Calm Friday

Top 10 Reasons I'm Thankful to be Working on Black Friday

10. I avoid the lines of crazy people who spent the night waiting to get into the store to save $5.

9. I actually get up later than the "early-birds" trying to get the best deals.

8. Since I have no one to talk to, I have time to catch up on projects.

7. There are plenty of parking spaces at work.

6. By the time I get to the mall, there are plenty of parking spaces there too.

5. I avoid wasting money on a "good deal" for an item I didn't even need in the first place.

4. I get dibs on taking time off at Christmas.

3. My patients feel bad that I have to work, so they are extra nice.
2. Basically I get paid to do nothing.  It is usually a day.  Who is going to come in to see us the day after Thanksgiving?

1. No traffic on the way to work makes me happy.

God Bless Us Every One

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving!  My parents and Sarah are here and we have had the best day.  Sarah lives with my parents and works with my Mom at Worldview Academy.  She's one of the family and adorable!  

I have a tiny apartment with no room to cook dinner and I don't even have a table to sit at (I eat on the couch), so we went to the Cracker Barrel.  It was great and I never want to cook on Thanksgiving again.  No cooking, no dishes, no getting up early, etc.  We waited 45 minutes for a table, so clearly we are not the only smarty pants in town!  Sarah's parents were at their own Cracker Barrel having dinner at the same time, so it was like a big family dinner.  

Here are my parents and Sarah and I.

Then we went to the movies.  We were early, so we had time to play and took pictures with all the Christmas decorations.

We got to wear fun glasses to see A Christmas Carol in IMAX 3D. It was great. OK, the movie was the story you all know, but the 3D part was really cool. Actually it was cold.  We were freezing and I'm pretty sure it wasn't really that cold in the theater.  It just seemed that way when it looked like it was actually snowing all around us!

Now we are watching the parade that we recorded this morning.  Did I mention we didn't get up until 10:30?  I told you, it has been the best Thanksgiving ever!  And now we are reading the paper to see where they need to shop while I'm hardly working tomorrow.

I'm thankful for each of you who come by to read my little blog everyday. Happy Thanksgiving and may the shopping begin!

80 Years Young

Here are a few pictures of our big surprise birthday party for my Grandma a few weeks ago.

This is my Grandma's adorable little church in Beagle, Kansas where we had the party.

By this point, she knows she is walking into something!

They had convinced my Grandma that I didn't come and when she saw me I think we both teared up a little.  (I mean obviously, I love her the most...of course I would be there!)

In case you can't see them behind her, we had 4 huge cakes.  I'm pretty sure they will be having leftover cake after Thanksgiving dinner this week.  It was delicious though!

My aunt and cousins served lots of cake and punch.  I was busy taking pictures or I would have gladly helped them.  Ah-hem, moving along...

Here she is greeting some of her friends and neighbors.  There were about 100 guests and they all love her!  She is the one everyone in the community knows they can count on when they are in need.

This is my mom and my aunt (my mom is the shorter one).  Can you see how we would get confused when we were little and run to the wrong mommy?  (They are both beautiful though, hi mom!)

My cousin Emily (who belongs to my aunt above), my Grandma and I have had many fun adventures over the years.  We live entirely too far away from each other!

My niece and nephew were the only great grandkids that could make it to the party, but trust me she has many.  Don't ask me to count though, it's late and I already took my cough medicine.

Whenever we are together, we have get to take millions thousands soooo many family pictures.  This group includes my Grandma, her kids and their spouses, grandkids and great grandkids.  All of her children made it and about half of the grandkids and great grandkids were there.  At Christmas she'll just cut and paste pictures of the others onto this one for her card!  (Have I mentioned she's a cyber Grandma?  She can do more with digital pictures than I can and she's on Facebook!)

Here are all the family members who were able to come up to celebrate her big day.

I hope you had the greatest birthday ever Grandma!  I think we should go to Disney World for your 90th!  Who's in?

If It Wasn't So Cold Up There

So last night, I was all happy about it being Thanksgiving.  My parents are coming; everyone is on vacation; blah, blah, blah.  With all that running through my head, I managed to fall asleep about 1 this morning!

Fast forward to 6:30 this morning when the alarm goes off.  Carly jumped as she heard new and colorful words spew from my mouth as I searched for the snooze button.  (I'm not really a morning person.)

What was that going off for?  Isn't it Thanksgiving break?

Oh yeah, there is no Thanksgiving break, its a normal Monday!  In fact, we only get Thursday off, so expect me to be really cranky on Friday!  (And if you see me at the mall, you must say I looked so sick and must have been on the way to the hospital, wink wink!)  Oh, I kid, I am strongly considering would never call in sick for Black Friday!

I always get annoyed this time of year.  Why can't they put Thanksgiving on Friday so we can have a long weekend and actually go somewhere?

I thought I'd Google Thanksgiving to find out why it's in the middle of the week.  You see, my brother thinks Thanksgiving is on Thursday because they both start with TH.  I find it odd that our founding fathers would pick a date for a holiday solely because it was cute and all matchy-matchy with the day of the week.  Here's the thing, so far I just have a bunch of boring stuff about so and so said this Thursday and then another so and so said this Thursday, etc.  So maybe they did pick it because it sounds cute.  Who knows!

But, I learned that in Canada they celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October.  Now they are thinking!  Who cares if your holidays sound cute with the days of the week, you get a long weekend, with time to travel to grandmother's house and cook.

It's enough to make me move up there.  Oh but wait, I forgot about the weather.  Never mind, I'll stay here in warm and sunny South Texas, but I still reserve the right to be grumpy on Friday morning!

On a brighter note, remember this post where I complained about this company?  Well after that post, I got an email saying they would send me a new copy and they were sorry it did not work.  I thought, yeah right, we'll see and completely forgot about it.

Today I came home and there was a fed-ex sticker on the door.  When I went to the office, I saw that it was a package from them with the new game.  AND the new one works!  I take back everything I said. Feel free to buy their games, maybe even on Black Friday.  Just think of me while you are shopping and I am sitting at work eating chocolate all day to console myself!

I have to say I'm quite thankful for our weather down here, so I'll let them keep their Monday version of Thanksgiving up there in Canada.  I am also quite thankful for a job I love, even though they make us work the day after Thanksgiving.  But for the record, I vote for a Friday or Monday change!

I'm a Smart Girl

My little sis, Lexy is turning 11 next week. I knew this, but just in case, she reminded me several times today. :) Of course Christmas is hurdling towards us faster than a speeding bullet, as well.  That means, I need to get shopping for birthday and Christmas presents.

All I remember from when I was her age is E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.  I won an all-expense paid trip to California when I was her age to see the E.T. movie, go to a cast party, take inside tours, etc.  I'll never forget the day they called from John A. Brown (a department store way back then) to tell me I had won.  I ran to tell my mom, because they needed an adult to say I could go. My mom said it could not be true and to hang up!  Ha!  I asked if I called Grandma and she agreed to go, could I go then?  She rolled her eyes and said fine, assuming that would never happen.  Well, guess what?  My Grandma thought it would be fun and we flew to California for the first of several fabulous vacations we have taken together.    (Yes, she is the same Grandma whose birthday we just celebrated.)

Anyway, I don't remember wanting anything except E.T. that year.  I had E.T. clothes, shoes, bags, stuffed animals, everything!  I'm guessing that's not really what Lexy is into these days though.  I tried asking her what she wanted, but I didn't have a clue as to what she was talking about.  So, today I had a great idea.  We went window shopping!

We went to Toys R Us and I took hundreds several pictures of her with many things she might like.  Now, when I go shopping I will just pull out my phone and see the pictures of exactly what she wants.  I told you I was a smart girl!

Of course, we took some time to play as well!

Yes, that is a whoopee cushion and I should go ahead and apologize to her mom now for letting her get it!  I couldn't send her home with out anything after looking at all those fun new toys and she won it fair and square at Incredible Pizza.

I hope your Sunday was as much fun as ours was!

Gotta Dance

Today my niece performed at a Dance Festival in Boerne (sounds like burn-ee).  I danced ballet, tap and jazz all through school, so I couldn't wait for her to start having recitals.  I have great memories of those days and love seeing the excitement in her eyes.  My brother, of course, reminded me the whole time how his childhood was ruined by spending an entire Sunday in May every year at my dance recitals.  Blah blah blah :)

Here she is waiting for her turn.  She loved watching all the "big" girls dance.

Her brother was waiting with me for her performance.  I'm sure he felt the same way my brother did, back in the day.  I say it's good for them!  Life is pretty much about waiting, right?

Marshall couldn't wait to give his sister her roses.  (She made sure to point out that they were selling roses....hint hint!)

She was so proud, she went around telling everyone which one her Daddy bought her and which ones her Mommy bought her.

What a fun day, now I want to get out my old videos.  Of course, I have no VCR, so that won't really work!

Nothing Like a Drowned Squirrel

We are both soaking wet, and Carly is in time out, in the garage!

Today it rained and rained and rained.  I love rain at night when I'm trying to sleep, but in the middle of a busy day, it's more of an annoyance.  I had been looking forward to getting home, staying in, and listening to the rain all day. It's such lovely napping weather!

Carly typically hates rain.  I always have to drag her out to do her business when it's raining.  (Luckily it never rains here anymore!)  By the time I get home from work, she usually has to go bad enough to quickly pee on the first patch of grass and then run back inside to be saved from the evil water falling from the sky.  You've never seen a dog who hates water this much!

So, when I got home from work I grabbed her leash so we could quickly run outside and run back in without getting too wet.  It usually works.  She's a very good dog.

Not today.

As soon as we got out of the garage she took off running!  By the time I caught up with her, she had crawled up in the neighbor's bushes trying to get up on their patio.  Did I mention it was pouring?

What on earth would cause this, you ask?  Well, there is one thing Carly hates more than water.

SQUIRRELS!

The poor squirrel was hiding there under the covered patio to stay dry and Carly saw it all the way across the parking lot.  It is of course her sworn duty to rid the world of squirrels.

I will admit that they have potty mouths and throw nuts at us, so I don't necessarily discourage this behavior, but maybe I should.  In our old house I heard horrible screams from the back yard one day.  I ran outside to see her on the back porch with a squirrel.  She had it firmly in her mouth and the squirrel had a firm bite on Carly's nose!  Neither would give up.  Squirrels are hard to kill, apparently.  That was one of my many trips to the doggie ER.

Anyway, I got her out of the bushes and drug her back in the house.  At this point we were both soaking wet.  I changed into dry clothes and went to get her dinner and I remembered she was wet and muddy and in the house!  Just as I was about to get a towel to dry her off, she decided to start shaking it all off, and onto me!

So, now she's in the garage and I have changed clothes again.  I will let her back in, just as soon as she learns how to use a hair dryer!

If you could ask her, I'm pretty sure she'd tell you it's worth it though.  I mean, she has to rid the world of evil squirrels.  A little time out won't stop her!

Nothing Much to See Here

A) Thanks for your concern, my voice is better today.  I somehow made it through a crazy Thursday with a little bit of my voice left.  I have been resting it all night, except for about 20 minutes on the phone with my parents.  But hey, God would want me to talk to my parents, right?  Ah-hem anyway, hopefully I'll be all better and as loud as ever tomorrow!

and

2)  I'm still sorting through vacation pictures!  My Grandma emailed to make sure I was OK yesterday, since I still hadn't gotten all the pics up on Snapfish yet.  I'm usually super organized and have them up immediately.  Well, I wasn't kidding when I said there were over 1200!  I'm working as fast as I can, while on cough medicine, that is.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from dinner Friday night with my Dad's side of the family.  We had a blast with them, and I was sad that I didn't get to spend more time with them.  (There is never enough time!)

I should tell you that my nephew took most of the pictures that night.  I love the one he took of himself and his dad! Ha! He loves to take pictures and is always asking for our cameras.  He's actually taken some pretty good ones.

As you can see, he even managed to get a picture of my rarely seen halo! Oh, what is that on my head (besides the halo)?  Well, my niece was playing with paper dolls while we waited for dinner.  That piece looked like pigtails to me.  So I put it on my head, I mean that's where they go, right?  Yeah, no!  It turns out it was a scarf, and I am not a fan of putting things around my neck, so it went back to the paper dolls.  I didn't know girls even played with paper dolls anymore.  Meanwhile my nephew and cousin are the ones playing connect 4.  Everyone had a great time!

After dinner I went to spend the night with my cousin.  We had entirely too much fun and um, that's all I'm gonna say about that!

We hung out in her awesome garage entirely too late having entirely too much fun which may or may not have been legal.  Oh yeah, I wasn't going to say anything else...

Anyway, her house is super cute too, but I somehow didn't get any pictures of it in all the 1200 crazy photos!  We were sad to only get to spend one night hanging out, but then at our age, that's most likely all we can handle.

So, Saturday was the party and I'm only half-way through those pictures! More later...

Shutting Up is Hard to Do

They are remodeling my hallway at work and it has caused my allergies to go crazy!  Allergies lead to coughing, which leads to losing my voice.  I started this morning sounding like a mix between a 14-year-old boy and Kermit THE Frog.  By the end of the day I had almost nothing left.

As I was leaving this afternoon, my co-workers from Speech and ENT ganged-up on me stopped by and threatened me lovingly suggested that I shut up not speak at ALL.  They are little smarty-pants experts in all things voice, so I thought I should listen to them.  Tomorrow is Thursday and it is my crazy busy day, so I have to be able to speak clearly and loudly!  (It's kind of an important ability for an audiologist.)

It was time to go home, I had no plans tonight and I live alone, so how hard could it be to not talk?

VERY!

I had no idea how much I talk.  I mean I don't care about carbon footprints (don't judge I drive a hybrid and recycle, that should count for something), but sound is my life and evidently my noise footprint is big-foot sized.  I can't tell you how many times I started to sing with the radio, sing a TV show theme song, laugh at the TV, talk to Carly, laugh at Carly, call someone, pray out loud, talk to myself, talk to inanimate objects, talk to neighbors, etc. etc. etc!

The sad thing is that I really don't have anything important to say (which should be obvious, since this is all I have to blog about).  Apparently I just like the sound of my own voice!

I guess I'll go to bed, sleeping seems to be the only time I don't try to talk. Now who thinks I can publish this without reading it out loud?  Yeah, me neither!

Back Where I Come From

Somehow I've been back for a week and still have not posted anything about my vacation.  I have a good excuse though!  I am the keeper of the pics.  It's not really much of an honor, but I like to make up titles to inspire myself. Basically, I have all the pictures from everyone's digital cameras and I'm sorting through them all to pick the best ones.  Then I'll be able to share them with everyone.

Who is everyone?  Why were there so many pictures?  Why did we take a random vacation in November? Why was it a secret?  Where did we go?

My goodness, you have so many questions!

Since it's not a secret anymore, I can tell you that my Grandma turned 80 on November 10, 2009.  She refuses to act her age though!  She still lives on her own on her farm in Kansas, working harder than I do.  She takes care of everyone in her community and church and is always on the go.  I was a little worried she wouldn't even be home!

Anyway, we all flew up to Kansas to surprise her and throw her a big party. By all of us I mean most. Those who were quite pregnant or absolutely could not get off of work were excused, but most of the family was there.

Now, if you are not family, you can probably already guess that there won't be any amazing photos of the 7 Wonders of the World in these vacation posts. This week was all about family, so feel free to speed-read!  For my family, I'm weeding through photos and will post them as I can.  Since this is as close as I get to scrapbooking or journaling, I want to record our trip here, hopefully before I forget.  (I'm old like that!)

Like I said, I haven't gotten far on editing pictures, but here's a few to get things going.

Friday morning, my brother, SIL, niece, nephew and I flew to Kansas City.

I have to tell you how awesome my niece and nephew were on the plane. They are incredible little travelers and I had a blast all the way there.  My SIL, did have to take the Hungry Hungry Hippos game away from us though. Evidently it was a little loud and possibly disturbing our neighbors, but our ears were plugged up and it wasn't bothering us!

We made it all the way there and found our bags with absolutely no problems!

Sorry Julie, somehow I don't have any pictures of you in the airport, but I promise she was there carrying about 12 bags!  She is super organized and had so many activities, toys, snacks and distractions in their cute rolling backpacks that we were never bored.

My parents flew in the day before and had already surprised my Grandma. My Dad told my GM he was going up to spend the night in Kansas City and see his side of the family.  He also secretly went up to meet us in the airport!

While my brother and his family went to lunch and to find their hotel, my Dad and I went shopping!  (My Dad has been trained well.)  We got lost a lot, but had a great time.  We even accidentally found one of my favorite places on earth, the Russell Stover's store!  I just now finished the big box of chocolates I had hand-packed.  They were so yummy, thanks Dad!

I don't have pictures of Friday night ready yet; so that will be next....stay tuned!