Puppy can be Endearing

As most of you know, I am not an animal lover. I am definitely not cruel or hateful to animals, but I just don't ohhh and ahhh over animals. WD, Erin and Dylan love pets. We have had our puppy for about 6 months now. I have a love-hate relationship with Chewee, our white and brown smooth fox terrier. He's hyper, which drives me crazy, but he has such cute velvet-like ears that are so sweet. Housetraining is no fun... stepping in unexpected pee-pools, having all of my conversations with WD interrupted by Chewee having to be taken outside and of course enduring the overwhelming anger to kill him and WD when he tore up one of my sofa cushions. All said, today he did something that was just so endearing. I knew he was smart, which has helped me grow to tolerate a dog in the house. Today he proved again how smart he really is... while WD was cooking supper, he heard a scraping noise on the floor behind him. He turned to see Chewee pushing his food bowl out of the utility room and into the hallway. It was empty! Chewee was telling WD loud and clear that he wanted some food. We did not train Chewee to do that... he was communicating with us in his own way.

Computer Troubles

I have had my Toshiba laptop for nearly four years. It has worked beautifully since the day I got it and I have credited that with being selective when downloading and installing stuff. Well today, it shocked me. I took it to work with me in order to do a presentation... the office provides laptops but I just love mine, so I always use it for work, school or fun. Five minutes before the presentation was to start, I booted up my laptop only to be greeted with a DOS looking screen that said a Windows file was corrupt or missing! I freaked out because I love my laptop; not to mention I had a room full of people waiting on me to start my presentation. Luckily, I had printed many of the webpages I planned on discussing because there was nothing I could do at work to fix the laptop. The meeting went over ok, but I was worried about my laptop for the rest of the day. Once home I found the Windows XP operating disk, inserted it and booted the system from CD/DVD drive. Voile'! It worked... the CD/DVD reinstalled/repaired the corrupt file and my laptop is back up and running. Now to back up the over 9GB of photos and 3GB of music I have stored on it just "in case".

I Need Some Help...

I am trying to figure

out what Wal-mart

sells THIS mirror!

Good Weekend

This weekend has been pretty nice. WD, the kids and the dog all left yesterday morning to go camping, which left me to sleep late, leisurely get up and get my house cleaned. The cleaning house isn't fun, but having a clean house is very nice. I had a few girlfriends over Saturday night. We had a great time! Here's a few notes to my guests:

• Jill - From Africa, huh?!
• Angie - She had samples!!! Are you sure you're related to Jill?!? (just kidding... I absolutely love Jill... wish she were in my family)
• Stacie - I told you I was a control freak; now I wonder if Darra is... if so I know what to get him for Christmas ;-)
• Brooklyn - Now you know way too much about your brother... see how to get me to talk?!?
• Karen - Your exes just don't know what they lost... well you know how to have fun without them ;-)
• Adela - I got your e-mail... thank you for forgiving me... the party wouldn't have been the same without you.

So whose hosting the next party?!? We can include the guys next time and leave Sara and her "party favors" at home -OR- I can hook you up with Jerri (in my opinion she knows how to have a better party).

Working on Jete's Website

Erin is again competing with Jete' Dance Company's competitive dance team. She is having a great time. In an effort to keep parents and dancers up-to-date with what is going on with dance classes and events, I offered to build a webpage for them. It is still under construction as I wade my way through knowing what content to post, but it's coming along (if you have any suggestions, please feel free to share them with me... I know it needs graphics and photos... I am waiting to get those from Shannon). Shannon Feet is the instructor/owner of the dance company and does a fabulous job with the girls. I am proud to be a part of the "team" although not in the "dancing" sense, but by constructing the site. Check it out here:

Jete' Company Dance

Room with a View!

I realize people tend to complain about going to work sometimes... I occassionally do the same, but I remembered today how very blessed I am to have a job and to have a very nice job at that. As I was waiting for the prisoner (the state government uses trustees to clean governmental buildings... way to go LA!) to finish vaccuuming my office area, I stepped to the window to sit and finish eating my lunch. Yes, I have been very busy, but it was nice to stop and take a look. I looked out the window over the capitol lake toward's the governor's mansion. My office has one of the most beautiful views of downtown Baton Rouge from our 8 story building. It was nice to stop and enjoy the view from my "room"!

The Singing Bee

Well I missed the show, "Power of 10". I forgot to program the DVR, but I did catch a new show that the kids and I have recently enjoyed. It's a great primetime game show called, "The Singing Bee" hosted by Joey Fatone. It's basically a karaoke showdown. The premise of the show is to be able to recall lyrics to songs recorded from as far back as the 1950's (maybe older) to present day. It's not a singing contest, but a challenge to see who "knows the words". The kids are great to watch this with because they just stare and giggle at me and WD when we sing out loud the lyrics we know, although WD stands by the fact that he feels the show is cheesy and that it appears cheaply produced. Me and the kids don't care how it appears... it's fun!

20 After Midnight

Well I didn't get my blog opened until after midnight tonight :-(
Oh well, I've got to make priorities. I will say that I got through another online assignment for my ETEC 5700 class, but not before watching tonight's episode of Big Brother... priorities I tell ya! I can definitely foresee Jen going home Thursday. She's provided enough entertainment in the beginning of the season and quite recently has become an "inert" force on the show. For all you non-BB8 fans, thanks for enduring my ramblings about the show, but it is quite a source of entertainment for me and WD. Tomorrow night, two of the BB8 players are to appear on the game show, "Power of 10" hosted by Drew Carey, so here comes another show to schedule on the DVR.

10 til Midnight

Well I am hurrying to blog tonight so it'll post before midnight. I started my classes today, so my "fun" time online will be restricted to after I do homework. I love it, though! I'll keep you posted on how it's going with me working, parenting and taxi-ing, wife-ing, scrapbooking and studying towards my master's degree. It may be short (maybe sweet), but I promise to keep up on my blog... it is truly entertaining for me as well as therapeutic.

P.S. I found the chocolate mini-cups I was looking for online... check them out below.

My Train of Thought

To give you an idea of how my mind jumps from thought to thought... almost like rapid-fire... while driving to work Friday, an old James Taylor song came on the radio, "Your Smiling Face". It reminded me of when I was a little girl listening to my dad sing along to songs in the car. He loved James Taylor. Anyway, I jotted down the song title in my Blackberry so I could be sure to download it to my iPod when I got home. Once I got home, I browsed for the song and ran across another song that James Taylor sang with Cat Stevens, "Cat's in the Cradle". I remember growing up with Cat Stevens, too. (These guys were all born around the same year my dad was, 1949, so obviously you wouldn't hear them on the radio too much now.) In thinking about Cat Stevens, it reminded me of the reel-to-reels filled with music that my daddy used to listen to. Which then made me think of one of my earliest "music" memories... I was riding with my mom to her job and being sad that I had to go to the daycare... I had to have been only about 3 or 4 years old... when this song came on the radio:

It's "Eastbound and Down" by Jerry Reed.... OMG, it is the theme to the movie Smokey and the Bandit (circa 1977)! See what happens when my mind begins to wander back in time ;-)

"Board of Designers"

I am so pumped! I joined a few of my favorite scrapbook buddies at our local scrapbook store, Scrapbook and Co., last night. We cropped until after 1AM. I was able to knock out quite a few layouts and had a lot of fun at the same time. While there, I admired the layouts by the "Board of Designers" and noticed that they would be changing out the "board" today. If you wanted to serve on the board you would submit a layout for the "try-outs". I ran over there today and dropped one off. By 5PM, the store called to say that I was selected to be on the board! I am thrilled. Basically, the store will give me some of the newest supplies to create a layout or project which will be displayed in the store and posted on the store's website. I'll get the art back after the time of display to keep! I also got a cute t-shirt and a 3 month coupon towards savings on other supplies I can buy.

Party Planning

In preparation for a little party I will be having soon, I was looking for something novel for the guests to enjoy. I thought about perhaps chocolate shot glasses. Basically little glasses made of chocolate... yummy to fill with any delectable drink, ice cream or fruit. I decided to do a search online for these, when I came across something else that may not be as flavorsome, but would be oh so entertaining. Imagine serving a few tipsy party guests "more" in one of these:
It's a shot glass shaped ice tray! I can just see a bunch of drunks with their lips stuck to the side of one of these. LOL... it would make for great party entertainment!

Keith Urban

I am so NOT a country music fan. There was a very brief period of time in high school (1990 or so) that I enjoyed a little of it, but for the most part, I tend to stay away from it. While listening to my favorite morning radio station, 96.1 The River, Jodie from the morning show mentioned a remake of a Phil Collins song by a current country music star, Keith Urban. They played just a little part of the song, but I fell in love with the voice I heard. The song was "I Can't Stop Loving You". After downloading this song into iTunes, it is now one of my favorites... not to mention the album cover is nice to look at too ;-)

Listen to Keith Urban's version of "I Can't Stop Loving You" by clicking on the player below:

Protect Your Kids

With school just starting, this is an appropriate post. I ran across this article online. It's a pretty comprehensive list of convicted and accused female teachers who "messed up" by "messing" with students. Only two are in LA, but you know there have to be many more. You may want to work this topic into conversation with your pre-teen/teen kids.

Morning Dynamics

Well it's different now that Erin leaves the house at 6:15A.M. Dylan is left at the house with me until his bus comes. No more morning sibling arguments... ahhhh, so peaceful. Dylan and I hung out in the driveway waiting on his bus and admiring his new tennis shoes (which he's learning to tie all over again because he hasn't had "tie" shoes in a couple of years!) without having to listen to teasing, fighting and arguing.

Don't Take My Picture at the Bus Stop, Mom!

After waiting in the heat for the school bus to arrive, it finally pulled up to the stop an hour after it was suppose to. Erin hopped on and headed for middle school. It seems that she is too old (or cool) now for me to take pictures of her at the bus stop. I was going to sneak out behind her and snap a photo of her walking to the corner of our street before she got on the bus, when she turned in a slight panic and told me,

"Please don't take my picture at the bus stop, Mom!"

So much for my scrapbooking her first day of middle school. I was able to snap one of her prior to her exiting the house, though. That will have to do. After dealing with that, I just put Dylan in the car and drove him to school so that I wouldn't be late for work, only to realize that I left my camera at home! He wouldn't have minded me snapping a few photos of him... guess I'll do a retake tomorrow. Hopefully the morning will go smoother than today.

BB Widget for all you BB Fans like me!

I guess you can call me crazed... it's what I look forward to vegging out to 3x a week... Big Brother 8! (You may not believe it, but I actually know someone else who is crazier about BB than I am and BB8 is her first season!)

Meet the Teacher Day

In this terribly hot weather and terribly awful traffic, I left work early to go meet the teachers. Erin's at the middle school this year. We headed over there to get her schedule, peruse the campus and get her P.E. uniform. She's thrilled because she was chosen to be a library aide as her elective. She actually had to write a letter to the principal requesting the job. I checked out all of her teachers on the certification website (you can check your kids' teachers out here too if he/she is certified in LA). They all were certified in the area that they are teaching (doesn't mean everything, but hopefully they'll be excellent teachers). We headed over to Dylan's school to drop off his supplies and meet his teacher. He has a brand-new teacher fresh out of LSU. She reminds me a lot of his teacher last year, which was a wonderful thing. Another bonus is that she's teaching all subjects so he won't have to change classes. 2007-08 should be a great year for Erin and Dylan. I don't start classes until August 20th so I'll let you know how that goes then.

BB8 Update

As a huge "Big Brother" fan, I could probably blog about every episode and every player every blog. I have resisted the temptation to do this, but tonight's episode couldn't be overlooked! Amber, the typical "cry-baby" girl on the show, stepped it up tonight. It seems that she should have gotten her hair braided the first day in the house, because she transformed into a woman with a backbone when she got her braids! She stopped crying and finally gave the house a piece of her mind. She's gone from one of my most disliked players, to one I can't wait to see what she says/does next. You go girl!

One of My Favorite Hobbies

I enjoy scrapbooking. I haven't had much time to enjoy it lately, but I am gearing up for a 4 day/3 night convention in Mandeville. It's not until the beginning of September, but pre-planning pages, shopping for paper/embellishments and getting pictures printed is prep work needed in order to make the most of Scrapfest Fall 2007. Click here to see photos of Scrapfest 2005 where I enjoyed the pleasure of winning 2nd place in the page layout contest (entering the contests always help pay for my habit... if I win.) I'll never forget the first scrapbook convention I went to nearly 5 years ago. WD thought I was crazy... he just couldn't believe that me and a couple of girlfriends were going to caravan down to Biloxi, stay at a casino/hotel from Friday morning to Sunday night to, as he called it, "cut and paste". It took some trust on his part to see me go, but when I returned I had a few scrapbook pages done, lots of fun stories and photos (double click photo above to enlarge enough to see part of the convention room) to prove that nearly 400 women had been all together in a huge convention area "cutting and pasting" from 9AM to midnight every day/night we were there!

Dreamin' of a new car...

After my car sat in the transmission shop for over a week while we were on vacation, I am dreaming of a new car! I had the transmission repaired a couple of months ago (to the tune of $1700) only to get the car out with a crazy speedometer. I looked in my rearview mirror to see a lady tail-gating me only to discover that my speedometer was reading 100mph. Now you know a 4-cynlinder would be whining out at 100mph, so obviously it was not working right. Long story short... I dropped the car off to have the speedometer fixed, but they didn't touch the car the whole week. Now I'm hitching a ride with WD at the crack of dawn, until the auto shop decides they want to work on my car. Boy, how a Mustang convertible sounds marvelous right about now ;-)

Beach Books (Destin Day 6)

Every year we've come to Destin with the family the hot vacation item has been the laptop... one year I think we counted 7 or 8 laptops in our condo. This year, it's the year of the "book". You look around and occassionally you'll see laptops out, but everyone is reading something this year. Here's our family reading list and who's reading what:

*WD and Brandi are reading
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
*Brett is reading The Quiet Game by Greg Iles
*Brooklyn is reading Dry by Augusten Burroughs
*Jamie is reading People Magazine
*Zach is reading The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
*Mom Barbara is reading Master of the Game by Sidney Sheldon
*I'm reading Leota's Garden by Francine Rivers

"The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."
Dr. Suess

Destin Day 5

Well the weather finally hit and it hit hard... it was like something out of a movie! A few people from our group went to the outlet mall, while me, WD, Erin, Dylan, Dad Roddy, Blane and Jamie played on the beach. It was sunny and very warm. We saw dark skies in the far-off distance, but it was a long way off. We had dark skies the day before and the weather never dimmed, so we weren't in any hurry to pick up. Before we knew it, we could see the whirlwind of sand and rain swirling toward us down the beach. With the torrent of weather came beach floats, towels, and worst of all the huge 6 foot beach umbrellas tumbling end over end! We scrambled to grab our things, but it was too late... the storm had arrived. It was so scary as Blake's huge canopy tent lifed off the ground and began to fly through the air towards Erin. She ducked just in time to avoid being slammed by the metal legs of the canopy. Dylan was running back and forth across the beach when I looked up to see one of the umbrellas tumbling towards him. WD screamed for the kids to get out of the way and head up to the house. Everything was soaked and we were all exhausted. Hopefully today we will have much clearer skies and a safer day.