Old Man Winter

So we weren't supposed to be THAT cold yesterday but old man winter wanted to let us know that it was still January (easy to forget when you've had many 70s and a few 80s days to enjoy) and sent the freezing weather our way. I'm TRYING to count my blessings in that it was a short-lived event. Mom and Dad's weather is, well Arctic and my bro got to spend a day and half at home due to ice (man I miss Snow Days...don't get them working out of a home office), so a little ice on things here isn't something I should complain about.

That said, I barely made it out to cover most of plants. I hope the ones I missed survive. If they don't, I'll take it as I wasn't supposed to grow 'em.

It will hit freezing the next couple of nights but our daytime weather should start getting back up to the 60s by the weekend, which is a good thing as we've got a GardenHoes work day out at Naomi's to prep our CSA garden.

DD is feeling MUCH better. After spiking a 105 fever for a bit and refusing to let the fever go away completely for a while, she finally is back to her usual self, was able to do gymnastics yesterday and went with Dad & brother today to the library.

Well, I need to run again... home alone with the kiddos while Ray's got a meeting at church. HOPEFULLY, we won't have any major "events" to tell him about upon his return.

My Baby's Sick

If she don't feel better by tomorrow, we'll likely take her to the doc. This nice weather, crappy weather back and forth, I'm sure, are playing a part in our DD not feeling herself today. Her brother doesn't like it either as he can't convince her to play with him. She says she'll feel good for gymnastics, but...we'll have to wait and see.

My poor baby girl.

Is This Too Much?

"WOW! That sure is a lot of stuff you have on!" my husband and I chimed in unison upon seeing our DD walking into the living room last night.

"Is this too much?" she inquired, to which her Daddy informed her it might be a tad overboard. Her response to that???

"No, Daddy... THIS isn't too much. This is just right."

Her response had us rolling and reaching for the camera so that YOU may be the judge. Too much or just right? (NOTE: What you can't see in this pix is the earrings, rings and bracelets, and the tons of lip gloss -okay, you can kind-of see the lipgloss- which completed the look.)

Being "PC"... It Ain't Pretty

So I received today the laptop computer for my new job. It is a PC. I'm a Mac girl. While I'm quite proficient on computers of any kind, to say that my transition from my Powerbook G4 to this PC laptop is a breeze is a pile of malarkie. Oh my goodness. Ctrl and Fn and Alt keys are in the wrong places and the touch pad on this new machine is possessed. The good news is that I've not broken it yet. I've opened up some funky windows (see statement about possessed touch pad) and am working my way around on it.

Anyway, here for a while, if you see funky things on the blog, don't worry. It was likely just my attempting to do something that worked on a Mac but doesn't on a PC. LOL

Well, I need to get a few more things set up so I can rock and roll.

Have You Seen My Children?

Oh wait...THERE they are. The tops of their heads are popping out of the leaves after yet another successful cannonball into the leaf pile.

The downside of having gobs of trees on a nice sized lot is the leaf cleanup. While I raked and bagged in one area out front, my DH was blowing the leaves in back. He created a couple of HUGE piles, one of which the kiddos had MUCH fun doing cannonballs in. While we weren't excited with the knowledge that we'd have to come in and clean up the leaves again (cause the kids were spreading them EVERYWHERE), we loved watching them play in the leaf piles and just be KIDS.

Anyone need leaves for their compost pile? Not including the piles of leaves I have already put into my own compost pile, I've got, easily, more than 50 large bags worth of leaves (not including the gobs I still need to clean out of the pond and pond garden area)...LOTS more.

The New 'Do

Well, I'm happy to report that a brown paper bag wasn't necessary after my haircut on Saturday. My new 'do is pretty easy to manage (which is a good thing for me) and, thus far, I am enjoying it. Decided to go for a bob cut this time. I can always go and get bangs and layering down the line...which I likely will at some point. We did a deeper red color this time with some blonde highlights. Closer to the summer months I'll re-color it to have more blond highlights and go back to my more natural auburn red for the low-lights.

Until then... Here's a really bad before and a blurry after pix for your laughing enjoyment.

Gettin' a New 'Do

While I've been thinking, for some time, about doing something with my hair, I think it was my SIL's changing her hair that finally got me energized to do the same. (Her hair looks GREAT, BTW.)

For a while I was thinking about just getting a trim and getting a perm/body wave. I'd gotten several compliments on my hair when I did the whole head curled thing (like at DD's last birthday). When my parents were down for my DS's 3rd bday, Mom got me some hair magazines and, well, that opened up a whole can of worms. I found a variety of styles/cuts that struck my fancy. After doing some research I learned that several of the cuts weren't good for my mega-thick mop of hair but there were a few styles that kept popping up. Funny thing was they were the same cuts I'd picked out in the mags. One was more of just a trim (keeping my hair just below shoulder length) but with many layers. The second was a short bob-type cut.

Hair grows back...eventually... so I have decided to be "adventurous" and go for the short cut (unless I completely chicken out when I get there).

That said, I gotta run so I can get to my appt. Cross your fingers it turns out and I don't have to wear a brown paper sack to my Garden Hoes meeting afterwards.

Our Little Gymnast

Our DD started her gymnastics class at the YMCA and loves it. Her first day she was tumbling, bouncing and walking on the balance beam (which scared me a little). She was such the little gymnast.

Unfortunately, she had a little difficulty with the waiting her turn in line. She'd finish with something and want to be first in line again. Having to wait her turn was almost more than she could bear. She did great though and is looking forward to practicing at home (oh dear) before her next class.

The pix is of her all ready to leave for her first class. Unfortunately, the camera I was using didn't take action shots for spit so I'll have to wait to post some of those when I can get some better shots.

Crikey... He's 3 Already!

This past weekend we celebrated our son's 3rd birthday, and the end of another birthday/holiday season. WHEW... With both kids' bdays near the holiday season, things get mad, crazy around here for a couple of months. I'm happy to announce that we have, however, survived another year of it.

We were blessed to have friends and family join us Saturday for cupcakes, ice cream and punch. Crocodiles/Alligators was this year's "theme". My aunt had sent me the cutest "cake" idea where a crocodile/alligator was made using cupcakes (and a few extras). It was über-easy to make and even easier to serve! Most importantly, my son LOVED it! The table was decorated in a swamp theme. 

I can't believe he's 3 years old already. I hate that he's growing so fast (as is our beautiful daughter), but adore that he still loves to cuddle with Mommy and Daddy. His favorite thing to say right now, besides variations on "no", is "Mommy (or whomever), do you like me?" When we respond that we do he replies, "I like you, too." 

He's going potty quite well on his little potty and, sometimes, on the big potty too. Soon, diapers and pull-ups will be a thing of the past around here! He loves to crawl into bed with me and Daddy early in the morning and if I get out of bed before he wakes up, upon waking, he finds me and inquires "Who told you you could get up Mommy?". I love this little man!

Below: Daddy shows the birthday boy how The Hulk gloves work. Funny thing is one of the "sounds" the gloves make is something our son can be heard saying when he's frustrated and not getting what he wants. "You're making me angry!" We got a chuckle out of that. Secondly is a pix showing off his new bike helmet.

New Job for the New Year

It's official. I've got a new job! I resigned from my current position and turned in the signed offer on my new one.

It was SO hard to resign from my current job for a few reasons. (1) I LOVE the people with whom I work. (2) I have worked with my current (or is it now previous?) employer for 14 years and have learned much from working there. (3) we recently launched a new service offering, which I can talk about cause it is still in stealth mode, that I think will take the nation by storm and, having drank the koolaid, was looking forward to getting it off the ground. (4) Did I mention I love the people I work(ed) with?

Anyway, circumstances being what they were I was open to having a discussion when the call came in for a new opportunity. After much prayer, discussion and prayer I've decided to take the leap of faith and spread my wings. Later this month I'll be joining BridgeQuest, a software development outsourcing company based in NC, as an Account Executive. 

I so very much appreciate all the prayers over the past couple of months about this. While sad to leave Greywolf, I'm very excited about the opportunities lying in front of me with BridgeQuest.

Stayin' Alive

 ...I hope. When the winter chill hit Central Texas, we had to move plants to the greenhouse. I'm still SO thankful to have inherited this wonderful thing from my friend Naomi after she got her new one. My DH is happy about it as well cause now there are only a few plants in the garage rather than ALL of them. As for all the plants that I've got in the ground, I've been doing my best to protect them when necessary. I hope they make it.

If my plants follow the old adage of "first year sleeps, second year creeps, third year leaps" and if everything survives these cold spells, I should have a nice batch of creeping and leaping plants this year. I can't wait to enjoy my gardens once again. This year, I'm also doing some new beds. Removed all the pea gravel and landscape cloth from the bed in front of the house and have begun thinking about what all I'm going to plant there. Also, I'm hoping to make some beds on either side of a walkway I'm hoping to put leading to the front door. We'll see what all we actually get done. I still have to "finish" painting the trim on the house that I began two years ago. (Horrible, I know...at least I got 98% of the front of the house's trim painted. LOL)

The past couple day's we've had another cold front but late last week was beautiful. We had fun prepping garden beds and making "spaghetti pumpkin muddy mud cake". Here's the kiddos showing off their tea party cake, which we pretended to enjoy before making another one.

Rock 'n Roll

I'm so very excited that my brother liked his Christmas present. While I met all the criteria he'd noted on his "wish list" I was nervous as to how the finished product would go over. I know I shared a peak at the felted, adjustable, custom guitar strap I made for my brother in a previous post, I wanted to post a pix of it "in use".


It was a bit of a challenge figuring out how to make it turn out in real life like I pictured it in my head but I did it and am hope that it proves to be quite useful for my baby bro. I love you!!! Rock n' roll, bro!

Happy New Year

Here's wishing everyone a much better 2009 than we had 2008. This first day of the new year finds me and mine all doing well. The past couple of days were quite nice so I finally gave in to the gardening urge. Hoed up a few of my garden plots and weeded them and then my son helped me to plant some spinach and lettuce. A few bulbs have gone into the ground, some cuttings were taken to be rooted (hopefully), and I've started some seeds in the greenhouse, or my "green office" as my son calls it. The house is in dire need of cleaning and the laundry is piled up, but I am about to go back outside and do a little more gardening prep. Maybe plant a few more seeds..

This new year brings lots of promise and potential fun. Our GardenHoe group is considering expanding Naomi's garden plot and doing some bulk veggie growing this year, not only to provide us with lots of homegrown goodies, but to allow us to be vendors at a Farmer's Market that is looking to start here in our area. Of course, just doing veggies isn't enough for us so we're thinking about doing some crafts and other goodies to sell as well. Keep watching the blog for updates on this little venture.

I've also got two other "fun" volunteer jobs this year. I'm serving as co-leader for the Connections Team at my church and I'm so excited about being able to serve in this capacity. Additionally, I was recently elected to the Board of Directors for the Austin Pond Society as the Publicity Chair. I hope I can do a good job for these. I'm very excited about serving with these fantastic people.