I'm Falling for Fall!

After all the craziness that goes on around here, I feel like I should put a sign that reads, " XX days since the last accident on the job." Similar to signs found in stockrooms at businesses. Not too much stuff has gone on in the last month, but enough that the sign would have a low number of days. The things that I can think of right off of the top of my head are: Charlotte lost the ball to our computer mouse and for a couple of days we were having to stick our fingers inside the mouse to move the little wheels around if we wanted to do anything on the computer; Sophie got stuck in a different chair, but this time she slid right out; and the thing that was most heart wrenching was that a shelf that had about 30 of my coke bottles on it came crashing down and made the kitchen unusable for a short while. Luckily all the kids and I were outside when it happened, but Michael happened to be near when it happened and got a small scratch on his leg. If you have ever seen my coke bottle collection or heard me gush on and on about it, then you know it's a pretty large collection. I had about 75 of the small 8oz coke bottles with different designs on them. I also had some larger ones that had come from different countries. The one that I am most proud of was one that I got in the Czech Repulic. I loved that one because I went there and got it myself instead of somebody bringing it to me. It did survive, but it had a paper label instead of one that was printed on the glass and it got a little dirty. I also had a pretty good shot glass collection that didn't make it. The glass on those are so thin that they just shattered. The floor was so sticky and so full of glass. It was a couple of days before we deemed it completely cleaned. Even now though, we will find a piece of glass that was hidden in a corner somewhere. On to happier thoughts! How about this weather??? Last weekend was so great! Tues-Thu of this week aren't much to talk about, but when we wake up Friday, the temps will be worthy of finally calling them fall weather. I don't know if the reason I love fall so much is because of the weather or because my birthday is in the fall. I think I get more excited for Halloween and Thanksgiving almost more than Christmas! Since my birthday is right around Thanksgiving, we don't usually do much for it. Which I'm cool with. Now that I have passed up 30, I don't feel the need to keep up with the number anymore. This year though, there is something awesome happening on my bday in Houston! Monday Night Football! I really enjoy football and I have a lot of faith in the Texans even though they have let me down a time or two. I don't know if anybody knows this or not, but I worked at Reliant Stadium for a short while during football and rodeo season selling beer at a stand. I loved that job, but it was so far to drive. I met all kinds of interesting people and had a lot of fun doing it. My stand was on the visiting team's side of the stadium. Since that was the side that was usually winning that year, I had a lot of happy people around me. Anyway, other choices for birthday fun are going to see Tracy Morgan, a comic that was on Saturday Night Live for a while. He'll be in Houston the weekend after thanksgiving. He is hilarious! He is now on one of my favorite shows, 30 Rock. I would also love to go see Train, a band that I really like, and they are playing the night before my bday. Also the weekend before my birthday, Leslie and I will be going camping with her girl scout troop. I'm really looking forward to that and Leslie is kind of looking forward to it. I haven't beeen camping in a very long time. Not since before Leslie was born. I can't wait! So November seems like it might be a little busy. I sure hope so anyway! I love to be out and about. And sometimes I even get to take Michael with me. It's so hard to find a babysitter that we often just go do something by ourselves and then come back and tell the other one about it. We have even gone to see the same movie, but separately. I know we'll eventually get around to getting out of the house together, we just have to hang in there!! I didn't realize that it was already 10:45! Time to hit the bed!! Goodnight!

Oops, there went August!

Wow. I didn't mean to go a whole month and not post anything. It just sort of happened that way. I get caught up in who knows what and the time gets away from me. August wasn't that exciting except for three events that all happened in the span of 8 days. The first event was that Sophie got her head stuck in one of our dining room chairs. I was only standing two feet away from her, but wasn't facing her so I didn't see exactly how it happened. But to make a long story much shorter, I ended up having to call 911 and the New Waverly Fire Dept and some paramedics came out to help her. They ended up having to use the jaws of life to cut the chair to get her out. I wanted to ask if they could cut all of our chairs so they would match. And so that this wouldn't happen again. I'm guessing all of this wasn't as traumatic as I thought it would be for Sophie because she was back up in the chair again that evening. A few days later, Leslie had a friend over and while they were outside, they decided to see if they could throw rocks over the house. Leslie doesn't have the best aim and one of her rocks made it through a window in the front of the house. I wasn't real happy about this, but it was an accident, so she only had to endure a weekend with no tv or computer. The third event was a happy one. Leslie started second grade! I can't imagine where the time went. I remember taking her picture the morning that she was leaving to go to PreK. She seemed so big then, but now looking at the pictures, she was tiny! She's so tall now. The dr estimates her being about 5'10" when she's done growing. And the same for Sophie. He said Charlotte is going to be the short one, but still taller than me. Other good things going on around here....my brother came back through town for about a week. We had a family get together last weekend so everybody could get a chance to see him before he heads out to his next job in Trinidad, which is a country off the coast of Venezuela. He'll be there until sometime in December, I think. I love going to our family parties. I have an awesome extended family. I feel very blessed to have so many aunts/uncles/cousins. Especially ones that are fun to be around. Also, I started selling Avon products. I absolutely love everything that Avon has and I figured why not start trying to earn a little bit of money from that. It's not going to get me rich by any means, but it's fun to do. The real way to make money with Avon is to recruit new representatives, but my main concern was trying to find people to sell to first. Then we'll figure out how to get more people involved. One more thing good that I can think of that happened last month was that we got a dog. I never really have been a dog person, but I couldn't resist this one. Somebody had rescued her from somewhere, but wasn't able to keep her. They put an add on the Montgomery County Freecycle website and that's where I found her. She's probably about 6 months old now. She's part dachshund and collie and she's just beautiful. That's all I can think of to catch everybody up on the latest around here. Good night and Big balls. (we watch a lot of Wipeout)

I made it back from Denver in one piece. About a month ago. It was awesome! The most amazing thing we did was go all the way up to the top of Pike's Peak. Once we got up there, I got kind of woozy and spent most of my time sitting inside the gift shop. I posted the picture of my brother and mom sitting at the photo op place on the summit. I was not satisfied with any of the pictures that were taken of me so don't expect to see any of them anytime soon. Anyway, while we were in Denver, we went to the Molly Brown museum. That is a place that I didn't know existed, but i'm glad I went. I didn't know much about her except that she was a survivor from the Titanic. Now that I have heard about her life and seen her nifty house, I would like to see the movie about her. We were told that the movie did change quite a bit of things about her, including the fact that her name was actually Margaret. They called her Molly in the movie because it was easier to sing. After all of our fun in Colorado, my mom, my brother and I drove back down here. That is the longest I have been away from my kids and I missed them so much! I'm missing them right now actually. Leslie and Charlotte went to spend a few days with Grandpa and Grandma and it has been so quiet here. Sophie is enjoying getting to be an only child for a few days. Here's something else I did that I haven't done in ages! I read a book on Thursday. I haven't had time to do that in so long. I would rather read than watch tv, but I happen to be in high demand these days, it gets put on the back burner. I think i'm going to go read some more now. Ciao!

Go me!

Big News! I'm getting to go to Denver in a couple of days! My mom and I are flying up there to see my brother. He was already planning on driving down here later in the week so we will just ride back down here with him. I'm so excited. I don't get to see him very often and I have never been to Colorado before. And I haven't been on a plane since the summer of 2002. I'm not a huge fan of flying, but i'll work around that. After we get there, my brother is going to meet us there and we'll stay in Denver until the next day. At some point while we are there, we are going to Colorado Springs and going to see Pike's Peak. I watched some videos about it and it looks amazing. I had heard of it before, but didn't really know just how huge it was. The summit is at 14,110 feet. And from what I can tell, there are three ways to get to the top: walking, driving and some sort of train. I looked at the weather for the summit. On tuesday the high is going to be 42deg. How awesome is that?! And there is snow on the top!! I have seen a total of about 4 inches of snow in my whole life. And snow in east texas just doesn't seam as authentic as snow on a mountain. My dad would have loved going up there. He would probably have preferred hiking up the mountain, but I just cant' see myself making that whole trek. I can handle walking maybe the last half mile. Being on the top of that mountain will probably be the closest I could get to him up in heaven while standing on earth. I'm not sure what other exciting things we will do while we're up there, but i'll try to give a full report when I get back.
I have kids that don't want to go to sleep at the moment. Well, just one kid. Leslie just came in here to tell me that her bed is no longer comfortable and she can't find the right spot to fall asleep in. She is hoping that I will tell her to just go get in my bed. She thinks my bed is the softest bed in the world. I think my bed feels like concrete. And she has the air conditioner in her room. I have thought about going and getting in the empty bunk bed in her room to sleep. Hopefully if everything goes well, our ac will be fixed on Tuesday. I'm off to go sweat my self to sleep and watch saturday night live. Tonight is the rerun of the most recent time Alec Baldwin hosted it. He's a hottie.

He's Back!!

Our kitty showed back up this morning! He'd been on another one of this 5 day vacations. Every once in a while he'll disappear for a few days and show up out of the blue. I tell the kids that he's on an adventure so they don't worry about him. When I saw him jump up in the kitchen window, the first thing I did was go take a Zyrtec and then I went and let him in so I could pick him up and hug on him. Zyrtec is a miracle drug for me. If I don't take it and then I just barely pet the cat, I am out of commission for the rest of the day with allergies.

I'm Melting.....

I am still trying to be good, but I have noticed when it's really hot in here, it makes me want something cold from the freezer. For lunch the last couple of days I have been sticking with salads. We ate at Sweet Tomatos in the woodlands on monday. It was so good and somewhat healthy. Leslie and I both put some of what we thought was cheese on our salad. At the exact moment it was falling onto the lettuce I actually read what the sign said it was. Jicama. I have vowed that I would never eat that because it looks horrible. But I couldn't even tell it was there. I didn't tell Leslie what it was until after she was done. She was surprised that she ate it and didn't have some sort of attack. I still don't think I will go buy one and use it at home. On monday we also went to have our family pictures taken. We went to the walmart in the woodlands to do them. In the past, I have been pleased with the pictures that come out of the walmart studios. But this time I was amazed with the pictures. They were all so wonderful that I bought a lot more pictures than I had planned to. We all wore nice bright colors and were against a black background. I can't wait for everybody to see them!
I have found something else to keep my time occupied lately. I have now been a member of facebook for a while and discovered a game on there called FarmTown. You get to plant your own farms and have livestock and other farm related things. I absolutely love it! It helps me with my desire to plant stuff with out having to deal with outside or the plants dying. We do have a small garden in the back yard though. It has some blackberry plants, watermelon, rosemary and some red and purple flowers. I have been going outside to water it everyday! I try to get Charlotte to help me sometimes, but she just wants to stand there with the hose and point the sprayer straight up in the air. That's fun, but not always what I am in the mood for.
Charlotte had a momentous occasion earlier this week. She peed in her little potty finally!! She hasn't gone since. I hope we get that completely taken care of soon. Having two kids in diapers has been an expensive habit for a long time.
wow...i have suddenly gotten very sleepy...see ya!

Let's try this again!

I have gotten myself in the right frame again for another try at eating right. I have been good all day so far. Here's my eating for today:

*2 cups of coffee with lots of creamer and splenda
*a bowl of corn flakes with vanilla soy milk and splenda
*2 hot dogs with cheese
*4 strawberries with splenda
*2 graham cracker sandwiches with peanut butter
*chicken and rice on a small plate so I wouldn't eat a ton of it
*a spoonful of vanilla ice cream
*3 bottles of water and 1 bottle of water with a sugar free hawaiian punch flavoring in it.
Does that count as water?

I don't have the treadmill anymore, but i'll figure out something to get myself more active. It doesn't help that I don't like summer, or that our airconditioning is broken either. We do have some window units that we are using at the moment until something better comes along. That is the end of my complaining, I promise!
I really enjoyed watching "The Biggest Loster" this season. I hadn't seen it before and I got some good eating tips from it. It was very motivational to watch it. The transformations the contestants made were amazing. They did it in such a short time though and it almost seems like that goal would be unreachable to the people watching at home. But I have pictured myself a thousand times doing the thing where I hold up the old pants that I used to wear and dropping them to reveal a new me. It's going to happen someday.