Inflation

Sunday, July 30, 2006 4 comments
Today I went to Six Flags.....so I don't overshadow this bit of info, the summary of that was it was a relaxing (hot) day, but I got to do and see (and eat) some of my favorite things (I love the Spongebob 4D 'ride'!), they have over 10 new rides this year, thanks to a bunch of Six Flags around the country closing. BUT I'm so glad I was prepared by Holly for the price of parking=FIFTEEN dollars! Just a few years back it was 8, which was outrageous, but in addition to that, 15 pays for the 'cheapest' parking....way out where the TRAM comes to get you! To get close enough to the Park to HEAR it, much less SEE it (maybe I stretched that a BIT, but I think it makes more of an impact!) you have to pay 20, or 30 for 'premium.' Six Flags is great, but it's not Disneyworld! I think that's the last 15 dollars they will be getting out of ME for quite some time.....The ticket prices have almost doubled as well, you would think that would cover it. On top of all of that, there are no longer guys who direct the traffic to the next lane....so they cut employees, raised prices and segregated parking sessions.....nuts! Whew, it's just a good thing I'm filthy rich.....ha ha ha, I sit around all day laughing at the clever little jokes I tell myself!

Artistic Differences....

Saturday, July 29, 2006 1 comment

Tonight the Mariams came over for Jody's birthday for a cookout....amidst a really yummy meal I mentioned a frustrating experience I've been having recently with MUFFIN.....I've set up a table to start on my scrapbooks (with the end of summer looming ahead) and she WON'T MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. When I pull her off, she pops back up, slapping that tail (note the tail moving in this picture as well) and refusing to move....annoyed that I would DARE enter HER space. Hello, doesn't she see the pictures, the stickers, the glue sticks? I'm about to paste her little butt down to a page if she doesn't get out of my way. So far I just have two hairy pages accomplished and the table has been up for over a week (those of you with cats understand how something that weighs ten pounds can out smart, out last and out wit you each step of the way). Aunt Lois suggested she wanted her picture taken because she doesn't get enough spot lighting on my blog....so here Muffin is HELPING. This evening I laid out the beginnings of page number three and when I came back all the pieces were knocked on the floor, despite the threats to life I imparted on her fuzzy head before I left the room. It's not even that she CAN'T sit on the table, it's just that I'd like just a little piece of the six foot table for MYSELF. In a side note, some of you may not know this, but Muffin's Mom is Holly's kitty. Recently, during a daring acrobatic trick that involved a nap on a high counter in a box wavering on the edge her Mom, Lindsey had a little accident, she didn't land on her feet, and she ended up breaking her leg. I went by today to see her little shaved leg and stitches, carrying gifts (in the form of canned tuna). She's so sad looking and yet so cute in her little cone blue head collar (to prevent her from licking her stitches), as the vet said, she looks like a little blue flower :O( Maybe this is what is causing Muffin to be so obstinate....but how do you explain the stubborn attitude during the other 15 years of her life?

Misunderstood....

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 2 comments

You know I really have a problem with the fact that I feel my dogs are misunderstood. They have such a bad reputation with my family and friends, but I want to know how many of you look this cute sitting on my couch? Lilly is sprouting wings she's such an angel. I think YOU guys are a bad influence on MY dogs, not vise versa! I tell them all the time they are little angels just 'thrown' down from heaven (they are dogs so they don't really grasp the meaning behind thrown versus falling). Marie, this ones for you, I think this covers the dog quota for awhile!

Roughing It.

Sunday, July 23, 2006 2 comments

This weekend I went camping with my Mom, Holly, Jason, Tonya, Taylor and Xavier. We headed out to Tyler State Park (about two hours from here), which I have been to a million times before, but it was a 'million' years ago when the earth was cooling and I was much younger! Mom, Holly and I have put in our time in a tent, so we got a shelter this time (but we still slept on the floor) and the rest pitched a tent on the site. Mom, Holly and I pretty much swam, ate, swam, ate, swam, ate and walked all weekend, and the others did a lot of the same, with the inclusion of fishing and boating on their agenda....I'm attaching a link to a little slide show if you'd like to see evidence of this weekend's journey. http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AZMmrNw0YsmLtA It hasn't rained here in way too long, but it poured all weekend in Tyler, it was such a relief, and we had plenty of sun for swimming, but the rain was so nice to see, and it really kept things cooled off, though the lake was still comfortably warm from the same heat we have been getting, and very low because of the drought! P.s. Last night our site was invaded by raccoons...they were climbing a tree to get to our trash until Holly and I bravely walked to the dumpster to toss it, but they were cute....just a little too loud!

This ones for Marie....

Thursday, July 20, 2006 3 comments

the picture....not the dog! She requested more pictures of the dogs (the whole slide show dedicated to them wasn't enough-that's my kind of friend).....here is Lilly's summer position....in bed, under the fan with the ac blowing on her.....life is "ruff"....that's so lame I ALMOST had to delete it!

Happy 27th Birthday to Me :O)

Tuesday, July 18, 2006 1 comment

Today I have officially celebrated my entrance into my 27th year of life :O). Mom took the day off work and we went to see "You, Me and Dupree" which was a cute movie, but definitely not something I'd take a child to see! Then we went and got pedicures this afternoon. My phone rang all day and my internet beeped with well wishes and I appreciate them all, it always makes me feel special to be remembered, every year I get older, but I feel more blessed because of the number of thoughtful gifts, call and gestures coming my way from such an incredible support group of friends and family :O). This evening my family and I headed out to the Magic Time Machine for dinner, if you have ever been there it is a restaurant where all the waiters dress up in costumes, tonight we had GI Joe as our waiter, in addition you sit in different thematic rooms, we sat in the dunce cap this evening. Dinner was good, and the cake and more gifts were excellent afterwards....another great start to another great year! P.s. Today it was 107 degrees, it is the hottest day in the past 3 years!

Clean Sweep

Saturday, July 15, 2006 1 comment
This morning: Mom, Lois, Holly and I went down to the Bon Ton District (just learned the area's name) of Dallas.....we volunteered via the Global Day of Prayer to go and clean up the community in this area. It is 102 degrees today, so you can imagine it was a HOT day. It's always interesting to be able to reflect on your life versus those in your local areas. It was a sad thing to witness. We, personally, filled over ten bags of trash and then some, including glass beer bottles, a few glass beer bottles, and a couple glass beer bottles. When I heard about this project and I heard they were expecting 1500 volunteers to clean up this one community I imagined walking down a street and picking up a bottle here or there, and I thought the rest of us would be fighting for pieces of trash....how could one community need 1500 volunteers, right? I just can't believe the number of unsafe objects we found, I kept thinking about my childhood and the neighborhood I grew up running around in. There were fields of glass and sticker beds everywhere in this area, debris and all sorts of trash. It was sad, but rewarding....I think we could do this for the next twenty days and still not have it all cleaned up, it was like a landfill of trash where dirt and grass should be, I think in the end it does look a lot better, everything got a little bit cleaner....except me :O). We saw very few cars and even fewer people and no children this time.....it was so silent, but the evidence of the residents was all around. After that we swung by the downtown Farmer's Market, which I vaguely remember going to as a child....it was very neat. There were four looooong rows of covered vendors with their fresh goods and samples. I think we bought enough fruit and veggies to start our own farmer's market in Plano....

Globular

Monday, July 10, 2006 No comments
I just finished reading "The Case For a Creator" by Lee Strobel. I've read "The Case for Christ" and "The Case for Faith" because I was fascinated by Lee Strobel's story. If you don't know he was an athiest who believed in Darwanism etc growing up and only after his wife became a Christian did he start exploring Christianity.....his intention was to prove to everyone why there was no way it was a rational, valid stand and in turn he discovered there is no worthy evidence against Christianity and all signs point towards God and specifically Jesus. This latest book had a lot of 'big terms' for me, it really dealt with the different theories regarding how the universe was created and in the end science points towards a Creator, God and not scientific processes, though it also deals with how God reveals himself through His Creation so we know Him better and what we learn about him through each element. It's actually amazing (and not so much when you think about how evil is so rampant) to see all the scientific 'coverups'.....I learned about these scientific theories in junior high and high school that so many rely on that are never really portrayed 'scientifically' (the things that went wrong, the substances that were controlled, the elements of the experiments that had to be manipulated and twisted that in any other circumstance nobody would ever allow to to be a valid experiment.) In fact, I was thinking about the lessons still being taught in our science book in 6th grade that doesn't address the different variables. They have been so manipulated and controlled to try to fit into the other theories it's insane, and the longer I'm a Christian, the more I see how saying you are a Christian or bringing up anything regarding your faith can offend people like no other subject, which seems like a lot of evidence for Christianity in itself. I was at a dinner party last fall where a similar line of discussion came up regarding scientific evidence, and though the point is never to win a debate, you can win a debate and definitely walk away without making the impact necessary, it's always good to have more knowledge so I decided to add this book to my summer reading list. My brain literally hurts after some of the chapters b/c of all the technical and scientific terms. There were a LOT of times the scientists he interviews for the book use phrases like: zillions upon zillions (3 lines at times of the word zillion) of the likelyhood of things like-planets in other clusters that could be like earth, life coming from nonliving elements, the mind (soul) versus the brain (my favorite chapter, actually)....it was fascinating, I'd recommend the book, it's well written, very 'journalistic' (Strobel's career was a newspaper reporter). I think he had a good point though, there is so much evidence that so many people refuse to look at because if they do "the truth you uncover is going to demand a response." Just be ready to think....and yes, the term 'globular' is used....it made me smile.....it describes a star cluster, or am I the only one that didn't know that? I'm going to add it to my vocabulary list of favorite words to use.

"Spring" Cleaning in July...

Saturday, July 08, 2006 1 comment

Some of you have received the DAILY updates on my cleaning projects (which I know you have been waiting breathlessly for), but I've completed project one "The Utility Room", my crowning glory. As I told a couple of people this week I knew I had a problem....I mean, I was on a cleaning streak when I found myself cleaning the cleaning products. It's so clean you could lick the floor.....trust me, Max was my test dummy and he's still standing.....though when I say you, I only mean if you are K9 and already have a reputation for eating gross things....but I think you get the point......so my next project is my room.....I'd take pictures, but you would want to move in....so this is as close as I can get. I found a great deal on a couple of baskets, but it looks like I've found other uses for them and need to go grab a few more.....

Once Upon a Time....

Wednesday, July 05, 2006 No comments


Some of you may not know this, but July 5th is another holiday in the line of FABULOUS events to be celebrated in July :O)! Happy Anniversary to Maurine and Jeff....3 years ago I was getting my hair done in Tampa, Florida after spending the 4th rehearsing and eating Spaghetti....regardless of time passing, I'll always remember the wedding with a smile and many vivid details due to the thoughtful planning included throughout each part of the day! I listen to the cd I got as a favor on every road trip (or plane trip) I take....and anyone that hears it wants a copy, you can only imagine how much more meaning it has with such fabulous songs and fabulous memories to go along with them....and your picture sits in my office in my favor frame! I can't wait to see what year 4 brings into your lives! I hope to see you sometime in the coming year....These are the ONLY shots I have saved on my computer, and who knows where I even scrounged it up(but don't post just seem more fun with pictures?)....I'm including them so other's can 'imagine' and so you have a face on my blog! :O) Have a great one...enjoy your traditional chicken dinner, and I look forward to hearing the details of your anniversary!

Here's Something Original....

Tuesday, July 04, 2006 1 comment



HAPPY 4th of JULY! I love this day! July 4th and Thanksgiving are just so jam packed with fun traditions. Today, family (including Taylor and Xavier who are here for the month of July) came over for a BBQ (a not so fabulous attempt at twice baked potatoes (though they looked good), I wouldn't recommend them; brick hard (forgot about them) rolls and crispy sausages (that 'looks like Max,' my favorite)) and an ice cream sundae bonanza afterwards. Evening activities included games: HORSE (JULY 4 in this case), heated Ms. Pacman tournaments and a rainy walk (I truly am soooo glad it finally rained though) and finally firworks :O)! July 4th is just the essence of what summer is all about. The only thing missing was a swim, but there was too much cooking going on for that today.....never fear, I'm sure I'll catch up later this week! I hope your July 4th ended with a bang!