful being able to spend time with them. This is about the only time of the year that I get to see them.

Oh, yeah, the 4th was also our nephew's 1st birthday as well; this is Greg and Meg's youngest son, Peter. With everything that was going on, I forgot to wish him a happy birthday; I know I'm a bad aunt. However, in my defense, I sent all three kids' presents earlier this summer so that they could have them for the summer. Happy Birthday Peter!!

So, this week I've been in recovery mode and am trying to make some progress on the house. So far, the progress has been very little. And rather than being up doing things, here I sit updating y'all on our lives. Saturday, we are going to the ranch for our niece's 1st birthday; this is Logan and Cici's daughter, Maddy. Happy Birthday Maddy!

We also have Teresa (our niece, not my aunt), William (our nephew), and Andy's birthdays in the next few weeks. I've already given Andy his birthday presents. I was at Target the other day shopping for who knows what, when I happened to look at the men's clothing. They actually had small shirts in both athletic and fitted cuts. This is one of the few stores that we've found that carries true smalls. Knowing that we rarely find them, I grabbed everything that fit this description for Andy to be able to try. So, when he got home he was able to try all of these on and pick what he wanted. It was wonderful for him to have so many choices; this is not usually the case. He looks so cute in some of his new shirts! We also discovered this week that he might even be able to wear Target's pants. I'm hopeful!! Ohhh, and I've even found a few great pieces to add to my wardrobe that were on sale!! I can't wait to wear my new purple walking coat!!

Update on Andy

2009-06-23T13:12:00.004-05:00

Andy survived the fall semester with a B in each of his two classes. I consider that quite a feat for the schedule that he was dealing with for work, both classes, and research. He ended up using a ton of his vacation trying to keep up with the schedule so now he's trying to make up some of that time. He's already made up about 40 hours worth of time. Since we have a few trips and events planned throughout the rest of the year and of course there will be more UTA classes, he wants to continue to build his vacation time back up this summer. He's also taking Gasdynamics as an independent study class for the duration of the summer. So, although these two major time commitments mean that he still doesn't have much free time, he gets to sleep at home each night, and it's an improvement on the spring semester. All of his hard work last and this semester means that he has cut a year off from his degree plan...good job, good job!

He did have a weekend where he had to tackle the jungle that was our backyard. It wasn't a big deal that he didn't mow during the winter, but since he didn't have time to mow during the spring, the weeds continued to grow as we watered them. The picture below gives you the idea that the weeds were above his knees throughout the whole yard.

But some of the weeds were drastically larger. One of the largest was near the back door and close to my height, maybe a little taller. I had the camera perfectly horizontal when I took this picture of it.

In some places, the undergrowth of weeds was so thick that there wasn't much live grass. Andy did a great job weed eating everything down so that he was actually able to use the lawn mower.

Foodie Friday

2009-05-01T17:35:00.006-05:00

Basil Pesto Pasta, Steamed Carrots with Mint, & Pan Seared Asparagus with Thyme

I was quite proud of myself when I made this meal for Andy. Nope, I didn't eat any of it, but he assured me that it was wonderful. I forgot to take a picture the day I made it; this is when he reheated it (please excuse the slightly dry carrots).

I'd never made any kind of pesto, but I needed basil pesto for a different recipe. Since there was plenty left over, I added additional olive oil to it and put it on some cooked pasta. This is the website that has the recipe I used. I appreciated the recipes that they included. My sister told me that her Italian father-in-law freezes his basil pesto even with the cheese. I'm excited to try this when I make more. FYI - you can freeze different sauces in ice cube trays and pop them into a bag to use whenever you need a small amount.

http://www.pickyourown.org/pesto.php

I also had never attempted to make asparagus before. You don't even need to ask if I tried it... Andy's never ordered it or requested it. It turns out that he doesn't like the canned stuff but wasn't sure how he would feel about the fresh asparagus. So, I went out on a limb when it was on sale at Albertson's. This was a really easy recipe to make; I substituted dried rather than fresh thyme since that's what we had. Andy really enjoyed the asparagus! He ate it multiple times until it was all gone.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pan-Roasted-Asparagus-with-Thyme-241893

I've made plenty of carrot dishes but had seen this recipe when flipping through Bon Appetit. When I had a little bit of fresh mint left from a different recipe, I decided to give it a try. Again, according to Andy it was scrumptious.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Steamed-Carrots-and-Mint-241908

BENT BUT NOT BROKEN

2009-05-01T16:52:00.003-05:00

I read a blog that written by a woman with dystonia. She is involved in fundraising and awareness of dystonia. She had an artist who wanted to make something for her and her efforts. The slogan is BENT BUT NOT BROKEN. It brought tears to my eyes as I read it. I have so much to be thankful for. My case is so mild compared to most. I have been feeling better with the change in my medications. I know that each of us has our own burdens whether physical, mental, or emotional. Remember to be BENT BUT NOT BROKEN!

Just as a heads up, I've added to the right side of this blog a section with links to websites and blogs where you can learn more about the medical issues I am dealing with. Many of the cases that are discussed are very extreme (mine are mild) and are the result of multiple problems (not necessarily ones that I have).

Thrifty Thursday

2009-04-30T18:29:00.002-05:00

I've been meaning to put this up for several weeks but kept forgetting when I had the laptop. We have always tried to be more eco-friendly and save more money when we buy our printer ink. We would buy the off brands and the ones where the cartridges had been recycled. The last time we needed to buy ink, I saw in an Office Depot ad that you could take your ink cartridge to them to be refilled for about $10 (I think). I was really excited about this even more eco and budget friendly. So, I told Andy that we needed to do this the next time we were going to be close to one of these stores. We didn't ever make it there though. A few weeks later, Andy looked at the ink cartridges at Wal-Mart. He bought for under $10 a refill kit. When he looked at how much ink could go in the cartridge, he figured out that this one refill kit should fill up the cartridge about three times!! They have these refill kits for black and color cartridges. I don't know if Wal-Mart carries Nukote refill kits at all of their stores, but hopefully this will help someone else save the kind of money that we are.

Guerrilla Gardeners & Loan Sharks

2009-04-30T18:10:00.002-05:00

I was watching Charlie Gibson just a little bit ago but wasn't very engaged in the stories. I know that we need to know about the Swine Flu, but I'm already sick of the perpetual news coverage. I guess today we did get a little variety hearing about Chrysler. So, I was doing other things in the house with his show on as white noise. I happened to hear something about criminals with shovels and hoes; that caught my interest some. By the time the commercial was over though, I had already forgotten that I was slightly interested. Thankfully, I happened to walk back into the living room as the story started. It was about these citizens who go into the community to beautify particular locations by cleaning, weeding, and planting low maintenance plants. These people call themselves Guerrilla Gardeners. They don't go through the red tape of asking the city government for permission. They simply choose a location, plan a meeting, and go to work. What a fabulous idea!!

Oh, and the other item that was worthy of note in the news was that Congress FINALLY passed some laws regarding credit card companies. It is disgusting to me that these companies have been allowed to change interest rates retroactively! I don't know if and when Congress will get around to limiting the rates that these cards can charge. There used to be laws regarding this, where anything over a certain rate was considered usury because the people would never be able to pay all of the interest. This is no longer the case though; I've heard that President Obama wants to put something like this back on the books. I think that for a lot of people who have had these rate changes because they're charging more on their credit cards due to hard circumstances these credit card companies are essentially legal loan sharks. I could stay on my soap box for a long time, but I hope that Congress will continue to draft more and better legislation regarding these companies and their practices. Then I can put this soap box in the closet.

A Busy Couple of Weeks

2009-04-28T17:43:00.005-05:00

About two weeks ago, I got an email from Cici, my sister-in-law, that her parents want to renew their vows in a ceremony and reception at their ranch at the end of May. So, Jimmy & Mary Beth are working on their home and landscaping around the house; Cici & I are the party planners. Since there is so much going on in other people's lives and I enjoy party planning so much, I've tried to do a lot of research online (thank the Lord for the internet; I can't imagine having to walk around, talk on the phone, look the books, etc. for that many hours). I've seen so many cool ideas; it amazes me how creative some people are.

I spent two days looking at different stores to find the items to make our plans come to life. Now, I've been feeling a lot better physically so I didn't think this would be a real problem. And it wasn't; I mean I was tired and in pain, but not that debilitating pain. I found a lot of the stuff I was looking for for the "wedding" and even managed to find a great lightweight pair of blue jeans. I was feeling so proud of my body, but later after taking a shower, I noticed that there was some swelling in my lower legs, ankles, and feet. I was a little annoyed, but since my body has problems when I take a shower, I'm used to things like that happening. But the swelling didn't go away!! It's gotten better over the past couple of days so at least that's something. I guess I'll have to learn my body's limits - it sure would be great if they would not constantly change (not that I'm complaining that my body can do more!!)

Thursday, we took the dog out to the Ranch so that he could stay with Jimmy and Mary Beth while we were gone. Once we got home, I suddenly felt like I had a ton of work that I had to do and that I wanted to house to be perfectly clean for when I came home...ha ha! Combine this with Andy having a 7:30 am flight Friday morning, and the result is a 1-2 hour nap. He was flying to South Dakota for some training and certification for work. We ran a little late getting to the airport, but he had 30-45 minutes with few people around. I gave a kiss goodbye, told him to hurry, and not to miss his flight... Do you see where this might be headed?

After dropping him off I head to Austin to visit my friend, Amy, and her family. After about two and a half hours of driving south, I get a phone call from Andy...he missed his flight...I should probably mention here that he was supposed to have a connecting flight (on another carrier) to a regional airport. You can imagine how much of a fiasco this could turn into. So, I'm sure that you are wondering how he missed his flight, or maybe you think there must have been a long line at the security checkpoint. Wrong! He forgot that he had a little Swiss Army Knife and his LEATHERMAN in his bag. Yeah, they ran that through the X-ray machine, and promptly detained him. So, an hour later he makes it through security minus the 2 offending articles which he had to mail home for $20! He was PISSED!

After about 45 minutes of brooding and stewing, he called me to tell me the situation. We made a game plan for how he should proceed to get to South Dakota before Monday. He was able to do Standby for the next AA flight to Minneapolis; he left DFW at 10 instead of 7:30 am. Thankfully, there was a later flight from Minneapolis to the airport in South Dakota. He arrived at 4:30ish with the luggage he had checked.

So far, the training is going well. He gets to sleep until about 7 am, doesn't have to drive all over the place because the training is at his hotel, is able to work on UTA homework or research in the evenings, and not have to worry about animals, wife, chores, etc. It's like a vacation; he even is able to go to sleep relatively early!! I told him I expect him to come home rested, relaxed, and with lots of school work done...

I had a wonderful time with Ricardo & Amy and their kids, Eliana and un-born Richy. Unfortunately for the family, Eliana had been sick for several days and Amy has a sinus infection. So, they weren't feeling very well and worked at at a much slower pace than usual. That worked fine for me and my swollen, unhappy legs! I still had a wonderful time visiting with them. We had pretty much all of Sunday, and since Amy took a sick day on Monday, we had the whole day then too!

M.I.A.

2009-04-12T01:12:00.012-05:00

For those of you who check our blog to find out what is going on in our world, I'm sorry that I haven't been giving you any information for the past two months. Life has been rather unexciting during that time. Andy is gone or working; I am trying to cook and clean without completely wearing myself out. Also, Andy is taking and using the laptop most days. I could go into the office and use our slow desktop, but that makes it a lonely activity. Writing is not my favorite thing, nor does it come naturally to me. It usually takes me quite a while to post; I try to figure out exactly what I want to say and how best to say it. So, basically, I was following the mantra I was raised with "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." I also didn't really have anything interesting or appropriate to say. As you can tell from all of the posts from yesterday and today, we've had several busy days over the past week! I'll let you know if and when there is more news that fits the categories of nice, interesting, and appropriate.

Update on Andy

2009-04-12T00:36:00.004-05:00

Andy is still crazy busy with school and work. I've told him that for this semester he's a full time employee, full time student (not with the hours, but he isn't getting credit for his research time this semester...he'll get it later), no time husband...on good days I can laugh about that. I think that the hardest part of that is that even when he comes home we both know that he has a lot of work that he needs to do. So, we don't usually get anytime together without that pressure. I try to place as few demand as possible on him right now. I have been really spoiled this week; for three days in a row I've spent time with him! I got a massage on Thursday, ate dinner with his family on Friday, and visited my mother on Saturday.

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company is sending Andy to South Dakota for some training at the end of April. This will be another certification to add to his resume. He's hoping to continue to further his education.

He's going to take a class over the summer and one class in the fall. He'll get to be a full time employee, part time student, part time husband for a few months....yea!! We're hoping that all of his research work this semester will mean that he won't have to go to UTA very often. His classes will be online, and he can do a lot of research at home. I'm sure that it is wishful thinking, but I'm hoping that he will only have to actually travel to UTA once a month. That would cut off a lot of travel time!! It would also mean that he would be home almost every night!

Medical Update

2009-04-12T00:19:00.004-05:00

I visited my Neurologist on Thursday for a follow up appointment. I started a medication for Fibromyalgia in February; it has helped some. So, she told me to start taking it three times a day rather than once.

I mentioned that I still have a hard time taking showers. If the water is warm, much less hot, or I take longer than 10 minutes, I start feeling really uncomfortable and know that I need to finish FAST and sit down. The lower part of my legs always get splotchy, usually red but sometimes with a bit of purple in there. Around my ankles and feet, they aren't really splotchy but solid red. It always feels like that area is swelling but it isn't. So, Dr. Cheng looked through my file and all of the tests that have been done. She asked me if my nerves had been checked; I didn't remember any tests for that purpose. Sooo, lucky me, I now have any appointment at the beginning of May for a Nerve Conductivity Test. I know it doesn't sound good, but wait because it gets worse. Apparently, they stick needles into you and then shock the area to see your nerve and muscle response. Needles...Shocks...one is bad enough...in combination sounds like I'll be miserable. I've had several people tell me that it really isn't that bad....I hope they're right!!

Good Children, Bad Parents!

2009-04-11T23:33:00.005-05:00

Saturday afternoon, Andy & I went to Lewisville to see my mom for a while. We had planned to go on Sunday, but all of the news stations were forecasting bad weather for that day. Andy decided to switch his days this weekend - schoolwork and visit on Saturday; work on Sunday. I drove while Andy watched his class videos. Normally, he drives, and I navigate...it's a great plan!! With the roles switched today, I got aggravated with our unnecessary (although short) detour...I eventually got over it though.... We had a really nice visit!

On our way home, Andy drove in this beautiful weather. We could see the storm clouds off to the west but couldn't tell exactly where the rain was coming down. As we got west of Fort Worth, somewhere around Willow Park, the sky got a little darker, and a few enormous rain drops landed on the windshield. We were surprised how loud they were when making contact with the car. As we commented on this to each other, Andy points out that it sounds so loud because it is rain mixed with hail. Within a few seconds, we were driving through a serious hail storm. The road was covered in hail; everyone was stepping on their breaks. We couldn't tell how large the hail was because it was coming down so hard, but it sounded like the car was under assault. We put our hands up to the roof and were amazed how much of the impact we could feel. I HATE having dings or damage of any kind to My car (True, Andy drives it all of the time, but I still consider it mine and the truck his). I've lived with this enormous dent at the back of the driver's side but always feel a little ghetto when I see it. I don't particularly care when the car is dirty, but the dings and dents drive me crazy. (Yep, I'm weird...who doesn't have their quarks though (please no physics comments)...I just happen to have a lot of them)

Anyway, back to the story. We make it home, and promptly check the car for any damage from the hail. Thankfully, there is none!! To say the least I am very excited. I even pet the car and told it what a good car it is. When we open the door to go inside the house, the car is right there. I hadn't thought about the animals, but they don't like the storms. So, I loved on the cat some, and then I noticed that the dog wasn't on his bed. I thought wow, that must have sounded awful for him to be hiding somewhere. I was a little slow; the dog always greets us at the door. I asked Andy where Bandit was...yep, he was outside the WHOLE time we were gone!! There wasn't anywhere for him to take cover other than a small little table. We don't know if it hailed at our house or not, but I felt like an awful pet owner!! We dried him off, loved on him, and gave him some treats. If he had to stay outside in a hail storm, we have a lot more to do to make up for the trauma.

Someone worth watching on American Idol

2009-04-08T19:16:00.003-05:00

I haven't been a real American Idol fan and serious watcher for many many seasons. It seems like so many of the singers fit into the pop category and sound like (if not worse than) those already on the radio. However, one day when there wasn't anything on our limited television stations I resorted to watching American Idol. And I was introduced to Adam Lambert. If you haven't seen or heard him, look at American Idol's website http://www.americanidol.com/videos/season_8/performances/. You can scroll down a bit to choose which performance you want to watch. I've enjoyed all of the ones that are available on there, although "Ring of Fire" is the least popular of his.

He's got a funky voice and style. You never know what to expect when he walks out to perform because each performance has a different twist to it. He is one of the few Idols who has been able to take a well known song and make it his own; you get lost in his version rather than thinking about what you are used to singing along with. He truly brings some artistry to his performances rather than a polished version of karaoke. I don't really understand why people are saying that he even has any competition. Personally, I'd be happy if they took his performances from the show and put them out as an album, and I look forward to hearing what he is going to do in the future.

Quick update

2009-02-07T23:59:00.002-06:00

Yea, my fever finally broke. We'll see how long it take for all of my symptoms to go away or if the fever comes back tomorrow. Currently, I feel yucky but am hoping that I might be able to sleep for more than a few hours at a time tonight.

Andy's been busy working, researching, and doing schoolwork. This past week had several late nights for him so he decided to sleep in this morning to try to catch up on those lost hours. We are still hopeful that his schedule will slow down some after this month....

I've been finding more recipes to cook over the next few months. I fill the other hours doing the actual cooking and cleaning up the kitchen (which is never ending), reading, and organizing. Hopefully, I'll be better soon and have the energy to clean the other parts of the house in addition to the kitchen. For all of those who haven't heard from me in a while, please forgive me. My sleep cycle was messed up before I got sick. I was staying up all night, making breakfast for Andy, sending him off to work, and then going to sleep. Now I take multiple several hour naps each day.

I hope that all of you are enjoying this warm weather we've been having! Enjoy this next week as your anticipation builds for Valentine's Day whether spending quality time with your significant other, your friends, or yourself; find a special way to show your love!!

A different kind of hair ball

2009-01-23T23:43:00.006-06:00

Our kitty, Cappuccino, loves to pounce and attack things. Most of the time this is a milk jug ring, twisty, balls, paper clips, and strings. He also loves it when a ball of animal hair floats out from under one of the couches; this slides easily on our wood floors. Part of the fun for him is that all of these slide easily on wood floors; they also flip.

Now, our cat is unique! He likes to attack my hair. It started a couple of months ago with him biting on my pony tail; he was very careful to not get any skin. After doing this a handful of times, he left my hair alone. Then, over the past week, he has started again! One day I was working on the laptop. The cat was perched next to me on the back of the couch. And, the next thing I know, he is licking my hair and I'm not kidding, my eyebrow. Now, I know that I needed a shower and my hair didn't look great but COME ON!!! Later, we started playing a game with my hair; you can figure out how it went by the pictures.

Step 1 (ooohhhh)

Step 2 (I want it)

Step 3 (I want it all)

Step 4 (you can't get away from me)

Step 5 (a "handful")

Step 6 (happy kitty)

But tonight I have a loving kitty; he gets very jealous when we work on the computer.

I hope that all of you got such a warm, wonderful hug today!

Andy decided to come home on Fridays

2009-01-23T23:32:00.002-06:00

This is a follow up to my last post.

After looking at his schedule and thinking about how much he would be gone from home, Andy decided to go to UTA 2 days a week and do work for the lab from home on Fridays. YEA!! So, now he'll only be staying with Doug and Correy 2 nights a week. Thank you Sharkeys for putting him up!! This makes his life slightly better. According to the current schedule, each week he works 45 hours and does school stuff (class, homework, research, etc.) for 37 hours; this is without his drive time. He starts every day at 4:30am and tries to be in bed before 9pm. I know-it's awful! I'll be happy for him when things calm down at the UTA lab so that he doesn't have to spend so much time on research and is able to have some real down time.

My husband's mistress's name is UTA

2009-01-21T19:24:00.004-06:00

So, we knew that this semester was going to stink (you can substitute a stronger word) since Andy's plate is so full. He is taking two courses for the first time. We talked a lot about the feasibility of this. Thankfully, one is homework based, and one is project based. Andy also knows his professors. Our thinking was that if he didn't work on research this semester that he would be able to take the two classes, work full-time, and occasionally have time for a life. What a great plan that was!!

His thesis advisor is the head of the lab at UTA that Andy has worked with for experience and research. Well, this gentleman told Andy that he needs to come in to the lab to work this semester. As most of you know, I love to make plans and don't always handle it well when they are changed. So, being a little frustrated, I made alterations to Andy's schedule so that he could do lab work on Mondays when he had to be in Arlington for class. Again, I thought this was a great plan because he could kill two birds with one stone. The thesis advisor then let Andy know that he needed to be in the lab more, preferably at least 3 days a week. Looking at Andy's schedule, I could fit in 2 days of research at UTA with options for doing research at home occasionally on the weekend. Today, Andy spoke with his thesis advisor who requested that Andy at least try to come 3 days a week.

So, I'm pretty annoyed (again, you can substitute a much stronger word) with Andy's new schedule. I'm trying to be supportive with his pursuit of his degree, but I am not sure that he will be able to do well everything that he is attempting. He gets up at 4:30 so that he can be at work by 6 am (even on the weekends). He will go to Lockheed Monday through Saturday. Because he now needs to be at the UTA lab 3 days a week, he will spend the night at the house of some friends who live close by the campus so that he doesn't have to spend so much time on the road. Since he has to watch one of his classes online and do homework for his two classes, he is left with a handful of hours on Sunday (if he doesn't have too much homework) that we can spend together or he can take care of anything not related to school or work.

Thankfully, Andy is thinking that the need for him to be at the lab so much will only last through the end of February or the beginning of March. Hopefully, this will end before midterm time so that he has plenty of time and energy to prepare.

And so I sit here at home on my first night alone. Yes, I am fuming, but I am also trying to keep in mind that taking 2 classes allows him to finish his Master's earlier and this is for the good of Andy's career. Eventually, I'll calm down and this insanity will end...oh, from my fingertips to God's ears....

Neurology appointment today

2009-01-16T18:39:00.002-06:00

I went to the Neurologist today. She has diagnosed me with Dystonia and Fibromyalgia. Of course I can't have one muscle problem, I do things right-two where I think one exacerbates the other! On the upside, I get to adjust some of my medications. We are going to try to take me off of two current medications and add Lyrica for Fibromyalgia. We're going to see what all is helping and continue that! I'll go for a follow-up appointment in 3 months.

YEA! I found some of the books on my list when I went to Half Price Books. I look forward to finishing another book within Middlemarch so that I can choose one of these hopefully fun books!

The cloth bags at Half Price Books are AWESOME!!!

2009-01-16T02:23:00.000-06:00

Oh, and totally forgot to include this in an earlier blog after making a trip to Half Price Books. We didn't have any of the cloth grocery bags that people are using now and really wanted some; we'd been making do with small bags that I had received at different teaching conferences. When we walked in the doors, there on display were the Half Price Books version of the cloth bags; I loved them. Yes, they are narrow and long, but they fit a ton at the grocery store...oh, and they are the perfect size for those really large rectangular packages of chicken legs, thighs, and wings (the ones that they put on sale for $1/lb); they sit in the bottom without having to be titled in any way. So, of course I love the practicality, but that is not what made me fall in love initially. They have slogans or sayings on them; we bought two different ones. I now proudly state that I am a "Wild-Eyed Bibliomaniac" and tell others to "Get a Spine". I hope those statements bring you as much laughter as they have brought and continue to bring me (yes, I am laughing as I write this)!

Oprah's Best Life Series, Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan, and my thoughts on both

2009-01-12T23:14:00.004-06:00

Although not a die hard Oprah fan, I do enjoy some of her guests and topics; I'm a sporadic watcher. I was really excited when I saw that she was going to be doing a series about how to live your best life; I recognized 3 guests I have previously enjoyed, Dr. Oz, Suze Orman, and Dr. Laura Berman. So, I watched Oprah every day last week and have signed up for her follow-up evening broadcast with these 3 this week.

Naturally, I am interested in what Dr. Oz might say about medical conditions; I go back to the neurologist Friday and the Cardiologist next week for follow-ups. Yes, I did send an email to Dr. Oz with my medical difficulties, but I do not expect any sort of response. I did find Oprah's medical problem and diagnosis regarding her thyroid interesting. I'll annoy my neurologist with more questions about the possibility of that being the case...actually, my neurologist is always open to discussing any possible diagnoses I bring to her.

I don't always enjoy Suze Orman's style of delivery, but I do think that she makes a lot of really important points. Of course, I've always been interested in financial matters and obsess about our personal finances; my obsession has become more intense since we have begun living on Andy's salary alone! Thankfully, we are not in the kind of debt that many others are, but having used up a lot of our emergency savings over the last year, we are on a mission to try to bolster them. Since we both worked, we were used to needing only about 3 months in emergency funds; now, we are trying to get to 8 months and are a long way from our goal. We've known for several months that 2009 would be a challenge financially because we expect to pay off some loans, find out about my disability claim, and discover how a rent house affects our taxes.

Andy will also be taking more classes this year which means larger tuition payments; thankfully, at the end of the semester, his work does reimburse us. So, with all of these major financial events, we are always looking to cut expenses so that we are able to save a little more.

I became very excited when Oprah announced that Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan (her book with financial advice for 2009) was available for free download. I would have downloaded it then, but I knew that the website would be inundated and moving very slowly; I waited until the next day to get it. Its about 200 pages written in a Q & A style. She has some incredibly important information and good ideas, but the book is also quite repetitive because she tries to fully answer every question. It does lend itself to helping those who need answers fast. Since I read it in order, there were many times that I was able to skim over answers in later chapters. (I can't complain too much since this was a break from reading Middlemarch.)

Dr. Laura Berman is the sex therapist who stars in Sexual Healing. I won't give you details, but if you are interested in intimacy, sexuality, couples therapy, or other related topics, check out Oprah's website or look for one of Dr. Berman's books.

I hope that those of you who are also following along with Oprah's Best Life Series are gaining helpful information. I don't know that I've had any life changing (Oprah calls them ah-ha) moments. I do think that they are doing a great service to many women; we all need to be reminded to not only give to and love others but also ourselves! All of you ladies are worthy of the time you give (or should give) to yourself. It doesn't detract from your relationships; it strengthens them because you are strengthened by that time and able to share and inspire others with your soul and personality! Maybe we should be asking each other is what have you done for yourself lately and what are you planning to do for yourself in the next week. This would help us be accountable to each other; we all know that we get wrapped up in what we do for our loved ones, church, community, etc.

Cocky Current Civilization

2009-01-06T00:12:00.004-06:00

We watched The History Channel's 2 disc series, Ancient Discoveries. I know that we are two, cute little nerds, but this was awesome!! They talked about Greeks and Romans who made significant advances such as water timers and clocks, water factories, indoor plumbing, machines, automatic solar system models and calendars, mobile theater staging, modern medical instruments, surgery, and many other advancements that were made by citizens of these empires. Throughout the film, they kept saying things like "He was ahead of his time." I got really annoyed by these phrases! How could a man be ahead of his time scientifically when others before him laid the ground work for what this man does? Not only that, we know of contemporaries and others before and after were also making great advances. Also, so many of the great libraries were burned and many of the great works were lost; how do we know that those we think of as ahead of their times were right in step with others and the knowledge available?

It just makes me so angry that we believe we are the modern man and so much more advanced than previous generations! How arrogant! There were so many great civilizations that eventually fell and with that fall much of their knowledge and advancement was lost. Because periods of greatness were typically followed by ones of darkness, we assume that we are more advanced than previous societies. Another problem with our viewpoint is that we look at societies from a biased point of view-what we consider advanced (computerized systems) and ethical.

I'm not arguing that we are or aren't living in the most advanced age. I'm simply saying that we are cocky to believe that this is obviously the most advanced society! Try to leave some room in your minds that others might have discovered things that we are just re-discovering or have yet to discover again. Watch some documentaries about the history and technology of ancient societies, not just the Greeks and Romans. You might find that you need to leave a lot more room in your mind for future revelations of these societies.

Mortifying Milk Moments

2009-01-05T23:36:00.002-06:00

On Friday, we had Doug & Correy over for dinner. They had just flown in from New York, and called us to confirm when they were catching a taxi home to Arlington.

Thankfully, Andy had cleaned the kitchen the day before. We had cooked and run on so many occasions over the previous two weeks that there was a huge pile of dishes. I had simply not felt up to standing for the time it would take to clean everything. So, my wonderful husband spent what he claims was 6 or 7 hours washing, drying, and putting away every dish that we own; this was only a slight exaggeration.

So, I made a grocery list, Andy went to the grocery store, and I quickly picked up the living and dining room. On the grocery list, I had specified which items were buy one get one free. When Andy got home, he had only bought one of these without getting the one free. He thought that he would get the one at half price; there is a reason for this thinking. On a previous trip, he bought three of something when there was a 3/$5 sale; I made him return two of them explaining that he would get one for $1.66. This information and discussion got mixed up with the buy one get one free sale. After griping at him (I simply couldn't believe that my husband who is working on his Master's degree did this) and internally berating myself for having not specified to buy 2 of each, I finally shut up and was able to let it go. Oh well, we had plenty of all necessary ingredients for that night's meal. It turned out just fine once I chilled out.

We made a white bean dip, cheddar cheese balls, chicken, tortellini salad, bread, mashed potatoes, and an apple dessert. Everyone else was drinking a glass of milk with dinner because they had already had some alcoholic drinks with the appetizers. On Doug's second glass, someone said something about the milk having a strange taste. After assuring them that the milk was fresh because we had just bought a new gallon the other day, we looked at the gallon which said best by Dec 25...oops! Apparently, we had two jugs in the fridge while we were working at the ranch and didn't realize that one had gone bad while we were gone. So, with some of our good friends who were exhausted from their travels, they drank expired milk and ate mashed potatoes that had the same expired milk mixed in them. I was so embarrassed that we had served them bad milk; you would have thought we gave them food poisoning. I hope that their tummies didn't give them any trouble the next day.

I promise to check the expiration date on the milk for any future guests; it will probably become another one of my OCD things!

2009 New Year Letter-a look back at 2008

2009-01-05T18:47:00.003-06:00

Every year we write a New Year letter to send to family and friends; it tells the stories from the past year. We mailed the letters but are posting it as well for our technologically advanced family and friends, not to mention those for whom we don't have an updated address.

So that our two page letter doesn't take up a huge chunk of space on our blog, I am going to post the letter as a comment. To view it, click on the title of the post (see above where it says 2009 New Year Letter-a look back at 2008). Feel free to comment on the letter or year!

Extreme Walker Garage Makeover-The Reveal

2009-01-05T16:59:00.004-06:00

Andy rocks! As I told you earlier, Andy began organizing the garage earlier in his holiday break. He finished this weekend, and it looks wonderful!

Every time that we open the door to walk into the garage, we ooh and aah over how much space there is. He would have loved to mount the ladders, hoses, and certain lawn equipment on the walls, but as renters, we don't want to do any damage or have to remove equipment and patch holes when we leave. I'm not too worried; we weren't trying to fit both vehicles in the garage. I'm happy with how much room there is for the car!

Party Time

2009-01-01T16:34:00.003-06:00

I saved all of the information from holiday parties for one post. Of course we didn't get any good pictures of us at any we attended together; we always forget!! So, if anyone has any good pictures of us, please send us or post a copy.

The weekend before Christmas was a very busy time!!

On Friday for lunch, Andy went to his company Christmas party at the Reata. There was wonderful Tex-Mex food and a white elephant gift exchange. Then, he picked me up, and we headed to the ranch to do Christmas with the Walkers and Fritts (we already blogged about this).

Saturday afternoon, we came home, changed, and went to Andy's UTA lab Christmas party in Arlington. His thesis professor and wife, Bernd & Andrea Chudoba, had invited all of the students working in the Aerospace Vehicle Design Lab to their house for this party. It was wonderful finally meeting the people Andy has been talking about for a year and a half. Andrea out-did herself with the wonderful dishes that she offered us! Andy & I were also really impressed with the bookshelf that they have because we have talked many times in the past about having one very similar to the one they have. It is an extremely tall bookcase made from several bookshelves with a sliding ladder that is necessary to reach the items at the top. It was AWESOME!! Andrea has also used many different painting techniques and embellishments to make their home more unique and elegant. (I know that nooo one catches on to theme of home improvement whether ours or others.) We spent that evening at our house.

Sunday, we went to Mineral Wells for church with Mama Joyce and then had her party. After the party, many went out to the ranch for dinner; Cari and Mary Beth had made soups ahead of time for the weary party going souls. After everyone left, we made the project and to-do list with Jimmy and Mary Beth. Once again, we headed home to sleep in our bed.

Then, the projects began in earnest at the ranch, and we celebrated Christmas in the middle of the work.

For New Year's Eve, we were invited to Andrew and Jessica Koebbe's house for a party. We were able to see and catch up with some of our friends from Fort Worth Presbyterian Church (we attended this church when we lived in Burleson area). It was a funny coincidence that all of the men who were guests at the party work for Lockheed Martin. We snacked, drank, talked, and Andy even got to play some Dutch Blitz (I watched and coached the new players). We celebrated the EST midnight so that we could head home before too many people were on the roads. As we drove home, we were able to see many fireworks displays along both sides of the interstate. They were wonderful to watch!

Christmas Day

2009-01-01T16:12:00.004-06:00

I got so excited about all of the organizing that we did at the ranch and our house that I completely forgot to say anything about Christmas. We had already exchanged or received many of our presents so on Christmas morning we had our Christmas stockings from Jimmy and Mary Beth to open. We also got to watch Jimmy and Mary Beth open their presents to each other. Mary Beth had purchased an ipod and all kinds of fun accessories for Jimmy. During Christmas Eve day, Andy set up the ipod and put the music from Mama Joyce's birthday party as well as multiple podcasts on it so that it would be ready for Jimmy to use immediately. Everyone was really excited as Jimmy opened and played with his new toys. Jimmy gave Mary Beth a coffee and cappuccino maker. Later, he even got her an exercise bike; they can now workout together in the blue room. This is a picture of the two of them trying to figure out how to work all of their new technological toys.

That afternoon, we had an early dinner at Jim & Norma Walker's (Andy's paternal grandparents) house with much of his family. Everyone contributed to the bounty of food and enjoyed eating it. There was even leftover cake from Joyce's party for dessert. Then, presents were handed out and opened. We also shared many stories of Christmas morning. Afterwards, we headed home, grabbed another change of clothes, and headed back to the ranch to finish the Extreme Walker Home Makeover.

Extreme Walker Garage Makeover

2009-01-01T15:53:00.002-06:00

So, after all of our work out at the ranch, we came home to a wreck of a house! Since the cleaning and organizing juices were flowing, Andy acquiesced to my request that he organize the garage so that the car fits on all sides without touching any boxes. On a temperate morning/afternoon, he started working in the garage while Quasimodo (aka sick Mary) laid on the couch. Because I like to be able to talk to him while he's working and couldn't do that while I was inside and he was outside, he was really sweet and set up the hammock in the garage for me. So, after a few hours of being by myself, I headed out with my blanket to lay in the hammock and talk to him. He had made wonderful progress organizing the tubs. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to finish that night but is going to continue working on it this extended holiday weekend. Not only will it be great to have a garage that looks nice and comfortably fits our car, we will know that everything is protected from the mice that go from the attic, into the walls, and out to the garage. We put out lots of traps and mice poison out but have only seen one dead mouse; on the up side, we don't hear them as often!!

Extreme Walker Home Makeover

2009-01-01T15:19:00.003-06:00

We spent much of the week of Christmas at Andy's parent's ranch. As part of our Christmas present to them, we worked on projects on their to-do list. We started out the week prior sitting down with them and developing an extensive to-do list (we went room by room in the house and then included some outside projects as well). OCD Mary brought that list home, typed it up, and color coordinated it according to priority (yes Cari, I thought you'd appreciate that!!). While at the ranch, we helped them move furniture, organize, and clean. They changed one of their guest bedrooms (the blue room) into an office, craft room, and exercise room; with a blow-up air mattress, it can still function as a guest room when necessary. With Mary Beth's work in her closet several months ago, she has been able to fit and organize all of their clothing in their closet. So, we helped them move some furniture out of their bedroom which allowed us to move some of the remaining furniture around. Andy and I also worked in the guest bedroom (the red room), breakfast room, and laundry room. Meanwhile, Mary Beth was baking dozens of cakes (yes, the Sherry cake they give as Christmas presents), and Jimmy was at work or doing ranch work. Once the cakes were finished and Jimmy was home for the weekend, they worked on sorting through many large mounds of paper. In the end, there was a large donation made to the Mineral Wells Dunbar Neighborhood Association (United Way), many bags of trash thrown away, and several trips made up to the attic. We were all very pleased with the progress we made but know that there are still many more projects left on the to-do list; we hope to work on those over 2009. I'd love to put pictures that show all of our work, but none do it justice. We hope that all of you enjoy looking for the changes when you visit them and that Jimmy & Mary Beth can find everything!

Quasimodo has left the building

2009-01-01T14:45:00.002-06:00

My cold or allergies are finally subsiding, and my eyelid has returned to normal size and location. However, I'm still full of drainage, and my body is pretty worn out from all of the work and exertion I've required of it over the last two weeks. Thankfully, I have had a few opportunities to allow myself some random days for mini-recoveries. But, I imagine I'll be spending a lot of time over the next few days on the couch resting. So, this will be a perfect opportunity for us to update you on our cavortings.

100th Birthday Party

2008-12-24T02:48:00.004-06:00

Andy's great-grandmother, Joyce Taylor (pictured above), turned 100 the week of Christmas so the family threw her a party after church the Sunday before Christmas. It was held at her church, First Baptist Church, in Mineral Wells. There was a slideshow put together by Cari Hudkins that showed Joyce throughout her life. Andy & I made a 3.5 hour playlist of music from every decade of Joyce's life. We even had some live music performed by some of her friends. James Upshaw, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, joined in the group music and even sang a solo for her while playing his guitar. Joyce was thrilled with all of the wonderful music and great fellowship. And even though she good-naturedly grumbled about all of the trouble of a party, she basked in all of the attention

Cici & MaryBeth put together this really cute guest book. It was a photo album that could fit a 6 or 7 sq. inch photo. They put it together so that when you open it up on the left side you would see a photo of Joyce and on the right side there were the birthday greetings from the guests.

Someone put together wonderful centerpieces for all of the tables. There were also some accent tables that were beautifully decorated as well!

I would of course love to put many of the wonderful photos that Andy & I took at the party, but we only have 5 or 6 pictures from the party on our camera. We ended up using others' cameras because they are more advanced than ours. Here is a picture of the whole family that I stole from Cari's website. If you'd like to see the slideshow from the party, go to her website, The Hudkins Herald.

Kudo's all of those who helped put the party together and the long list of those who helped put the party room together in those last minutes before guests arrived!! I had so many people stop to tell me how beautiful everything looked and how much they enjoyed the party!!

Early Christmas with the Walkers & Fritts

2008-12-24T02:18:00.005-06:00

We had Christmas with Andy's parents (Jimmy & MaryBeth) and sister's family (Cici, Logan, and Maddy) the Friday before Christmas because the Fritts family will be in Tennessee for Christmas. Maddy had the most presents under the tree, but she was a tired little girl and rather unimpressed by her loot. The rest of us were quite excited for her though! I was especially excited for Maddy with Cici's help to open her fleece tie blanket. It swallows her now, but it gives her room to grow and explore. (Cici, I hope that it stops shedding after you wash it; the lady at the fabric store said that it would. I pre-washed the fabric, but didn't have time to wash and dry after making it - SORRY!)

Jimmy & MaryBeth gave Maddy many toys and clothes. Here she is seriously studying one of her new dolls. The princess doll has a little green frog attached; you can see one of its eyes right above her arm. The ladies in the family have made sure that Maddy has plenty of TCU/frog clothing and toys to indoctrinate her from an early age.

One of the most memorable moments was watching Maddy play with a Tigger toy that Jimmy & MaryBeth gave her. If you press Tigger's tail, he talks and vibrates. At first she was not sure what to make of this toy, but she grabbed hold of his face to investigate this unknown thing more. Maddy would grab hold of Tigger's nose, Cici would press Tigger's tail, and Maddy and Tigger would both vibrate. Maddy quickly caught on to how to make the vibrating happen; she soon was grabbing Tigger's tail on her own. She provided her own entertainment and unbeknownst to her, provided ours as well!

From The Prince to Middlemarch

2008-12-16T01:27:00.004-06:00

As I've said in previous posts, I am working my way through a large stack of newly purchased books; they are supposedly great pieces of literature. Last week I finished The Prince; it is written in an extremely straightforward manner. The author is trying to clearly and concisely present his ideas and opinions. While I struggle to write in this way, I appreciated his success. The new book I've started is George Eliot's Middlemarch. I have truly stepped into a different world; I expected this with respect to the subject matter, point of view, time period, and customs. But I never considered how wordy the book might be!! Don't get me wrong; I love a book that is vivid and descriptive, one that can transport me. With this book, I find myself reading every word but only taking in every third, fourth, or fifth word. This seems to be plenty for me to follow along with the story. I am sure that this was done on purpose to demonstrate how life felt to those of the time, class, and society. (I had a word just a moment ago that perfectly describes what I feel, but it flew right out of my head.) The plot seems like it might be interesting, but I could have done with a 300 page book rather than 700+ pages.

Our week

2008-12-12T16:01:00.002-06:00

You would think with no posts for several days that I had been up to something really interesting; sadly, that is not the case.

I have been working on cleaning up the house although if you walked in the house you wouldn't know it! I've been doing laundry, dishes, and picking up, but wouldn't you know that there are already more clothes and dishes to wash and stuff has already found its way out of "its place". I'll continue to work on cleaning it so that we'll be ready for Christmas time. We are hoping that we'll be able to see some of our friends, and I want to the house to be decent so that I won't do too much work (otherwise, I'll feel too anxious and exhausted to fully enjoy the time with our friends). We are so excited to spend time with our friends because my illness and Andy's work and school have prevented much of our freedom.

Andy and I have been working on his graduate plan; on Thursday, he also met with several professors. The plan was that he would graduate in 2013; I don't know about anyone else, but that seems like forever to us. This spring he has to take the second part of a course, but there is also a "really cool" special topics class that his thesis adviser is teaching. So, now Andy is going to take 2 classes this spring; life will be insane!! If he can survive doubling this spring and one other semester, he'll finish in 2011.

Update on the kitty: I took pity on him yesterday and took the cone off. He was so happy to be free! He promptly scratched, shook, and licked. It's been fun watching him play - running and jumping.

We've also been working on our Italian a little more; right now we are mostly expanding our vocabulary. There are a bunch of was to say "the" because it changes with singular, plural, masculine, and feminine nouns; we are trying to get our il, i, la, le, lo, l', and gli articles right.

I finished Machiavelli's The Prince. It was really good to be reading this while working on Italian; I had lots of names to practice on. I had also watched a documentary about the Medici family so I had a great history lesson that leads up to and includes the time in which Machiavelli was writing his book which was dedicated to a Medici. It was also fascinating reading his ideas and examples of great rulers and lands. It is true that he does take morality and ethics our of the equation a lot of the time. I started thinking about some of his recommended methods like getting rid of your enemies, aka kill them. He lived in a world where information wasn't as easily dispersed; if you kill all of your enemies and the witnesses of their deaths, who's to say that you are guilty of murder? I think terror was used in a way than most of us can't imagine. Now days, someone would have a camera phone, pictures would be posted on You Tube later that day, and there would be a world wide outcry on the next news broadcast. Anyway, I simply read through the book, but I look forward to reading it again and taking notes on my thoughts. I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it before, but you probably should have a fun, light book to read too. One great thing about the book is that it is short, under 100 pages!

Second update on the kitty: He just got the cone put back on him because he started licking his wounds which aren't fully healed. Unfortunately, he also wouldn't stop licking even when I told him no.

Hilarious Music Videos & Songs

2008-12-08T18:16:00.006-06:00

Several months ago I was watching The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson and saw this band perform. I loved them. The band's name is Tally Hall, and I saw them perform Welcome to Tally Hall. The next day I made Andy listen to them, but the only place that we could hear them was on YouTube while watching the music videos. If you enjoy ironic, funky, weird, or anything unusual, check them out, especially Welcome to Tally Hall and Banana Man. Go to their website, click on the Media tab, chick on the YouTube tab, then choose which video you want to watch. I hope that you laugh as hard as we did!!

www.tallyhall.com

Several changes this year including finding A Fabulous Organization

2008-12-08T14:37:00.010-06:00

I am horrible at remembering to put some sort of introduction to these blogs. I get so focused on what I'm going to write about that I just jump right in. (So, I've already written the blog but remembered that I didn't put an intro.) We've had many changes this year - I changed jobs; we moved; we got a cat; I got sick and am not working. These have completely changed our lifestyle which has resulted in more changes. These are some of them.

We love Netflix!!! Thank you Greg & Meg for telling me about some of the really interesting films y'all got from their lists. Because of the recommendation, we decided to try the free trial. We were so excited by the many movies that we could watch. As we were both working crazy hours at the beginning of our membership, we didn't venture into our options too far due to time.

With our crazy life this year, we have searched the Netflix database much further and have found some real gems. I will try to work on a list of ones we have been blown away by. One of them is The Future We Will Create: Inside the World of TED. As we are both nerds, I am sure most of you are not surprised that we were interested in watching a documentary with such a title. I had never heard of TED, but the little blurb about the documentary sounded interesting.

I was amazed by some of the talks given at a particular TED conference! Some of the most brilliant people and some average people who have brilliant ideas and goals give talks and discuss these ideas with others like them. These are not the kind of talks that you would hear in a college classroom; they are interesting, informative, entertaining, and some are inspiring. Most of the speeches are about 20 minutes. You can hear someone speak about anything you want. If you are a teacher, some of these would be great for introductions into topics.

I know that I can't begin to convey my enjoyment, but if you ever have a few minutes, look at the website. You can watch these short talks that conference attendees pay thousands of dollars to hear. If you aren't sure where to start, look at the TED Prize winners. The video isn't up yet for the 2009 winners so look at the 2008 or before winners. They each speak about a wish for the world, animals, humans, etc., and the conference attendees work with the person to make it come true. I was amazed by the work of 2006 TED Prize winners Dr. Larry Brilliant and Cameron Sinclair.

Another great recommendation from Meg & Greg was Vonage. It is a phone service provider that works through the internet. We now pay about $20 a month for unlimited local and long distance and all of the "normal" phone features. The biggest hassle is that when you are working on the internet and talking on the phone the conversation goes in and out as though someone was beeping in on the other line. But really, it's not that hard to not work on the computer at the same time; it is more considerate to give your attention to the person with whom you are speaking. For this slight "inconvenience" we get so much more for our money.

That leads me to our newest household change. Since I am at home most of every day with unlimited local and long distance at my disposal and Andy is at work where calling home is local, we rarely use our cell phones. Our contract with Sprint ran out in November and Andy has been impatiently waiting for us to be able to use a different provider because he couldn't get any service while at work.

Because we don't know exactly what is going to happen with my job, we are try to downsize so that we are living on Andy's salary alone. So, I started researching cell plans that would allow us to be flexible about the number of minutes we used and would cost less. Most of the 2 year contract plans had too many minutes, wasn't flexible enough, and cost too much. We remembered that when we were in Greece we had all of these with the cell we bought for the trip. This got us thinking about pre-paid and pay as you go cell phone plans. I looked into Virgin Mobile, Boost, Tracfone, and several other options. While some companies had slightly cheaper minutes, their phones seemed to be much more expensive. So, we decided to go with Tracfone where you can get fairly cheap minutes (especially with Double Minutes) and inexpensive phones. The inexpensive phones was quite important as Andy has been known to break things on accident; there is a reason he has been called a bull in a china closet. So, we felt that it was important that we be able to replace a phone easily should anything happen. One thing that we were really excited to find out when researching these phone options was that you can transfer your phone number to these phones--How awesome!! I will say that the biggest hassle has been transfering by hand the phone numbers to our new cells; we couldn't change out SIM cards.

If you've been following the blog, you can tell that we've been making some changes this year. I'm sure that many of y'all have as well; we'd love to hear about any great finds whether simply interesting or money saving!

Merit of Moderation

2008-12-07T18:49:00.017-06:00

Andy coined this phrase while we made homemade pizza for the first time. We made my pizza (pepperoni, light cheese, light sauce); doesn't it look beautiful?!

Then, we worked on Andy's pizza which had pepperoni, spinach, black olives, mushrooms, and onions on it. As we put it together, I asked Andy if he wanted more sauce or cheese; he replied, "No, you've taught me the merit of moderation." Once baked, he added Tabasco to this "moderate" pizza of his. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of his, but mine was prettier anyway...

For the crust, we used the dough from the homemade bread I've been making, the sauce recipe below with some basil added and garlic powder instead of real garlic which made a ton of leftover sauce, mozzarella cheese, and whatever toppings interest you. Our biggest problem was making the crust thin enough. Andy might have to learn the art of pizza tossing; Lord help us all!

http://video.about.com/italianfood/Pizza.htm

http://kittbo.blogspot.com/2008/02/different-kind-of-no-knead-bread.html

http://southernfood.about.com/od/pizzarecipes/r/bl40129i.htm

Behind the scenes of the Italian quest

2008-12-07T18:31:00.003-06:00

Some of those who read the last post are asking "Why Italian?" Yes, we know that Spanish would make a lot more sense living in Texas. I've always liked Italian, and I've had enough of not making much progress learning Spanish. I can read Spanish and sound pretty good but not really understand what I am reading. Andy is able to comprehend Spanish much more. So, imagine our surprise when we met some Italians in the Bahamas and I was the one who understood some of what they were saying while Andy was clueless. Neither of us has ever learned any Italian, but you would think that Andy's ability in Spanish being much better than mine would help him to catch little bits of their conversations in Italian. As you would expect, I was thrilled and shared/reminded/gloated about this. So, I have hope that I might fare better with Italian than I did with Spanish. I expect that Andy will progress faster than I will, but we look forward to the time when we know enough to actually have real conversations in Italian. As I said before, hopefully, one day we might achieve a great grasp of the language; whether we do or not, I'm sure that we'll visit Italy one day, and anything we learn will be helpful.

Yogurt, Bread, Italian, Books, & How the teacher in me lives on

2008-12-05T18:21:00.004-06:00

Since I have been feeling slightly better and able to accomplish a little more during the day, I have these kicks.... sooo, I've always had them, but now I'll be sharing them with people other than Andy. Maybe sharing my thoughts, plans, and desires (aka kicks) will inspire me to follow through with them; if not inspire, at least keep me on track so that I don't feel embarrassed when people ask about the progress of the project.

Several of you already know about my homemaking kick. I have learned to make yogurt and Greek yogurt from scratch. I am able to add jelly to it, and it is like the store bought yogurt. Andy really likes it, and I feel good about making and providing for my family. The most recent success has been homemade artisan bread. We'll see if the dough works when we try to make homemade pizza.

For several months, I've been thinking and talking about maybe learning Italian. Everyone we've talked with has recommended Rosetta Stone. However, it costs about $200-250 per level; if you buy all of the levels at once, it is about $500. Well, I didn't really learn Spanish very well when I took three years of it in high school. So, this seems like an exorbitant amount of money to spend on a program. I mean I would love to be hopeful and say that I am going to become fluent, meaning I'll need all three levels, but who wants to spend that much money on a hope like that. I was thrilled when I came across a BBC website (the one in our list of websites) that allows you to learn the basics of German, French, Italian, etc. for free. There are 12 week courses for the languages, but you can work at your own speed. So, now Andy and I are working through the Italian course in hopes of feeling better about the cost if we decide to invest in the Rosetta Stone course.

So, now that we've decided to try to learn some of the basics of Italian from the free website, I started a whiteboard with our vocabulary words...hehehe....as I said, the teacher in me lives on....it is even multi-colored.

More recently, I've also become interested in reading books that show up on those "Best 100 Books of all time" lists. So, I went to Half Price Books the other day and picked up several of those books. Currently, I am reading The Prince by Machiavelli - appropriate while learning Italian! I can promise that we won't be learning Greek when I start reading The Iliad and The Odyssey!!! We'll leave that language to my sister, Meg, and her family.

Happy Day

2008-12-04T19:42:00.001-06:00

I made a 97 on my final. My wife's good study habits continue to rub off on me ... when I listen to her. Rock out.

I have triumphed!

2008-12-04T17:40:00.006-06:00

Finally!!! I have been wrestling with different sites all day attempting to have slideshows of our pictures here on the blog. Every time I tried a new location, website, etc., there was some problem. Most people probably would have given up or asked someone else. But I am not most people! I kept telling myself that I would let it go; after all, I've been looking for hours. The perfectionist, OCD, and competitive aspects of my personality couldn't let it go quite yet. It just goes to show you that if you don't do much of anything else in a day you too can conquer this technology... well, one small aspect of it at least. If anyone else would rather just ask and save some time, I'll be happy to share what I did!

Please make sure to scroll down so that you can ohh and ahh at my great accomplishment. There are some beautiful pictures from Greece and the Bahamas; yes, I did just pat myself and Andy on our backs.

Our Poor Kitty

2008-12-03T16:29:00.008-06:00

Our cat gets these weird little bumps on his tummy. So, we took him to the vet, and they cut two of them off to biopsy them. They've determined that they are from some allergy...thank the Lord. So, he's had a couple of stitches that he didn't leave alone; all by himself, he has popped his stitches. At least it saved us those vet costs. But the vet had us put an e-collar on him. When I picked him up from the vet, he already had it on. Unfortunately for Cappuccino, he has to ride in his kennel while in the car. Normally he fits just fine, but with this cone around his head, he struggled to turn around. He vented his frustration by continuously bumping, rubbing, and trying to chew the kennel's door.

As I opened the top door, he seemed to say "Finally!"

I lifted him out and set him on the floor. Then, he slowly wandered all of the rooms bumping into corners, walls, and anything else in his way.

He is so pathetic and confused. As I laugh at him, he looks up at me with his beautiful sky blue eyes that say "I don't understand what has happened; pleeeaaase take this thing off!!!" The dog sniffed the cat as if asking "What did they do to you?!?"

I of course then began laughing again. The cat has finally decided that he needs to rest after all of these indignities.

Finals are coming

2008-11-30T22:30:00.004-06:00

Oh boy, oh boy... finals are coming for my grad class. So what am I doing, posting. Yeah for procrastination. My brain is swimming with cross products, Laplace transforms, and all that other stuff. What fun... maybe Hulu.com has some obscure tv shows that I can watch before I hit the books again. ~Andy

A New Beginning

2008-11-30T21:38:00.005-06:00

So, after spending more time on the internet lately, I've been reading more blogs. Then, at Thanksgiving, I found out that several family members already have blogs set up. I truly felt as if I was lagging behind the technological times. So, here we are on a Sunday evening, and I am attempting to join the masses. Since we don't have any human children...and no, we are not the kind of pet owners who really think of and treat their animals as children...most of our posts will probably be about our pets and random thoughts. For those of you who know Mary well, you're assuming that this blog will be almost entirely random, and you would be right. As I, Mary, am writing this, you have some idea of what is in store. Many of my posts will probably be disjointed and come from out of nowhere. Andy on the other hand is a much better storyteller than I am; he will probably have the amusing posts.

We hope that you all enjoy a Window to the Walkers!

Window to the Walkers

Demolition

2012 New Year letter

Fireside Chat

Snow!

Our house

Andy's birthday picture

Renovation Projects

EARTHQUAKE

Trying to buy a house

Gifts for new moms

our house

Buying a house

Andy's 30th Brithday

Carmageddon

Poor Puppy

Return of the Civic

We found a house

First Week

THE MOVE (parts 4 & 5)

THE MOVE (part 3)

THE MOVE (part 2)

THE MOVE (part 1)

Fabulous Food and Freezing Finds

Soups

Remodeling our great room

I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth

SHOES

Caramelized Cajun Chicken

2010 New Year's Letter

December - The Holidays

December - lead up to Christmas

November - Thanksgiving

November - my birthday

Where Have You Been?

Letters and Movies

Yea rain...nevermind, rain, rain, go away; come again some other day

Our Trip to Corpus and the TAMU-CC Summer 2009 Graduation

Sickly Kitty

Sheesh I'm tired

I Love Lucy moment

Doing Dishes rather than Playing with Pictures

Maddy's 1st Birthday Party

The photobook of Jimmy & Mary Beth's party

Andy started the Clothes Swap Party early

So You Think You Can Dance

Clothes Swap Party

Stayin Busy

Update on Andy

Foodie Friday

BENT BUT NOT BROKEN

Thrifty Thursday

Guerrilla Gardeners & Loan Sharks

A Busy Couple of Weeks

M.I.A.

Update on Andy

Medical Update

Good Children, Bad Parents!

Someone worth watching on American Idol

Quick update

A different kind of hair ball

Andy decided to come home on Fridays

My husband's mistress's name is UTA

Neurology appointment today

The cloth bags at Half Price Books are AWESOME!!!

More books as a reward for reading Middlemarch

Oprah's Best Life Series, Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan, and my thoughts on both

Cocky Current Civilization

Mortifying Milk Moments

2009 New Year Letter-a look back at 2008

Extreme Walker Garage Makeover-The Reveal

Party Time

Christmas Day

Extreme Walker Garage Makeover

Extreme Walker Home Makeover

Quasimodo has left the building

More stories are coming after Quasimodo leaves our house

100th Birthday Party

Early Christmas with the Walkers & Fritts

From The Prince to Middlemarch