Visited my old Alma Mater

I had to do an assignment for one of my classes today. I was charged with having to visit a school district, diagram out their network, and chat up the network administrator. After thinking about some of the places where I taught school, I ditched all of those ideas, and decided to call up the district office in Zachary. I was connected with a really personable girl, Adonica, who serves as the district's webmaster. The district's network administrator is Joe, who also was full of techie info. I drove out to Zachary... boy that brought back memories. I grew up out there in the "plains" and graduated from ZHS. Zachary High School ended up being the campus that Joe and Adonica took me to so that I could diagram the network. Very cool walking through campus although it looks quite different from when I walked those halls. We ended up in the library where I got the details of the network and when walking out was amazed that the very same librarian, Ms. Mills was still there. She was busy with students so I didn't interrupt, but that brought back lots of memories too. It was a great place when I was a student there and it still looks like a wonderful place even today.

Always Wishing for More

I was thinking about how blessed we are. I remember when we bought our first home... how all four of us and all our junk fit into 1400 sq.ft., I'll never know. We were perfectly content in that home, but then we considered moving so that we could move the kids to public school. So we put a sign up and sold the house within less than 6 days. Moving into a new and bigger house was so exciting (after destressing from the building process). New carpet, new walls, new neighbors, new schools, new everything. For Erin and Dylan it was one of the best things I think we could have ever done. But, then the "new" wore off. I wouldn't trade our new neighbors and friends for anything in the world, but sometimes I long for a more simplified life again. The "new" gets old, and the responsibility of a bigger home begins to wear on me. More area to clean (and obsess about keeping new), bigger insurance, bigger mortgage, bigger electric/gas bills, more lawn work for WD, more areas to store "junk". I miss my smaller life and am learning not to "wish for more", but to be truly content in all things.


Our very first house... wasn't it cute?!?

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 ;-)

Drew Carey hosts "The PRICE is RIGHT"

How perfect is that for Drew Carey to take the job (I loved him in "Whose Line Is It Anyway?)! I was wondering who in the world could replace Bob Barker. I don't get to watch the game show now, but as a kid, I watched it daily! I spent many wonderful summers at my Mamaw Bell's camp/house on Lake Darbonne where we would start the days off watching "Price is Right". Of course Mamaw would watch from the kitchen while she began to prepare lunch. There was her typical line up: The morning news, "The Price is Right", then "Young and the Restless" (does that even come on anymore?). She would allow us to play "school", "bank", "library" or "store" in her back bedroom where we turned the room upside down and loudly listened to childrens' Christian tunes (on record albums!) by artists such as Joni Eareckson Tada and Tammy Faye Bakker! ("We" included me and all 7 of my girl-cousins along with my little sister.) Mamaw would cook a wonderful lunch, which we would all devour, then she'd begin to prepare for supper. Of course, we had an evening line up to watch after all 9 of us had baths in her single bathtub with Ivory soap (2 or 3 at a time!). We watched such shows as "The Barbara Mandrel Show", "Hee-Haw", "The Waltons" and of course the 10 o'clock news. I don't think my kids have ever heard of any of these shows, including "The Price is Right"!