So I Was Just Thinking

First of all, I was greeted today in my mailbox by a great surprise. Which means I will soon be able to take my own picture of this: While sharing laughs with this person: Now many of you maybe wondering why I didn't already have a passport for a trip that I have been planning for going on three years. Well it is a strange little story that I will begin with another little story. When my cousin Pam and I were kids, we noticed how much I resembled her mother and how much Pam resembled my mother. We would joke that mom had Pam first (she is a year older) and wasn't married (not a funny joke in the Catholic church) so she gave Pam to my aunt with the understanding that after Mom got married, my aunt would give her the next born child. This has been the hidden joke for years, never telling our mothers. When it finally came time to order a passport, I had lost my birth certificate. I filled out all the proper paperwork and mailed a check to the Vital Records office in San Antonio. H...

I got to use the Olympus camera today that I had traded over to my mom for the Kodak. I was so happy. Here are the results. Mom, James and I went to Salado today for a little window shopping (a concept that is lost on a five year old boy, by the way.) Along the way we came across this field of bluebonnets. So I pulled into a nearby parking lot and got James out, and Mom and I started taking pictures. Although the camera reunion is only temporary, it made felt good to be able to take good pictures again.

Recently, my mother asked me to trade cameras with her. She had a digital Kodak camera that belonged to my dad, but she didn't want to use it. I gave her my Olympus camera and I got Dad's. This is a weird camera. The charger connects to the camera using the same cord that you use to download pictures. I misplaced that cord, so now I have a camera that with a dead battery. About a week after I misplaced the cord, I checked out a camera from out campus tech. That same day, I locked in a drawer. I was out the following day and lo and behold, when I returned that afternoon, it was gone. The only camera left was a little one that the battery latch pops open on. It was okay though because I just taped it shut. This was the only camera I had so I took some bluebonnet pictures of my kiddos and some baseball pictures of my son. Why do I tell you this sad tale? I tell you to explain why the following pictures are blurry because now the little camera no longer focuses properly. Unfortunat...

It was very rainy this Earth Day. Since we couldn't go outside today, my students made the cutest bookmarks. I am sharing them with you The last was one was drawn by me. The kids had fun and so did I. What did you do today.

My mother has always been a very conservative person. She goes to church twice a week, watches religious television, listens to Rush Limbaugh and watches the Fox News Network. When my father was alive, he would bring home movies from people at work and mom would go to her room and read a book and listen to easy listening radio. Dad loved shows like Law & Order and La Femme Nikita . Mom hated them. The one thing they loved together was Jeopardy . They would record it everyday so they could watch it together. Since my father passed away almost two years ago, mom has started watching strange things on TV. I call her everyday to check on her. When I ask her what she is doing, many times she will say, "Watching Kill Bill." Sometimes it is one of the "Bourne Identity" or "Matrix" movies or something like that. When I hang up the phone, my husband asks what Mom was up to. He just cracks up because it is so unlike her. Mom Before Maybe it's boredom. Who ...

When Caitlin was three, I enrolled her in a place called Texas Stars. It was a performing arts school that focused on developing a well rounded performer. They began with tumbling, then singing and dancing. They wore black athletic pants and t-shirts and white Keds. They learned to do sign language to "Proud to be an American" sing and dance to Zippidee Doo Dah. It was such a neat school. This was before we knew about Caitlin's special needs. Throughout the class, Ms. Debbie could be continually heard saying, "Caitlin Rose, Caitlin Rose, Caitlin Rose." I wasn't too worried though because at every performance, Caitlin did what was expected...until the Christmas performance. That day, while all the other girls and boys were dancing and singing at the front of the stage, Caitlin was was walking in circles behind everyone else. That was the end of Caitlin's experience at Texas Stars. Three years later, I decided to let her try again. By that point, I knew Ca...

I decided today, I would play catch up with you all and share some of the little things we have been doing that keep us busy. On Palm Sunday, we went to church. As usual after church, we made our way to our regular breakfast spot. When we got there, however, it was packed to the point that their parking lot and banks parking lot were full. When this diner is too full, they don't have the best service so we decided to go somewhere else. That somewhere else turned out to be The Cracker Barrel. We had a good time and good food. Mom likes Cracker barrel, but it is too far to go every week. James is not sure about this hair style. Cait looks like she was wondering when we were leaving. After breakfast we rushed home to get Caitlin ready for dance photos. Her group is dancing to a song called the heaven hop where they come on stage dressed as nuns. Part of the way into the song they remove the habits and show off their sparkly angel dresses. Before we went to the dance studio, I took he...