Before and After:

Before:



After:





I'm planning on getting new 'hardware' for the door, I think a brushed nickel look would be pretty! :D



~til next time!

This was kinda fun!

I saw on a friends blog this little game on how to make your own (random) album cover. Here's what my searches came up with: (because I'm lazy you aren't getting a cool photoshopped version, just copy and paste style.) Sorry, Leslie, yours is WAY better! :D

"1997 Marshall Thundering Herd football team" That would be the name of my band.
"If your car could go straight upwards" The title of the 1st album.
And now for the album cover:




Here's how this little game works:
1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to "Random quotations"or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
link me back to your cover in your comment! (go for it, Becky! ;) )

This was more like LABOR day weekend...

instead of memorial day weekend.
C spent HOURS all three days doing this:






He had to level out the ground so we could set up this:



This is gonna take a while...



The Girl was soooo excited (so were her parents)!



She couldn't wait tho....



Today it looks like this:



So far, I've been the only one to get in it. The Girl takes after her daddy and doesn't like it if the water is too cold. (babies!) :D

~Til next time!

Artsy Fartsy

Well, at least my camera strap is! That is the name of the fabric that I chose for my new camera wrist strap. I ordered it when we got home from vacation. I find that I'm always wrapping my longer length camera strap multiple times around my wrist. It just arrived today and so far I LOVE it! I can't wait to take it 'out and about'!







I'm super busy right now with end of the year crunch at the school. I'm hoping to be back to 'normal' in another week! :D

~til next time!

The post where I ramble...

our dogs sleep in our room with us. The little one, Josie, is not comfy to sleep with, she spreads out, she's hot, she pushes against you. So she gets kenneled when its actually time to sleep. The big guy, Duke, well, he's royalty, so he sleeps wherever he wants. He is awesome to sleep with, he really is a great cuddle-er and he will even 'talk' to you to encourage you to 'love on' him. Sometimes, he will leave you for his own space and that's ok, b/c you know that it is not personal. ;) What cracks me up about Josie is that sometimes she gets thirsty... so she just hops in the shower and laps up any water droplets that she finds in there. It totally cracks me up to see her do that. I can see the shower from where I sleep in our bed and trust me, it is super silly to see her poke her head around the shower curtain and jump out from the ledge of the bathtub smacking her lips!

For the record, my favorite cup of coffee... Green Mountain Coffee's Nantucket Blend for my Keurig machine. YUMMO!!!

By the way, it is NOT a HOT water heater... it is just a WATER HEATER!!!!!!!!

The Girl is growing her brains by leaps and bounds! She astounds us everyday with what she has learned/developed. The other night, she and C were doing their nighttime routine thing and I was 'setting the stage for sleeping' ie: getting her bed ready, turning on Thomas, and her noise machine. In her hands, The Girl was holding the eyeglass frames to her Mr Potato Head toy and she proceeded to rub the 'lens' on her shirt like she was cleaning them! HOW STINKING CUTE IS THAT????

Do you want some stats on The Girl? She is 20 months old, 35 inches tall and weighs 32 pounds. She has a mouth full of teeth, I haven't counted them but there are a lot in there. :) She is actually leaving a clip in her hair now (YAY!) and ON OCCASION, she will allow me to put it in a ponytail.

Ok, I've got actual things to do today, so I'll have to ramble on another time.
Later Gaters!

~Til next time!

Spring Cleaning

I LOVE LOVE LOVE when our yard is all cleaned up and we've raked and bagged up the fall leaves (months late, I know don't get me started!), sometimes we even plant flowers! WHOO HOOO!!! A couple of weeks ago, I paid a kid to rake and bag the leaves on the front lawn. He did ok. He missed a big ole spot on the other side of the driveway, but I had paid him and sent him on his way before I noticed it. Oh well. I've been dreaming of petunias and gerber daisies and a water fixture and some cool stepping stone type thingies..... and maybe even a cool park bench.

If you live in the part of the country that we do, you know the problems that the ground (and lack of rain) can cause on a house's foundation. C and I were recently lamenting the perils of homeownership to some friends of ours when the guy says 'my dad owns his own foundation repair company. do you want an estimate?' Um YES! C has been having nightmare about how much this was going to cost, so he saw this as an opportunity to get an idea w/out being pressured into signing away our um 2nd born! Well, shout hallelujah! the estimate is something we can slightly manage, so we called and said get started. We figured another arid summer was only going to make things worse. With all that being said, that image I described above w/ leafless grass, and flowers and cool water fixtures and whatnot.... yeah, my yard doesn't look like that. AT. ALL. right now. Instead, this is what greets me when I pull in my driveway or walk out my front door.











So NOT the spring look that I was going for. :(

I did find this though...



think it'll live?


~til next time!

OH what a night...!

OY! C and I went to bed close to 2am. (We've been playing World Tour a lot lately) Around 4ish, our upstairs visitor 'dropped' in and of course woke us up, he was making an awful lot of noise, more than normal and this time he was also squawking, I thought he was fighting with a buddy; at this point The Girl is also getting a bit fussy in her bed... we tried to ignore both but it wasn't happening. C went in The Girl's room to see what he could do for her and I remained in bed not sleeping of course, listening to to the commotion going on up in the attic.... then it hit me.... the squirrel was caught in the trap!!! YAY!!! YIPPEEE!!!! WHAAAAHOOOOO!!! FINALLY!!! Shortly after my discovery, C decides to bring The Girl into bed with us, as he's walking in I mention that I think we finally trapped ourselves a squirrel. He says 'ok, I'll take care of it in the morning.' HA! That stupid squirrel was making WAY TOO MUCH noise! We pounded on the wall a few times, but he was too freaked to care. I guess it was 5ish when C said he'd go take him outside b/c neither of us were getting any sleep. Sadly, he's not any ugly monster, but I still want him dead.

ch ch ch changes

Gosh what have we been up to???
The 5th anniversary of THE DAY has come and gone; I was extremely busy that day and into the weekend so I didn't take much time to focus on it. That could be a good thing.
Valentine's day we had a date and I wanted to get a new sink for our half bath downstairs (romantic, I know)... its a long story, but the short of it is that a previous owner 'fixed' a leak in the sink with DUCT TAPE!!!! I took pix of the old stuff and will post pix of the new once the mirror is cut down to fit. The new sink/countertop has a backsplash and the previous sink and countertop did not, thus making the mirror no longer fit under the light fixture. Plus I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new faucet! So way totally cool! :)
The other night, the 3 of us were in the family room hanging out, the girl has privledges that allow her to wander into the sunroom seeing as how that is gradually turning more into her playroom than 'the dogs room'. She has a tv/vcr/dvd player, a cd player w/a radio, a ballpit, and our newest accquisition... a train table and some tracks and trains (I LOVE CRAIGSLIST!) right now I think her mom and dad enjoy it more than she does, but I'm sure she'll grow into it. ;) ANYWAY... she was quiet and it was the kind of quiet that you go check out... so I got up and saw her in the hallway by the bathroom door, with her diaper on the floor next to her!!!! So we played the oh you wanna use the potty? game for a bit then we went to the store and bought her a seat of her own! I am sooooo not ready for this and she isn't really, but I wasn't about to discourage her in any way shape or form that's for sure!
C and I just had our 12 year wedding anniversary. For the record, I got married when I was 12. ;) The girl spent the night w/ some very good friends and C and I got to have a 27 hour date. We really enjoyed just hanging out and relaxing together. We got a couples massage and that was awesome! I see more of those in our future! ;)

Well, I'm pooped and I've got a few more loads of laundry to get done before I crash for the night...

~til next time!

I bought URINE!

and no, not for a clean drug test!
So that smell in our office that I mentioned a while back... we are pretty sure it was a dead squirrel. In the spring we had squirrels in the attic, we could see where they were coming in, got the opening closed up and no more squirrel noises! YAY! Well, the noises came back and then the smell arrived and I actually thought 'good, maybe that will scare them away'. I was wrong. The smell was gone after 3-4 days and the noises came back. C went in the attic to find out if he could see where they were coming in... nope, not this time. Last weekend, we bought one of those super sonic noise maker things that is supposed to mess with their heads and drive them out of our house. It's not working. However, while we were looking for them in the home improvement store, one of the guys working there told us that we needed to put some fox urine on cotton balls and that would keep them out. Yesterday, I bought fox urine. C and I decided that the best time to put it up in the attic would be after the squirrels went out for the day. This past week, around 7:15-7:30 every morning (and that is WAY early to us!) we'd hear all these scrambling noises and running around and whatnot and it would wake us up. Occasionally, C would bang/knock on the wall to try to scare them and occasionally it would work. Today at 7:13am C knocked and at 7:14am IT knocked back!!! Our eyes popped open, we looked at each other and we each said, "did you do that?" "No." C says, 'if they come down here and pee next week, we are moving. Deal?' You bet it is, Buddy!

Bad blogger.
I tried posting earlier this past week, had it all typed out and everything, but I wanted to add a picture and couldn't find the button to upload it, and then my whole post disappeared! Since it wasn't anything earth shattering, I gave up. I'm gonna try again now though, of course now you get the condensed version. :)

New Year's day we went to see the ICE! exhibit with my aunt. It was WAY cool! yes, pun intended! ;)



The poor girl was engulfed in that coat! She was a bit confused by it as well, seeing as how she's never worn one before! We enjoyed the exhibit a whole lot!

well, that's enough for now...

~til next time!

What's happening?

Not much here, actually. Since we got back from our Tday trip, we've been taking it pretty easy. The Girl has vastly improved her health, so we are all happy about that. The only thing is now she has decided that she is an early to wake up type of kid. I know that some of you wouldn't think that 8:30 is 'early', but I very much enjoyed quiet time by myself before I had to start my day and now that she is up with me... well, the time is not so quiet or spent by myself anymore. This year, I will be accepting babysitting coupons for Christmas presents! LOL The good thing is that she is enjoying her classes at The Little Gym more now though, b/c she is awake more to participate in them! :)

C has been practicing at the church for a small Christmas program that we are doing on the 21st. You are all officially invited to attend and hear C sing and play his saxophone... not at the same time of course...or I'd have to sell tickets! :)

We did have some sad news this week, our former pastor in IL passed away on Monday as well as one of the ministers in our church here. The passing of Bro. Joy is especially sad b/c it was a shock and he was young and has kids at home. The passing of our former pastor is bittersweet. For the past few years, his health was no longer permitting him to live a quality life. We are sad b/c we will miss Pastor Switzer and we know that the family has to bear this pain, especially around the holidays; it does help to remember that he is no longer suffering.

I've been spending my time decorating for the holiday and the winter season. I'm hoping to get some good scrapping time in to make a few gifts. I'm also hoping for some time to spend baking some goodies in the kitchen. :D I don't think I've made a cheesecake yet in my new oven! It's also the time of year for Snowflake cookies... YUMMO!!! I need to do some clean up and then I'll take pics of my decorations for you to check out! LOL Someone needs to see them! I can't think of a time when we'll get to have people over. :(

Hope you are all doing well!!!


~til next time...

It's all about ME!

A= Attached or Single: Attached
B= Best Friend: spouse
C= Cake or Pie: Cake
D= Day of Choice: Saturday
E= Essential Item: internet
F= Flavor of Ice Cream: Chocolate
G= Gummy Bears or Worms: Gummy NOTHING
H= Hometown: somewhere on Long Island ;)
I= Indulgence: CHOCOLATE
J= January or July: January
K= Kids: one girl
L= Last movie I saw at a theater: no idea
M= Musician: Elvis
N= Number of Siblings: 1
O= Oranges or Apples: Apples
P= Phobias or Fears: i'm afraid of the unknown
Q= Quote: There is a difference between having something to say and having something worth saying.
R= Reason to Smile: Love
S= Season: Winter
T= Tag: NO one... continue at your own risk!
U= Unknown fact: I can use either my left or my right hand for A LOT of things.
V= vegetarian or oppressor of Animals: no veggies for me thankyouverymuch!
W= Worst habit: correcting other people
X= Xray or Ultrasound: I've had more ultrasounds than any other person alive!!!
Y= Your favorite food: Italian
Z= Zodiac sign: Taurus

Random Q & A

1. What time did you get up this morning? 8:57 a.m.
2. Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Not Sure, it’s been forever.
4. What is your favorite TV show? King of Queens
5. Favorite movie? Sleepless in Seattle (my mom and I used to quote it to each other)
6. Favorite book? Here’s where I should get all spiritual and say the Bible, right?
7. What do you usually have for Breakfast? Coffee
8. What is your middle name? Renee
9. What food do you dislike? There are quite a few of them. Most veggies, Fish,…
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? We’ve been playing the ipod lately, mostly songs for the Girl, she LOVES music.
11. What kind of car do you drive? Chrysler Pacifica or a Nissan Sentra… depends on where I am going. Gotta keep the gas consumption down!
12. Favorite sandwich? One made w/ leftover turkey from Thanksgiving!
13. What characteristic do you despise? Liars, snobs, conceitedness, selfish
14. Favorite item of clothing? My pj’s!
15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Alaska
16. What is your favorite way to pass the time of day? Scrapbook
17. Where would you retire to? heaven
18. What was your most memorable birthday? The year I got a pink and grey 10 speed. 19. Furthest place you are sending this? As far as my Blog will reach…
20. Person you expect to send it back first? I have no idea
21. When is your birthday? May 8
22. Morning person or a night person? Definitely Night!
23. What is your shoe size? 10 .
24. Pets? 2, dogs and a few fish in a GIANT tank!
25. Anything exciting to share? I get to see the family that I used to nanny for later today!
26. What did you want to be when you were little? An airline pilot
27. How are you today? Ok.
28. What is your favorite flower? Gerber daisies
29. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? September 11, we leave for our 9 day much needed vacation!!!
30. What are you listening to right now? The hum of the computer and the occasional squeak from The Girl as she plays downstairs with her Daddy.
31. What was the last thing you ate? Chocolate Ice cream
32. Do you wish on stars? Nah.
33. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Blue or Orange
34. How is the weather right now? YUCKY! Its HOT AND HUMID!.
35. Last person you spoke to on the phone? C, yesterday.
36. What is your favorite soft drink? Rootbeer or GingerAle
37. Favorite restaurant? A good Steakhouse
38. Hair color? Brown
39. What was your favorite toy as a child? My rollerskates or my bike.
40. Summer or winter? Winter
41. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate
42. Do you want your friends to email you back? Sure
43. When was the last time you cried? Last Friday.
44. What is under your bed? Out of season clothes
45. What did you do last night? Stayed home and played with The Girl and C
46. Are you afraid of Death? Not really, I just don’t want to suffer.
47. Salty or sweet? Sweet
48. How many keys on your key ring? 3
49. How many years at your current job? I’ve been a wife for 11 ½ years and a mom for 1 year and 1 week!
50. Favorite day of the week? Saturday
51. Do you make friends easily? Nope
52. How many people will you send this to? Well, technically everyone that reads my blog… you?
53. How many will respond? Depends on how bored they are, but NOT Becky, since I got all this from HER blog! :)
54. Do you like finding out all this stuff about your friends? Yes

Who thinks of this stuff???

and worse, who buys it????

We just got back.

More blog post to come probably later tonight or tomorrow morning.

~Til next time!

Hug your family and tell them you love them.

We had a tragedy in our personal part of the world today. A friend was murdered. He had a wife and 2 toddler aged children. I cannot comprehend soemthing like this. I'm stunned. I feel paralyzed. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm confused. I hurt for his kids and for his young wife.
Click here for the NEWS STORY. Be sure to also watch the video clip.

Please keep the Butler family in your prayers.

Remember to hug loved ones and be sure they know you love them, for we are not promised tomorrow.

~Til next time.

Do you think this is excessive?

I am currently carrying all of these packs of gum in my pocketbook (pag, purse, whatever you call it).




More posts coming soon!
I promise! :D

Blog posts

It's kinda weird how at various times during the day something will pop into my head and I'll think "I need to blog that" then in my head I do a whole blog post... but when it comes down to actually sitting down to blog... nothing comes out. That is precisely what has been happening for oh about 4 months now. This post for instance, was started on June 2nd, yet here I am on June 16th finishing or at least trying to slap something together b/c I promised my sil that I'd post SOMETHING tonight and for some reason, I don't think the random pic of the packs of gum from my pocketbook is/was going to cut it. lol
Not much has been going on here, yet I'm busy. Go figure that one out. It's HOT here and when it's hot I feel like I can't move. I really really really don't function well in the heat. So someone pray that we either get transferred outta here or that the TX climate changes to be more favorable to me... and soon!
Its late and I'm tired and a bit preterbed at 'the man' right now, so I'm going to bed in a huff. I have new pics of the girl to show you, but that'll be another post. I'm trying to build my post count! HA!!!

~Til next time!

Blogging? What's that???

OH MY GOSH!!
I just had this HUGE post all done... I was just getting ready to type my sign off "~Till next time" thing... and blogger had an error!!!

sorry folks, but I've gotta go now, MAYBE I'll rewrite it tonight.

~Till next time!

I'm pooped.

I'm pooped. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I'm overwhelmed. I'm running out of words to describe just how much energy I don't have after our VERY LONG trip. In fact, thinking about typing about the trip is making me even more tired. Maybe some other time I'll tell you the story. Just imagine yourself staying at someone else's house while your husband is in another country and you are the one in charge of your 8month old who is completely out of her element, off of her schedule, missing her daddy, and this is the biggie here... cutting FOUR new teeth!!!! It's a wonder we all came back alive.

~til next time!

He has his passport!

Well, not physically in his hand yet, but he has paid for it and we are just waiting for it to get here.
Last Monday morning, C called me from work to say that there was an 80% chance he'd be going to Israel. Ok, fine, whatever, last year there was a chance, but it didn't happen.
Tuesday morning, I literally still only have 1 eye open, I'm stumbling my way to the bathroom and C rushes into the room w/ "Tanya called me, she wants to know if I have my passport. The budget got approved. Goodbye, I love you! I'll call you later." Really, all those words should be pushed together b/c I don't think he even took a breath or paused. I finally work my sleep closed eye open and say "byeIloveyoutooHaveagreatday" The rest of the day is phone calls back and forth trying to nail down dates.
Wednesday comes and again, the day is spent in phone calls. He is SO EXCITED! I am not. Well, I am for him. But I'm not so good w/ the overnight thing by myself and seriously I could not imagine being alone w/ the girl for 10 days. Plus his trip meant that he would be gone on Mother's day, and since I'm not so good w/ the whole Mother's day thing and this was MY first Mother's day; I decided that I did NOT want to spend that day alone. I started thinking... and now, while C is gone to Israel, the girl and I will be in NY with my family. We worked it out so that C and I could fly to (and from) NY on the same flights. How cool is that?!?! I'm still a bit nervous about him being in Israel, it's not like it's the safest country on the planet. In light of C's overseas trip. We have filled out our Wills. Really it is morbid, but so responsible. I feel very adult now, I can say, yes, I do have a Will. It's really weird. I just need to have them notarized and we are all set.


OK, as for my last post about the running... yeah, we haven't started yet. It was supposed to be Monday night, but I had the ladies meeting, then Tuesday night C didn't get home until 7:30pm and the baby sitter people are only at the gym until 8pm and C still needed to get out of his work clothes. Wednesday it didn't happen b/c I had gotten another shot in my spine in the morning and that pretty much knocks me out for the entire day. Although, this time was so much easier on me than it was the first time. I still think it is incredibly weird that I don't remember a single thing after the lady says "this is going to give you amnesia" as she is pumping something into my IV. Then the next thing I know, I'm out of the OR, in my room, laying on my back in the bed. (in the procedure room I have to lay on my stomach since the injection is going into my spine) I know that I get myself dressed, but I don't remember doing it. For what its worth, I do remember asking them for another apple juice. They wheeled me down to our car, I got in and then I was out like a light. C even stopped to pick up something at Central Market, he left the girl and I in the car, (not a smart move since I'm practically dead) he got back in the car and drove us home, I woke up about 2 miles from our house. I spent the rest of the day in the recliner. I'm really thankful that C's job can let him work from home. While I'm out of commission, he's able to take care of the girl.



For a couple of weeks now, I've noticed that there seemed to be a water leak by the curb in our front yard. I kept forgetting to mention it to C and when I finally did, he looked at it and said it was the city's problem. We kept forgetting to call the water company. It wasn't a gushing leak, just a slow one, but it was still causing a small stream down the road and wasting a lot of water. Finally last Thursday or Friday, I remembered to remind C to call. He did and Tuesday they came out. I wasn't home but when I did get home I saw a note on our door. UH OH! The city came out, decided that the leak was on our end and that we needed to call a plumber. CRUD! Now all that water that had been going down the road... yeah, that was ours. I'm so scared to find out what our water bill will be this month. The plumber came out on Wednesday, (cool b/c C was home and it wasn't something I'd have to deal with) it wasn't a major deal, he was only here for a little over an hour. He happened to mention that he thought we'd need a new hot water heater soon(he noticed it when he went to turn off the water), b/c he saw that our current one was installed in '96 and the life of a hot water heater is anywhere from 12-14 years.
I find this all very ironic since just this past weekend we have set up a budget for ourselves. We are starting The Total Money Makeover plan by Dave Ramsey. He says that every dollar that comes in should have a name on it and that until you are debt free (except the house) you income and your outgo will equal zero. Step 1 is to have a $1000 emergency fund, then step 2 is to do the 'debt snowball' and get out of debt. Step 3 is so save 3-6 months of expenses. There are more steps, but we are not near them yet so I don't remember them. We are very close to finishing step 1. We were closer before we had to call the plumber but that's just life I guess. I'm just glad we had the money to be able to call him. It just seems that since we got on a budget and we were excited about it, everything else has fallen apart. The sun room roof is leaking, the area around the chimney is leaking, we need a new gable vent b/c that is where 'the visitor' is coming in and C can't get him to stay out. (although while having someone here to take a look at it, we wound up talking w/ our neighbors, they had a squirrel too, they have some traps they are going to let us borrow. They also have to replace their gable vents b/c of his damaging ways.) One of the front porch pillars is falling apart due to previous termite damage. Man, when it rains, it pours! The good news is, a guy in our church is going to be able to do the work on the chimney and the gable vent and he doesn't think it is going to be as costly as we thought. He should be here this weekend. He also thinks that he can do the front porch thing. YAY! for that. The sun room roof just needs to get a layover of shingles on it and C and I can do that.
OH! and one more thing, I knew this but thought I was doing things to prevent it, but it turns out it's a no-no altogether. There is a chemical called BPA that is used in hard plastics (think baby bottles here), I had originally heard that it was harmful only if you put these bottles in the microwave or in the dishwasher (so I wasn't doing those things), b/c that harsh treatment of them caused the chemical to leak out and studies showed it to cause behavior and developmental problems as well as reproductive issues in males and females. Now they've decided that you shouldn't use them at all b/c its just not safe. Problem. MOST baby bottles/sippy cups are made w/ the plastic that uses this chemical. Anything with a recycle code 3,6, or 7 (7 being the most common on the baby bottles) are the ones you shouldn't be using. I checked it out last night, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of our baby bottles has the #7 on it. Even the ready to use single serve bottles that we have that we call 'emergency' bottles have the #7 on them. This is SO NOT COOL! I'm going today to buy some new bottles and sippy cups.
Here is a link to one story about it on msnbc. BPA Plastic in bottles.

so how's that for a blog update???

~Til next time!