What a week! And it's only Wednesday!

Oh, what a week! It seems like everything is converging this week to just screw with me! And really it started last week! I don't know what it is, but work has been crazy the last couple of weeks. Just weird depos and then wanting everything NOW! So that wasn't too bad. I'm staying on top of things. I had Monday off (no depo) and was caught up on work enough that I went and ran errands that I don't like doing on the weekends (groceries, bank, etc.) Plus, school started on Monday, too, so there weren't near as many people out and aout as usual. Also, I decided since I knew I had Monday free I'd head up to Frisco and get some new pictures of Hana. The last ones I had were from August 1st. So while technically I had August pictures, I wanted some new ones! She's growing, she's changing, we've got to document this!! LOL

So I get up to Frisco and see Hana and Courtney. Hana was being fussy at first and then perked right up. She's now standing on her own. Can just pretty much get to standing without holding on to anything. While I was there, she took a couple of little steps! She's almost there. I'd say within a couple of weeks she's going to be walking. She's already trying to climb out of her "condo." So I had a nice little visit with them and then I headed home. Actually I went by Joann's & Ulta while I was up in Frisco. Got stuff at both places. I love me some Bare Escentuals! I probably have enough for several lifetimes at this point!

Then Tuesday morning started off with a real bang. For some reason I thought/had in my head that my depo started at 9:30. Oh, no. It was 9:00!! When do I realize this?? As I'm loading my stuff into my car at 8:30. Even with NO traffic it's a good 20-25 minute drive to the depo location! So I call and let the attorney know that I'm going to be a little late. He was nice about it, said he was running even further behind than me. I actually got there in good time and was only about 12 minutes late. The attorney showed at 9:35. Had a short depo that finished at 10:10. We had another one in Rockwall. Why the attorney didn't schedule them both for the same place and allow more time, I don't know! So I was on North Central and had to get to Rockwall for a 10:30. That didn't happen, but he wasn't on time either.

I got finished and am in my car heading home around 12:15. As I'm on 635 in Garland I get a call from the Lewisville ISD. Matt got injured on the playground at recess and I'm his emergency contact. Julie was tied up in a depo and George couldn't be reached right then. While the nurse is on the phone with me, they both call her back. Julie couldn't get free and George is on his way. The nurse lets me go before I find out what's happened. Julie calls me in a bit and tells me Matt fell and needs to go to the hospital, that George is on his way, but has to get back to work because his backup is on vacation this week and his boss is out of the office, so George is the "boss" and there's some major mix-up or something going on. I end up meeting George at the hospital. Matt gets an x-ray and he's broken his arm. Not a big bone, but one of the smaller ones on his outer left arm. They set it in a splint and he's going to an orthopedist on Friday (first appointment Julie could get) to get a real cast. Ends up he was being chased by a little girl and she pulled his shirt and then pushed him down. So Matt comes home with me until Julie got out. He was a little trooper. When the nurse said they were going to put a splint on it, he really started crying and yelling, No, No, No, don't split it. He thought they were going to cut it open! He's pretty proud of the arm now. Plus, one of his classmates last year had a broken arm and everybody got to write on the cast. So he's excited about getting a real cast. Crazy kids.

So today my depo ends up being a big bunch of waiting around so they can all talk and settle, but I had to stick around in case they didn't. Then I come home to put the pictures I had taken of Hana on the computer. I get them uploaded and even edit some of them. I get them uploaded into Flickr. Then I'm doing some work and get the dreaded BLUE screen on my computer! It will NOT do anything. It will restart, but always back to the blue screen. So there goes the rest of the afternoon working on it. Luckily I have my laptop (which I'm using now), but I've got to get the desktop fixed. I'm soooo much slower working on my laptop!!


And it's only Wednesday! Hopefully Thursday & Friday will be better. I have a short job tomorrow and then will see about getting the desktop fixed. Then Friday I have an all day job.

Here are the pictures of Hana: 8-25-08 Hana

Weekend Update

What a weekend! The Clarks (with Hana & Courtney) went to California this weekend to visit Josh & Angela. I got some extremely adorable photos of Hana on her v-cay. She sure looked liked she enjoyed herself. I sure can't wait to read her blog and find out how her trip to see her Uncle Hollywood & Aunt Beverly Hills went.

I went to the movies this weekend. I seems like forever since I went to the actual theater for movies. Saw Step Brothers. Very funny! Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly are very funny together. Then that was followed up with Tropic Thunder. Again, very funny! I was nice to see two good movies. I enjoyed both quite a bit.

On Saturday I had my first photo session with someone other than family! Very exciting. It was for friends of Courtney. It went well. Helen, the two-year-old, wasn't really very excited to have someone take her picture. She was very shy and got a little upset. Ultimately, I think I got some good shots. I took around 80 and I think there were about a dozen good ones. I hope that they like them!!

Also, I had a birthday party to go to for a friend that turned 40. It was a great time. We all watched Micheal Phelps win his 8th Gold medal!! It was very exciting. Not as close as the other relay that they had to come back and win or the butterfly race that he BARELY won, but it was cool seeing him break a long-standing record. We also watched the Cowboys lose to the Broncos. I sure hope the regular season is much, much better than these preseason games have been! There was a huge spread of food, too, at the party. All mexican and soooo good!!

Since I had my camera with me, I took some pictures at the party, too. Mainly of the kids, and then mainly of Maggie. She decided she was going to "model" for me and kept coming up with new poses for pictures. She really enjoyed herself. LOL

Today, Sunday, I went to Kohl's just looking around. Ended up getting Hana a couple of outfits. I also saw something else I have to find for her! Kohl's did not have her size, but I am going to find it and get her one.

The rest of Sunday was spent doing a little bit of nothing! LOL I read the paper and watched some Olympics (of course) and sorted through the pictures I took Sunday to upload.

Everybody have a great week!

Soup!

So I finally made homemade potato soup for dinner. Yummy!!! You know, it was only in the 80's today. Right chilly! LOL

Also, I'm going to have to be getting some more lamp oil. I've been using my lamp like crazy (everyday basically) and am already running low on the oil. Courtney tells me that the Lamp Berger store at Stonebriar is gone now! Oh, what to do! I've looked online. For all your lamp burners out there, which oils aren't any good? I know Lamp Berger is the best, but even ordering online, to get decent or free shipping you have to order 12 bottles!! That's quite a few. Or I may just have to go to Big Daddy's next time I'm at the lake and get some more of the Sophia's oil. Oh, decisions, decisions!

Off to watch some Olympics. That swimming relay last night was amazing! I think men's gymnastics and more swimming is tonight. And I've really been enjoying the beach volleyball for some reason. It sure ain't because I want to be playing it. I watch and see them sweating and the sand sticking to them and you know it's got to be going EVERYWHERE! But it's fun to watch and it seems go pretty quickly.

Oh, What a Show

So today was Jersey Boys. It was really, really good! I enjoyed it very much. I would recommend it to anyone, regardless of age. The Four Seasons had so many hits, you're bound to recognized something by them. I knew lots of the songs. It's a very entertaining show, and extremely loud! LOL The first number is some guy rapping in French and the bass what just thumping through you! It was something else.

Otherwise, that's about it for today. We went to Uncle Julio's afterwards. It was, as always, great! So now I'm watching some gynmastics. The Chinese team has some really young looking girls on their team! I thought there was a minimum age requirement. What is it, 12? Wow. Now the USA girls are going, but I thought they already went yesterday. They must be replaying it. Oh, well, it's still the prelims. Hopefully we'll do good.

I'm going to go work on a depo now. Talk to y'all later!

Olympics

Last night the opening ceremonies of the Olympics was on. I, of course, had to watch. I still enjoy watching the Olympics for the most part. I'm not sure how many others watch the Olympics unless they're aspiring athletes or know someone competing. The Olympics just don't seem to generate the same hub-bub they did when I was younger. Granted, when I was younger we didn't have hundreds of TV stations to choose from. You had your basic four or five stations. Then once cable came about, we were so far out in the country we didn't have cable. But then there still were not the options there are today.

The opening ceremonies were interesting. There were some amazing aspects of them, especially the huge LED or LCD screens they had up. It was cool seeing Dirk carrying the German flag. He seemed pretty happy. During the coverage, the announcers mentioned that this would be the last year for softball and baseball as Olympic sports, which seemed strange to me. Yet they have kayaking and badminton as sports. I guess there aren't enough countries fielding teams for softball and baseball.

Everyone have a great day! ~Stay cool~

Crack Cookies

So over the past weekend when I was at Sam's I got Rowdy a big (8 lbs) bag of dog treats. It was Sam's version of Milk Bones. I was a bit hesitant to buy them, because Rowdy can be picky on his treats. I've bought many a treat that he's turned his nose up at, but he was out at home and it was only $6 for the whole bag. A great deal! So I was with Julie and told her if Rowdy didn't like them, Hank & Hannah would be getting some biscuits.

Well, let me tell you something: There must be crack in those dog cookies!! I think Rowdy has gone outside and begged to go outside more this last week than I can remember in the past. And if I don't already have his cookies out for him when he comes back in, he immediately barks to get me on task. He LOVES them! More so than his Marrow Bones, which was his favorite. Not anymore. So he's a happy, happy boy now with his new treats!

This week I also schedule a cruise for next February (or this February). It's Feb 15-22, 2009. Seems so far away, but it will be here before I know it! Got a really great deal on it and it's out of Galveston. I'm going with my friend Mary Ann. She's been after me for a while to schedule one. Anyway, we started talking about it (and I do love to cruise) and we started looking at possible times to go and came across this great deal, all things considered. I don't think I'll ever get as good a deal as I did on my very first cruise ($500 total). This one is going to be right at $700 for everything for seven days. Not too bad. Plus, we're just going to drive to Galveston day of departure (at least that's the plan now). We'll be going to Cozemul, Jamiaca and Grand Caymens. Now would be a great time to be on a cruise, but they're so expensive in the summer and there are so many kids on there in the summer. I love kids I know, not all kids! Sorry!! Plus, summer is always crappy for me money-wise. I have way too many things I'm having to renew for work (software support, writer support, memberships, tax payments, etc). It just seems to always hit in June/July/August.

Mary Ann & I travel well together, also. Which it's nice to find someone to travel with when you're single. I mean what fun is a trip by yourself! She's much easier to travel with than JB. I would love the thought of the whole family planning a cruise and going, just don't know if that would ever happen. Either people love to cruise or not. I happen to love it, but then it's right up my alley of doing nothing! LOL Actually it's one whole week that I never ONCE think about work. Plus, pretty much all decisions are made for you and you don't have to think, if that makes any sense. I have a hard enough time turning my brain off to sleep at night anyway, so a week of nothing to think about is wonderful for me!

Otherwise, nothing much happening. I've got Jersey Boys on Sunday. I'm really looking forward to it. The one thing Julie would say about it (she didn't want to ruin it) is that it had a lot of cussing in it, F this, F that, MF you, etc. She was surprised and glad they didn't take the kids. So it'll be a colorful afternoon! LOL

I see there's two days left in the ice cream poll. If you haven't voted, be sure to vote.

Also, Doug, I had never put together the Dove beauty products with the Dove ice cream/chocolates! Now I'm wondering if they're the same company and how strange it is to have the same brand name. And when I went to have more ice cream I did think about it just being hardened lotion instead! lol Great thought to put in my head. LOL

Crazy Maybe?

So nothing much happening here. Just working and staying cool. I ran my errands on Monday. Got some gas and was pleasantly surprised to get it for $3.63 a gallon. Sad that I was happy it was only $3.62! Felt I got a bargain. LOL I didn't go to Happy Hour at Sonic. I was coming up on it and almost turned in. Then at the last minute decided against getting a Lemon-Berry Fruit Slush. Oh, they are so yummy! Just wish Sonic would seed their lemons. Nothing like sucking up a lemon seed.

Saw on Courtney's blog that Hana is teething majorly. Poor baby!! Sounds like we may be having some top teeth coming on in. I hope it doesn't get too much worse for the Masseys. I know it's got to kill Courtney & Joe not to be able to fix it and make Hana all better right now!

Here's the reason for the title of the post. Yesterday while I was out doing errands, I went to Kroger's and did some grocery shopping. Of course, I picked up some of their tortillas! They are sooooo good. Yes, I've already eaten some (not all) of them with butter. And real butter, not margarine! What's a few clogged arteries? So I'm shopping and right on an end display they have Fritos and on the end display on the next aisle is soup, namely tomato soup. Well, of course, I had to get some Fritos and tomato soup. That's what I had for dinner Monday night and again for lunch yesterday! Yes, it's 100+ degrees outside and I'm having soup! It was so, so, so good. Then that got me thinking about soups and I'm thinking of make homemade potato soup (mom's recipe). That sounds really good to me. I may end up making some tonight.

Then after the soup, I had some ice cream. Gotta cool down, ya know? LOL It was pretty darn good, too. I got something new (on sale). It's from Dove (didn't know they made ice cream) and it is called Caramel Pecan Perfection, and it was perfection. Very tasty. Their "signature" thing to do is have a chocolate ganache on the top of the pint. Basically a thin layer of creamy Dove chocolate protecting the ice cream. Yummy!

Otherwise, I'm just ready for the fall TV to be back on! I was all ready to watch Wipeout last night and it was basically a clips show. Very disappointed. Then I have my DVR set to record Rock the Reception. Anyway, I got to watch the recording and it's not Rock the Reception. It's the 750-lb Man. So didn't want to watch that. I don't know what happened to Rock the Reception. I do have to saw that I'm getting into Jon & Kate Plus 8. I know a lot of y'all watch it and I'm getting hooked into it. The kids are just so cute!

Monday & Tuesday nights there isn't much on. Tonight there's So You Think You Can Dance, Shear Genius, Project Runway. It'll just be nice when regular TV is back!

TTYL,

Monday, Monday

Well, it sure was a hot, hot, hot weekend! Nothing much happening in my part of town. I went and hung out with Courtney, Hana & Baylee Friday night. We had a nice, relaxing evening. It was a good way to unwind after the rush to get my big job out. And I'll agree with Courtney. It's hard to remember that Baylee is ONLY 12!! She sure doesn't look 12 and she's much more mature than what I remember 12-year-olds being. What a great girl she is, though! I had a really nice time talking with her and just hanging out. Here are the pictures I took: 8-1-08

As Courtney mentioned in her blog, we decided to have Taco Bueno for dinner Friday. (I'm very much more a bueno girl than a bell girl.) Anyway, Baylee & I decided to go get it while Courtney was finishing up feeding Hana. So as we're pulling into the drive-thru, I'm looking at the menu. Because, of course, Bueno had added something new to their menu. It seems like everytime I go (which isn't really that often) they've got something different going on. So we're pulling up and Baylee says, "There's a boy in that dumpster!" I'm like, "What?" She says again, "There's a boy in that dumpster and his mom is right there." So by then I look over and sure enough, there's a boy of about 8 years old perched on the opening of the dumpster for Taco Bueno. He's obviously been in the dumpster and is getting out. Baylee notices he has gloves on, too. So I go ahead and place our order, and we continue to figure out what's going on. Baylee is grossed out completely by the thought of the boy being in the dumpster. (Me,too.) I speculate that he must have thrown something away of value, possible a retainer (although he looked too young for that), and his mom is making him find it. As we're at the window waiting for the food, he runs across the car to the door and we noticed his "gloves" are those really thin, cheap, plastic food prep gloves. So he wasn't getting much in the way of protection. So Baylee and I are talking and we both agree that Courtney would never make her child go into a dumpster after something, no matter how expensive. We also both agree that Ashley would possibly make her children go after something expensive if they threw it away like that. So I told Baylee to always remember the boy in the dumpster once she gets her braces off and gets a retainer, but she will NOT want to be digging through any trash! She got a big laugh out of that, but said she'd remember. LOL

We got back and had our Bueno and talked some more. We, of course, played with Hana. She was right in the middle of it all. She most definitely didn't want to be ignored and "caged" for the evening. LOL She's such a sweetie. Also, Courtney had some ice cream that was AWESOME! It's Haagen-Dazs's Sticky Toffee Pudding Courtney & Baylee had gotten some ice cream the evening before. Baylee had Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, her favorite. We all agreed to really liking that one, too. That brought up the discussion on how do you eat it? It was interesting that we all three eat it differently! So we'll take a poll on it to see how y'all eat your ice cream. (I'm always jealous of Court's polls!) Look on the side bar for it.

On Saturday, I didn't do much. I did some laundry and ran some errands. Then Saturday night I went and babysat Matt & Maggie so George & Julie could go see Jersey Boys. (My tickets are this coming Sunday. Really looking forward to it.) We had a really nice night. I got to hear all about their trip to California. They were there for the earthquake, too. Matt told me all about it (several times). Although, he assured me he wasn't scared and it "wasn't a big deal" really. LOL We played some games, which Matt won every time, with the help of his sister a couple of times. We watched iCarly (thankfully NOT Hannah Montana). It was cute. Maggie is ALL about Hannah Montana, though (and Miley Cyrus). She's got one of her CDs. She played it for me (a few times) and danced and sang along to it, too. It was a great night.

Sunday, I went to Sam's & Costco with Julie (and the kids) and Mary Ann. It's kind of like when we'd all go to Wal-Mart for hours. More talking than anything. I did find some really cool scrapbooking paper at Sam's though, which was cool. Costco was crazy insane busy. I mean crazy!! It was soooo hot yesterday, too! Matt told me it was even too hot to swim! LOL I got home for the shopping and laid down for a little nap. Mainly just trying to get cooled off again.

I watched Next Design Star. The person I wanted to win did not, which is good. That means there's one less show I'll be tuning in to watch. I saw that Sunday Night Football was on. I too am glad to have football starting back up. I can't wait for the regular season to start!!

Be sure and take the poll. I'm off to the post office, bank and to get gasoline. And maybe I'll swing by Happy Hour at Sonic! LOL

Snowballing

I feel like everything just snowballed on top of me the last two days!! My week was going really well. I took some depositions, worked on some at home, worked on finishing up the invitations at night.

Yesterday (Thursday) I went to Greenville for a deposition. Saw 3 police/highway patrol within 2 miles of each other on 30 on the way on there. Didn't get stopped! Yeah!! LOL So I take my deposition and am heading home. I'm thinking how I don't have a deposition to do for Friday and I can work a bit in the morning and then head over to Courtney's and see her and the girls (Hana & Baylee). Then my phone beeps with all the emails and messages I have. The most important was that the HUGE deposition I had taken last week (300 pages) HAD to go out today (Friday). Well, I wasn't anywhere near complete. I still had 200 pages to edit and then proofread the whole thing. Not good! Also, Melissa really wanted the invitations, if they were finished, to send out. Luckily, I was just about done. I just needed to finish putting the insides in. Finished those in no time.

So needless to say, it is not coming up on 5:00 and I JUST finished the transcript. The invitations have already been picked up. Now I'm going to see if the girls still want to do something. I did speak with Courtney briefly earlier and told her it would be around this time before I could think about doing anything.

This is the way it always seems to go, though, in the exciting life of a court reporter. Sure don't know when I would have jet ski'd in this whole time! =)