The Saturday Morning Creeps

It's neighborhood garage sale day.  Some people just love this day.  I know some women who literally live for this day.  Who wouldn't want to sort through other people's junk to find a great bargain?

Me.  Call me crazy, but garage sales gross me out.  Oh sure, I've shopped at them before and found some great items (a double stroller comes to mind.)  But generally speaking, I'm a germaphobe and don't want other people's germs on my possessions.  That goes for secondhand stores as well.  It's one thing to buy myself something at a second hand store, but it makes me nervous to purchase children's toys or items knowing that some other child probably drooled and defecated over the item that I might purchase.  No way would I do that to my child.  Can you just imagine placing your child in a high chair that someone else's child pooped in? Ugh. Whether it's a garage sale or second hand store, I'm pretty sure I can utilize my bargain shopping skills to get just as good a deal on a brand new and mostly sterile item--even if I have to buy a lower quality brand.  But that's just me, the germaphobe. 

For whatever reason, antique stores and secondhand bookstores don't tend to give me the same creepy, germ vibe.  This may not make much sense.  But I typically only purchase antiques to place somewhere in my house as decor and not to actually use.  And I typically stick to used adult books and try to buy very few used children's books.  Why?  Because I still have visions of my toddler chewing on something that somebody else's child has sucked on.  Doesn't that just gross you out?  Has this really never crossed your mind when you've picked up a library book from the children's section?

The bottom line is this, if you don't know the person from whom you're getting the used items, how do you know that it's safe and clean?  Obviously, I have some neighbors and family members who strike me as clean people and with whom I would love to trade items.  But venturing into the unknown realm of garage sales and thrift stores makes me want to shower and rub alcohol all over my body.  Yes, I know I'm borderline OCD, but I like knowing from where germs come.  (I blame it all on the science fair project my parents convinced me to do in the 5th grade where I grew my own bacteria.)

Garage sale day also makes me nervous because I don't like the idea of strangers roaming around my neighborhood and property.  I've heard far too many stories about people who've "tripped and fallen" while garage sale shopping and who have sued innocent homeowners.  I have no intention of becoming the victim of this kind of fraudulent personal injury action.  (I know personal injury law, and the fraudulent PI lawsuits like these are the types that give lawyers a bad name.)  Anyway, there's no way I'm going to use my homeowners insurance to pay out a settlement to a garage sale shopper--no way!  Hint: If you want to sell your stuff, sell it online!

That said, I don't just trash all of my hand-me-down items.  I don't even consign most of them.  Instead, I donate to a charity or give my things to people who I know need them.  I figure that for every item I don't need, there's a sweet person or a reputable organization that could benefit from me de-junking my house.  Does that mean that I give away "free potential money" to charities?  Yes.  But it's a great way to avoid garage sale day in the neighborhood.  Last year, our previous church went so far as to have a give-away garage sale at the church where everything was free to whomever wanted to take it home.  And this was an awesome outreach.  It was a way to use junk for good.

You may not get rich being a germaphobe like me.  But using my methods, you can definitely use your junk for good.  And if you are an avid second hand shopper, more power to you.  I just hope you invest in Lysol, Betadine, Alcohol, and whatever disinfectant you can get your hands on.  And while you're out digging through other people's possessions, I'll be at the local discount store seeking my own treasures.  I guess when it comes to a great bargain--to each her own!

The Great Adventures of Dole

Three years ago, our son discovered his best friend while we were on our vacation in Hawaii.  On that trip, we visited the Dole Plantation and found a special little monkey that we name "Dole."  Dole has been with us just about everywhere we've gone since that trip.  He accompanied my son to church for a few months, he went to the mall, Grandma's house, on vacation to San Antonio, and he even accompanied us back to Hawaii this year. My son literally can't sleep without Dole.  (Below are pictures of Dole at a museum, Dole at Christmas, Dole with the new baby, and Dole at nap time.)

 

 

On our trip to Hawaii, something bad happened to Dole.  On our 2nd morning there, my son informed me that Dole was missing.  We looked, and looked, and looked for the little monkey everywhere, but we couldn't find him.  We ultimately decided that Dole must have disappeared when the hotel maids changed the sheets on our little guy's bed. (Dole gets lost in the sheets at home all the time.)  We contacted housekeeping and the lost and found at the Royal Hawaiian to no avail.  It appeared that Dole was gone forever.

My husband had "the talk" with our son.  He explained that Dole had gone to be with Jesus.  At first, our little guy was thrilled.  He said that if Dole was with Jesus then maybe Dole would finally be able to walk!  Unfortunately, after a few hours, the realization set in that if Dole had gone to be with Jesus, we wouldn't see Dole on earth again.  Then my little guy was sad.

Two days later, we visited the Dole Plantation again.  Much to our relief, they had bins and bins of monkeys. (We can probably thank my father-in-law for that, but that's another story for another time.)  We convinced our son to adopt a new Dole, since so many Doles needed a new home. And for the record, we purchased 3 Doles this time--one for each child, and one to play back-up if necessary.  On the way home, our son seemed perplexed with the Dole situation and we explained that it's possible that his Dole had escaped the hotel and had gone to visit his family at the Dole Plantation.  While there, he got himself a makeover.  This story must have been convincing, because our little guy kept asking his monkey, "Dole, how did you get out of the hotel?"

  

At this point, our vacation went off without a hitch.  And we ended up flying home with our new Dole(s).  But about a week after we got home, the phone rang and the caller ID said The Royal Hawaiian.  When my husband answered, the man informed him that they had located the real Dole who had indeed escaped with the housekeeping and had been sent to the contract laundry service.  Somehow, he had been found and our hotel identified him as ours.

A few days later, there was a package on our front porch addressed to our son.  Inside, the real Dole was wrapped in fancy Royal Hawaiian tissue paper and a big pink bow.  When I saw it, I'm pretty sure I did the happy dance.  What hotel actually takes the trouble to locate a 3 year old's lost monkey?  Apparently Starwood's Royal Hawaiian Hotel really does take customer service seriously.  And quite possibly they've just won over loyal customers for life.  Why would we want to go anywhere else when this hotel goes so far as to take care of our children and their stuffed animals?

So now my son sleeps with the old Dole and the new Dole.  And they lived happily ever after.

No Longer Churchless

About 3 months ago, I remember blogging about feeling churchless.  At the time, I was pretty depressed thinking about trying to find a new church.  We knew what we wanted in a church (we really wanted to replicate the church we attended when we lived in Houston), but we were pretty confident that a church like that didn't exist in our part of the Bible belt.  Thus, I feared that our church hunt would drag on for awhile or that we would have to make some huge concessions in choosing a church (the last time we did that it was a disaster!)

Then we visited The Mount. I can honestly say that I'm really excited about what's going on in this church.  Not only that, but the people have really embraced us and made us feel like part of the family.  More importantly, the Bible is the focus of all church teaching and our children are getting taught the Gospel. In fact, my oldest told me the story about Jesus dying on the cross yesterday! 

As we enter this Easter Season, it's exciting to celebrate the new life we have in Jesus with a new family of believers!  If you're not busy this Easter, come on out and join us for a celebration of our Salvation and for our community wide egg hunt!

Who Needs People?

 
We've been discussing the pros and cons of hiring "people" to make our lives easier.  And for the life of me, every time my husband talks about hiring people, all that comes to mind are the words to the Barbara Streisand song "People, People who need people are the luckiest people in the world..." I'm pretty sure she wasn't singing about hiring lawn people or housekeepers, but the word association makes me giggle every time Dear Husband brings up hiring "people."

I guess I have a problem with the concept of hiring people.  It makes you seem lazy.  Call me crazy, but I grew up in a home where it was taught that if you were lucky enough to have something, you ought to be smart and strong enough to maintain it.  Thus, my parents handled all household management and maintenance.  And in my opinion, they did it all very competently. 

That said, I have friends and co-workers who have people to landscape, cook, clean, watch the children, drive them around, manage the home, walk the dog, clean the pool, personally train them in their homes, style them, decorate, fly them around in their personal jets, throw parties, and regularly do hair and make-up.  (I'm sure I've missed a few jobs too.)  This may seem excessive, but for some people this is normal.

It occurred to me that sometimes there is an economic advantage to hiring people to do some chores.  For example, if it takes me 2 hours to do my lawn plus the cost of equipment, I might be able to make more money working for those 2 hours than I would have to pay someone else to do it.  It kind of seems like a win-win situation, right?

But I don't think I'm ready for people just yet.  There just seems something fundamentally wrong about hiring somebody to do something that I'm completely capable of doing myself.  It just irks me when stay-at-home moms hire nannies to watch the children or maids to come clean their homes when the mom is at home.  I'm sure those mommies have some great personal explanation for why they need the help, but it just seems like a waste.

Of course, I may be completely alone in my opinions on this subject.  I am well aware that I was raised by a pair of Yankees who didn't grow up with "help" of their own.  Is that just a Southern thing?  I don't know, but I guess I'll be mowing the grass again this year.  (Yes, Me--stay-at-home moms should realize what a great workout mowing can be!) And maybe someday I'll be ready for more people in my life.  Until then, I guess we're just people who don't need people.

Spring is Here

In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.  ~Mark Twain

 
I can't believe we've already made it to the first day of Spring!  Last night we had a typical Texas thunderstorm, and despite the weather predictions for more rain this morning, we have beautiful sunshine today.  So on this blessed first day of spring, it actually feels like it's supposed to.   Of course, if you know anything about Texas weather, our spring will likely be short lived and quickly replaced by summery heat before June.  But until then, let's celebrate the start of spring.

Isn't this time of year amazing?  My plants are starting to bud and my grass is almost green.  Retailers are finally selling clothes in pretty colors like pink, green, orange, and yellow.  Churches are singing hopeful songs about the resurrection and glory of God.  We can play outside with the kids without having to put on a bathing suit.  And it's the perfect time of year for a pedicure.

In honor of this wonderful time of year, I thought I'd share some inspiring looks for those cute little someones in our lives.  Thanks to Janie and Jack for the inspiration.

 

The Family Vacation

My word of the year for 2012 was "Family," and my goal for the year was to focus on my family and take a family vacation.  We succeeded in the family vacation part by taking our gang to Hawaii last week.  I've had quite a few people ask me why I would even consider taking my children to Hawaii with us, but the fact of the matter is this: I have been blessed with children for a brief period in my life and as a result, I want to spend that time with them, creating memories for them.  I'm sure my husband and I will take a romantic weekend here or there in the future, but in my opinion, true vacations should be about the family.

The second question I was asked when I told people we were headed to Hawaii was why we chose the island of Oahu.  Well, in my opinion, Oahu is probably the most kid friendly of the Hawaiian islands.  Oahu is the most touristy of the islands and can accommodate my little ones well by offering toddler friendly activities like the Dole Plantation, train rids, firework shows, parades, The Bishop Museum, The Honolulu Zoo, aquariums, college ball games, and lots of beaches.  In the future when my gang is ready for a more rugged, outdoorsy vacation, we'll venture to another island.  Until then, I intend to enjoy all the shopping, restaurants, and history available on Oahu.

On our last trip to Hawaii we stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, which is extremely tropical and family friendly.  You can't beat the views from the Rainbow tower rooms!  But this trip, we took a more historical approach to our vacation and stayed at the Royal Hawaiian (the big pink hotel).  Despite being more of an adult hotel, the customer service at the Royal Hawaiian was fantastic and the accommodations were amazing.  Plus, our room didn't have a balcony making it safer for our monkey of a one year old.  Both hotels are fantastic and are located in the Waikiki area (unlike the new Disney hotel), and are ideal for families.

The trip turned out to be a huge success.  I was finally relaxed for the first time in 3 months, my husband got to fulfill some of his bucket list goals by meeting Pearl Harbor survivors and seeing The University of Hawaii play a home baseball game, and my boys had a blast.  Now that's a family vacation.

The Pick 'Em Payoff

Tonight I filled out my March Madness brackets.  That's when it occurred to me that I need to share with my readers the end result of my NFL Pick 'Em challenge from last fall.  For those of you who missed the great showdown between my Dear Husband and me, the short story is that he challenged me to beat him in weekly football picks.  If I won, he promised me a new purse.  Needless to say, not only did I beat him, but I solidly pounded him in my college and NFL picks.  And last week, he paid up.

We ended up putting off our purse shopping excursion due to the Bar exam and the knowledge that we would be headed to Oahu in March.  If you've never been to Waikiki, let me just explain that it is one of the best places for a shopaholic.  The main drag in Waikiki is filled with shops like Prada, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., and just about anything else you could want.  Plus, there's a relatively large shopping mall about 5 minutes away that has almost every major designer that I could care about.  (Let's just say that I was pretty happy to return to Oahu rather than venture to another island on this trip solely because of the shopping.)

Anyway, after a week of sightseeing and shopping in Waikiki, my sweet husband helped me pick out the perfect handbag a.k.a the Mommy Dream Bag. 

Not only does this bag have all my favorite girly colors and sequins (hard to see in the pic), but it literally holds everything--wallet, make-up, umbrella, planner, portfolio, camera, cell phone, ipod, car keys, and whatever else I might need for my family outings.  Thank you Coach, for designing the perfect mom bag.  And thank you Dear Husband for spoiling me rotten.  I can't wait until the next football season! Until then, I hope you're ready to bring it with your basketball picks.

And ladies, it's not too late to challenge your husbands to a March Madness showdown.  Be sure to get your picks in today!

Happy 1 Year

Happy Belated Birthday to my Blog!  I can't believe it's been over a year since I started blogging.  Oh what fun it has been.  I'm a little late on my 1 year celebration, because last week my family of 4 was hanging loose on the island pictured above.  (FYI--that is Diamond Head Crater on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.)  Hopefully I can post pictures and stories from my trip on the blog soon. 

Anyway, thank you dear readers for following me for the past year.  I know my blog posts aren't always cute little stories about my boys, I take terrible pictures and therefore post very few of my own photos, and on occasion I even get on a soapbox.  Despite it all, you've been hanging in there with me.  Thanks a bunch.

In honor of my blog's birthday, I decided to give it a more girly touch.  Green, orange, and yellow backdrops were just killing me.  What can I say, I love pink! 

Year 2 of my blog's life might also have some surprises in store. I'm contemplating sharing pics of my real high heels--and trust me, I have enough to last at least a month! And hopefully my pictures will improve this year now that I have an awesome new camera (no thanks to you readers who did NOT recommend one to me!).   Plus, now that I'm studying every day I'm hoping to start reading even more than before so that I can share my book reviews with you all. 

Thanks again for a fun first year.  Feel free to interact and add comments this next year.  Or send me links to your own blogs, and I will post them on my Passionate People I Follow list. Let's have a fun year 2!

All Done

The Bar Exam is officially over and my answers have all been submitted.  By the end of Day 1, I was on a high.  On Day 2 I took a huge beating and could barely keep my eyes open when Dear Husband took me out for dinner.  Then this morning I woke up and my right eye was almost swollen shut--no joke.  Day 3 of the Bar Exam and I was a semi-cyclops.  And of course, Day 3 is notoriously the worst.  There's nothing quite as intimidating as sitting down and answer 12 random essays that are pulled from some of the remotest corners of our Texas statutes. That's what I'm told anyway...

Day 3 was an interesting day for me.  Apart from the fact that I was sucking down Advil with the hope that the anti-inflammatory effect would help my eye, I was really pumped.  I love a good a challenge, and knowing that I wasn't having to face the challenge alone made it so much less scary.

This morning I spent about an hour in the parking lot at the testing center prior to the exam reading Texas law.  And what  do you know, about an hour after I finished reading Texas landlord-tenant law, I discovered that I had 2 landlord-tenant questions!  Not only that, but one of them actually included some bizarre question about condemnation awards.  (Bizarre property questions are kind of the norm on the Texas Bar, so this wasn't that big of a deal.) What was bizarre is that I actually knew the answer to the question because my husband, an attorney who practices eminent domain law, sat down and explained that VERY answer to me about a week ago!  Amazing.

By lunchtime I had pretty much figured out that God had given me these answers in advance.  I mean, what are the odds that Dear Husband would literally give me the answer last week?  So as I ate my lunch in the car I prayed that the next set of essays would be something that I had studied.  Isn't it cool that God in His omniscient power knows what I've been studying.  Anyway, I decided that for some reason I needed to read check forgery at lunch.  I just felt that I could not get out of my car until I read about forgery.  And what do you know, my Uniform Commercial Code question was about forgery!  Oh, yes it was!  And I knew the answer.

Please know that I don't consider myself a genius.  I'm a decent student, but I didn't graduate Order of the Coif with some fancy circle on my hat.  I'm just an average law graduate who has a God that literally guided me through a day of essays.  Isn't He awesome?

I honestly had no intent to blog this evening, but I had to share how great God has been this week.  I know that many of you have been praying for me this week, and I'm so humbled and honored by that.  Your prayers were effective.  And our God is Great!

I won't know if I passed until May, but I do know that regardless of what happens it will be a part of God's plan.