Glooooooooomy Day

Max came this morning to do inside work with me…this drapery dilemma is taxing all of us. Len loves Max for doing projects with me…so much easier for him and no risk of uxoricide (new word just learned: killing one’s wife).

Still more rain….this is so much like Germany and equally as depressing. Len can’t get out to play golf or ride his bike and it is making him totally stir crazy and I am suffering from light deprivation, I think. Plus I am just plain slow witted. I have been trying to explain what I believe are simple concepts to Len all day–it has been maddening and really funny too. He is so darned bored and so willing to run errands for me then when he gets to the errand location texts and calls repeatedly for clarification. No matter how I explained anything he didn’t get it. Come to find out it wasn’t him but rather I was the lousy communicator. Well, part of the time anyway. Finally tonight we really got tickled when the two of us, over-educated and still obviously not too smart, had a heck of a time figuring out how much fabric would be needed to make a round table cloth. What with his Math and Engineering degrees and my Home Economics degree, one would think we could have done this in our heads….but ohhhhhh no. It became so convoluted that we had to resort to math manipulatives! In this case, a paperweight represented the round table and two pieces of toilet tissue represented fabric sold from a bolt. We really did have a good laugh about it all and subsequently, I decided it was easier to buy a table cloth on line than to send him off to a fabric store! How many men would even go do that kind of thing, I wonder?

Played some Mah Jongg today but didn’t win a single game but still had a good time. Tomorrow I am helping to judge 4H projects at the Bell EXPO center and book club tomorrow night at Karin’s house…reviewing The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

Basket making…therapy for the over-stimulated.

Blinding, torrential (repetitive?) rain did not keep me from my Indian Curl basket weaving class at the Georgetown Rec Center…my first time to be inside and it is verrrrrrrrrry, verrrrrrrrrry nice. I may need to join….I mean why drive 3 miles to a gym in Salado when I can drive 25 one way to Georgetown? Class was very interesting….only 5 students. Only thing I did not like was how we were rushed at the end….I didn’t get to finish my basket which makes me NUTS but I know Karen Kinnison will help me with the lashing. In fact, I think I will ask her if she will give me some basket lessons….She lives right here in Salado and I like her a lot…very quiet and mellow….just what I need.

Now down to business…MCEC and the National Guard and Reserve Conference–Orlando, FL

Stephanie and Sarge dropped me off at the Double Tree Guest Resort in Orlando just in time to meet up with Dee. We whipped right over to the Hyatt to set up our MCEC booth in the vendor’s exhibit hall then went back to the hotel to meet Keith and wife, Kay for a cocktail before dinner. Dee and I had a mediocre meal at the Arabian Nights dinner show….super stallions! Denise and I work very well together and we enjoyed Keith’s contributions! He did a great job snagging the right people to make good pitches for the Guard and Reserve and Living in the New Normal Institutes. I followed Denise’s speech and almost have it down to perfection. Mostly we promoted the Growing, Learning, and Understanding (GLU) kits and other resources. Our next door neighbor was from Sesame Street so we really enjoyed playing around with Elmo and Big Bird…maybe a lot of playing!

Working means you have to ‘clean up’!

One of the nicest things about working is that you get to ‘clean up’! By working part time I can and should fix my hair, put on a bit of lip gloss or, in my case, a lot of make up; dig out the accessories, polish shoes, etc. It can be very invigorating….I have been in the office two days in a row and leave tomorrow for FL to work the Guard and Reserve Conference. I will be in the exhibit hall advancing the Military Child Education Coalition’s (MCEC) materials, actively and deliberately meeting attendees with the intent to make money for the organization. I love MCEC for the high-minded work they do for military families. If MCEC was around in the OLDEN days I would have had a more fluid and productive academic history. Getting into graduate school is hard enough…especially if you never had high school algebra or any other math but one semester of geometry! In addition to what the organization does for families, I also adore the people who work for and with MCEC. I mean these are reeeeeeeeeeealllllly interesting people. There isn’t a dull person in the whole network!

For the past two days I have been with Sally and Zoe as they train new volunteers to be trainers for the Transition Counselor Institute I….Currently, I am THE COACH for new trainers….it is just up my alley….I love to help educators be more effective. Jackie, Eartha, and Sandra, all friends and former KISD administrators are in the training so it was even more fun.

So tomorrow Len will be whistlin’ a happy tune as he pops my suitcase in the car and whisks me off to the Austin airport. He tells me that the first thing he does when I leave is ‘tidy up’ and get rid of all evidence of my girley stuff and projects. Sort of sounds like what I do when he leaves…which does not happen much any more!

So after a visit with Cee in Longboat Key and Stephanie and Sarge in the Villages, I will be in Orlando until the 28th. I will try to do the blog from my iPhone…something I just learned to do…darn that tiny key board makes it kind of tough though.

Happy New Year 2010!

I didn’t make a single resolution….that’s a first for me. In fact, I don’t think I even considered resolutions until I was walking today. Oh well.

Len and I  went to Music in Salado’s New Years Gala…. usually they have a Christmas soiree but this year it was very different and very pleasant. photos show the masked theme….I enjoyed a great deal of champagne and the program was wonderful. I hope they do it again next year…if yes, I will see if Adrian of SMdA will make me a mask or buy something bizarre somewhere. Just what I need, a mask….   

  

  

We were home by 9:00–then after midnight I went out to take some pictures of the ‘Blue Moon’ that were very unimpressive. For no good reason Len and I stayed up until 2:30…unheard of in this household. Then I didn’t get up until 9:00 then twitted about doing stuff. I went to still another movie, What Happened to the Morgan’s? Nothing I would recommend. What I DID do is go on a short, 3-mile walk in Georgetown along the San Gabriel river.

I am a dull girl for 2010. Len has already turned in and it is just 7:30!

I am at least two-thirds like this…

The other one-third is the manic me…plunging into the great, depths of the unknown!

The original is by Lisa Montag Brotman. I have a giclee I bought in South Carolina….it is sitting proudly in my office to remind me of who I want to be all the time– Cautiously Optimistic!

We spent a day out and about–no church. Started by throwing caution totally to the wind and eating obscene amounts of food at IHOP for breakfast. Then zipped over to Whole Foods then immediately over to the Apple Store. Len needed to get one of the computer keys replaced again where one of the cute cats had popped it off the keyboard. While there some extravagances were thrown in…Len a new phone and for me a nice Bose docking station for the phone/iPod. We are rotten.

With little time to spare, we made it back to Georgetown to see Up in the Air. I thought it was supposed to be funny! The Huffington Post said that, the movie is about an “…unsatisfied George Clooney (who) by turns (is) debonair and aware of his own shallowness. He’s a 21st-century libertine who winds up endorsing 20th-century family values of loyalty and commitment”. Also, the movie is a “snarky take on conventional morality”. I guess. I was fairly depressed.

Now this is high fashion!

How about this for the cutest little watering can purse you ever saw? I bought it at the McNay Art Institute in San Antonio. It is about 7 inches tall…when I paid for it I asked the cashier if all the people who bought it were kind of quirky…she smiled and said, “You are the first to buy one!” BUT she added they had only put them out that morning. I felt/feel vindicated! 🙂

Dog Days of Summer — TOO Hot to Handle!

Dog Days of Summer — TOO Hot to Handle!

We have still had no rain to speak of and it hasn’t been below 97 in weeks — and most of the time 100+. The deer are moving in toward the house for food….gloom and doom!

Just returned from SAT to do Mother care which is good for me on many, many levels. As a rule, I am not empathic…but I am developing what I consider to be a keen sense of what it must be like. Very difficult.

I did a quick visit to the McNaY Art Institute and saw a very cool Edward Gorey exhibit…I want to know more about him….he did the kind of spooky black and white, pen and ink drawings that appeared on the PBS Mystery Theater.

Also had a nice visit with Belinda Pustka and Mom’s friend, Betty Lou — ah yes, also went to the Pearl Brewery Farmer’s Market on a tomato run for salsa making! Mac tutor, Anna is here…must try to be smart!

An Outing with Mah Jongg Buddies and Spousal Units!

Yesterday afternoon, Becky organized an outing for the MJ gals and our ‘spousal units’. We had a grand time…did wine tasting at the Driftwood Winery then over to the Tratorria Linisa in the ‘suburbs’ of Driftwood….food was EXCELLENT….A good time was had by all!

TOOOOOO Hot!

This is utter madness….Len keeps saying there is nothing to this global warming but something IS happening. (He says his golf game is getting better and he is riding more miles than ever on his bike…so something, yes, IS happening.) He asks, if you ‘get’ the license plate? Annnnnnyway, every year it keeps getting more and more windy (like West Texas windy); hotter earlier, hotter longer, and no rain….poor little plants. The Austin Ameraican Statesman reported last week that we have had 31 days of 100+ weather since May…and we have had more since then!

Tonight I cooked up a ‘mess’ of home grown taters….cute little fingerlings, butterballs, and a few heirlooms. Tasty little guys.