Monday, February 26, 2007

Gentle Breezes......

........NOT!
So, we had a bit of wind here on Saturday. As in completely insane wind, to the tune of 60 mph gusts on a pretty regular basis. And the most fun? The dirt. Most of West Texas blew in with that wind. I think I still have some in my teeth.

And me? Did I stay home like a good little momma whose hubby was out of town? No. Hunter's game was cancelled because it was supposed to rain (it didn't) so I packed up my kids and drove the hour and twenty to Ennis to visit the in-laws. Actually, it took an hour forty-five this time. And I almost collapsed when I arrived from sheer exhaustion. Not my smartest move. But, I had told the kids we were going, and there was BBQ waiting for us! Whattya gonna do?

So here's the lovely Arlington skyline. Or at least, where it was supposed to be.



I took this pic to show the color difference between what was hit by the wind and what wasn't. The white side of that bridge support isn't just white because the light is different. The rest of it is covered in dirt. It was surreal. The sky was orange and somehow everything with a reflective surface shone with an irridescent blue.



Speaking of lights....I'm thinking this is why our clocks were all blinking when we got home that night:


it's right across the street from us. They fixed it today but we only lost power for a few minutes on Saturday from what I can tell. Which is a bit scary when you think about it.

Meanwhile. The skies are blue now but we are all still hacking and wheezing as our bodies try to deal with the aftermath of all this. Fun stuff. Almost like a dirt hurricane.

O.K. maybe not.

Here's the news story about it:
http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/tv/stories/DN-wind_25met.ART0.North.Edition1.210e0ba.html

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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Riding again.

We're up and trottin' again. Josiah is so excited. He jabbered the whole one hour session and talked a lot afterwards.

"I'm good at riding horses, Mom."
Yes you are, my son. Yes you are.

(And that is indeed Curious George in his hands.)






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Sunday, February 18, 2007

The first game...

.....was great. I'm o.k. now. His coach is really great, very encouraging and positive. They have only had one practice so he just used the game time as a chance to teach and let the boys try any position they wanted to. He cycled them in and out like.....well, I don't know, something you cycle really quickly. All the boys are encouraging to each other and they truly are there to have fun.



And they even won!!!




Ours definitely has some work to do, but I think this was the perfect place to start him. Yay! Thanks for the prayers! God is good, even in the little things. Or maybe, especially in the little things.

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Thursday, February 15, 2007

What was I saying?....

Just when I was feeling smug about us all being healthy while the rest of the country fights the "heebie-jeebies":


I know that look. That 101+ look. That, Mom puts the "rice bag" on me instead of in the microwave because I heat it faster, look. Sweet love. And today was class photo day.

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Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Meme

Ripped from Manda's blog:

Rules: Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following…They MUST be real places, names, things…NOTHING made up! If you can’t think of anything, skip it. Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN’T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

Your name: Teresa
Athlete: T.O.
4 Letter word: Tome
Street name: I could make up anything here but I know there are streets named Teresa
Color: Teal
Gifts/presents: Truffels
Vehicles: Tahoe
Tropical Locations: Trididad/Tobago (considered one nation)
College Majors: Theology (my personal favorite)
Dairy Products: Turtle Tracks ice cream
Things in a Souvenir Shop: Trinkets
Boy Name: Trevor
Girl Name: Tabitha
Movie Titles: The Thing (though I've never seen it)
Alcohol: I'm afraid I'm out of my element with this one.
Occupations: Therapist
Flowers: Tea Rose
Celebrities: Tom Hanks
Magazines: Texas Parks and Wildlife ... or Travel
U.S. cities: Tolar, Texas (my college roommate was from there)
Pro Sports Team: Titans

Monday, February 12, 2007

All's well that ends well.

I believe the proper word here is:
Squeeeeee!!! >_<

I love my yarn.

(the nickle is for size reference. one trip around the loop is 66 inches)


I didn't think I'd like this one. I'm not into earth tones. Man is this yummy! ya know, in an earthy kinda way.


BTW. The game is at 11:30 on Saturday. You have my permission to pray during that hour.....

More Pictures

I've posted my pictures of the yarn and the yarn-dying and also a swatch of the "earth tones" that I worked up at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mamateresa/YarnDying

And for those of you who do not read my blog for knitting stories:

Hunter has started Roller Hockey. It's his first foray into organized sports and at the ripe old age of 11, I was a bit worried about him. In true Hunter fashion, however, he is just skimming along and enjoying it. He has had one practice so far and will have one more (2 whole practices in his whole life) before their first game on Saturday.
I'm not worried.
Nope.
Not a bit.
8-0

Josiah is also in process to ride horses again. We've turned in all the paperwork and are now waiting on the financial aid process. Todd will be working with the organization some helping with advertisement and brochure lay outs so maybe that'll help some too. He's excited about it.

So far we've not ventured into the world of pee-wee sports for Isaac. I'm thinking that his brothers turned out just fine without it......

Saturday, February 10, 2007

The Story

So here's the deal. Remember that knitting group I joined a few weeks ago? I finally got to meet up with a few of the gals at a local coffee shop the other night and I really had a great time. Turns out a few of them were getting together today to try their hands at dying their own yarn and I got invited. It was a total blast! We used all manor of dying techniques....none of them commercial. We had Kool-Aid, Easter Egg dyes, tie-die kits and I think a cake dye or two I'm not sure.
Most of the ladies met for lunch and went to a local yarn shop to buy some undyed yarn to use. I had no such need. I felt like the queen of thrift with my home-made "niddy-noddy" and my $.25 (yes, CENTS) aran sweater, made in Ireland of undyed wool, that I had "unmade" in Keller the day before. I had tons of wonderful yarn to play with as I pleased without having to worry about how it turned out....since it was so cheap!
You saw in the last post how my yarn turned out. I'm very happy. I've also learned that I prefer Kool-Aid for dying to the others. It's looking now like it takes to the yarn and stays there better than easter egg dye or even tie dye sometimes. Some of the ladies got some truly yummy colors and I'm mad at myself for not taking pictures of them but a good time was had by all!

It occured to me at some point while getting ready to leave that the clothes I wouldn't mind dying in are the same clothes I normally wouldn't be caught dead in. Funny how that works out.



And when you are dying your own yarn (cause I know you will), and someone offers you latex gloves..............
think long and hard before turning them down. (this pic was taken after quite a bit of the color had worn off)

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Yarn

I'll be explaining this yarn in the next post but Blogger doesn't post enough pictures at a time to satisify my story-telling yen.
Meanwhile, these two are very earthy colors, maybe not quite a bright as the photo looks. The jury's still out on these.


These turned out just like I wanted them to...and there's a bunch of it!



These were a couple of test hanks we did trying to get a good purple.



And these are a reminder that my children are also quite artistic. They're made of Fimo clay and if you've never played "Rayman" trust me, they're really great likenesses.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Too tired.....

Sometimes you just gotta post a pic and go to bed.

Ike headed in for yet another Western Day. Someday I'll post the video of the "Rodeo". You will laugh. Hard.

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Friday, February 02, 2007

O.K.

There was an episode of Star Trek Next Gen one time where they took the entire population of a planet and transplanted them to another planet that had been hologramed to look just like theirs. Did somebody do that here? They got the weather wrong.
We've had snowfall for 3 days in a row now. It didn't accumulate until yesterday when it wasn't even freezing but it was coming down so hard that it started stacking up. It snowed again in the night and has snowed off and on all morning. It'll all be gone by supper, I'm sure, but it has been rather surreal in the mean time. One day of ice per year, that's our allotment. We've definitely exceeded our limit. In fact, we've tripled it just this week.

Another Twilight Zone Moment:

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