Well. . .ok

I guess after asking three times if you want to watch a movie and getting no answer except that you turned Glenn Beck back on rather loudly, it's a "no."

I suppose I'll go fold the four baskets of laundry calling my name. Maybe I'll set up Hulu and watch a show while I do it.

Imagine That

I guess someone read my blog. It was the person I wanted to read it, but it still accomplished nothing. Like yesterday, an accomplishment of nothing.



Lauren is getting a haircut today. Her hair is as wild as she is.



This is the only week ever, while living in this part of Texas, that I wore a sweater 5 consecutive days because it was cold enough to actually wear a sweater. Usually you wear a sweater one day, the next your back in regular clothes. Global warming.

Helloooo. . . ?

Hey, Keith, my biological clock is ticking very LOUDLY!

What now?

I hate Christmas.

Anybody there?

Hey. Just in case you don't know, I want to have one more baby. We can't stop at an uneven number.

Whatever . . .

I need a Zoloft and a grilled cheese sandwich.

So much to say and nothing to say.



1. Kitchen remodel at a standstill. All of the cabinets are in my dining room. They've been there over a month. Maybe I should just start using them.



2. Birthday Boy. Alex's birthday is Thursday. I was trying to plan a party for him when all of the swine flu business broke out, and I didn't know if anyone would come to a party. Looks like his party will be in June.



3. Some guy rear-ended my minivan. His insurance is supposed to pay for it, but right now they "can't" release the settlement amount to me for 2 days.



4. Last but definitely not least, Keith's beloved Grandmother ("Nana") passed away last week. Her funeral was Saturday. We knew it was coming, but that doesn't make it much easier. She was a very big part of Keith's life and will be missed. RIP.



So yes, we aren't living it up having a big fun time right now, but with the exception of Nana, these things aren't that bad, just annoying.



Things to look forward to:



1. Christian's t-ball with Daddy as the coach.



2. We will eventually have a birthday celebration for Alex.



3. School is letting out soon. No more homework! I hate 3rd grade.



4. Eventually my kitchen won't be in boxes and in the living room. All of my range top burners will work. We will have a refrigerator that will fit all of our food.



5. Lauren growing and changing and talking everyday.



Gotta put everything in perspective or you'll go crazy!!



'Til next time. . .

The Miracle of Television

I see and hear a lot of people say that tv is a bad thing. I tend to disagree. Mostly because the tv was my surrogate parent from age 8, and I did not become a juvenile delinquent or an adult delinquent for that matter. I learned a lot from tv and still do, especially with all of the educational channels out there. Of course at the moment my husband is watching "My cousin Vinny," a movie I can't stand, but I digress.

A tv show is potty training my 19 month old daughter. She has become obsessed with "Bear in the Big Blue House," and the only episode we own is where Bear teaches Tutter about going potty. So now she takes off her diaper and then asks me to take her to the potty, where she sits while I hold her up. She hasn't actually done anything while on the potty, but she is giving some effort. I think she realizes her diaper is wet and wants it changed, so she goes "potty." I'm not going to complain. Bear can teach her how to use the potty.

What I really need is "Bear washes the dishes" and "Bear does his own laundry."

The New Kitchen/Ax Men

We've taken the plunge. . .the kitchen cabinets have been ordered and paid for and the wait begins. It takes about a month for the company to make my cabinets and a day or two to put them in. The hard part will be the 1-4 weeks of waiting for the countertop to be made to fit the new cabinets. I decided to go for the project since there will never be a GOOD time to be without a kitchen, and my kitchen sucks. We have been searching for another house, but we can't find one we like, so we're fixing up this one.



I have to compliment Lowe's. So far Stacy the cabinet lady has been very helpful, and their system of installing the cabinets is very efficient.



I will have to post before and after pictures.



Also, any ideas for freeze ahead and heat in the microwave or oven meals would be appreciated.

On a different note. . .I read that some loggers on the show "Ax Men" got in trouble for removing trees from a stream. I haven't watched this new season of "Ax Men," but when I first saw the headline that some loggers on the show got in trouble with a regulatory agency, I thought it would be OSHA. Believe it or not, I was a Logging Coordinator for a forest products company for 8 years. If any of my loggers worked on my jobs with no safety equipment (like the guys on "Ax Men") I would have had to shut their job down. Using a chainsaw with no eye protection or saw chaps was unforgivable, not to mention extremely dangerous. I didn't work in the Pacific NW, so the terrain and conditions were different, but logging is never safe wherever you do it. I never had a contractor lose anyone while they worked with me, but one contractor I worked with lost 3 guys in a 5 year span. Most other contractors had a fatality at least once in their careers.

I do have to admit that I like to watch "Ax Men" when I can catch it. ( I would DVR it, but I'm having trouble getting to watch my DVR shows now that Lauren only takes one nap a day.) Watching the logging and activity in the woods brings back a lot of memories. I enjoyed my job immensely, and it was hard to give up. It is difficult to believe I used to tromp through the woods everyday with steel-toed boots and a hard hat in the Texas heat (with the snakes, wild hogs, and strange people who hung out in the woods).

I am probably one of the few people that would DVR both "Ax Men" and "The Real Housewives of . . ." Go figure.

Refrigerator Blues

Sometime in the next few months my kitchen will be overhauled. I'm not sure how far it will go, but I have made one decision that I have been on the fence about . . . the refrigerator. I really don't want to get a new one, of course Keith wants to get a new one (he always wants a new anything), but with my recent grocery trips it has become apparent that the old one is not going to work for us. For one thing it just doesn't hold much, and with 3 different kinds of milk or milk-like products we require, there's not a lot of room left. The freezer is ridiculously small,but we have a big freezer in the garage to hold most things. The freezer hasn't been restocked since Hurricane Ike, but eventually I'll put more stuff in it.

I am probably going to get one of those two door refrigerators with the ice and water in the door and the freezer on the bottom. I've only seen them in stainless steel, which I don't particularly care for. I guess I need to spend some quality time in Lowe's (again).

Ooops!

I just realized today that my January goal to hang up my buffalo picture in the game room did not happen. I need a yardstick.

Viruses, Homework, and Milk. . .oh my!

It's been a fun few days at our house. Keith has been very sick with some kind of upper respiratory virus. He has literally been in bed since Wednesday. Because of this, I have been sleeping on our not-so-comfortable couch (with Lauren, Christian, and some combination of dogs). I have not been getting much sleep, which scares me because I DO NOT want what Keith has, and lack of sleep won't help my immune system. I've been taking Airborne twice a day and hoping for the best. He is getting better, but it has been slow. I need to figure out how to disinfect the bedroom when this is all over. He is hoping to be back at work on Monday.

Found out Lauren can't eat cookies from the bread store. Poor kid. I don't know what to do about her dairy thing. She is supposed to grow out of it. I hope she does, but her reaction to dairy is worse than mine. I can eat 0g lactose cheese from Kraft-she can't. It must be more than the lactose, but we still don't know what.

Alex got his report card Friday and it was great, as usual. For all the complaining I do about the homework load he has, it hasn't burnt him out yet. For example, Thursday night's homework took him over 3 hours. Was it worth it? Will he pass his stupid TAKS test so the school can keep it's exemplary rating? Is the TAKS test going to improve his life?

Christian got his Kindergarten spot at PDS for next year. I got there super early in case there would be a line (only 24 Kindergarten spots available), but I had no problem. Now I just have to get Lauren in her class for next year, there will be a lot of competition on that day.

Gotta go do some laundry, dust the living room, vacuum. . . .(does the list ever end?)

Wanna come over?

All the fun things. . .

1. The upstairs heater went out on Christmas Eve. Luckily it wasn't a big or expensive repair.

2. Somehow I burned a white circular stain into the kitchen table.

3. Christian has "fart-poops."

4. Lauren has "Lauren-rrhea."

5. We have rats in the garage.

6. I woke up this morning to the pitter-patter of rain coming from my living room. Nasty water heater pipe. Nice water stain on the ceiling. Maybe we can make pictures from them like looking at clouds and imagining what the shapes are.

7. Due to #6, I have not been to the grocery store today. Found a recipe for pork chops on the web that I had all of the ingredients for, so there's dinner. This is the third dinner in a row like this. Hopefully tomorrow I can get to the store.

Despite all of the above, I' m not a hysterical mess, things could be worse. It's just kind of funny how it all can hit at the same time.

Good thing: Lauren says "mommy" now on a regular basis, and it does mean that she wants me, which is nice.

Hey Keith. . .post #2

[Okay, I wrote the previous post BEFORE I saw what you wrote about me, and I wrote it in response to you seeing someone write a little blog about their husband and why didn't I have something like that about you on my blog. So that explains my previous post. ]

I really don't have words to express how I feel about my husband's post "How I met my wife." It is a funny, sweet story. . . and true. It is amazing that a few minutes here or there, and I may not be where I am today, and wouldn't know the difference. Keith is an amazing man. He's been many places and done many things, and always wants to do more. I would have never done a lot of things or gone a lot of places if it hadn't been for him. He's very smart, which is a deal breaker for me. Intelligence is sexy. He's very funny, too, although sometimes at my expense. I am not the wordsmith that he is either, but I do remember the day we met and I remember the impression he made on me.

One story he neglected to tell was about Valentine's Day of our freshman year. At that time I was dating his roommate, and his roommate sent me a present through the Off Campus Aggies. Who was my delivery man? Keith. I remember thinking that I wished the Valentine gift was from Keith instead of Kyle. How ironic that I've had Keith for every Valentine's Day since.

Almost 20 years later and here we are: house in the suburbs, 3 kids, minivan, soccer, etc. If someone would have fast forwarded my life and showed me this back then I would have never believed I could be so lucky! Keith, thanks for everything and I still love you after all these years!

Hey Keith, did you see this?

My husband is a great guy. You can see him down there in the picture with me. He is the best thing that ever happened to me. He is always making me laugh. I am so lucky to have such a great guy for a husband. He works very hard so I can stay at home with our three beautiful children, and provide them with all of their needs and then some.

Things to do. . .

My goal for January, now that it is almost half over, is to frame and hang my buffalo picture inthe game room. I have the frame and everything, just haven't done it.

Piles of Stuff

I am a genetically pre-disposed "piler." I have various piles of stuff all over the place. My Grandma has/had piles of stuff, my great-Grandma had piles of stuff, my mom has/had piles of stuff. I am doomed. I have been working on the kitchen piles and have made a good dent in the kitchen desk pile. Yesterday I spontaneously took care of the 2 kitchen table piles, because one toppled onto the floor. No excuse to not fix it. It did make us have to eat Papa John's last night, but, hey, I fixed up a nagging pile . . . actually 2! nagging piles. It was mostly the boys stuff, school papers, coloring books, etc. I weeded through it and have put the tmportant stuff in 2 color coded bins. Now it is a movable pile. When they get desks, the bins will go there. I have desks picked out for them at Rooms To Go, but I am apprehensive about spending money. I also want the study painted and a new light fixture first. But at least I fixed 2 piles. I am actually proud of that.

New Skills

Last night I made real mashed potatoes. Betty Crocker had absolutely nothing to do with them. It was all me and it was good.

Happy New Year!

Christmas is over. Finally. Not much to say. May quit the blog thing. Probably a waste of my time.