Happy 2009!

So what are your resolutions? Will you lose weight? Quit smoking? Be nicer to your spouse?

What do you promise yourself for the coming year?

Let's see...I quit smoking 3 years ago so that one's a done deal. Also...I quit smoking 3 years ago so losing weight would be nice, but not highly likely.

This year I will be...in the world, while not of the world. I will probably STILL not watch the "news" because I just refuse to honor the media's misery-loving frenzy by paying them any attention at all. But I will not look away from misery, or avert my eyes from the hungry, or keep my hands in my pockets - I will reach out and be reachable. I will carry McDonald's gift cards and scarves and mittens in my big bag - and HOPE to see a person holding a sign at a busy intersection.

Otherwise - I will read the books I have before buying more! I will complete the projects I have, with yarn I already have on hand, also before buying more! I will swear less. And hardest of all - mostly just because I have so little free time - I will exercise 3 times a week.

I will clean my desk. And I will finish my applications for all the "grand ol' dame" memberships I have discovered I am eligible for (this is the 4th year I have added this in my resolutions - let's hope this is the year that clinches it!).

Happy New Year everybody!!

Happy Holidays!!

Well I hope everyone's holidays were "merry and bright." Here in South Texas, the closest we got to a "white Christmas" was the sheetrock dust all over the house from putting in a doggie door. However, we are grateful people and will take what we can get.

Every year I miss my grandmother during the holidays and have always made sure I told her stories to my kids, keep her traditions alive, etc. She truly had the Christmas spirit and it wouldn't be Christmas without her, even though she's been gone for nearly 8 years. This year we added Christmas candy to our traditions - I swear, the book Paul found with recipes could have belonged to her - it looked like I'd pulled it out of my giant stash of her cookbooks (and now that Christmas is over, that's where it has been placed). I tried to make candy and failed miserably. But Paul - OMG he made white satin fudge, chocolate-coated blackberry fudge, date nut rolls (her favorites), peanut butter fudge, sour cream candies, butterscotch - I don't even know what else. But what a treat! Grandmother used to have this big production, candy-making day. When it was over there'd be plates of candy on every surface, and anyone who came over, even the guy checking the water meter, would get to take one home. We weren't quite so generous :)

Christmas Eve we spent here with our collective kids, then visiting with my dad, then down to Pleasanton to my mom's house (remember that doggie door? that means we get to LEAVE the house now!!) where we had a terrific time! All the little kids running around - Garrett, my precious nephew, shooting people with a water gun. My son reloading it for him - ha ha. I hated to leave but we did have to get back to SA, prepare for the next day, and go to church at midnight.

Wow - that communion service ROCKED. Literally - the church band opened with "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree" and it was terrific. After years of hearing whether or not we should even celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, and WHEN, and yada yada - we celebrated it as a family. Most families showed up to church in their PJ's, which we will do next year. Again, wow. Anyone who wants to get to know our church, check out www.brcc.net. To hear messages, check out "multimedia" at the end - the "Beautiful Feet" messages, especially "Love San Antonio" have been SO awesome and motivating. I wish the music was available to listen to online because we have one of the most incredible worship bands. Anyway, I already can't wait for next year's service.

Well it's time for the aftermath. While drinking my coffee from a cool mug that looks like it is cable-knit, and watching a slideshow of pictures on a digital picture frame (and while putting off reading the murder mystery my oldest bought me) I look around and see that Christmas must be put back into its boxes and away for next year. Before Nicky eats any more ornaments (he did - he found this nasty green ornament, a wreath made out of rice krispies and green-colored glue one of the kids made umpteen years ago in elementary school, and he ate that little sucker!!).

Hope your Christmas was great too!!!

Happy Birthday Zachary!

Today my firstborn turned 16. This picture is from last year (or year before?) but he hasn't gotten any uglier so I figure this is a fine one to post.

He was at his dad's until this afternoon, so I called him fairly early this morning and woke him up to say, "Hey, 16 years ago you woke ME up early, so I'm just getting even." Haha.

Sixteen years ago today, I was...blissfully and heavily medicated. Those were the days :)

Today he got a new keyboard, pickups for his guitar, and a new Bible. Right now he's teaching his brother to play while he sings "Two Pina Coladas" (Garth Brooks) - thank heaven we got him the Bible - Sorta balance out the drinking songs.

Happy birthday son!
Love - your mom

My "little" mouser

Well thank heavens I don't have any pictures to post - but guess what? Our darling Nicky has become a rat-catcher. We've seen them at night, scurring across on the tops of the privacy fences between the yards, probably snagging bits of dog food here and there. Quite grossed me out, to be honest - but not NEAR as much as now that my dear boy has begun to catch them and present them as an offering to us. And present them he does - see, our Nicky can open the back door and let himself in. So we will put him out and go about our business, and later he'll come into the house carrying something he wants to play with - like a garden hose, or a shovel or a rake, a soccer ball - whatever. And it's quite funny because if we're in "eyeshot" he will try to sneak in with his booty (like a 100+ lb dog could "sneak" anywhere!), and if Paul says, "NICK! That belongs OUTSIDE!" he will huff and turn around and take it back outside. UNLESS it's fresh kill, that is. Twice in the last week he's brought in a big rat and laid it at the bottom of the stairs. The second one Paul saw him sneaking in and yelled at him, and he ran the whole 2 bounds it took him to cross the living room into the dining room with his kill. Sheesh!

How nasty is that? Of course, somebody - Paul or Zach - has to go dig a hole and bury the thing, and then put something large on top of it so they won't just dig it back up. For this second one, Paul parked a LAWNMOWER over the little rat grave, and damned if the next morning they didn't MOVE THE LAWNMOWER and dig the little sucker back up.

So anyway, we were just on the threshold of putting in a doggie door so that I could go further away than the grocery store and for longer than an hour or so - important with the holidays coming up - but now I worry what kind of "things" Nicky will have brought in while I'm away!!!!

Obama's Freedom of Choice Act

I don't care if you voted for Obama or not - but if you're pro-life, if you believe abortion shouldn't be a form of birth control but rather a necessary evil in the face of extreme cases such as rape or incest, please take the time to go to the link below.

This was (and always is) my MAIN reason for voting the way I did - to uphold what little value we currently place on life, and to promote more. This "act" annihilates that hope, and I fear it seals our nation's downward spiral. I truly resent that abortion was treated as a non-issue by Democrats (at least the ones I spoke to) - and yet is going to be the "first thing" Obama promises to addresses as president of our country. Does anybody care? I mean, does caring about the economy and health care mean you CAN'T care about this?

"All that is needed for evil to succeed is that decent human beings do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Freedom of Choice Act (fight FOCA website)

I'm angry! This is not the freedom our forefathers spoke about. Our foundations are crumbling and it's being blamed on good men, not on the moral decay that's been spreading like the Blob, eating everything in its sight and growing immensely. In the background, while everyone's sleeping, imagining themselves safe. That reminds me of yet another Casting Crowns song - "While You Were Sleeping". Wake up America!!!!

A New Day

I have deleted my previous posts regarding the hazards of electing Barack Obama. Not for any reason other than - I am not a Dixie Chick. I am disappointed, and disheartened, that America insisted that God give them their King (I Samuel 8). But he is now the President and that is that. For 8 years anyway (aw come on - 8 years is the going term nowadays).

I am disappointed and a bit nauseous. The race thing - I think that's cool. I'm glad that we have broken that particular wall down, and I feel happy for those who can take the accomplishment personally for themselves and their children. Right now that's all the good I can see in it. We now "look good" to other nations. America the Overspenders are no longer bigots. Well go us. I hope we do a lot more housecleaning than that - each of us, because that's what it will take to turn this nation around. Not from the top down - but each individual.

God help us.

What mud?

I didn't see any mud, honest Mom.