Our House

As silly as it sounds, there are few things I like more than driving up to my house when the yard is freshly mowed and the flower beds are freshly weeded. It feels good when the outside of our house looks nice. Our house has real curb appeal with the day lilies, azalea bushes and iron gate across the driveway. The back yard is beautiful to me since we lined the beds with the landscaping bricks.




Easter is a strange time for our family. Since George has to get up before the crack on Easter morning to do the sunrise service, the Easter Bunny comes to our house after church. The several days leading up to Easter Sunday are full of George being exhausted getting the service ready, worrying if the kids will show up, worrying if anyone from the congregation will show up, if the sermon will be good enough. Of course, his worry always pays off. It's always good, the attendance grows, the youth who participate grow spiritually and mentally, and those who attend are always left with a meaningful bit of Easter.

This year and last year, in addition to getting the sunrise service ready, George has also had to lead the confirmation retreat for the 6th graders. Tradition has always placed it during spring break, which has been our family's "sacred" time. We give over half of the summer vacation, a week of Christmas break, every weekend, and various Friday nights to the youth group. Now our spring break is being encroached upon. I think next year George will reschedule this retreat so it doesn't take away our potential family vacation. Even if we don't do anything or go anywhere for SB, it is great to know that we have a solid week to be off work and school to just hang out together.

Oh brother. I didn't mean to bore you, internet, with my personal pity party. I tell you all of this on the eve of the boys and me going to pick up George from the retreat to head out to Texas for the last half of SB. Poor, poor, pitiful me. Hey, there's another blog title!

Anyway, here are some pix of Easter and Jake's class party at school.















Oh yeah. Jake found a 4-leafed clover in our yard.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

So now begins the evenings spent at the ballpark, the constant washing of uniforms, the rushing from home to ballpark, the ridiculously early or ridiculously late dinners, the way past bedtimes, and the most fun we usually have all year.


Both boys are on the Brewers. Awesome.

In other news...Dixie made it home. It turns out that she lives around the corner from us. Her owners are actually a nice couple who happened to be out of town for a funeral and left their idiot son to take care of her. She's an inside dog and he would come over and let her out during the day because he was obviously too lazy to come over a couple of times a day to take care of her. When George walked Dixie around the block and saw the lady outside and asked if this was her dog, she was elated. Her idiot son had told her that Dixie had been gone for 3 days and was probably dead. The lady was grateful for us taking care of her and was glad to have her back.

Here are some pictures of the boys during the Palm Sunday processional at church.

The Bitch is Back

Well, as far as song titles for my posts lately, I never expected to use that one!

Dixie came back to us last night. George and I were out on a last-minute date that I'll tell you about in a minute, when I got a phone call from Jake. I had to hang up on him because I couldn't understand him and I needed to walk out of the auditorium to call him back (on the babysitter's cell).

I called back. No answer.
I called Zac's phone. No answer.
I called the house. No answer.

Rinse. Repeat.
Rinse. Repeat.

One last try to babysitter. Finally a pick up. (It's a good thing too--I was about to go back in the auditorium to get George and head home!)

Rachel, the sitter, put Zac on the phone. He said they were in the front yard playing baseball when Dixie trotted up to them and started playing. He wanted to know what they should do. I told them to just take her inside and take care of her. By this time it was already almost 7:30 and I didn't want them walking the neighborhood looking for the owner...again. I also told him not to call me unless someone was bleeding from their ears.

So, she stayed the night with us last night and I'll take her home this afternoon when I get home from work.

I'm figuring the redneck who owns Dixie isn't as nice to her as we are and she made a fast escape to come back to the Life of Riley.

The other day when I found the owner, I was walking at the other end of our street asking people if they knew this dog. I saw some guys working on some cars at one house. They had a male black lab who was a little bigger than Dixie and also had a neon orange collar. Just as I was about to talk to them, these two guys pulled up in their pick up hollering that she was their dog. The one guy jumped out of the truck and ran over to her calling Dixie. She turned to him, and acknowledged him, but didn't react really until he got his lead out. This lead was HUGE. It was like a 1-inch diameter lassoo. He slipped it around her neck, she barked, I unhooked my leash, he shook hands WITH THE GUYS WORKING ON THE CAR...NOT THE PERSON WHO FOUND HIS DOG, and jumped in the truck with her. I told him how good she was and how much fun the boys had playing with her and that if I hadn't found him I was keeping her. He said, "Well, I paid too damn much money for this dog for her to go missing." Okay, jackass, put a microchip in her back or, at the very least, an ID tag!!!

Oh well, the world is so very full of jackasses.

Now on to our date...

One of the parents of a youth kid at church is the general manager of the Coca-Cola plant here in Baton Rouge. He had tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld last night and couldn't make it, so he passed the tickets on to us!!!!!!!!

The seats were great, although, in this particular theater there are no bad seats. We were very close, but didn't have to crane our necks up to watch and listen.

There was a warm-up comedian whose name I can't remember. I may have been able to tell you more about him, but this is when the kids were dealing with the dog and I was in the hallway of the auditorium. He did his bit for about 20 minutes and then Jerry came on.


The picture doesn't really reflect just how close we were to the stage. I'm not complaining, though. I took the picture WITH MY IPHONE!!! (WooHoo, I have an iPhone.)

He was hilarious! At one point I was laughing so hard I was crying. There was one stupid-head somewhere behind us who yelled out "Kramer" a couple of times to the point that Jerry had to stop and make a distinction about how Kramer, Elaine, George, and Newman, while interesting characters and personalities, are, actually, infact, fictional! That when you yell at Jerry on the TV, he doesn't respond, as opposed to tonight.

That shut him up.

He spoke for about an hour. He had another show at 9:30. It was really great.

From the concert, we went to one of our favorite places in Baton Rouge, the Kingfish Lounge in the Hilton Capitol House. We had a beverage and some appetizers (spring rolls and smoked salmon).

It was an excellent evening.

We packed in all that fun and were home by 10:00. I don't think it gets any better than that.

Pretty Visitors

The close-out to March has been terrific.

Jake's choir at church sang a couple of weeks ago. That's him on the back row, all the way 2nd from the left, in the red shirt.


Our town had a fair.




George went to Aspen with Bruce (again).
I got a haircut.
I forgot to record a deposit in my checkbook, so when my statement came in to balance, I had extra money!

And we had another visitor. Turns out her name is Dixie. Had I not found the owner, I was totally keeping this dog! She was VERRRRYYY sweet.


We got some new furniture for the bedroom and dining room. You'll have to come visit to see it.

And we have a luna moth on the front porch light. Luna moths are so beautiful, they almost don't look real.

I Get Around

Well, at least HE gets around...

I happen to find Barney Frank particularly disgusting for a variety of reasons; but for him to be as infantile and immature as in this interview, is really behavior beneath one Massachusetts elected to represent them in the Congress. Why isn't anyone outraged by this statement? Where is the demand for an apology?

Birthday

You say it's your birthday
Well it's my birthday too, yeah.

Today's not my birthday; it was the 11th.

I think it may go down as one of the best ever. I used to tease my mom and Aunt Rhonda when they would say that life gets better after 35 or 40 or so. I would tell them that they were just jealous that they weren't young anymore. I have to officially retract that sentiment. I turned 40 a couple of years ago and, had I known it was going to be so great, I might have done it sooner.

My birthday always begins with my mostly annual trip to my grandparents' house. Usually it's at their lake house, but a couple of times it's been in San Antonio. The important thing is being there. I've made this trip almost every year of my life that I can remember. There have only been a couple I've missed because we were living in El Paso or Albuquerque at the time and couldn't get there.

This birthday weekend at my grandparents' is not just for me. My mom, my Aunt Jan, cousin Rachael, formerly great "Aunt" Onnie, and now brother-in-law Travis all share a March birthday. It's such a wonderful excuse to get the family together. Although, not much of an excuse is ever really needed. My friends here at home often wonder why I go to San Antonio so much. I guess it's unusual for most people to get together with their families and really enjoy it.

We never actually do much. The kids play (at one time I was a kid who played), we have a huge dinner, eat cake, discuss politics and change the world from the kitchen table (if only Washington would take heed).

We've had as many as 30 there for the weekend, and as few as 10, but it's still a standing appointment on my calendar. I think it will always be.

Here are a few pictures. The battery on my camera was dying, so I only got a couple.


Jake and Owen.

Jake was my road trip partner for this trip. Zac wanted to stay home so he wouldn't miss any baseball practices. Jake and Mitchell played together all weekend. It was fantastic! I'm so grateful for how much they love each other and are so well suited to each other. One thing, though. Jake realizes now that he must eat salad or some type of fruit or vegetable at least once a day. He was sicker than a dog on Saturday night from too much junk! He's a believer in fiber, at least for now.


The birthday girls.

Our combined ages this year are 173. I won't tell you how old everyone else is, but I'm 42. I'm actually okay with that. Like I said, it really does get better.

Here are some pictures of some of the things I got for my birthday.


Flowers from my very good friend, Tammy.


A cool glass pitcher from my very good mom.


Some candies and neat candles from my very good friend, Susanne.

One of the reasons this birthday has been one of the best ever, is because those last 3 photos were taken with the camera on the gift my sweet husband George got me.



I seriously need an intervention. The iPhone is spectacular.

Again. One of the best birthdays ever.

Mardi Gras Mambo

Internet, the last several days have been very busy. I think I'll approach this post in bullet form:

*Feb. 21-Spanish Town Mardi Gras parade. **Side Bar**Jake was feeling better from the flu; in fact, I should've sent him to school on Friday.**Close Side Bar**
Naturally, I forgot my camera. Suffice it to say that the boys and I had a great time. The theme for the parade this year was Bayou Bailout. For a parade that has no regard for political correctness, the theme was rich. Check out these photos for some insight to the Spanish Town parade. Please look at a bunch of the photos.

*Feb. 22-Slept in instead of going to church. At this time, I can't remember what we did! I do know that we waited with baited breath for the arrival of George after his trip to Aspen with Bruce.

*Feb. 23-Kids out of school for the Mardi Gras Holiday. Isn't south Louisiana the best? We didn't do much. George had to work, so the kids and I hung out at home. I think I cooked dinner...

*Feb. 24-Kids out of school and George off work. We went to Clark Creek National Park in Pond, MS for a hike (toward the end it may have been known as a forced march). It was a really great day. I wouldn't tell the kids what we were doing for the several days leading up to this fun family day because I didn't want to hear all of the complaining about going hiking. It was a really good day. We saw some beautiful waterfalls and enjoyed the outdoors.


We ate a late lunch at Sammy's in Zachary and called it a day. When we asked the kids if they had fun, they said it was great and they're looking forward to doing it again. By the way, the hike (forced march) was about 3 miles of steep up and down hills.

*Feb. 25-Kids back at school. The usual stuff.

*Feb. 26-SOS, but I went to Pokeno at the neighbor's house. That's a really strange bunch...maybe I'll tell you about it sometime!

*Feb. 27-George and I did the responsible thing and got a medical physical for life insurance. That's hot. Oh, yeah, baseball try-outs started Friday night.

*Feb. 28-More baseball try-outs. George is head coaching his 7-8 y.o. team, coordinating that league and assistant coaching for Zac's 11-12 y.o. team. What that means for me??? The next several nights alone at my favorite place: HOME. That's what I'm doing tonight. It's the first practice for both teams. Am I using my time wisely? Doing laundry? Washing dishes? Cleaning bathrooms? No...I'm updating my blog. whatever.

*Mar. 1-Church.

*Mar. 2-TODAY!!
It's been a good day. I got a lot done at work. Not so much at home, but I'm here alone, doing whatever I want.

Life is good.