CAUTION: Woman In Progress

I'm self-imposing a break today from the deadlined project because IT'S KILLING ME!! And if I die, the project will NEVER get done because no one else knows how to do it. Well, sorta. But mostly for real. Anyway, remember when I said my knees were in a happy place ? Yeah, this project saw to it that THAT is no longer true. Try standing/walking for 3+ hours a day on a concrete floor for three days straight. Yeah. That'll pretty much ruin anyone's knees/feet, amiright? Add that to the fact that the other 5 hours of the day are me running here, there, and yonder? Yeah. I'm not complaining about the work itself. Once I got in the groove of it, I actually enjoy it. I just hate the effect it's having on my poor ol' body. It sucks to be old, out of shape and fat. I'm not even being self-depreciating here. Truth! (Anyone else shocked to know that I spelled "depreciating" correctly on the first try? Cause I totally fell outta my chair when spell che...

No time to type, today, ya'll. I'm on deadline which sounds really glamorous but really isn't because my deadline is 5 months from now and involves physical labor. Ugh. Just kill me now. Anyway, Sis1's birthday was this year and here's the pictorial run-down. ;) There were cookies. There were guns...       ...and cake... And girl's who WANTED cake... ....And boys who ATE cake... And apparently LOVED cake. There were pretty girls with iPhones... And pretty girls who hunted.  Oh! And most important of all.... There was a birthday girl! A great and fun day was had by all. Now. I'm off to the salt   book mines.

Okay, so yeah. I'm apparently way behind on this one. This is supposedly on the Breaking Dawn part 1 soundtrack but I honest to goodness do not remember this song being on BD Pt. 1. I never heard it until the end of Part 2 when it made me cry like a baby. Internal cry, though. I was with my friends and they'd have NEVER let me live it down. :-/ Anyway, it's a gorgeous song and the video's pretty sweet, too. I've been listening to it at work for the past several days and then go home and sing the chorus to Libs. Over and over and over. She really loves it. Except not. ;-)

Gettin' some sugar from my sweet fluffy butted Devil Pup. This is the stuff that makes getting up in the morning so worth it. :)

~Sometimes the world just makes me cranky. ~I often feel like I just can't win for losing. Nothing is right. Nothing is good. Everything I do is criticized. Why can't I just live my life and you live yours and we just agree to disagree on what the other is doing? ~My knees are finally both in a happy place where they're not torturing me daily. Feet, too. I probably shouldn't talk about it, though. They'll hear me. ~I "walked" with Denise Austin this morning for the first time in MONTHS. I nearly passed out. But in a good way. ~Sis1 and my aunt in COLORADO (yes, I had to shout it because what. the. heck.) have decided that "we" need to throw Mama a big 60th birthday party in June. Oh, and they'll "help". Whatever. I know who'll be planning and executing this shindig and it won't be the sister in Alabama and the aunt in Colorado. I might can pull Sis2 into helping for realz but she's broke so you know who'll be...

I didn't do much of anything noteworthy this weekend. Honestly, the highlight of the weekend was the two hour de-Christmasfication of my house. Tree is finally down and stowed for another year. Well, the big tree is. The little tree in my room is still standing proud and sparkly. The closet is blocked where I store that little bit-o-Christmas and I'm too lazy/tired/uninspired to move the stuff. So the little tree can stay until I gather the energy. But yeah, other than the big tree and all the decorations going away I didn't do much. Nothing worth blogging about, anyway. Then yesterday I was off work again. This time for an actual holiday. I swear I'm getting SO SPOILED. Between Christmas, illness, snow and MLK Day, I haven't worked a full week in over a month. Not that I'm complaining. ;) I used my MLK Day off to futz around with some things around the house. Crafty stuff (no photo yet--it's currently a mess). Cooking. Napping. Reading. I finally ...

Yesterday was one of those rare flukes where we actually had snow!  They had been warning about potential icy conditions Wednesday night because we've had nothing but rain for the past week and were expecting freezing temps overnight. So when I got up yesterday morning I turned on the news to see if there were any closings due to icy roads.  Us folks in the south don't really know how to drive on snow/ice so any potential for icy driving conditions usually calls for a complete shutdown in most instances. When I first got up, the yard was wet but clear. The news was reporting spots of ice that were supposed to be cleared up by 9 or 10 am so most of the area schools were opening with delays. The university was business as usual. However, being that I commute 45 minutes on mostly rural highway, Mama and I declared our own delay and had planned to leave around 9am in hopes of missing the ice. Mother nature, however, had different plans. While I was on ...

I know I said I probably wouldn't recap my Christmas vacation since it was so far in the past by now. But.  Since my house is still fully decked out for the holiday--tree and all!--it's still Christmas where I am. I'll try not to get all "every second play-by-play" but no promises. So. Friday Dec. 21 (It's the end of the world! Except, not.) was our first day of vacation. As has become our tradition, Sis2 and I met up for a baking day. Last year it was held in my tiny miniscule excuse for a kitchen because her oven was broken. This year, though, we baked in her kitchen. I didn't realize I was that much taller than Sis2. And yes, those are their pj's underneath the kids' aprons. haha Now, you can't tell it from this blurry iPhone  picture because I am an awesome actress, but I was actually praying for death most of this day. Miserable from digestive issues, was I. That was the first day of almost a two week thing. But we made peanu...

I mentioned yesterday that we had done a little bedroom redo for Lyssa over the Christmas break. At five, she was really outgrowing her toddler bed but was reluctant to switch out to a larger bed. Mostly, we think, because she couldn't picture where she'd sleep if she didn't have her bed and her Dora sheets. And while her dad (aka Goofus) wanted to convert her toddler bed/crib into the full sized version of itself (it's one of those three way convertible type beds), Sis2 was not into that idea at all. Partly because a full sized bed would take up so much of Lyssa's play area in her bedroom but mostly because she knew if there were a full sized bed in the house her MIL would think she could start spending the night with them during her overnight trips. Sis2 and her MIL don't, um, get along. Several months ago when they first started realizing that they  needed up upgrade Lyssa's bed, I offered the simplest solution I could think of. Move the daybed from ...

Oy. Nothing like coming back from a nice Christmas vacation only to get knocked on your butt by a cold from Hell. I came in to work Monday and Tuesday feeling like death and finally called in sick the rest of the week. That's why no new blogs, etc. I hate calling in sick. It feels so irresponsible, especially since we JUST got back from Christmas vacay. But it's just not in my DNA to like leaving my co-workers in a lurch like that. I hate it. But I just could not continue dragging my phlegm and snot riddled self to the office. So I did what I never do and stayed home in bed. Ya'll, I think that is the worst cold I have had in YEARS. It actually even got me to go to the doctor which is something else I just never do. Now. The doctor. Can I just say that I wish I could charge $70 for every ten minutes someone requests a meeting with ME??? No joke. I talked to the doctor all of ten minutes where-in he listened to my chest, checked my ears/eyes/glands and wrote me out...

I'm rested, refreshed and raring to go. Well, I'm back, anyway. haha It was a decent break. And I only call it "decent" because I spent the better part of it fairly miserable with digestive issues. TMI? Well, that's okay. It's life and calling it "digestive issues" is as kindly as I can put it without getting REALLY TMI. I'll be back in blogging action next week and will fill you in on all the non-digestive deets. haha Until then, Happy New Year! xoxo

Hugs and smiles on this Christmas morning. Love, Jana and Libby

Adieu! Adieu! To you and you and you! Okay, so MAYBE I like the sound of music a little bit TOO much. Which is funny because before I ever saw it (pre-4th grade) I was convinced that I hated it. Mostly because everyone told me to hate it. But my 4th grade teacher, bless her heart, made us watch it as part of a sort of visual history/theatre/"treat" thing and I fell in love. The point of this post isn't to exalt the wonder that is Julie Andrews (although she is aMAZing!!) but instead to say, "It's that time of year again." The time of year where I shutter my blog for approximately two weeks and go off and do fun family things involving Christmas. ;-) This has been a roller coaster year for me, personally, though I would not say it has been bad. There have been hard times, disappointments and unique experiences I would not have chosen for myself but in everything there have been blessings. I don't even remember all the things that angsted me out over...

So. Getting a suitable Christmas card photo with the Devil Pup has been...how shall I put it? Difficult . Yes. Difficult. For some reason, she is just NOT INTO IT. Perhaps I've taken her photo too often over the years. Hmmmm... Either way, she adopted this sort of fool me once but then I'll bite you attitude. Which she did, once. Bite me, that is. Not hard. Just enough to let me know she meant business. More like a growl and teeth graze on my hand sort of thing, lest you think she's violent. ;-)  Notice she's not looking at the camera. This was the same face I got in just about every one that night.  Then it was a matter of not even coming near me.  I was sitting in the floor in front of her trying to coax her over and that's the incredulous look she gave me. Like, "WHATever."  She finally inched over enough to drape herself over my leg to lick my foot. That's when she teeth grazed me as I reached for her.    A couple n...

Ya'll. I'm not ordinarily much of a shopper. Hence my early morning grocery treks to avoid other shoppers. I'm a get in, get out kinda gal. (Insert a "That's what she he said" joke here. haha) Shopping is not my forte. Unfortunately, though, not all Christmas gifts can be purchased on-line. At least, not the kind of gifts I get. For instance, BIL loves the cheese straws and lemon straws produced by a company here in Mississippi and while, yes, they do offer them in an on-line store, the shipping is outrageous. So instead, I get them from a local gift shop. (Insert "shop local!" slogan here. That's one of the big PSA's around here this time of year.) That called for...dun, dun, dun...a shopping day! As in, all out, driving around town from one place to another shopping. Fortunately, this year I had a partner in crime misery. Sis2 jumped at the chance to leave the kids with Goofus and trek all over town with me. Hurray for a sister I don...

Just passing along this link to a blog that has listed links to places and ways to assist those in Conneticut. She's a semi-local person so I assume she's in the know. Also, the folks over at The Lettered Cottage posted a link to the branch of United Way who is collecting funds to help out. Bonus, Layla offered a lovely heartfelt prayer that I think was in most everyone's hearts this weekend. God bless.

I prayed for a happy and good day for myself and my family this morning on my way to work. After yesterday's fiasco with the mini-terrorists and all that had gone on with that and beyond, and then a repeat of it this morning (poor Mama!) I felt like we all needed a good day. Some happiness. Something to ease the frustration of dealing with destructive rodents. I should have prayed for the whole WORLD to have a happy day. My heart goes out to everyone in Connecticut affected by the tragic shooting. It's senseless and evil when a man can just decide that it's okay to go to a school--or anywhere!--and just kill whoever he crosses paths with. It's especially heinous to think it's okay to kill children . There is no "why" to this sort of thing. There is no reason. No explanation. Only evil. It definitely puts the concept of a "bad" day into perspective, huh?

I am convinced that mice are little mini-terrorists bent on destroying the world one wire at a time. Not only did they destroy half of Daddy's Christmas lights he'd stored in the shed. I mean, that's bad enough. But today really takes the cake. You may or may not know that My mother got a new Nissan Rogue last year.  Or earlier this year. No, I think it was late last year. ANYWAY, the car is barely a year old and this morning it would not crank. Well, it did at first, but when she cut if off it wouldn't start a second time. The problem? MICE. A mouse or a group of mice had built a nest under the hood somewhere and chewed through some wires. A $1300 fix, peeps, according to the dealership. Warranty doesn't cover such a thing and the insurance adjuster is giving her grief about it even though something like that SHOULD be covered under a comprehensive auto insurance plan. What the crap, mice? You don't have anything better to do than chew wires? They d...

So. Trix and I were talking about Christmas songs earlier and I mentioned that I have the warm and fuzzies for Elvis's Blue Christmas . Just Elvis's version of the song, though. It has to be Elvis. Unless it's Porky Pig. This is where Trix informs me that she has not had the delightful opportunity to indulge in such a pleasure as listening to Porky Pig sing Blue Christmas . So Trixie! This one's for you! :-D Enjoy!

Life. Blergh. In a nutshell this weekend I... ~grocery shopped ~Christmas shopped (I'm almost done!! Woot! Woot!) ~decorated the small tree in my bedroom. ~discovered that I'm (once again) an idiot. (No, Virginia. Two boxes of 20 count lights will NOT fill up a small tree with white lights.) ~strung up some "decorations" and lights outside. ~Talked to BFF on the phone. (It's been six months. Yikes!) ~Ate lightly. ~Lost 1lb. ~Finished TWO BOOKS!! (Brenda Novak FINALLY got out of the whole depressing/disturbing/dark thriller rut she was in. Can I get a Amen?) ~Watched The Holiday ~Slept. ~Washed clothes, dishes and myself. (Not at the same time.) ~Swept, vacuumed and partially dusted. (Again--not at the same time.) ~Finished decorating my dining table. (And forgot to photograph it.) ~Went to church. (Only once.) ~Offended my mother by smothering the bland hamburger "steak" she made for lunch Sunday with bbq sauce. ~Did...