Schlitterbahn August 2008

Aunt Mimi took Adri & Ean to Schltterbahn and I got invited to tag along ’cause Uncle Adrian couldn’t go!  Bad for Uncle Adrian – All good for me! 

So, we’re driving along and the boys go “Hey, Look at this!”  I turn around and see the boys rendition of “Girls fighting” —

slap, slap…”Oh, stop, stop.  Squeel, Shriek, whatever…”

Oh Brother Boys…pretty funny actually!!!

Fiesta Texas – August 2008

This post is about one of those perfect August days that I intended to blog about but am just now getting around to doing so.  Hannah and Claire and I spent the day together earlier this month at Fiesta Texas all by ourselves!  What a fun day we had. 

We swam and we swam and we swam and then we swam some more!  Those two little girls are crazy fun!  We started the morning on the water side of the park with the intent of heading over to the kiddie rides in the afternoon.  Well, the water side kept us busy until 4 pm, at which time, I literally had to drag the girls off for a picnic, change of clothes and semi-break!  By the time we were through with that and got back into the swing (literally!) of things, it was 6pm! 

Hannah braved the water slides and loved it, mastering it all alone!  Claire tried the water slide once and that was enough for her (LOL).  Her favorite water park activity was the wave pool and then, of course, they both loved the lazy river and the waterfalls.  They both decided to brave the Scooby Doo Haunted House ride ’shooting’ all the spooks – Hannah got the most points of course and Claire couldn’t stop giggling when we exited and she saw our picture up in lights!  Then, Claire braved a picture with the REAL Scooby Doo — and wouldn’t you know — in true vacation fashion — my camera batteries went out!  Phooeey…I sooooo need a good camera…hint hint to anyone reading this blog who loves me and can’t figure out what to buy me one day for a surprise!  Hmmm — Note to self: get Sarah to show me how to find a cute, creative – Wish You Would Buy Me A Camera Button widget for my blog!!!

We finished off the evening with a ride on the carousel which was the perfect ending ride for nighttimes because of all the lights and music.  Claire was ECSTATIC at finding of a PINK HORSE with a PINK SADDLE and, Hannah was quite subtle in being pleased with her LEAD horse with a RED saddle.  She said, as she turned to look at us, “I’m Queen Susan (of Narnia fame) and I’m in front because I’m bigger!”  Okay Hannah, you get to win…Claire’s too busy watching her reflection in the carousel mirror, watching and grinning from ear to ear as she goes up and down in true pink fashion!  It’s all good!

I thought the girls would fall asleep in the dark on the grass watching the light show and fireworks.  They were exhausted.  Not so.  They clapped and sang and acted like all the other crazy Fiesta Texas tourists and we giggled ourselves silly.  They walked — I didn’t have to carry anyone — all the way back to the entrance/exit and found a sidewalk salesman with just the perfect light up wares to buy, bought their brothers a couple of cool jawbreakers and off to Gramcy’s house we went.

So.  They fell asleep in the car, right?  Nope, well, only for about 10 minutes.  Then, it was all good to go back at the apartment for staying up all night – except that Gramcy conked out on the foot of the bed and the little girls weren’t long in following — I think they fell asleep with giggles running loose on the pillows.  LOl!

The longterm reward?  Last week one day, the girls were in the back seat of my car.  Hannah says, “Hey, Gramcy, you remember that time when just me and you and Claire went to Fiesta Texas?”  I said, yes, of course.  Hannah replies with a quiet sigh, “That was a wonderful day.”  Weep Weep.  Claire dreamily looking out the window — Yeah, it was a pink horse.”!!!!!  Weep Weep, smile.  Better than the best chocolate anyone could ever have!

Here are the few pics I did get before the cam died!  Enjoy …

I’m Back…

Wow!  I can’t believe it’s been since August 4 that I posted a blog!

This month has gone by fast and has been chock full of activity and I have made little paper and mental notes all over the place (well, the mental ones are only in one place, my brain-ha) but, nevertheless, I have managed to log and notate many fun things that I wanted to post on my blog during this month of August 2008.  Sigh.  As with many of my good intentions, I would now have to concentrate very hard to pull out the mental notes and/or look very diligently through all my spaces of note hiding to find the notes and refresh my thoughts so as to actually follow through on my good intentions.  And, so it goes.  Perhaps as I start blogging again, the memories and notations will resurface to my present thoughts and I will at some point get them blogged.  But, for now, I’m afraid, it’s just going to be this normal process of rambling until something interesting pops out.  OH,,,here comes a thought — Next Posting!

English Country Dancing

Yes!  English Country Dancing…you know…English, proper, Shakespeare, Dickens, and so on and so forth!  Saturday night past, Sarah took me out to Incarnate Word for an evening out.  It seems they (Incarnate Word) have a hall where on different nights and weeks of each month, various groups have dances to which anyone can go..if you know about or know someone who knows about it and invites you.

So, Sarah took me there and all I can say is Wow!  I had such a great time!  The room was large enough to accommodate a sizable crowd.  The crowd consisted of varying ages of people: families, couples, teens, boys, girls, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, friends, acquaintances, unknowns.

I always love English classic movies…there’s always these wonderful scenes with the most interesting dancing.  As soon as Sarah told me where we were going and what we were going to do, I was ecstatic!  No overstressed left knee from boring treadmill walking to keep from going crazy in my lonely apartment was going to stop me!  So, with four ibuprofen sitting in the pit of my stomach (which would hopefully dissolve and work its way down to the inured left knee!), off we went!

And, it was everything I expected.  AND, I could actually do it!  It is such fun!  So much so that I was wishing I could find a group to join and dress in costume and really get into the spirit of the whole dance!  Now, if I was Sarah, I would be clicking here and there on the internet to find some youtube samples … hmmm … ok…maybe I can do that.  Wait a minute…

here you go…

http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/~winston/ecd/repasky.htmlx

or…you can check out you tube…i did…but i don’t have time right now to figure out how to download, cut and paste one here…but, do go and check it out! 

The music is wonderdul, flutes, violins, etc.  The dance is very controlled (or supposed to be!)…but, the teens and young people of Saturday night kept it very lively and fun!  I have to say how nice it was to have such a mixed crowd of generational enjoyment!  English Country Dancing is polite, but flirtatious, romantic but jolly, simple to follow but complex in patterns.  I suppose one might see the origins of square dancing, but, for me, much more appealing.  I just can’t get past the costumes of square dancing…although I do very much enjoy a good fiddle.

I must get back to my job postings.  I just wanted to stop and take a momen to send out a HUGE thank you to Sissy for taking me out for some much needed fun.  Thank you Thank you!  This is definitely going on my monthly activity list!  I can’t wait to take some of the grandchildren…I think Alaina, Adri and Ean will have a blast … and can’t wait for that next set of kids,,,Emma, Hannah, Claire, Amory, James and Josiah to be old enough.  I really do want to join a troupe…soon as I can get the job thingy settled and the school thingy underway and the Spanish class on target…I’m doing it!

Sunday Ramblings

What a long day this has been!  Sundays.  They can be the most wonderful day of the week or the longest day of the week.  You never know how they are going to go…or…sometimes you do and you wish you didn’t!  But, that is for another post on my private blog..for now…I just wanted to stop the dreary process of trying to navigate this world of online job applications and searching universtity websites…8 hours and I don’t think I’ve actually accomplished anything except to amass a great amount of frustration.  I wonder if this online navigation way of life is affecting me the way I remember voice mail and cell phone usage affecting my parents.  Interesting.  The realization and parallel comparison doesn’t bring any positive affect on my current frustrated mood…rather…it makes me feel out-of-date and unconnected to life as it now is and, as well, unconnect to life as it once was.  Am I a displaced person?  LOL!  I feel like it.

Ok.  This post is negative but I am going to post it so that, you, the reader, will be glad to leave it and move on to the next post which is much more fun!

Kendall Payne – Singer

Another great find this past week!  Some time back (about 2 years ago) I rented an offbeat movie.  The movie (I don’t remember the name – I have it journalled somewhere) was excellent, spoke to my heart, and the title song just bowled me over.  I replayed the movie credits over and over while I copied the lyrics, spent days singing the song out loud to myself, and tried forever to find the soundtrack, or run down information on the artist.  The famous David Foster was co-writer – but, still, I could find no info leading me to a purchase or download of the music.

Last week, at work, I was cleaning cd racks, restocking, and pulling clearance items.  Lo and behold!  What did I find obscurely stuck behind a stack of value item cd’s and on my clearance list — a cd by Kendall Payne, the artist I’d been searching for.  Now, mind you, the particular song I want is not on this recording.  But, what a find!  The songs are terrific, just off beat enough to not be Christian mainstream but spiritual and in tune with a real God nonetheless, just my cup of tea!  And, all for $.70!!!  I’m hoping to eventually find more music by this artist.

Kendall Payne – artist    ‘Grown’ – cd title   check it out if you can find it — I haven’t searched youtube yet — maybe she’s there!  Worth your time if you care to search!

Madeleine L’Engle – Author

Madeleine L’Engle is one of my favorite authors.  Everything she writes encompasses thought, science, mathematics, God, space, time, emotions, relationships, concepts, ideaology, aging, growing, morals, ethics, you name it.

Books I’ve read by her:  The Austins; Starfish; A Wrinkle in Time (the trilogy and it’s two sequels); The Summer of the Great Grandmother; A Circle of Quiet; The 24 Days Before Christmas; and others.  Most recently I completed reading “Certain Women” (I know books should be underlined but I can’t find that tool on this blasted site!).  I knew it to be fiction but didn’t preview long enough to realize it is a modern story of a family and their parallel to King David and his passle of wives and children!

I just completed a 5 novella set of books about 5 unlikely women of the bible (of which one was Bathsheba) by Francine Rivers and, so, I thought I was deviating away from biblical content for a bit by choosing a not-so-typical author.  Ha! Fooled again, but ever so delightful.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who has ever stuck through the trials of being human in a family unit, and, as well, for those who have not!  That should just about cover anyone!  You will find yourself somewhere in this story, be it good or bad, matters not.  It’s a bit challenging to read in that the author takes you at any given moment from the present to the past and into the future through the eyes of one central character living in the present but also working as an actress.  So, not only are you, the reader required to keep up with timeline relevance, but, as well, with scene changes – from life to stage – and capture the relevance therein.

I loved it.  Some probably won’t but that’s okay.  Just don’t forget, someday you will probably read this book and, then, you will remember…I told you so!!!

I checked it out from the library – you can too!

Another Saturday Night…

LOL…I just thought of an old song that was fun to sing..

“Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody…

I got some money ’cause I just got paid…

How I wish I had someone to talk to…

I’m in an awful way!

lallalalalalalala la la”…can’t remember the rest

but mom and I used to make up silly lyrics

and that was fun.  It made Karen laugh and that was fun.

I wonder if Karen can remember.  I can see her now .. if I asked her …

she’d shake her head and giggle and say … “cyn .. thi .. uhhhhhh”

LOL.

Well, this isn’t what I was going to write about .. but it’s good enough … a good memory in  hand is worth two intentions in thought … LOL … I just made that up … oh yes… I’m good … ooh ooh ooh

Okay..I’m bored but at least I’m creatively bored.

I’m going to watch Law & Order that I recorded while I was gone to work!  Ha! I mastered the tv again!  Then, I’m going to sleep and if I can’t sleep, I’ll read for awhile.  I plan on going to church in the morning so I do hope I can sleep tonight.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Just another day in the neighborhood!  But, what a beautiful day it is outside my window.  I woke early this morning (5:30 am – good grief!) and went outside to a hill country morning.  The sun was just rising around 6:30 am and the sky was orange and pink, with only patches of light blue showing through billowing white clouds rolling across the sky.  The breeze was definitely a warm Texas breeze but a breeze nonetheless and the smell of the hills aromated my walk.  It leaves me feeling connected and alone at the same time.  And, again, my emotions are filled with longing for my folks and home.

Enough of that!  I went back inside and did my 10-minute Pilates workout — only in private for now!  I can only complete half of each exercise – awful!  My legs are strong and my arms are strong – but my core (abs) is not strong at all!  Which is the reason I’m utilizing pilates — to strengthen my core.  HaHaHa – this girl on the video can pull herself into a backwards flip — that’s what I am SUPPOSED to be able to do!  That will be a miracle!!!  I am working on it — just not in public!!!

Well, I’m off to do some reading, waiting for Royce and the kids to come by.  We’re having donuts (shhhhh…don’t tell my pilates instructor) this morning when they drop by my Angel Food order for this month.  It’ll be fun to have them over for a bit, then, I’m off to work for the day. 

Work is going well.  It just doesn’t pay enough and I’m still looking for either a higher paying job or a second job to supplement.  I made a $500 sale yesterday…the biggest one I’ve ever made.  Just wish it was for myself and my family rather than for corporate America — oh well — maybe something good will come from it for us – one can always keep hoping.

My Black Eye

I should take a picture of my black eye!  If I could find my camera, I would.  It really isn’t that bad,,,it’s more green than anything but starts at the hairline over my right eye, travels down into my brow and the side of my face just below my eye, right to the cheekbone.  I had a great time swimming with the boys and Claire on Monday except that I connected with Claire’s foot as I took a quick dive under the water just when she had decided to do one of her famous “cannonball fwips” took a pretty good kick in the head!  Lucky for me, my head is hard (LOL) and Claire’s foot survived.  I can cover it up with makeup but it sure is sore to touch…no brushing on that side for a day or two!  That little princess packs a powerful kick! 

I wish I had pictures of her and Hannah swimming.  They look like little dolphins in the water.  We sure have a lot of fun when they come over to the pool.  Mondays are my favorite day of the week!