Birthday Party

Brian and I attended a friend's 30th birthday party on Saturday night. It was a lot of fun and Brian was finally able to meet my sister Lisa's 'Brit boyfriend' as she calls him. As the name implies, he is from Britain.


Me & Lisa




Lisa & John, the Brit boyfriend

Mailbox Mishap

After dealing with the whole water heater fiasco, Brian and I were in no mood to deal with anything else...this, unfortunately, was not to be.

The day after the water heater was installed and working, Brian came home to find that our mailbox had been hit and was barely standing up. There was no note and no other mailboxes had been hit in the neighborhood. When I got home, I went out to inspect it and noticed my teenage neighbor a couple of doors down getting into his SUV. I looked at him suspiciously (because at this point every young 'hooligan' is a suspect), but he ignored me and hopped into his car and left.

That evening I was upstairs on the computer when we got a knock on the door. I heard Brian answer the door and then about 5 minutes later he came upstairs to tell me that the mailbox mystery had been solved. The 16 year old neighbor girl, two houses down from us, apparently hit it while trying to back up. She was terrified to tell her mother, but finally fessed up and the knock on the door was her mother coming to apologize for her daughter's mistake. I found it odd that she didn't make her daughter come with her, but I was just relieved to find out that it was an accident and not some vandal.

2 days later, shortly after Brian got home from work, there was a knock at the door. When Brian opened the door there was the 16 year old holding a large decorated cookie with the words "I'm Sorry" written on it. She offered him the cookie and personally apologized for destroying the mailbox. I was happy to hear that she came over and apologized in person - the fact that the cookie was really good didn't hurt either!

Brian's Sickness

My husband has a sickness that he has inherited from his father, it's called NEWCARitis. Symptoms include: glassy eyes, kid-in-a-candy-store euphoria, a one-track mind, and the inability to say no. In a nut-shell, there's nothing I can do to cure Brian of the disease, so I will continue to love him and accept the fact that we will always have a car payment! Below is the result of his recent bout of NEWCARitis.


Dodge Ram 1500

The Side Yard Project

Brian decided he wanted to freshen up the side yard and make it so that he was no longer a muddy mess when working on the pool equipment. The side yard was basically dirt with a sprig of grass here and there. He wanted to level the whole area and replace the stepping stones and brick that were barely noticeable because they were covered in dirt after years of sitting in one spot. He removed all the bricks and stones, rented a tiller from Home Depot and set to work. The following day, we layed plastic over the entire area to prevent weed growth and then started putting the bricks and stepping stones back into place. The last step was filling in the rest of the area with river rock. After several trips to Home Depot to get more rock (approx. 40 bags total), we finally finished the side yard and I must say, it looks awesome!

Question: How long did we go without hot water?

Answer: 4 days!

We apparently had the one and only water heater made of it's kind. We were taking cold showers for 4 days while the home warranty company figured out how to the get the part needed to repair it. By day 4 I put my foot down and said that I would not take another cold shower. When we found out that the part was NOT going to arrive on day 4 (when they said it would) we said forget it and bought a new water heater. We probably could have waited another day (and another cold shower), but somehow patience wears very thin after 4 days of cold water. Below is a picture of the blessed water heater and the reason we are smiling again. :-)

Paint Yer Pottery

Our department at work had another great quarter so our Supervisor (or "SuperFriend" as she prefers to be called) rewarded us with a 'fun day'. We took a half day and went to lunch and then went to a place called Paint Yer Pottery - which is exactly what we did. I chose to paint a large serving bowl and I went with green and brown as my color choices. Our kitchen is getting a makeover with these colors and I thought I would make something to go with it. It was so much fun and I was so pleased with the outcome of my serving bowl.


So focused!


Final Product


All of us with our 'Masterpieces".

Cat Lady

I had surgery around the middle of March and I was home recovering for a little over a week. I think the cats knew that I wasn't feeling my best because they both came to sit with me at the same time. They never do that. They each will take a turn and sit with me, but they don't do it at the same time. Brian took a picture on his cell phone to document this momentous occasion. :-)

Texas Weather

First comes snow...then comes rain (about a week and a half later). And boy did it rain! We live across the street from a golf course and it didn't stand a chance against all of the rain that we got. The picture quality is horrible because I took it looking out the window, but you can see the 'river' that was a golf course.