The goal

is to be able to walk around the neighborhood every morning with the boys. Now that it isn't 90 degrees at 10AM, it's nice to get outside. Today was the first attempt at doing this. I don't want to take the stroller so I scaled back my expectations to just being able to walk around the block. Graeme ran the whole way and Gavin pitched a fit the entire time about having to hold my hand. At 3/4 of the way through he went all Gumby on me and refused to walk... at which point Graeme has forgotten his instructions to stop at the red squares (there's 2 on every corner) and has run all the way home... I don't know this because I'm dealing with boneless baby until I look up and see he's gone. After turning the next corner and seeing he's not on that sidewalk, my stomach learns how to tie a knot with itself in the middle. Panic is not a happy feeling. I turned the last corner and still didn't see him until I got closer to the house. Both boys got instructions about walking with mommy when they got home. We'll try again tomorrow... it's time to fix lunch now.

I have had this moment before

Hey 2 posts in one night... don't expect this to happen again

There are many days I feel like this...

Reverse Winter

It's hard to imagine but I have cabin fever. I would LOVE to get outside and work in my flowerbeds again and not have them wither away around 2 PM everyday. Zinnias are funny little flowers in that respect. All of my greenery seems to have a scorched edge to it. This has been an insanely hot summer. I don't know how many days in a row we've had 100+ temps. I can handle the heat when it's low 90's but when it surpasses body temp I'm ready to melt like the Zinnias. We spend most of our time indoors looking out at the sunshine wishing it was in the 80's. The good news is... it's August and cooler temps are right around the corner. My favorite months in Texas are October and April. April is the first spring and the October is the second. It's a bit of a weird transition in October. Many trees are getting ready to drop their leaves but a bunch of my flowers not to mention my lawn start to perk up again because they aren't being cooked. I try to plant as much full sun drought tolerant plants as I can but the weather we've had is a bit much for even them. Right now the flower beds are looking tired and cooked. That's about the way I feel right now... cooked.

The first night

Well at least it hasn't been a month since my last post. So tonight marks the second in momentous occasions... the front panel came off the crib. The baby is growing up. The first milestone was a week ago in moving him to a booster seat from the antique high chair. He could have stayed in the high chair until he was 5. It actually makes a really tall seat when pulled up to the table because the tray flips up and all the way around to the back. The reason behind putting away the high chair was I was tired of cleaning around it. It doesn't pull up under the table just up to it so that means it always sticks out. Plus I like the look of having my table look almost back to normal. Even the other kids booster seats are black covered foam so they almost disappear. So tonight after much wailing and gnashing of teeth (and that was by me trying to get the front panel of the crib off) and then more wailing because he wouldn't stay in bed we are sleeping in the crib daybed style. The end of an era. It will be interesting to see how much sleep we get tonight. A large part will be due to his ability to not roll out of the crib. We have a body pillow laying along the crib on the floor to cushion any crash landings. The hard part will be for him to crawl back into bed after it happens. He CAN do it but the question is WILL he... or will he just scream for me.... check for a post at 3AM and you'll know your answer.

It's been a while

Yeah quite a long while since I did any posting. So long in fact that FireFox didn't know the password to log into my blog, and I downloaded and started using FireFox 2 months ago. So yeah it's been a long time. I figured it out and so here I am spewing (is that how you spell it?) my guts into cyberspace again. It has been quite a summer already. Let's see a quick re-cap. In late May we had a friend of ours drop of 3 pick-up truck loads of mulch and we proceeded to mulch every blinking flower bed to the proper depth. It looks great now but I got a wicked farmers tan that I haven't been able to even out yet. In June I completed what I call the great Southern tour. My mom flew down from Ohio and we drove (with the 3 kids) from Austin to Northern Virginia and stayed a week (with a side trip to Virginia Beach thrown into it for good measure). Then from Virginia we drove to Atlanta and stayed a couple days and then finally drove home. We were home for less than a week before she flew back to OH and the car was packed up again this time with Stinker-Winker driving (instead of me) and we headed to the outlaws in Minnesota. We also threw the 3 dogs in the back for added fun. Someone told me that I deserved a medal for putting in all those miles in with the 3 kids and then also with 3 dogs. I replied that I should be given medication for what I did so that I don't ever do it again. It really wasn't bad. I enjoy driving what I detest is playing stewardess which is what I had to do for the trip to MN.
Now we are home and it's time for Back Yard Bible Club. I had a sum total of 4 days to recruit kids and PRAISE GOD they came!!! I even had kids from church show up that I hadn't invited but we were the closest club to where they lived so that's why they were there. So on top of that I decided to enroll the eldest 2 in a half-day art camp. I think they are having fun... it's only been one day. I know I had fun having only 1 kid to tote around for a couple of hours. I got to get out of referee mode... it was good.

OK enough for one evening... let's hope I make a second post before Christmas.

To my Aggie Friends

I didn't write this but I found it very funny given I'm a Boilermaker... not an Aggie.

Aggie spirit lives on even when the faithful are gone

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

They're putting in a new cemetery space for Aggies in College Station, which makes you wonder. Since it's a tradition for Aggies to stand up through a whole football game, will they bury them upright and at attention?

Hey, this would be kind of a green move because it would conserve space and help fight global overpopulation.

They say there's no such thing as a former Aggie, and that once you are one, you're happily branded with that designation for life. Aggieness is harder to get rid of than a bad tattoo. But the new cemetery opening up in a few weeks proves you wear this badge for eternity.

I can hear St. Peter now. "Nice boots, pal. Really nice boots. What's the deal with the sheep?"

The Memorial Cemetery of College Station will have a section called the Aggie Field of Honor. The first phase will have 2,900 burial spaces, although non-Aggies are welcome there, too, if you really want to be buried in the middle of a bunch of Aggies. It's probably a good idea to mix, though. Nearly 3,000 burial plots — that's a lot of burr haircuts.

Some 350 spaces have already been sold. Former Aggie football great John David Crow has bought spaces, said Ross Albrecht, the marketing supervisor for the cemetery. Former Aggie football coach R.C. Slocum is planning to buy a spot, Albrecht added. He said they have yet to hear from Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was an Aggie yell leader when he was in school.

Maybe Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is going to buy his space for him after the Republican primary.

The Aggie part of the new cemetery is decorated with a circular, concrete, tilted A&M logo. Vaults holding cremains will be marked with a dark red, almost maroon granite, Albrecht said.

Wouldn't the cemetery be even more festive if they included one of those UT outhouses like they used to stick on top of the Aggie bonfires?

What surprises me about this is that nobody's come up with this before. If it says A&M on it, you can sell it to an Aggie. Why didn't I buy a couple of acres outside Bryan about 10 years ago and start digging? I could be rich by now.

Oh, the municipal cemetery will also have a non-Aggie section for those who would rather be buried away from the Aggies. A 4-foot-by 9-foot grave site runs $2,000 in the Aggie section, and just $950 in the regular municipal section.

So why does it cost an extra $1,050 to get planted in the Aggie part? "It's just really the prestige," Albrecht said. I wonder if Aggies can get a price break if they buy season tickets for the whole family? And why not? The football team has been playing dead for the past couple of years.

But the big fashion question becomes should an Aggie be buried there with his senior boots on or off?

Actually, this Aggie cemetery is a pretty good idea for College Station tourism. Let's face it. The night life out there at the graveyard will be on par with the current club scene in the rest of College Station. No offense to the Dixie Chicken, of course.

You know, it's easy to make fun of Aggies because their traditions seem pretty goofy to non-Aggies such as myself, who just don't get it. But let's give the Aggies their due and admit that they manage to show a spirit that simply isn't equaled by the University of Texas. Who else but Aggies would have buried their deceased dog mascots so they can see the football score inside the stadium?

On the other hand, why not a cemetery in Austin for UT fans who have shuffled off to that great OU Weekend in the Sky? How about a cemetery for Longhorn faithful where each grave is marked with a full-sized plaster Bevo? Or a high-dollar Mack Brown plaque, embossed in gold, that comes with a Nike swoosh on it?

John Kelso's column

Citi Citi

Whoaaa whoaaa.... let my money go.... yeah yeah yeah yeah (sing it now). Citi citi whoaaa baby, let my money go. Now that I have the tune of Louie louie stuck in your head I'll get on with the post. After 10 min of telling them they have been a wonderful card and it's not them... it's me that's changed (yes it's starting to sound like a bad breakup), I'd like to close my account. When asked why I just told the truth and told them that our spending was way more than we wanted it to be. When doing transactions in cash, you have that "ouchie" moment as you fork over the greenbacks. When the transaction is in plastic... there's no pain... until you open the bill. In order to be more financially responsible, our family made the conscious effort to switch to a cash basis. After a few more attempts to get us to stay on... the customer retention person finally admitted defeat and closed the account. The end of an era.