Repercussions

Dear Tyler,


I hope you are having a good morning, in spite of the fact that your mom forgot to let you out of your house the morning. Again. My sincere apologies, dear kitty. I don't know why I always forget to let you out until I am either on the road or already at work. Maybe it is because it is not every morning that your dad asks me to let you out, so it is not in my routine. Maybe is because when he does ask me, it is in the wee morning hours, while I'm half asleep. Maybe it is because it is so d@mn cold out this week that I am subconsciously trying to save you from a day in the elements and allow you to just keep sleeping on that lovely, covered in lambs wool couch of yours (you know, not every cat has their own house, let alone their own couch).

But I digress, I forgot again, and when your dad gets home from school at lunch and heads out to your house to begin his day of studying- he'll be meet at the door by a very unhappy little yellow kitty who.. undoubtedly, will meow and yell and be generally pissed off for the rest of the afternoon from outside the house… sitting on the wall… looking in the window… ears back... holding a grudge and being angry.


I am very sorry for an inconvenience I may have caused.


Yours truly,
The lady who feeds you

Noteworthy (to me) on an otherwise Normal day

Went downstairs to grab lunch today- a bit late so it was pretty cleared out. The usual swarm of lunch grabbers milling around the stations or a stream of people standing in line to check out were cleared out. In fact, I walked right up to the register.

A normal day in the check out line not much more time than an exchange of simple pleasantries, followed by a quick"Need a receipt today?" returned with "No thanks" and she's on to the next.

My normal check-out lady, Maria, (I usually get in her line) was training some one new. I asked them both how they were doing and Maria stopped me, turned to the new girl and started in on something very serious... talking about 'some people being nice' and such... but then turned to me and said I really was nice, 'happy-go-cheery' and that I had a good heart. She went on to say that and she appreciated it and that she likes seeing me in her line. I'll spare you the rest of the details but suffice to say, this TOTALLY made my day.

The take-away from this story: I may be classified as, well, "anything but" by some, but Maria thinks I have a good heart.

My heart swells.

Time Machine

Is it possible to start a week actually *further* behind than you were the week before? (I have learned that the answer is yes) Because if I had a time machine, and could go back to last week, I would be ahead of where I am right now... however: IF I had a time machine, there is not a snow ball's chance [in hell] that I would do it. Why?

Last week:

• Dear Mr. Price got what must have been the most vicious case of food poisoning I've ever heard of... let alone witness. Wow. I will spare you the details. Bless his heart. (My mom had it too... I actually had a weather forecast from my Dad of symptoms-- real time.)
  
• After pulling an all-nighter (haven't done that in awhile), I worked from home to take care of the aforementioned - and between conference calls and frantic emails, I made trips to the pharmacy, grocery store, doctors office, back to the grocery store, etc


• Drove to Dallas for a meeting with a partner/client = 7+ hours in the car for a 40 minute meeting, rushed lunch at Mi Cocina (now THAT I'd repeat), all with a co-worker I barely know.


• A few hours before leaving... I learn that my dad, sister, sister-in-law and niece all got sick, too. Hmmm... whhhhoooooo'sss in for a road trip with a stranger and a possible 6 hours of vomiting?? OOhh!! Oohhh!! Me! Me! Please, sign me up! (It turned out just fine)


• Worked past 8pm each night last week, worked on Saturday... then again on Sunday. Booooooo.


• Wrote the check for our property taxes and for our new roof while paying bills - now THAT was fun.
  

Um, so those were the major highlights.

However... there is a silver lining. (**Note: There is ALWAYS a silver lining)

1. Last week is over.
2. I somehow never got sick. My brother ended up getting sick while in Cabo last weekend (that's not the silver lining part, just sayin' I'm glad it wasn't me). That means that the whole fam somehow got this awful bug and I, some how, was spared.


3. At family dinner this week, we learned that Madeleine will spring into action by singing or playing Beyonce songs -- even if she's cranky and about to fall to sleep. This brings a whole new value to my iToy: You Tube videos


4. Thanks to item #2, I learned about the current phenomenon of people dancing to the "Single Ladies/Put a Ring on It" video, taping themselves and uploading it to YouTube. **More on this later!**


5. To help celebrate that it is a new week and that last week is o-v-e-r-- we made ice cream sundaes. WITH Magic Shell!! (iToy pics will have to suffice)

So happy new week! I think my mantra (at least for the next few days) will be: "It could be worse... on top of this, I could have just puked for 6 hours straight..." =)

overwhelmed

...had an extremely productive weekend and made all kinds of lists for things i need to do over the next few days/weeks/months, etc. All in, acomplished quite a bit and organized even more.

So there is no reason I should feel so "behind "because this if the most on top of things i've been in weeks. arrg

Nonetheless: a few hours left in the evening to accomplish some things and I feel so completely overwhelmed that I haven't started on anything and instead- I'm just uncomfortably watching the Golden Globes and trying to find the energy to get up off my arse and finish a few lingering tasks ...

Blog Backlog

Dear Blog Readers,

I am remiss, my sincere apologies. Here it is, the begining of the year and nothing to read online during your downtime ...and I am not helping.

You see, dear reader, I have a backlog of blog posts that I have not yet posted because I have not yet uploaded the pictures to the posts. I've not yet included the pictures because I hadn't downloaded the pictures from my camera. Seems that it took me so long to do that, there was a backlog of pictures to organize and back-up. Turns out, once I realized that task was a bit more overwhelming that I'd realized (that of sorting), I just kind of ignored it - went along my merry holiday way... celebrating too much, sleeping in too much, watching movies and teaching my nieces to say my name (successfully, I might add!! more on that later). As you may know, I did start editing down pictures from the beginning of the year which leaves -who knows how long- until I get to the end of the year and to the task at hand.

This is no excuse, dear reader. I have heeded your call for reading material and I pledge to do better-- to catch up on my blogging backlog! NOTE: this is NOT a new years resolution, as I haven't and clearly shouldn't. My goal is to upload the pics tonight to the blog backlog and post those puppies! (wish me luck)

Best,
me

P.S. Madeleine can now say "Aahh Meh-Muh" for of Aunt Emmie (she can't say her 'E's just yet) and she's quite proud when she says it, too. Meanwhile, we had a delightful Christmas Day with the TriPrices - who refer to me as Aunt Em-lee and freely pull me from room to room for various adventures. My heart swells with pride. =)

Holiday friend visits

Christmas is magical. The break from work is fantastic. Great food, festive parties... but I think the best part might be the friends who you get to see over the holidays when they're back home from their far-away cities.

It can seem impossible to schedule it all in with all the hectic schedules and running around- but we loved getting to see both Brett & Angie in from San Jose and Jess & Michael in from NYC- not to mention the all Deane kiddos - over the break, with little notice.

Some how I missed pictures of Jess & co.

Editing down from 20,000

Sorting through pictures from 2008 and selecting my favorites for our 2008 coffee table yearbook today. Realized that I took over 20,000 pictures in the 2008. Not bad, eh? yikes.

Of course, for Xmas, I made books for my parents and for poopsie's parents of the random fam pictures and poopsie's first year of life, respectively. Each book had ~700 pictures included in each, so 160-170 pages. I was so excited to give them and they were big hits!

But so far, in narrowing down the pictures for our '08 book, I've got 115 pictures for the month of January (and that was a light month as far as the shutter goes...). This is not an easy task, I assure you. Anyhow, at this rate, i'll have ~1,400 pictures for the yearbook. Too many? You decide.

Fishing for Christmas

It was a perfect Christmas this year.

To put it plainly, things haven't been the same since Annie passed away. For the first 27 years of my life, holidays consisted of: driving to my grandparents, having a massive delicious meal at Annie & Boppa's long dining table with china, silver, linens and such... with all my aunts, uncles and cousins running around. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, random Sundays to celebrate birthdays... always the same: lots of family, lots of activity, lots of food.

The past several holidays have been quite different and frankly, seemed kinda empty. Last year for Christmas, we partied with my family on Xmas eve, brunched together at our house and spent the day watching the triplets play with their new toys. This year was pretty much a repeat.

Maybe it is the creation of new traditions (in that it was a repeat year, not a first year), maybe it was the constant activity of the girls and their excitement for their new toys, rain gear or musical instruments (toys that make noise!!). Maybe it was Jackie's beautiful dinning table and all the delicious food. Whatever it was, it felt complete.



And who could possibly resist fishing from the play house pier with Uncle Joe? Somehow, all three flailing plastic fish (that would make quite the noise when 'caught' by the magnetic worm) broke by day's end... shocker.

Galoshes & nightgowns: just in case there is a torrential downpour in the middle of the night.

The Great Christmas Card Crisis of 2008

I was SOOOO proud of our Christmas card picture this year.... Made it into a lovely postcard on heavy card stock... created the messages and laid it all out. They were to say "Merry and Bright" on the front with this picture:



Flip it over, and on the left half of the card, the message "Wishing you and yours a 2009 filled with finding Joy in the little things --The Prices" (get it-- the little ornament, etc) was written in a red casual script over this picture (which was at 50% translucency so it was more of a faint imprint):

I already had the little mailing labels printed just the right size to fit-- with a green font and the nutcracker stamps all ready to go.

The post cards arrive in the mail and... much to my disappointment, the front was practically black. You could barely see the picture- even the lights on the tree barely showed. Boo. Who wants an ironic Xmas card? "Merry and Bright" ....yeah, right. So I call (took me several days to get anyone to answer when I called - i listened to LOTS of holiday music while on hold), finally get through and they say "oh, yeah, we had a dark run that day..." So we reprint them. arg.

The second batched arrived! It was Christmas Eve Eve (the 23rd). I was SOOO going to get the cards out by the next day. Woohoo-- open the box up... and BAM! they are bright red. WAYYYY too much red. Yes, even red in the green branches of the tree. =( Booooo. Hands-down, MUCH worse looking than the ironic dark cards.

So with that, folks, my Merry and Bright Christmas Card bubble had been popped. No card from the Prices in the mail this year... just this post. And likely an email with the picture attached. Not nearly the same.

Our Christmas Cards aside, ours was just perfect and we hope you had a Merry and Bright Christmas of your own!!

And thanks for the Christmas Card if you sent one!! I'll do better next year...

Me Permite?

The City of Austin said "yes." After a mere two days, two hundred dollars (and a bit of luck), we got our permit re-issued. Without getting into the sorted, rediculous details- it was an exercise in inefficiencies. Nonetheless, it is done thanks to Mr. Price.

Onward!

Framers/Carpenters come on Monday to move/install doors and add a door which will make last summer's breakthrough a reality. Woohoo!