Living up to Expectations

When I first started blogging I told everyone I knew about it, put a link in my signature line in my emails, and advertised it on my myspace account. Then I started working, switched from myspace to facebook, and quit blogging. Now I am trying to get back into it, but I am not telling anyone. I know that when people have a goal, say losing 10 pounds or quitting smoking or whatever, that they're supposed to have a support network of friends to keep them on track. But I am not a support network kind of gal and this blog isn't something that is going to keep me from dying of lung cancer or a heart attack. So ... I am just doing it to do it. I am writing for me and for anyone who happens to decide to look. And if I keep it up and my friends and family start noticing then that's great. But if not, then I guess I won't have to worry about posting new blogs and not living up to anyone's expectations!!!

Live and Learn

Today while I was checking out at the grocery store Chase found a dime and a penny on the tray in the Coinstar machine. Instead of putting them in his pocket, he put them into the machine. The machine then cointed his coins for him and gave him a ticket to redeem at the customer service desk. If you've ever used one of these machines before you know that they charge a fee if you want cash. You can use the machine and get 100% of your money back if you turn it into a gift card to certain places like Lowe's or Amazon.com. Chase wanted cash back for his dime & penny. He got 10 cents. Lesson learned!

Animal Magnet

Sometimes I feel like an animal magnet! We already have three dogs, three cats, a stray cat that lives on our front porch, an aquarium that has four fish and a snail, and a science experiment with something that used to be a mealworm and is supposedly in the pupa stage before becoming a beatle. I think it might be dead, but I am not really sure. Anyway, last week Kenny and his cousin Austin came home with this puppy. At first they both tried to convince me that one of our families should keep him. Then they wanted to walk all over the neighborhood looking for his owners. I let them check several houses near where they first saw him, but eventually just made them leave him right where they found him. I know that wasn't the best thing to do, but I am just a little overwhelmed when it comes to animals. If you look at my post with pictures from 2010 you'll see that my boys found a puppy not that long ago. Does this happen to everyone or am I just an animal magnet (aka sucker for lost pets)?!?

The Junk Drawer

Do you think I really need all of this stuff? I don't! I don't even know how this happens. Every single time we move I clean out the junk drawer. I throw away pens, pencils, notebooks, markers, old batteries, etc. We move a lot so the junk drawer in my house should not look this junky. The funny thing is that we have only been in this house a year. When we first moved in I distinctly remember putting one pair of scissors, one roll of tape, one small post it note cube, and about 10 pens in this drawer. Then today I opened it to try to find something I needed and this is what I found! Where does all of this crap come from anyway?!?!?!?

Gettin' All Fancy

First of all, please forgive the poor quality of the photo. It was nearly dark and it was raining. To top it off, Kenny was the photographer. He was trying to capture a picture of me to put in our Photo of the Day Album on facebook. I am rarely in the pictures because I am usually the person behind the camera! Anyway, this is our fancy grill. That is my fancy grill set up. And the hat on top of my head ... well, that was serving as my fancy umbrella! I am not a big fan of grilling food. Don't get me wrong -- I love to eat grilled food! I just don't know how to actually do the work. It might not help that we move so often that I refuse to spend more than $15 on our grill. Maybe some day when we are done moving I can get a real grill. And by real grill I mean something with more than three legs that would prohibit my mother from spilling grilled vegetables all over the deck. But that's another story for another day.

Another Run Around the Sun: 2010 Version

Happy New Year's! We were at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas. Brian arrived home from Iraq about 4 hours before we rang in the new year. What a great way to start fresh!

February: Time to pack it up and move across the country again! Brian left a little before the boys & I did because we wanted to finish our school year in Texas.

March: Dog for a day ... we found this little guy outside our house one night. We tried and tried to find his owner, but it seemed that he had been dumped by someone that couldn't find homes for puppies. We ended up giving him to a friend of a friend.

April: Three kids in braces!

May: The boys left Texas a little earlier than I did so that they could spend some guy time with their dad.

June: There's a cow in my back yard. The only clue that I am not in West Texas any more is the green stuff all over the place.

July: This was taken on vacation at Kure Beach. Check out Chase's pose. It's the best!

August: First day of school. I am not sure I have seen Chase this happy since then. He really doesn't like his new school.

September: Playing football in the back yard with their dad. I just love Kenny's expression in this picture!

October: Here are the boys carving pumpking and being silly with their cousins.

November: We all went home to NY for Thanksgiving this past year. It was crazy and busy and hectic and WONDERFUL! I am so glad we were all together for once.

December: Who says parents can't play in the snow any more?!?

When Inspiration Hits

I used to be very good about keeping this blog updated. I posted silly things the kids did, funny things that happened to us, photos from vacations, strange happenings in West Texas, etc. It was a good outlet for me and a great way to keep up with our family and friends that we seem to be constantly leaving behind. Then, I got a job. And then I stopped blogging. That was the 2009-2010 school year. I was a 5th grade teacher in a wonderful school. I loved every minute of it, but I was very busy. Now it is nearly the end of the 2010-2011 school year. We have moved across the country (again) and I am teaching kindergarten in a tiny private school. I actually have time to do things that I didn't have time to do before....like breathe. My blog has been hanging around in the back of my mind for a while. It seemed to have been replaced by facebook. But then something happened. It was so silly and funny that the very first thought I had was, "I wish I was still blogging!" I was taking Chase to school and he said something about the tiny, run down church that we pass every day.

It's called the New Life Deliverance Center.

Well, Chase just casually mentioned that if I wanted to adopt a baby that maybe I should stop by there one day after school. He was remembering that we had Kenny at a birthing center in Texas and he assumed that the New Life Deliverance Center was a place that new lives were delivered. Too bad it couldn't be that easy! I'd have five more kids by now!

July 14

NYC

Here's the view of the Empire State Building just around the corner from our hotel.

Here are the boys heading down into a subway station in Battery Park.

The boys and I at the Statue of Liberty.

On the Big Piano in FAO Schwarz.

Cheesy photo op in Central Park.

We got to the Bronx Zoo an hour before it opened!

Here's my favorite picture from the trip. This was in Times Square.

The whole week was sooooo much fun! We already have a list of things that we want to do the next time we go!

brrrrr

We are in NY and I am wondering ... who forgot to turn on the sun? Actually, we did see the sun today for about 3 hours. Yesterday we saw it for about 5. It got all the way up to 72 degrees. Woo Hoo! Heat wave!

They loaded up the truck...

For some reason the Beverly Hillbillies song keeps playing in my head as I go through my checklist:

Gas: check
Bags: check
Maps: check
Snacks: check
Kids: check
Dogs: check
Cats: check
Hamsters: check
Fish: check
Sanity: ??????????

Survival: Texas Style

I got this forward from my friend Amy B. in Germany and thought I'd share it with y'all:

Due to the popularity of the Survivor shows, Texas is planning to do one entitled Survivor: Texas Style. The contestants will all start in Dallas, then drive to Waco, Austin, San Antonio, over to Houston, and down to Brownsville. They will then proceed up to Del Rio, El Paso, Midland, Odessa, Lubbock, and Amarillo. From there they will go on to Abilene, Fort Worth, and finally back to Dallas. Each will be driving a pink Volvo with bumper stickers that read "I'm Gay", "I Love the Dixie Chicks", "Boycott Beef", "I Voted for Obama", "George Strait Sucks", "Hillary in 2012", and "I'm Here to Confiscate Your Guns". The first one to make it back to Dallas alive wins!

Mr. Energizer Bunny

My dad just left yesterday after a two week visit. First off, he drove here from NY in a little less than 35 hours. Straight. According to google maps the trip is about 1770 miles. When we go home for our vacation it's going to take us three days. He did it in 35 hours. He'll tell you that he stopped to sleep for a while, but I don't think 45 minutes behind the wheel of a tiny little pick up in a rest stop parking lot really counts for much of anything. During his visit he completed every single thing that was on my "honey-do" list that I had started for Brian. He even fixed a few things that broke while he was here. Here's the list: he replaced all five filters in my reverse osmosis system, repaired plumping under the kitchen sink, repaired two door handles, fixed a light fixture that hasn't worked since we moved in (that one required numerous hours in my 130 degree attic), fixed an outlet in Kenny's room that hasn't worked since we moved in, rerouted the central a/c condensation system so that the water empties on the side of the house that we don't even go near (if you've ever been to my house and had to avoid the pool of water by my back door you'll appreciate that one), repaired the metal fencing stuff that holds the gravel around the outside of my privacy fence (that the garbage men ran over with their truck while he was here), placed door stoppers behind my interior doors so that we don't make any more holes in the wall when the doors get opened too far, fixed my lawnmower, fixed my dryer, hung my extremely large ladder on the fence so it isn't sitting in the grass any more, aired up the tires on my truck, and planted some nice pretty bushes in the back yard. I am sure there is more, but I just can't even remember it all. He was busy and productive every single day he was here. To top it all off, he left yesterday morning and took one of my dogs with him to make my trip easier on me. Somehow in all of that he found time to hang out with the boys and help me with everything that I did to support the Ludwigsen family while they were here. He kinda reminds me of someone else I know.

Chase & Austin

Good Times

Because Six Wasn't Enough

You all know that I have two dogs and three cats. We also have a Beta fish. When we went to the Rodeo Carnival in February Chase won two goldfish. Actually, he won one, but the carnival guy was generous enough to give him two. Gee, thanks, buddy! That put us up to eight pets.



Then after I let the boys bring home a puppy, which I returned the next day, I bought them hamsters to appease them and ease my guilt. Here they are. And yes, that is a hamster litter box. Believe it or not they use it. They are pretty easy to take care of considering the fact that we are all scared to touch them because they bite so viciously.

So that put us up to ten pets. TEN! I thought it would be overwhelming, but it seemed fairly easy. And it was a nice even number. Recently one of those goldfish died so I am thinking about a yorkshire terrier puppy. That's not crazy of me, is it?

Talent Show (Pogo Stick Dude)

Big Day :)

Just a Normal Day

So today I am graduating. And I spent the last two or three days getting ready for a small get-together at my house. I did it on such a perfect schedule that I went to bed at a decent hour last night and anticipated a good night's sleep before my big day. Apparently I forgot to let my dogs, cats, and hamsters in on that plan. Because they kept me up all night with licking, scratching, squeaky wheel turning, etc. That was not fun. And now instead of margaritas, all I can think about drinking is pepsi after pepsi after pepsi ...

Day One

Today was day one of my summer vacation. Well, it might be day one of my life as a stay at home mom again if I don't get a job, but let's not dwell on that just now. Today I took my own kids to school, mailed three packages to Brian, went to the gym for a step aerobics class, had lunch with Kenny, chatted on Skype with Brian, took a nap, cleaned the livingroom to near perfection, finished a book, picked up my own kids from school, went to Chase's band concert, and watched a little television. I did all of that in one day! Can you believe it? That is more than I have done in the past four months. I wonder what I can get done tomorrow? The possibilities are endless...