Our trip to Paris

The anniversary card said, "If I can't sweep you off your feet and take you to Paris, France, how would Paris, Texas do instead?" My wonderful romantic husband set it all up. He found the Bed & Breakfast, and he had his Mom and sister set up for taking the boys one night each.  I needed to get away SO much that I felt like I was going to the other Paris.  Plus I didn't care where we were going.  I was just really happy to be able to spend some time with him.

We left Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend.  Our first stop after dropping off the boys:   Starbucks!

It wasn't a long drive.  THIS was the house.  Isn't it lovely?  I had some mediocre expectations based on past Bed and Breakfast experiences.  They were blown away.  Old Magnolia House is run by two sisters.  Debbie cooks breaksfast and makes wonderful baked goods to snack on anytime you want.   Sherri takes care of guests, decorated the inside and maintains the gardens outside.

This was the staircase leading up to the bedrooms.  There are three bedrooms, each one with its own bathroom.  We could never hear any of our neighbors.  The house was built in 1871, and was the only house from that era not destroyed in the big fire that Paris had in 1916. When Debbie and Sherri decided to buy it and renovate it to a B&B, it had been vacant for over 10 years.

Here is one of two stained glass window panels that just took my breath away.  This one was in the parlor over one of the front windows.  I have seen Victorian way overdone.  But this house was so understated.  Every corner of every room is arranged just perfectly.  Sherri mixed old paintings with actual old photographs, which resulted in making the house seem authentic.

Here is our dining room.  See the fireplace in the corner?  Nice.  This was the room where we came for our two fantastic and unique "Southern gourmet" breakfasts.  The first morning we started with a homemade cinnamon roll and one piece of perfectly cooked bacon.  The main course was scrambled egg cooked in a pepper half with melted cheese on top, with an avocado and tomato relish and more bacon.  The second morning our opener was custard with sauteed cherries, blueberries and raspberries on top.  The main dish was homemade croutons with fried eggs on top, a potato pancake and more fruit with cream.  I was stuffed like a tick when I walked out of that room each morning, but very, very happy.

The 2nd stained glass panel, which is over a side window in the dining room.  The pictures don't do them justice.

Here's a view looking down one side of the house.

I loved this and want to find one like it.  It's a tower herb garden.

There are two tourist attractions in Paris.  The first is this statue adorning an eccentric Paris resident's grave.  Some say it is Jesus, but it looks more like a female to me.  Whoever it is, he or she is wearing cowboy boots.  The Evergreen cemetery in Paris is the biggest one I've ever seen.  It holds 40,000 people and that number will grow for at least 15 more years.  It took us awhile to find this, even though we'd been given some shady directions.  I could have spent all morning just wandering around looking at gravestones and listening to the birds sing.

We spent our second morning browsing books and CD's at Hastings.   Ahhhhh.  Time.  A precious resource we don't have much of back home.

It was a little strange to see this beautiful Italian fountain in the middle of the Paris town square.  There are antique shops and restaurants around it, but nothing but boarded up windows and dilapidated buildings in the next blocks.  Really sad.

We didn't think about the fact that everything in small towns closes up for Sundays and holidays.  It was a little tricky to find open restaurants.  But we succeeded in finding a Mexican restaurant called "TaMolly's"  Food was not that great, but at least we didn't have to eat dinner at the DQ.  

Here's the second tourist attraction in Paris.  Pretty self-explanatory.

Since it was Memorial Day weekend, it was nice to stumble upon this in-progress monument to service members, past and present, alive and deceased.  It was really pretty and nice and quiet next to an open field.  But I'm not sure it I would have placed it so close to the Eiffel Tower monstrosity.

Here we are saying goodbye to our relaxing weekend, and to two of the best breakfasts I've ever eaten.  Thanks honey.  I couldn't have had a better time in France.

Last Day of Preschool!!

Gabriel's last day of preschool was a couple of weeks ago.  I was sad, but didn't get as upset as I thought I was going to.  Probably only because Joel will be returning for at least one more year there next year.  

We have loved every second of Gabriel's preschool experience.  Class sizes have been small, and he has been with many of the same kids all the way through.  The teachers know each kid inside and out.  He has grown SO much each year between his first and last day it's been amazing to see.  Of course, this year he really seemed to mature.  I was a little shocked to find out that around half of his classmates will be there next year.  I've been told that holding your kid back is the newest trend.  But we are forging bravely on ahead with kindergarten.  I feel that he's ready.  Right now he seems excited, but my mom told me he mentioned to her that he was worried about making new friends.  I think that fear will go away pretty quickly once he's there a few weeks.    

Joel and one of his teachers, Ms. Kelly.  His other main teacher, (and the one he immediately bonded with), was Ms. Monica.  She left to have a baby in April and missed the last six weeks.  She returned here and there to sub, but wasn't around for a picture the last day.  :(  

Even though he didn't start until mid-year, Joel loved every minute of school too and was getting along with all of his classmates really well.  I'm excited about his next year, because one of Joel's teachers will be the mom of the triplets that have been in Gabriel's classes since his first year, Ms. Lyndsey.  

In the meantime, we have a fun summer already in full swing.  We've been going to the park every Tuesday morning, something we've never done consistently before.  Both boys started their swim lessons Monday.  They are taking separate classes but at the same end of the pool at the same time.  I wasn't sure how it would work, since I can only watch each boy some of the time.  But the only time it was a problem was at the end of class when the teachers want to tell the parents what needs to be worked on, what they did well, etc..  Hopefully they'll be understanding and know I can't be two places at once!  I was nervous about a Waterbaby class for Joel without me in the water, but he did really well, even though his other classmate SCREAMED the entire 30 minutes of class.  In fact, Joel was so laid back in the water that he doesn't feel he needs to exert the extra energy to kick.  He was content to just let the instructor carry him around the whole time.  We'll be working on that.  

Gabriel's in the middle of his first t-ball season, and seems to be enjoying it more than he did soccer.  We've even been getting him to practice 2 or 3 times a week.  We have great coaches, who both have boys on the team.  The pic below was taken of his first swing in his very first ever game.  And we're about to come up on our year anniversary of weekly drum lessons.  The boy is getting pretty good.  (At least his very biased mother thinks so.)  AND we've signed him up for two camps this summer:  Zoo camp starts next week, and Music and Art Camp at his old school will be in July.

These two are going to have such a fun summer!

Flower bed project - success?

The top three pics are from the day Gabriel and I got everything planted.  We planted Mexican sage, (the tall ones with the purple cone flower clusters), another type of sage (the tiny pink flowers), what I think is yet another type of sage with the big red cone flowers, and purple lantana.  The big plant in the middle is my spindly rose bush, made more spindly than ever by Tucker chewing on it when we first brought him home.  The whole reason I created this garden space is because I wanted to move it from out from under my Turk's Cap.  I'm proud that everything I actually purchased is a perennial.

The bottom two pics were taken last weekend.  Look how some things have grown!  I'm going to have to cut the Mexican sage back so the red ones will still still get plenty of sun.  I'm thinking of transplanting the lantana, which hasn't done much of anything yet, to another bed in the back corner of the yard.  I know if it gets established and comes back neck year it will need more room anyway.  

But I'm so happy with how it turned out.  And with all of the red, pink and purple flowers, we should get more butterflies and hummingbirds!  

More Elmo genius

I'm not as fond of Ricky Gervais as I used to be after his Golden Globe hosting stints.  But this is funny and the boys love it.

Scottish Festival!

As I've written before, we love all things Scottish.  We're not sure why, we just do.  We try to go the Scottish Festival every year, but in years past it's always been the first weekend in June, and really hot.  Imagine our excitement when we found out it was moved to the first weekend in May, which happens to be close to our anniversary.  And since we spent our honeymoon in Scotland, it seemed like the perfect weekend.   

There were fewer people this year, maybe because of having to compete with Mayfest.  But we loved watching The Highland Games (especially Gabriel), enjoyed the food and wonderful music, and good beers from across the pond.  Oh, and the people watching can't be beat.  OK, maybe the crazies that show up for Scarborough Fair are even more entertaining.  Maybe.  

 You can't believe how many people wear kilts...

... and various other strange getups.  A tail?  Really?

This was a new feature for kids this year.  These huge balls float in a shallow pool of water, and if the kid can stand up he will be "Running on Water" (the name of the activity).  They looked like giant hamsters to me.  But Gabriel all of a sudden wanted to try it.  Gabriel does not normally jump at things like this, and we were sort of, well, delighted that he wanted to try something new.

Here he is getting his bubble blown up around him.

And this is what he looked like for the entire 8-10 minutes he was on the water.  Not much Running on Water.  Just a whole bunch of Falling Down on Water.  We were so proud of him, and he had a blast doing it.  We won't go into how much his neck hurt the next day.  Oops - silly parents!  We were so delighted we didn't think about possible bodily injury.

This was one of the better costumes we saw on this day.  I told the guy so, and after we walked off Jav thought I probably insulted him for saying he had on a "costume". Honey, do you really think that HE thinks he's a pirate?  I don't think he was that much into character.

This little guy seems to have fun wherever he goes.

My handsome guys.  It was a really fun day, that I hope we'll get to do again next year.

A Day Out With Thomas!

Gabriel started bugging us to do this when the ads kept running in between his favorite PBS shows.  He even kept pointing out that if you put in the code KERA when purchasing the tickets, you get $3 off each one!  We looked into it and decided to do it.

I need to give kudos to the city of Grapevine for putting on such a well organized event.  They had volunteers everywhere to make our trip run smoothly, and there was never a question of where to go.

The train ride itself was only 25 minutes long.  That's one of the reasons we decided to go because we thought Joel could handle that length.

Conductor!

Both boys really loved the whole day.  I wish we could have bottled Joel's gigantic smile he had during the entire train trip.

Always fun to cap off the day with a bounce house visit.  We laughed when we saw this. Jav didn't know I was on the opposite side taking pictures with my phone, and I had no idea he was taking pics with our new camera.

Hooray for Thomas!

Imagination - let it soar!

For about the past three or four months, we have enjoyed an ongoing story, told by Gabriel, during our dinner.  For the first couple of months it was called "Haunted House" and basically dealt with us first going to a fast food restaurant, usually Taco Bell, and then ending up at a haunted house searching for bad vampires/ghosts/witches/skeletons.  Gabriel had been watching alot of Scooby Doo at the time, and had just watched Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein.  He just started it one night, and wanted us to join in with plot turns and surprises.


Then it morphed into the "Haunted Train" where we got on a train, and each night found a different booklet to let us know what spooky place we were visiting.  We went to a haunted beach, baseball game, museum, grocery store, restaurant, school, amusement park, forest, and airplane.  The airplane story lasted at least 2 weeks.  During all of this time the story participants were the four of us, Gabriel's classmates, and his two imaginary friends,  Brocklin and Orcornelius.  Oh, and their 100 friends.  


Then all of a sudden the story morphed again into all of us up and moving to a hotel so that we could be near Wacky World, the name of the aforementioned haunted amusement park.  It wasn't really about the haunted anymore, though.  It was about the rides!  We've never taken Gabriel to Six Flags, but I keep describing the different rides and he is getting more and more excited about going one day. Last week he came up with a really funny turn, when he decided to use his President's placemat in the game.  We pair up different presidents and they ride rides and fight over which one to ride next. They sometimes want to change partners to have one more, or less, adventurous.  I try my best to do accurate voices for the ones I have heard, but I am at a loss when he picks James Monroe or someone like that. 


There are nights when I would just prefer to sit and eat my dinner, quietly and with nothing taxing my brain to try to come up with a new part of the story.   But after watching this video below, I am inspired by Gabriel's imagination and want to nurture and encourage it.  Now I can't wait to see what he dreams up next.


(Note:  This is long, but SO worth your time.  Mom, get Dad to watch it too.)

Crotchety before my time

We've had a hard couple of weeks, with first both boys getting upper respiratory and ear infections, then Jav getting bronchitis, then me having a sinus and double ear infections. Add to that all the extra hours Jav worked recently (until 10 or later for a week and a half) on a project, and you have one tired and burned out me.

I used to have so much energy. I was unstoppable in the yard, or for any kind of project around the house. I cleaned my house every week and always had time to exercise and walk the dogs.

Times have changed. I am so tired most of the time I got nothing these days. I tried to work out a schedule for cleaning my house so I could keep up better, but my play time with the boys always goes long, or I have to call someone that ends up taking awhile and my whole cleaning mojo just disappears for another day. I have NEVER let my house get this bad before, but it is really hard for me to tell the boys that they are on their own for awhile while I clean after I've been at work all day and have been missing them. I thought for awhile I might try to clean after they went to bed, but there's just no way.

Exercising, other than walking the dog with the boys, is out of the question. I can't get up any earlier than I do to go to work, I get up early to grocery shop on Saturdays, and if we don't have plans I look forward to sleeping in all the way to 7 on Sundays. Forget about doing anything like yoga.

We need to get Tucker to a once a week training class, but some classes are during the week and I just don't see where I'll have any time to fit it in.  So I just keep putting it off.

All of this leads to frustration and me in a generally bad mood all of the time. I feel like I should be getting more done.  Instead, I feel just like Loretta Lynn (as portrayed by Sissy Spacek), in Coal Miner's Daughter, just before she collapses and has a nervous breakdown,  "I'm not runnin my life anymore, my life's runnin' me."   Or something like that.  I think alot of the reason is my age and trying to keep up with little kids.  

And now, add work to the stress. Work was so easy, I didn't even realize how little I was using my brain. Now, though, my brain is trying to keep up. The girl who is our buyer will be leaving on maternity leave in mid to late August, and I was asked to replace her to "enter orders" while she's gone. I didn't think it would be a big deal so I accepted. Big mistake with this new, crotchety me. I've had five days of nonstop training and I am overwhelmed! Apparently they want me to basically do her job, entirely, while she's out.  There's so much to remember and it's all new and I frankly just want to either go back to my humdrum easy job or quit. Before this, even though I didn't relish having to work, it was a nice break from the boys and a chance to be around adults again and feel like I was contributing to something. Now I am dreading getting to work, totally burned out when I get home, and having dreams about part numbers and purchase orders.

I have to admit that part of my anger is at myself for not wanting to take on a challenge and learn something new.  I always thought I would look forward to learning things at any age.  But I guess I was thinking more about learning an instrument or sewing or something.  Not this.  Also, I don't want my boys to just think it's ok to quit at something that seems difficult at first.  I would want them to tough it out to see if it gets better after some time.  So I will do the same thing.  But I don't have to be happy about it.  

Spring project and yard pics

I guess this picture didn't turn out like I wanted, but there's a little bee pigging out on pollen from our holly bushes (the blur just to the left of the middle of the picture). That's the reason I worked so hard all summer to keep them healthy. He and his friends (probably 60 or so) show up about two weeks after the robins that show up each early spring to eat the ripe red berries. That tradition takes two afternoons. Then within a week or so the bushes start giving off this amazing scent. It smells as good as honeysuckle to me, but it much more subtle. And after that, here come the bees! It makes me feel SO good to contribute to the well being of our bees.

Our Bridal Wreath in full Spring bloom.

This picture makes me sad. This wisteria plant is actually in our neighbor Tim's yard, but it hangs over our fence. I never thought to water it all summer, and I don't think he's even aware it's back there (it's in his back corner behind his storage shed). I was surprised to see it blooming at all, but it was greatly diminished from years past. If we (God forbid) have another horrible summer I will try to remember to water it.

This is a weed, but I think it's kind of pretty. We had two or three of them, with more bees buzzing happily around them.

Here is a rare picture of Tucker. I need to devote a post about him soon. The crazy ball of brush behind him is the Asian Jasmine remains that I dug up. I discovered the reason it's called Asian Jasmine is because the roots go down to China!!!! It took me several different afternoons to get this far, only to discover that there are still tons of roots in the soil and I'm nowhere near being finished yet. I wanted to get it finished and plant some new perennials by our Easter get together this coming Saturday. But now I'm thinking I won't plant anything in it until next spring.

The afternoon I finally got that big ball detached from the earth was just after a day of heavy rains. I chopped and chopped at the roots with my shovel and was about to finished, when I realized I had chopped through a wire of some kind. Okay, several wires. Oops. I hoped that they were not still live, made a mental note that I needed to call my husband to ask, and kept chopping and hacking in a new area. Within seconds, I saw I had hit a snake. Well, that was when I called it a day, my friend. I hate killing things, and felt really bad, even though it was a snake. The next day I told my story to a girl on Facebook who was in homeroom with me in high school and is now an avid gardener. She told me to be careful because with the warm weather and it being Spring and all it's mate was probably not far away. I saw one in the same area a few days later when Jav and I went out to stuff that ball of Jasmine into our yard cart.

It sashayed into the huge remaining patch of Asian Jasmine that I will not be touching after this project.

Spring break

We didn't do anything special for Spring Break this year. I had wanted to make a list of neat places to take the boys like I did last year, but I had to work Tuesday and Wednesday so I gave up on that idea. But we managed to have a pretty fun week anyway.

Macy came to hang out with us for a whole day on Thursday. It was really good to get to spend time with her. We have fallen behind on our niece/nephew weekend stays. We played outside and she got to try out my new obstacle course idea (that I saw on Pinterest, thank you very much). Gabriel likes to run it once and then quits. But Macy was a trooper and even had me video her.

Cousins!

This is what happens when you spend the night with your Tia the night before, then spend all day with your cousin playing. Late afternoon nap. Of course he had trouble going to sleep that night even though we kept him up a little later.

Friday afternoon I took the boys to our friend Harper's party at Little Gym In hellish Spring Break/Friday afternoon/Parks Mall traffic no less. We were only a few minutes late, and the boys had a blast. This is Gabriel with Bennett. Bennett, Harper and Gabriel are friends through our neighborhood Moms group. We've been doing something once a month for about 2-1/2 years and they are starting to become better and better friends, which I love. I also really like their moms!

And of course, since the weather was beautiful, we played outside. A bunch. In fact, we didn't want to go inside for some of those days. This little guy is getting almost too big for the baby swing, which makes me sad.

In my next post I'll talk more about my yard project, which is where we found the old soaker hose that Gabriel decided to turn into a big pretend snake.

We had a play date with our new neighborhood friend Nicholas. Nicholas and Gabriel are complete opposites. Whereas Gabriel is bookish and artsy, Nicholas loves sports and was the fastest runner on our soccer team last fall. I was wondering if Gabriel could even keep up with him at the park, but he did great. But he was one tired boy that night. Sunday we took the boys to get new shoes for (hopefully) the next year, then dinner and more playing in the backyard. I used to complain about the early time change, but right now I'm thinking it was a fantastic idea!

Adults only post. No really.

This thought didn't occur to me until the next day after we watched the Season Premier, but if I were to try something like this my husband would be more turned on over the fact that I was cleaning the house than over the fact that I was doing it in my underwear. Sad, but true.

Neighborhood blight - gone!

Our awful neighbors on the other side of Tim (who lives right next to us), have been living in that house for about two years. They were renters, which just makes all of us homeowners crazy. I always had suspicions that they were drug dealers because when they first moved in there was a steady stream of different cars and people that would stop on a nightly basis. Then we found out the couple (we never knew if they were married) had a four-year-old son with a heart condition. We would hear him and sometimes see him,and he seemed to have all the energy and vitality of a healthy kid. But he had to go in the hospital for sometimes weeks at a time for surgery and recovery.

And even though the traffic outside the house slowed down, the problems with them being loud at night started. The guy owned a tree trimming business, and would be out at 8 or 9 at night with his chain saw or a wood chipper. Then they would all be up, sitting outside the garage (which was at the back of the house), smoking cigarettes and trying to repair whichever of their vehicles had broken down that day. Hammering and laughing, laughing and hammering. Poor Tim next door's bedroom was right below their driveway, and he ended up having to move his mattress to the living room to sleep. And what wonderful conditions for the four-year-old to exist in. When we would go out to take Molly out for the last time around midnight, most nights I would hear the little boy out there too.

They were just bad news.

About a month ago I was walking Tucker past their house at dusk and there was a truck putting a flat-bed trailer pulled up to the front door and people were loading furniture into it. Hallelujah! I said to myself and started trying to call Jav. The next day there were new trucks that started appearing, and trash left in the driveway, some spilling out onto the driveway from the garage. We could see this because both garage doors were broken (it looked like someone backed into them), and they wouldn't close any more. There were two screens that had been removed from windows and never put back. Well, we decided that the mom and little boy must have moved out and left his sorry posterior there after a week went by and nothing much changed. Our hopes of him moving out too started vanishing after two weeks, and pretty much died after three.

But then, salvation in the form of the landscape guys that came (we think hired by the owners), for the first time after winter to clean up and mow the yard. Presumably they saw the sorry state of the house and told the owners that they might want to check in. (Who rents out a house and NEVER checks up on the tenants?) Tim said late that afternoon that the owner was storming around pointing out to the guy what he needed to clean up. They moved the rest of their stuff the next day, but it took them a whole week to clean up.

We didn't know all of this was going on until Tim waited for Jav to come home one night and gleefully told him the good news. We all did a Dance of Joy. And even though there's still some trash they didn't take, and a HUGE pile of wood he never got around to chipping or chopping, every time I drive by I do the Dance of Joy in my head all over again.

Now I can officially say I really love all of my neighbors!

Another reason Sesame Street rocks!

I love this so much. I seem to be becoming quite the Elvis Costello fan in my middle age. He's moved to the top of my list of someone I'd like to see in concert. And Elmo, well, I've been a fan of his for awhile now. I've had a chance to get to know him much better as of late, and think he's just wonderful.

Watch Elmo (or Melmo, as Joel has always called him), dancing in the background. Cracks me up every single time.

Balance

Isn't this a great picture? They look so little. I love Joel's feet, and the fact that even though it looks like he's got his hand on his sweet brother's arm, he's probably trying to remove it from around his shoulder.

A few thoughts on being a working mom. Up until now my hours and days were set up perfectly. With Gabriel going to school all three days at the same time I was working, and Joel now going two of the three, it didn't seem like any of my time with them was affected. But starting next week I will be working an extra day, so now I feel like I will be missing out. There's a constant, pressure-filled tug at me both ways. I know how much we need the money I make. But I also know how much I miss being able to relax more around the boys, when we didn't have to go anywhere or be up at any certain time.

The thing is, it's not really the actual work time that gets to me. It's the time it takes to get all the stuff unpacked from the current day and the making lunches, picking out clothes and packing up for the next day. That takes an hour of my time away from them. At least I'm home, and am still accessible to them if Gabriel has a question about the solar system or if Joel wants to show me which letters and numbers he's learned from school. And at least I'm getting faster at it now that we've been doing this for a year(!). I've come up with a few methods of saving time for them, like sorting and folding all laundry after bedtime. All I really have to do each day is throw a load in when we get home. Then I make sure to spend at least an hour playing with them before starting dinner. The thing I still haven't figured out how to squeeze in is housework. It'll get done eventually.

Having to shell out the money that it will take to send both of them to private school has been weighing heavily on my mind. One of the hardest things about being an older parent is that you think waaaaaayyyy too much about the future, like the fact that you will never really be able to retire. Ick. I was even seriously considering home-schooling for a while. I have never believed that home schooling is a real good idea. The lack of social life just seemed crazy to me. Now there seems to be many opportunities for home-schooled kids to have a social life, at least with other home-schooled kids. But Jav pointed out to me that it takes a certain kind of relationship between the home school parent/teacher and kid/student to make it work well. Like maybe one where the kid doesn't already, at the ripe old age of five, think that he's smarter than his mother? Yea, like that. Oh well, obviously not for us.

But now that I've really been thinking about it so hard my head hurts, the bottom line is that I just don't believe the Texas public schools will provide them with a good education, let alone keep them safe. So, I need to quit bitching about it and just buckle down and figure it out. I think I've done pretty well, considering I wasn't really supposed to work at all until Joel started kindergarten. My pay is good, my hours are perfect, and because my mother- and sister-in-law are so wonderful about keeping the boys, none of the money I earn has to go towards day care or a babysitter. And I don't have to worry about who's keeping the boys. That peace of mind is priceless.

I'm also coming to grips with the fact that when I go back to work full-time, I can't really do whatever I want to do, but need to stick with accounting because that's where the money is. This has also been a hard pill to swallow. I really wanted to work with special ed kids in some capacity. But to do that without further education will mean hardly any pay. And we can't afford to send me back to school. So the world of debits and credits will have me around for a long, long time. Sigh.

I just have to keep looking at those faces in the picture above. They will give me the strength and determination I need.

A perfect day

If there were no such thing as "time" hindering me, here is how my perfect day would go:

Sleep in, at least an extra hour, which would mean 7:30 if there were time. Believe me this feels like a gift on the rare occasion that it happens.

Exercise: Yoga, walk the dog, new kick boxing DVD I got for Christmas that I've used ONCE, or weight training.

Go online and just browse Facebook and other sites to get caught up on the day before.

Get kids and breakfast ready. Read a magazine or the paper while I eat breakfast.

Play with cats for awhile, throw the ball for Tucker.

Play with the boys, sometimes together, sometimes separately. Art, music and dancing, building something, playing games. Tickle session on the floor, then piggy back rides.

Watch the birds outside. Sit at my desk that I've sat at maybe three times and write in my bird journal.

Make and eat lunch.

Get Joel down for a nap, read some books to Gabriel, then me take a nap.

Clean one room of my house really, really well.

Work on at least one project, like cleaning out a closet.

Do one or two loads of laundry.

Play outside with the boys. Run, play ball, jump on little trampoline, play hide and seek.

Do some gardening and watering out there also.

Play with or walk Tucker.

Sit and watch a cooking show. Catch up on emails/browsing.

Make a wonderful, healthy dinner.

After dinner, play a little more, then make lunches.

Play with cats again while Jav gives the boys a bath.

Put both boys to bed. Read and sing songs.

Talk to hubby about day, any problems, just whatever.

Back outside to water or put birdseed out for the next day.

Take a shower.

Check computer, fold laundry,watch TV with hubby.

Read book club book and whatever else I'm trying to read about dog or child raising.

Get 8 hours of sleep before the next day starts all over again.

This would mean that one day needs about 48 hours in it. So I get by doing about a third of this each day. And try like crazy to not get frustrated about it.

Oh yeah, and write at least one blog post each day.

Pintimidating

I've heard about Pinterest and how wonderful it is through several friends. I never paid much attention because I don't pay much attention to anything that isn't kid or dog related these days. But last night, a mom of one of Gabriel's classmates started a new blog with post after post of these really cool things she's tried from seeing them on Pinterest. She's baked, organized, and made clips for her hair, just within the past two weeks of starting her Pinterest journey. She wrote that her creative side has awakened and she feels well, happier, than she's felt in awhile. When I told her today how much I had like reading her blog she said that it's really brought her out of a routine rut. She's someone I've grown to like and respect (she works part time as a pediatric nurse at Parkland Hospital), so her blog peaked my interest. A little. I actually looked up the website on Wikipedia to read a little more about it. Right now it seems confusing, just like Facebook did at first.

I hesitate to find out any more about it. I might really like it, and I don't have time to like anything else right now. We have stuff on the DVR we've taped from before Christmas that we can't seem to get to. But on the other hand, it seems like new recipes, tips for organizing stuff, easy to make crafts etc... might actually SAVE someone time in the long run, right? So I just don't know. I might just keep following my friend's blog. She's already inspired me to try and make some no-bake cookies and construct a really cool art supply organizer out of a bucket and a tool belt. Does it still count as Pinteresting even if I'm shamelessly stealing ideas, or is that what the site is all about?

So many questions, and so, so little time.

Wanna do the Pony, anyone?

I love Facebook for so many reasons. One is that I get to be Facebook friends with a girl I have never officially met who used to live in Texas but now lives in Pittsburgh. Her posts always seem to make my day, and I will be very happy if I ever get to meet her in person one day. This one defies explanation, but had me smiling all day today. Thanks Teri!

Random Yammering

Every year after the holidays, I long to just go through my house room by room, clean things out, throw stuff away and CLEAN. But because one or more of us has been sick since then, NOTHING has been done. Until this weekend. I am finally attacking the clutter monster. I usually try not to just throw stuff away. We either recycle, or find a charity to give stuff to. But this weekend I've been taking each pile/stack and relentlessly throwing stuff away or putting it where it belongs. Only clothes are going into bags for the charities. I'll work my way around the visible piles, then start working on the closets, drawers and cabinets. It feels really good to get this started.

Somehow this weekend I also managed to do some things outside that I've been meaning to get to. I moved the iris bulbs that I rescued from the monkey grass a few years ago. I had originally put them in our back corner bed, but they have never gotten enough sun back there and I've only had one bloom. Today I moved them to the front yard, under our Chinese Pistachio tree. We used to call this our "baby tree" but it has really grown and the name doesn't make sense any more. I also got our two Crepe Myrtles trimmed back, and started what I am calling my "mid-life crisis gardening project." I am attempting to pull up a huge section of Asian jasmine/monkey grass to have a bigger flower bed along the back of our house. I want to plant drought resistant perennials to have next to my bed of Turk's Cap, which has spread nicely the last couple of years. I also want to attract butterflies and/or hummingbirds. But the job itself is much harder than I originally anticipated. And I'm hoping I don't run into a hibernating snake, because I've seen little snakes in this area before. Yikes! But once again, it felt so good to start doing some of these things that have been on the "to-do" list in my head for a LONG time. There's nothing more satisfying than an afternoon of really hard labor in the yard on a beautiful day.

Except for perhaps solo grocery shopping. I've started a new routine that will last until Gabriel starts having Saturday baseball games this Spring. Because the weekly grocery store trip with two kids in tow was getting longer and longer, and more stressful because of bickering, I decided to start getting up early on Saturday morning to do my shopping while Jav watches the boys. My neighbor Helen usually comes with me, and we reward ourselves for getting up so early with a trip to Starbucks before our shopping. Chai - aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. There are very few people shopping, usually plenty of checkers, and it is a mostly pleasant experience. It's also great because I can get the huge pile of groceries put away without being too rushed. The whole thing still takes most of Saturday morning, but so far I'm loving it.

Speaking of loving things, Jav and I went out for Valentine's Day last Sunday and went to see "The Descendants". What a wonderful movie. I've been a relatively big George Clooney fan, especially since his performance in Michael Clayton. But this movie puts him in the "Great Actors of Our Generation" category. His performance, the Hawaiian scenery and music, and the slight environmental message elevates this movie to greatness in my mind. The two actresses playing his daughters are wonderful also. After the movie we went for dinner at P.F. Chang's and while we were there it started snowing. Hard. How surreal is that? And the weirdest thing is the same thing happened to us last year on our Valentine's date. I guess if Fort Worth is wanting a little snow, we need to plan a date night! Which we plan to try to do more often. I have so much fun with my husband. I've missed spending time with just him.

Seeing one movie has made us crave movie-watching, which is something that has all but stopped since Joel first made his appearance. So Jav got "Moneyball" from one of those movie box rental thingies. We plan to get "Midnight in Paris" next weekend, which I've seen but Jav hasn't. That will mean that we will have seen three of the eight movies nominated for Best Picture before the Oscars next Monday night. Go Us!!!! Reviews to come.

And finally, I worried way too much about choosing the right book for my book club meeting in March. I had thought about baseball fiction, comedy (Tina Fey's "Bossypants" was at the top of the list), traditional English mystery, and a few other genres. But then I saw someone's "Top Novels of 2011" and downloaded the numero uno book into my Nook. It's called "State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett. I think I finally hit the jackpot on picking a book that almost everyone will REALLY like. I couldn't put it down. And when I finished I had a good cry, which I have now figured out is the best way to determine how much I liked a book. I cry because the story is good and I don't want it to end. I cry because I've grown attached to the characters and I want to keep finding out what happens to them. And I cry because of the subject matter, if it is something very near and dear to my heart. This book met all three of my Tears Criteria.

The Darkness - We knew them back when...

OK. had to post an addendum about the Superbowl commercials. Jav and I have loved the song below since it came out way back in mid-2000's. The video was done in 2008. We saw them perform on one of the late-night shows and were intrigued by the lead singers voice and eccentricity. He reminded us of Freddie Mercury. Those Brits love their flamboyant, androgynous, high-singing dudes. But you have to admit, this is a rockin' song.

I recently found a CD at Half Price Books that was a compilation of rocking bands, and we were pleasantly surprised and reminded of this song. Gabriel has fallen in love with it.

Well, our little British band must be making a comeback, and was featured in a Samsung ad during the Superbowl. And now everyone is talking about them. I'm feeling really hip right about now!!!

Superbowl, Schmuperbowl

The commercials are the only reasons to watch the Superbowl, and even then they cut the good parts out. Here is the long version of the best one.

My sister-in-law had invited the family over to watch, but Jav suggested that I take the opportunity to take my mom and do some desperately needed clothes shopping. When Gabriel found out that I wasn't going to join them, this was our conversation at lunch:

G: "Mommy, I'm so sorry you're not going be with us to see the BIGGEST football game of the year!"

Me: "Oh, that's ok sweetie. I'm really ok with it."

G, after thinking about this for awhile: "Mommy, you really love baseball, don't you?"

Me, with huge smile on my face: "Yes I do, Gabriel. Yes I do."