tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31311502024-03-13T07:03:43.375-05:00SurrealityThe Blog of a normal guy and his wife!Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544215033964744835noreply@blogger.comBlogger230125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-17511943200004313842010-01-05T01:22:00.001-06:002010-01-05T01:23:29.755-06:00Happy New Year! (2009)Here it is! The "Christmas Letter" meant to go out at the beginning of 2009.
Due to technical difficulties...for the ENTIRE year...its distribution was delayed. But, here it is, ready for you to view in two parts.
http://clarks.smugmug.com/Movies/Annual/2008/
Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-78201267742564225402009-09-02T09:37:00.003-05:002009-09-02T09:40:52.894-05:00For the CuriousWe finally got a TXU electric bill. For 5 1/2 months of service, they billed us all at once for $1200. Yowch! But, they sent us a letter saying that they understood it would be "unexpected" and they'd offer a billing plan. So, they divided it out for us and we'll have it all settled soon. Still no clue what the glitch was, but they did have meter readings for our house for all the months Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-91557802185799490362009-08-17T22:59:00.009-05:002009-08-18T10:37:38.606-05:00Armored ProtectionIf you're reading this for the first time, please be sure to read the prior entry first, entitled, The Wild Outdoors.Now, you have to know that we had been waiting for this house for such a long time. We saved our money for years and on top of the anticipation and excitement, the months of contract and construction were the longest and hardest 7 months of our lives due to the stresses of moving Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-67840359939480785562009-08-17T21:33:00.002-05:002009-08-17T22:57:09.228-05:00The Wild OutdoorsI'm not a particularly outdoorsy type person. I appreciate wildlife where it belongs - "out there" or behind the glass and bars of the zoo. :-) Even so, I was pleased to find a harmless and beautiful bird nesting in the trees behind our house. He's a wild red cardinal and we first saw him the week we closed on the house. Actually, we heard him before we saw him. It wasn't his beautiful song Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-89042872891428195112009-07-27T18:40:00.002-05:002009-07-27T18:53:30.470-05:00A Good WeekendWe had a good weekend!On Friday, William had his infusion so we spent the day relaxing in the doctors office and eating treats. During that time, William read his first complete book. It is called Big Egg by Molly Coxe. It's an amusing tale about an egg too large to be the hen's, so she carts it around the farm asking if it belongs to the other animals. "Is it a cat egg?" says Hen. "No," Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-86225100688532538432009-07-13T10:53:00.003-05:002009-07-13T11:11:33.481-05:00Not My JobWe moved into our house at the end of March. Naturally, we had all of the utilities connected or transfered from the builder to us. Due to some "glitch" TXU has not charged us for any of the electricity we have used since we moved in. I have gotten mail from them in our name and I have an account number. When I call, they verify my name, address, account number, etc, but for some reason we Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-54728119320074467382009-06-15T20:28:00.005-05:002009-06-15T20:38:23.210-05:00Bye Bye Mr. SunAdios amigo! It's time for you to hide...and not just long enough to let the clouds drip their humidity down to our level and then reappear to warm up the sauna. It's time for fall again.Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-65735541926727704222009-06-15T20:15:00.003-05:002009-06-15T20:27:44.477-05:00Lego sets...the highly sought motivator?With William's recent obsession with Lego sets, specifically getting more, more, MORE, we figured we might be able to cash in on this bit of motivation and encourage him to work hard at staying dry all night. He dons a Pull-Up each night before bed "just in case," but with his heavy sleep and sleep walking, he struggles to even make it past 11pm before finding himself a bit soggy. Tonight, we Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-81526292101038171082009-06-15T20:08:00.004-05:002009-06-15T20:14:47.199-05:00Our big kids...Our kids grew up a little yesterday. Mary Carol lost her first tooth (naturally - you will recall the dentist removed her two upper teeth after a face-first fall) while eating a granola bar. She swallowed it. She's looking extra gappy now, but it's cute. She's so proud. William completed his first job for money. He's been asking for ways to earn money so he can buy more Lego sets, but when ILisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-29324757904945239002009-05-06T01:53:00.003-05:002009-05-06T02:04:35.440-05:00How's William? - Another Successful InfusionMany people ask about William and the report is typically the same. Here's the latest, though not much has changed in a few months.William is doing well. He has infusions of IVIG every 3 weeks at a doctors office. Yesterday was his day. It takes 7 hours to administer the whole dose, but they make it pretty comfortable there and we come prepared. He doesn't really experience any bad side Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-39851892135787283472009-05-02T09:11:00.003-05:002009-05-02T09:18:59.022-05:00Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden SunPlease shine down on me!! I'm tired of these overcast, humid days. They are absolutely wrecking the beautiful, natural light thing we had going in our house. Not to mention how crabby I get when it's so muggy outside. It's time to stop hiding and come on out to play!! Mr. Sun, these little children are asking you, to please come out so we can play with you!Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-8344621176673596112009-04-27T11:20:00.005-05:002009-04-27T13:53:18.400-05:00It was bound to happen one day......and I'm surprised it took 5 1/2 years to finally occur. I did some laundry last night (ha ha, very funny...it hasn't quite been 5.5 years since I washed last) and pulled the second load out of the dryer. It was a darks load, which included my brand new dark-wash jeans. I was very careful, turned them inside out and meticulously sorted the laundry to prevent bleed problems, even caught and Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-14504184817608747162009-04-23T20:09:00.002-05:002009-04-23T20:31:50.957-05:00William - the RiddlerNote that this conversation occurred in the car, where all deep thought happens for our kids and immediately followed our conversation about the boxes of toys we were driving to the church to donate. I have no idea how his brain leapt from one to the other.W: "Mom, what would you do if you 'digged' a deep, deep hole and you were at the bottom and you didn't have a ladder to get out? You couldn'tLisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-89803318093612174902009-04-20T16:59:00.003-05:002009-04-20T17:00:47.486-05:00Sorry for the delay......it has been very busy and we are still very busy. Just know that there is lots of house stuff going on around here. We'll get around to sorting it all out and hopefully posting wonderful pictures soon enough.Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-67344195615825460352009-03-29T15:25:00.002-05:002009-03-29T15:29:42.912-05:00Holy BirdsWilliam: you know why birds don't have churches?Mom: why not?William: Cause they can't open doors. Of course, how silly of me! How could birds get in?Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-12290776801714527182009-03-27T13:45:00.002-05:002009-03-27T13:51:52.193-05:00Moving Day!Our stuff is all on a truck and on its way to our new house. I'm thrilled and eager to be unpacked. By the way... our house came with a pet. We named him Bonkers. He is a wild red cardinal, and though beautiful, not so smart. He flings himself into the windows at the back of our house at least 300 times a day. (hence the name Bonkers).. Come visit us soon so you can see our house and our bird Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-52822008622410989672009-03-25T06:54:00.002-05:002009-03-25T06:54:45.552-05:00Happy House Day!I'm up early! It's house day! Yippeee! Hooray for House Day!Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-42655854388924341182009-03-24T22:24:00.002-05:002009-03-24T22:33:19.093-05:00It's New House Eve!Sure, I haven't packed even the teeniest bit of our apartment, but I couldn't resist the urge to announce that tomorrow morning (way too early) is our closing day! The house we've been planning, saving and dreaming for over the last 9 months is finally going to be ours! Sure, we're forking over more money than I've ever had to fork before, and we're taking out a loan for a few times that, but Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-16002403871693104342009-03-19T21:39:00.006-05:002009-03-19T22:38:38.921-05:00Our new house.Let me tell you about the house that we've been dreaming about for the past year. It's almost time for our dream to become ours and I'm getting excited for our March 25th closing date. We had two main goals in moving from our old house. The first was more space. Space for our kids, space for homeschooling, space for my crafty side and more space for storage. The second was to find a house Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-20936062653911758252009-03-18T10:06:00.002-05:002009-03-18T10:25:07.105-05:00"Glad came back"Our first day home from our trip was really nice. On Monday, we saw sunrise at Big Ben and the House of Parliament in London, then took a 10.5 hour flight home and saw sunset at the new (and almost finished) house. Whew. It was a long and tortuous day, but we went to bed at 9:00 and slept until 9:30 on Tuesday morning. We picked up the kids from Michelle's house late on Tuesday morning and Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-75332279392533435772009-03-12T18:47:00.002-05:002009-03-12T19:05:55.812-05:00The second time around...The second time around, Berlin has been just as grand as before, but there have been some differences. 1. It's really cold here! It's been in the 30s and lower 40s all week. Now, for some, that's not a matter to complain about, but for we Texans leaving 70-80 degree weather last week in our cozy air conditioned houses, coming to a city to walk around outside all day in the 30 degree weather Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-9708680739984988262009-03-06T16:20:00.003-06:002009-03-06T16:20:54.333-06:00Berlin, here we come!!We're packing and bustling to leave for Berlin tomorrow. See you in a couple of weeks!Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-27982408602247870382009-02-23T15:19:00.002-06:002009-02-23T15:22:42.172-06:00Flew the CoopSpring is blooming in the retail world. Mary has noted the beautiful fragrance of the aisles of silk flowers in Hobby Lobby. William is more fascinated with another decoration, "bird jails." He'd like to have a bird jail in his room some day. To you and me, it's just an ordinary cage, but not to the active mind of a 4-year old.Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-62233773868334272382009-02-11T13:49:00.003-06:002009-02-11T13:53:18.220-06:00Speaking of heroes.We passed a fire truck today and reminisced a bit about William's birthday party, which I neglected to blog about. We celebrated at the fire station and two trainees presented fire safety tips before giving us a tour. The fireman asked "Does anyone know what to do if your clothes are on fire?"No one answered for a while, until Mary added, "Don't put them on."Yes, stop, drop and get away from Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131150.post-78121827658807871682009-02-05T20:02:00.003-06:002009-02-05T20:05:43.800-06:00A Hero in Our MidstAt our apartment complex, we often park next to a little blue Honda car that has two white Superman emblems on the rear windows. I happen to know that this car belongs to the people living in the apartment above us. The first time William noticed the Superman emblems, he commented and I agreed that it was really neat. We finished buckling and loading and preparing to leave and then as we Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14523968150640979701noreply@blogger.com6