For the love of her daughter and the love of paper

It’s here! It’s here!

I feel like Steve Martin in the Jerk- the Phone Books are here! The phone books are here!

The paper drill is here!

Many of you have been in on this from the get go and know exactly why a grown woman with an MPA from a top 10 program in the country would leave her job with the potential of catapulting her into immortality as an assistant city manager in 15 years or so… for the rest of you… The Paul Harvey version…

For the love of her daughter and the love of paper.

I love paper. All kinds; all colors. I love it so much that when I decided to stay home with our then 4 week old Peep, I told Slick that I wanted to open a stationery store. Peeper and I even went so far as to drive around scouting locations-(two of which were later inhabited by paper stores.)

Slick suggested wisely that perhaps selling invitations from home might be a more prudent move for a woman unwilling to leave her precious cargo in the hands of anyone for more than 2 hours at a stretch.

Where would I put the Peep while I was working??

So I started working from home.

Slowly.

Then I had a grand epiphany last fall, FOUR years later, and decided to branch out.

WAY out.

So now I am the proud owner of a new Martin Yale 101 Paper Drill which I will use to create super cute note pads bound with a knot of color coordinated ribbon- Knotty Knotes.

Just look at those holes.

It operates virtually without noise. So no worries that I might miss an episode of "Murder She Wrote" while working. I’ll be able to watch and drill and tie and box.

Wow am I excited.

I’ve already made 40 holes. I’ve read the instructions three times.

That was before I turned it on.

It is a piece of machinery, dude. I wanted to make sure I was not going to drill through the breakfast room table. I mean we can take appropriate amounts of the house off of our taxes since I work from here, but a new table on the business because I might have put a hole in the old one was definitely not an option.

So unlike Slick, I read the directions.

Come over. I might let you try it.

The Bathroom

Thank you for asking about things in the bathroom. The progress on the bathroom: You can see from the photos that the bathroom was a Mess. The Peep and I took some lovely photos that I may submit for awards of her potty "pulled" to use our plumber's words. In case you wonder, it costs $125 to "Pull a Potty."

I don't think he said potty, but I don't think I can bring myself to say toilet.

So anyway you can see here that we had a mess. Now we just have part of a mess as Mr. John the Wallman came over last Saturday to replace part of the ceiling and mud it in and then came back Sunday to texture it to match the rest of the bathroom. You might wonder to yourself if the texture will match.

It sure darn will. Mr John the Wallman was the one who put that same texture on the walls and ceiling of that bathroom just 20 short months ago when we had all of the walls and ceiling replaced after we purchased the house.

I'll get it painted soon and show you how everything looks in a perfect world...

Happy Wednesday!

Its been so long since I logged in that I almost forgot my password!

I have been missing myself and I am SURE you have been missing me too!

Let us start off with a 10 things to be happy about list- just to get the ball rolling!

1. saying something nice
2. tropical fish
3. wearing a man sized watch
4. chocolate chip cookies
5. twirling a baton
6. aerosol hairspray
7. fresh brown bread
8. Glenn plaid
9. golden retrievers
10. fresh plums

Have you ever?

Have you ever gone on vacation to come home to a mess? I remember in high school my friend and her family went away to her grandmothers for Christmas to come home to burst pipes, ripped out carpet and ruined furniture. While our mess was not quite to that scale, we did return from the beach to a hole cut in the ceiling of our guest bathroom.

Apparently the Peep's potty- which is rarely used except if we have company- has a leak in the pipe that drains away form the potty and into the nether land of pipes and water. While we were on the beach lounging in the sun and frolicking in the waves, the pipe was drip drip dripping.


Into the bathroom downstairs.


You might think to your self- self, how can two bathrooms connect like that? The sad answer is that they aren't supposed to. According to the HillDog who came over to feed Jack and Box, she heard dripping and wondered why we would have dripping when we were gone gone gone. She looked for the source and legend has it found the paint and previous layer of kiltz from another leak in the same spot- hanging from the ceiling like a giant bubble.


Being the strong independent woman she is, she called Chief, our dad. Being smart in the ways of home-care, Chief told HillDog how to turn off the water so that the drip drip dripping would hopefully stop and he rushed right over to check on the damage, 16 hours later after a good sleep and breakfast and a couple of cups of coffee.


We had our cell phones programmed for the internationalness of our trip by the fine young people at the Verizon Wireless store and I had told my parents, who were Putter-Sitting, if there are any problems, don't hesitate to call, we have turned our phones on.


Apparently everyone but me and my parents and HillDog knows this, but to call an internationally programmed cellphone with US numbers, you have to not only dial the 10 digit number you would normally dial, but you have to add the 1 to the beginning. Since this was news to me upon our return from the beach, I had not shared this little tidbit of information and we got none of the many messages about the water drip drip dripping.

So now this week we have had a visit from the plumbers and are looking forward to a visit from Mr. John the drywall man.

Man this is fun.

Monday! Monday! Monday!

What a weekend of unpacking and doing laundry. If people knew how much work a trip would be upon return, would we ever go anywhere in the first place? Definitely. Then I am reminded of people like Slick who travel often for their jobs and I wonder if their return trips are all like this vacation return... I will have to investigate. If you know, please, do tell.

Now that we are home, though there is no beach or graduated heated pool in the backyard, we have many things about which to be happy. How about a list of ten?

1. popcorn at the movies
2. facing the truth
3. marshmallows for dessert
4. bolonaise
5. budding trees
6. starfish
7. waves that crash
8. an open window
9. an epiphany
10. toenail polish at the beach

We're BAAACK

Welcome back to us. We had a lovely trip to the Bahamas where Slick was born and is an official citizen- and where the Peep is also an official citizen by virtue of birth and where I am a visitor who burns easily in the hot hot sun.

I will have pictures shortly but just wanted to quickly let everyone know we are back. A little more tan and with lots of laundry...

Have a wonderful rest of the weekend!!

Shiny and Clean

Clean hair. There's nothing like the feeling of being fresh and clean and ready for the day. I remember the Breck girls from the commercials- Clean hair you will love- tell two friends and they'll tell two friends and so on. All of that shiny blond hair on the 21 inch TV. Shiny clean ready for anything hair. We have been talking lately about who washes their hair how often. I think I have had this conversation with three different groups of friends in the last few weeks. It ranges from once a week to daily- with me falling into daily and the Peep falling into every other day- if we are lucky.

Hair has been a big deal in our family since I was a wee tot and got my first stinky painful permanent wave when I was in second grade. Man that was bad Orphan Annie hair.

The Peep has been getting her hair cut into cute little girl styles by my wonderful stylist for about a year. The last time was the first one with the shampooing at the big girl sink instead of the spray bottle. She loved it and is ready to go back.

Easter Again!

Have I told you how cute the kids were here at Easter?? Let me show you!

OTC is generally ready for ANYTHING!

The Peep is always a princess, Easter being no exception.

This is our Crazy Neighbor's Kid Paymobil wishing his basket were bigger.

Here is Lego on the lookout for more eggs.

Adorable Singing Sensation sporting her new Spring Fashion.

MCC with the cutest smile in the land.

Slick at the bottom of the dog pile with the Peep asking him if he is OK.

Big Time in The Hill Country

Last weekend the Peep and I went to the wedding of a friend of HillDog and mine in the Hill Country in Texas.

It was a perfectly lovely weekend full of eating the best ever that I did not make my self cinnamon rolls from a place in San Marcus called the Center Point Station. Man those are GOOOOD cinnamon rolls.

It is a good thing I don't live in San Marcus because I would want to have those rolls every day and then I would have to make a rule for myself like Duke has had to do that she can only have the rolls when company comes to call so she does not eat them every day and then I would have just another rule to remember to follow.

So we ate and fed the ducks near Duke's office. This is the one that scared us away from feeding the others. He is diferent from anyother duck we had seen and he was mean. He honked at the other ducks and chased them around. We decided we would leave the pond before he turned some of the duckiness on us.

Then we went to the wedding and it was wonderufl. The Peep was beautiful in a supercute green dress with daisy's on the edge and HillDog and I weren't too shabbily dressed either. The ceremoy was lovely and the outdoor reception in abeautiful setting was just lovely. Did I mention it was lovely?? They had perfect weather for the affair and HIllDog even saw a few bats flying around in the steeple of the reception covered area! I wonder how they train them...

Happy Kids

Just look at them. Those are happy kids. They hunted the same Easter eggs about seven times. They know how to be happy about life and eggs and candy and stuff. Let us follow their example.

Things to be Happy About this Week:

1. ace bandages

2. good afternoons

3. dinner at Luby's

4. bluebonnets

5. L.L. Bean delivery

6. beach umbrellas

7. fern buds

8. a million stars

9. children who snore

10. recycled bubble wrap

I'm UP!

Windows Vista and Outlook 2007 have been the bane of my existence for the past week.

My poor webmaster has had a headache every time I have talked to him. He has changed my e-mail service.

It did not help until tonight when I was on a live chat with Royce of the HP team and he fixed everything with a link.

It turns out that there is a Q/A part to the server I needed that said I could change the number for the outgoing server for my e-mail portal and when I did it I immediately sent 8 messages form my outbox!

Thank you Royce.

And thank you webmaster for putting up with my whining for a week.