In the words of Jesse Spano...

"I'm so excited... I'm so excited.... I'm so....scared." OK, I'm not scared, but I can barely say "I'm so excited" without channeling the characters of Saved by the Bell.

I AM excited!! The Office starts in less than 24 hours!! I still don't have my Angela outfit, unfortunately. A minor thing like "finding shoes for my sister's wedding which is less than 4 weeks away and I still have to have my dress altered, so it was find shoes today or else" took precedence in the errand-running for this evening. I have a good idea about the type of clothing I'll be looking for to transform myself into Angela, and I know it certainly won't be green b/c Angela thinks green is "whore-ish." And I'll need to locate a stuffed cat...

I'm actually thinking of taking off work early so I can get to Goodwill (the foster home for good costume pieces waiting to be readopted) and go grocery shopping for some party food items before the rest of The Office staff arrive. I think that makes me all shades of crazy. Can't WAIT!!!

4 little words that will make my week!

The coming week holds something very special in its grip. Something so profound that 60 fleeting minutes will make my entire week. Something that will bring a 60 minute glimmer of light to the daily grind.

4 words: THE OFFICE SEASON PREMIERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the absolute BEST part? We're having a watch party and our guests are coming as their favorite character from The Office. I have no words to describe my pure unadulterated excitement! We're bringing Dunder Mifflin to Waco, TX!

So if you're reading this AND you know us personally, consider yourself invited. In the words of Michael Scott... "You said you didn't have plans...."

I'll leave you with this:

When you have done something good, you will receive one Schrute Buck. One thousand Schrute Bucks... equals an extra five minutes for lunch.

See you Thursday!!!

A 6 yr. old's view on politics

Micah and I had our first political conversation the other day. We don't really discuss politics in our house. Probably b/c Jason is studying theology and that doesn't leave much time for conversations about much else. And we haven't discussed our political views with Micah. At all.

The conversation was initiated by him and was based solely on his observations. I think his observations are quite revealing.

***********

M: Who's Barack Obama

Me: He's one of the men who's running for president of the United States.

M: Who else is running?

Me: A man named John McCain. Where did you here about Barack Obama?

M: On TV. They keep saying the name Barack Obama. Who's the other guy again?

Me: John McCain.

M: I think Barack Obama is going to win the election.

Me: Why do you think that?

M: Because he's always on TV, like on the news, and everyone is cheering for him. And they keep saying the name Barack Obama.

***********

Regardless of my political persuasion, I think he's quite astute in his observation of the media.

Damages and Loss

I tried using a layout from cutestblogontheblock.com, but the busy-ness of the designs on the sides of the layout made it difficult to read the words. And I hate it when it's difficult to read the words. I'm lazy and my eyes are bad. But I will admit, those layouts are the cutest on the block.

In the trial switchover, I lost the img that was my blog title. On the bright side, the damages could have been worse. Much worse. Which seems to be the theme here today, what with hurricanes blowing through central TX and all.

For the time being, I'll keep looking for a new layout. However, I'm about to be glued to the TV for a most awaited season premiere: SNL!!!! I still have my priorities.

Underwhelmed (thankfully) by Hurricane Ike

Living near the Metroplex area for several years has not diminished my memories of growing up in Houston and living through several hurricanes. So it's been lovely today to be completely underwhelmed by the forces of Ike. Apparently, the west side of a hurricane is the "clean" side, so we only got a bit of rain- I doubt it was even an inch of water- and a bit of wind, but nothing to get too uptight over.

My parents, however, are retired and living in another state altogether now. They are not sad that they don't have to spend another moment tracking storms and boarding up windows to prepare for the gale force winds and the occasional flying yard ornament or wayward limb. Unfortunately, they happen to be on the "dirty" side of the storm and are still expecting wind, rain and tornados until sometime tomorrow. Ike was a huge storm.

I probably lived through more hurricanes and tropical storms than I actually recall, but I do have vivid memories of a few.

Hurricane Alicia hit days before I started kindergarten. I remember falling asleep in my own bed and waking up in a sleeping bag in the hallway. During a hurricane, the hallway is supposedly the safest place, seeing as how basements don't really work in land areas at sea level. Because of the flooding and all. A basement might become more like an indoor pool if someone so much as spits in the street.

During Alicia, I remember watching the storm out of the back sliding glass door. And witnessing a large tree in our yard fall towards the house, narrowly missing my house. And me.

I also remember my first day of kindergarten (I was an afternoon attender back when kinder was 1/2 day) when my dad and his buddy were working to cut some limbs off part of the fallen tree. Somehow, in all their tree limb cutting expertise, they managed to land a limb on a power line that supplied electricity to our house. They needed some rope to pull the limb off, so they decided it would be safe to leave the limb on the power line while they ran to the store for more supplies. While they were gone, the limb caught on fire and my mom and I had to run down to the neighbors house to call the fire department. And the first day of my school career was immortalized in my mind. Thanks to Hurricane Alicia.

Fast forward a few years and another hurricane that started with a C blew through. If my memory serves me correctly (and chances are it doesn't) the hurricane's name was Clarissa. But on a google search for Hurricane Clarissa, all I could come up with were some vague yet nerdy references to Jurassic Park. Since I'm not current on JP trivia, I'm pretty sure this isn't where I came up with the name, but I could still be wrong on what the storm was actually called.

Actually many of the details of this storm are fuzzy. I just remember "hunkering down" at my childhood friend Olivia's house. Her mom, who was an artist, showed us how to make salt-dough ornaments and we spent the day baking and painting. But where were my own parents? My mom worked at a hospital and probably had to go in, as was usually the case in inferior storms. But my dad? I don't remember if he was working nights at the time.... If so, my parents probably felt I was safer being in a home where the adult was actually going to be conscious during the day. If he worked days, did he have to go in? To the railroad? In a hurricane? Doubtful, but stranger things have happened.

Most recently, in 2001, Tropical Storm Allison dumped buckets on Houston, moved out and then got ticked off about the Houston humidity or traffic or mosquitoes the size of small birds and turned back around and dumped more rain on the area. Because my mom assured me that nary a drop of rain had fallen all day, I packed my bags one Friday and made the 4 hour drive to H-town for the weekend. When I arrived just north of Houston, the rains had begun (for the 2nd time around) and I-45 was shut down. I was terrified that I was going to be whisked away in my car by rising flood waters. Fortunately, I was able to make it to an exit where I turned around and headed back to Dallas. 9 hours after starting my journey I was home. With little recollection of the actual drive back north.

I do know that my memories of hurricanes do not even compare to the devastation that many have experienced firsthand from Katrina, Rita, Ike, and others. Our prayers are with all those who have been affected by the storm this weekend! Stay safe and dry everyone!

Because I'm pumped full of caffeine

It's after 2AM on Saturday morning. I had a terribly long and terrible week with too much work and a spiteful cold. Despite my busyness and sickness, my house managed to cling to its filthiness until I could tackle some chores this evening. How patient and thoughtful my home is. And how quickly my mother-in-law will be arriving tomorrow. Now my mother-in-law is a delightful person and has never ever once criticized my lack of housekeeping prowess. However, she herself is the goddess of good organization and housekeeping skills. She inspires me. To get my house straight before she gets here. So that I'm not too embarrassed. Knowing that I needed to get alot of chores done tonight, I dosed myself up on caffeine. 2 cups of coffee. At 10PM.

So now it's nigh the break of dawn. OK, the break of dawn is still several hours away. Whatever.
The point is, it's waaaay too late for me to be awake when my kids are going to be the ones to pay for it when they hop out of bed at around sunrise. Fighting and yelling, to be sure. And I'm oh-so-pleasant on mere minutes of sleep.

But I'm still surfing the 'net, following the impending approach of Hurricane Ike, and browsing blogs. And I just discovered that my friend Denyse added the Cutest Layout Ever to her blog! And since I rarely have an original thought, I figured I'd just locate her source and get my own adorable layout. But since my computer is running on reserve battery power, and because I should totally be sleeping right now, a new blog layout will have to wait. I'm just hoping my blog posts don't disintegrate, explode or spontaneously combust in the change-over. I just wanted to give everyone fair warning. I hope I don't destroy the whole realm of blogging when I add a layout. Wish me luck! And sleep. Wish me sleep more than luck. Thanks.

Oh, and also thanks to Denyse, I'm considering adding one of those cutesy blog things where you do a regular "theme" post once a week. Like "Wisdom Wednesday" or "Thrifty Thursday." Any brilliant suggestions? I told you I'm not original...

A Stitch in What Saves What??

So I've been woefully neglectful of my blog as of late. Honestly, with the move, transitioning into a new job, new schools for the entire family, and an entirely new routine which requires me to actually arrive at my place of work 5 FULL DAYS A WEEK and DO WORK, I haven't been able to muster the energy to put any type of words together to form sentences to form paragraphs to document the anecdotes that make up my life.

In other words, I've been too stinkin' tired to blog and I haven't been able to think of a single minutely interesting thing to say.

Until tonight. I had an epiphany. Or rather, a hypothetically humiliating experience and some cry for attention within me feels that I needed to lay my embarrassment out there for all the free world. It's cathartic, what can I say?

Tonight I had to go to Target for just one item, but found myself perusing the women's clothing section. Heck, I was away from the house childless and with my husband's blessing (for I was to return home with Baskin Robbins!). I took full advantage. I spied a cute dress on a hanger and picked it out in a size that my idealistic side was wishing would be too large for me, but my practical side knew better. I carried it into the fitting room, and chose a room with a suspicious odor. Unfortunately, I didn't notice the odor until it was too late, if you know what I mean. Too late, like I was wishing I hadn't even taken my shoes off.

I tried to ignore the odor (or at least pretend like it wasn't what it smelled like) and I tried on the dress. Now- what comes over women (by women, I mean "me" but I just pray I'm not the only one who does this) when they try on clothes that, once they get started with the "trying on" process, they become acutely aware that the garment in question is obviously too small, yet they insist on attempting to get said garment on completely- is this to further torture oneself and one's self-image by seeing how utterly terrible one looks in ill-fitting clothing? I don't know why, when we see the objective going south, we don't just abort the mission and later claim we never had any knowledge of said clothes. But, hypothetically speaking, I was determined to get that dang dress on, come hell or high water.  And it didn't fit.  Clearly.

However, the worst is yet to come.  Removing a dress that's too small is a feat to be feared.  If anyone has ever experienced that moment of panic when you realize the clothing (that doesn't even belong to you) isn't coming off without a fight, let me get an "Amen."  Amen.  

Now it was woman against inanimate object.  So I'm in a foul-smelling dressing room wrestling with a dress with my arms flailing in the air and the skirt of the dress covering my face in an attempt to suffocate me and thus declare itself the winner of the UFC match this evening. Drastic times called for drastic measures.  I yanked and pulled and finally cleared my airways of nylon.  Once my brain and muscles responded to the fresh air, I was back in the game.  Stitches may or may not have popped in my attempt to free myself and save my life.  Seams may or may not have torn apart.  Once I was dressed in my own clothes, I may or may not have hung the dress back on the hanger and returned it silently to the friendly lady handing out numbers for the fitting room.    

To soothe my wounded emotions from the painful Project Dress Removal, I continued on to Baskin-Robbins for the aforementioned ice cream.  But I think I'll be starting Weight Watchers tomorrow.