Busted Bubbles

This morning, I woke up to the delicious sound of a gentle rain falling outside my window. I snuggled even further down under the covers and rolled over to snuggle with Big Daddy, but he wasn't there. It's then that I remembered with a chuckle that my courageous husband had risen early to brave the rabid Black Friday shoppers. So I rolled back over and snuggled down deep, all ready to go back to sleep when I heard the shrill cry of the critter, "I want juice"! What manners on the kid, right? What can I say, he's in his horrific three's. So of course my lazy, sleep in, snugly, warm morning is dashed. Gone is the turkey induce euphoria from yesterday's Thanksgiving. It's been replaced by with this sense of urgency I normally feel around the holidays. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

This weekend, as our tradition goes, is the time when we put up the Christmas tree and outdoor lights. With all this wet, rainy, cold weather we're getting today I think we'll save the outdoor stuff until tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a much nicer day.
Speaking of trees, our faux tree is starting to look pretty shabby. It'll do again this year. Money doesn't grow on trees in these here parts, but trees sure do cost a fortune these days! We've window shopped and for the size that we want (7-8') it's over $200..for a fake tree!! Big Daddy thought it would be nice if I had a real tree like the ones from my childhood, but even those are pricey. If we didn't have 9' ceilings and there weren't gaping holes in our tree it would be a none issue. Again..oh well. If we didn't have Critter, I'd get us a Charlie Brown tree.

An Almost Tragedy

My town made the big city news today. As a small little burb JUST outside of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, we rarely make any sort of news reel. When we have, it's not been for anything positive.

Shortly after 3 pm the power flickered at my house. While rare, it's happened on a couple of occasions and for no apparent reason. I didn't give it much thought until siren after siren wailed past by my subdivision. Followed not too far behind them - the news helicopters. Until then, I had no idea that less than a mile from my home, a serious accident had taken place; An accident that could have been so much worse. Today, a school bus carrying the high school and middle school kids from my subdivision crashed into a guard rail, hit a small culvert and then sheered a hydro pole with the pole coming to rest on top of the bus.

According to the news and the co-workers of Coach and Mrs. Coach, none of the kids had life threatening injuries. The accident is still under investigation and helicopters can still be heard flying around the scene. But as we've heard it, everyone is going to be just fine. Like I said, it could have been much worse.

In a town that is coming close to having 10,000 people living in it, we as a small community are struggling to catch up with the demand that the rapid influx of people has put on our town's infrastructure. Four years ago, this place had just 1,200 people living here. We have one major intersection, one traffic light and busy busy roads that aren't worth a crap. The road that the bus had the accident on is scheduled to be widened to a 4 lane road by the end of 2012. If you ask me, it won't be soon enough. The particular section of road where the bus hit the guard rail is of major concern, even for someone like me who drives a mid-size vehicle. It's narrow, the speed limit is 55 mph and people are always pulling out in front of other cars from the stores a few yards from the bridge. To be perfectly honest with you, I'm surprised there hasn't been more accidents at that spot in the past.

I'm almost certain that we'll find ourselves on the news tomorrow once more, but I have the feeling that we'll slip into the oblivion just as fast as we blipped on the news "radar". And that suits me just fine I suppose. At least it means everything is status quo and I for one like that.

Coming to Fruition

If you've been following my blog or just happened to have read this post, you'll be aware that I've been interested in getting involved in my community. Back in May I applied to my city's Park Board and while the open spot was initially filled by someone else, another one came open just recently and my application to serve was approved by the city council. Ya me, right?!

I'll keep you posted on how things go with that. Hopefully tonight's first meeting was NOT an indication - it wasn't bad, just slow.

My 100th Post!!

It's another day in paradise. The sun is out. It's another warm day - warm enough for shorts actually. The critter is in a relatively decent mood and I've had the luxury of spending the majority of the day outside (which is where I'm typing from). Of course I was working - doing some yard work. And to be perfectly honest, not everything was peaches and cream. There were a couple of exceptions to my lovely day: the bugs and the highly annoying yappy dogs next door.

It's the time of year when the weather should be turning cooler and while I've had a couple of cool days, we are still having days/weeks in the high 70's. This is sooooo not me complaining, but the one good thing about the cooler weather is that the bugs disappear. And I'm tired of them. Just a few minutes ago, some attack bug bit the living tar out of my neck and left a lovely welt. I feel violated! The attack bug was the least of my worries. The fire ants are still going strong in my yard and it took the rest of the bag of fire ant killer (the 4th in 2 months) to kill that mound. I'm ready to be done with them needless to say.

We're good neighbours. We take care of our yard. We clean up any of the garbage we see. We aren't having parties every weekend and we aren't a rowdy bunch. So, why is it that we get stuck with the crummy neighbours (save for Coach and the Mrs)? The house to the left of us was vacant for several months and what a glorious time that was. Our current neighbour is a woman in her 20's and her sister. They seem nice enough. They too are quiet and unobtrusive people. Sure their lawn needs better taking care of, but I don't hold that against them. What I loath..is their dogs. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE dogs, but not yappy dogs that bark ALL THE TIME! I suppose I could get over the whole barky dog thing if the dogs weren't out every minute of every day. It makes being outside in the back yard overly unpleasant - especially if Big Daddy is out there too. His patience for them is far less then mine and then, not only do I have to listen to the yappy dogs but my grouchy husband as well. At least today it was just the yappy dogs.

Well, O is done playing in the sandbox and as usual..is covered in sand from head to toe. It's I round him up and take him off to bath so he can at least look a little respectable like. Say goodbye to my back yard for now. With any luck, I'll be fortunate enough to blog from there again tomorrow.

Count down

Forty-nine days until the new year and already I'm making my new year's resolutions. Surely that's a bad sign or something, right? That's what I thought too.

Lest We Forget

Dear Heavenly Father,

Today we honor our veterans; worthy men and women who have given their best when they were called upon to serve and protect their country. We pray that you will bless them, Lord, for their unselfish service in the continual struggle to preserve our freedoms, our safety, and our country’s heritage. Bless them for the hardships they've faced, will face in the future and for the sacrifices they have made. We respect them. We thank them. We honor them. We are proud of them and we pray that You will watch over these special people and bless them with peace and happiness. In Your Son's name we pray, Jesus Christ; Amen.

My heartfelt thank you to all those in the Armed Forces that have and continue to serve our country.