Skipping!

This AWOL blogger has been totally exhausted lately. Lugging around a July firecracker, a crazed, hyped-up toddler AND dodging the heat- well- they're full-time jobs in themselves. Add my paid FT job and well, you get the idea. ;)

The weather around here has been absolutely nuts, as in Mother-Nature-needs-to-be-committed-crazy. About a month ago we were immersed in sprummer- officially it was spring but the weather dictated otherwise. Then, we switched to sprinter- again, officially spring but the weather that time dictated winter-like temps.

Now, officially the Solstice hasn't officially landed upon us yet, but once again, tell the thermostat that. It is effing hot around here! Sadly, my office is effing cold sometimes, so yes, I actually go beyond crazy myself and ENJOY going outside. Usually for less than five minutes, these outside visits are short because I start to melt beyond that five minutes. I braved it a bit today and took a brief walk outside because, let's face it, pacing the second floor in my building just gets old. Not to mention I just drag myself around there these days.

As much as I hate the extreme cold, I just want to skip the rest of this summer already and head straight into winter (we don't usually have good falls around here- just straight from summer to winter)!

This is starting to look good attractive sweet again already...

Happy Sprummer, Folks!

Since I live in Texas, I practically live by the saying, "If you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes." And some of us know that it is all too true. In fact, lately, we have experienced spring, summer and winter, all within the same three-month period.

In fact, I'm not even sure that Texas has any real seasons at all, if ever. We may experience fall here and there, winter here and there, even spring here and there. However, they last only about a week or so, tops. But summer, all five million hot and balmy days of it in fact, arrives early and stays late.

The flowers are blooming beautifully as if it's spring. Our rose bushes (yes, even the new ones!) have tons of radiant pink roses on them. The bulbs that I planted three years ago bloom brightly once again. Our pear trees have already bloomed and shed their beautiful flowers, leaving their signature fat, light leaves in their wake.

Pink highlights, anyone?

The calendar dictates to us that it is currently spring. However, the hot and balmy weather we've had lately states that it is summer. The temp has hit 90 degrees already several times. We've also experienced several scary spring storms, with hail, high winds and the whole nine yards- yes, even confirmed tornadoes. So it's definitely not spring, temp-wise, but it's not summer, calendar-wise. It's officially sprummer, folks!

BTW, did I mention that the pic was taken in late February? Yes, the same month in which we had tons of snow, just three and a half weeks earlier.

And the verdict is...

5 inches (as mesured on the hood of my car)! However supposeldy, we got 7 inches in our town.

5 inches! And this was a couple of hours after the snow started melting...

And the snow princess is chillin' after all her work this weekend.

Speechless Sunday Spring Snow!

The Day has arrived!

And I am a total basket case. We're going in tonight to start evicting Miss Jessica and I have been crying on and off like crazy. I feel her little feet squirming around and get teary-eyed, knowing that I won't be feeling that for much longer at all. I looked down at my gigantic belly in the shower today and lost it. I had to soap up with tears streaming down my face. I won't have my little "shelf" for much longer either!

I had spent the last week hoping that Her Snowiness would wave her white flag and come before today, but that's ok.. with how cruddy the weather has been over the past few days I can't blame her for wanting to stay baking. It's been all dreary, cold and rainy and that makes this mama want to do nothing more than curl up under a blanket! To make matter worse, PUNKsatoni Phil predicted 6 more weeks of this crud back on 2/2. ARGH! Kill Phil! (OK, just kidding about the last part y'all, I promise! They do say "Don't shoot the messenger, right?)

Once I arrive at the hospital we will drag our suitcases (and my own pillow, thank you!) up to L&D and get situated from there. Yikes! Hopefully they'll let me wear my own shirt at least for tonight. I know I'm going to have enough trouble sleeping due to anxiety and excitement brought on by upcoming events- I don't need wearing some foreign, oversized and uncomfy rag to add to the commotion. ;)

Keith just finished packing his suitcase and is now starting to load up the car. Wow, how time flies.

The Writing on The Wall

So for the past few months I have had a rather crafty desire to make something of my own for Miss Jessica. I have envisioned making individual letters spelling out her name, with different colors and patterns painted on them. I will then find some ribbon to (probably) glue to the back of the letters and suspend them from the wall somehow.

Today I finally acted on it. After Keith and I were finished with our lunch, I dragged him to our local craft store to look at letters. It was my lucky day; letters were on sale. Literally, 30% off (and about $2.50 to begin with!)! I LOVE bargains like that. I had walked into the store intending to just window-shop for now, but walked out about $21 and change later with seven letters and five bottles of craft paint: pink, brown, green, purple and black.

I started phase one of the project right after we arrived back home: painting the background colors on the letters.

And for the worry-warts, I had the paint-and-fumes issue covered. The windows were open and I only used a small amount of paint- no major wall jobs here. ;) Kept the air nice and fresh in there and I still enjoyed the gorgeous weather we had! I would have set up shop outside but it was a tad too breezy.

The next part of the project will require some planning, as I will be adding patterns to the letters. Part of me was tempted to keep the letters as they are now, but that would be no fun!

Quiet

It's cold outside. About 51 degrees F.  And the neighborhood is actually quiet, a far cry from this time last week, when I was ready to go buy some shock collars for our neighbor's dogs who were relentlessly yapping their heads off. Today, silence. My guess is that they're being kept inside because of the cold. When it gets "cold" around here (notice the quotation marks) tings tend to get quiet. Here in TX, the number outside doesn't have to even get that low for it to be "cold" to some people and make them stay inside.

Even Jessica Nicole has been quiet today. Up until I had some knockoff crunch berries for breakfast. She rocked and thumped around for a few minutes then went back to sleepy land. I was starting to become worried when my little girl didn't check in with me (you'll learn this about me if you haven't already- it doesn't take much for me to worry. lol) but a few bites in to my cereal and there she was, thumping around. But even now this little lady is back to quiet mode now.

For now, I will just sit back and enjoy the peace and quiet. Once Jessica is here quiet will be long gone, even if those dogs are shipped off to Bolivia (or insert other random foreign country here). Even the neighbor doing yardwork and running his leaf blower isn't that bad.

Winds of Change

Our weather here in DFW, TX is finally turning around- yesterday I actually had to ware a light jacket! Today? Much different- shorts and *PHEW!* it's nasty out today! Very warm and humid- wind added itself to the mix earlier today. T-storms are in the forecast and I wouldn't be surprised if they get ugly around here tonight as the sun has been poking out off and on. Along with the wind, today I can hear the electric meter buzzing away, mocking me. To it I say, ":P, ththgbbbbhhhttttthhhhh!" We'll see who has the last laugh. (insert sadistic laugh)

Looks like today might be the last warm day for a while, though... that's good for this poor little tree in our front yard, who is apparently a little confused:

Our poor pear tree is flowering along with turning its leaves. Of course, if I was a tree in this weather I think I'd be a little confused too!

The job front is tragic. Nothing but sales (no thanks! don't want anything that will raise my BP!!) or jobs that entail dressing up in a chicken suit and waving a sign at oncoming traffic (C'mon, you know you can see me doing it). Shoot, nevermind. I just realized those are gone too! Oh, well... I know we'll figure something out... any baby contests out there for the unborn? I think Miss Jessica could qualify.

See what I mean? That GORGEOUS little face?? OK, OK I'm a little biased, I'll admit it. But just a little!

Life as we know it

I am building a canoe as we speak- it has now been raining for nearly two days here! I'm not going to complain, though, as we NEED it first of all, and secondly I like this kind of weather! Rainy, wet, watery, cloudy and perhaps all electrical and thundery too. The light shows in some of these storms have been either scary or spectacular. Yesterday it was a mix of both, as I was at work and able to see the show in my periphery when the bolts actually struck something and positively glowed momentarily. Miraculously, it didn't seem to come near us in our 22-story building as far as I could tell. And we didn't have a tornado. Thank you, Lord! :)

On the other hand, my contract-to-hire job has been abruptly ended. While I'm not going to publish too many details here for obvious reasons, I am going to say that part of me feels angry (used, anyone? taken advantage of, anyone? (overtime reference) screwed over, anyone?), but part of me feels somewhat relieved. After having an elevated BP reading at the last doc's visit (with a normal reading the weeks before and after), I certainly blame the overtime for that and my lack of energy the past few weeks. My resolve this month was that if my BP was affected again like that I was going to ask for a note from the doctor to cut out the overtime. Or perhaps we could keep it to the minimum that I was led to believe, by word choice in the way it was presented to me, it was in the first place ("a little mandatory OT at the end of the month"= a couple of days, right?? I have asked around and others would have interpreted the same, especially since we're not accountants balancing books or anything like that!). I can have a clean house (well, no excuse not to! :D), I can relax, exercise like I had been and should be... the list goes on. May as well see the silver linings, right? ;)
Need the silver linings to bounce off of the bad part- Keith and I were going to go on a road trip to H-Town but we had to cancel that, needless to say. :(

I am going to try my hand at looking for WAHM jobs for the most part (of course I'm open to leads outside of the home). Just not sales please! LOL (we need a steady, reliable income source)

As I have sat typing this, little Miss Snowflake has been wiggling up a storm in her home; she must like a relaxed mommy. :) At least, I'm pretty sure the pops I'm feeling are her! LOL (Although, in the past few days I have felt movements and things that were unmistakably my daughter in there!♥♥)

Oh, here comes the rain again, watering the yard and going to force poor Keith to mow the lawn again in a few days! :D (Wait, actually two lawns since he helps with my mom's too...)

Well here I am...

Midnight and I am wide-awake. I must be some sort of night owl or something. Anywho, the storms we've had today were amazing! Rumors of a tornado during one of them... three (so far) in one 12-hour period. Yikes!

The first one caught me out and about, shopping. I bought a dress and two blouses... hmmm I need to upload a couple of pics but am too lazy at the moment. More on that later.

Anyway I had literally JUST gotten back into my car at Lowe's in Allen (75 & McDermott, for you DFW'ers) and the big drops started falling... went across the street into the shopping center over there to get some food then go to Bath and Body Works and I actually managed to get away from the rain for a minute, but just a minute... I was in the drive-thru line (Golden Chick) and noticed how dark it was- I turned on my fog lamps in my car and they actually helped out (usually at 3pm they don't highlight the road very well)! I thought of heading home right after I got my food... but by that time it was pouring cats and dogs- scratch that, make that wolves and tigers. LOL

I pulled away from the drive thru and it was pouring so hard I couldn't see to navigate the parking lot! So there I stayed praying nothing happened til it calmed down. Fortunately the worst we got at my location was very heavy rain, lots of thunder and a spectacular light show. It was totally gone by the time I was done shopping, however storm #2 came in right after I had the car unloaded... same thing. Lots of thunder and heavy rain! #3 arrived after we came home from my birthday dinner and dumped more heavy rain on us. We're soaked!

Let's see what the next 24 hours bring us- it's supposed to rain more tomorrow as well.

I also came upon this story... the Dallas Cowboys' practice facility in Irving, TX collapsed! Several people were injured and transported to the hospital as a result. WOW. The final picture in the slideshow shows the tent flattened. It was actually built back in 2003... yes, a tent. I always had thought it looked tent-like in structure when I drove by it but thought nothing of it. Yikes. Why, oh why, didn't they ever bother to get a real building? Oh, that's right... Jerry Jones is too #$%@&ing cheap! Don't get me wrong, though, I do pray everyone involved is OK and resting comfortably at home tonight!

Brrrrr...

After a week of temps in the 80's, the cold reality hit: it's still winter!

I went from wearing light clothes, even sandals and showing off my pedi (which I have yet to take a pic of- that stupid crud I got last week threw me way out of sorts!) just yesterday to wearing a sweater and my heavy jacket, and, oh yeah, fighting to keep my umbrella from turning inside-out once again. (Yes, it has done that once already. Amazingly enough it still works.)

Keith and I spent a little time outside yesterday soaking up what was left of the heat wave, including examining our one of our babies in the front yard:

 

  

Basically we went from this beautiful spring scene yesterday to the cold reality of winter (once again) today: Anyone want a messy dog? I swear, this little dude can't keep himself clean for a minute on a rainy day. The sad part? Bernie hates, yes hates, baths.(Warning: you MAY need to take something for motion-sickness before proceeding. Yours Truly can't figure out how to rotate this darn pic so you don't become ill from motion-sickness.)

DIRTY, MESSY DOG.. FREE TO GOOD HOME!! (J/K)

Oh, well... at lest we still have Daylight-Savings time! YAY DST!!!

Things that go BUMP!

Our heater has been unfortunately sentenced to a lifetime of slave labor since our arctic weather has arrived. Our fireplace has been doing some overtime as well. In fact, I can right now hear the ice pellets hitting the window in the office. It's gonna be a long commute in the morning. I just hope my work office is getting it too- this way I don't have to be LATE for work tomorrow!

Heater decided it was time for a break and cut off for a while, leaving me even more able to hear the ice pellets and something odd ba-bumping in the background, sort of like a heartbeat. I continue reading. Wait. ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump... That noise.... What the hell??

I continued to listen, and the noise persists. ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump... It continued, speeding up and slowing down, alternately. I felt the walls, but found no vibration (at first I though it was an outside corner of the house). Thank God.

"Honey! Come back here for a sec..." I said, motioning to Keith to join me.

ba---bump, ba----bump, ba------bump. Aw, come on... don't make a liar out of me!

Keith joined me and soon offered the most befuddled expression I had ever seen on him as the mystery noise sped up again. ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump... "What the hell," Keith wondered aloud.

Wait a minute. It's ABOVE us. Oh crap. The pipes!? ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump... I pointed at ths ceiling with a gaping mouth. What the...

"It's above us," I said, utterly confused. Did our fire...??

My thought trailed off. No, silly- it wouldn't sound like that, for sure...

Keith went across the hall and traced the nose more. ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump...

"Wait a minute! Those silly turbines," Keith and I exclaimed, nearly simultaneously. The turbines on our roof have apparently decided to collect some ice, like our cars, except they made some noise about it. "I hope they don't break," Keith stated.

"Nah, they'll be fine."

Sure enough, the turbines have calmed down from their excitement about our frigid (by our standards) weather and all is quiet again, except for the heater humming. Hopefully they stay that way for the night.

Back to work!

So today I went back to work after a weeklong, at-home vacation with my husband, celebrating our first anniversary. Thankfully the day went quickly. However, the company I work for has clients in the Houston/Galveston, TX area (among the hardest hit by Ike), and that's one of my main areas, Houston.

About half of them on the list have no power yet and a few still remain closed. Some are closed for a couple of weeks. Even though the storm made landfall as a category 2, Ike's devastation is incredible. All I know is that I am praying for the TX coast to return to normal as soon as possible.

That ties into the anniversary celebration. We had planned to go to Houston. Unfortunately, those plans washed out (no pun intended). Evacuations to Austin and even San Antonio made even those options non-viable, as we were concerned about overcrowding. So.... we stayed home. Good choice, although not as planned. We pretty much hung out, did some errands and even painted a bedroom in the house and planted a tree and a few new shrubs. It was nice to return to work refreshed, and the new, cool weather helped.

As for the rest of things, they are pretty normal. For those who don't know us, I know you're thinking, "WTH?" LOL Well since I unfortunately can't seem to import old blogs from my Myspace (which I still have and plan to keep, if you are wondering), I will share a little of my basics here and there in my future posts.

First off, the pe(s)ts. Crazy Lizzie, Inspector Keely (cats) and Goofy Bernie (dog, sorry no pic of the pup on the puter yet but I promise I will get one). The one on the top is Lizzie ("WASH ME!") and the bottom is Keely (taken in my apartment over a year ago.. *sigh* can't find the better pics!).


I promise, I will get a picture of the dog on here... one day. Even if it kills me.