Sentences and "Me Too!"

Stella has just in the last week started really putting together sentences. One morning we were eating breakfast and she was like "Daddy eat too." So of course Daddy had to come in and eat. Other favorites are "Momma and Daddy eat too" when she's eating. Yesterday. Tim finally got the bike he bought secondhand for his birthday fixed up and was riding around the block testing it out. She said, "I bike too!" So cute. And bike she did after Tim got her trailer hooked up. It was adorable.

Tim's mother says that the whole "too" concept is very complex and it's really amazing for Stella to understand it so well. Although that might just be related to grandparents and parents always thinking that their offspring is a genius. Stella is really into the whole "too, both, also" thing. She has a baby she actually calls Baby Too (although I guess it could be Baby Two, but I think it comes out of me asking if she wants that Baby too) and I'm always asking her if she wants one or the other of something and she'll say, "both". I guess she's just a girl that wants it all!

I haven't been blogging much lately because I've just been so busy. Lots going on, although I'm not complaining. I like to be busy. I've been playing hostess a lot lately, which has been great after 4 months of not being able to have anyone over when we lived with Tim's parents. Last week I had bookclub, Stella's playgroup and then the ladies who lunch (+ Sean) and their broods over. The playgroup was awesome. There were 7 mamas, 7 toddlers and one newborn and it was pandemonium. Wild toddlers running around the backyard everywhere you looked! Totally illustrated why this house was so perfect for us. We didn't feel cramped at all even when we were inside in the dining room munching and the kids especially loved the stage. Two of the little boys, Archer and Finnion, were having a fantastic dance-off up there. It's such a great backyard.

Saturday we helped Tara and Jeff peel stickers off the glassware for their wedding, then headed home for a super-short nap for Stella and garage cleaning for Tim. We then filled every square inch of the Scion not occupied by a person with cardboard and headed to the recycling place. After all our hard work, Stella said she wanted Amy's, so how could I not comply? (Okay, Momma wanted Amy's.) I had the most divine flavor, Cupid's Delight, which was cherry ice cream with cherries and dark chocolate bits. I had oreos and sugar cone crushed in, it was heavenly. The crush-in was even free because for the second time in a row, I got the movie quote right! Then we decided to go to Lowe's to look at light fixtures. BIG mistake. Stella was totally out of control from the sugar in the 5 bites of ice cream we'd given her and just was all over the place. She was like a twitchy cocaine addict after a couple of lines. We finally got her corralled and back into the car and headed home where we set her loose in the backyard to work off some of that energy. Luckily she calmed down a bit and we were able to have dinner with Tim's parents and Christine and Brian, who were in town. Then we played Trivial Pursuit with them until waaay too late and I won for the first time in like, ever.

Sunday we finally finished cleaning the garage, thank goodness! It looks awesome in there.

You know, I did not intend for this to be a "recap my weekend" post. But once you start talking about your weekend, it's sometimes hard to know where to end it, ya' know?

Stella is taking a much needed very long nap right now. Of course, I really have errands I need to run, but isn't that when they always decide to take the long nap?

A Minivan one could actually almost drive

So I am still in denial of the inevitability that one day I will be driving a minivan*. I just think they are the saddest cars and scream "I'm a parent and have given up all my own dreams and aspirations to shuttle my children around in an ugly box." But VW is coming out with the Routan and it looks pretty sweet. Check out the interior. And according to the VW site, it is available in orange. If I could get a cool color that might mitigate the fact that I'd be driving a 'gulp' minivan. Shudder. Let's just hope VW can be bothered to give a hoot about MPG so that I won't have to fill up every two feet.

*Seriously, one day. Don't fear that I am running out to get the mommy-mobile tomorrow or anything folks!

Book List

Got this from Tim, but also the fact that Tara and Ashley did it made me finally figure out how to get it into Blogger properly.

The instructions are simple:
Bold those you’ve read.
Add an asterisk* to those you have read more than once.
Italicize books you have started but couldn’t finish.
Underline those on your TBR list.

I couldn't figure out how to underline in blogger, so I'm going to put an exclaimation point by those on my to read list instead.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
!Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
!Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
!The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
!Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
!Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
!Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
!The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
!One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
!Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
!Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
!The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
!Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
!In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

I just don't read books more than once. I mean there are too many books out there to be read, right?! Some of my favorites of all time are on this list, though. Middlesex, Lolita, American Gods, A Confederacy of Dunces, Brave New World. Good books!

Being Obsessed is hard work

I've been doing research on the couple who first built this house because I was curious about what sort of people they were. Evidence of them is all over the attic: signs hanging from the rafters that meticulously catalogue where to store everything from camping equipment to Christmas decorations, 30 year old empty boxes that once held brand new stand mixers, giant rolls of old shag carpet that just beg to be put back into operation, and old tax records. So I did a little research on Lillian and Norman Flaigg and found put all kinds of interesting stuff. He was an amateur archeologist who is name-checked all over the internet by the Texas Archeological Society and they both dabbled in plant photography and have many photos of flowers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower center that are referenced online. They did amazing landscaping in our yard and took fantastic care of the house. But one thing always nagged us: we were handed over plans for the house from the previous owners, and a different name is on the plans: "Colonel and Mrs. Jack Harpster and Marty". The previous owner, Jared, was completely confident that the Flaggs were the original owners. Despite what the plans say. Well the plot thickens...

Tim was cleaning out the garage the other night and he found a bunch of stuff behind a stuck door. A master's thesis, some photographs and notes on arrowheads, and something I'd never heard of before: a "memory book" for the deceased. I read it and discovered that Mr. Flaigg had been married before, to a Beatrice Flaigg, who died in 1969 in OKLAHOMA! Our house was built in 1968! There is a letter in the box with the memory book and it is addressed to Mr. Flaigg at an address in Oklahoma and was written after the funeral. So my guess is that they were not the original owners. I also discovered that Mr. Flaigg and his first wife had a son, Don, who died of AIDS in 1989. So the poor man had to bury two wives and a son before his own death in 1998. So now I'm faced with a great mystery: when did Mr. Flaigg move to Texas and buy this house? When did he marry the second Mrs. Flaigg? And did the Harpsters actually see the house through to completion and if they did, how long did they live here? Why did they move from the house they'd worked so hard with the builder on to make their own? Unfortunately I'm just hitting dead-ends with my internet research on the Harpsters. Too common of names and most likely they moved around a lot because he was military. But I must continue my search. I'd like to compile a book that includes the history of all of the owners of the house and put it in the attic. That way, one day after Tim and I are long gone the next owners can already know who lived here before them rather than having to do all this research that I am! If anybody has some tips for finding info on people, send them my way!

Babbling incessantly

Do you ever feel like you just don't shut up? I've been having that feeling a lot lately. My friend Miriam and her toddler Daniel came over this morning to play and socialize. We had a great time, but I kept catching myself talking about was my house and buying stuff for it. I HATE people who just talk about their purchases all the time, I mean how annoying and obnoxious. I am probably overreacting because Miriam said she had a really nice time and we made plans for lunch Monday, so obviously I'm not that horrible to be around, but I have really got to work on this. Sometimes it's hard when you are talking to the only adult you will see between 9am and 7pm while simultaneously trying to keep an eye on the kids.

We did get to discuss how hard it is to act and be a mom. That is not a subject that many people I know can commisserate with; it's pretty specialized. We talked about how you spend their nap every day working on your lines or preparing for your part in some other way. When I'm directing, I spend it working on blocking and preparing for rehearsals. It's a very important couple of hours. Of course, now we're done with blocking and don't rehearse again until Saturday, so today I'm kind of twiddling my thumbs. I shouldn't be, but-

woah, I think a large branch fell off one of the trees in the backyard. I must investigate-

Okay, so it wasn't that large of a branch, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't there when I was outside this morning. It looked like the Loch Ness Monster and I think I would have noticed it. In other sad news, it is turning cold again. I know that I will long for cold weather in August, but right now I am so sick of it. It has kept us cooped up like chickens and I am not looking forward to its return. Plus it currently feels like our house just might blow away it is so windy. I should really close the flue, but I'm not exactly sure how to do that in this house.

That up there is a picture of Stella and Daniel R. (not to be confused with her buddy Daniel L. or her Uncle Daniel P., Stella knows a lot of Daniels!) Unfortunately they would not cooperate by being still or looking at the camera, but still, aren't they cute?!

Pandering to the Lowest Common Denominator

So it is official. Our church has decided to say "Screw you, John Wesley!" and has now whole-heartedly embraced the "contemporary" "Praise" style of worship. I suspected this was coming. Almost exactly a year ago, we had a meeting where it was revealed that we didn't have enough money to last more than a few months and that we didn't have enough members to sustain our church. They were going to add a "contemporary" service. Fine. Many of us were pissed (particularly our friends Mary and Todd who unfortunately have since moved to Mexico so could not express outrage with me at the latest development), but we were told this was the way to get to the "unchurched". The folks that apparently had never been to church and were scared by things like the liturgy and "churchwords" and God, I guess. No one has yet explained to me satisfactorily why these people are choosing the United Methodist Church, known for their hymns and traditions (and food!), over some crappy nondenominational "praise" church in a strip center, but whatever.

Yesterday we had another town hall meeting and we did better last year. And based on the results of the worship survey they'd conducted that only 60 of us had filled out, they had decided to move the "praise" service to 11am and move the "traditional" service to 9am. I don't know why they don't just drop the UMC designation entirely and just forge out on their own. The pastor and our lay leader (both people who I really dearly like), kept insulting everything that I consider wonderful about the United Methodist Church. My great-grandfather (not that I knew him), was a Methodist minister, I grew up in and was confirmed in the United Methodist Church, and when I sought out a church to raise my daughter in, it was United Methodist all the way. I want my child to grow up with the same traditions and experiences I did as far as attending church. I was so upset after their announcements and insults that I left because I was about to start crying. I was like, "we're finding another church, this is ridiculous, blah, blah, blah", but Tim talked me off the ledge in the car (he often talks me off the ledge). We're now faced with the decision between: a) going to the 9am Traditional service, which means early rising for all, but on the plus side means the rest of our morning is free, b) going to the 11am "Relevance" service, ear plugs in hand, or c) finding a church who respects United Methodist traditions and has a traditional service at 11. Luckily they aren't switching the services until March 8th, so we have some time.

Now that's just sad

http://celeb4aday.com/MyStar.html
This is about the most pathetic thing I have ever heard of. You pay people hundreds of dollars to trail you around and take pictures of you like they are the paparazzi and you are a celebrity. This reminds me of when I'd go to Astroworld as a kid and you could dress up and get a photo of you "on the cover" of a magazine. It was kind of fun when I was 10. But it's pretty pitiful for a grown-up to do this kind of crap.

My adorable daughter

Stella was just chattering away in her room so I went in there to check out what she was doing. It was so cute. She had put her "babies" on the ottoman in her room and had covered one of them up with a blanket and given the other one a stuffed dog to cuddle with. She said, "nap, nap" and I was like, "are your babies taking a nap?" And she said yes. I asked if she wanted another blanket for the other baby and she said yes, so I gave Stella a blanket and she proceeded to pull every blanket out of the drawer and put it on them. They are very warm now. I left the room and she closed the door, I guess to denote that it was nap time. She's been going "bye bye baby, nap" for a few minutes now. Freakin' adorable.



Tim, I think, has been bewildered by me getting excited about the whole doll thing. I wanted Stella to have a doll and while I wouldn't say I pushed the doll, I certainly played with it with her and suggested she cuddle and sleep with it, that sort of thing. Although she didn't really need convincing. And it hit me this morning, it's really awesome to watch your child imitate you taking care of them but with their doll. And Stella is really enjoying it, she obviously likes to imitate Mommy with her dolls. I mean, she's got blocks, books, stuffed animals, all kinds of stuff to play with in her room and when she was by herself, this particular time, she picked her dolls. I think that perhaps dolls are NOT evil tools of the Religious Right trying to turn all little girls into perfect little Mommies, but perhaps fun toys that allow them to imitate their mommies. And if little boys want to play dolls, dammit they should be able to do that too. And I'll continue to give Stella all sorts of toys, not just "girly" ones, but I'm not going to deny that I have a soft spot for playing with dolls and I'm really touched watching her imitate me.
You know, she's also imitating her Daddy, because he takes really good care of her too. Let's not leave out the daddies!

House color

Bonus post, I'm on a roll folks!

I never posted pictures of the finished product. The color looks even better in person:

We still have to find the perfect orange for the front door, not to mention we have a lot of other stuff to do to increase curb appeal, but the paint was the first BIG step.

It's really a strong aqua blue in person, rather than the milquetoast light blue it looks in the pictures.

Becoming Modern

So we got the IKEA furniture all assembled. It looks very sharp in the living room:

I'm still working on "merchandising" the bookshelves. This is harder than it looks, folks. So far it's become sort of a "Russian-tchokes" shelf. Which wasn't intentional. But I love our Russian tchokes, all the more for the fact that Tim and I have separately in our life come into Russian tchokes (he because he lived there, me because my father worked there). I'm not done yet, so cut me some slack, but any suggestions for improvement are appreciated.

By the way, on the bottom there are 8 drawers, which we painstakingly put together, to house our million cds. For those of you keeping track at home, this is solution number 342 to the "housing our cd problem". Hopefully it will be the last one. We finally decided we needed to replace solution 341 because they could not be anchored to the wall and we were afraid our daughter or one of her friends would pull the cd cabinets over onto them. Not good. The cabinets are currently on Craig's List, $25 apiece, but for you, my special blog friends, can get them for the low low price of $15 each. Let me know if you want them. They slice, they dice, they even-- nevermind. Maybe we can get back .01 percent of the cash we've outlaid on cd solutions.

We still have to put this cabinet, which is currently living on the floor:

above our awesome new HD BIG SCREEN TV!

I never thought I would purchase a BIG SCREEN TV! But then, at least in this new living room, I was noticing that when I watched letterbox movies I was squinting. I like my movies to look good. And I don't like squinting, dammit. We'd upgraded to the old tv because we had to move our couch in the old house really close to the tv to read subtitles. And because we were on Warehouse Warriors and they gave us $200 to use at Sears. Can't complain about a $16 tv. Anyway, the other reason I wanted a flatscreen tv, and I know this is a really weird, possibly lame reason, was that I couldn't find any tv storage solutions that I liked that would fit our old tv. They're all designed for flatscreens these days. So I casually mentioned this to Tim and he of course latched onto it and a mere 4 hours after we received the refund check from Newmark, we were buying a flatscreen tv. Of course, as with all consumer electronic purchases, things snowballed and suddenly not only did we need a flatscreen tv that was bigger than I'd originally considered, we needed a blu-ray dvd player. And then, after we bought the blu-ray dvd player, actually, no Julie, what we needed was a Playstation 3, which has a blu-ray dvd player but is much better because it's only $100 more and you can play games on it! As you can imagine, by this point I was too worn out to fight and I meekly accepted this flimsy excuse. (In his defense, Tim did throw his Christmas money in towards the price differential). So I am the proud owner of a Playstation 3. Which for some reason, rather than coming with a game came with Spiderman 3. And we haven't seen the first 2 spidermans, so Spiderman 3 is sort of useless. But I do love watching movies and tv on the flatscreen. I'm not ashamed to say it. And it looks sleek and beautiful and modern, so it doesn't need to be hidden like a regular tv.

Speaking of modern, I find it interesting that we've finally got our mid-century modern house and it just seems to scream for modern furnishings, not the kitschy "Atomic Ranch" sort of furnishings which I thought I'd want. Also, Tim and I have always loved blonde woods, but this house with the walnut floors demands dark woods. So we have become "dark wood" lovers. Our dining table is dark wood too:

(And by "wood" I mean "veneer over particle board".) It looks great with the white plastic IKEA chairs, and even better with our family and friends sitting around it for Christmas dinner:)

I feel really weird about spending so much money, I'm a saver, not a spender, but I am so enjoying putting together our house and making it perfect!

Wow, that very long post took my mind off the fact that I am sick as a dog with Cedar Fever. And that Tim and Stella are sick as can be as well. In fact, we are the sick family and absolutely miserable. Although we did have a bright spot:

Our dear friends Anna and Sean had their new baby girl, Georgia Grace Friday morning!

Isn't she beautiful? Thursday night we had Tim's company party (for which we looked like this):

that's my fab dress from Emerald's, the picture doesn't do it justice. We had a great time, Tim had some really fantastic coworkers and their wives who we hung out with. We also had fun at the blackjack table. I actually won quite a bit! Stella spent the night at Tim's parents' house because we didn't know how late we'd be. We'd been home about an hour when the phone rang. It was midnight. I said, "uh oh, I hope that isn't Anna and Sean." Well of course it was! So we went over and picked up a very confused sleeping little Daniel who cried "Mommy" in the most heartrenching way until we got him in the car. Then he was a little sweetie and even gave us some smiles before going right back to sleep in Stella's crib. I love that little guy, he is adorable! So we didn't have a night sans kids, but it worked out for the best since Stella's bed was empty and we didn't have to install a carseat in the middle of the night either. AND Daniel sleeps to 8:30 (lucky bastards) so we got to sleep in. Although Anna called at 8am to let us know Georgia had been born and we were too excited to sleep. We got to meet her Friday afternoon and I've already been able to spoil her silly with lots of cute little pink things. I had to be practical with the first kid because Daniel needed boring stuff like strollers, but it's all about frilly pink stuff with Georgia! (Lest you think I forgot about Daniel, he now has a peeing, wetting Cabbage Patch kid newborn named "Kaylee" to call his own. Glad to know that Cabbage Patch kids still have ridiculous names).

And Georgia is not causing any baby fever in our household, nope, no siree. Although Stella did agree that she wanted a baby brother or sister like Georgia. Okay, kid, be careful what you wish for, trust me, being Numero Uno is not the same after a sibling arrives!

What a special milestone

So Stella was wondering around and stuck her hand down the back of her pants as she sometimes does. Except this time she apparently had a poopy diaper and there was POO all over her hand. Ewww. So I have now had the rite du passage of washing poop off my daughter's hands. Yeah. What scares me most is that I was like, "see, that's what happens when you stick your hand in your diaper when you have a poopy diaper. Do you like having poop on your hands?" To which she responded, "YES!" Oh, crap indeed.

So today is the day in which we are "trapped" in the house, carless. Although I'm discovering that one of the benefits of this is lazily sipping coffee and sitting around in your pjs to an ungodly hour because there is nowhere to go. Although I'm sort of intrigued by figuring out the bus schedule so I can head over to Moxie and the Compound on Mary and check out their purses. Surely there has got to be a bus that goes over there, it's pretty close. Of course, the only downside is that pretty much the only thing over there is Moxie, and it might be smarter if I'm taking the bus to go to SoCo and shop all the shops. This is all hypothetical wherein my daughter is patient and loves shopping. Right. Or I just might sit on my butt for a bit longer! Especially since it's sort of cloudy and windy outside.

Oh, I neglected to spill my good news that the builder of our old house sold it and agreed to give us back our FULL DEPOSIT! Yes! So we went a bit crazy this weekend and now that money is pretty much all gone (of course a great deal of it went to pay back a loan and some other commitments). So yeah, we are in IKEA furniture assembling hell. Fun! Hopefully I'll be done by this weekend!

Shopping Spree!

So Tim's Mom called me this morning and said she could watch Stella this afternoon so I could go shopping. So plans were changed and I got my Shopping Hat on (not literally, I'm not that big of a dork), dropped Stella off with her Baba and G.G. and headed to the mall. My first stop, after the food court for lunch, was Nordstrom's. I was always intimidated by Nordstrom's until Tim's dear sisters got me a gift certificate to there last Christmas. One visit and I was hooked. They have good sales, their clothing is very high quality and their sales staff can't be beat. They take care of you without being pushy. Love it. So I knew I needed jeans desperately and hoped they'd have some on sale. The awesome sales girl, aka my new best friend, Katy, asked me if she could start a room, then quickly segued into asking me what I was looking for and my size. She then proceded to get me a pair of every single one of their jeans with a 34 or 35" inseam in my size and put them in the dressing room for me. One of every fit in every brand. Wow! No more kneeling and going through giant stacks of jeans one by one looking for the right size. She checked on me regularly to make sure I didn't need a different size and to whisk away what didn't work. I wound up getting two pairs of jeans that, yes, cost about twice what I normally pay for jeans, but fit perfectly. I put back on my pedestrian Levi's just to make sure that these jeans I was about to buy were worth the price differential. Yep. It was like night and day. Also, not having to put up with the jean shopping B.S. I always go through was worth the extra surcharge on the jeans. Damn skippy. Jean shopping has always been a nightmare due to my height and my hips primarily, but this was a fun experience. The other thing I love about Nordstrom's is that the lighting in their dressing rooms makes you look gorgeous, not washed out and like shit. I also got an adorable top that was marked down from $78 to $30 and another great top that was $15. I'd gotten two of them last year with my gift certificate and they are the best shirts, hold up to repeated washings and wearings beautifully. Although they don't hold up so well when you decide to carry your naked Burt's Bees Diaper Cream wearing baby from the bath to her room for clothes. Yep, unfortunately one of them was stained by Stella. They're made by Caslon if you want to check them out. I got Katy's card if I want to go pant shopping. She said I could call ahead and she'd pull all their options for me! Not sure if I'm ready to go there yet, as I bet their pants are even more than their jeans, but it was still an exciting proposition. I left Nordstrom's with my Christmas money completely depleted, but my shopping thirst was not satiated yet!

That entire experience probably took less than an hour and I headed back into the mall. While looking at the directory, a Security Guard on a segway rolled up and asked me if he could help me find a store! Dude, I don't know what happened to Barton Creek Mall lately, but they are suddenly all about helping. Unfortunately the store I was looking for, New York and Company, is temporarily closed for renovations. I decided to skip the not-fun pant shopping experience and head to the boutiques away from the mall.

After a quick Starbucks stop for my requisite non-fat, non-whip, decaf peppermint Mocha, first it was to Franchesca's in the North Central Market shopping center. Amanda Ward, the author of Forgive Me who came to our book club last week recommended them. I headed over there and was surprised that it is an extremely tiny store. But there was a lot of cool stuff, more great sales, and I tried on a mountain of stuff. I walked out with two cute dresses in a wonderfully soft fabric. It was funny, all their sizes were S-M-L and so I asked how they run. The salesgirl said on the small side. And sure enough, I needed a Large despite my new tiny (to me) 10 that I wear. So this explains why when I was a 14 or even a 12 I couldn't shop at boutiques!

I headed over to Emerald's. The children running the store were having a discussion about age. They were talking about how "old" some guy was who had been born in 81. One of the salesgirls was born in 90. I felt like I needed to leave the store immediately and proceed directly to the drugstore for some Geritol and a walker. Instead, I decided to shop through their clothing, because they may consider a '77 model old, but dammit, I still like their stuff! Once more, they had tons of sales and I must have tried on about 50 things. Out of this I found a beautiful dress for Tim's company holiday party Thursday night, and two skirts. One of the skirts was only $15! So another place I highly recommend for sales.

I couldn't find a purse, unfortunately, so I'm not done yet, but let me tell you how much more fun it is to shop when everything fits. Wow, I was almost giddy! And when you're on a roll of finding clothes that work, you've just got to go with it. Especially when for a while getting dressed has been a traumatic experience because everything falls off!

Feeling Trapped

First off, I just have to say that Stella got her pants off BY HERSELF! Be afraid. Be very afraid. Luckily so far she's left her diaper alone.

Secondly, Tim's work sucks. They made this big deal out of that once they moved to the new office they would only make him come in once a week and the rest of the time he could work from home. So we sold his car that never got used because he always rode the bus. Then they fired the boss that said that. So then they called him into the office and were like, "we don't want you to leave. We will pay for a taxi for you to come to work if it comes to that." Then I think that he got a new boss who said, "screw that. I want everyone in the office everyday." So after much back and forth, it was finally agreed that Tim would work from home two days a week, but would have to come into the office 3. But that they would pay for a car service for him to come into the office those three days. Then they actually moved and lo and behold, the boss said it was too expensive to pay for a car service and "we know your wife doesn't work, why does she need a car?" Yeah, because it's just fine to be trapped at the house with a toddler all day and no car. Who needs groceries or outings or doctor's appointments, etc.? Then it was, "we'll find a co-worker for you to carpool with." Shockingly, no co-worker was up to this. So now the latest compromise seems to be Tim saying, "I'll drive in two days a week and you pay for a taxi for the third." So I didn't have a car Monday, which meant no groceries were purchased and Stella kept saying, "car go" all day. Tuesday I had the car in the morning so groceries were purchased and we can eat again, "hip hip hooray!", then Tuesday afternoon Tim had a commitment, so no car, and then today no car again. I know this is hardly that big of a deal, but I do have certain errands I'd like to run, and I just don't like the thought that if I need a car I DON'T HAVE ONE! We are within walking distance of a park, so that's totally cool, but that's pretty much it. A convenience store and a Money Box are a little farther, if I stretch the meaning of "walking distance" a bit and brave "Mission Hill" a.k.a. crack house hill. (It's not really that bad, I'm exaggerating, but I would prefer not to walk down it with my child.) I should figure out the bus system, because really, although I'm tempted to buy a second car, that is a complete waste of money to have a car payment for something that almost never gets driven. And if Tim's work found out, maybe they'd force him to commute everyday and he'd be depressed and I'd be depressed and Stella would be depressed and that would suck. Plus I Hate Car Payments. So we're kind of in limbo right now. I'll just have to get used to it.

Guess it's time to get a toilet lock

So during Tim's shower this morning, Stella thought it would be fun to put her legos into the toilet. Unfortunately, Tim did not discover this for a while as he takes looooong showers. Although he noticed she was quiet, which is always cause for alarm. So now we have to get a toilet lock. And she's also never messed with the knobs on the stove, but she just reached for one today. So we have to get oven knob locks. Yay. I guess you just start thinking that you don't have to worry about those sort of things after a while. Like, "if she hasn't messed with it yet, it's not going to happen." In fact, we haven't put cabinet locks on the kitchen cabinets in this house because she's old enough to know not to go into any, except the one that is hers. We don't put anything dangerous in them just to be sure, of course.

3 months away from 2 is a pretty cool age. She is chattering away constantly, and actually stringing together sentences. I can understand her most of the time when she's actually speaking English. She repeats most words you say and she'll tell you when she has a poop. Speaking of, she just said "poop". I'll be right back.

Isn't that cool? I think it's funny that she says poop, and it's very helpful if the smell doesn't knock me over for her to tell me that she needs her diaper changed. Last night it was really funny. We were watching Daniel so Sean and Anna could go out to eat dinner and Daniel was getting all whiny and so I was like, "do you need your diaper changed?" and he was like, "diaper!" and took off in the direction of Stella's room. Then Stella got all whiny, so I asked if she needed her diaper changed and she said yes. So Tim got Stella and got in the "queue" for the changing table behind Daniel and I. And both kids were poopy. What's up with that? Tim was making fun of me because I've never changed a boy's diaper and I was marvelling at how different their anatomy is. He was like, "um, shouldn't you know the differences between boys and girls before now?" I have had a child, so yes, the answer is obviously yes, but baby boys are just different. Anyway, it was an experience. I hope Anna and Sean do not now think that I am a freak and won't let me near their child with a ten-foot pole now. Really, I'm not a freak, I promise!

Tim's mom thinks Stella has all the signs in play for the big Potty Training. Eek! I don't know if I'm ready for that yet, although it would be nice to save $75 a month in diaper service costs. And it's not like I consider changing a diaper to be fun, especially when I'm somewhere like my Weight Watcher's meeting last Friday and there isn't a changing table. I was planning on waiting until she turned two, but I do take Tim's Mom's advice seriously, she had 4 children and to my knowledge none of them wear diapers anymore!

Speaking of Weight Watcher's, I reached Lifetime Friday! So exciting, I've lost 33 pounds, now I just have to keep it off. And I can attend meetings for free now.

Well, Stella is grabbing my hand so I guess I'm off to whatever she wants to show me. Aren't you glad I took the time to post about poopy diapers? yay!

Flattered

I am extremely flattered that Marsha gave me this award. I think it's especially funny that she should award me at a time when I've barely posted because of the holidays and the painting project that won't die. Anyway, I'm supposed to say what three things I believe are most important to powerful writing and then pass the award on to five blogs I believe deserve recognition. I guess the three things I think most important are: humor, a unique perspective, and grammar and spelling skills. Yep, I went there. As far as five blogs I like that Marsha didn't already name...

Tim's blog. Yes, that's my dear husband's blog, but nobody said that you couldn't give the award to your kin. I give him the award even though his grammar and spelling skills suck. For example, he doesn't know the difference between lose and loose. He'll say, "don't loose your marbles." But I love him anyway and I enjoy reading his tirades on everything from urban density to his wife forcing him to paint our house while he's supposed to be enjoying vacation.

Katie-Kat World. Once again, more nepotism, she is Tim's sister, but she's funny and speaks incredibly frankly about her mental health issues and being a teacher. Her stories about her students are HI-larious.

Dooce. Julie turned me onto this blog and she is great to read. I'm sure she'll never see I bestowed this award on her because she doesn't read my blog and she doesn't allow comments, but I hope folks will check her out. She is an incredible photographer and writer.

Austin Contrarian. Once again, I can guarantee he will neither know nor care that I gave him this award, but Tim introduced me to him and he has converted me to "smart" growth. Density, VMU's, he discusses them all in an entertaining and informative way.

Sweet Juniper. Yep, won't know or care about this award, but is funny, entertaining, unique. Also makes you want to move to Detroit with his amazing photos of the urban decay and ruin.

Okay, so that's five. It's taken me all morning to finish this post because today is all about Stella. Poor thing has been at her grandparents most of the last week while we painted. I know she had a blast with them, but we've missed her and she's missed us. I think I now know what it would be like to be a mom who worked outside the house and it has definitely confirmed that I'm happy with my choice! So I'm really trying to ignore everything else and spend lots of time with her to make up for it. Of course, now she's napping, so I'm off to try and finish the first coat up on the back of the house! I'll have to live up to my award later:)

Bad Idea

So we're in the very beginning stages of operation paint the house. Unfortunately, there's no turning back at this point, as Tim pressure-washed the house this morning which revealed sections of bare wood in several places. It looks god-awful. So we began today and didn't get very far at all before the brand new paint sprayer went kaput. And we weren't able to get the TWELVE FOOT ladder that it turns out is going to be necessary today, so that's a project for tomorrow. And did I mention it's cold? Way too cold for Texas. So we're going to forge ahead, but please give us a break if you come to our New Year's Eve party and the house looks like crap, okay? Thanks.

Best Christmas Ever!

Really, this year ranked up there with the best. I think it probably was related to having a little one who was excited about all the Christmas trappings and being able to celebrate in our new home, but I just had the most wonderful and happy Christmas. This past weekend we went to Houston and had Christmas with Tim's family Saturday. All the gifts we got people seemed to be big hits and everyone gave us incredible amounts of generous gifts and Stella got a tricycle from her Baba and Grandaddy! I can't believe my baby's old enough for a tricycle, and although she couldn't quite reach the pedals, she loved being pushed around on it. Her Aunt Christine, safety expert/self-proclaimed Debbie Downer ("I've seen too many traumatic brain injuries") insisted on her having a helmet and I'm very grateful for that. We then headed to Katie and Ryan's for the most delicious turkey I've ever had, as well as some bread pudding that had me reaching for two helpings even though I've never liked bread pudding in my life!

Sunday we had Christmas with my family and I was so happy to see that my parents LOVED the telescope I got them. We got more awesome gifts, including a Red Flyer wagon for Stella! She loves it and it's so convenient to pop her in there and load all our stuff. It comes complete with FOUR cupholders, seat belts and foldable seats! I can't wait to get Daniel in there with her, that will be hilarious. Perhaps we can get one of the dogs to pull them:)

Speaking of dogs, we had a bit of a scary experience Monday morning. My father let Roxie out in the back yard, forgetting that the gate was open because he'd taken out the trash. About 30 minutes later, he realized she was missing. My brother and I drove around looking for her, while my father and Tim went out on foot. I honestly thought she was probably hiding in the backyard or the house somewhere so after our first drive around the neighborhood, Keith and I went home and I got my cellphone (to check and see if someone had called the number on her collar) and searched every nook and cranny of the house and yard for her. No luck. It was then that we found my mother and Stella talking to my parents' neighbor. He said he'd seen Roxie walk back and forth in front of the houses for about 15 minutes. Why he didn't pick her up, I have no clue! So my brother and I went out again as did my father and Tim. Finally, in the middle of my parent's street, which is the main, very busy thoroughfare for their neighborhood, about 5 blocks away from my parents house, Keith said, "there she is!" She was trotting down the middle of the street! He barely came to a stop and I lept out of the car and ran at top speed to scoop her up. There were so many fast cars driving, I think it's a miracle she wasn't hurt. My father felt terrible and was so relieved that we found her. He said otherwise he would have been offering a $500 reward!

Christmas Eve we drove back to Austin and while Tim and Stella went to the grocery store, I did some cleaning. Then we headed to the Christmas Eve service at our church. It was beautiful. We sang Silent Night by candlelight. I'd never been to a candlelight service, but what an amazing and holy way to spend Christmas Eve and remember what Christmas is all about. Although, hopefully we won't get the plague, the family behind us was hacking and sneezing the whole service. I should have known there was a reason why that pew was empty!

We came home, put Stella to bed, had dinner and assembled Stella's table and chairs from Santa. Then Christine and Brian came over and we talked by the fire. Unfortunately the night was marked by many wakings from Stella, so not much sleep for us, but we woke up Christmas Day and Stella immediately ran over to her table and chairs. She loved it. Tim also loved the cool metal and wood clock I got him and it looks as fantastic as I had imagined over the fireplace. Tim got me a beautiful diamond star pendant that I had admired a few months ago AND some delicious Dark Chocolate Peppermint Mocha Frappacinos AND the Patrick Wolf cd which is freakin' awesome AND this adorable mid-century garage ornament to commemorate our new house. He outdid himself this year!

We then went to feed a friend's cats. There were four of them and they'd apparently decided they were too good for the litter boxes, but I won't go into detail here. Suffice to say that I made up for not having to clean out Punky's catbox for four months all at once. Then we dropped by Tim's parents' house to pick up the loot from H-town we'd sent back to Austin with Christine and Brian. Then we went by the Live Oak Market in our old hood for some sandwiches and headed to Town Lake for a picnic. Wow was it beautiful. Then back to the house for naps for Stella and I and videogames for Tim. After I woke up it was time to do some more cleaning and then welcome our dinner guests. We had Tim's parents, his grandmother, Christine and Brian and Erin. We had a blast, it was just lovely. And it meant so much to be able to host Christmas Dinner in our new house. What a wonderful and special Christmas. I hope you all had a great one as well!

I'd better go get showered and then it's off to Home Depot. We're planning on painting the siding and trim on the house while Tim's off work this week. We're going to color-match these fantastic 60's tiles we found outside. Wish us lots of luck and patience!

PANICKED!

So I only have like 2 more shopping days left for Christmas and I still have so much to get. AND I have a hair appointment this afternoon so that's like 2 hours of wasted time. Plus I wasted 1 hour and 15 minutes waiting in line for Santa this morning only to have Stella melt down when she saw him. When that happens and you have spent your entire morning waiting to get a picture of your child on the lap of the man in the big red suit, you wind up spending $24.99 on a cd with this on it:

I think I'm a bit old for Santa, but I should have told I wanted him to bring me more time before Christmas. I wasted more valuable shopping time yesterday morning because my car was in the shop. Then we took Tim's mom out for lunch for her birthday and then I got my car back and had to go to IKEA because we can't count and got the wrong number of chair bottoms for our new dining chairs. I can only recommend that if at all possible, you not move into a new house two weeks before Christmas. Although the house is the best Christmas present I could possibly have, we're so happy here!

Well Tim's back from jogging, so it's off to hit a few stores and then onto the haircut. At least I got Tim a kick-ass present. I can't wait to see his face on Christmas morning!

Adventures in Stupidity

I nearly electrocuted and/or blinded myself today. The plug on our clothes dryer does not fit the plug in our house because our house is 39 years old. So I went to Lowe's today and bought an adaptor that fit the plug. Well, my mother and I were trying to figure out how the new dryer plug adaptor fit into the old dryer and while my mother wasn't paying attention so she could yell, "STOP!", I decided I would plug the dryer plug into the wall to make sure it fit. BIG mistake. Next thing I know there is a loud pop, and a blinding flash and I feel a little tingling sensation in my hands and my vision is cloudy. Seriously, I thought I had blinded myself, I started FREAKING OUT! I just said a little prayer to God asking Him that I not be blinded and I kept repeating "Oh, my God". My Mom freaked and Tim came running, and in the end I luckily just singed off the extra hair on my left eyebrow, about half of my eyelashes on my left eye, and the hair around my hairline. It looks a bit weird, but all I can say is that I'm damn glad I can SEE the singed hair. I really thought I would be blind (since I knew I wasn't dead. That of course was my first worry.) It turns out all the metal connectors on the wires on the end of the adaptor were touching and they caused the huge explosion. Thank God the circuit breaker worked as it was supposed to and everything turned out all right. Tim suggested I go get another adaptor, but I am not going near adaptors or the dryer for quite a while. I don't care if I have to buy Stella and I new clothes because we are out of clothing. Damn, that was some scary shit!

(Apparently near-electrocutions run in my family. My mother reminded me of the story of my dad's mother nearly being electrocuted. One of my father's brothers was little and he knocked a radio into the bathtub WITH my grandma in it but the cord wasn't long enough and it got yanked out of the wall. Phew! Glad that worked out all right, I really like existing, thank you very much! Although I guess if it was my Dad's little brother who did the electrocuting, that would not interfere with my existing. In any case, I liked my Grandma and I'm glad I got to know her rather than her being electrocuted before I was born.)

Other than near-electrocutions and some broken glasses, plates and disagreements on decorating, we are settling into our new house nicely. We love it. I will try to post more on that later!

It's Ours!

So closing went super-smoothly and the house is now ours! We've already been over once and I swear I like it even better than I did before, I really can appreciate all the cool details. We got to meet the old owners and found out a lot of interesting info about the house, and he even left 3 copies of the original plans for the house, which is awesome! They also left an entire cabinet of cooking oil, not sure what that's about, but hopefully we can get rid of it. I'll post more details when I have time, but for now I've got to research refrigerators. We don't appear to be able to get on any wireless networks from the new house, so no internet access until like Monday, but I doubt I'd be posting anyway. Too busy moving and unpacking!

Almost there!

So at about 4:20 this afternoon (hee hee) we finally got the settlement statement and everything seemed okay. So I got a cashier's check for an insane amount of money and now we're just waiting to close in 10 hours and 15 minutes (but who's counting?). This time 12 hours from now we should be walking into our new house. I can't believe it's actually almost here. Yes!!!!

19 Hours to go-what's going to go wrong?

I am a bundle of nerves. My stomach is doing flip-flops. There are only 19 hours until we close, but I just have trouble believing that it's really going to happen. My realtor is supposed to call me as soon as the title company gets together our settlement statement so I can know how much to get the cashier's check for. The title company is waiting on the Good Faith Estimate from our lender so that they can do the settlement statement. Why oh why does this all have to wait until the last minute? They have known we were going to close on the 6th for 30 days. I just know somebody's going to screw up something and it's not going to happen. Luckily, my bank opens at 9am in the morning and we close at 10, so I can still get the cashier's check in the morning, but I'd sure feel a whole lot more confident if I got it this afternoon. I think I can breathe a sigh of relief once I have the settlement amount. Of course, Tim said we won't truly be calm again until we get the keys tomorrow. I think he's right. Oh how I wish it was 24 hours from now and hopefully everything will have gone off without a hitch!

Country Living

We went to my parent's "Ranchito" (their name, not mine), in Evant this weekend. 26 hours without internet, tv or even phone. It was a great time. They have 70 acres and I think Lucy explored every last one. She was a dog gone wild. I think she's done nothing but sleep since we got back. That and ask to be let out every 10 minutes because she wants to try and recapture her country dog experience. I think it's like a Dude Ranch for a dog. Tim and I also had a blast. We took my dad's Mule (it's a utility vehicle that's like a golf cart with a pick up bed), threw Lucy in the back, and explored the wilds. We zoomed through tall grasses and juniper trees at speeds that caused seeds to be stuck in our teeth and juniper berries to end up in our pants. I guess this is what I've been missing by growing up a city girl. We also hiked a bit through the cattle trails that were made by cattle that no longer live there and the deer that my brother and father like to hunt. And we tried to avoid GIANT piles of cattle poop. They are majorly disgusting. I asked my mom if the cow poop had conveyed when they bought the place.

Stella, of course, also had a great time, mostly running back and forth along the porch that runs the length of the doublewide that came with the property and enjoying all the attention lavished on her by her MeMe and Pappy. The doublewide is really quite large with all the conveniences of home (other than living room furniture, my parents are still working on furnishing it), and it actually has a larger kitchen than the one in our new house. The views from my parents' property are just amazing. We can't wait for Stella to get older. She is going to have a blast exploring!

I had the weirdest dream last night about our new house. We'd gone to have a sneak peek at it, and were walking around the side of it (it was set into a hillside and on the corner in my dream), and we saw that they were building "Golf Course Cottages" next to it, where (in my dream) a small motel had been. While we were looking, the owners drove up and I was so embarassed, but we introduced ourselves and they invited us in. The house was of course much more vast in my dream than in real life. I asked if they had any pictures of the house before they did all the work they'd done to it and they were like, "oh, yeah, it was awful. The kitchen was straight out of the fifties!" which is bizaare, even for a dream, since the house was built in '68. That was really all there was to the dream, but since I remembered it, I just had to share.

Oh, great, not more investors!

So apparently some "real estate expert" went on the Today Show Friday and talked about how Austin was a market where there was still money to be made. She specifically mentioned SoCo as an up and coming area. Uh, lady, that area already up and came. I think you're about 10, perhaps even 12 years too late on that one. I mean, 12 years ago, yes, there were hookers in front of the Chevron at Riverside and Congress. To a college freshman, this was pretty damn exciting. There was a porno theatre at the tip of South Congress just before Oltorf. But the porno theatre long ago closed to become offices and the prostitutes were long ago pushed further down South Congress to closer to Ben White. They actually seem to be continually migrating south. I guess that's progress, pushing your prostitutes south. Oh, I'm sorry, I did not mean to make that Bad, Bad, BAD double-entendre!

Anyway, thanks to Tim, the Austin Contrarian, and M1EK I have come to see controlled growth as a good thing. More people ARE going to come to Austin, even if we try to institute a "Californian tax", and these guys advocate for smart laws about where to grow to prevent sprawl and to keep Austin housing affordable. Yeah, Austin has definitely had its casualties: Les Amis, Liberty Lunch, John Henry Faulk Theatre, to name just a few, but we've got to accept the fact that change comes and just make it happen as gracefully as possible.

Johnston High continued

I'd like to respond directly to DMD's comment on my post about Johnston. Yes I think a lot of the responsibility rests with the district (I never blamed the teachers and I still don't, I think the district abandoned them too.) I am the daughter, granddaughter, sister-in-law, niece, and friend of teachers. I think I have a pretty good grasp on the shit they have to go through. The reason I blame the district is because they did not do anything to keep the kids who don't have to work 40 hours a week from leaving. They did not address the problems at Johnston seriously until it was obvious the school was closing. From their actions, one would think that they want the school to close. And nobody wins in that case. If that school closes, other area schools have to absorb the kids and it will hurt the kids in those other schools because a lot of the Johnston kids are going to have the same problems they had at Johnston (abseentism, discipline problems, language barriers, teen pregnancy, etc.) and suddenly they're befriending kids at the other AISD schools and we've got more kids falling prey to the above problems. I also think responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of the parents and the students themselves. But the district needed to do more to get the students and the parents involved. Webb Middle School was turned around by community involvement. But on the other hand, it is very hard for people who have an income of $9,000 a year to get involved in the school. They are probably too busy scrambling to keep their family from starving to death. The parents of the children who left the school in droves, the ones who are upwardly mobile enough to transfer their children, they are the ones whose involvement would have saved it. Which is why I think Dr. Forgione is too late and probably wanted it that way. You would not believe how racist Austin is, it is astounding. Houston is much more integrated. When I first moved here my eyes practically bugged out of head at the segregation: white folk on the west side of 35, black and hispanic folk on the east side. Oh, and don't drive on the east side, white girl, you get a cap in your ass. Which of course is not like it is at all.

Okay, I'm climbing off my soapbox now. Seriously, DMD, thanks for your comment, I really do enjoy thinking about why I have my position on things. I don't get to argue with people I disagree with enough because I don't work with Republicans anymore!

One Week!

One week from today we will have the keys to our new house. Yay! We have survived nearly 4 months living with Tim's parents. And there's been no blood! I want to be all ready to move and was going to spend Stella's nap packing, but there really isn't much to be packed. We didn't unpack much here and so we don't have much to repack. I figure if I spend a couple of her naptimes next week getting packed, I'll be just fine. Wow, if I use the word "pack" one more time, I may come up as the first page in a Google search for the word. I kind of feel like I'm twiddling my thumbs. Like I'm a short-timer.

I just reserved the truck, so it's official! Our plan is to get the inflatable mattress and Stella's pack n' play in Thursday, the day we close, so we can start sleeping in our new house right away. Tim's parents have been so generous to let us live here this long, but we're ready to have our own space!

Stella did something really cute at the playground this morning that I have to share. It was playgroup and she and John David, who is a month older than Stella, both brought snacks, he brought apples and Stella brought crackers. They were eating each other's snacks and John David's mom Rebecca told John to say "please" to Stella and ask for more crackers. Stella said please! It shocked Rebecca because she didn't know Stella was talking. I've also never heard her clearly say please, it was pretty cool. She's been repeating a lot of what I say lately, so perhaps the reason she's being so fussy is that she is experiencing a milestone.

Damn, she's awake after another mere 90 minute nap. She usually goes 2 hours, but the past couple of days she's only been doing an hour and a half or less. I was going to give her ibruprofen before she went down today because I think teething pain may be waking her up, but I forgot. Pooh. Oh, well, hopefully she'll be in a better mood than she has the last few days!

Breaking Your Heart

This article on Johnston High breaks your heart. It really does. For those of you outside of Austin, Johnston High is in danger of closing under the "No Child Left Behind" rule. It is zoned to take in 1,357 high school kids from the surrounding area. It only has about 650 kids. Anyone who can transfers their kid to another school. It was actually due to close this year, but the commissioner took some pity on it and is giving it another year. Although it doesn't sound like it's going to make it. Some quick data points to illustrate how dire the situation is:

There were 12 people marching in the band at homecoming. Oh, but 5 of those were volunteers from other places that didn't attend the school.
They had to cancel their football season because they didn't have enough players that passed their classes. They did play homecoming, but they were tromped.
"At the nine-week mark in the school year, 57% of Johnston's students already had at least two unexcused post-lunch absences." There was a suggestion to close the school for lunch, but the PTA president bended to parent pressure not to close it. Can you believe that parents wouldn't want the campus closed to prevent at least some of these absences?
"One in five girls at the school will bear a child before she graduates. One in three doesn't speak English. About 40% of those students who enter Johnston in any given year won't finish the school year there. And with an average household income of $9,000 in the surrounding neighborhood, many parents expect their teenagers to work. PTA President Geneva Oliva, herself a 1974 alumna, admits that once the money starts rolling in, parents often decide a GED is just as good as a Johnston diploma."

We really need to save our nation's schools, this is a tragedy and it's going to be repeated elsewhere. I cannot believe how bad AISD lets their schools get before they try to do something.

Thank you CNN!

Because you thought it important to do an article on the winner of "Dancing with the Stars", I now know that the winner was some race car driver. And so if I, heaven forbid, get forced into a conversation with someone who watches "Dancing with the Stars", I have something to talk to them about. In fact, CNN was kind enough to give me a blow-by-blow of the finals, and even listed the "celebrities" (who are these people, anyway?) who were cut before the finals. So me and the "Dancing with the Stars" afficianado who get stuck in an elevator together can have at least a two minute conversation. Yes!

I just have to say, I think Mel (C.? B.? I'm not sure the article said, I assume it was the one who had Eddie Murphy's baby), was robbed. And how could you not give it to that irrespressible Marie O.? I mean, she's forever that adorable little 16-year-old singing with her brothers in my opinion!

I'm just glad we have the fine upstanding journalists at CNN to keep me apprised of real news like "Dancing with the Stars". Oh, and that whole Natalee Hollaway thing. Because nothing is news like two and a half year old stories about white girls who go missing on their spoiled rich kid Senior trip!

Excuse me, I think I need to go take my anti-bitter pill this morning...

Cable vs Satellite and DSL

So this post might be easily classified as boring beyond all belief, but this is where my head is right now. We are seriously considering switching from the Time Warner behemoth to the AT&T behemoth plus satellite through DirectTV when we get into the new house. The savings are enormous, like $50 a month! Anybody have any experience with this? We've never even had the opportunity to try DSL before because we've never been in the service area. And I always bought into the cable propaganda about satellite going out in rainstorms, which apparently is much rarer than Time Warner would lead you to believe. And they have local channels, unlike what the cable consortium tells you. I just don't think the combo of Cable phone/internet/tv is so great that it's worth $50 more a month than the combo of Landline/DSL/satellite.

The other thing on my mind is closing costs. Our mortgage company STILL has not gotten that estimate to me. I'm really annoyed because our loan officer is really hard to get a hold of. So I left her a message and should expect a call back God only knows when. She was supposed to call me back yesterday after checking on it, but of course, no call back. She's very nice when she does call, just impossible to get a hold of. I just want to plan. I am a planner and since we don't have the moolah back from Newmark yet, I need to know exactly how much we need to close to be sure we have it. And the time I really have to spend on this stuff is when Stella is asleep, so it'd nice if she called now. I'm debating over calling her cell, but for some reason I feel really bad doing that. It's right there on her business card, so I really shouldn't, but I can't help it. It feels too much like calling someone at home.

Cramming my head with design

So this lovely 4-day weekend we've just been cramming our head with pictures of mid-century design. I went to the library Wednesday and checked out three books on modernism and mid-century design, looking for things we like. Then Friday we went to a bunch of vintage stores looking for specimens, and then last night we went to Barnes and Noble and looked at modern and mid-century modern books and magazines. In between I've been scouring the internet for pics too. And I think we've already made a few decisions:

1) We do NOT want a house that looks like a 50's or 60's museum. We looked at a book called Atomic Ranch (made by the people who put out the magazine of the same name), and most of the spaces looked ridiculous. People had meticulously sought out only furniture and accessories from the era. They all had Nelson benches which I think are cool, but they are so ubiquitous that we are starting to wonder if they are standard issue when you purchase a modern house. We do think we'd like to use a bench as a coffee table, just not necessarily a Nelson bench type. (We know we won't be using a real Nelson bench as they are a few hundred dollars). We'd like to combine period and modern pieces to create a house that reflects our taste. One really cool idea we saw in a book was stainless steel cabinets from a restaurant supply store used in the living room and dining as buffets. We also think stainless steel countertops would look great in the kitchen (although that's a few years off) and were popular in the time period.

2) Our debate over whether the tv can be on display or not rages on. Tim thinks it's okay to have it out in the open, especially if we one day get the cool type that hang on the wall, while I hate having that black box staring at me all the time and want it covered up, no matter what the type.

3) The large ikea lanters that the current owners put in the dining room and breakfast area are PERFECT for mid-century modern. Nearly every house in our modernism books has globe lighting. We'd also like to put globes on the front

porch.

4) I want a modern sofa, as in new. Tim is fine with a used sofa. Another debate. While the miser in me loves the thought of getting a sofa for a couple hundred dollars, the person with back problems in me wants comfortable new seating where the springs aren't already shot and the cushions worn down from 40 years of resting butts. Our cheap IKEA sofa that was last seen breaking several times in Little Murders cost me many weeks of back pain before it was replaced. There are some really beautiful sofas at Crate and Barrel, this one being our favorite. Although it's also $1500. Which REALLY seems like a lot for a sofa, even one we love. We also like this one at IKEA. It's pretty cool looking, pretty comfortable, AND half the price. PLUS through December 22nd, if you buy a couch at IKEA, you get 20% back in an IKEA gift card. So the couch would really technically be $600. What a deal! Of course, this puts some urgency into our purchase. And we may not have the money for the purchase by then. Which is okay. I just hate to pass up a deal like that!

Okay, I know my furnishing discussion is just enthralling you all. You can come see the house for yourself when LGT has our fundraiser there December 15th, a mere week after we move in. It's going to be awesome!

below:

Fresh off the success of Little Murders, Loaded Gun Theory presents a reading of our next production, The Automat, a NEW play by LGT resident playwright, Timothy Thomas. The show won't be performed until February 29th-March 16th at the Dougherty Arts Center, but you can get a sneak peek at the script in December!

Loaded Gun Theory is having a fundraiser to read The Automat and raise funds for its production. Admission is by donation and we'll be selling baked goods and hot chocolate to keep you warm. All donations will be matched 100% by an anonymous donor.

Bring a lawn chair or blanket and enjoy The Automat Under the Oak! And watch for further readings in our "Under the Oak" series.

When: Saturday December 15th at 3pm

Where: 3403 Santa Monica Dr., Austin, Tx 78741 (the new Thomas residence)

Bea Arthur, my daughter

Stella is all allergy-ridden and phlegm overrun like the rest of us here at Chez Thomas and when she talks she sounds like Bea Arthur. It's funny and kind of sad at the same time. She was just rolling around her toy Fisher Price train and saying, "go, go" (which I'm not sure I've heard her say before) and she sounded like she'd been smoking a pack a day of Virginia Slims 120's since the 60's.

I wish I lived near Julie, we could go to breakfast together since we and our daughters are the sole inhabitants awake in our respective houses this Thanksgiving. Although I'm actually pretty well-rested since I went to bed early last night. I was going to take a walk, but it is COLD. And I have no sweatshirts. So I'm going to stay warm in the comforts of the house.

Speaking of houses we are at 2 weeks, 2 hours until our closing. In 2 weeks, 3 hours, we should be done signing the paperwork and I will probably immediately commence moving things from the in-laws to the new house. Even if I have to borrow their truck and do it by myself. We'll of course have an "official" move that Saturday, but I just am soooo anxious to get in, I have the feeling I'll be unable to wait. Maybe I can at least get in the things we'll need to sleep there. That would rock. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for our close to get moved up to next week, but with the holiday and everything, I kind of doubt that will happen.

Our Newmark salesman, in an effort to add to the holiday spirit, emailed Tim yesterday to tell him that they are not going to give us our deposit back. Grinches. $6,413 they are going to keep and get back from the next house purchaser, PLUS the at least $28,000 they are going to make by selling our house at their new higher price. They could get out of debt simply by milking saps like us. Tim's parents drove by Tuesday and they were digging a big trench in the front yard. The house still isn't painted. We're all taking bets as to whether it will be ready by December 21st for the next tenant. Somehow I doubt it. I've forwarded the $6400 mess to our realtor in the hopes that he'll be able to get at least some of that back for us. Even if we have to lose that money, I still know we made the right choice.

I checked out some great books on Modern design from the library yesterday and Tim and I have decided we are going to collect items to furnish this house over time, rather than running up the credit card at IKEA and getting knock-offs that look good, but hold no personal value or history. I think vintage stores and antique stores are going to become our new best friends. I of course want everything to look perfect from the moment we move in, but that's really too expensive and too easy. I'm going to try and shift my focus from finding the perfect coffee table, couch and dining chairs to purchase, to trying and make what we have fit for now. Actually, the two purchases we're going to make right away are a fridge (of course) and a big dining table. It's just the dining chairs that I'm prepared to scour the internets and the stores for.

Well, there is an "eau de poop" smell in the air, so I guess Stella needs to be changed. Happy Thanksgiving!

Pig-Tails and New Words

I finally downloaded some pics and video off my camera, including my first attempt at pig-tails, and Stella's 2nd time (but first time on tape), saying MeMe, which is what we call my mother. Stella said, "ow, ow,ow" the whole time I did the pigtails, even when I wasn't pulling her hair. I tried to tell her that this was her obligation as a little girl and my obligation as the mother of a little girl to fix her hair and make her go "ow". Perhaps she'll understand when she's older:)

Wasting time

So I've spent like the entire day today on Mid-Century Modern house websites. I found a couple that were awesome quite randomly off a comment on DaddyTypes. Tim's sister Caroline and her boyfriend Daniel are here for the week, so I've had lots of folks to entertain Stella. Which is why I'm able to drool over mid-century beauties until my eyes pop out. But I think our beaut holds up to just about any of them. Once we've got the outside up to snuff, we can go toe-to-toe, mano y mano. Bring it on, MCM's!

This weekend was closing of Little Murders. We had fantastic audiences, awesome shows and we were all really sad to see it go. I especially. I didn't realize how sad I would be until I walked off stage after getting my brains blown out. I pretty much bawled. I'm not proud of this fact. I had to walk outside so I wouldn't sob too loudly. I guess it was just a culmination of the fact that I'd wanted to do this show for so long, I felt such a connection and love for Patsy (my character), I'd gotten a lot of positive feedback for this role, and I found out I wasn't cast in the show I'd auditioned for that morning right before curtain. I didn't expect to actually be upset about that, really, because I'm going to be so busy with moving into the house and getting ready to direct The Automat, not to mention that rehearsals and performances are on the other side of town, but when I got to the audition, I had a lot of friends I wanted to work with again there and the script was a lot of fun. Plus rejection never feels good. But by Sunday morning I was really glad I hadn't been cast, actually, because I need a break!

I just don't know when I'll act again since I'm pretty booked up until the end of April. Perhaps I can do a show that runs in May, if any of those come up. I just am totally addicted to acting right now (and scared about being stuck in this house all day and in the evenings. Even if it is just for a couple more weeks.)

LGT meets tonight to plan our next project, a fundraiser at our new house December 15th where we will read The Automat. You're only as good as your next project!

Bye Bye Baby Bye Bye

So my belief that we might get back some of our money from Newmark just plunged dramatically. They're probably filing for Chapter 11:

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2007/11/12/daily40.html?ana=from_rss

GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!

I reached goal in Weight Watchers today. 30 pounds. Gone. Yay for me, moment of celebration!

Okay, now the tough part, the part I was dreading: Maintenance. For the next 6 weeks they monkey with the points I can have a day and see where I gain weight, where I lose until I'm maintaining. My leader said I will gain weight. That's depressing. I don't want to gain an ounce. But of course, I understand why they do it. I have to had 4 points to my daily total right off the bat. This is a huge amount. Or at least it seems that way to me. It scares me. I'm so programmed to eat a certain way. There is an upside to this, though. I shouldn't be spending money right now. So because I may still be gaining/losing weight, this is not a good time to be buying clothes, even though I want to. So I won't be tempted to buy new clothes since I don't know exactly what size I'm in yet. Brilliant!

The booklet for goal says you are supposed to celebrate somehow. I have to think of something cool that doesn't cost too much to do to celebrate. I can't believe I can't think of a single thing! If anybody has suggestions, I welcome them!

HEB Rocks!

Go to HEB today and stop giving excuses about why you can't buy reusable bags:
From Metroblogger
"I returned from England a few months ago impressed at how most of the grocery shoppers carried their groceries around in reusable totes. While Austinites are still arguing about the environmental impact of paper versus plastic grocery bags, the English had moved on to a third choice, reuse. Since then, I've noticed reusable bags for sale both at Central Market and Whole Foods Market but I haven't seen a lot of people using them.

Today, Texas-based H-E-B tries to get Austin involved in it's reuse/recycle philosophy by giving away 20,000 reusable shopping bags. Go to any H-E-B today (Thursday, November 15th) between 10 am and 7pm with 5 plastic shopping bags (any brand) and H-E-B will give you a free reusable bag.

"The more we can encourage people to switch to reusable bags, the better it will be for the environment, " said Leslie Lockett, H-E-B Director of Public Affairs for Central Texas. "By giving away 20,000 reusable bags for free, we can invite people to give the bags a try and really begin to change habits in our community."

If you miss out on a free bag today, don't give up. You'll be able to purchase the reusable bags from H-E-B for 99 cents. H-E-B is also providing recycling bins for plastics that can't go in the city's recycling bins: newspaper delivery bags, dry-cleaning bags, and six-pack rings."

You know, I had entertained the thought of going to the Super-Walmart because it's going to be super close to our new house, even though I hate Walmart and Super-Walmart in particular, but I think I'll go ahead and battle the masses at the HEB at Oltorf and South Congress. Because HEB does good by Texans and by peeps in general. Thanks Butt family!

Curves=Brains

At least according to this research. Fascinating stuff. Apparently women who have lower waist to hip ratios tend to have children that score higher on tests and tend to be "cleverer".

Yes, I've always thought that when I let my thighs do the thinking I do much better.

Starting from Zero

So while Stella was sick we let her have her binky all the time because, well, she was sick and it was comforting. Now we are back at square one. She wants her binky all the time and hunts around for it and then cries if she doesn't find it (what she's doing right now). Sigh. And we were doing so well! Of course, I don't really have the energy today to care whether she's upset or not, so maybe this is the perfect time to get back on the binky-less-track!

My Turn

So the stomach virus of death continues its path through our house. Stella's on the mend, but I started getting sick at about midnight last night. Apparently Tim's mom was sick all night too. I'm now at that "I'm starving, but do I dare eat?" stage. Sigh. THANKFULLY Tim's Dad is watching Stella so I'm free to just lie here and moan. That's about all I have the energy for right now.

I am so sophisticated

My blog is a Junior High blog!

Cash Advance Loans

Weight loss and acting

So I lost another 1.6 pounds this week, so I'm now only 1.2 pounds away from goal! Yay! I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to try and lose more (my goal is 5 pounds over my lowest allowable healthy BMI, so I could try and get down to that mythical weight). It is feeling really good, I have to say. I just feel so much more confident, my clothes fit so much better, it's wonderful! i'm actually in a size 10 for the first time since freshman year of college! I can't recommend Weight Watchers enough if you are looking to get in better shape and better health and drop a few pounds. (I know it sounds like I'm some sort of paid spokesmodel, but I can only wish!)

Last night the play went fantastically. My big scene just had a lot of life, Ian and I were both really cooking, and I just had one of those transcendent moments that remind me why I heart theatre so much. Afterwards, I was still shaking and the audience laughed at all the moments of my monologue they're supposed to laugh at. A lot. Uproariously. Awesome! Hopefully I've turned a corner and it'll be that good every night. But even when I have an off-night, like Thursday, when I wasn't doing so hot and then a MOTH decided it wanted to get in on the action, Tim said that it was really good (even with the moth). That little pisser. He flew onto stage and landed on my sleeve right at the part where I'm laying into Ian, and I shook my arm, which made Ian smile and then I was just totally thrown off. THEN he landed on Ian's stomach and just sat there while I was delivering my big heartfelt moment during my speech. Ian said we should make ourselves feel better with the fact that the Moth only has a 3-day lifespan and this was probably the highlight of its life. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say!

I'm trying not to just think about househousehousehouse, but it's hard. We're going to go to IKEA today to scope out all the stuff we want for the house. Of course, we'll be house poor when we first move in, so most of those purchases will have to wait a bit, but it's still fun to look! I've got a big master plan for the front of the house that I'm really excited about. We're totally going to "borrow" ideas from Vintage Modern to really bring out the modern details on the front of the house with paint, and then we want to re-plant our beloved cactus in the front flowerbeds. The inside is pretty much ready to go (other than a couple of hallway light fixtures I'd like to replace), so we can concentrate our efforts on the outside. I'm not much of a landscaper, but I'm really excited about what we can do! (Vintage Modern uses frames so I can't directly link to it, but check out the house that's 1537 sq ft under "homes already sold" for a sneak peek of what we're thinking of. It has a lot in common with our new house, including the roofline, beams and an intricate front door and I think what they've done with it looks fantastic. Oh, and look at that yummy window. Maybe one day we could replace the front windows with that type. Hey, a girl can dream, right?)

My big question is how to cover up those rounded front windows. Those just are not modern at all. I mean, what was the architect thinking. If anybody has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Why we chose another house

Tim, my dear husband, has a great post that details our house saga and why we went for this house. I'll link to it for now because I don't have time to put in my own explaination right now: http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listpost/tim/so_why_did_you_choose_another_house.html But to answer folk's questions:

Yes, you can park on the street, there is TONS of room. They've had weddings in the backyard, so you can fit lots of cars along the extra-wide streets.

Our close date is set for December 6th, but the owner is totally open to moving earlier. So we told the mortgage company that the faster they can get it all put together the better. So we'll see how quick they can do that and talk about a sooner close date.

The woman who owns the house got married and her and her husband both own houses, so they just wanted to sell their house and start a new life together in a new house. How sweet!

Also, apparently she googled us and we google well:) So this is a good karma thing all around.