Christmas 2008

I'm always glad when Christmas has come and gone. This year was particularly nice. We had our shopping done early and didn't feel to terribly stressed out. My husband helped with the shopping this year which made things much easier for me and since the kids wanted some higher priced items, there wasn't much to wrap! Because the economy is tightening, we decided to forgo buying gifts for our entire family. We only got gifts for our parents and each other. Our treat to everyone was an enormous Christmas day feast. They all came over (12 people) that night and I cooked a 20lb turkey and a ton of casseroles and side dishes. A few people brought food and we had a great time. My husband got the Buzz Quiz game for PS3 and we played it for hours. VERY FUN party game! Anyway...I'm so thankful that we had such a nice, low key, Christmas. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family.

Pictures to come....Forgot the battery on my camera died last night so I couldn't download.

Our new doggy

This is our new girl, Ethyl. She's the calm one on the right. Allie's on the left, glaring at me, wondering why there's a dog laying on "her" couch. They are getting along pretty well. Allie has some dominance issues but we're working on it. Ethyl is a terrible digger which is why we think she ended up in the pound. She sticks her nose in the ground and digs everywhere. We have a built up vegetable garden that we're not using right now so we're trying to train her that it's OK to dig there and not in the yard. Other than that, she's a sweetie!

Give me an award....

I am officially the worst blogger ever. I've been about a month between every post. I'd like to say I'm going to get better about it but probably wont.

Anyway, school is over for the Christmas holiday. My grades were all A's for the semester and I'm proud of myself for working full time and taking 12 hours. Three more semesters left and I'm so looking forward to graduating.

We have a new family member. Two weeks ago we adopted a beautiful fox terrier mix from a rescue group in Houston. She had been turned into the city pound which has about a 90% kill rate. The rescue group got to her first and now she's ours. They named her Ethyl because they had pulled her out of the pound with another female dog named Lucy. We didn't like the name but now that we know her personality, it suits her well. She's such a sweet, gentle girl and so pretty.

I promise to get better about blogging. I know it's good for me and I really enjoy going back and seeing what I've been up to. Have a very Merry Christmas everyone!

My new hobby

I had a blast this weekend going to a neighborhood garage sale in a nice, kind of upscale neighborhood. I've never been much for garage sales because I don't like the crowds and I'm never looking for anything in particular. Boy, did I change my mind this weekend!! I bought all of these goodies for way cheap! I want to decorate my house but can't bear to spend full price on things. I am so excited about my finds!

Catching up

So, it's been a while. Things are finally getting back to normal around here. We got the roof fixed, the ceiling patched up and everything is getting somewhat back to normal. We had some money left over from the insurance settlement so we had a patio poured. We've been working on it the past few weekends, getting it landscaped and ready for company. Saturday we are celebrating my husband's birthday with about 15 friends. This will be the first party we're having at our house and I'm a little nervous! I'm sure after a couple of glasses of wine, I'll be having a blast! Everything is relatively back to normal (short of some missing grass in the front yard, 2 tree stumps in the back yard and a broken window) and we're looking forward to having some fun this weekend. I'll post pictures of the patio and our fun weekend later!

Moving on

We're finally getting back to normal and getting cleaned up after the storm. My mom still doesn't have power so she's staying with us. Let's just say I hope her power comes back on soon. She's fine to have here but I want my house back to myself. The trees came off the roof on Saturday and now we're waiting for the insurance company to send us a check to get the roof and window fixed. The school is back open today and I think the routine of going back to work will be healing. I'm praying for a great day back.

Recovering

Wow...this one hit hard. I'll get into more detail later because I really want to journal what happened the night of the storm, more for my own good than anyone elses. We're OK, just got power back yesterday. There are 2 large trees on the back of my house, 1 of which came through the ceiling and left 2 5-inch around holes. God has been so good in that the temperature has dropped to the low 80's making it bearable for the people who still don't have power. We're just waiting for the grocery stores and gas stations to get back to regular operation so we can get rolling again.

The saddest thing that happened to us in all of this is that we lost our beautiful 14 year old dog Charlie yesterday. We had to have her put down because the stress of the storm and the power outage just made her weaken. We know she's in a better place but it's so hard for us because we've had her since she was 6 weeks old (only 2 weeks after we got married.) We'll miss her and there will be a hole in my heart for a long time.

The best part is that we are all safe and relatively comfortable. We're just waiting to see when we'll go back to work and school. We should know more later today. Thanks for all of the prayers for the people of this region of Texas. I think He heard your prayers.