Cooking at home

This may come as a serious shock to some of you, but I have actually been cooking meals at home. YES you heard that correctly!! Now while most of the weeknight meals have been from a box or frozen (for time's sake), I've cooked Sunday meals from scratch for the past 3 weeks or so. I have to give myself a little pat on the back for this past Sunday's dinner - homemade chicken noodle soup. Hubby & I were both having serious allergy attacks this weekend, and chicken soup just sounded good to me. I cheated a little, it wasn't COMPLETELY from scratch - I bought a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken from HEB and just pulled the meat off. But other than that, the veggies & everything else were fresh. It was seriously yummy! I'm starting to love my new oven too - baking chicken & such is soooo easy now (dinner the previous two Sundays). Now if I could only get over my phobia of the crock pot... I'm always afraid it'll catch on fire & burn the house down if you leave it on while not home...

Bumper sticker of the week 04/28

The most heard phrase in my house recently... Oh the joy of being a parent...

Books books and more books!

I am sooooo dangerous in a bookstore. Hubby and I stopped into Barnes & Noble on Saturday. An hour and $87 later he had to DRAG me out of the store. I'm such a bookworm. I absolutely LOVE books. I always have a huge stack waiting to be read. Here are my current selections:

1. I'm currently reading the complete set of The Chronicles of Narnia, starting with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

2. I'm halfway through Christine Feehan's GhostWalker series - there are 5 of those, I've read 3 so far.

3. I just bought the first in Christine Feehan's Dark Series (vampire series) - there are so far 18 in that series.

4. Bought the first in Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld Series - I read book 8 last year, now I want to start at the beginning. There are 11 so far in that series.

5. I have all three of MJ Rose's Butterfield Institute series. I've started book 1 twice now, but put it down.

6. I picked up Lisa Jackson's latest hardback "Lost Souls" on Saturday.

7. and The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. It looked interesting, about the cholera outbreak in London in 1854.

8. I started reading "Beautiful Children" by Charles Bock a few weeks ago, but it didn't really grab me, so I switched to something else. I may go back to it after I've read all of my others.

9. I still need to finish the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony. I've read the first three of seven.

10. I started George Orwell's 1984 too. That one's so small, I need to just finish it.

11. and The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dalhquist. That one's HUGE and lost my interest about 1/3 into it.

12. I have Ghost Story by Peter Straub

13. and Velocity by Dean Koontz

14. and TONS of Meditation and Buddhist books I read from time to time. I love reading the Dalai Lama's books.

I think that's it for now. I have about 20-something waiting to be read. Wow - I didn't realize it was that many -- I need to hop to it!

Letter from CS Lewis

I just had to share this...

I'm reading the Chronicles of Narnia for the first time, starting with The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. CS Lewis wrote the following dedication for the book:

To Lucy Barfield...

My Dear Lucy,

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be

your affectionate Godfather,

CS Lewis


One of my favorite sayings (and I have it on my blog profile) is "we don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing." Maybe it's because I get my name from Wendy in Peter Pan or maybe because I'm a tad obsessed with Alice in Wonderland, but I don't think we're ever too old for fairy tales. The world can be a magical place filled with fairies and unicorns, trolls and elves, princesses and godmothers, witches and warlocks, and all sorts of mythical creatures and characters. You just have to believe in the magic that's all around and inside each of us.

The little things

I love the little things that make you smile & giggle... Like when my boss called my cell phone at lunch, and the ringtone I've set for the office is "Take This Job and Shove It"... makes me giggle every time... Same thing when my mother calls and the evil emperor's Imperial March from Star Wars plays...

I want a dog

I've been in a total dog mood lately. I want a puppy! Well, I think I want a puppy...

Hubby says no. We already have 3 cats, and besides he doesn't think I'll like owning a dog. He says I like the idea of having a dog, but I wouldn't actually enjoy having a dog. I don't have the patience for a dog. Which is right I think. I really am a cat person.

Anyway... so I told my friend that I want a puppy and I was trying to figure out which breed to get... he sent me a link to the "Pet-O-Matic". It's a little quiz where you answer several questions and it tells you which type of animal is best for you as a pet. Great! So I'm thinking it'll help me pick out what kind of puppy I want. I entered in my info and it told me... my perfect pet is a CAT. Well I guess that settles it. Even the computer says I'm not a dog person. Oh well, I guess it's not meant to be!

Happy Secretary's Day

So... yesterday was Admin Professionals Day. I didn't get anything. I didn't expect to get anything. That's just my boss.

1-800-flowers.com just delivered a flower arrangement with a Happy Birthday balloon for me! My birthday is in September! I think it's my Secretary's Day present... a day late... and wrong balloon... that's okay, it's the thought that counts right?

Thursday 13 - Places to Visit

Thursday Thirteen is trying out THEME WEEKS. (They're throwing out a subject for you to 13 about.) This week's theme is thirteen places you’ve visited that you’d recommend. So here I go:

1. Fredericksburg Texas - one of my favorite places to disappear for a weekend. German food and my favorite cabin/bed & breakfast. http://www.knoppschoolroad.com/

2. St. Croix US Virgin Islands - I'd live there if I could.

3. New Orleans - what can I say, it's still home.

4. LAS VEGAS BABY!

5. Key West Florida

6. Keystone Colorado

7. Disneyworld / Orlando Florida

8. Seattle Washington

9. Mississippi Gulf Coast

10. Galveston Texas

11. Mexico

12. San Antonio Texas

13. Houston of course!

Wow... I didn't realize how hard it'd be to come up with 13 different places. I guess I haven't really travelled that much... I need to work on that!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Bumper Sticker of the week 04/22/08

This has always been one of my favorites. I'd sooooo have it on my car, but my mothers would kill me!

Jimmy Buffett, Parrotheads, and Me

Ever been somewhere sometime, you look around and suddenly wonder "what the hell am I doing HERE?" Yeah well that was me last night. Somehow I intentionally bought tickets to a Jimmy Buffett concert. Now don't get me wrong, I like Jimmy Buffett. I mean c'mon you'd have to be a communist or something to not love Jimmy Buffett. His music is so much fun and infectious, you just HAVE to love it. BUT - I was soooo out of my element last night. I thought about it and I can honestly say that I have never once intentionally put on a Jimmy Buffett cd. I don't know the different songs, and I sure as hell don't know the words to the songs. BUT - hubby does, and I love hubby, and this was for him. He had a freaking BLAST last night I'm sure. For the past 12 years I've drug him to all of my stuffy concerts and shows etc - this was his turn.

The gates opened at 6:30pm and the concert started at 8:00pm. If you don't know the Woodlands Pavilion, it's an outdoor arena with a covered seated section, and then this big hill with "lawn seats" (the grassy knoll as we referred to it) where you just plant you butt and that's your seat. We got there about 6:45ish and managed to snag a pretty good spot down towards the front of the hill and then the fun began - the people watching. Umm... wow. Parrotheads are a pretty unique crowd! The crowd spanned from older broke hippies and super rich baby boomers who you know have been going to the concerts since the 70's to the mid-30's professionals/kids of the hippies who grew up with Jimmy, to the college guys/20 something's who routinely get plastered listening to Jimmy, to the ones we couldn't quite figure out - the teenage girls & guys in bathing suits. and I swear this was the biggest freaking love fest I've ever been to - even with the majority of the people drunk before the concert even started, it was still just la-le-la happy times. Of course, I'm sure half of the audience was passing pot around too and that would mellow anyone out but still... And the outfits - OMG! Of course there were parrot & Hawaiian shirts EVERYWHERE - including hubby I might add. People in grass skirts with coconut bra tops (way too many men in that get up - blech!), bikinis and bathing suits, bermuda shorts & Hawaiian shirts, hats of every sort - shark hats, cheeseburger hats, parrot hats, hats with lights, hats with drinks, you name it! People looked like blooming idiots, but no one cared - everyone was just having a great time. Even though I didn't know the music, I still had a blast. I just sat there on the grass, swaying to the beat, laughing at the drunks (again, hubby included) and watching 10,000 of my closest friends dance with their hands like shark fins on their heads.

Weight Loss Vow

Okay - I'm making this official. I mean it this time, I'm sticking with it. I'm putting it in writing so there are witnesses.

I haven't lost any weight since December. I was doing really good last fall after my surgery, lost 30 lbs in three months. Then came the holidays, then vacation, and then it was just plain laziness - but I fell back into my old routines of eating whatever crap I wanted & not exercising. I'm going to gain back what little I've lost so far if I keep this up.

So, no more excuses. Here I go...

- I have an appointment for a band adjustment (which will help tons).

- I'm cutting out the fast food, junk, and sweets.

- I'm going to work out AT LEAST 3 days a week. (I pay for the gym membership, I need to use it.)

- I'm going to drink all of my water.

No more excuses. I've buckled down and done it before - I can do it now. I WILL lose the weight.

Thursday Thirteen 04/17/08

Okay... I'm starting a new thing for my blog... I'm joining the ranks of Thursday Thirteen... So here's my first list...

Thirteen 80's movies I absolutely adore. This is nowhere near a complete list of course, just the first 13 that I could think of:

1. Uncle Buck

2. Tremors

3. Jumpin Jack Flash

4. Sixteen Candles

5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off 6. The Burbs7. Ghostbusters
8. Girls Just Want To Have Fun
9. The Goonies

10. Footloose

11. Real Genius
12. Adventures in Babysitting
13. Beetlejuice

Still alive... still stoned...

Here's my latest health update...

Hubby took me to the ER Monday afternoon. My headache was crippling. I don't think it's hurt that much since I had viral meningitis in 1999. The ER doc gave me an IV cocktail of steroids and pain meds to try to knock it out. It didn't kill the pain completely, but it did dope me up enough that I didn't really care about the pain (which is also a good thing dontcha think?) I'll tell you one thing though, I did not like one of the meds he gave me AT ALL. It really made me just freak out on the insides. Outwardly, I was laying on a gurney, dozing, but inside my head I was battling with myself trying to keep myself down. I got REALLY ansy and just wanted to jump up & run all around the ER. It was really weird. I felt like I was jerking constantly, like having a fit, trying to brush things off of me. But all that was happening on the inside, on the outside, I was laying there happy as a clam. I stayed in the ER for a few hours until the meds could take effect & get the pain under control and then he sent me home to rest. Of course though, the pain came back Monday night as soon as the IV meds wore off -- I just knew that was going to happen.

I went to see my neurologist yesterday - brainstorm with him to see what's causing this and what we can do to make it better. My body has done this before - this is actually my third year in a row to get headaches like this. In the past I've had some sort of health trauma or illness that has thrown my body chemistry off and triggered a migraine. The doc thinks that's the case this time too - that the hand foot & mouth virus triggered the headache. Even though the virus itself is long gone, it really affected my system - stirred up the water so to speak - and it's just going to take time for everything to calm back down and fall back into the correct places. Unfortunately, that means I'll have to deal with the pain until that happens. He told me to stay on my current pain meds and gave me an additional migraine med to take this week. If he's correct and this is definitely just all after-effects of the virus, the meds should take care of it and the headache should be gone completely by Monday. If not, he'll schedule an MRI just to be safe & make sure we don't overlook anything.

Back to the hospital for me

Hubby's on his way to take me to the hospital. I am in SO MUCH PAIN. I've had a killer migraine headache for the last 4 days or so that's just gotten worse. I spent most of the weekend doped up in bed, but my home drugs aren't cutting it anymore. I can't concentrate, can't drive, can barely walk, I'm shaky - you name it. I don't know if is residual from the virus I had, side effects of the steroids/meds my doc has me on or what... but OH MY GOD - I just want the pain to stop, it's horrific.

I'll keep you posted...

Still Under the Weather

Ugh... this week sucks for my family healthwise. I've been battling a killer migraine again for two days... and now my son's school nurse just called - he's in her clinic with an upset stomach... wonderful...

Kendall's Bday Present - SPOILER ALERT

I'm so excited about Kendall's birthday present - I HAVE to share!

**SPOILER ALERT**

Kendall Evan, you don't get this until tomorrow night, so no peeking!!

Kendall, my baby cousin, turned 16 this past Wednesday, April 9th. With it being her Sweet 16, I wanted to give her something special she can cherish, so... I stopped by James Avery, one of the best jewelry stores around, on Wednesday and picked up the beginning pieces for a charm bracelet. I wanted to buy every charm they carried, but of course that was out of the question. So I settled on three: her K initial, a Sweet 16 heart, and a ladybug - for good luck. There were two though that I just couldn't get out of my head and I HAD to go back for them today - a spur and a rose to represent our grandparents. Our grandmother died when Kendall was a month old, and our grandfather when she was three. I know they're both looking down on her from heaven, and this way she can have something special to remind her whenever she needs.

Bumper Sticker of the Week 04/09/08

In honor of my newly returned Battlestar Gallactica...

Sick Last Week... Hand Foot & Mouth Disease

Why can't I get the normal illnesses most other adults get? Why do I always have to be different and unique? As you can tell, I've been MIA for the last week & a half... let me fill you in on all of the fun details...

It started on Sunday March 30th, I suddenly developed a high fever out of the blue, and my throat started to hurt. So, I spent Sunday and Monday snuggled under the covers in bed. My throat was feeling worse on Tuesday and I made an appt to see the doc. My strep test came back negative, but all of my symptoms pointed towards strep, so he decided it must be a different strain of strep and treated me for that anyway. That same day, I noticed a little tiny red spot on my right thumb that made my whole thumb ache like you wouldn't believe. It wasn't anything big enough to even bring to the doc's attention, I thought it was a splinter or something. (Telling him about it later, he agreed that he would've just blown it off since it was just one little bump.) Wednesday morning I woke up with a rash & painful red bumps/blisters/sores all over the palms of my hands, bottoms of my feet, and inside my mouth. I rushed back to the doc first thing that morning and he said it was classic symptoms of Hand Foot & Mouth disease (HFM) - high fever, sore throat, and the rash/bumps. I'd thought of that myself too - my son had HFM when he was three. HFM is a childhood illness, in the chicken pox family. It's spread through contact/dirty hands etc. It's one of the illnesses, like chicken pox, that once you've had it, you should be immune. Unfortunately for me, I'm not immune to the virus that causes all the illnesses in that family -- I've had chicken pox twice, scarlet fever, shingles, herpes on my knee, and now hand foot & mouth. We're thinking my son acted as a carrier and brought the virus home from school or day care -- of course he's immune since he's had it before. So anyway... I was completely miserable on Wednesday -- you don't think about just how painful blisters/sores on your feet & palms and inside your mouth can be. I couldn't walk, could barely handle anything, couldn't eat -- I spent the rest of Wednesday & Thursday on the couch with my feet propped up, eating popsicles. Friday I woke up and the rash had spread everywhere - it was ALL OVER. Plus, my hands were so swollen, several fingernails had turned blue and I'd lost the feeling in those fingertips. So back to the doctor I went. The doc said he still wanted to say it was HFM but he wasn't 100% sure anymore since the rash had spread. With it being Friday and the weekend just around the corner, we both agreed the best thing for me would be to go to the hospital for observation & treatment. Plus, he wanted an infectious disease specialist to see me, and the fastest way to make that happen would be to admit me -- otherwise it would have to wait until the following week. So, by 3:30pm on Friday, I was an official guest of Tomball Hospital. Ever hear of the shotgun approach to medicine? That's where the doc tests for everything and sees what comes back positive -- like shooting a shotgun at a target, SOMETHING has to hit it. I think he ordered one of every blood test possible - the phlebotomist took out 14 tubes of blood! The results from the more standard tests came back normal, but we're still waiting on the more obscure ones - lyme's disease, rocky mountain spotted fever, coxsackie (HFM) virus, hepatitis, even hiv & syphillis. He also set me up with some heavy duty IV antibiotics and steroids. I think it was the steroids that did the trick, because the rash was SIGNIFICANTLY better by the time I woke up on Saturday. The specialist saw me on Saturday too and agreed with my doc that it was HFM. He said the rash had spread and I just had a more severe reaction to it since I'm an adult. (the same thing happens with adults who get chicken pox too, I hear.) Since it IS just a virus, there's not much we can do to treat it. The steroids help with the rash & swelling, but we just have to let the virus run it's course and leave on its own. I'm feeling much better now and the rash is almost completely gone, just the most severe spots on my hands & feet are still here. I'm afraid a few spots will scar, but they're not too bad - pretty small. My throat is scratchy & my voice comes & goes -- I figure that's from the sores in my mouth & throat healing. The worst part right now is the skin has peeled off of my fingertips - the ones that were numb & swollen. They look like I've been burned, and they're SO sensitive. But again, oh well... ce'est la vie!

I have strep... yuck

The doctor said I have strep throat... wonderful...