What a Bad Dream

Othr by "The Boy"

He made Majik Poshin and he drank it. Wyrd things hapind to hem. He skard hes Mom & Dad & hes sistr. He kepe hes room how Evre he Wanted it to be. He Even Eyts cookies! & iec crem for brefist. He rids hes byck in the stor and he dasint go to scool. He eyts pissa with awt napkins. He dasent tayk a bath wen hes dertey. He wathes TV wen it is Time to go to bed. Son you Just hade a bad drem. Is that psehn no good.

Blow Harder

Where did you go? What happened to your blog? I miss reading about windmills and generators and water wells.

5 days off

It was a nice, long, relaxing holiday weekend. Wednesday, the boy was out of school, so we took the girl to her school and went grocery shopping for the Thanksgiving day feast. Then we went to my mom's house to help her prepare the meal for Thursday. My dad came home early, so we left the boys to play and we did a little Christmas shopping and then picked up the girl. My brother and his wife showed up, so we visited for awhile, ate dinner and headed home to finish preparations for Thursday.

Hubby got home from work at 3 am Thursday morning, so the kids and I let him sleep in a bit and then headed to my folks. We ate until our stomachs could not hold any more and then spent the rest of the day with hubby's folks and brother and wife and cousins. 5 children under the age of 6 plus three very large dogs does not make a relaxing afternoon, but all had a good time.

Friday, we cleaned up a bit around the house. I got caught up on accounting for the business and then we headed to the cabin my dad built. Our good friends called on our way out of town and were heading to the same small town, so we decided to meet up on Saturday. We played games, and visited with Santa in downtown Hallettsville and built fires and went on hikes and went to sleep early and woke up late. It was a wonderful weekend and the cabin is a great place to escape the world.

We also got the Christmas tree up and decorated yesterday evening. It was a lovely weekend with lots of quality family time.

Thankful

I have many reasons in my life to be thankful. I have a loving, generous, supportive husband and two imaginative, affectionate, bright and funny children. I have a strong family and friend network that I love and cherish. My husband and I both have good jobs as well as bigger dreams that we are working towards to be able to leave those good jobs and spend more time together. We are all in good health.

I have so much to be thankful about- Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families!

Don't hate me

Because I am almost done with my holiday shopping. All that is left is my mother, my father-in-law, and hubby and the kids stocking stuffers. Scratch that, almost done with the kids stockings, but I need more ideas for hubby. I have two goals every year and each year I get closer and closer to reaching them. The first, that I never walk into a store to purchase anything. All shopping is done in the comfort of my own home and I arrive home every day to find another package on the doorstep. The second goal is to be completely finished by Thanksgiving. I am thinking of adding a new goal to my list. The third goal will be to not continue shopping for the kids after I have finished shopping for the kids. By finishing early, I always think of new gifts and it leaves me plenty of time to shop for them. By tracking how much I am spending this year, I think it will be much easier to stop when I am done.

I have exactly 4 hours, 23 minutes to reach goal #2. I already missed goal #1 as I went to the mall with my mother today.

Wish Every Weekend

The weekend was perfect. Saturday, we went on a family bike ride on our favorite bike path and then picked up lunch at Subway and visited the playground near the bike trails. Hung around the house Saturday evening and hubby went on a grocery shopping run with the girl. Sunday, I gave the kids a lesson in folding clothes and they performed much better than I anticipated. They are especially good at matching up socks; a chore that I abhor. We took the kids to a different playground and then to Burger King and let them play there after eating. Finally, we spent several hours touring new model homes in Telfair. We only made it about half way through before the kids had lost interest, but we did get many good ideas for our house. And we actually agreed on about half of it!

Speaking of the house, I don't tend to post much about it because our plan fluctuates daily. However, I think we have arrived at a path forward. The plans should be complete by the middle of December. We have interviewed two builders and plan to interview one more. We need to order a soil sample for the structural engineer to develop the foundation drawings, figure out who we will use for financing, pick out the materials we want, get bids from the builders and hope to begin construction by February 1st. Hubby has been working hard around our house, painting and fixing problem areas. We'll put our house on the market in February and hope to move into our dream home by the summer.

As for the little old house that is there, we do not have a consensus. I have finally reached the conclusion that we should bulldoze it, but hubby wants to move it to Canyon Lake as his lake house. No, we don't own land on Canyon Lake.

Trendy

A few years ago, our family decided to down size a bit and start a gift exchange instead of everyone buying for everyone. We draw names each year at our annual trip to Leakey. I drew my cousins name, which I thought would be very easy. Well, she's very trendy and keeps up with the latest trends. I wouldn't know the latest trend if it hit me in the face. I asked my mom to see if she could elicit ideas from her sister. Apparently, these thong panties are the best thing since sliced bread and this is what she wants.

I told my mother I thought it would be a bit weird to buy my cousin thong panties for Christmas. She answered that was what she wanted as well. I told her that was even more weird. What a Christmas this will be! Thong panties for everyone!!

Tinkerbell & the Arctic Wolf Ninja

The boy, who is 6, would walk up the door holding the girls hand, who is 3. He would ring the doorbell and then walk off the porch, leaving the girl to fend for herself.


We walked from my parents house to my grandparents house. The kids wanted my mom and I to hang back when they went to the door, just to see if they would be recognized. So mom and I hid behind and tree and then decided it was safe to come out when the kids were welcomed into the house.

Eye opening

Earlier this week, our boss suggested we leave early Wednesday and blow off some steam. The team headed out around 11, and played at Dave and Busters until the mid afternoon. The boss and one of the other team members headed home, so we headed to a bar a block away to continue our team building.

This is where the conversation gets interesting. One of the guys is married to a girl from Belarus, another is dating someone from Venezuela, the third guy is married to an American but has traveled extensively around the world, and there is me, the American girl. The topic of American women and basically how awful they are always comes up. I always try to defend my tribe. First off, I hate stereotypes. Second, I am one. I finally pry out an explanation- women from other countries 'take care of their man and understand women's roles'. Wow. Then I find out that they are offended why I pay, even if everyone else takes turns paying.
They feel threatened that women want the same things that men want and feel that this competition is bad.

I thought that I lived in a totally different world than I obviously do. I know that I live in a conservative state and work in a conservative industry with a bunch of engineers, but I had no idea that I would never be considered an equal by my coworkers. Several of these guys are my generation, one is about 10 years older. Fortunately, I am married to a man who loves me, respects me, and truly thinks of me as his equal and partner. I had no idea how rare he is!

Brothers and Sisters

A new show on ABC, Brothers and Sisters, is on right after Desperate Housewives. The show depicts a large family and all the drama that goes along with being a large family. It makes me want to have more children. That and both the kids keep asking for a baby in the house. It is starting to get to the point where the boy and the girl will be too far apart in age, so I know that we need to act soon if we are going to have more children. They are both relatively self-sufficient- can dress themselves, brush their teeth, no more diapers- so it is hard to imagine starting all over again. My sister-in-law just had her third kid and holding the baby brought back all of those memories. I guess it is time to get serious about getting into fighting shape and going through it all over again.

Control

I am finally starting to take back control of my life. I do have a lot to undo however. The months of stress and catering and fancy restaurants and no exercise has taken a huge toll on my body. I am easing back into my exercise routine and making attempts at improving my diet.

I have been spending much more quality time with the family and taking care of forgotten tasks at home. I spent this past weekend on catching up on accounting for our businesses and filing and organizing the house. We met with the architect Friday afternoon and we are finally pleased with the layout. Now we are getting down to the nitty gritty details of the plans. He can't start on them until early December, which means we will have the final plans around Christmas time. Then comes the arduous task of getting bids from builders, figuring out the financing, and getting the necessary approvals from the city.

We have made some head way in getting our house prepared for sale. It is terrible timing to put on the market and I have no idea where we will live while we are building, but we are proceeding ahead. My new goal of being in the new house by this Christmas has changed to start construction by the end of January.

And just to prove that I am getting my life back under control, I started Christmas shopping yesterday.

Trusting your gut

When I decided it was time to move on from my employer, the only employer I had known my professional career of 10+ years, I told myself I would just have to make the decision based on gut instinct. As you can tell from my past posts, it has been well, trying at my new place of employment. I am starting to doubt my 'gut instinct'.

This is the week

That I have been dreading. We are presenting our detailed drawings to the client and reviewing them. And day 1 went amazingly well. The client is typically argumentative and mildly combative. And they were neither. Actually, they were almost completely silent. Which sets us all a little uneasy. Did we do our jobs? Did the long hours pay off? Or, is the storm brewing behind the scenes....

On the other hand- I have kids! And a life! I took my off Friday off and hubby and I actually had a day to spend together. Lately we've completely traded shifts. He'll get home after I'm asleep and I will leave before he wakes up. He did have to go to work Saturday morning and was gone the rest of the weekend, but I'll take one day. It was wonderful having three days off of work and it was just what I needed. Even better than that is an extended family trip to Leakey coming up this weekend.

Maybe I should go with the obvious untruth

Work has been all consuming for my little team the past few months. We've worked 10+ hours straight for the past 9 days and we are all getting a little loopy. So we decided to cut out early today and we hit the bar for a couple of hours this afternoon. I had to leave to pick up the kids and take the girl to swimming lessons. Sitting at the swim school, conversing with the parents of a little boy in her class, I realized I smelled like smoke, major smoke. My first instinct was to say, I don't smoke, I just smell like it because.... oh wait a minute, let's just say I smoke.

Am I dreaming?

I am here at work on a Saturday morning. I did the reasonable thing and stopped and picked up kolaches for the team on the way in. Couple hours later, the boss shows up with a huge cooler and a skillet. He cooked up eggs, sausage, and pancakes in our conference room. I wonder how long the smell will linger......

Office politics

I was so naive. I thought my previous company had issues with political currents and behind the scenes doings. I had no idea just how bad it could get. I love the work I am doing, I love the people I am working with, and I love working for an owner versus a contractor for hire. But the level of politics are something I have never seen before and actually prevent us from doing our jobs. Not just preventing us from doing our work effectively, but preventing us from doing our jobs completely.

Unbelievable!

Finally

The boy has had two loose teeth for what seems like months. He has been asking everyone to pull the loosest out for him- me, his dad, baseball coach, teachers. I didn't think I'd be so wigged out about a tooth dangling and the thought of pulling, but I am. It finally fell out this morning after just hanging for two days.



He's also been asking about the tooth fairy. I kept putting off the question because he always asked if there was a tooth fairy while his sister was around. I asked him last night if he really wanted to know the answer and he responded that he wanted the truth. So I told him the truth. I wonder how long before he connects the tooth fairy with Santa and the Easter bunny......

The dog's fairly smart

The last few times we have taken the dog with us somewhere, we have let her ride in the front between us. We both were amazed how she would lean into us when a turn was coming- before we even started into it. Turning right? She'd lean heavily into the passenger side and then lean the opposite way when a left hand turn was coming. I was impressed.

More pics

Of the cabin and the process of building it here....

New place for R&R

My father has spent every free moment the last eight months building a "country cabin". I put that in quotes because I'm not sure a country cabin has wood floors and stainless steel appliances. We spent part of last weekend testing it out for the first time. He has a little more work to do and then he's putting it on the market as he plans to do this during retirement.

He is not convinced it will sell and the rest of us are not convinced we'll be able to use it for more than a few months.


Kitchen, bedroom and full bath, screened in porch, living room and a separate bunk house with another half bath. Not exactly roughing it....