Busy month

Mike and I had a very busy past month with a lot of out of town trips. First we went to Bartlesville for his Dad's retirement party. Joe worked at Conoco-Philips as a researcher for his entire career. That's pretty amazing considering that most people only stay with a job/company for a few years now before they move on. There was a great party for Joe at the Cross house. He had a lot of friends, family, and co-workers come by. I enjoyed it because Joe got a really nice camera for Christmas and since he was the guest of honor for the party I got to use the camera. Of course by the end, it left me wanting a new camera! Here are Joe and Nona opening gifts.


The following weekend we drove up to Lake Texoma for a 4th of July party/Cross family reunion. Even though we had seen most of the family the previous weekend at the party this was a much more laid-back visit with fewer people. That gave us more time to talk to people and get caught up. Mike got to go fishing with his nephews and neice. Mike's uncle has a lake house and they purchased a lot of good fireworks to set off... the kind of that actually fly up and explode in the sky versus the little black cats or roman candles. It was nice to be able to sit out next to the Lake and watch all the fireworks. A photography blog I follow posted great tips for taking pictures of fireworks. Unfortunately I didn't see the tutorial until after the 4th of July. Oh well. I still got one decent shot.


After that Mike and I went to New Orleans for the weekend. It was an anniversary trip. Even though the weekend we got married was the best weekend for us that summer, it turns out to be a terrible time to take a vacation. Since Mike is in sales then the end of June is the end of the first half and there's always a lot of work he needs to do. So we always do something small the night of our anniversary but then save a trip or whatever we want to do for July. We had a great time in New Orleans. The pictures are up on facebook if you want to see them.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=103949&id=662435043&l=b83550e94c
We stayed at a great B&B. I think we probably found the best one in the city. If you ever plan to go let us know so we can give you the contact information. It's Five Continents Bed and Breakfast. And best of all, it actually turned out to be cheaper than staying in a hotel within walking distance of the French Quarter because we didn't have to pay $20 a day to park the car!

Here are the beautiful roses Mike bought me on our anniversary. And here we are at dinner one night in New Orleans. We got dressed up and went out to a nice restaurant. It was a lot of fun. (And I got to wear a new dress).

Two years and counting

Two years ago today Mike and I got all dressed up to tell each other, and a large number of guests, that we promised to faithfully love each other and spend the rest of our lives together. The last two years have just flown by. I think we've been very blessed. I've always heard that marriages take work and that if you don't work at it then it won't be successful. Or I was told before I got married that I would have to remind myself why I married Mike. I'm sure that we work at our marriage, but it just doesn't feel like it. Being married to Mike has been very easy and each day I love him more. Not a day goes by that I've ever doubted our decision to get married or had to remember why I married Mike. Even though he's only been a part of my life for three and a half years, it's impossible for me to imagine life without him.
Recently I was told though that we should start writing down what we did for our honeymoon and what we do on our anniversaries. My great-aunts told us that even though we think we'll never forget that our memory won't be nearly as good when we're almost 90. So we've taken their suggestion and started writing down memorable dates and our anniversaries. I think it will be a great record to have, especially since it's hard for us to go on anniversary trips right on our anniversary. June 30 is the end of the first half of the sales year and so we usually need to take our vacations in July. Last year we went to Mexico and this year we're going to a great Bed and Breakfast in New Orleans. Some day I'd like to get back to where we went in Jamaica for our honeymoon.
In honor of the day here's one of our engagement photos and some of our wedding photos.

Busyness

I got this written but never posted a while back. Life's been very busy.

A few weekends ago we celebrated my Mom's birthday. She turned 60 and was gone on her actual birthday so we celebrated a few days late. Dad made yummy fish tacos and as always, he made the cheesecake. Our family's cheesecake recipe is the best I've ever had. Mom wanted a smoker for her birthday. Our family is weird in that we like getting big cooking appliance type things as gifts. We get to ooh and ahh over the new toy and figure out new recipes and what we're going to make. Since mom has every kitchen tool imaginable for indoors I guess she decided to branch out to outdoor cooking appliances. And of course it made the guys happy too. Bryan got the whole thing assembled and Mom's already used it once. She sent smoked chicken home for Mike who pronounced it good. Mike was even willing to share a few scraps with Apollo who then started dancing around the kitchen whenever he saw Mike pull the chicken out of the fridge. So the chicken must be good and our dog is spoiled.

That same weekend we went out with our friends Lyndsay and Alan for dinner. There's a backstory to this dinner. A few weeks ago Mike and I were home and had Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on. We like to watch the show and always wish the restaurants would be closer to us. Well, the first place up was located in East Dallas and was a burger joint. As we watched them make these burgers and everything that went in them, Mike's eyes got big and I think he started to drool. And we just knew our friend Alan would love a place like that. We got online and found they had veggie burgers and a new location opened up closer to us. So the four of us went on Saturday evening to the Twisted Root Burger Co. Sure enough, as we walked in Alan told us that he had just found his new home. Mike got the Western Burger and Alan got something that was a combo of buffalo and venison. Lyndsay had the cheese burger and I got the veggie burger (what a surprise!). The food was good and the decorations were a riot. We loved all the bumper stickers and various signs around the place. Such as the one requesting that we not steal their condiments, then informing us that stealing in general is bad and then suggesting that the government already steals enough. There were also plenty of "graffiti" style notes up in the bathroom. My favorite was the one pointing to the emergency alarm (the type with flashing lights) that said "if this is flashing then you may want to stop peeing and run". Since it's not every day that we get to go someplace featured on Guy's show, we decided to take pictures.

Home makeover

We've been very busy over the last couple of years giving the house a "makeover" and now we're nearly finished. We still have a few details to take care of but all the major projects are through. Yay! We completely tore out all the groundcover and holly bushes and redid the yard, leveled out the back and laid sod. There are new flower beds with new brick work and the sprinkler system. All the plants are in and look great (and survive thanks to the sprinkler system). We had the outside of the house painted and last weekend Mike finished the front door.
The front door was quite a project and I'm really proud of Mike. He had to take it down, sand off all the old pain (which took most of the morning) and then stain it. It took three coats of stain because the wood was so dry that it just sucked up the first coat. He got all that done Saturday and was able to put the urethane coats on Sunday in time for it to dry and get hung back up. So we were only doorless for two days. And the door looks great! So unless Mike gets the wild idea again about finishing the kitchen cabinetry - I think all our big projects are done. We still have small projects to do. We need to replace the cushion stuff that blocks air leaks in the doorways (I have no idea what it's called). And with the house settling and moving after we had the foundation repairs there are some cracks now around the windows that we need to fill and seal. But given that I don't think you're ever truly "done" working on a house and there always seems to be something the do, I think this is the closest we're going to get with our house to being done. I think we're going to just sit around for a while and be proud of ourselves (and nap).
I haven't gotten pictures of the door yet (or the outside bench that Mike refinished). I'll take some later and post them.

passports and the car

Two accomplishments last weekend. First, we found that passports. We discovered they were missing back in February when Mike needed to copy his for employment records at his new job. I thought they were hidden in the armoir. Mike thought they were hidden in one of two other locations. They weren't in any of the three. We both remembered a conversation about where to put them. I remember not like Mike's idea and him not liking mine. So we could remember all that. However, we couldn't remember where they finally ended up after we got home from Mexico last summer. At random points we would search places in the house looking for them with no luck. This weekend I went to pull a shirt off the closet shelf that I had put there because the strap needed to be sewn back on and I thought I could do it at my grandmother's. When I pulled the shirt a travel bag fell down and the thud seemed pretty heavy for an empty bag. There were our passports! Along with other miscellaneous things from our Mexico trip. Right after we got back from Mexico we were busy with details for a friend's wedding and then out-of-town friends stayed with us that same weekend. We're guessing that even though we had the conversation about where to keep the passports that we ended up just putting the bag on the shelf in a rush to clean up without actually putting them away. Glad to have them again though. It's very difficult to flee the country on short notice without them.

The other exciting thing was that we got the clean title to the Camry. It's all paid off and now it's all ours. We're really excited to not have a car payment anymore. When we bought the car a year and half ago we had really good interest rates on our savings account and got a really low interest rate on the car loan. So it made more sense to have the loan. Then the economy changed and the rates on our CD savings went down. We decided to hurry up and get the loan paid off until Mike got news that IBM was going to lay him off. So the car loan got paid off a little later than planned. But now it's done and we're really excited to be rid of it. Yippe.

Pet therapy

Mike and I had a really nice visit to see DG this weekend. We would have liked to stay longer with her and had originally planned to go up on Memorial Day weekend so we could. But that was when I thought Memorial Day weekend was this weekend rather than last weekend. And we couldn't go on Memorial Day weekend. Instead we drove up after work on Friday and came back Sunday morning. So it ended up being shorter than I wanted. We did get to have dinner with the twins and Ed though and it was great to see them. Earlier Ed had been sick enough that people were worried he might not get better, but by the time we came to visit he was looking about as well as he usually looks. I was very happy to see that and glad he's decided to stick around a while longer.

We took Apollo with us again this weekend. DG's really not a fan of dogs or pets, but she tolerates Apollo and will let us bring him. We decided that it was time for him to start earning his keep while he was there though. Since he's such a friendly, cuddly, and usually well-behaved dog, we offered to take him around the facility for some unofficial "pet therapy". DG thought this was a great idea and wanted to come along too. We took him down to meet some of her friends in the assisted living/nursing care wing. He sat and let several people pet him and gave them kisses and was, as always, very happy to meet everyone. Since he's not a licensed pet therapy dog he couldn't go into the memory care unit. So we just saw a few people. We also went over and saw one of DG's friends in the independent living apartments who had to give up her own dog a while ago. So he got to make quite a few new friends. And his "parents" were very pleased that he behaved himself so well and enjoyed all the compliments we got on how handsome he is.

In my mind I had ideas of Apollo sitting for a long time with someone while they petted him and how that would make them feel better. And I was actually a little disappointed that each visit was fairly brief, no more than about 5 minutes. After we got back to the apartment though one of DG's friends called to thank us for thinking to bring the dog to her and taking the time from our day to come see her. It made me think that perhaps part of what helps people who benefit from pet therapy is not just the dog, but also the fact that someone thought they were important enough to think about, schedule time for, pack up the dog, and come visit. Although everyone liked meeting Apollo what I heard frequently was gratitude that we even thought about them and took the time to come by. It actually makes me sad that they're alone so much that us bringing our dog by would matter that much to them. It certainly made me glad to do it. It was a good reminder for me of how a really small effort, just to remember someone and make them feel important, can have such a huge impact on someone's day. I really would like to get Apollo licensed as a pet therapy dog. He's a cuddly dog and would enjoy it. Unfortunately there's a bunch of classes you have to get through and we've never even had time to take Apollo to basic obedience training. Even though we won't be able to bring the dog, I do think Mike and I need to make more time to visit some of the local places around us. It wouldn't take much of our time and it would mean a lot to people who feel the world is starting to forget about them. It also reminds me that Mike needs to call his grandmother.

Randomness

The problem with staying up late to write is that I get very tired and random thoughts start arriving in my head that are not relate to child disclosure, secrecy, lying or delinquency. I'm acutally quite random on a regular basis. It's just that during the day I can tell the random thoughts to my husband and get them out of my head. Except he's asleep right now. I can't imagine why. It's only 1:30 in the morning. So here are my random thoughts. They're mostly related to Apollo because he decided to stay up with me.

• Apollo decided to eat his dinner at 1 this morning. It's a good thing for him that I'm still up writing or he'd be sitting in his crate a hungry dog.
• We have a large couch. I sit in the center with the laptop on my lap. I put the papers I'm using to one side and the other is empty. Why does Apollo always jump up on the side that has the papers? I'll move them for him and then a little while later he'll jump up on the side that I moved the papers to.
• Why does Apollo eat his hair when we brush him? All the pieces of hair that decorate my floor during the week he ignores. As soon as we start brushing him out and it's in large clumps he wants to eat it. We can't imagine that it taste good and it's not like he's starving. That dog gets plenty to eat.
• I've had several late nights in the last few weeks and have noticed a difference between now and college. In college late nights were always accompanied by large quantities of diet coke. Late nights now usually mean a diet coke in the evening and just water the rest of the night. I would have thought as I got older I would need even more diet coke to keep me going. Maybe I'm just old enough now to know that staying up late and gallons of diet coke are both unhealthy and so limit it to just one.
• In college and with grad classes there are deadlines to have your work done and turned in. The problem now is that I don't really truly have deadlines. Instead I make self-imposed deadlines so that I actually get work done. Hence the reason for being up late writing. The problem with not having a real deadline though is that it means I can keep working on something even after my self-made deadline. That's a serious problem for a perfectionist who never feels that something is good enough. I miss having deadlines that force me to give something up and move on. However, after a full week solid of writing and two very late nights I'm beginning to think that sleep deprivation may beat out the perfectionist and force me to call it quits. I'll come back for revisions after my adviser has looked at it.
• My wonderful husband thinks I've been working really hard this week and wanted to be sweet so he bought me flowers today. They're pretty and bright yellow. Looking at them helps wake me up when I'm tired at 2 in the morning.
  

Vineyard

I remember standing in a breezeway at Trinity my first year looking at a flier announcing a band named Jackopierce was playing it's last concert ever at the White Rabbit and wondering who Jackopierce was. Sadly I didn't go see them but the following year my roommate Deborah moved in and put Jackopierce's signature star up all over the wall and started playing their music (she owened every CD) and after that I was hooked. I loved their sound and their style. They're the CDs that even though I may put them away for a few months, I always pull them back out. I was disappointed that they had broken up and I wasn't going to get to see them perform and they wouldn't be putting out any new music.
Every year Richardson puts on a music festival called WildFlower. It's the whole weekend and a number of different big acts come in as well as the opportunity for smaller, local bands to get some publicity. It's always a lot of fun and really inexpensive. Mike and I go at least one night with my parents. This year we pulled up the lineup to see which night we wanted to go and there on Friday night's lineup was Jackopierce - back together, performing, and with new music. So on Friday night Mike and I got to watch Jackopierce perform for over an hour. They played a lot of their old favorites and some new stuff. I enjoyed their new songs enough to buy the new CD. In fact I've had the chorous of one of their new songs stuck in my head all weekend. And of course, they finished with Vineyard. It was a great time and a great show.

Diaper cake instructions

I modified the instructions I found online and have done it a little different each time. If you google "how to make a diaper cake" lot of different examples and ideas come up. I think they make great centerpieces at the baby shower. And I have the cake stand that we purchased for our wedding cake still and it's a great size to put the diaper cakes on. It helps elevate it a little so if you have a cake stand then you may want to use it. • 60 diapers (depends on how big you make it) I use the swaddlers brand and used size 1 for the girl's cake and size 2 for the boy's. I think I prefer working with size 2. Just as warning. It takes a little while to roll the diapers so you may want to do it while you're doing something else, like the mandatory annual FERPA on-line certification that UTD requires or driving to Houston at 10:00 at night after the Spurs/Mavs game, or whatever you have going on. • Ribbon, 1/2 or 1 inch wide, patterned to fit the baby shower theme. • Ribbon, 1/4 inch to tie rolled diapers with (I only did this for the girl's cake. I thought it would make the boy's cake too frilly.) • about 60 small rubber bands (depending on the size of the diapers and size of the cake) • 6 extra large rubber bands • One 8-oz baby bottle or larger bottle of baby lotion or baby wash • One baby bottle (I try to get whatever the mom registered for) • A cardboard or plastic cake base • Baby items - Pacifiers, bottles, lotion, bibs, socks, receiving blankets, miniature stuffed animals, baby towel, onesie, wash cloths, baby hygiene products, toys, etc. The number of diapers are all kind of guide and will change based on the size diaper you use and the size bottles you use, etc. Don't stick too close to them. Just do what seems best for your cake. I also like a fuller looking cake so I always try to stuff one more diaper in each ring after it seems full. For the first tier, you will need about 35 newborn or stage 1 diapers. Unfold 17 of them and, one at a time, roll them up tight, starting from where diaper folds over (bottom) and rolling up to the top. The tighter the better. Place a rubber band around the center after you roll each diaper up to hold it tight. These are the inner diapers for the cake. I rolled mine so that the diaper's design didn't show, but that's just my preference Take the cake base and place the 8-oz baby bottle or large bottle of baby lotion in the center. Then place about 5-6 diapers around the bottle and put a large rubberband around the entire ring of diapers. Next, form a 2nd ring with the remaining 11-12 diapers by placing them around the 1st ring of diapers. Complete it by placing a large rubberband around the 2nd ring. Do the third and final ring in the same way using about 18 - 20 diapers. Make sure that when you're through all the rubberbands are situated so that you can hide them with ribbon. To do that I try to keep my rubberbands close to the center. The second tier is similar, only instead of 3 rings, you will only make 2 rings of diapers. Just like the 1st tier, the inside ring will need about 5-6 diapers. Part of the 8-oz bottle will be sticking out of the 1st tier, so place your 5-6 diapers around it to form the 1st ring of the 2nd tier. The 2nd ring will need 11-12 diapers. It is probably easiest to assemble the final tier on a table and then place it on the rest of the cake after it is assembled. So, take a 4-oz bottle and place it on the table. Then take 5-6 diapers and roll them up like before. Then place them around the 4 -oz baby bottle and together with the rubberband. Take the top tier and place it on the top on the first two layers. Now you can decorate your cake. At the minimum put ribbons around the center of the cake layers to cover the rubberbands. I cut the ribbon the length I need and the hot glue it where the tails overlap to make it stay without need to glue or pin anything to the diapers. I also use the hot glue gun to make and attach the bows. If you want it to be really frilly then you can tie small ribbons around the individual diapers on the outside of each layer. I only did this for the girl's cake. Finally you can decorate the cake with any accessories you might want to add. Add little baby items like Pacifiers, bottles, lotion, bibs, receiving blankets, miniature stuffed animals, baby towel, onesie, wash cloths, baby hygiene products, toys, etc. Place them between the folds of the diaper, tuck the larger items into the outer layer of ribbon. You can remove a diaper and fill in with something like a baby wash clothes or rolled clothes if you want. It's just up to you how much you want to decorate them. I usually end up buying more diapers and baby bottles than I need for the cake and just give any leftovers to the mom-to-be. The boy's cake The girl's cake

Mother's Day Ponderings

I'm up way too late because I'm working on the final for what I hope to be my last every actual grad school class. After this I just have to finish the dissertation and go find a real job. So I'm procrastinating on this instead. Today was Mother's Day and it was a really wonderful day. Mike and I talked to both our grandmothers and are grateful that even though they've had some rough months that they're both healthy today. Mike talked to his mom for a long time. I know he cherishes each mother's day since her breast cancer recovery. And my family came over for lunch and a fun afternoon with peach bellini's (fresh from the tree) and the Wii. All of that was special but what struck me the most today actually happened at church this morning.
Two couples we know from church who struggled with infertility adopted in the past few months. One of them was given two beautiful girls and the other a very lively boy. I remember this time last year how painful it was especially for our friend who adopted the boy. She wanted so desperately to be a mother. Even though she knew that God was in control and that God had a plan and a reason, that didn't stop the pain and mother's day was especially hurtful. It has been so joyous to watch their excitement to learn that their baby was finally coming, to bring that baby home, and for all of us to love on them. I was thrilled that they got to celebrate this mother's day with crying babies, dirty diapers, and toys under foot. Our pastor asked the mothers to stand so that we could pray over them and I was so happy to pray for all my friends who were mothers, but especially these. (I would like to add that we have an incredible pastor who never forgets there are women out there who long to be mothers but can't and he is always very sensitive on mother's day. He's the first pastor I've known to remember the women with children and the women who are still waiting for theirs).
It made me think about how quickly life can change. When we're in a place that hurts and seems dark, sometimes it feels like God isn't there, isn't working, or isn't going to answer. But the truth is that he's always there, always working, and always answers. It just sometimes doesn't look like it to us or is maybe easier to see in hindsight. And that's something that I've clung to during difficult times in my life and that I know I'll rely on in future difficult times. I realized this morning that I should be clinging to that truth in good and difficult times - that God is all I need and that He always provides. I wish I did a good job of that but when I'm willing to be honest I can look back to dark moments and see how I completely relied on Him. Then I can look right now during happy times when my heart's desires have been answered and I've been blessed and I notice that I'm not clinging as hard. That bothers me. That same feeling of utmost need for Him should be there when I'm in need and when I'm full of blessings. So I took our time of rejoicing today as a reminder to keep my focus on what life is all about.

Drunk people and baby shower pics

Drunk people should not be allowed to carry their own drinks. I came to that conclusion after Mike and I went to the Spurs-Mavs playoff game during round 1. That was part of our whirlwind weekend. Thursday night we went to the game. After the game we drove to Houston. Everyone worked on Friday. Damitra and I did baby shower things Friday night. Saturday morning Mike and I went to the wedding of one of his IBM friends. Mike dropped me off back at D & G's house on his way to the reception. Claire, Damitra, and I threw Elizabeth a wonderful baby shower. Then that evening we celebrated Damitra's birthday with some of her residency friends. Sunday Mike and I drove back home to Dallas to clean up for company we had visiting on Monday night.
Back to drunk people though. The couple with seats next to us arrived after the start of the second half and were already drunk. They sat down with a beer in each hand. Not too much later, the girl got up and left. I even mentioned to Mike as she climbed past us that she's already drunk so I hope she's not going for another drink. About 10 minutes later she toddled back up the stairs carrying two more beers. As she tried climbing past us, Mike tried to help her hold the beers since she was really unsteady. For all his efforts though she still ended up pouring beer down the back of my shirt. I tried cleaning up as best I could, but I ended up smelling like beer all the way to Houston. Thus I've decided that drunk people should not be allowed to carry their own drinks. They should have to blow in a little device to determine if they're sober enough to carry their own drink, and if they're not then they can't buy more. My friend Wes noted that drunk people would just send their sober friends to buy their beers and I'm fine with that. At least the sober person will get the beer to his drunk friends without spilling it down the back of my shirt. Now I just have to find someone to get my legislation passed. I'm sure it'll be a high priority in the midst of the economic crisis and the piggie flu. Right?
And just in case you're wondering, yes it did suck that the Spurs were blown out of the water the entire game and the drunk girl spilled her beer, but I got to spend time with my husband and he's happy that his team won, so overall it was a perfect date. Dates with Mike always are.

Here are some pics from the baby shower. More on that later. If you want to see them all then they're here.
The yummy cake.
The food.

The diaper cake I made.
The beautiful Mom-to-be...

Easter Fun

Mike and I decided that we wanted to dye Easter eggs this year. We had a lot of fun. And then we turned them in to deviled eggs, which are always yummy. Mike's eggs turned out very well. I tried to do a technique where I cracked the eggs and dyed them so that the eggs themselves would come out marbled. Unfortunately they didn't really marble. Here's pictures of our creation.

Big step for me

I was in Denver for the SRCD conference last week. I like academic conferences. It's a great chance to go hear what others are currently dong in the field. You can get a lot of information in a short time. Of course, you're also completely brain-dead by the time it's over. What I don't like though is all the people. I get extremely nervous around people I don't know and have quite a bit of anxiety when I'm in large groups of people. So even though conferences are a great opportunity to network, I find I really prefer to go to the talks and then hide in my hotel room. This year though I made a very concerted effort to talk to some of the big names in my field. And not only am I proud of myself for talking with people I don't know, it seems that the measures we've developed for my research were interesting to others. A lot of people felt that my ideas were relevant and headed the direction that the field needs to go. It's always nice when important people who actually matter think what you're doing and your approach to the field is intersting. Even more exciting was a conversation I had with a researcher at the University of New Orleans who is running a longitudinal study and wants to include our new measures in his upcoming data collection. So not only did he think it was interesting, but actually wants to use what we've spent the last two years developing. Kind of makes it feel worthwhile (both the years and the anxiety of talking to people).
Of course, even though all that was great, I was still glad to get home to Mike and Apollo and friends at home who don't scare me. =)

Why do techonological advances make my life more difficult

I have the latest version of Office on my laptop. That's what the University is currently running and so I get it for free. They've made a lot of changes and even though I do love that it keeps my references in a database for me, that's about the only thing I like at the moment. Last summer I submitted an abstract for a conference using the old version of Word. Now I'm trying to create the presentation for that conference. All I want to change is the labels on my graphs from my abstract submission. Just in case you didn't know, tables and graphs get a lot of attention at these conferences. Sometimes I think they're the only thing that gets paid any attention. By the end of the conference I walk through the poster sessions and if there's a bunch of words, but no table/graph then I have tendency to walk on. I'm just too brain-dead at that point to process what they wrote. Sad isn't it? However, this new version of Office won't let me change what I want. Nor will it let me make a new chart in Power Point. It links me to some internal excel file and then has crazy built in formulas that I can't seem to get rid of. Arggh!!!!! Not to mention that they're new way of selecting your graph format won't let me get rid of the internal axis lines. I can't have internal axis lines. Have they not read the APA manual? Grrr. I want my old version of Office back where you could click on the label and just type in the new name. Sigh.

Problem with getting appliances all at the same time

I think appliances are deliberately designed to have a certain life span. The problem with this is that if all appliances are from the same company and purchased at the same time then they can all die at the same time as well. As a result, on Valentine's Day, our oven died. The dishwasher had already been dying for a little while. The microwave followed shortly after the oven (when Mike tried to show his sister-in-law how it was starting to break and succeeded in completely breaking it). Just for good measure the garage door opener broke the next morning. All of this was preceded by our upstairs vacuum cleaner dying the week before.
Fortunately we hadn't already made plans for how to spend our tax return money. Now, after lots of shopping and Mike's haggling, we have a new range, a new microwave, and a new dishwasher. It's nice because they're all the modern stainless steel kind and it really updated the look of our kitchen. My favorite is our dishwasher splurge. We went up a level on the dishwasher and got the kind that is super quiet and can tell how much dirt is still in the water so that it only washes it as long as necessary and saves water and energy. Being kind to the planet always makes me happier. Plus I'm so happy when I unload the dishwasher and the dishes are actually clean. It's been the first time in my life that I've been excited to do the dishes and run the dishwasher. And as an extra bonus Mike's father came to visit and found a kit to fix our garage door opener and was able to fix our vacuum as well. For the time being all is well in the world of our appliances. We're going to enjoy it while it lasts.

A sad reminder

Mike, of course, is a sports fanatic. He actually watched part of the Pro Bowl on Sunday to get his last bit of football in until next season. As much as he likes watching though, he'd much rather be out playing sports, be active and be healthy. He's belonged to several different rec leagues over the years and will play anything. He's played for years on a Softball team from his old church and is good friends with several of the guys. Sunday morning we found out that one of the guys, who is about Mike's age, had a heart attack and died. He left behind a wife and two young children. It was tough because I think we have this idea that people who eat healthy and exercise a lot shouldn't have heart attacks and certainly shouldn't die from them at our age. The timing was interesting because Sunday we also had our picture taken at church. Our church has over 5000 people so we don't take church-directory-type pictures. A man from church though volunteered to take pictures of married couple. He is a professional photographer and his wife died unexpectedly. He found that he had lots of pictures, but not very many of the two of them together. So he wanted to honor his wife's memory by taking these photos for free and remind couples to treasure their time together. With Jimmy's death and these photos coming on the same day Mike and I feel very reminded that we need to treasure our moments together. It's sad way to be reminded of it though.

Apollo watches TV

Mike and I have noticed in this past year that periodically Apollo will watch TV. You can see his face looking up at the screen and watch him pay attention. Sometimes it's very brief, just like he wants to check out what we're watching. Sometimes though he'll pay attention for a longer period of time. We've even had the occasion where he didn't like something he saw on TV and started to bark or growl but it never lasts too long. Last night was different though.
Apollo doesn't like our new Wii. We're not sure if it's because we're not playing with him or if it's because we often look like we're throwing something but don't actually let go. Regardless, he gets fussy when we play. Last night I was making up some additional miis for our Wii. I was having fun making one to look like Mike's brother, Scott. Scott has every large, bushy eyebrows that pretty much form a unibrow. As I was trying large scary looking eyebrows on this mii Apollo started growling and barking at the TV. He was completely worked up and very upset. At first I laughed and thought it was the scary looking face but I could not get him to settle down. I finally had to change the screen so the large mii face wasn't there anymore to calm him down. When Mike came home we laughed about Apollo barking at Scott. However, when I showed Mike we picked a different mii and Apollo went berserk over that mii as well. So apparently there's something about the miis that Apollo doesn't like. For the rest of the evening though when we had the TV on Apollo would periodically walk up and check out the TV, almost like he was checking to make sure it was real people and not the miis. This weekend every one's coming over to our house to watch the Superbowl and play the Wii. It should be interesting to see how Apollo responds.

Jesus dies every year

So a few years ago while I was finishing my Masters but before I moved back to Texas I ended up taking care of three boys. It was an interesting experience to be a nanny and I really enjoyed it. It's always fun to learn how to parent on someone else's child. One thing I already knew is that children are very observant of what is said and done around them. That made me very picky about what I would play on the radio in the car. Since even country songs occasionally use inappropriate language or topics I just left the local Christian station on. I knew there wouldn't be anything on that channel that I would be embarrassed to have the boys tell their parents they had heard. The youngest boy, age 4, spent the most time in the car with me and probably heard the radio the most.

After I had been with them a few months we were in the car one day when Tucker's voice comes from the back seat. "You always listen to songs about Jesus. Why do you love Jesus so much?" I was a little caught off guard but said I loved Jesus because God loved me. He asked how I knew that. I then tried in very simple, 4-year-old terms to explain that God had sent Jesus to die for our sins because he loved us. I didn't get very far in to my explanation before Tucker interrupted me. "Oh, I know all about that. Every year at Easter Jesus dies and comes back to life." So there you have it from a 4 year old's point of view.

To remember for the future...

Right now we don't have TIVO or a DV-R. I know this may seem shocking, but Mike and I aren't that addicted to TV shows. If we miss something we usually don't care. The only reason we have Direct TV in fact is so that Mike can get ESPN and watch his favorite sports teams. . The other weekend while we were visiting Mike's family I was reminded of why, when we start a family, that we will need to invest in a DV-R. Ethan (the second oldest nephew) was sitting at lunch when his mom opened a diet coke and poured it into her glass. As it bubbled and fizzed Ethan looked at it and said "mmm, drinkability!" (If you're not familiar - this would be the latest Budweiser commercial) I couldn't keep a straight face and all the adults began to laugh. Of course, this only encourages a 4 year old to keep repeating it. This whole thing was especially funny because Scott is looking for position as a Baptist pastor and so they don't drink alcohol. Ethan finally finished lunch by showing us that he knew what commercial it was from by saying the entire line "Budweiser... it's drinkability". At this point I told Megan that they might as well give up and break out the margaritas because everyone is going to think they're lushes anyway.
As funny as it was though it made me think about what children see and hear. From an academic standpoint I know this and have taught it in Child Development. It's something completely different to be reminded of it in real life though. Megan and Scott try to restrict what the children see on TV and if they think a violent or inappropriate commercial is coming on then they turn off the TV for a minute. It never occurred to them though to turn off the beer commercials during football. So that is something we'll need to remember in the future: if we don't want our children to be exposed to commercials then a DV-R will need to be ordered.
All of this reminded me of the kids I used to nanny for and the youngest one's interpretation of Easter, Christ's death and resurrection... but that's for another day.