For G..

Here are some of the pictures that I took the other day. There were only a small few that I was very pleased with. Others just..look nice. I hope you enjoy.




It was a great day regardless of what turned out and what didn't. The family had lots of fun and as I said we plan to return to do it again soon. I didn't realise it, but we were really very close to where JFK got shot. We happened to see the grassy knoll and memorials on our way on to the interstate. It was pretty interesting. One last picture: The critter..exhausted.

I've got a Secret...

This morning Mother called at 6:45am. I was sleeping of course, along with the rest of the household. This isn't normal routine for her thank goodness:

Her: "Did I wake you?"
Me: "Uhhhhhhhh." That's the sound of me trying to wake up and appear semi-coherent.
Her: "I thought you would be awake by now."
Me: "Uhhhhhhhh..what time is it?" I having a real hard time waking up.
Her: "6:45am your time."
Me: "Uhhhhhhhhhhh.." ..really REALLY hard time.
Her: "This is pay back for all the early mornings you woke me up when you were a baby."
Me: "Uhhhhhhh..thanks Mama."

The conversation didn't get much better. Thankful it was short and sweet. Big Daddy, who had answered the call, made a couple of incoherent comments (they may have been coherent, but I don't recall much of anything), rolled over and went back to sleep. I was almost back to sleep when O woke. I gave a little nudge to Big Daddy, who was my hero, got up and got him so I could sleep in. An hour later..my sister and nephews called:

Me: "Uhhhhhh..Hello?" Me barely awake again, wondering who the heck was disturbing my day to sleep in now.
Them: "Hellooooooooooooo" This is pretty much screamed into the phone by my 3 yr old nephew.
Me: "Hello?" Sounding just a touch more awake, though still groggy.
Them: "Hellooooo Auntie Erin" Again screamed into the phone by the Codster.
Sister: "You awake?" Her sounding all pleased with herself.
Me: "I am now thanks" Rubbing my eyes and trying to see what time it reads on the clock. "What time is it?"
Sister: "8 am your time. I was hoping you'd still be sleeping." Obvious laughter coming from their end.
Me: "Uhhhhhh..gee..thanks." Said in mock-ungrateful voice.
Sister: "Oh you're welcome." She says in bright chipper voice.
Codster: "..you look like a monkey and you smell like one too." More laughter.
Me: "I love you too little man."
Codster: Profuse laughing and random song.

Later that morning, my family and I drove into the city and walked around downtown Dallas. I was a little tired of my country view, wanting something a little more urban for today's photo adventure. I couldn't have asked for a better day. It was 80 degrees and sunny. There was a mild wind, but boy..it was gorgeous. We walked around for close to 3 hours taking pictures of the city scape. We still hadn't explored all we had wanted to when my camera beeps "Memory Card Full"(I'll be sharing some of those pictures when I have the time to resize them). We called it quits for the day with the promise to return. It was a fantastic time!

The rest of the day and evening were filled with more time spent outside playing in the yard and later friends (and neighbours) came over for an hour or so to hang around and chat. Critter and their son (who we call Superstar) had a blast playing with every toy they could get their hands on. What hooligans those two are when they get together! Lord love them.

...today is my birthday! Shhhhh

Chocolate Crack Corn..

..that's what it should be called at least. Big Daddy's Mama sent us some gourmet popcorn as part of the family's Christmas present and oh boy, let me tell you, she hit the nail on the head with that gift. Big Daddy and the critter have found their newest obsession, chocolate covered popcorn..aka chocolate crack corn. O can say "popcorn" perfectly, but when he gets all excited and sees the sinful, sweet goodiness (thank you G for such a lovely word)popcorn, it comes out sounding like "crackcorn"..which is sooooo fitting. You can't just stop at having one piece. One piece turns into 5, which turns to 20, and then before you know it, the bag is half done. Thank goodness it's a huge bag!

The Morning After

So here it is kiddies..my first post of 2008! Aren't you excited? Okay, so maybe not, but you should be though. I hope each and every one of you had a lovely New Year's Eve filled with the love and laughter of friends and family.


The first day of the new year was a pretty pleasant one. Let's hope that it's a sign of things to come. I decided the night before that I was going to get up early to go out and take some photographs of the country side. For some reason I got up a touch too early so I spent a good half hour driving around in the dark. Not much to be seen at that time of the morning except a drunk Mexican cowboy stumbling down the road. I contemplated stopping to get his picture, but even I know better then that. It wasn't a great day for pictures, but to the right was the best shot of the morning and it just so happened to be the first picture of the new year.

The majority of our day was spent watching football (I was humouring Big Daddy seeing as college ball is almost done for the season)though each of us spent time working around the house while O slept (for 4 hours - oh sweet sweet quiet time). We're waiting for the big game next week when our Bucks play LSU and so yesterday was just a root for Big 10 day. We even cheered for Michigan believe it or not (forgive us Lord for we have sinned).

For weeks I had been planning a surprise date for Big Daddy and I..sans critter. What a lovely evening it was! Friends of ours looked after O while we had a nice long leisurely dinner. It was so nice to get out just the two of us for a change. It had been a few days shy of a year since we had had the opportunity to do that. But that's what we get for living so far from family. We were also happy to hear that O had behaved himself and he wasn't the hooligan that he is at home. Maybe they'll be willing to watch him again some time (keeps my fingers crossed).

Just Another Day

It's another quiet night at our house. O is asleep in bed while Big Daddy rests on the couch and watches football. I too am in bed, but as you can see, I'm taking a little me time to read blogs and write a post of my own.

We are not New Years Eve people, not even before O arrived on the scene. I think it has something to do with the fact that neither of us are big drinkers. Okay, so that's not all because of that. We have friends and enjoy spending time with them, it's just that most live a thousand miles or so away and I personally feel that's what NYE is all about, being with friends. Have I mentioned that I loath crowds? Another reason that we don't go out to celebrate.
Big Daddy says we don't go out for NYE because I'm a bit of a home body. I suppose that I am to some extent, but I don't see any reason to leave the house (except to go to a friend's house maybe) to drink to wait up until midnight to blow horns and make a whole lotta noise. We blow horns and make a TON of noise here on a daily basis. It's called having a toddler (though there really should be a holiday for that). I like celebrating New Years in my jams..fast asleep. It makes for a well rested, less moody, more tolerable Muffy. If only I could get my Mother and sister to work with me on that.

We participate in a few New Years traditions though. We leave food on the table so we'll be blessed to have food on our table in the next year (it's a good thing the furry babies don't like human food). We sleep with a dollar bill in the pocket of our jams so we'll always have money in our pockets (honestly..who makes p.j.'s with pockets?) And the last tradition is eating cabbage on New Years day, which for us is usually coleslaw. I can't stand cooked cabbage. Elch!

My New Year Resolutions - yep I make'em:
* To get better at finishing what I start.
* Be a gentler person.
* Learn to see things positively rather than negatively all the time.
* Learn a new craft.
* Get back on the treadmill and lose the weight I want (read finish what I started).
* Be a better wife and mother (yep, believe it or not, I'm not perfect).
* Build a garden.
* Get involved.
* Get pictures and other things up on the walls.
* To be a more giving person.

A Season Ends and Another Begins

Tomorrow I will be taking down the Christmas tree, for which I am feeling slightly saddened about. Though I'm doing it only a few days earlier then normal this year, I felt a pang of sadness this evening as I stood in the center of my livingroom looking at my tree. It was a sadness that I have never felt prior to now.

My earliest memories of Christmas' past are of the Christmas trees we've had; the fresh pine smell, stringing popcorn and cranberries with my Mama for garland, all the hardened dough ornaments that Mama and I made (and after many years, them falling apart), the abundance of child-crafted ornaments that my sister and I made each year, and the countless hours we spent laying under the tree transfixed by the multi coloured lights. Even as I've grown up over the years, the tree has been that one real symbol where you knew that the Christmas season had begun when the tree went up. As a teenager it was a special day I spent with my Mama helping her add a thousand (or more) lights while listening to Christmas music. Decorating the tree was a process done over a couple days because her trees are just that involved. There were times when I would questions why she would put so many decorations on it, but her trees have always come out beautifully. They are like works of art.

As I've been writing this, I thought that the tree has been a tradition that I've never failed to miss, but I've just recalled a year when I didn't have a Christmas tree up. It was the first year Big Daddy and I lived together. I had only just moved in with him earlier in December, but him being a bachelor and who's family didn't make a big deal out of the holiday, he didn't have a tree or decorations. I don't recall if I was disappointed by that fact or not, but I've made sure we've had a tree every year since. There was even a year not too long ago when I made Big Daddy help me put the tree up in July. Of course there was no O running around and my furry babies didn't bother with it all that much.

I've been trying to put my finger on the reason the prospect of taking down the tree saddens me this year and not any of the others, but I'm not able to pin point a cause. This year is no different then the last 5 years at least. It's been mostly Big Daddy and I alone, without family and very few friends. My family are all in Canada and Big Daddy is from Ohio, so we're talking almost a couple thousand miles between us. We celebrate with our family from a distance as it's just too costly to travel to be with them this time of year, especially now that the critter has come along.
I wonder if maybe O is the reason that I'm having these feelings? Though this was his third Christmas, it was the first one that he actually had some comprehension of. His first Christmas, he was only 2 months old, a year old his second Christmas and now 2 years old his third. He understood a little about Santa and presents, but the big thrill for him has certainly been the lights. In the weeks past, the first thing he wanted to do in the mornings after he woke up, was to turn the tree lights on. Like his Mama, O could spend hours sitting in an otherwise dark room, staring at the luminous glow of the tree lights. So I don't know if it's because I see myself in him, or the fact that I'm passing on my family traditions to O, but I hope that he will look back when he has his own family and remember these special occasions with his Mama.


O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Dein Kleid will mich was lehren:
Die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit
Gibt Trost und Kraft
zu jeder Zeit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Das soll dein Kleid
mich lehren.

A little bit of Luxury

I've been very remiss in keeping up this blog. It hasn't been intentional..I don't think it ever is for anyone. Someone I once knew said that "you make the time for the things you want" and while I think there is some merit to that statement, I'm not always inclined to agree. Life has a way of interfering. Things can and do come up that prevent you from making time for what you really want. But that's how things go and that my friends IS life.

There are only so many hours in the day and mine are most often relegated to the things I need, not necessarily what I want. I have a young son who needs someone to take care of him. I have a husband who, believe it or not, needs someone to take care of him. I have a house that requires daily maintenance. There are bills to track, pay, and budget for. There are relationships with family and friends that need nurturing. There are a great many things that need tending to that, often what I want is put on the back burner. If I always made time for what I wanted, I'd be lying on the beach on some tropical island with no house or bills to worry about. And when I wasn't making time for that, I would be traveling the globe.

But those are hardly realistic wants and I don't think that was actually what the person was getting at. When all needs are met (and my body isn't needing sleep)I do take the time to fulfill some of my own wants as well. Occasionally I will sit down and watch a couple of my favourite shows, do some crafty stuff, take some pictures, or write in this here blog. I don't like to take time away from my son and my family and I've often looked at these things as luxuries. Then again, maybe that's part of my problem (a story for another time).

All that aside, I've been down for a couple of days with a head cold. Today has been the worst day, yet here I write. I think it has something to do with the cocktail of medicine I've taken in the last 12 hours. Thank you NeoCitrine and Tylenol Cold and Flu.

P.S. I was right about O on Christmas day. He was a bear and it was a very tough morning. But Big Daddy will tell you that I was probably worse than O. What does he know.