Just. Breathe.

What it is, ain't exactly clear... [If you're old enough to get the song reference, congratulations!] Let's just do a list. It goes nicely with my complete lack of focus. A. Is fall really going to show up? I am so excited! The windows are open, it's supposed to rain occasionally, and we might not get out of the seventies all week. Given that it's October, bring it on! 2. This family is on Weight Watchers. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know it's been a couple of years. Sadly, the weight came back on when I lost focus and allowed a stressful job to stop me from doing what I knew to do. It's been a week, and I'm probably down a couple of pounds. We're also going to boot camp three times a week -- so I can safely say there's a little competitive spirit in the house. Everyone is tracking for themselves and so far no one is admitting to really falling off the points wagon. Just tonight, the comment was heard that...

Things have been a little crazy around my mom's house the past month. She has a single-story, ranch-style house, and a pipe burst at one end of the house. It apparently spewed water all night while she was asleep, and it had soaked the carpet through three bedrooms and the hall, and into the front room before she knew it and turned off the water. Everything had to come out of those rooms and closets...42 years of living there, and it's gotta all be moved.  Of course, that means we go through everything. It was like moving, but without the big truck and burly moving men. I live a couple of hours away from her, so the bulk of this work fell to my brother/sister-in-law who live there and have a more flexible schedule. The rest of us chipped in when we could.  A couple of weeks ago, I went on a Saturday to help with closet clean-out. It happened to be the closet in what had been my dad's office; we'd cleaned in there several years after he had died, but apparently we di...

So.....I've been on a bit of a blogging break. Why, you ask? [Admit it, you asked.]  Because it was my last summer with my girl before we can no longer deny she's an adult. Because I haven't been feeling particularly interesting.  Because work has been sucking the life outta me. Because adding one more thing to my to do list ... just. no. And yet, here I am!  At the end of a summer that was full of change and experiences and fun and events, perhaps I should just bite the bullet and start a little series of recaps.  Going all the way back to mid-May, we had this happen at our house.  Let's pretend I got everyone's permission to show this picture. We had Prom Central here. Two of these girls got their hair and makeup done here, then the other two joined us for snacks and pictures before heading off to prom at Texas Stadium. (I know, that's not the real name now, but I don't care.) This is my baby girl and the dress she picked. Remember t...

I've gone almost the entire month of April without posting, because it's been a crazy few weeks. Let's take a look...in no particular order... Animals Coby has had no new run-ins with strange dogs, no visible injuries. He has  managed to train the dogs quite well to bend to his will. This cat is next to impossible to photograph. With a flash, he glows. Without it, he disappears.  The old man... This is his usual position. It gives him the best ability to snore and pass gas at the same time. The demonic one...holding onto his tennis ball so the others can't get it. Did you know that "red-eye reduction" doesn't work in a case like this? And finally, trouble... Spoiled rotten. But look at that smile.  House We got a new one of these! Aren't we lucky? Okay, we're lucky that we could afford it and that RDub is handy enough to put it in without paying someone else, but seriously! We just had the outside of the house painted...

[I started this post last weekend. Does that give you any indication of how my week has gone?] To recap a few things from the past 10 days or so... I did some party food demos for a group: Pinterest for the win -- homemade mac and cheese made into cupcakes. Pretty tasty. Tortilla rollups, and of course I forgot to take a picture when the platter was full. Fruit pizza made on individual sugar cookies ...which actually started the day before with a lot of prep, and was followed by a bit of this: Visiting with a sweet group of girls and women and discussing hospitality The rest of the day was spent doing stuff like this: Basil, cilantro, dill, parsley, and thyme -- planted in something that I hope the dog will leave alone. Rearranging and cleaning the porch for the season. We bought this set last year and still really love it. Jumping ahead to the current weekend, we continued the party with a little of this: I love our baskets - petunias and som...

Who am I kidding? The end is here . The end of this goofy blogging experiment, that is. What was I thinking? How do people blog every.single.day? I don't have that many thoughts worth writing about, and the condition of my house proves that it takes me way  too long to do this every day.  But it has been kinda fun, in a weird, pressure-filled kind of way. I'd like to think I've restarted my interest in blogging, and maybe I'll get back to at least a couple of times a week, rather than once a month.  To make up for somewhat bailing on this experiment, I'll go the more traditional route for the rest of Lent and give up something. Let's see...chocolate, sugar, coffee, wine...wow, the vice list just goes on and on... With 23 days left, I believe I will choose...refined sugars! [No, that's not a cheat like saying I'm giving up liver...I've had way too much sugar lately, so this will be good for me.] And for the record, I didn't plan far enough a...

Some things: Stacy Keibler and George Clooney broke up after a couple of years. Stacy is now married and pregnant. How do you handle being the guy  after  George Clooney?  Danica McKellar (Winnie) and Candice Cameron (DJ) are on this season of Dancing With the Stars. I loved   The Wonder Years  and Full House . I could never pick between those two - with or without dancing. And if they'd thrown Topanga into the mix, I'd have had to watch every single episode.  I want this to be my next job. [To be clear - I want to be holding the water hose.] The Malaysian airliner situation just breaks my heart. Whatever happened, I can't imagine how the families of those passengers are coping with not knowing.  There are several families I know who are really struggling right now--a 16-year-old in a car accident who is struggling with recovery, a mom recovering from back surgery, a grandmother with MS who has pneumonia...sometimes it seems so overwhelm...

Almost wordless. This is in a corner of my office. I heard a few weird sounds. Then, this for about 45 minutes. Yes, those are my yoga mats. They were just rolled up standing in the corner. You can't see that the table is tilted toward him. 

I shamelessly stole this from somewhere on the web. As I may have mentioned, I'm done with winter. Done. I've decided that Spring just doesn't know it's her time to shine, so I'm helping.  Sunday it was about 45 and windy, but by golly that grill was going and we had fajitas. See, Spring? We remember you and look forward to your return. Bug and I have been doing a workout series for the last week or so. Today we did the entire thing outside. Take that, Winter. It consisted of about 225 squats. We will not be moving tomorrow, so I won't care what the weather is. Right now, I'm wearing a sundress and NO fuzzy socks. I believe this is the first time my feet have been uncovered for more than 10 minutes since about November.  And I desperately need a pedicure.  I planted my herbs a couple of weeks ago and I've been babying them since. Eventually, they will be so happy and look like this. Let's all join in a chorus "Spring has sprung...

I'm not Irish. And I don't drink beer. And bright green isn't really my color. So why on earth am I doing a St Patrick's Day post? [Ignore the 40 days of blogging pressure, and scraping bottom for ideas...] Because it's a really cool story, that's why! My 10 minutes of research has proven that this Saint Patrick had a very interesting life! Let's look at some of it, shall we? This tradition dates back to around 400 a.d. That's a long freaking time ago, and yet the legend continues! At 16, Patrick was captured by pirates and sold as a slave in Ireland. His owner was a pagan priest of Druidism. He escaped after about six years of slavery. He entered the priesthood in France, and after about 20 years, was allowed to go to Ireland to convert the pagans there. In his years there, he converted thousands to Christianity. He is said to have used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the holy trinity.  The legend that St Patrick banished all the snake...

This. Three rather large dogs, one rope, husband egging them on.  Oh, and notice the fire in the fireplace. In. MARCH. In. TEXAS.  Life right now is approaching ridiculous. 

In the life of this blog, I've mentioned TV shows that I'm watching, or want to watch, or never want to watch, or not sure if I've watched...in a nutshell, I watch too much TV. But it's such cheap entertainment! I don't have to leave my house! I can pretend I'm only going to watch something when I'm on the treadmill, then finish the season on the couch. And now, with Netflix and Amazon and Hulu, I never have to watch more than a few commercials EVER. AGAIN. What's not to love? On that note (and because I'm truly stuck for blogging ideas on this silly Lent idea I had), let's see what TV we can talk about. Current likes : Let's face it: I'm a follower. This list of my top shows will probably read like any other TV fan. Downton Abbey :    Love everything about this show. Oh, except for that killing off main characters without asking my permission thing. And the Daisy/Alfred/Ivy triangle that just annoyed me - but it's likely over ...

Man, Lent lasts a long  time.  For the inquiring minds, some updates on recent happenings: The cable and phone service was restored about 7pm tonight. Total of about 28 hours out. I want a discount on my bill. I used my cell phone as a hot spot all day for work, but for whatever reason I couldn't be talking on the phone and  on the internet at the same time. So much for conference calls where I do a screen share. Discount, AT&T. Cough it up. Jake is still with us. Everyone is adjusting, although the cat is still a little skeptical. The humans are outnumbered, and the females are definitely outnumbered in this house. And anyone who wants to gift me with candles to disguise the smell of dog will be my new best friend. I will never get all the dog hair out of my house again.  The whole weight loss thing is not going well. I'm still being pretty consistent with working out, up until I skipped tonight (I'll do it tomorrow!), but I'm eating crap and the...

This is not going to be about what you think it's going to be about. This is not a request for opinion on the pros/cons of Charter Cable versus AT&T UVerse. But after tomorrow, it might turn into that.  As of this afternoon, we have no Internet or land line phone.  Not by choice. By this: Why am I not filled with confidence? Charter Cable is coming to the neighborhood. They brought signs. And lots of people with spray paint and little flags to clutter up the neighborhood. Apparently the corner of my flowerbed is just a convergence of a whole bunch of lines. They're so powerful they knock the little flags over. Or they knock them outta the guy's hand and he just can't pick them back up. "Today, the entire Eastern Seaboard is alive with talk of incidents of paranormal activity. Alleged ghost sightings and related supernatural occurrences have been reported across the entire Tri-State area." -- name the movie Today I came back from an er...