Lightning Update

We are completely up & running over a week after our home got hit by lightning. Come to find out though, it wasn't the house that got hit. It was the underground wiring in our backyard's sprinkler system! Todd had sprinkler repair guys out today because one zone of the sprinklers out back wouldn't work. They dug & dug & dug and finally found it - the wire that had been hit.

When the storm hit that night, I was in our bedroom. The main exterior wall is a few feet from the huge maple tree we have out back. I heard a loud pop that night and naturally assumed the tree got hit. Nope, it was the sprinkler wiring between the tree and our house. I'm feeling very fortunate that it didn't get any closer to our home and that we were safe.

My awesome husband (that's Todd - you know - the guy in the picture at the top of this blog) has replaced our automatic garage door opener, replaced the panel to the sprinkler system, and worked with the sprinkler people and telephone people to get everything replaced. Like I said, Todd is awesome.

Monday: Restoreth My Self-Esteem

I love doing puzzles - crosswords, Sudoku, Scrabble, etc. Since we've been off for the summer, I've been doing my puzzles in the newspapers every day. The puzzles get harder & harder as the week progresses, and I usually find myself struggling to finish the Sudoku by the week's end.

Well, today is Monday. Back to the easy puzzles! My self-esteem has been restored!

Fun While It Lasted!

Last week was my last full week before returning to school. This week I have two days of training for my ESL certification (that I won't even use). Next week I have a full, 40-hour curriculum training. zzzzzz.

So here's how the shit's gonna hit the fan for me in the four upcoming weeks:
- ESL certification training
- helping a friend pack her home to close in one week
- start setting up my classroom
- Steve & Mackey to vet
- Curriculum training
- a few trips to the airport
- 3-day Scrapbook Retreat
- making meals to freeze for us, grandparents, mom
- Mom having open heart surgery
- taking care of mom
- Staff Development
- Back to School Night
- finishing classroom
- first day of school

I know there's more, but I'm already tired. The best part? Todd and I will be able to spend some time apart for the first time in a couple of months! The worst part? I don't think my 1am - 10am sleep schedule is going to fly.

Pupsicles!

When I told my mom that I was making "pupsicles" for the dogs she said, "Well that would spoil them." Uh, yeah . . . . I don't really think they can get any more rotten than they already are though!

To make the pupsicles (btw I think I need to give some as catsicles now), I used some plain fat-free yogurt, a VERY ripe banana, some peanut butter, and some milk. Put it all in the blender and blend thoroughly. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze. I used our cute (and only) ice cube trays from Ikea. Obviously the dogs LOVED them!



They don't look spoiled, do they? Never mind. Don't answer that!

Today was my devirginizing, first trip to SPROUTS! The grocery gods finally put in a Sprouts near my neighborhood and I loved it!

First, I started out at lunch w/ my friend Amy H. (I have lots of Amys) and her cutie pie Peter. Today was Peter's first time dipping chips into Ranch & he was an instant fan!

Then we ventured over to Sprouts. I was so excited! Amy has been shopping at Sprouts for a while now & was there to show me the ropes.

Amy & Peter (L) & Me w/ my cart (R). Excuse my skeeriness. The vet only gave me 20 minutes to get to their office w/ Steve this morning.

My cart only $86 later - lots of meat, fruit, veggies, and wine. Plus, I got a free bag!

"Man, he's a WUSS!"

"Maaannnnn . . . . he's a WUSS!" (insert head shake)
That's one of the first things I heard today. It was a description of this:



That description of Steve was from the VET! ha!!! I took Steve in to have his incision checked because it was looking, uummmmm, a little "fleshy" in between the stitches. When the vet checked him, Steve would have nothing to do with it. The doctor took him into the back and the wailing began. Dr. K said Steve started screaming before the doctor even touched him!

Stevie was so excited about going somewhere in the car, and Pippin barked & cried when he left. (poor girl) When we got to the vet's office, Steve got out of the car & jumped right back in! Then he didn't want to go in the exam room. He doesn't forget!

All is well with Steve's incision, but both vets have recommended that we "keep him as calm as possible." Yeah, right.

What a baby. I mean, he started out like this:

And look how much he's grown! (measurements compliments of Mom & Dad)

He might be a baby, but he's a BIG BABY!! Our big baby. :)

Cartoon for Today

Hear no evil. See no evil. Speak no evil.

Blog no evil??? Uh, I don't think so!

DELCARING A WEEK OF NORMALCY!!

After today is over, I am declaring NORMAL WEEK in the H house! This past week wore me out.

This morning I went out to get the newspaper and what did I find? The newspaper. But I also found a men's wallet, open, with a few credit cards and such strewn across our front lawn. Being the good citizen I am, I tried contacting some of the 800 numbers to see if they could contact the owner. Surprisingly (not), most large credit companies aren't open on Sunday mornings. (I guess because they're all calling people every weekday evening before 9.)

I then contacted the city of Dallas' information service. As usual, they told me to call 911. Again, I didn't have a life/death emergency, but I was calling 911 for the second time in less than a week. An officer came to pick up the wallet and remaining contents and was on his way. Apparently there had been an auto theft somewhere in the neighborhood because he picked up contents of a couple of purses one street over from our house.

Between 911 today, Whitney's emergency surgery, the house getting hit by lightning, 911 to the fire department, having no phone service, Steve's surgery, dealing with the MIL as usual, lack of good sleep, replacing the sprinkler system box, learning my baby nephew may need surgery, getting the highest electric bill we've ever had, buying/replacing a new garage door opener, learning my mom needs open heart surgery, & paying for all repairs/replacements/animal stuff . . . we need a break.

When I told Todd that I was declaring this week as a week of normalcy, he yelled, "I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY!!! Uh, Michael, you can't really do that." What???

Oh - my husband remembers lines from movies and TV shows and I don't. A virtual high five to whomever knows where that line comes from! (I know - now that he told me!)

Edit: Don't ask me what "normal" is . . . because I obviously don't know! (never have) Let's just say I'm hoping for a week of no calls to 911, no drama, no severe illness, no surprises, and lots of wine. :)

Sad Girlfriend & the Patchwork Pup

Pippin was so incredibly sad that Steve was gone. I think the past 24 hours were the longest they've ever been apart since we brought Pippin home three years ago. She moped all night long, just lying on the couch begin sad.




As of this morning, Steve is home! He's drugged, very sore, a bit dazed & confused, and sleeping lots. It's heartbreaking to see him so helpless and quiet. Since Steve is so active, he is usually running around doing something. He's sleeping so hard that he's not even snoring. :(

Here are a couple of many pics I took after we picked Steve up from the vet. He was VERY happy to see us and whined to get out of there.


I was enamored by the reflection of his gorgeousness in my side view mirror.


All of the excitement of riding in the car, coming home, and going potty wore him out. He's pretty much been sleeping on a blanket since we got home.

You can see they shaved a BUNCH of his side, chest, tummy and leg. He looks like a patchwork quilt. You can see the 11" incision on his chest. The shiny patch is his Fentanyl patch (like morphine).

Update on Our Human Patient

Whitney is coming home!! My sister and niece are flying home in a couple of hours. (My BIL came home yesterday.) Whit is still pretty drugged up, so talking with her on the phone was a bit entertaining. Since she won't be playing any soccer - or really doing much of anything - for at least a few weeks, I hope she can find ways to entertain herself. Whitney has always been active, so she doesn't do well doing nothing.

My sister said that Children's Hospital of Alabama is amazing. Our whole family thanks everyone there for taking care of our girl!

Update on Our Dog Patient

Stevie is out of surgery. I just spoke with his doctor and things went well. Dr. S. said that it "really couldn't have gone any better." Whew! The lipoma was (surprisingly) under two layers of muscle, so the surgery was a little more intensive than planned. The entire lipoma was removed and weighed 1.7 pounds!!! My perfect, little, baby dog is now sporting an 11 inch incision on his chest. :( Big Boy's going to spend the night at the vet, so he can get some good rest. Dr. S. is a little worried that Stevie may damage his incision, so we'll need to keep a close eye on him.

After four agonizing years, Mackey thinks he's finally regained alpha-control over his home. That'll change tomorrow! Girlfriend (Pippin) is pretty mopey right now and will only wag her tail for treats. She'll be happy to see her boyfriend tomorrow, but there will be no wrestling for a while!

The house is eerily quiet right now, and I already desperately miss my baby. I can't wait until we get him in the morning. I'm sure I'll have some pathetic photos to post in the next 24 hours.

My Baby Dog

Steve - about 5-6 weeks old.


Poor baby Stevie is having surgery today. As his mom, I'm very worried that something bad might happen. I know he has four legs, likes to drink from the toilet and shares somewhat icky breath now, but he is my child right now. He is my baby.

Stevehead has a lipoma on his big, ol', barrelled chest. A lipoma is a fatty tissue that develops and grows but really isn't harmful. (I'm thinking it's hereditary, because he probably/must have gotten it from me since I had one removed from my breast years ago.) It started out somewhat small, but now it is huge. I have fairly good-sized hands (not man hands tyvm), and the lipoma is larger in diameter than my hands fanned out. Think the size of a VERY large steak.


Stevie's almost always relaxed - and modest. :)


All three pooches go to the vet tomorrow for shots and their regular checkups. However, the baby (and I do mean he is a BABY) has to stay. The last time he was there for anything important - my 110 lb. baby got beaten up by a Corgie - they had to sedate him. The doctor came out to us and said, "He's a big dog, but he's not a brave dog. I need to sedate him to get his wounds cleaned."

The good news is that he's been sedated before and done well. The bad news is that he's my baby, and I'm his mom, so I worry like crazy. Luckily Stevie licks the tears off my face when I cry about him having surgery.

Please send good thoughts/prayers/vibes to my little man. If anything happened to him, I'd have to be put down myself. :(

Prayers for Whit

Whitney playing in April (notice broken R hand!).

My niece, Whitney, is currently in Alabama playing for her Olympic National soccer team. Yesterday she was trying to open the window to their dorm room & gave it too much force. The window broke and severely sliced open Whitney's left palm, deeply severing her hand.

She was rushed to the ER of Children's Hospital of Alabama. She underwent emergency surgery that lasted about 5 hours. Surgeons were able to reattach the 7 of 8 tendons in her hand, all of the ligaments, and the blood vessels. It will be about 2.5 months until Whitney regains full use of her hand once the nerves regenerate. She will then undergo physical therapy for six weeks.

As you can imagine, my sister and BIL were terrified knowing their 15 y.o. daughter was hundreds of miles away in surgery. They rushed as quickly as they could to AL, even though storms delayed their flight over 2 hours. Luckily, Whitney's parents made it there once she was coming out of recovery.

The hope is for Whitney to come back home in the next couple of days. She has a long road ahead of her, and this definitely puts a dent into to her soccer career - for her HS varsity team, select team, and Olympic team.

That's the very short version as of today. Any prayers you can send for a quick recovery for my niece would be appreciated. Also send prayers for safe travels, peace, and patience for her and her family. We love you, Whitster!

Post #100: We've Been Hit!

Thanks to some powerful storms rolling through Big D last night, our house got hit by lightning. Luckily nothing major was damaged, but we did lose our automatic garage door, landline phone service, and the sprinkler's rain sensor blew up.

Here's the inside of the rain sensor panel box. Note: It's not supposed to be black.

Here's the insides of the rain sensor panel box. Note: The panels and wires are supposed to be inside the panel box!

We had the fire department come check the house late last night in case there was any residual damage or fires we couldn't see. Everything else seems to be okay. We're trying to get an electrician out here to give us some estimates on repairs.

We're just thankful that we are all okay and our house (for the most part) was left unscathed.

Such excitement (or not) for my 100th post (go me!).

Just Because

My amazing husband brought me flowers today --- for no reason!!! While it may not sound like a big deal, it is to me! Todd has given me flowers twice - once for my birthday four years ago & for our one-year dating anniversary.



I am just thrilled and being a complete attention whore about it because he made me so happy. Sometimes it's just the little things, isn't it?

For Your Ears Only

Some of you will be happy to know that I disabled the auto play on my music for this blog. However, I've added some new tunes and you can scroll to the bottom of the page to listen!

Places, everything. Places!

For those of you who know me IRL, you know how I love things to be orderly and organized. I'm one of those strange people who actually enjoy organizing because (in my ideal world) there is a place for everything and everything is in its place. Aaahhh, I digress . . .

I spent hours setting up and organizing my scrapbook/craft/office area and had a blast! As I've posted before, I bought a computer armoire off Craig's List and set it up for all my scrapbooking stuff. However, in the process, I lost the desk that held my office supplies & such.

At a recent shopping trip to Ikea, I found a glass door in the "as is" section of the store. I asked Todd if he thought it might work & we decided to try it since it was only $10. On Friday, we set it up using some old shelving units and it works great!

Here it is with the armoire closed:



And open:




I still have a few things I want to add or reorganize, but I love having a space that I can pretty much close up after making my mess. :) My main challenge now - packing up what I need for a scrapbook retreat!

Old Rocking Chair

We have an old rocking chair that belonged to Todd's grandparents, and I haven't been able to figure out what to do with it. However, I hated to get rid of it. It's been sitting in the garage collecting dust and spider eggs for months now. I finally decided to clean it up, put fresh fabric on it, and take it to school to use in my classroom.

Before - dusty & ugly. (Mindy thought I was taking her picture.)



Nasty, dusty, ugly, and torn cusion.


Fabric and "trim" tacked to the back of the chair.



AFTER! The cushion has been recovered, but the fabric isn't as purplish looking as the photo shows. It's a burgundy chenille that I've had laying around for a couple of years now.




Now I'll have a rocking chair for share time in my classroom. I love to rock, so I'm sure I'll be using it as a stress-reliever this year as well. :)

Coming Soon: pics of my new scrapbooking/craft/office area!

Wordle to Your Mother

Kelsey turned me on to a cool website that will collect the most popular/frequent words on your blog or any other site that has a feed. You can then customize it however you like. My Wordle is at the bottom of my blog. (See it?!) Unfortunately, Wordle doesn't have the capability to update as needed, so I'll have to do that myself. Pretty cool stuff though!

Why DVRs are Heaven-Sent

I'm having to continually pause the season finale of "The Bachelorette" because of this:

Of course I had to be on some of the action too! Thank goodness for our DVR. This could've been an ugly scene!

Sale at Snapfish!

I have been so busy printing out photos to use for our wedding album/scrapbooks that I haven't printed any others. Until now! My friend Kelly let me know that Snapfish is having a sale - fifty 4x6 mail-order prints for only a penny each! Additional 4x6 prints are just 9¢ each (which is a lot better than Kodak or Sfly that I usually use). The coupon code is JUL4PENNY08 at checkout. Offer ends July 12!

If you're a new customer (like me!), you get twenty free prints. I'm not sure if the specials work in conjunction with each other, but I'll find out as soon as my uploading is done. This is perfect timing to FINALLY print out photos from our Vegas trip last summer and start scrapping those! Don't know if I'll ever finish our wedding stuff, but I do need a break from it all. :)

Here are a couple of our pics from Vegas, Baby!!


Todd and I kissing at the Trevi Fountain in Caesar's Palace.


After the water show at the Bellagio. (Todd, me, Amy, Troy, Sonya & Mike)

I Got Tagged & Now You Are It

When I opened the blog of my friend Meg, I saw the subject line for her latest post & yelled, "Dangit!" However, I would like to thank Meg for the opportunity to easily update my blog. Especially since I'm too lazy to upload photos and think of great things to say.

1. Who was your first prom date? My high school boyfriend.
2. Do you still talk to your first love? Yes
3. What was your first alcoholic drink? Wine coolers? I'll say Scotch. When I was little, my mom & I lived w/ my grandparents. They always had happy hour at their house & there was a man who hated children. Of course, I took a liking to him and used to crawl in his lap and drink his Scotch. I'm sure I was the coolest baby he'd ever not liked.
4. What was your first job? Outside of babysitting the entire freaking neighborhood, I worked at a resale shop and then Pizza Hut in HS.
5. What was your first car? A 1978ish Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency diesel. I know you're jealous.
6. Who was the first person to text you today? I doubt anyone, but I haven't checked my phone. Guess I need to text Meg.
7. Who is the first person you thought of this morning? Todd.
8. Who was your first grade teacher? Miss Church. I thought she was so pretty.
9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane? My Dad took me on a short flight from Love Field so I could have the experience of flying. So, we went from Dallas to Dallas!
10. Who was your first best friend, and are you still friends with him/her? Sylvia. She was my MOH.
11. What was your first sport played? Soccer - all I ever played until I was an adult
12. Where was your first sleepover? I guess my Dad's house. :)
13. Who was the first person you talked to today? Todd
14. Whose wedding were you in the first time? FG: My babysitter's daughter in the mid 70s; BM: My sister Cindy's wedding in 1987 (the first of a dozen bridesmaid stints)
15. What was the first thing you did this morning? Woke up screaming in a nightmare
16. What was the first concert you ever went to? Rick Springfield - "Working Class Dog". Because I was so cool, I dressed punk and went with a church group.
17. What was your first tattoo or piercing? Ears pierced when I was 9. Got my first tattoo the same night Princess Diana died (heard it on the radio afterwards) whenever that was.
18. What was the first foreign country you went to? Mexico after graduating college.
19. What was your first run-in with the law? I got my first speeding ticket not long after getting my driver's license. I couldn't understand why 70 in a 40 was so wrong. I still don't.
20. When was your first detention? My first and only was my junior year for excessive tardies. After that, I signed my mom's name to all of my tardy notes. :)
21. What was the first state you lived in? Texas - first, only, always
22. Who was the first person to break your heart? No telling. I don't remember a name, but whoever it was, he was one of a long line of jerks.
23. Who was your first roommate? Other than my sisters on weekends, my first roommate was a girl named Renee during Rush. Then I moved into the sorority house with a girl named Mary. Gawd, she was so weird.
24. Where did you go on your first limo ride? A funeral. I know you're jealous again. As an adult, I sometimes used limos for business.

Now You're It. Go.

Goodbye to a Furry Friend

Our friends, Sarah and Jamie, lost their beloved furbaby Sadie today. (Some of you may know Sarah as MrsB2007.) Although we didn't get a chance to meet Sadie, Mindy, Mackey, Pippin, & Steve send her a "ruff ruff" and one "meow" up to Sadie in beloved pet heaven. Todd and I send our love and condolences to Sarah and Jamie as the grieve their loss.

Those of you that are animal owners know how furbabies are a part of your family. And for those of us who do not yet have children, they are our babies.

Love to S & J.