Mornings Are Beautiful but I Want to Sleep

I'm not a morning person. What about you? It's not that I'm grumpy. I just like to sleep in. When I do get up early, I find I'm very productive and usually have no regrets. Despite knowing that, I still like to sleep.
On the weekdays, I get up at 5:45. Often I'm awake earlier thanks to a certain cat who thinks just me (not anyone else in the house) needs to be up.
Our schedule has changed a little. I use to have some leisure time to get ready. Now the kids have to be out of the house earlier. I didn't find much joy in the feline wake-up call at about 5:15 this morning. However I did notice a beautiful moon when taking the trash out:


When my daughter and I left, she remarked the clouds looked like mountains:

City Girl, Country Girl?

Growing up I always thought of myself as a city girl. I believe summers spent visiting my grandparents in the country and having to pick things out of their garden shaped my views. I knew snakes and big bugs were lurking in between those rows of vegetables.
Now I live in the outer suburbs, bordering on rural farmland (for now). I don't have a garden or livestock but I have an appreciation for them. I like barns partly because they don't build them anymore or at least like they use to. I pulled off the road into a field and got this shot today.



Now I find myself taking pictures of all kind of things. I guess I've changed.

The Cows Next Door

Unrelated to the cows next door:

I'm watching the new season of Trading Spaces tonight. My daughter loves the show. One of the carpenters is Brandon Russell - an Appalachian State University graduate! His school is proudly stated in his bio on the website.
Also, we watched the Miss America pageant. Miss Michigan won. (I won't interject anything about App beating Michigan). The TLC network had promoted how they were updating the pageant and the contestants. They ran several episodes in January leading up to the contest about the whole thing getting a makeover. In the end, I felt of all the finalists Miss Michigan still embodied the typical, old fashion pageant look with her gown and hair. She sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

Television Can Be Educational

I still don't think I'm as smart as a 5th grader. This feeling was reinforced today when my daughter called out a few vocabulary words and I didn't know their definitions. I believe my youngest child is so smart because of the shows I've caught her watching recently:

1. Snoop Dogg's Father Hood
2. The Girls Next Door
3. L.A. Ink

For no reason, here is a picture I took one morning standing at the end of my driveway. The road ends at a field. There were cows but it was too foggy to see them.

No, I Am Not

I just finished watching "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?". The answer is no. I didn't need a show to tell me that. I live with a 5th grader.

Here are pictures I took in the morning and afternoon from my deck:

A Picture from the Past

Tonight I was deep into flickr when I found a picture of my grandparents' house. It was in the country where I spent many summers. There were also pictures of the church, the cemetery, the family's grave sites including my grandparents' head stones. The county's historical society had uploaded the photographs. Seeing them brought back a flood of memories. My grandfather passed away in 1979. He was in poor health most of my childhood. He was born in 1896. Doesn't that seem wild? My grandmother and I were very close. She lived until November 1993 - long enough to see her first great grandchild - my son. He was 9 months old when she died. She had been a caregiver to my grandfather for a long time. He was 10 years older than her. After he was gone, she traveled all over the United States with senior citizen bus tours. She flew for the first time to Hawaii in her 70's. I think about her often. This was their house:

Messed Up

What a cluster-you-know-what this morning. First of all, last night I did everything to get ready for our first day back to school this week except set my alarm. Thank goodness Chloe Cat woke me up before it was too late. All seemed fine. My husband takes my daughter to school. He calls me. There is black ice all over the roads. Cars in ditches everywhere. The round trip should take 20 minutes. It took him an hour. In the meantime, I'm at the bus stop with my son. He's anxious. It's the first day of end-of-course exams for high schoolers. We wait and wait then hear buses were ordered to pull over and wait until temperature rise. The kids were antsy about getting to exams. Apparently make-up exams are not preferred. My neighbor offered to take my son, another child and his son. They get to school and then it's announced all exams were canceled for the day. It's probably the fair thing to do but still a mess.
I'm staying in, listening to the stock market falling.

An Annual Tradition

The kids are home and I'm off work because of the MLK Holiday. When I was pregnant with my first child, we got a baby dresser handed down. It had been in my family for years. I found this in it:

It's dated 1970 which places it in my parents' home. My brother was 1. I won't get into the irony of my family having a MLK calendar. 'Not worth posting. My husband and I try to bring up our children a little differently than we were raised. Anyway, I still have the dresser and each year I bring the calendar out.

Is It A Sign - I Need To Pack My Bags?

Simultaneously I found this in my drawer:



while Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" was playing on my computer. Right now it's 26 freakin' degrees outside. Yes, I wish I was here:



Well, at least I have been there.

Saturday

Stir Crazy in the Suburbs

Basically I've been at home since mid Tuesday. I can enjoying being a homebody the majority of the time but I am getting a little stir crazy. I had outpatient surgery Tuesday morning. Nothing serious just a boob job - no I'm kidding. When I got home, I felt a little out of it so staying in wasn't an issue. Wednesday I was fine. There was no reason I couldn't have gone into work but I stuck with the plan to stay out. Since I am such an honest person (more like guilty) I felt if I wasn't at work, I should stay home. I ended up doing more strenuous chores around the house than if I had gone out. Then late last night/ early in the morning we got our "wintry mix". Here in the south, a "wintry mix" forecast can cause a panic. I'm sure the bread and milk aisles at the grocery store were bare. The announcement of school being canceled was made last night before the first freezing rain, snowflake, etc. even fell. This is what it looked like out my front door this morning:

The temperatures rose by noon. There was slush on the roads but I was still held hostage within my house. It turns out the project my daughter had due Friday took much longer than she anticipated. She worked on it all day. Matter of fact, she's still finishing up. I don't want to think what would have happened if she had not had the day off.

In the meantime, I've taken a lot of pictures mainly of my cat Chloe.

She's the only family member who cooperated. I've read 3 books. I mentioned Friday Night Knitting Club already. It was the best read of the bunch. Here are the other two:The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty Body Surfing by Anita Shreve.

Tomorrow I will leave this house!

Kids: Mom Really Can Be Nice

I'm home today (perhaps subject matter for another post) and I vowed I would stay here all day with the exception of picking my daughter up from school.
I'm pretty adamant about my kids straightening and cleaning up in their rooms once a week. I think I've mentioned about 100 times that I live with slobs. I took pity on my daughter. She's having a tough time since school resumed after break. There has been tons on homework, no recess even when temperatures were in the 70's (don't get me started on how a lot of the kids' behavior problems would be lessened with more physical activity at school aside from the health benefits), and she has 2 projects due Friday. I decided I would tackle her room.
Before:

After:


Here is my son's before:

He's in charge of the "after". I may be nice but I guess I'm not fair nor do I have that much energy.

It All Comes Back to Floyd

My son gave me a prism for Christmas. I hung it in one of our windows. Today I noticed its effects on our black (with a little gray marble) tile floor. I tried my best to get a clearer shot but Chloe Cat kept nudging me or blocking the sunlight. A photographer's assistant she is not.

It reminded me of the famous album cover from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. The album came out in 1973 when I was little but it's such a classic. It was playing strong when I was in high school, college and beyond. I saw a teenage boy wearing it on a t-shirt yesterday. We have the cd.

Weekend End Wrap Up

A great weekend. I tried to stay around the house as much as possible. Saturday the weather was mild so my daughter and I went for a walk on trails near one of our reservoirs.

I mentioned in a previous post I wanted to recapture my passion for reading. I finished Friday Night Knitting Club - from the library. (I'm trying to be more frugal). The book was pretty good

with a twist at the end. I'm not a knitter so some of it probably went over my head. The real subject was relationships not knitting.

Effects of Winter

I know it's winter because my feet look terrible. In sandal weather, I take great pride in foot appearance. It's weird but I take pictures and put on flickr. Even weirder, those feet picture get the most views from the public. Here is how my feet don't look at the moment:

A Very Random Post

• I don't close cabinets or drawers all the way. I don't realize this at the time. By doing so, I leave a trail of where I've been.
• I can eat healthy or exercise. I can't seem to do both at the same time. I get so hungry when I work out and crave carbs such as bagels like crazy.
• If I set a goal, it usually ruins it for me. For instance this summer I decided I would take at least one picture daily for a week. I had no inspiration and was so bored. Now I have no agenda and guess what? I usually take pictures every day.
• I realize the more I do on the computer, the less I'm interested in reading. I use to always have a book I was reading. Now I started reading again. I hope to re-spark my passion for it.

Any random thing you would like to share?

Lounging

It's Thursday and let me tell you, this week is dragging on. The first full week of school and work after Christmas break is taking its toll on everyone in our household. Right now I'm wearing my monkey lounge pants - a gift from my sister-in-law last Christmas. I don't want to get ready for work. I sent them an email saying I'll be late. Do you have favorite clothes to lounge around in?

Pictures Are Worth More Than Words

I'm not a photographer. I don't pretend to be. Though I'm constantly trying out different settings rarely using the automatic modes, my camera is just a point and shoot. I toyed with the idea of moving to a SLR camera but I think I'm just going to upgrade to a fancier point and shoot. I'm afraid if I did get a SLR camera I would get addicted to buying different lenses and go broke. My favorites subjects are: my family, documenting travels, my cat Chloe and of course Appalachian State Mountaineers. Still I take many random pictures. You might notice I've been putting the most recent ones on my left side bar. Here are a few more. I really don't have anything else I feel like blogging about at the moment.

The Best Made Plans

Things don't always go as planned. This past weekend I expected to be in Charlotte NC co-hosting a baby shower for a good friend from my college days. Sunday I ended up by her bedside in the hospital and in the neo-natal ICU. My friend's blood pressure skyrocketed last week and her little girl was delivered a month early via c-section. The cute 4 pounder is doing well. She's actually one of the larger babies in NICU. What an experience that was going in there and seeing those tiny infants. My friend's short term health still isn't great. Her blood pressure continues to be high. She got put back on bed rest. What an experience. It really makes you think.

Wasted Time? Maybe, Maybe Not

First post of the new year. Very early into 2008, I took a strong dislike to being on the computer. I believe coming into the busy season at work is partially to blame. The other is my own doing including the aftermath of blog posting daily in November during NaBloPoMo. I have so many applications (both personally and professionally) I use that are Internet based. It seems I have to sign on to the computer to do almost anything these days. Then I start surfing around and a huge chunk of time is just sucked up. I was sick of feeling nothing was getting done.
I've come to no real conclusion or solution - just expressing my feelings.