An Egg Beater

It was just about 5 years ago when I was talking to mom on the phone one day, and I said, "I think you should come and live with us." She said, "I think I will". A few months later we packed her up, loaded up the truck, and moved her from Denver to Houston. That was a big change for her! After a short time period of deciding who got what bedroom, bathroom, and closet- she was settled in. After a few more adjustments like "who parks where" and "who sits where" things have worked out fine. We really get along quite well and its a good arrangement for everyone. The only thing that might be a challenge for mom, is living in my kitchen. Things never seem to be in quite the right place and sometimes she misses some of her stuff that did not make it to Houston. One day she was trying to make muffins and was commenting about how her egg beater must have gotten left behind in the move. I have several whisks, and a small electric mixer, and a large electric mixer- so the only thing I could think that she wanted was a non electric hand mixer. I'm thinking, surely Wal Mart has one of those. To make a long story short- those do not exist any more. I finally went to a couple of antique stores- and yes, they had a few- but a hand mixer that is so old that it does not spin any more is not very useful.
So she will have to settle for another whisk instead (I was able to find one of those that is a "Cyclone Whisk"- whatever that means) and use it or keep using my small electric mixer to beat the eggs. If I had been able to find a non electric one- we would have been prepared to beat those eggs in case of a power outage :) Along with grinding wheat with a non electric wheat grinder- I have one of those...somewhere :)

Oh and...

PS- Happy Mothers Day. We love you and we are glad to share our house (and our kitchen)with you.

Let Her Eat Cake

A4 will be 22 tomorrow- "let her eat cake"!

"Let her eat cake and have a party."

Mike would also say, "Eat cake."

Happy Birthday! We love you!

Puttzin

At breakfast on Saturday morning, mom asked Ron what he was going to do that day. He replied, "I'm going to go play basketball and then I'm going to puttz around". We both wondered exactly what puttz around meant. He didn't mow the yard, but he did finalize a few plans for our anniversary weekend, like finding information about the drive in movie theatre. He also cleaned his car. Then he totally blew his "no cooking" cover that he has had for the past 33 years :) He went to the grocery store, bought food and fixed dinner. Of course I was late showing up :) But dinner was great- baked potatoes, corn on the cobb, salad, steak, and watermelon.

Last week my yard man also became my computer man. Of course all of my photos for scrap booking and such, had completely clogged up the computer, it was out of memory. So Ron installed a "Free Agent/Desk" external drive- "perfect for your photos, music and videos".

So I am back in the scrapbook and blog picture business. Now that the computer has a "F drive" it is no longer out of memory. Maybe Ron and I both need an "external Free Agent" for memory :) :)

The Day After May Day

I had a late appointment at the store yesterday, so I didn't get home until about 8:00, which was plenty of time for Ron to look at his usual stuff on the computer and the blogs. His first comment to me was, "Believe it or not, I really was going to ask you what you wanted to do for our anniversary". I never doubted that, I knew that was coming. See after you live with someone for 33 years, you pretty much know how things go. (The part that I was kidding about was him stressing over what to do :) Micah, you can take comfort in the fact that holidays are not a big deal for Ron. Then he said it only took him 2 hours to figure out exactly what my plan was. Then his next comment was "sounds good to me". So...sorry Annie but we are only going to get half way to your house :(
There really are several barbecue places going north on 45- the drive in movie is just south of Dallas- the Sam & Audrey Bed and Breakfast is available- the small town, main street shopping is Plano, Texas- and the ward there is the Wylie 2nd. The reason I didn't have the name of the Italian restaurant was because Sam forgot to send that to me :) The only little glitch in the plan is that the drive in movie theater might be on the "dead theater" list. Plan "B" might be to go up through Granbury- there maybe a theater there that is open.

May Day

May is a busy family month for us- several birthdays, a couple of anniversaries, and mothers day. Ron and I will celebrate our 33rd anniversary this month. Since I know Ron has been spending way too much time thinking about that, stressing out over what gift to buy, and wondering what great celebration he could plan... okay maybe not :) :) ...but...
when he does pop the question, "what do you want to do for our anniversary?"
I will be ready.
Here is my wish list... I wanna-
Go out to eat at one of those authentic Texas barbecue restaurants, you know, like when you are driving north on 45 and there is one at almost every exit off the highway.
Go to a "Drive In" movie, in the convertible.
Stay at the S&A Bed and Breakfast.
Go to one of those small town, Texas main streets, lined with cute little decorative shops, with cute little decorative stuff and go shopping. Surely I can find some cute little decorative stuff that I don't exactly need, but that I can't live without.
Go out to eat (again)- maybe a Texas Road House or I think there is a new Italian restaurant.(but I just can't come up with the name of it)
Go to Relief Society at the W2 ward.
Go on a leisurely 4 hour Sunday evening drive.
If I can have the pleasure of his company from Friday afternoon til Sunday evening, we could "do it all" :)

You've heard the phrase- "We've come along way baby!"...
Here is your laugh for the day- I just couldn't resist...

Work...Pray...

Work like everything depends on you and pray like everything depends on God.

Some how our family has been very blessed, and as I have thought about that lately I realized that all of our children have a great work ethic. Without going into any details, that has been evident in some glimpses recently into their daily routines. Then my next thought was, how did they learn to work so hard? It wasn't from doing the family "job charts" at home. Our family had no time for such things- too many soccer games, basketball games, track meets, and gymnastic meets to attend. So I have had to conclude that it was through all of those athletic events that our children learned such things as- show up on time, show up even when you don't feel like it, work hard while you are there, contribute to the team, be loyal to the team, put forth your best effort, practice with the team and practice on your own to improve your skills, arrive early and stay late if needed, don't get discouraged, keep going even when it hurts, stand up for what you believe, help others along the way. So it's Monday and we are all back at work for another week. As Mike said, when I asked him what was planned for this week- "just work, as usual". Yes! Just work as usual, but that's what life is all about, and we are blessed for diligent work.

Off The Road

Today is one of those days when it's best for me to stay off the road. In just my short commute to work, I found myself getting annoyed at several other drivers. The first one was the guy in the little silver sports car that got annoyed at me for not letting him out of a side parking lot in front of me. The guy behind me let him in and then he proceeded to quickly dart in and out of the cars in front of us to get his spot in the left turn lane to get on I10. The next one was the kid that was wrestling around with his cigarette lighter. When he realized that his pocket lighter was not going to work, then he proceeded to use the car lighter. A few blocks later he has a lit cigarette in one hand and cell phone in the other- which hand was hanging on to the wheel? The next guy did a u turn and crossed over three lanes of traffic to end up in the right turn lane of Mason road. Then when I was driving down the access road- doing 60 mph, almost everyone else was zipping by me like I was standing still. About that time I'm getting annoyed with my self for being annoyed at everyone else. Then I have another thought- what kind of society places their physical body inside something made of glass, metal, rubber, and gasoline and propels themselves through space at 70 mph? What compounds this issue even more, is the fact that then we surround ourselves with all sorts of other "lunes" who have also placed themselves inside of glass, metal, rubber, and gasoline and then they are smoking, talking on the phone, putting on makeup or eating lunch and trying to drive and are running late for something :) Maybe it is time for me to move to Bandera and get out of the traffic :)