Legally Blonde's Proceedings

I haven't been as ambitious as planned this holiday weekend. I had hoped to be almost finished with my decorating by this time, but alas, I'm only about 1/3 of the way there! Part of the problem is that I didn't get started as soon as I hoped. Most of the things I hoped to accomplish on Friday, didn't get done until yesterday. I did finally make that recipe of sausage balls yesterday morning(good thing because that is all I have eaten all day today)! I had little Joshua's 1st birthday party yesterday afternoon (photos to come as soon as Jennifer sends me some because I forgot my camera), and then of course that led right into the Tech game. After the Tech victory, I got out my trees for the kitchen and the living room and started fluffing. I decided last night that there is no part of the decorating that is worse than fluffing the darn trees! My arms look like I've been in a fight with a cat. Today I started dragging out all of the containers of Christmas crap, ...

I always say I'm not going to hit the stores up on Black Friday, but as usual, I had to do a little shopping, though I wasn't there for the door busters. I was seduced by the Target ad this year and that is what got me out this morning. They had crazy cheap DVDs, so I went and loaded up. I got "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and "The Holiday" for $3.98 each. For $5.98 each, I bought "27 Dresses", "Juno", and "The Devil Wears Prada". I bought a few other kid movies for gifts too. In addition to Target, I went to the mall in Frisco. I hit up Bath and Body Works for some gifts and stuff for myself, Williams-Sonoma for a couple of gifts and finally Macy's for two bread and butter plates that match my dishes (usually $29 each and I paid $9.50 each). To add an interesting twist to the Holiday shopping, Macy's has employed a transvestite named "Jamie" to work in its china department. As Jamie was checking me ou...

Our Holiday started at the crack of dawn on Wednesday. Lola and I had to head out for Nocona before 7 a.m. because we had to make the vet appointment in Henrietta. All went well on the trip to Nocona (much better than my traffic ridden trip a couple of weeks ago!). After Lola and I finished at the vet, we arrived home to find the party had already started. Dad and my cousin Sam were kicking off the day with a few rounds of bloody mary's. At some point, my Mom (who had gone to Wichita Falls for a hair appointment) called my Dad and was stranded on the side of the road (or as it turns out in the middle of the road) because she was out of gas. Mom was furious with Dad because he didn't fill up her vehicle before she went to WF, and of course, Dad was furious because she didn't look at the gas gauge! The funniest parts of the story to me are that (1) there was a 5 gallon gas tank full of gas in the back of the truck she was stranded in and (2) she just sat there in the mi...

As you may recall, I went to Canton Trade Days earlier this month. I'm finally getting around to downloading a photo of some of my purchases! I've been needing something for above my door which goes out to the garage, so I got inspired at Canton to pay homage to my favorite city, New Orleans, and fill the space with different fleur de lis.

Sweet Lola definitely has bladder stones. I'm not happy that she has stones, but happy that she hasn't just forgotten how to be potty trained! Our plan for treatment is a round of antibiotics and special Hill's prescription dog food for a month. She is suppose to have NO treats! NO TREATS? Can you imagine? Lola is a total treat hound! How am I suppose to get her to anything without a bribe of a treat? The vet did mention that she just isn't suppose to have treats with any calcium, so I may make sure I can find some that she can have, and she is still allowed to have rawhides. We will go back for x-rays in December and see if the stones have reduced. If they have, then we will continue this course of treatment. If not, then we will do surgery. In another note, Lola has gained 5 pounds in the past year and a half. Time for Lola and me to take some walks! I'll have to update on Thanksgiving festivities later but so far we have had people drinking too much ...

The day that everyone waits for is almost here....Oprah's Favorite Things. It airs tomorrow (Wednesday). Of course I haven't seen it yet (O doesn't send me an advanced copy of anything), but I'm already disappointed. This year is a "gifts on the cheap" year. How are we suppose to know what really expensive gifts to covet if O doesn't tell us? What kind of crazy crap is that? Economy downturn or not, it isn't like O is having to give on the cheap this year! Can you imagine showing up to Chicago, having them announce "It's the favorite things episode", you thinking "I'm about to pocket 10 grand worth of loot" and the O announces, "This year it is about thrifty gifts!" That has to be the biggest bummer EVER! Today I did so much that I think I am near collapse. I had to take Lola to the groomer, gas up the car, go to court for a juvenile plea, go by Neimans and pick up a pre-order for my Mom, have a 10:30 meeti...

My mom has come into town and we have shopped until we are both ready to drop. It started yesterday and has continued all day today. I realized this morning that I am a really nice teacher. Here it is the holiday week and I figured my students don't really care about learning (not sure they ever do) and I sure don't care much about lecturing, so I showed a great Thanksgiving episode of The West Wing. It is the great one where the President has to pardon two turkeys because CJ is horrified that the one she doesn't choose will get slaughtered (clearly not from Sarah Palin's pagebook ). Well, I discovered that the government teacher who uses the same classroom right after me was giving a test. A TEST! On a holiday week! That has got to suck if you are a student (and the teacher...she'll have to grade over the holiday). P.S. to Emily: Thanks for the shout-out about how happy you were that your Sooners beat Tech so badly. Much appreciated. I will of course b...

After almost 12 hours since our horrible defeat to OU, I think I'm getting some perspective. Instead of feeling the rage and anger that I felt last night, I now feel like someone cut my heart out...while I was awake! Many of you may say that that doesn't sound like progression or gaining perspective on the defeat. Maybe. Maybe that is part of the steps of grief??? All I know is that I still haven't gotten over the intense desire to horse-whip the Sooners Number 5 and probably won't for some time. That kid has a bad attitude and I would like to be the one to give him an adjustment!

Do not wash a featherbed if you have a front load washing machine! I don't care what the instructions say! Lola has again peed on the extra bed and since I hadn't made it up since the last time she peed on that bed, she peed on the featherbed this time. The instructions said you can wash it, but the washer just can't spin it out. If I still had my old washer that you could set to just the spin cycle, then I probably could have ended up spinning it all out, but as my frontload washer doesn't have this option, I think it is just ruined. It is now a big wet heap of a mess in my trash can. P.S. Just in case you think my dog is running wild around here without any discipline, she actually has a vet appointment on Wednesday for an x-ray of her bladder. She is acting an awful lot like Macy did when she had bladder stones...one of the problems is that when they jump up on something they can lose control of their bladder. If that isn't the problem, then she is going to start...

What a horrible game. It isn't even over, but we are getting our butt kicked by OU. Next week I will be rooting for the OSU Cowboys to deliver a victory in Stillwater...then OU would be a two loss team and the only one loss teams would be Tech and Texas. Since we beat Texas, we would still win the Big 12 South. All the planets will have to align.... I think the Longhorns should be thanking their lucky stars that they got to play OU earlier in the season because if they had to play them later, that match-up would have probably gone differently (not to mention they never have to go to Norman to play).

"What am I doing this weekend?" That is a question I have been asked by several people, and I'm still not sure what the answer is! I will tell you that right now, I'm watching College Game Day on ESPN and I know that I will continue to do so until 11:00 when it is over. Tonight of course, I will be watching my Red Raiders attempt to upset OU at home. I have to tell you that I'm so anxious right now I could vomit! I did the major cleaning last weekend, so this weekend, I only need to tidy up a bit. I know that my Mom is coming to visit tomorrow and we are going to Christmas shop on Monday, so I need to "tidy" sometime between now and tomorrow afternoon. I really need to clean out my pantry and closet, but the desire to do that is minimal at best. I think it is more likely that I will get my DVR cleaned out this weekend than a closet!!!! Finally, I thought about getting all my Christmas trees up. I don't really have the energy or desire to decora...

I received an e-mail two days ago about a Collegiate SuperStore that was going in at Mockingbird Station. The e-mail came from Red Raider Outfitter in Lubbock and they said they were temporarily setting up shop there. So of course, after the work was done today, I headed down to Dallas. It was really a two purpose trip... First, I have been crazy craving Red Hot and Blue. Second, I could see what the Outfitter has for this Red Raider gal. (at this point, you should be really impressed that I was able to wait 2 WHOLE DAYS before turning my car south on 75 to go and check out the Outfitter's supply!). Since lunch was involved, I was able to rope Jennifer into going with me. We stopped at Red Hot and Blue first. We split a 1/2 order of their wonderful onion rings and split a pulled pork sandwich (we've discovered that when we order rings, neither of us can finish our sandwich). Of course, I wasn't willing to half the order of the "best in the world" potato salad, so ...

As you may notice, I'm desperately trying to make my blog more Sassy and Fun! As I mentioned in the previous blog entry, I ran across the cutest blog ever. I discovered that she purchased her adorable custom design layout from a company called Sweet Cheeky Designs who specializes in such for $45-85 each. As most of you know me well, you know that I think diving in and doing something is half the fun, so I'm trying to amp up the sassy all by myself (also you know I can't stand knowing that someone else has something more stylish or creative than I do!). I have found some really fun new backgrounds and will be trying them out in the future as the holiday seasons change. Over the past 24 hours, I made several changes to the blog, including the addition of a blinkie. At this moment, my creative energies (okay, some might call it my obsessive behaviors) are being limited by not owning Photoshop. I'm trying to remedy this by downloading another program that is suppose to be...

I was blog stalking and looked at this blog of a blogger who follows Abby's blog. Apparently they are Texas Tech fans and have attended at least the Texas and OSU games (you should know that I'm currently sitting here green with envy!). I stole this photo off of her blog and just had to post it because it is seriously one of the funniest things I have seen in a long, long time. I have know idea who this blogger is, but if I did, I would send out a "thanks for sharing" shoutout! Also, she has about the cutest blog I've ever seen. I'd love to know where she got her layout for her blog and if she created it herself, then I'm just speechless!

I received Lola's pictures via UPS today. First, I want to say that the package was very small and light weight for having cost $300! But more importantly... the actual photos are even more adorable than the slideshow online!!!! She looks soooo cute! I wish I could have ordered an 11x14 of each and every photo (instead of my 5x7 or 4x6).

Lola, the great white huntress has succeeded tonight. I came home from class and let her out to potty. As soon as I opened the door and stepped out onto the patio, I could see a little mouse running along the back fence (the bottom horizontal slats). It all happened too fast! Lola saw it as soon as I did, so there was no keeping her inside. She darted after it and I'll be darned if she didn't catch him. I got her to drop him and saw his little tail moving, but then she grabbed him again, and the chase was on (this time between me and Lola). I finally caught her, got her to drop the mouse (which I presumed was dead by this point) and drug her into the house. I went back out with my craptastic flashlight, but couldn't find a mouse corpse. I'll have to wait until the sun is up to initiate the recovery of the corpse. I'm hoping that the little guy was just stunned and was able to recover from the heart attack that he probably had and run off. Lola appeared confused that...

I just spent 5 hours of my Sunday cleaning house. YUCK! I sure miss my housekeeper! Of course, the fact that it took 5 hours probably speaks to the level of filth I was living in! I'll partially blame Lola... I know that all that dirt, grass, muddy paw prints and yes, the dead lizard that I found can all be attributed to her!

Something else interesting on Friday's Oprah was at home DNA testing. It is through this company called 23 andme . You spit into a tube, send it to them and then 4-6 weeks later, you log on and can see your DNA profile. It has been named Time Magazine's invention of the year. They just dropped their price from $1000 to $399. It tells you things about your ancestry , but more importantly, it tells you things about your health including diseases that you may be prone to getting, etc. Dr. Oz said he took the test and found out some things that he is prone to getting and some can be prevented. It sounds very interesting! I think if I could come up with an extra $399, I'd love to do it.

My friend Abby is running in her first marathon today in San Antonio (along with her hubby Brian)! YEAH ABBY & BRIAN!!!!!!! While I still think you may be a little mentally unbalanced for running a whole 26 miles when nobody is chasing you with a knife or something similar, it is very impressive nonetheless !! UPDATE: Abby and Brian ran the marathon in 4 hours 20 minutes!

Just got a chance to finish watching my DVR'd Oprah from Friday. She had an announcement that she lost her 14 year old chocolate cocker, Solomon two weeks ago. She lost her black cocker Sophie to kidney failure back in the spring. Here is something you wouldn't normally thing of saying, but boy, I sure feel bad for Oprah. If I had lost my Lola the same year we lost Macy, I think you would have had to bury me too! I can't imagine losing two of your "kiddos" the same year. It made me give my little pup an extra bear-hug and kiss today!

Starting last night about 8:00, it just rained, and rained, and rained some more. Not just light rain showers either, I mean heavy rains that flowed over the sides of the gutters. I thought most of the rain had passed only to be awakened by the heavy rain and storms at 3 different points during the night. Then about 7:30 this morning, as I was laying in bed half dozing/half awake, I heard a loud bang. It took me until about 8:30 to figure out what it was, but a pickup had plowed into the tree behind my back fence. At first I thought, thankfully he hit the tree instead of tearing down the back fence, but then I thought darn, I wish he had managed to tear up one of the side fences that really really needs replacing, then I could have made his insurance pay! Oh well, my luck, he would have been uninsured anyway!

I haven't blogged in a couple of days...it has been a busy weekend. Friday I went to our Junior League's Holiday market, 'Neath the Wreath. I haven't purchased much there in the past, so I was surprised to find many things I wanted to buy. I got a great Christmas shirt. It cost a little more than I would like to spend on a seasonal shirt, but it was made for me... it is a pink thermal t-shirt and it says "Dreaming of a Pink Christmas"! I was also able to purchase some Christmas & Hanukkah presents, so that was a plus too. Saturday I had to go to Nocona for a wedding. It turned out to be the most difficult road trip to Nocona EVER. I got stuck at three wrecks in what should have been the first 30-40 minutes of my journey!!! Two were on Hwy 380. I had to wait for the wrecks to clear and the firetrucks to stop blocking the highway to go on my way (literally I had my car in park on the highway). Then when I got up to the interstate, there had been an...

I finally just decided to bite the bullet and place my photo order with the photographer. I have looked at those pictures until I'm blue in the face and have contemplated my order for over a week. Wars have been entered into with less contemplation!!! I finally decided the problem that I was having was, it was kind of like choosing a favorite Lola. For me and Jennifer (the two who have spent the most time with Lola during her almost 4 years of life), we can never choose a "favorite Lola". Sometimes we discuss that our favorite Lola is sleepy Lola. Then we change our minds and it is mischievous Lola. Then we change our minds and it is snuggly Lola, etc. The photos were the same way, choosing my favorites was like choosing my "favorite Lola" and that is just impossible!!!

Jennifer and I went to Canton today. It was a fairly typical trip (ie: I spent too much money). Jennifer and I are quite the anomalies though... everyone was talking about the nice weather while Jennifer and I were moaning and groaning about the weather. We could have been quoted as saying, "I wish it were freezing." and "I wish we were experiencing a cold rain today.", etc. You see, we were sweating it up today, and that is most definitely something I DO NOT enjoy in November. In addition, pretty weather = bigger crowds. Our favorite Canton trip EVER was in subzero temps! We had the whole place practically to ourselves (never mind the cuddle duds we had to wear under our clothes, the coats, the gloves, the scarves, and the hats that we had to wear!). We stopped back by the outlets in Terrell but didn't get anything there. I mention it because it made me think of a funny story about Lisa and her parents. Lisa's parents Don and Edna live in Terrell. ...

I had lunch with Maddie and Gracie yesterday. I took the girls to lunch at The Purple Cow to celebrate Gracie's 9th birthday. Maddie had a loose tooth, and that got us talking about the Tooth Fairy. Gracie started telling me about all the teeth she has lost and one in particular. Apparently, she lost a tooth while they were visiting New York City. She told me that the Tooth Fairy left her $10 when she lost the tooth in NYC which is more than she has received when she lost other teeth. She said "I guess that is just what the Tooth Fairy leaves in NYC. You know things are more expensive there." Guess the Tooth Fairy factors in cost of living adjustments! Priceless!

ELATED, DELIGHTED, OVERJOYED, JUBILANT, ECSTATIC, EUPHORIC, BLISSFUL... This describes my current mood! Texas Tech has beaten #1Texas 39-33 If you didn't watch the game, then you missed one helluva good game! I don't think there is any feeling as good as beating Texas!!!!! Of course, I'm not delusional enough to think that we will be ranked #1 this week (even though Texas got to jump from #5 to #1 when they beat Oklahoma who was #1). Tech doesn't get all the love like Texas does, so I know that will never happen. We still have a tough row to hoe, Oklahoma State will be in Lubbock next Saturday, and then we still have Oklahoma coming up too. But I say, WRECK 'EM TECH!!!!!!!

My friend Suzanna sent me some pics of her little Trick-or-Treaters. Little Kate is enjoying her 1st Halloween with her cute & ginormous Halloween bow on her head. Below, Bennett is an adorable turtle.

I imagine the pictures of my little friends will just keep trickling in, and they are so cute I have to post them. Here is my friends Chris and Rachel's little cowboy, Weston. He just turned one.