In less than a 24 hour period, starting night before last at around 7, I got a phone call from Lucas and Kristen in a very-only mamma-can-fix crisis, talked long and deep with both of them, had a heart-to-heart-decision-making conference with Paul about coming here, booked a ticket, packed my bags, called Julia to see if she had ANYTHING better going on than to pick me up at Houston Hobby the next day and drive me to Bryan/College Station from whence I came into the world and my heart and soul have dwelled ever since, went to bed at 10:30, got up at 5:00 a.m., airport at 6 on the runway at 7:30, drooled all the way until the pilot announced we were 110 miles from Houston at which time I began to bawl my eyes out as I finally realized that I was landing in my heart and soul within minutes after 6 way too long years since my last visit (which amounted to only a few hours in the last 20 years) to Mecca, deplaned, called Julia who drove around to get me, went on the grand tour of her Northwest Houston fabulous home, stop at the first Whataburger in sight, drove to B/CS, drove to Lucas and Kristen's, hugged/kissed, Julia and I took the historic tour of our elementary schools, our childhood homes (mine was elongated by bouts of hysterical, sentimental crying jags, usually 10-15 minutes each), onto Cindy's house (known her since we were 4?...do the math...no help from me-info in past posts will give obvious hints and definite numbers to work with) for a 20 year catch-up, back to Lucas and Kristen's by 6 p.m., change into warmer clothes, Lucas, Kristen, and I take a long memory (and new) walk through campus to North Gate to land at Mecca II (and supplemental address growing up starting at 15)...The Dixie Chicken where I had no less than a deep spiritual renewal (I'm really not shittin' about any of this) of Shiner beer, London Home Sick Blues, Willie, Waylan and the boys, chicken fried steak, and, OF COURSE several games of pool where Kristen sucked up nicely by "letting" me win-I was ON MY GAME, back to the casa for side-splitting, poop-in-your-pants, on-the-floor-rolling-in-tears laughing attack provided by JustAskDoug (a buddy's dad of K/L on YouTube), (Shiner and other "alterations" enhance the experience), 1/2 hour to regain composure, get in jammies, into bed (we all had to "sleep" in the same room because of security-more on that later, especially in the screenplay which I worked on in my head most of the night), and, finally, after no one getting any sleep mostly because of me and "Doug" (remember, I told y'all to watch Multiplicity asap), up and ready to kick some ass on a long list of gettin' these two sweeties back on track. Knowing I don't need to say so, but will, of course anyway, there will be much more and many more details, photos, fill-in-the-blanks, and off to Austin tomorrow for New Year's Eve, meeting The Great Doug and yet-to-be-critically-fully-assessed, Carol (things are looking good for her and the Oscar buzz has definitely hit Highland Street in College Station, TX. Kudos and a bow if you followed some of this, a free 72 oz. chicken fried steak if you absorbed it all. I'm just guessing that I don't need to tease you with a "stay tuned", I think I've got y'all by the b's. As Morgan Freeman and Jim Carey would say, "It's good". I'm in cotton.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Yeeeeeee Stinkin' Hawwwwwwwwwwwww
In less than a 24 hour period, starting night before last at around 7, I got a phone call from Lucas and Kristen in a very-only mamma-can-fix crisis, talked long and deep with both of them, had a heart-to-heart-decision-making conference with Paul about coming here, booked a ticket, packed my bags, called Julia to see if she had ANYTHING better going on than to pick me up at Houston Hobby the next day and drive me to Bryan/College Station from whence I came into the world and my heart and soul have dwelled ever since, went to bed at 10:30, got up at 5:00 a.m., airport at 6 on the runway at 7:30, drooled all the way until the pilot announced we were 110 miles from Houston at which time I began to bawl my eyes out as I finally realized that I was landing in my heart and soul within minutes after 6 way too long years since my last visit (which amounted to only a few hours in the last 20 years) to Mecca, deplaned, called Julia who drove around to get me, went on the grand tour of her Northwest Houston fabulous home, stop at the first Whataburger in sight, drove to B/CS, drove to Lucas and Kristen's, hugged/kissed, Julia and I took the historic tour of our elementary schools, our childhood homes (mine was elongated by bouts of hysterical, sentimental crying jags, usually 10-15 minutes each), onto Cindy's house (known her since we were 4?...do the math...no help from me-info in past posts will give obvious hints and definite numbers to work with) for a 20 year catch-up, back to Lucas and Kristen's by 6 p.m., change into warmer clothes, Lucas, Kristen, and I take a long memory (and new) walk through campus to North Gate to land at Mecca II (and supplemental address growing up starting at 15)...The Dixie Chicken where I had no less than a deep spiritual renewal (I'm really not shittin' about any of this) of Shiner beer, London Home Sick Blues, Willie, Waylan and the boys, chicken fried steak, and, OF COURSE several games of pool where Kristen sucked up nicely by "letting" me win-I was ON MY GAME, back to the casa for side-splitting, poop-in-your-pants, on-the-floor-rolling-in-tears laughing attack provided by JustAskDoug (a buddy's dad of K/L on YouTube), (Shiner and other "alterations" enhance the experience), 1/2 hour to regain composure, get in jammies, into bed (we all had to "sleep" in the same room because of security-more on that later, especially in the screenplay which I worked on in my head most of the night), and, finally, after no one getting any sleep mostly because of me and "Doug" (remember, I told y'all to watch Multiplicity asap), up and ready to kick some ass on a long list of gettin' these two sweeties back on track. Knowing I don't need to say so, but will, of course anyway, there will be much more and many more details, photos, fill-in-the-blanks, and off to Austin tomorrow for New Year's Eve, meeting The Great Doug and yet-to-be-critically-fully-assessed, Carol (things are looking good for her and the Oscar buzz has definitely hit Highland Street in College Station, TX. Kudos and a bow if you followed some of this, a free 72 oz. chicken fried steak if you absorbed it all. I'm just guessing that I don't need to tease you with a "stay tuned", I think I've got y'all by the b's. As Morgan Freeman and Jim Carey would say, "It's good". I'm in cotton.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
I have green fingernails and a new camera.
A combo post of where I left off June 24th when I went from pondering a manicure and pedicure to frying all my hair off all the way to getting a new camera for Christmas.
Confused? Why? If I can keep up then anyone should be able to. I, blog-before-last, shared that I got a new camera for Christmas. Then yesterday I finally followed through with that oh so long ago stream of consciousness to have a manicure and pedicure which lead to today's experiment to see how the new camera is working out. Up to date? Being...well...me, and paying for a m/p, I decided to go as far from norm as possible and choose the green over the rusty red that Wonderfully Fun Emma had suggested. It looks like the true color and the clarity is better than the old camera...
...one of my fave pieces of Mellie's art that I've never been able to quite capture as desired but looks good here...
...and I know, yada yada yada, how many times can you photograph the same freaking holiday house? Well I wanted to also do an apples to apples test. I think it's an improvement...looks like the new camera might be a keeper...wadayathink? This is yea or nay, not a vote for or against Pedro...fyi.
Confused? Why? If I can keep up then anyone should be able to. I, blog-before-last, shared that I got a new camera for Christmas. Then yesterday I finally followed through with that oh so long ago stream of consciousness to have a manicure and pedicure which lead to today's experiment to see how the new camera is working out. Up to date? Being...well...me, and paying for a m/p, I decided to go as far from norm as possible and choose the green over the rusty red that Wonderfully Fun Emma had suggested. It looks like the true color and the clarity is better than the old camera...
...one of my fave pieces of Mellie's art that I've never been able to quite capture as desired but looks good here...
...and I know, yada yada yada, how many times can you photograph the same freaking holiday house? Well I wanted to also do an apples to apples test. I think it's an improvement...looks like the new camera might be a keeper...wadayathink? This is yea or nay, not a vote for or against Pedro...fyi.Saturday, December 27, 2008
Blame it on Charlotte
Or, actually I should say, give Charlotte the credit. 
During one of Charlotte Lyons' classes in Omaha where she was teaching us how to make little paper holiday houses, she happened to mention that her book club had read Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, as shown below. Well, Charlotte being one of my critically selected gurus, I saw fit to purchase said book the first opportunity it presented itself which just happened to come directly in my line of vision on a soon-after trip to Targette.
And, like a good listener, I proceeded to start on it immediately and, also immediately, fell under its spell. Charlotte had said that it was a great, easy read, and she was right-on in my opinion. As I read I began to ponder the "book club" aspect of her sharing this with the class. I've always wanted to be in a book club but, just like wanting to be picked first for the basketball team (Julia, I think we were usually the last two standing...nonathletic or artistic savants?), I've never been asked. Well we all know the answer to that-durrrr-start one. So I did/am. The trigger that made me finally pull was that the BOOK CLUB READER'S GUIDE is in the back of the book. Again, durrr. Okay, so there's a little more point to this that I'll try to make in my not-so-usual short story/short story instead of short story/endless. Yesterday was a very deep day. The day started off with a dream that lasted from somewhere around 2 a.m. until I finally got up at 8:45 a.m. needing to open the shop at 10. I won't indulge/bore (except to say it had to do with seemingly unfinished business with an ex boyfriend from very long ago) you with the details but it was truly that long as I kept waking on and off checking the clock and every time I woke then went back to sleep the same dream continued (same thing happened again this morning but we'll save that for the institute for now). Next, as I sped to work at an irresponsible speed, I got a call from Aziz (perhaps more on him later; for now he's my good friend who was a super-star at U of MD and played pro football and I got to know him a few years ago and he'd kill me for mentioning his past accolades but I can't help it, I'm Texan) who is very spiritual and deep and cool and intelligent and great company and wonderful to converse with. We usually say hi, how are ya' then we are knee deep in religion, politics, race...some sort of deep life question subject and, usually, in no less than an hour a pop. No different yesterday-right to it except I had to ring off to help the first customer of the day who turned out to be the twit of the year and was so not worth leaving the middle of a great convo to talk to. Even in spite of my lateness, sped, and intensity of our exchange, I told him I could feel my heart rate and demeaner slow down and become calm just hearing his voice; he's enlightened. Later in the day, Jody was in and another (MUCH BETTER QUALITY) customer was in and we three got into some pretty heavy discussion regarding, let's simplify it by saying, life and death. Then things turned to the state of "generational curse", as in every generation gets worse. Jody shared how overwhelmed she felt that things were spinning out of control as far as mostly our principals and priorities were concerned. Herein lies my point-Yahooooooooooooo!, I can just hear y'all saying. I said the old adage, "think globally, act locally", then added, "join a book club" (to which she'd already been invited). As my wise friend, Julia, pointed out to me so clearly somewhere around the post "30 Years for a Bounced Check", you can't save the world by trying to save the world. You can only start with yourself then move outward to your family, neighborhood, friends, etc. And, I have to say, I was preaching to the choir because Jody and her sister, Marcy, who lead our shop group, are very good about community outreach and allowing the members of our shop to participate whenever possible in so many different areas of need. My point was to get back to simple, basic things and simple, basic communion with friends be it a book club or quilting club or dinner club or whatEVER. And, since I haven't mentioned it in a couple of posts, please consider checking out MaryJanesFarm website, blog, and/or magazines which addresses exactly these issues if these are also on your mind frequently. And just like Forest Gump, that's all I have to say about that except, thank you, Charlotte.
During one of Charlotte Lyons' classes in Omaha where she was teaching us how to make little paper holiday houses, she happened to mention that her book club had read Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, as shown below. Well, Charlotte being one of my critically selected gurus, I saw fit to purchase said book the first opportunity it presented itself which just happened to come directly in my line of vision on a soon-after trip to Targette.
And, like a good listener, I proceeded to start on it immediately and, also immediately, fell under its spell. Charlotte had said that it was a great, easy read, and she was right-on in my opinion. As I read I began to ponder the "book club" aspect of her sharing this with the class. I've always wanted to be in a book club but, just like wanting to be picked first for the basketball team (Julia, I think we were usually the last two standing...nonathletic or artistic savants?), I've never been asked. Well we all know the answer to that-durrrr-start one. So I did/am. The trigger that made me finally pull was that the BOOK CLUB READER'S GUIDE is in the back of the book. Again, durrr. Okay, so there's a little more point to this that I'll try to make in my not-so-usual short story/short story instead of short story/endless. Yesterday was a very deep day. The day started off with a dream that lasted from somewhere around 2 a.m. until I finally got up at 8:45 a.m. needing to open the shop at 10. I won't indulge/bore (except to say it had to do with seemingly unfinished business with an ex boyfriend from very long ago) you with the details but it was truly that long as I kept waking on and off checking the clock and every time I woke then went back to sleep the same dream continued (same thing happened again this morning but we'll save that for the institute for now). Next, as I sped to work at an irresponsible speed, I got a call from Aziz (perhaps more on him later; for now he's my good friend who was a super-star at U of MD and played pro football and I got to know him a few years ago and he'd kill me for mentioning his past accolades but I can't help it, I'm Texan) who is very spiritual and deep and cool and intelligent and great company and wonderful to converse with. We usually say hi, how are ya' then we are knee deep in religion, politics, race...some sort of deep life question subject and, usually, in no less than an hour a pop. No different yesterday-right to it except I had to ring off to help the first customer of the day who turned out to be the twit of the year and was so not worth leaving the middle of a great convo to talk to. Even in spite of my lateness, sped, and intensity of our exchange, I told him I could feel my heart rate and demeaner slow down and become calm just hearing his voice; he's enlightened. Later in the day, Jody was in and another (MUCH BETTER QUALITY) customer was in and we three got into some pretty heavy discussion regarding, let's simplify it by saying, life and death. Then things turned to the state of "generational curse", as in every generation gets worse. Jody shared how overwhelmed she felt that things were spinning out of control as far as mostly our principals and priorities were concerned. Herein lies my point-Yahooooooooooooo!, I can just hear y'all saying. I said the old adage, "think globally, act locally", then added, "join a book club" (to which she'd already been invited). As my wise friend, Julia, pointed out to me so clearly somewhere around the post "30 Years for a Bounced Check", you can't save the world by trying to save the world. You can only start with yourself then move outward to your family, neighborhood, friends, etc. And, I have to say, I was preaching to the choir because Jody and her sister, Marcy, who lead our shop group, are very good about community outreach and allowing the members of our shop to participate whenever possible in so many different areas of need. My point was to get back to simple, basic things and simple, basic communion with friends be it a book club or quilting club or dinner club or whatEVER. And, since I haven't mentioned it in a couple of posts, please consider checking out MaryJanesFarm website, blog, and/or magazines which addresses exactly these issues if these are also on your mind frequently. And just like Forest Gump, that's all I have to say about that except, thank you, Charlotte.Thursday, December 25, 2008
It's all good...
Sorry, but I gotta put this here. In a lot of ways it represents how I feel about how we celebrate Christmas. If I had my way, a big house would be rented somewhere neutral where all family members (which includes friends who are also family, of course)-detached, divorced, deranged-nice, nutty, neutral-good looking, good cooking, good company-bad looking, bad cooking, bad company-okay you get the picture...anywayyyyyyyyy...all family plus, together. Pick names or each person receives ONE gift; church, no church;-Allah, LaLa, whomever; dvds, music, dinners together, food out all the time; do what ever when ever just in the reach of others most of the time. Very much akin to The Famous Hicks' Three Days of Thanksgiving Annual Event in Pebble Beach for, how many?, 10?, 15? years. Which means don't forget the volleyball net. But since technically nor informally have I been made God, boss, or president, here's how our "Christmas" went...and God bless the day I get my way...until then Vote for Pedro.
Fortunately we'd been pretty good this year so instead of...umm...not good stuff, we got great stuff. 
And seconds after his first dig in, opening his stocking from Santa.
My sister gave me the COOLEST book...above is the cover...and below is one of the pages. I loved it because I actually have the same JFK salt and pepper set that is used in the assemblage below which, of course, puts me in the same rock-star-artist that the author is-right? But the book itself rocks all on its own; it's the greatest. Her other gift for me was one of Mary Engelbreit's books knowing I'd just met her and I didn't have that book. Everything I got was so special...continue to enjoy...
...here's all the great booty I got today. Matt and I had been fighting over the one pair of sleep blinders that we had so he picked these out for me himself; he said as soon as he saw the "Lamb Chop" look of these he knew they were the right ones! He so knows me! AND Paul got me a new camera BEFORE I mentioned yesterday how it seemed like it was about time for me to get a new one as mine seemed to be getting less crisp and not working as well (these photos were taken with Paul's camera). So between Will tuning up my laptop and getting a new camera I'm so going to be in your blog face with new crisp photos and lightning speed typing and downloading. Uh huh, Happy New Year!
Fortunately we'd been pretty good this year so instead of...umm...not good stuff, we got great stuff. Here's Matt (you aren't missing the Homer Simpson slippers, are you?) seconds away from starting the dig in.
And seconds after his first dig in, opening his stocking from Santa.
My sister gave me the COOLEST book...above is the cover...and below is one of the pages. I loved it because I actually have the same JFK salt and pepper set that is used in the assemblage below which, of course, puts me in the same rock-star-artist that the author is-right? But the book itself rocks all on its own; it's the greatest. Her other gift for me was one of Mary Engelbreit's books knowing I'd just met her and I didn't have that book. Everything I got was so special...continue to enjoy...
...here's all the great booty I got today. Matt and I had been fighting over the one pair of sleep blinders that we had so he picked these out for me himself; he said as soon as he saw the "Lamb Chop" look of these he knew they were the right ones! He so knows me! AND Paul got me a new camera BEFORE I mentioned yesterday how it seemed like it was about time for me to get a new one as mine seemed to be getting less crisp and not working as well (these photos were taken with Paul's camera). So between Will tuning up my laptop and getting a new camera I'm so going to be in your blog face with new crisp photos and lightning speed typing and downloading. Uh huh, Happy New Year! Tuesday, December 23, 2008
In the meantime...
...I've been accepted into LolliShops!!!! And in between cooking giant meals, helping load cars onto trailers, and all manner of moving support, I've been making new art for my soon-to-be LolliShops shop. Not to worry, I'll let you know as soon as I'm on. Until then here are some sneak peeks: 
Stay tuned, it will probably be the weekend before I have the time to start uploading fab items for Lolli goodies. Until then, have a beautiful, merry Christmas!!!!
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