I Just Now Turned in a 13,712 Word Paper

I just turned in a 13,712 word paper which had to be written in four weeks, so I don't have too very many words left.

Luckily I have these words are leftover from the day before yesterday: "It's FEBRUARY and it's too hot to keep chocolate in your car without it melting (all over the steering wheel). It is 78 degrees as I type this right now. Thank goodness."

And these words from yesterday: "Today was Go Texan Day (the day the trail riders come in for rodeo). I finally have a whole Go Texan Day outfit and thanks to The-Guy, I also have a picture:

I think that's about all I can manage until my eyes stop burning out from staring at the computer screen. Hope everyone is having a nice weekend!

I Need to Take These Nice People Home with Me Because They Don't Scowl When a Camera Comes Near Them. Except Then I'd Need a Kosher Kitchen.

Last week was tough, tough, tough. Nothing really so very horrible happened in the grand scheme of things but still, it was just one of those weeks that left me wondering if maybe that survival instinct is overrated. I mean seriously, giving up would just be so much easier sometimes.

In fact, I lost my entire sense of humor right around Monday of last week and it didn't come back full force until Thursday or Friday, so that makes for sort of slim pickins blogging-wise.

I tried to do the water droplet thing, fairly unsuccessfully:



But I had a lot of fun with these nice people!













And then that Sweet Pea O' Mine came through with this sign. Things were looking up!


It's amazing how firm we are in our belief that chickens enjoy being eaten. Because nothing says cruising and fun like being fried up for someone's dinner!

On Thursday we welcome The-Guy's mom to Texas after living her entire 89 years in the Washington DC area AND only five weeks left on the count down to the Master's thing AND my kids smiled for the camera! This week looks good so far!

How a Coffee Mug is going to Make Me Almost Have to Quit My Job

You might be raising a Texan if your 15 year old daughter wakes up when it's 20 degrees and actually says the words, "It is SO COLD TODAY!!!! WHY are we having school?!?!" It's not her fault. The snow day with no snow was confusing for a lot of people I guess.

My stepgal brought home a coffee mug that orders people around whenever they open up the cabinet:

I could never drink out of a mug like this in the morning, because I'd waste the entire rest of the day just thinking up ways to be either passive aggressive or just downright defiant. It's so hard to choose sometimes.

Besides, some of these directives aren't even practical. Like, "Eat when you're hungry":

If I were the type to be ordered around by a coffee mug, first and foremost I'd have to quit my job. Because if I ate when I was hungry, I would be eating the entire livelong day. I wouldn't have time to eat all day AND hold down a job.

And that's just ONE of the direct orders! The whole mug is covered in them. I probably wouldn't have time for vacations either.

What I need is a coffee mug that's gives unsolicited advice in a gentler fashion. Something like this might help me make it to work in the morning:

In other news, I finally threw these out yesterday after having them for two years:

I thought having two year old cookies would protect me somehow, because why buy more when you still have some from two years ago? But it turns out that there's really no protection from girl scout cookies (Sorry Julie!).

At any rate, it's time to start a countdown. I don't think I actually graduate until April and won't see a piece of paper saying so until summer, but if all goes as planned I should be done with all the work for my Master's in six weeks.

Definite Proof That We Needed A Snow Day Even Though There Wasn't Any Snow

Look:

In years past I have spent a good solid hour just trying to get from North Braeswood to South Braeswood, and that was just for heavy rain, not snow.

Now that we had actual ice, I say our snow day was well deserved, especially since the freeways were closed. Gallons and gallons of gas would have been wasted as cars idled while the drivers whiled away their work day stuck on the side roads.

We're already not incredibly environmentally friendly. Better not to chance it.

Besides, if we have to deal with cockroaches, floods, 100 degree temperatures, tropical rain storms, and hurricanes, we should definitely get to stay inside when the temperature is in the twenties.

That's just fair.

Here are some ice pictures. I couldn't take very many, because I don't own gloves:
These look like water droplets, but they're really ice. In Houston. On roses that were in bloom the very day before. We definitely needed to stay home:

Does it count as taking photos while driving if you're at a stop light? Here's a truck in the lane next to me. Yeah I know I said we should stay in, but this was after 12:00, when the roads were deemed "safe-ish". The freeway was still closed though:

Here's one last one from the same tree as the first picture, in front of our house. Now please excuse me. I have on 752 sweaters and it's hard to move my arms into the proper position to type. I might have to come back and center and resize the photos later!

Who Needs ACTUAL Snow to Have a Snow Day? Hello from the land of the rolling blackouts...

We have a snow day tomorrow!

We don't actually have any SNOW, but we have a snow day.

And to all those people who are laughing at Houston just because we don't need an actual snowflake to shut down the city, I say this - YES the schools may have called a little on the early side.

But if a city has
no snow plows
no sand or salt trucks
no cars with four wheel drive/all wheel drive
no snow tires
and nobody's even heard of a cotton pickin' ice scraper...
it might be a little hard to drive in inclement weather.

I think Houstonians deserve a snow day just because we THOUGHT about snow. Or hail. Or sleet. Or even the ice pellets they're predicting.

And considering our average commute times are ALREADY among the nation's highest even when the weather is gorgeous, we probably ought to shut the city down when it rains too.

At any rate, here's the picture of herself my Sweet Pea likes:

Never mind that she's scowling. She has good hair.

And here's a picture of a sign. I've always wanted to take a picture of this sign. I don't know why. But I wish I had done it before Hurricane Ike lopped off the top and Enrique added his two cents:

At any rate, I'll let you know if we get any actual weather, besides from the pipes which are already bursting left and right. Did I mention we had rolling blackouts yesterday?

Happy week everyone!