Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Is it Friday yet?

I’m so ready for this week to be over! I’m tired. I shouldn’t have stayed up late last night reading, but I started the book, and then I kept reading a few more pages and a few more pages until I had finished the book. I’ve read 14 books in the month of August and I’ll finish another one on the bus ride home today, so I’m averaging a book a day. I read fast, and I have an hour for lunch and anywhere from 2 to 3 hours of bus riding time to read everyday. So, I have 3 to 4 hours of reading time everyday. Plenty of time to read a 300 – 400 page paperback book (at least for me). I’ve recently started reading romance novels (something I swore I would never read). Sadly, I can’t seem to stop. I just keep reading them and finding more authors I like and reading those and on and on. I still read some of the other books that I like, but there are a lot of romance novels being read in my world.

Today I wore my little black (work) dress. I also call it my ego-boosting dress since last week when I wore it (for the first time to work), I got lots of appreciative looks. And when I was shopping after work for Miss Priss’ birthday presents, someone driving by whistled at me. Now, as a feminist, I have to disapprove of that kind of behavior, but as a 27 year old mother of 2 kids, I had to be flattered. LOL I haven’t been whistled at in a long time. So, I wore the dress even though my only pair of wearable heels that go with it are killing my feet (more from the blisters I got from yesterday’s shoes than these shoes in particular). So, I can feel physically good or mentally good. I chose mentally good this morning.

Monday, August 13, 2007

My Baby Girl is 4!

Miss Priss turned 4 on Friday. I have a 4 year old. Wow.

My cousin got married on Saturday. The girls and I went to my parents’ hotel and met up with them and my brother. We then went to the family “compound” (as my father liked to refer to it) where the rest of the family was staying at some overpriced resort. We spent some time talking and swimming for a while before the girls, my mom and I went back to their hotel to see if the girls would lie down and have some quiet time (which, of course, they did not).

We got ready for the wedding and I got the girls all dressed up (they looked so cute!). I took some pictures of them before we left for the wedding which was good because Baby Boo pulled her hair out before we were out of the parking lot.

The wedding was interesting. Miss Priss was hungry (she told me that she was starving). She wanted to lie down on me the entire time. Baby Boo wanted to sit in my lap. She started playing with the pencils and visitor cards in front of us, so I let her hoping it would keep her entertained. Then she broke the pencil and was very unhappy about it. She started to take the other pencil from the holder and Miss Priss reached for it at the same time. In a quiet part of the ceremony (of course it was), Baby Boo yelled “Mine!” I rolled my eyes, took the pencil from Miss Priss and grabbed a pencil from the holder a little way down from me. Thankfully, the ceremony wasn’t too long.

We went to the reception which was crowded and very hot. Summer. Texas. Over 100 degrees outside. Gotta have some A/C going big time! Anyway, we stuck around for a little while back in a corner in one of the rooms before the girls and I left to go home.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Snake Bite Blues

The Planet Earth thing reminded me how different it was growing up for my brother and I. We lived in the country until I was 10 year old. We got 5 channels. NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, and FOX. That was it (okay, we might have been able to receive some Spanish channels, but those weren’t programmed into our TV). No wonder we spent so much time playing outside. I do remember watching 3.2.1…Contact on PBS in the afternoons. And Nova. But, our science education through TV was very limited. Even when we moved into town, and we got cable (all 35 channels of it), we still had only one Discovery Channel. I was so excited when the added The Learning Channel as well. Now, there are so many science, animal, discovery, and history channels that it will make your head spin. And to a large degree, I like that (especially since I have DVR and can record different shows at once and don’t have to watch commercials).

I remember when my brother got bitten by the rattlesnake. Have I told that story? Not sure, but if I have, well, I’m going to repeat myself. A few years ago, right after 9/11, my brother, Hubby (not Hubby then, but my boyfriend), and I went out to a local outdoor gun range to go trap shooting. After a while, we decided to move a table closer to put stuff on, so when Hubby and my brother went to lift the ends, my brother jumped back and yelled, “Ouch!” Okay, maybe not that word exactly, but it was another 4 letter word.


Anyway, we quickly realized that the little snake slithering away from his feet was the culprit. Now, here’s the part I’m ashamed to admit. Being the IDIOTS that we were, we continued shooting and having a good time and finally went home and had dinner with my dad (my mom was out of town at a conference). No one said a word to my father who would have probably been much smarter and taken my brother to the hospital. (And just to clarify, at the time, we were 21, 19, and 19, so we weren’t too young to understand that a snake bite is a serious injury). After we all went home to our respective dorms, I got a call from my brother. From the emergency room. It seems that his hand had started swelling up. He spent 3 days in the Burn ICU (that was the only place that they could provide the right kind of monitoring) reading War and Peace and being completely bored until his blood clotted normally again.

Anyway, the entire point of that story is that when my father did find out what happened, part of the conversation went like this:


Dad: So, I assume you killed the snake.
The rest of us kind of shuffled our feet and wouldn’t look at him.
Dad: You didn’t kill the snake?!
Brother: It hadn’t really done anything wrong. As far as it was concerned, it had only been defending its den.
Hubby and I agreed.
Me: We did take a picture of it.
Good pictures too. We made sure there were some shotgun shells in it so that you could get an idea of the size of the snake (which was small and about 13 inches long).
Dad: Unbelievable! Three people with shotguns, and you didn’t kill the snake.
By the way, my dad is not a big fan of snakes in general.
Dad: That’s the difference between my generation who grew up watching Bonanza and your generation who grew up watching The Crocodile Hunter. We would have shot the snake, and you just took a picture of it.

We still buy my brother strange rattlesnake memorabilia whenever we find it and give it to him for his birthday and Christmas.