The first woodworking masterpiece!

Whadda ya think of this? Isn't it fantastic! I'm so excited for my hubby as this is his first woodworking project! WAY TO GO HUSBANDO!!! In all the years we've been married, he's never really had any power tools other than the basic corded drill that he used for small projects in the house. After having fun with a power saw that we borrowed last spring, he got an early Father's Day gift . . . his own power saw. That thing has been in the box until this past Sunday. Together with his newest toy . . . a cordless combo drill kit, he produced the picnic table. Did I mention how excited I am for him!!! It took him just two days! This sucker is a heavy table, and I was the one lucky enough to help him move it to the backyard. Since he doesn't really have a work area, the garage and front porch are it for now. We struggled a bit and I nearly got my head squashed, but we got it to the backyard in time to enjoy a hot dog dinner with the kids. It's exciting to think of what other woodworking projects lie ahead. Thank you God for River City Men's Ministry and the recent San Leon Mission Trip. Someone was blessed with a newly built house after losing theirs in a recent hurricane, and our family was blessed with new skills, vision, and motivation.

Puppy Drama . . . it's not even ours, ha! ha!

Okey dokey, it took about an hour but I think I'm ready to go back to bed. I fell asleep early around 9:30pm, but heard some puppy crying in our kitchen around 1am. Upon entering the kitchen to shut up the noise, there was a lovely display of trash and doggy poop. Our dog was in his kennel with a bunch of trash, as well as the box of his heartworm medicine that he apparently got into. The puppy who has taken refuge at our place was jumpin' around yelping and falling all over himself. After a few moments of flustered and sleepy-eyed problem solving, I got both dogs in the kennel, left the mess for the morning, and stomped back up to my room EXTREMELY PEEVED!!!

We're sort of dogsitting our neighbor's puppy. I say sort of because it was out of pity that we took in the little stinker. His sister stayed the night Thursday night, but ran back home Friday morning after having contributed a bunch of poop and pee mess in my kitchen.

Since our neighbors have been out of town, we'd seen their 3 chihuahua mutts runnin' around the neighborhood. We had no way to get in touch with them. With coaxing from another neighbor, the kids and I took it upon ourselves to try and get them in our house out of the cold, rainy weather. The mama mutt wasn't having any of it and always ran back to their backyard.

Why in the world do I continue taking in dogs when I absolutely can't stand dealing with them!!! We've put the puppy outside to do his business (while I secretly hoped he would go back home), but he's now used to us and just comes back crying like crazy and throwing himself against our back door wanting to come back in. Oh yeah! I'll have to do some investigatin' but I think one of the other neighbors was kind of looking after them because one of the boys came knocking on our door sometime after 9pm saying the puppy was his. I don't know what my hubby told him, but the puppy was still in our kitchen at 1am.

I'll be visiting somebody tomorrow to try and sort things out. This puppy cannot stay here any longer. It's getting ridiculous constantly having to climb over the baby gate to get in and out of the kitchen.

New Interests . . .

songs by Sara Bareilles - Love Song, Gravity, One Sweet Love

book "Out of Captivity"

gotta look more into them later; on my way to work

Fabulously Furious

Deep breath in . . . Deep breath out . . . Slowly count to 10. Repeat as many times as necessary so as to calm the sizzling and bubbling hot lava that is rapidly approaching the surface and getting ready to totally spew. Can anyone say, "MOM'S ABOUT TO BLOW!!!" Grrrrrrr! Aghhhhhh! Ughhhhh!

Okay, I think the boiling has now calmed to a simmer. In fact, I believe there was a crack of a smile on Mom's face after writing this recent post.

It's been one of those mornings. You know, the kind of school mornings that are thrown a loop with a teachable moment in the midst of . . . wakings kids up, finding out that you forgot to turn on the dryer before going to bed, packing lunches, talking about yesterday's folder mark at school, making sure that last night's throw-up episode was nothing more than your little pumpkin getting overstressed, yada yada, and oh yeah . . . you've got to do all this with some sort of peace cause you're also sending your sweet husband off to work.

I've got one more kid to help get ready and take to school, and then it's time for Mama to get herself together and go in to work. Yeah! Now that, I'm looking forward to. It's been SEVERAL years since I stopped working to be a stay-at-home Mom, and I've just recently started working part-time. That is another whole blog entry in itself.

Ahhhhh . . . how much calmer I feel after having just vented. Blogging is pretty sweet!

Missing the husband . . .

Here's some old photos of my husband and I. He's gone on his first hunting trip, and I have to admit I miss him.

We've had a few rough times recently in our marriage. Honestly, tell me who doesn't ever have some rough marriage times! I don't think we ever realize how tough marriage can be. Especially if when you marry, you're not even sure of who you are as a person. That was me . . . woo! hoo! I was the one who thought "my knight in shining armor had finally rescued me!" Rescued me from what? Maybe from actually taking the journey of soul searching? Once I got married, I got busy with being a wife and soon after, a mom. There wasn't too much time to work on soul searching, until it got kind of quiet with all the kids going to school.

As I've mentioned to my husband just a few weeks ago, and it has now become somewhat of a personal motto: "growing a marriage". When marriage is abundantly joyful, painful, thrilling, lonely, thriving, or stagnant . . . as long as we continue to make the efforts to put one foot in front of the other, we are still growing. Growth requires change, and change can be difficult, yet it is necessary. So in the journey of deep soul searching, I thank my husband for remaining married even when he doesn't have a clue. (Shh! which is most of the time, but he's working on it :) Most importantly, I thank my Heavenly Father for the gift of His presence and direction, my husband and my children, as well as close family and friends that He has given me so that I don't have to make this journey alone.

Historical Day in America . . . my feelings

As we all know, today is a big day in America . . . it is the day that the first black man will be inaugurated as President of the United States of America. I still don't know how to feel about it. President Elect Barack Obama was not the man that I voted for on November 4th, 2008. In the first few days after the election, there were a range of emotions that wore me down. In the end, the stance I chose was . . . as my husband stated during various pre-election discussions with friends and family, "If Barack Obama is elected to be the President of USA, and as that office is one that I respect and honor, I will respect and honor him." So the big day is here . . . and I'm very emotional, something I wasn't expecting. It's not exciting for me, instead there is an extreme sense of sadness. There were tears falling from my eyes as I watched a snippet of the Good Morning America show this morning. It's very hard to explain because it's hard for me to understand what I'm feeling, and there is almost a sense of shame.


The snippet was about the "Tuskegee Airmen" the first African American pilots, of which Robin Robert's (GMA hostess) late father was part of. It was a history lesson for me.

It feels like it's going to be a very long day for me. I'm off to drop off my middleschooler at school. The tv will probably be on all day, just not as much as when the kids are home. We've already chatted a little about today's event, but it just doesn't seem appropriate to allow them to see my grieving. I end this entry with a prayer asking that God protect Obama and his family today and throughout his presidency, that President Bush and his family would know they are loved and appreciated for their service to this country, and that Americans would use this historic moment in history to do, as well as think only good towards each other. In God we trust . . . Amen.

Adding photos to my blog . . . help!

I've added a family photo of us in Weslaco at one of our oldest kid's regionals qualifying football game. The only thing is . . . yuck, it's huge on the blog and I don't know how to fix it! I'm tired right now, so who knows when I'll get around to learning more about adding photos and resizing them. Just a short note about the photo. The photo was taken in November and the team did end up winning Regionals in College Station on Thanksgiving weekend! So the team went to Nationals in Florida, but the Weslaco photo was the only family photo we had from the whole season! Crazy, huh!?!