I’m so sorry things are going so SLOW with the remodel. I know that must be absolutely the most trying thing you’ve gone through in awhile. But try to look at it this way … just think how nice it will be once it’s OVER. Ha!

And yes, we’ve had some nice weather the past couple of weeks. Couldn’t resist pointing that out to you! Sorry! Anyway, usually January and February are our worst months but not so far. Of course, that kinda bothers me because I keep waiting for the bad stuff, you know? It’s kinda like when hurricane season starts here … we’ve dodged the bullet far too long and we got lucky with Rita. So now we all keep waiting for THE BIG ONE to hit but at the same time, hoping it misses us again.

Well gotta get outta here for now. Glad you’re doing okay, MD.

I thought California was suppose to be like that!

I wish the remodel was done…today the crew finally showed up to work on the outside. They had to keep putting it off due to the weather, they are going to re stucco the entire house new and old. So they got here in the morning and they have to put this blue glue all over the old part of the house so the stucco will stick I guess. The glue is this bright blue ( not bad looking ) but about an hour ago here comes the storm…..plastic over all the windows and rain running the blue glue all over the place! They finally threw in the towel and left, I’m about ready to jump ship with them!! But there is good news, the hardwood floor guys are working on the inside and are almost done so I guess things are coming along. I will keep you updated. Hope everybody is well.

Erica recently bought a gerbil … Chloe is her name. She’s solid black and a busy little thing most of the time. My cat, Jasmine, loves to watch Chloe in her cage. I guess it’s something instinctual about cats and rodents. Funny thing is, though, Jasmine never tries to poke her paw through the cage. She just stares at Chloe … up close. And Chloe ignores her now. But at first, Chloe would cower in the corner of her cage farthest away from Jasmine. Now, Chloe runs hither and yon in the cage, climbs up what’s left of her ladder (another story!) into her wheel where she runs for about a minute and then comes back down.

A week or so ago, Erica got tired of having Chloe in her room because Chloe seems to be a night owl and likes to run while Erica (and the rest of the house) is trying to sleep. So we moved Chloe to the living room and I placed her cage beside the TV. I snapped this picture of Jasmine doing her staring “thing” this morning. I’m always looking for ways to show off my Jasmine cat … because she’s beautiful … and this was an interesting way.

BTW, MDavey … take a close look at the TV screen in the picture. The weather report for the next 5 days just happened to be on when I snapped the picture … it’s 77 degrees today.

MDavey: Just checking on you to see if everything is okay. Haven’t heard from you in awhile. Hope the remodeling is coming to an end. Check in when you get time.

Erica is still determined to go to the Military Ball without Eddie. Not sure where even their friendship stands at this moment. Being crazy and hanging out is okay but being crazy all the time could be too much for her. Then again, maybe it’s PMS time! Ha!

Well let’s see … the weather here has finally turned cooler. The last few days have been beautiful! Temps in the high 60’s and lots of sunshine. There are 2 people from Bergen, Norway who are at my workplace this week and next. They’re from the home office. I’ve been noticing that everyday after they return from lunch, one of them stays outside and talks on her cell phone for about 10 or 15 minutes. I think she’s enjoying the sunshine and “warm” temperatures. She said the temperatures in Bergen this time of year are around 15 degrees. I don’t think there’s not a lot of sunshine this time of year there either. This may be the time of year when they have long nights or something.

Well nothing else is new for now. Our weekend weather is supposed to turn nasty … rain most of the day Saturday. Sounds like a good opportunity to curl up on the couch with my afghan and finish reading my latest murder mystery book!

Goodness! There is always drama of one sort or another around my house with an 18-year old (almost 19) daughter. Most of it is good, though, so I’m not really complaining. But this last thing that happened … which I’ll tell you about shortly … had Mike and I rolling on the floor laughing!

Okay, so Military Ball is coming up the weekend of February 4th … and since Erica is now an alumni, she can go to the ball if she wants to. Plus, she was crowned Queen her junior year and it’s kinda been tradition that the former Queens go back each year.

So she goes shopping Monday night and picks out a really pretty black dress … very classy, which is what she was aiming for. She didn’t want that “prom” look since she’s no longer in school, you know. Anyway … a month or so ago she invited her friend Eddie to go as her date to the ball. Eddie said yes and he and his stepbrother Clint (who happens to be dating Erica’s best friend Alisha) were making plans. Well Eddie and Clint decide it’ll be fun to play a joke on Erica. Or at least they thought it would be fun! Ha! So here’s what they did:

Clint calls Erica and tells her that Eddie has decided he’s not going with Erica. Instead he’s going to go with Heather (who graduated a few years ago). Erica didn’t realize they were pulling a prank on her. Well this went over like stink on poo-poo with Erica for a couple of reasons. First of all, she was counting on Eddie to be her date for the evening. But worst of all, back when she was in 8th grade and going steady with a boy named J.L. who was in ROTC … J.L. dumped Erica 2 weeks before Military Ball so he could take … yep, you guessed it … so he could take Heather! It was like dejavu for Erica and it made her hopping mad!

So she gave Clint a not so nice message to convey to to Eddie and hung up. In the meantime, she called another friend of hers (Piere, who graduated 2 years ago) and said “My date for military ball just dumped me. Would you be my escort for the evening?” Which, of course, he was happy to do for her. (Let’s face it … she’s got guys waiting in the “wings” if you know what I mean!)

So within a short while, Eddie called Erica and told her he had just been kidding and joking. And she told him “Too bad … when I hung up awhile ago I thought you were serious so I called Piere and asked him to go with me. Maybe you should go with Heather after all since she doesn’t have a date yet anyway.”

Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee

Now Eddie and Clint are trying to get Erica to change her mind and still go with Eddie … which she’s not going to do. At least Piere will be a good date for her. He’ll pay her tons of attention (he always has) and dote on her every single minute.

Erica said Eddie and Clint need to grow up … I think I have to agree with her on this one! Ha! But it’s been fun watching everything unfold anyway!

Such drama, such drama. Save the drama for yo momma! Hee hee hee hee hee

Well, we’re two days into the week. Sure hope yours has been good so far. Mine has been fine. Other than my sciatica hurting me like h*ll, I’m okay. I guess I’m going to have to end up going to the doctor. I’ve put it off because I’m afraid he’ll tell me there’s something worse wrong, like a bulging disk or something.

If ya’ll get a chance, check in and let me know how things are going.

Me, Momma and Glenda … Momma was in a good frame of mind this weekend. She actually knew who I was and called me by name. That made me feel good!

My sister and brother in law have Longhorns … after all, this IS Texas, you know.

This is Samantha, the kitty cat … she is Mocha’s mother. (Mocha is Chase’s new kitten)

I took this picture of a water tower in Winchester, Texas just because I thought it was cute!

This is a collage of pictures I took of my cousin Michelle’s new house. She had a steel building put on her property. One half of it is her house. The other half is a garage, and I DO mean a garage. She restores old cars and this is the perfect place for her to work on them. Anyway, I wanted to take pictures of the house part so my hubby could see how it ended up looking. I thought it was a pretty cool idea to incorporate all that together in one building. And if you look closely at the picture of the outside, it’s made to look pretty much like a house. Michelle said there was a lot of “speculation” as it was being built … the neighbors didn’t know what it was going to be. Some said they heard it was going to be a restaurant and bar. Others said they heard it was going to be a dance hall … I’m sure it gave the old folks quite a lot to talk about for awhile!

Happy Birthday to my Mother. She is 93 years old today. Although her mind is ravaged with Alzheimer’s, and she doesn’t realize today is her birthday, I will wish her a happy one anyway.

Happy birthday, Momma …

I just got through watching some unfolding news on TV. Seems a guy was running from the police. The car chase had been going on for 2 hours … the news copter following the whole thing.

Apparently the guy was in a restaurant on the north side of Houston and got a little rowdy. I think he was making racial slurs and management asked him to leave. He wouldn’t so they called the police. In the meantime, he took his camera out and started taking pictures of the restaurant. When the police got there, he took off in his BMW … and get this … the guy is a British citizen! Maybe that’s why he wouldn’t stop for the police. Maybe he thought he didn’t have to because he wasn’t an American. Who knows?

Finally the “bad guy” ends up going the WRONG DIRECTION on the ramp of the freeway. Yep, you guessed it. He hit a car head on, but mostly on the driver’s side. There was a 50 year old woman driving, her adult daughter was on the passenger side, and the daughter had an 8-month old baby in a carseat in the back.

So while the news copter is filming all this, the adult daughter hops out of the car and is so mad at the bad guy that she practically vaults over the hood of her mom’s smashed car, and runs to the driver window of the car the bad guy was in and starts beating on the window with her fists. Although we could not hear what she was saying, I’m sure she had a few choice words! Ha! Then she remembered her baby in the back seat and went to check on her … turns out the baby was okay. Then she starts to head back to the bad guy’s car and about that time the police cars pull up and the cops get out with their guns drawn. She backed off … smart decision, I’m thinking. Ha! But anyway, they ended up taking her mother to the hospital by ambulance but they think she just has minor injuries.

Anyway, I was thinking that maybe the bad guy should be happy that it was the police who finally got to him instead of that woman … ’cause she was plenty mad! No telling what she’d have done to him if she could have dragged him out of his car before the police arrived!

Might have beat him to a pulp, is what I’m guessing …. here’s a picture of the accident I pulled off ABC’s local website …

The silver car is the one the woman was driving.

My poor computer! It’s been sick with a virus and it’s all my fault. I like to play online games like Jewel Drop and Wheel of Fortune and I think one of those sites infected the computer. So I guess I’m going to have to buy the game(s) and play them off CD-ROM’s or something if I want to continue. Anyway, I was off-line for a day, missed a lot of emails, and now they’re all arriving at the same time!

Well this weekend I plan to go to Giddings to spend some time with my sister and to visit my mother. Since I’m working mornings this week I might just head up there Friday afternoon instead of waiting until Saturday morning. My mother seems to be better in the morning hours so my visits with her will be early, probably right after her breakfast. Last time I saw her was a couple of weeks ago and it was lunch time. She was really out of it.

Erica is settling into her new job at Kids Club and says she enjoys it. She says its nice having regular hours where she can have a social life. No nights. No weekends. And believe me, Erica is definitely the social butterfly type. Now she’s getting ready for JROTC Military Ball in February. Even though she’s out of high school and no longer in the program, she was crowned Military Ball Queen in 2004 so as an alumni she’s expected to return each year. She’s going shopping next week to buy a new dress … not like she doesn’t have any already. She’s got 7 formals but of course, she can’t wear those again because everyone has seen them. You know how it is! Hee hee hee! And the night of the ball she will don her tiara once again and be Cinderella. She’s asked her friend Eddie (age 21) to be her date for the night. Eddie is even buying a brand, new suit for the occasion since it’s a formal affair. Guess he can’t wear an old suit either! Ha! They’ll be cute together. I’ll take pictures and make sure I post them here.

Gotta go. Check in when you get time.

Yeah, this is Erica (at the bottom … laying down) and a few friends. You see, we have this empty lot across the street from our house. It’s a small baseball field and it’s next to the community pool. It makes a great football field and an even greater one when it’s raining. We even built a snowman out there Christmas 2004. Yep … it’s messy …

Well Erica left a short while ago to take her friend, Kristin, back to U.T. Arlington. Clint (Alisha’s boyfriend) is going with her and Kristin. Alisha lives in Arlington and after Erica and Clint drop off Kristin, they will stay at Alisha’s parents house. I wanted Clint to go so Erica wouldn’t have to drive back all by herself. I let her take my Mustang since it’s more road worthy than her Grand Am.

Other than that, I’ve been cleaning out our bedroom closet this morning and tossing away things I haven’t used in the last year. Now I need to make a Wal-Mart run and get some storage boxes to organize the left over stuff. So it’s been a busy morning for me.

Anyway, everybody have a good weekend and I’ll talk to ya’ll later.

Well, in case you didn’t notice, I have a new layout here. I asked Chase to make the “Whine Bar” the first page people see when they visit my website. Then I decided, what the heck, just let him get rid of the other pages and only leave the Whine Bar and the Photo Gallery. I also asked him to put my picture on the page.

Anyway, if you ever want to look at pictures, or if I ever tell you I put them in the Photo Gallery, you can click on the link to take you there by scrolling down and looking on the left-hand side of the Whine Bar. You’ll see the link for the Photo Gallery there.

My natural color is red so maybe that’s why it doesn’t look too awful. I guess I got the red hair from my daddy’s side of the family since a couple of my 1st cousins have red hair. Anyway … thanks. I’m still getting used to seeing myself this way! Ha!

It looks great Sara, some people can’t do red hair very well but it looks very good on you.

Oh my goodness! I just checked my email and found a message from a friend … he has left his wife for another woman. I would never have thought it would happen to them! And his wife was recently in a terrible car accident in Louisiana … she was hit head on by an 18-wheeler. Thankfully all that happened (listen to me … “all that happened” … yeah, right!) … anyway all that happened was that it crushed both her legs and she had surgery with pins, screws and plates put in her legs. I’m still in shock. Life never ceases to amaze me.

You’re so right about land prices in California. They’ve been out of control for a long time from what I’ve heard. Anyway as far as our little 5 acres go, I suppose we could live there when we retire but we really don’t want to hassle with it. The main reason is that Mike has a stepbrother that has 40 acres adjacent to ours and we just would rather live out our days not having to deal with him. Of course, I’m sure when he discovers we’re selling the 5 acres, he’ll probably want them … but the problem is that he’s going to want us to give it to him. I seriously doubt he’ll be happy if he has to pay fair market price. He’ll try to use the old “since I’m family you should give me a break” deal. Not gonna happen!

Nice to hear the rain has slacked off some. I was beginning to think maybe we’d have to come rescue ya’ll with a boat! LOL

8 to 10 K an acre!! Sign me up!! I just cant get over the prices back there, I have been trying to buy the 2 acres right next door to me but the guy doesn’t want to sell just yet, but he’s thinking 300k for the 2 acres…….yes I was speechless as well. California is out of hand. No rain today it was sunny and clear, they said more rain in a few days and the levee down the street is still dangerously full…..see Mary should have let me buy a boat instead of remodeling…lol